Unbound

JJ didn’t bother saying he was sorry. An apology meant nothing in the wake of an innocent’s death. Besides, Warren was admitting he would exile or kill JJ if the troop didn’t need him so badly, and one thing that could be counted on by Warren, he always acted in the best interest of the troop.

When Warren lifted his head again, the fatigue was gone and that hard truth was branded in his gaze. “You will give yourself over entirely to me,” he said, voice harder than JJ had ever heard it.

Because living with the knowledge of what he’d done would be harder than dying over it.

“You’ll tell no one about your wife”—he spit the word—“or the changeling. You’ll do what I say, no questions asked, no argument, no explanation.”

“Okay,” JJ finally agreed, head bowed, fingers dusty.

“That wasn’t a request.” Warren’s voice regained its strength and rhythm as he strode forward.

JJ nodded, staring at the floor. “And then I’ll find her. I’ll make this right…”

“You’ll do no such thing.” Warren said, jerking JJ to his feet. Their faces were so close their noses nearly touched. “She’s poison to you, boy. Besides, do you think you deserve any sort of happy ending after what you’ve done?”

No. He didn’t. No happily-ever-after…including revenge.

“She won’t find you, either. We’ll change your identity in full this time. Micah will make you over into something new, something better, someone who won’t make this kind of mistake again.”

JJ recalled the fiery pain following his last surgery, and the ghost of his old bulk trying to squeeze from beneath his current flesh, but he only stared at Warren mutely before nodding again.

“You’re no longer your mother’s son. Not JJ, or Jay…or Jaden Jacks.” Not his mother’s son, not his father’s, either. Warren was stripping him of that connection and past, but in a way it was a relief. He had failed them, too.

“Solange won’t ever find you. We’ll make it so that even your own troop members won’t remember you. It’ll be as if you never existed.”

JJ did step back now, unable to keep his mouth from falling open. Would Warren really do that? He knew Micah could erase the memories of mortals, rewire their minds so that new pasts defined their futures. It was especially useful if one had happened upon an event or object derived from their hidden world. But could Warren really convince Micah to alter the troop’s collective memory? It’d be a huge undertaking…not just rewiring the minds of the twelve senior star signs, but the ward mothers who’d helped raise JJ in their underground sanctuary, and the flexible minds of the initiates, too—the children of the next generation who so looked up to him now. Would Warren do that?

He looked at his troop leader’s gaze—level again, and cool. Yes, he would. None of them would have a choice in the matter, and most wouldn’t even question it. If they ever read about JJ in the back issues of the manual of Light, it would be like reading about someone else entirely. And it made JJ wonder: had Warren ever done this before?

But he’d be alone in his wonder, JJ realized. That would be his punishment. To remember what he’d done, to know the failure forever, and to live among his peers as a fraud. So it was almost as harsh as a death sentence.

JJ nodded yet again.

“You will take the appearance and job I determine for you, you will return to the sanctuary every night without fail, and you will log your activities for me down to the last detail.”

“Yes,” he replied woodenly. He no longer cared where his needs and desires ranked in his own life. In fact, it would be a relief to follow orders and let someone else do the thinking for a while. He would give his life over in service to mortals, and he’d do it wholeheartedly…or at least with what was left of it after Solange’s betrayal.

Warren continued, voice thick with everything he wasn’t allowing himself to say…and do. “You will be the exemplary superhero in every way. If I even suspect you’re faltering, I’ll kill you myself.”

JJ nodded numbly. Then Warren punched him so hard he fell into the sea of pillows. A cloud of dust rose around him, and he coughed, tasting loss and death and a dry guilt that smothered any burning desire to fight. Warren didn’t want his numb acquiescence, he realized.

Not when there was so much dust.

“I’m not doing this for you.” Warren hissed, pointing a finger at JJ, tears rolling down his cheeks as he said it. “This is for your parents and what they meant to me, and what they sacrificed for us all.”

“I won’t forget again. Ever.”

Though his parents were gone, he would live for them, as they’d once lived for each other. And he’d learn to listen again to his intuition, the inner voice he’d muted while reaching for his own selfish dreams, reaching until Solange had snagged his palm, and pulled him into all this dust.

His answers, his sorrowed scent, seemed to mollify Warren. His leader turned to the bedroom window, trench billowing at his ankles, and looked out at the city he was charged to protect. “You may choose your own name.”