Tortured: Book Three of the Jason and Azazel Trilogy (9 page)

* * *

I called Chance. Jason wasn't in his room. He hadn't
been all afternoon. I told Chance to let me know the minute he showed up, or
better yet, have Jason call me. I paced, even though Palomino couldn't
understand why I was so upset. I wanted to break down and spill everything to
her, but Jason and I had decided that it was safer if Mina and Chance were in
the dark about most things. The more they knew, the more danger they'd be in,
or so we thought.
 
I wasn't sure what to do. I didn't think Jude was really a match for Jason.
Jason had been trained by the Sons, and he was fast and strong and very deadly
in a fight. Jude had spent all his time growing up with his crazy mother. Jude
hadn't had any training. Of course, that hadn't stopped him from putting a
bullet in Jason's skull, just a few months ago. If Jude had a gun, could he
have . . . ?
I didn't want to think about it, but I couldn't think about anything else.
 
There was no one to help me.
The last time Jason had disappeared and I couldn't find him, I'd had Hallam,
Jason's friend from the Sons. But Hallam had been working with Edgar Weem all
along, betraying us. Hallam was out of the picture. Jason had told Hallam that
if he saw him again, he'd kill him. And I was pretty sure Jason had been
serious.
 
I asked Palomino where exactly she'd seen Jude and began asking everyone who
lived in our dorm if they'd seen him too. They hadn't. And they hadn't seen
Jason either.
I thought about trying to call Brother Mancini in
Rome
, but the Reddimus monks weren't violent
people, and I didn't think they'd be able to do anything. Besides, while
Brother Mancini and the Church were willing to help us in our struggle with the
Sons, I didn't think they were extremely concerned with our welfare.
 
As the hours ticked by, I began to get more and more desperate. Every call I
placed to Jason's phone went straight to voicemail. I didn't know what to do. I
could go and look for Jason, but I had no idea where he might be. If Jude had
taken him or done something to him, they could be anywhere. I didn't have the
first idea about where to look.
 
But I had to do
 
something
. Curfew was looming, but I
left the dorm anyway, and went to the assembly hall. The old church didn't seem
a likely place for Jason and Jude to be, but it was the only place Jason and I
went to besides our dorms. And I had dreamed about it the night before. I felt
drawn there. The guards there were getting ready to lock up the building, but I
told them I really needed to go the bathroom, and it would take me just a second.
They let me in. I hid there, hoping that they'd go do some rounds and think
that I had left while they weren't looking.
It worked.
 
Once the guards were gone, the old church was silent and dark. I crept out of
the bathroom and did a quick sweep of the sanctuary.
No one
there.
I'd known this would be a bust. There was no reason to come here.
There was nothing I could do, except sit by my phone and wait. But if Jude had
. . .
 
On impulse, I traced the path from my dream last night, back through the church.
Jason and I had never been in the church's basement. As far as I knew, it
didn't have one. The basement in my dream had been a figment of my imagination.
There was no way that there was a door back here.
But there was. And it looked exactly like my dream.
 
Had I seen this at some point, out of the corner of my eye when I was in the
church? How could I have dreamed about something I didn't know existed?
Swallowing, I eased the door to the basement open.
A flickering light greeted me from the bottom of the steps.
 
I took a step inside, placing my foot on the first step. I tried to do it
carefully and slowly, but it made a noise.
"Hello?" said a male voice from the basement.
And before I could move, Jason rushed up the first few steps. He was a little sweaty,
his dark hair sticking to his forehead. His face was dirty and so were his
clothes. He was holding a gun.
 
