Jaded Warriors book 2 (Jade Series)

Chapter 22

Chapter 22


I sighed as I brushed a loose strand of hair from my eyes. A wave of exhaustion hit me suddenly after I cleaned and redressed Kane’s wounds. He looked more comfortable and finally slept. I could only pray that what I insisted Kane ingest was what he needed to fight off the infection from the inside. Kane was sicker than he cared to admit and I knew he was because he didn’t put up much of a fight.


With a sidelong glance, I looked at Gage. He knelt in front of the stove as he placed a couple logs on the fire. The orange glow illuminated his face in the approaching dusk as he stared into the fire. The day had been long, too long, but he was safe, and alive.


“Jade, why don’t you take my bedroll and go to sleep?” Gage said as I crawled over the bedding. I knelt behind him, my legs straddling him as I slipped my arms through his around to his belly and squeezed softly, then planted a gentle kiss on his shoulder.


“I will,” I said, then hesitantly pulled away from him and reached for the pot on the stove. Steam billowed in white curls as I poured the water into the basin of soap. “I need to look at your wounds, will you take this off?” I asked as I tugged at the hem of his shirt, blackened and stained from char and blood.


I moved to the front of him as he pulled it over his head, revealing a burn, inflamed and bright red along with abrasions that extended across the right side of his chest, similar marks down his arm. I thought about asking what happened but I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know.


Warm water dripped down my arm as I gingerly dabbed the soapy cloth over the wounds. Grime ground deep in spots, I rubbed a bit harder. He flinched and I winced. “Sorry…” I patted them dry then placed strips of clean cloths, saturated in burn tonic over the burns and let them sit. The smell potent and acidic made my stomach churn. “Does that hurt?”


“No, actually… it’s drawing out the burn,” he said, then picked up the jar and read the home made label. One of several of my mom’s concoctions to treat burns. “Do you know how to make this stuff if we use all of it here?”


“My mom's book is full of her recipes,” I said, then picked up a second jar with thick golden salve inside and opened it. The sweet scent of honey and lavender wafted through the air. “I think I could figure it out.”


“Good,” he said as I dipped a sterile gauze in the jar and scooped some out, then gingerly rubbed it on his burns and covered them with bandages and secured them. “I’m going to take some to Deanna.”


“Okay…”


“I'll make sure she saves the jars… We can’t afford to have this many men down," he said, as he gave a quick peck on my cheek, then eased a clean shirt on slowly, over his head. “And as for you…”


I crawled onto the bedroll and my head found the pillow. My weary eyes burned under closed eyelids, my body ached and felt weighted to the ground. I couldn’t get up if I wanted to. “Hmm?” I mumbled.


“You better be sound asleep when I get back,” he said, then stood and walked out of the tent.


***





A golden yellow glow of the morning sun lit up the cream colored canvas and brightened the inside of the tent. I rolled over, my muscles stiff and sore protested as I pulled the blanket over my head to steal a minute more of sleep.


Three days had passed and I waited impatiently for Kane’s health to teeter in his favor. It took a lot to keep him down, so, I knew he was sick. I peeked out to see him unmoved and the covers partially kicked off. His slow steady breaths assured me, he was still asleep. This never happened, him asleep past dawn since as long as I could remember.


Sweat beaded on his forehead and his hair looked damp. I pulled myself out of the covers and slipped my Levi’s over my thermals then reached over and touched his forehead. Blistering warm heat radiated from his skin before I even touched him. He didn’t flinch or move and my heart plummeted into my stomach at his condition.


Heat radiated from the stove and steam curled from the spout of the pot. I smiled as I picked it up, full with water and hot, Gage must have filled it before he left. With a wet cloth I walked outside to retrieve more snow to help with the fever. A week had passed since our last big blizzard turning the fluffy white covering into an icy crust. I found an undisturbed snow bank and scraped at the hardened snow with a spoon as I shaved pieces off to wrap in the cloth then returned inside and placed it on Kane’s forehead.


