A whimper this time, Nico’s hands falling from his face.
“So that’s it then?” Samson whispered, and when Jo turned her head in his direction, he was staring at her with sad, scared eyes.
In fact, everyone looked worn out and filled with a hopelessness that overtook each of their usual features. The bags under Samson’s eyes were prominent, his fingernails chewed down to the nubs. Takako looked like she was facing down the barrel of a gun, her hands tangled in the short hair on either side of her head. Wayne paced the room, the usual slicked-back perfection of his hair in complete disarray, his bottom lip bruised from being chewed on. Eslar’s complexion was pale, the usually rich darkness of his skin almost resembling the lighter brown of Jo’s own, and his face held more heavy emotion than she’d ever seen in him.
It took Nico rising slowly, shakily to his feet, for Jo to realize he’d stopped crying. Though how long ago, she had no idea. For all she knew, they could have simply been staring at each other, staring off into the panicked black holes of their own minds, for hours since their return. But now? Now everyone’s eyes were on Nico.
His hands, splayed out on the briefing room table, still trembled. His eyes, staring down Eslar with a fierce attempt at an even fiercer determination, were still red-rimmed and wet. But when he opened his mouth to speak, his words were steady, steadier than any of them should have had any possibility of being in that moment.
“I’ll do it again,” he said. Plain and simple.
Jo’s heart ached. “Nico, your restriction—”
“I’ll find someone else. There must be, right? Another diplomat. Perhaps the leader of an allied power? There has to be someone else to try.”
“There’s not enough time,” Eslar replied, brow furrowing in obvious frustration.
Nico looked down at the space between his hands, head falling between his shoulders. “I’ll do it. Again.”
“Nico—”
“I’ll do it again!” He cried, ripping himself away from Jo and turning to face Eslar fully. “I can do it, Eslar, I can! Just let me try one more time!”
He was screaming now, Eslar looking from Nico to the rest of the room and back before walking around to their side of the table. Samson buried his head in his hands. Wayne kept pacing. Takako finally let her fingers fall from the stranglehold she had on the strands of her hair, knuckles of one hand hitting the briefing room table on its way down to her lap; she didn’t seem to notice.
“Nico, enough,” Eslar said, tone bordering on an order, but Nico just let his head hang again, shaking it back in forth. Jo watched, her own eyes burning, as fresh tears made new tracks down Nico’s cheeks. Eslar placed a hand on Nico’s shoulder, but Nico shrugged him off.
“If we have even an hour left, aminute,then I have to keep trying,” he whispered, words beaten and battered beneath the weight of his own guilt, beneath the cruelty of their own hopelessness. “I have to try. I’ll show a painting to every individual citizen if I have to. Please let me keep trying.”
For a long moment, there was silence. Everyone looking at Nico and Eslar in turn. Even Wayne had stopped his pacing, though he chose to look down the hall instead, away from the room. In the hand that wasn’t buried deep into his pocket, Jo could see Wayne’s thumb rubbing circles into the face of his nickel.
“Eslar, I can fix this. I can do better. Please let me—” Nico started again, but Eslar just sighed, the unexpected sound cutting him off. He didn’t bother with words, a nod of his head and gesture of his chin towards the door the only indication of his acquiescence.
Nico wasted no time, grabbing the painting and sprinting off towards his chosen recreation room.
There wasn’t enough time. Eslarknewthere wasn’t enough time the same way they all knew. And even if there was, who else could they show that would be as effective as the Prime Minister? It was like a visceral thing writhing inside their bellies, their chests, weighing them down and keeping them from moving.
But Nico had asked anyway. Eslar had let him go anyway. Because what else could they do at this point but pretend, and wait?
Jo looked around the room; no one returned her gaze, each too caught up in the suffocation of unknown consequences to do more than stare off into space. When Jo let her stare finally fall to her lap, the shift in line of sight helped a tear slip beyond its hold. It fell in a silent lament down her cheek, off her chin, and onto the white-gripped knuckles of the hand still clutching her knee.
“What do we do now?” She asked, though the words were purely selfish, her own spiraling mind throwing a plea out into the universe. It wouldn’t have mattered if no one had responded, but it was Eslar who did.
“We wait.” He sat down next to her, and it took all she had to lift her head enough to look him in the eye. She’d never seen his face filled with so much emotion; she just wished it was a better emotion than grief. “Other than that. . . I don’t know.”
Chapter 30
Please
IT WAS PROBABLY only a few minutes later that Jo found herself in front of Snow’s door, but her time in the briefing room felt like hours and weighed on her like years. She’d offered to break the news to their leader, refusing to feel self-conscious when nobody was surprised. What was the point in that, after everything that had happened? Everything that wasgoingto happen?
She wanted to see Snow. Even if just to tell him of their failure, she wanted toseehim. She wanted to find solace in his presence and comfort in his arms. She wanted to hear words of hope spill from his lips and swallow them up with her own. So for the first time, led purely by that need, that fragile and terrified desire, Jo knocked on his door without hesitation.
And for the first time, as if knowing she would come, Snow opened the door at once.
As much as she wanted to look at him, touch him, fall into him until nothing of her was left, all Jo seemed able to do was stare at her own feet. They’d failed him.She’dfailed him. Surely he was disappointed, maybe even angry. Why would he want to see her? Why would he want to see any of them now?
The sting of tears from earlier returned, Jo’s throat tightening enough that she had to clear it twice before she felt brave enough to speak.
