Surrender A Section 8 Novel - By Stephanie Tyler Page 0,67
me.” She punctuated that by slamming her palms on the table, jarring the bottles and glasses.
“I saved your brother and caught hell for it. Is that what you want to hear?” Key asked.
“If it’s the truth, yes,” Avery said quietly. Jem swore an oath under his breath and shook his head as Key stormed out.
“This is going well,” Jem commented. “This whole situation’s insane.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “Are you, really?”
“Yep.” Jem took a long drag from his cigarette and blew smoke rings in the air. “The deep, dark parts of the CIA that the American public likes to pretend don’t exist loved that about me.”
“I’ll never understand these government agencies.”
“You shouldn’t even try—talk about making you crazy,” Jem agreed.
“So crazy gives you license to do anything?”
“Basically, yes, and that was the premise for S8. I would’ve been a perfect candidate.”
Jem and Key looked a lot alike once you got to know them. They had a similar crinkle to their eyes when they smiled, although Key did so a lot less than Jem. Their facial structure was similar, although Key was light and Jem was dark, much like her and Dare.
“Gunner said you grew up around here.”
“In the next parish over,” Jem said. “Most of it blew away with Katrina.”
“That’s a shame.”
“No, that’s karma.” Jem sat forward. “Don’t push him, pretty girl. My brother’s got a whole lotta ugly inside and nowhere to put it. If you make him put it on you, he’s gonna feel worse, chère.”
“Dare won’t tell me.”
“Maybe you’re not meant to know. You got your own burdens, true that?”
More than she’d ever thought she’d have at her age. She studied her fingers. Her nails were short; even so, her hands looked delicate, fingers long and tapered, like she should be playing a piano or doing something equally refined.
Instead, she was wanted for murder and about to become a member of something she felt an immediate kinship to. In the long run, she supposed it didn’t matter how crazy she felt as long as she was doing something right.
After several long moments of silence, Jem said, “Maybe you can talk Key into this.”
“Because it’s our only choice?”
“Because it’s our best choice,” Jem said. “And I’m not your typical team player.”
“Jem, you’re not typical anything,” she told him as she stood. She couldn’t resist leaning down to give him a quick kiss on the cheek.
“What’s that for, girlie? You gettin’ sweet on me? ’Cause I can fight off those other two.”
She wagged her finger at him before heading out the door and off the back porch. She threaded her way through the tall grasses and down to the dock in her hastily pulled-on Keds and sat next to Key, crossing her legs instead of dangling them above the water the way Key was, even as he fished the murky waters.
She supposed that was what separated her from the native bayou dwellers. All she could think about were the alligators. After a few minutes he picked up a fishing rod and handed it to her. She cast the line, waited for it to make its soft plop into the water.
“Why do you hate Dare?” she asked finally, hoping he’d appreciate her not beating around the bush.
When he turned to look at her, his eyes intense, his face heartbreakingly handsome, she wanted to kiss him instead, to finish what they’d started the other night. Instead, Key started talking, telling her the story that Dare had refused to.
He started with, “Dare got me dishonorably discharged. I have a record. No one wants a vet with a record, and I wasn’t ready to leave the Army.”
“What happened?”
He glanced at her and back at the water. “If he didn’t tell you, I’m guessing he doesn’t want you to know.”
“I’m guessing it’s important I do know. Besides, maybe he didn’t know how to tell me,” she said, letting the line rest in the water. “I’m not catching anything.”
“You didn’t throw it out far enough.” He took her line and showed her how to recast it. When they settled in again, she said, “It has something to do with the scars on his hands.”
“Yes.”
“You were there the night it happened?”
“I saved him,” Key admitted after a long moment of silence. She let that sit between them for a while, until he pulled in a fish and recast his line. An alligator floated by like it didn’t have a care in the world, and she watched it until it disappeared.