He stirred from the shock of the cold cloth and glanced at me through haggard eyes, bloodshot and etched with fatigue. He struggled to sit up then winced in pain and collapsed back into the bedroll. Angry protestations visible, knitted in his brows. “I need to get back out there.”


“Not yet you don’t… Just stay down,” I said, then pressed gently against his shoulder in an attempt to make him lay back. It worked, thankfully as he glanced at me with a resigned sigh. “Are you thirsty?”


“Yeah,” he said, his voice hoarse and rough. He winced again as he coughed to clear his throat then made another attempt to sit up. He managed to prop himself on one elbow and rubbed the sleep from his face then glanced at me as I filled a cup of cool drinking water from an orange cooler. I handed it to him. “Thanks… don’t take this the wrong way,” he said, then paused to take a sip. “But why are you still here?”


“Kane, you are really sick and there’s no one here to make sure you are treated… the doctors can’t keep up with the injured and make rounds to check on everyone… they needed help.”


He sighed as he shook his head in resignation as I poured hot steaming liquid into a cup to steep calendula-chamomile tea that I stuffed earlier into a tea ball. It swirled in the hot water, then settled to the bottom of the cup. “Listen to me… This war… I don’t have a death wish, but I could die tomorrow. I’ve accepted that and I'm okay with it… but… not for you… I don't want that for you…”


“Kane…” My throat grew instantly tight as moisture grew in my eyes, halting my verbal concerns as he continued.


“The chances that I will make it to the end of this with Morrison isn’t very good, I’m already dead, Jade… you need to be prepared for that.”


“Don’t say that…”


“Its reality,” he said, as he looked at me through heavy eyes as he sipped his tea. I averted his glare as I looked away and attempted to redress his wounds with the honey salve and clean gauze.  “I don’t want this war, all of this, to be your reality… I’m not trying to push you away, I just don’t want you this close to it.”


“I know you’re trying to protect me, but you are trying to keep me in a world that doesn’t exist anymore and probably never will again. At least, we’ll never see it. I need a connection to this one, the way things are now. It isn’t possible for you to protect me from everything, it just isn’t.”


“I have to try…”


“If you want to protect me… teach me how to fight. You said it yourself, you can’t be around me all the time, Gage can’t either and you know I’m a target. I know you don’t have complete confidence that the patrol will keep our neighborhood safe. No one can. If Damian wanted to get past them, he can and we both know it… Mateo did, so teach me how to defend myself.”


I searched his blue eyes for some kind of agreement as he watched me closely. Gnawing thoughts of his disapproval tormented me as I waited for his response. I needed an understanding between us. It made sense to me, it had to make sense to him as well. As much as he didn’t like the idea, I knew he had to see the logic.


His eyes shifted from me to the tent door behind me. I glanced back, only to see Gage in the doorway. I hadn’t heard him come in and I wondered if he heard me but by the grave look on his face, I knew he did.


“She’s right, Kane,” Gage said, with a somberness in his eyes. My heart twisted into a knot and I saw defeat in his eyes as he still blamed himself for my capture the last time and the pain it caused still surfaced like a fresh new wound. “She needs to at least have a fighting chance in defending herself.”


“Okay,” Kane said, after a long silence. My head whipped around and I stared at him with disbelief, unsure if I dared to believe my ears. He handed me the empty cup and rested his head back down on his pillow with a heavy sigh and closed his eyes. “Okay… I’ll teach you, starting… as soon as I feel better, but the first thing you need to do is stop starving yourself and take care of yourself better.”


“I eat...” I started to protest.


“No you don’t, not well enough. Not only does it give you the physical strength you need, but the mental strength as well. Ninety percent of defense is willpower and mind control… not strength… if you can think through a situation without panicking, you can make it out of just about anything.”


