There was a nice list of questions. She didn’t expect answers from Jordan, but it was a good fight, very much the same as at her dining table.
“…the fact I got close to Ari,”Justin fired back at one point. “Who, outside of being the incarnation you deplore, is a pretty good little kid in her spare time.”
The audio went on. And on. Her heart had begun picking up its beats. Gotten harder and harder. And she got Mad. As Mad as she’d ever been. And that was all she could hear. A pretty good little kid. A pretty good little kid.That wasn’t Justin putting on an act. That was Justin defending her. A pretty good little kid.
Damnhim! Damn him!
She shook, she was suddenly so mad. And her breath came short, and her eyes stung, suddenly swimming with tears.
Well, thatwas interesting. She’d just had a heavy hit of adrenaline, and a rush of hormones, and she kept hearing those same five words, over and over, and she wanted to cry. She wanted to cry so badly she burst into sobs and buried her face in her hands. Which was just damned stupid. She wiped her eyes, and kept wiping, smearing tears all over her face, and hiccuping, which just finished it–she hadn’t had a tantrum like that since she was three.
God!
The audio had just gone on, far past, and the worst part was, she had to run it back to find her place and hear it again.
Little kid.
Dammit all. She wondered what else she’d hear that would send her over the edge. Or break her heart. She really, really didn’t want to go on listening.
But it was what one got for eavesdropping on somebody else’s conversation, and he probably hadn’t even thought twice about saying it. That was the problem. He was, face it, older. A lot older. And that was exactly how he saw her. And that was where he was, her Justin, forever out of reach.
She had to hear it to the end. She had to know, about Justin, of all people, what he was thinking and saying. It was her job to know, if she was going to take over Reseune, if she was going to go on trusting him as a major asset.
And it was an interesting reaction. Her heart was still beating hard. She wasn’t thinking straight. Jordan was saying important things about where the card could actually have come from and how he’d reacted, and she couldn’t analyze anything. They used to shoot her full of hormones so she’d react in certain ways. This was like that. She was still shaken, and still feeling sorry for herself, and actually jealousof the first Ari, for having had, just once, a physical chance at Justin. And simultaneously, she was ashamed of that thought; and knew, still, that the first Ari hadn’t won Justin’s heart. Or she had, but not in the way anybody would want to–she’d taken him, shaken him, and then died, leaving him to suffer the consequences of being under Denys Nye’s regime and tangled somewhere in the first Ari’s involvement with Jordan. So it had kept him safe, but it had made him a target. Not mentioning what Ari had done to him, deliberately, as an act of policy.
That hadto be part of Justin’s reaction to her…as long as she was a pretty good little kid, he had her in a safe place in his mind. Sex, in Justin, wasn’t going to go her way and she had to face it, was all. No other woman ever seemed to interest him; and she seemed to be thefemale he reacted to, but it wasn’t the reaction she wanted–or that at least part of her wanted. When she thought about it logically–or as logically as she could manage–she knew it was one thing to imagine having sex with Justin; but it was a damned scary prospect to contemplate really doing it. It scared him; it scared her. And–the real stinger–it inevitably had a morning after, which just wouldn’t be good for either of them.
So maybe she was the little kidfor now. As they aged, the difference in their ages would get less. He’d be more like Jordan was now, she’d be more like Ari was then–
And it just wouldn’t get any better, would it? Forget the thought.
She just had to prevent it all going nova, was all. She couldn’t lose him, the way Ari had lost Jordan. That was the important thing.
She wondered what sort of answer she’d get from Jordan, if she asked him if he and the first Ari had ever had sex. She hadn’t found it in the records, and she wondered about it. He’d be shocked at the question, she thought, probably disturbed, given that the relationship had gone the way it did–and then he’d twist it around and ask her if she aimed at Justin. Only he’d probably put it more bluntly–to shock her.
If she took the old war with Jordan into the realm of sexual innuendo, it could divert it away from the real issues–sex being, even with people who weren’t kids, a short‑circuit in the logic process.
So she didn’t want to ask him, or get into that dialogue, because he wouldn’t answer. He didn’t have to answer anything, ever, and he used that fact like a weapon, challenging them, outright challengingthem to break their own law and go after him, because then they’d be what he’d always said they were.
Maybe that was what went on in his head–just a spaghetti code of a thought process that hoped someday he could break them before they broke him…
And, dammit, she’d let the recording get away from her again. She remembered the place, sent it back to the precise number, and ran it the third time–this time hearing that little kidremark with a lot more logic functioning. It was sad, it was hurtful, but her pulse rate had settled and she had her brain working again.
The recording ran on. There wasn’t anything else…down to the bit Catlin had flagged.
“Answer them, dammit! Leave it for security. Live your life. Ask Yanni for a few cases, and get busy, high‑level, low‑level, it doesn’t matter. I’ll go to him…”
“But you haven’t done it, have you? I seem to remember you were going to do that.”
“I’ve been a little busy. Never mind how. Just–I will.”
“You really don’t get the picture, do you? They won’t let me write sets. They’re paranoid. And, no, I’m not going to get any work.”
“Jordan, don’t explode. She’d check them over. If she passed them, ultimately, they’ll be passed.”
“That’s not even worth a comment.”
“Because you’re too fucking proud.”
“Because I’m not going to deal with her. I’m not going to her begging.”
“Then I will. She’ll get you through this. Nobody’s going to pin anything on you. No more frame‑ups.”
Wouldhe ask her? She wasn’t sure how she was going to answer that if Justin did. It would be interesting to critique one of Jordan’s current designs. But if she said one word to him, Jordan would blow, and that wouldn’t help anything. If he really did, it might poison the atmosphere between her and Justin, and Jordan was perfectly capable of writing something she’d have to criticize, just to get that result.
So maybe that wasn’t a good idea. Endlessly, Jordan played the martyr and Justin tried to do something to help him. Catlin didn’t like it, from the viewpoint of her own profession, and she’d flagged that particular exchange as worrisome, but that was how those two were, just being Jordan and Justin, to the hilt. That she’d be upset about something else in the file–Catlin, dear, loyal Catlin, hadn’t picked that up, didn’t feel the least upset herself by Justin’s statement, or remotely think shewould be upset, or Catlin would have warned her. It was downright funny–Catlin just hadn’t seen it.