"Azazel," he said.
I rushed to him. "You're okay?" I asked, hugging him hard.
He hugged me back. "I'm okay," he said. "How did you find me?"
"I . . . I had a dream . . ." I pulled back from Jason and surveyed
the basement. Jesus. It was exactly the same, even down to the light bulb
hanging on the chain. And in the corner, tied up in the same place Chance had
been, was Jude. He looked unconscious. He looked like he'd been beaten up
pretty badly. I could see that his right eye was red and swollen and that his
lip had been bleeding. I turned to Jason. "What happened?"
Jason shrugged, wiping at his sweaty forehead with his dirty shirt. "I ran
into Jude," he said.
"That's it?" I asked. "Why is he tied up? What did he try to do
you?"
"Nothing," said Jason. "I didn't give him a chance to do
anything."
"Okay, so why is he tied up and beaten up?"
"Well, he did shoot me in the head the last time I saw him, you know. I
don't think he's exactly trustworthy."
That was true. But Jude looked like he'd been punched around a little. Okay, a
lot. "You hit him?" I asked.
 
Jason was quiet for several seconds. "Azazel, you should go back to your
dorm."
"What?" I said. "No. What's going on here? You haven't been
answering your phone—"
"I've been busy," said Jason.
"You weren't even going to tell me about this?" I asked.
 
"Of course I was," said Jason.
 
I looked around the basement again. It was so much like my dream. The whole
situation was weirdly like my dream. But instead of my brother tied up, it was
Jason's brother.
 
"Look," said Jason, "it's obvious what has to be done about
Jude. And I know that you've been having those dreams. And I didn't want you to
have to be part of it. It doesn't bother me so much, so I thought I'd just take
care of it, and then let you know after. But you don't have to watch, you
know."
I furrowed my brow at him for a moment, not understanding. Then chillingly, his
words made definite cold sense. "You're going to kill him," I said.
"He tried to kill me."
"
Today?
Did he try to kill you today?"
"No. No, today he's just been talking about our Dad."
Dad?
Oh. "Edgar Weem is Jude's father too? I
thought Michaela Weem thought he was disgusting and evil. Why would she have
sex with him again?"
Jason laughed, but he didn't sound amused, not really. "Who knows?"
he said. He began to pace, gesturing wildly with the gun. "Apparently,
'Mommy' didn't just have sex with 'Daddy' again, but he used to visit her and
little bro, Jude, here. And that's why when the Sons captured
Jude,
he didn't get in any trouble at all. He just got
released into 'Daddy's' custody."
"Jason—"
He wasn't done. "No, near as I can figure from what Jude said, the only
reason Michaela was mad was that Edgar broke it off when Jude was about
five."
"Jude said that he didn't know who his dad was," I said.
"He didn't. He thought Edgar was one of Michaela's boyfriends. Apparently,
she had a few of those."
"It still doesn't make sense," I said. "We know that Michaela
was plotting your death from the moment you were conceived. Because she told my
parents about the vision she had of me, and—"
"No," said Jason. He stopped pacing, turned, and looked at me.
"No, she always hated me. It was just Edgar that she couldn't make up her
mind about."
I went to him. Put my hand on his cheek. "Oh, Jason, I'm so—"
He shrugged me off.
 
"—sorry," I finished. I'd never seen Jason upset about his family.
Usually, he seemed to have no interest in them at all. And he certainly hadn't
had any qualms about hurting his own mother. She wasn't a very nice person,
granted, but . . .
 
Jason shook his head.
Squared his shoulders.
"You
don't have to be sorry," he said. "There's nothing to be sorry
about."
I was quiet for several seconds. If Jason couldn't acknowledge that it hurt him
that his mother had hated him, had tried to have him killed, then there wasn't
much I could say. I looked at Jude, who still hadn't regained consciousness.
"You can't kill him," I said quietly. "Not if we don't know why
he's here."
"You're saying I should trust him?"
"I'm saying . . ." God, I really had no idea.
"Do you remember what Jude said to us when we were leaving the house in
Shiloh
? He said, 'This isn't over.' That was a threat,
Azazel, and I'm pretty sure he was serious."
"But we can't just kill him," I said.
"
We're
 
not doing anything.
 
You're
 
going back to the dorm.
 