“Okay…”


“Now, since Gage is here and wanting your attention, stop worrying about me and get out of this stuffy tent, go grab you something to eat,” he paused, then scowled as he eased carefully to a sitting position. If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought this was his attempt to get rid of me, then a crooked smile lit on his face. “I’ll be fine, just bring me something to eat when you come back, okay?”


I smiled warmly at my brother, always putting others before himself. He winced in pain as I wrapped my arms around him. “Thank you,” I whispered in his ear, then pulled away from him before he could respond and I walked out before he saw my tears.


***


“Take it easy on me,” Kane said, with a smirk. Then slumped over and clutched his side. “I’m already wounded.”


“Not a chance,” I said, with mocked coldness and an overly exaggerated scowl. Within a week, his fevers subsided and his strength returned. My mom’s remedies worked and the doctor cleared him for light duty.


He stood upright with his shoulders relaxed and hands rested on his hips and chuckled as I took a fighters stance. I sighed as I attempted to hide my brooding smile. “Be serious, Kane.”


“Okay, sorry. What would you do if I grabbed you?” He asked, then suddenly grabbed my wrist. I jumped back, startled, and then attempted to pull away.


“Wrong,” he said, then released me as quickly. “Grab mine and I’ll show you.”


I grabbed his wrist, thick with dense bone and muscle, I looked at my fingers, unable to completely wrap around him. Who was I kidding, my own body structure as fragile as a feather compared to his, my own strength, microscopic compared to any man.


“Hey!” He hollered, pulling me from my thoughts. “Why the long face?”


“I don’t know,” I lied, unwilling to tell him my heart was heavy with self-doubt. Damian and his aggressiveness invaded my mind and with each thought, stilled my breath in my chest. I shuddered as I tried to force the thoughts from my head.


“Jade,” he said, a sympathetic sorrow in his eyes. “Remember when we used to arm wrestle?”


“Yeah,” I said, with hesitation in my voice. My throat continued to constrict and made it difficult to breathe.


“You could beat every boy in your class… do you know why? It wasn’t because you were stronger, because you weren’t… even though you were very strong for a girl your size.”


“Why then?” I asked, my grip still tight around his wrist. His eyes, firm with conviction searched mine as if looking for something lost.


“Because you believed that you could… you had confidence in yourself. You need to find that same confidence now… okay?”


“Okay…”


“Just don’t get too confident though… confidence and skill will only get you so far. Know your limits, there is nothing wrong with outrunning someone to get away,” he said, as he demonstrated in slow motion how to escape my grip. “Twist away from the fingers, towards the thumb and you can break free… now you try it, I’m going to come after you and you try to get away.”


I took forced measured breaths as he stalked towards me with brisk intent and raised his fist. Damian suddenly flashed into my mind and I gasped. Reacting only by instinct, I jumped back and screamed as I cowered, covering my face.


“What was that?” He asked, his voice full of mordant disapproval. “I wasn’t going to really hit you, Jade. We are practicing, remember?”


“I’m sorry,” I said, as I slowly stood upright, stunned by my own reaction.


“That is exactly what your attacker wants you to do,” he said, then sighed as he gently grabbed my arm and pulled me over to the fallen log and directed me to sit. He curled his arm around my shoulders, pulling me into a hug, then sat next to me. “Did he hit you for no reason… often?”


“What do you mean… for no reason?”


“Well, in my eyes, there is never a reason to hit a girl, ever, even if they provoked me… in Damian’s eyes, if you argue with him or go against him and he has to hit you, he justifies that… that is the way Morrison trains his men, use as much force as necessary to keep women submissive but there has to be a reason… it has to be justified.”


I thought back at the time in the compound when Damian struck me in front of Morrison and surprisingly, he came to my defense. Then I thought about Trey, and his request for me to go along with things and not argue with Damian, it made sense now, why he would ask that of me, he must have known.


“Yeah,” I sighed, as I blinked back tears. A knot tightened around my throat. “He did all the time.”


“The jail is a different situation, all of your punishment was justified to him while you were in there, but when you were in the compound… you didn’t fight with him and he still hit you?”


“No, I didn’t fight him, Trey asked me not to… and yeah, he still hit me,” I said, my voice, strained, I glanced up at the sky. The sun illuminated through the thin layer of clouds and caused my eyes to tear, I blinked to force them back. “Trey said to go along with everything Damian said to avoid getting hurt, so I did… I went along with it, all of it. I walked on egg shells, thought through my every move so I didn’t provoke him and that is what I regret the most… in the end, it didn’t make a difference how he treated me.”


  “I feel like I have failed you as a brother, Jade,” he said, with lingered remorse.


“Why?” I asked, as I shot him a questioning glare. “Why would you feel that way?”


“Growing up… dad used to always tell me… watch out for Jade… keep her safe,” he said, in a throaty mocked tone, I recognized as my dad’s. “It wasn’t just a casual, be nice and look out for your little sister, it was as if you needed to be protected from someone… something, and I thought I did… my interpretation of him asking those things of me was to teach you how to be tough. For myself… I thrived on adventure and overcoming difficult challenges, and you and Trey were always right there, ready to try it too. It became a challenge for me.”


“To see if you could find something I couldn’t do?” I asked.


“No,” he answered quickly, then gave me a sideways glance as he shook his head. His brows tensed then suddenly he relaxed. “To push your limits… I never wanted to discourage you, or cause you to fail, Jade… I wanted to see how well you could do. You kept up and I kept pushing. It was amazing, actually,” he said, more to himself than to me. “But I never taught you how to defend yourself, I stopped challenging you before I got to that, and I always figured, Trey or I would be there to fight someone off for you if it was necessary.”


“Why did you stop,” I asked, “challenging me?”


He sighed then looked out past the rows of tents below us, deep in thought, lost to me in his mind somewhere as if he had to search deep for an answer. “Do you remember the time when we were at the lake, you wanted to climb that forty foot rock face?”


“Yeah,” I said, as I smiled at the memory, “I remember.”


“It was your idea, not mine, but I was fine with it at first, and I was up for it, like usual,” he offered a half smile, more to himself and a memory in his mind, than to me. “You climbed it like it was nothing, but then when you were almost to the top your footing slipped and you were hanging from your hands. You recovered from it and we continued to the top, but, the fall would have,” he hesitated, unable to continue, as if saying it would make it true, “possibly killed you, or at the very least, severely injured you. After that… I realized I was putting you in danger, doing the exact opposite of what dad asked of me, so I stopped.”


“Oh,” I paused, “you’ve never failed me, Kane, never… you were just a kid, he put the same pressure on Trey and I don’t know why… All I can say is, I’m sorry he did that to you, he shouldn’t have.”


“I’m not mad that he did,” he said, with a pause, “I just wish I would have taken that responsibility differently, that’s all… but, it is what it is, I guess.”


“And whether you feel like it made a difference or not, I’m here to tell you, it did. I would never trade those memories for anything… and thank you.”


He gave me a relieved smile then took a deep breath and sighed as he ran his fingers through his dark hair. He motioned for us to leave then stood slowly as he splinted his stomach, an instant reminder that Kane still wasn’t his old self yet.


“We aren’t going to start with maneuvers today, okay?” He said, then headed back down the mountain as I followed, careful to step with caution over rocks and into the deep snow. “The first rule of self-defense is-”


“Not just self-defense, though… I still want you to teach me how to fight.”


“You’re going to learn the mental side of self-defense first… and the first rule is… there are no rules. You do whatever you can to stay alive… bite, gouge eyes, an elbow to the throat, a kick where it counts… this isn’t a boxing match or a wrestling meet, though, those skills are important, this is survival, kill or be killed. Got it?”