I'm
 
going to handle this."
Handle this.
Like it was a job or something.
Like it was an annoyance.
An everyday
occurrence.
I shook my head. "So you're just going to put a bullet
in his head? Or were you going to rough him up some more? Are you enjoying
beating him up?"
"Enjoying?" Jason looked at me like I was insane. "Do you even
know me at all? I don't want to do this—"
"Then don't," I said.
"You want me to let him go? Just let him go? And what happens when he does
whatever he's planning to do to make sure I don't forget I killed his mother?
What then?"
"We don't know that he's going to hurt us."
"We can't afford to take the chance," said Jason.
"It's wrong," I said. "Killing people is just wrong."
"Wrong?" Jason shook his head. "Wrong? What happened to
'sometimes there is no right thing?'
"
"What?" I said.
"You said that to me, after I shot the Sons in
New Jersey
. You said that sometimes there
was only a choice between two wrong things. Do you remember that?"
Maybe I did remember saying that. And maybe I also remembered that I didn't
believe in absolutes like right and wrong. Maybe I remembered that I believed
that people had to make productive decisions. And maybe what Jason was doing
here was simply that. If we wanted to make sure we stayed alive, we had to
eliminate Jude. But . . . "This isn't the same," I said. "That
was self-defense. They had guns in our faces. They'd already shot a lot of
people. Jude hasn't—"
"It's the same," said Jason. "But maybe it's not really about
that. Maybe it's about something else. After all, you told me that you let Jude
kiss you in
Shiloh
."
"
So that I could get his gun!"
I said.
Jason shrugged. "Well, that's what you say, anyhow. I wasn't there. Maybe
you kind of have a soft spot for Jude, though. Maybe there's some part of you
that—"
"Jason Wodden, there is no part of me that is the least bit interested in
Jude romantically."
Jason snorted, staring down at the guns in his hands. "The lady doth
protest too much, methinks," he said. He looked at me. "You'll notice
that I didn't say anything about a romantic interest. You went there on your
own."
"You brought up kissing for God's sake!" I exclaimed. I sighed,
crossing my arms over my chest. "I thought we were past this stuff."
"
Past it?
How can we be past it when you don't
even want me to touch you anymore?"
What? Why would he say that? "Of course I do."
"Out of three attempts I've made to make love to you, you've turned me
down twice," Jason said. "And then there's the whole orgasm
thing."
"Jason, Jesus!" How could he possibly think that any of this stuff
was related?
 
"Maybe you can't come because it's not me you want," he said.
"Maybe you want Jude."
My jaw dropped. I was stunned.
Completely and utterly
flabbergasted.
I couldn't speak, because I was floored by the idiocy of
what he'd said.
 
"Guess I hit a nerve," Jason muttered.
I took a deep breath. "You know," I said, "Just because I don't
want him dead doesn't mean I want to screw him. I have absolutely no interest
in Jude. And I don't particularly ever want to see him again. But I don't think
that means you should shoot him. That's all."
"Whatever," said
Jason.
"Is that why you want to kill him?" I asked.
"Because
you're jealous?
Which, may I
say,
you have no
reason to be?"
"Stop saying that I
 
want
 
to
kill him! I
 
have
 
to
kill him! I don't have a choice!"
"You always have a choice, Jason," I said and started for the steps.
 
He caught me by the hand and turned me to face him. "Jesus, Azazel, he's
my brother," he said, and he sounded agonized. "He's my brother, and
he tried to kill me. And my mother tried to kill me, and my father thinks I'm
some kind of monster and that I might have to be put down like a rabid dog or
something! Everyone thinks I'm psychotic. And now you keep saying that I
 
want
 
to kill my own brother. Do you think
it too?"
His eyes looked so haunted and earnest.
 
"Is there something wrong with me?" he whispered. "Are they
right? Am I destined only to destroy things?"
"No," I said. "No, Jason, there is nothing wrong with you."
Even though, as I said it, I had to admit that I wasn't even
sure anymore.
I cupped his face in my hands. "It doesn't matter how
they feel about you, Jason. I love you."
He put his arms around me and pulled me in close to him. "Eventually,
everyone thinks it, though," he said. "Anton. Hallam. They all start
thinking that I'm—that I'm evil."
"Jason . . ." But hadn't I wondered this? Hadn't I thought this?
"There isn't such a thing," I said. "I don't believe . . ."
And I didn't know what to say. I didn't know how to comfort him, so I just
kissed him.