“Yeah,” I said, more in a hoarse whisper than a confident acknowledgement. I chided myself, then cleared my throat. “Yeah.”


“Don’t put yourself in bad situations… that will be tough with the way things are now, but even in the middle of war, you can take precautions. Avoid conflict, and don’t create it unless it’s necessary, absolutely necessary. Use your seventh sense.”


“My seventh sense? What’s that?”


“Intent… Call it your gut instinct, women’s intuition, the fight or flight response, whatever… it’s all of your senses combined that tells you something isn’t right… trust what you feel. If you get a creepy feeling that someone is watching you… chances are… they are.”


“Really?” I said, not really in a question, but an acknowledgement of some sort, as I remembered the feeling I would get when Fire and I would ride along the trail through the trees. The prickly sensation as goose bumps crawled into my hair, the uneasy feeling I got last year before Damian attacked me.


“Yeah… always be aware of your surroundings and the people around you.” 


“I’ve felt that before,” I said, then looked up at Kane as I thought about the time at the lake, the day the virus hit and Emery’s moment of murky despondency. “I think Em has too.”


“I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said with a sigh, our shoulders slumped in unison at the thought of our younger sister. “She’s very aware of things, of judging people and recognizing needs… so are you, you just need to trust it. You can tell a lot about what a person is thinking or about to do by studying their body language… and on that same note, be aware of your own body language as well, what are you telling others about yourself.”


We made it down the mountain and walked up to the front gate as Kane gave a wave of his hand to the guard manning his post. He acknowledged him and gave us a nod as we walked past him and headed in the opposite way of our tent.


“Where we going?”


“To get food, I’m hungry,” he paused, and gave me nodding approval, “you’re with me, you can come in, too.”


“Gee, thanks,” I said, and gave him a scornful glare in jest. The mess tent was one of those places I needed an escort for.


“Think of this as practice, there’s plenty of people in here to study and try to get a read on.”


I followed Kane to the serving table and picked up a bowl then dished up the usual, beef stew and day old bread. Most of the food served here came from our farm, but our resources were limited which meant our choices of food here was limited as well. Stew or hamburger soup was the easiest way to feed a large group of people, but after several days of it, I wanted something else.


Kane glanced at me. “Once summer comes and we get that second farm running, meal choices will have more of a variety,” he said, confirming my thoughts.  I wondered briefly if he practiced reading people all the time.


“How did you know what I was thinking,” I asked, with an accusatory glance, then whispered as if what I had to say were top secret as we left the line and sat at a table. “Are you fine tuning your seventh sense on me?”


His blue eyes smiled as he laughed aloud. “No, I was just saying what was on my mind, I’m tired of stew.”


“Oh,” I said, then giggled lightly. I guess Kane had to endure the stew a lot longer than I had.


We ate in silence amongst the mutterings of casual conversations of the men around us and I glanced around the room, careful not to cast eyes on any one person for very long, and wondered what went through their minds. Mostly, I saw hungry men with nothing but food on their minds as the shoveled spoonful after spoonful into their mouths like it was their last meal. One man in particular, looked nervous, maybe over an upcoming assignment, another looked terrified as if he already saw too much.


“How does your wound feel, Kane,” I glanced at him on occasion between my periodic internal character judgments of the men in the tent. “You seem to be walking easier today.”


“Yeah,” he said, as he looked up from his meal. I smiled, happy to see him doing well. “It’s sore, but it’s healing… thank you, you did a good job treating it. Those first few days were pretty rough.”


I made one last quick swoop of the crowd as another set of eyes drew my attention and I had to look twice. Darby, sat at the corner table, talking to a man, but his eyes were on me, watching me intently. He sat back, comfortable in his chair, teetering it on two back legs, a favorite position of his as I remembered him last year in our kitchen, at our kitchen table, looking about the same as he did now with the exception of the mountain man beard that hid half of his face. 


His eyes were like daggers, hungry for flesh as he held my gaze with a smirk across his lips and I had to look away. If there was anyone with a suspicious character, it was him.


“I don’t trust Darby,” I said reactively, irritated suddenly as I felt heat flush to my cheeks. Kane stopped eating and looked up over his bowl at me, his eyes curious.


“I don’t either,” he offered, his eyes grew cold and calloused. A wave of relief settled over me like a warm bath at his confirmation. “But be careful… men like Darby, who don’t try to hide their intentions are dangerous because they are doing it on purpose… and all the time as a way to intimidate, not subconsciously preparing to assault an unsuspecting victim. He feeds off aggression and the real question is what are their motives, what are their intentions, because a mistake in judging that persons character could end up being a life or death situation for you.”


“He’s staring at me,” I said, still feeling his eyes on me and I glanced over at him, my suspicions confirmed. I casually looked back at Kane as I tried to pose indifference. “He has been for a while.”


“That’s because he’s trying to get to me, by intimidating you… That’s one reason why it isn’t safe for you to be here.”


“Why doesn’t he like you?”


“I don’t know, because he doesn’t like being wrong… he misjudged Morrison and I didn’t. Because Mike wanted to leave me in command, not him. He wants power, and now that he’s got it, feels threatened by me because I was the first choice.”


“Then why aren’t you the one in command?”


“I didn’t want it… I have you and Emery to worry about and that’s my first priority.”


“You do want it, don’t you… but you turned it down because of us,” I said.


“Okay, fine,” he said, then glared at me for reaching into his mind, and asking personal questions. “I did want it… but I don’t need it like he does. I want order and I believe in what we’re fighting for, but I’m not a power hungry tyrant like he is.”


“Morrison is a power hungry tyrant… what’s the difference?”


“The difference is why and what their motives are. Hell, most of Washington possessed a greed for power in order to get to such a position. It’s what they’re fighting for or why… Darby and I fight on the same side, but we aren’t friends by any means.”


“So what is it that you don’t trust about him?”


“I don’t know how far he’s willing to go, how power hungry he is… and for me, that’s dangerous because he sees me as a potential threat.”


My breath stilled in my chest as I watched Darby stand and stalk over to us. His heavy boots thudded against the plywood floor.  Kane looked over his shoulder then returned to take a bite of his stew, apparently unaffected by his threatening approach. “What’s up, Darby? Heard anything from Mike yet?” Kane asked without looking at the man.


“Nope,” he said, his menacing smirk, still consumed with intimidating me as he stood over us, close to me and stared. It worked, I sank into myself the best I could without disappearing and ate my cold stew as I averted his eyes. “We’re moving camp… and since you are camp-ridden with injuries I’m going to have you oversee it.”


Kane’s glare hardened as he clenched his jaw, then asked. “Are you sure that’s wise?”


  “Are you questioning my authority?” Darby’s voice low and threatening. “Your job is to take orders, not interrogate them.”


“Whatever you say,” Kane responded, with hypocritical compliance.


“We have Morrison on the run. The guys coming in will stay a few days, recover and get camp moved. I’m sending out fresh men to hold the line. Move camp to the other side of the refinery, closer to the city,” he said, then walked towards the tent door and looked back before he left. “You can start now.”


Kane watched with a steely glare until he was gone, then turned instantly to me. “Sit up straight… Don’t let him know you’re afraid, even if you are.”


“How would I not be afraid of him, Kane?”


“Confidence, Jade, confidence… if he was going to do something, he wouldn’t do it here in front of all these men, and in front of me.”


A wave of heat rushed through me as I felt ashamed that Kane noticed my cowardice so quickly, which meant Darby did as well. “Okay,” I said, then reviewed the things Kane had told me so far quietly in my mind. Be confident… don’t show fear… trust your instincts, and be alert and aware of the people around you and of your surroundings… Don’t put yourself in a bad situation, because there are no rules when it came to fighting aggression… and if all else fails, run…