Captain: Oh boy, remember how I said I hope the summer wouldn't be as bad/crazy/busy as the rest of the year had been? Well...it wasn't...it was *so* much worse. Like attempt-to-kill-me-mentally-emotionally-and-physically worse. And it bled into this fall. All I gotta say is...vindictive people suck...and also keep corrosive chemicals far far away from yourselves cause they take a long ass time to heal /cries.
Ahem...anyway. There's talks of me turning this into a PhD because I hate myself, so updates will not be increasing in frequency any time soon. *sniff*
This chapter did not go the way I'd originally planned, but half the fun of writing is when the stories tell themselves, yeah?
Hope y'all are still around and enjoy the latest installment of Firewall! An update for NRFTW should hopefully be out later this month, tho I do have conferences to prepare for now...
Altair continued to address his men without glancing her way. A motion of his arm had Robin gently nudging her back towards the door and the confines of the castle. An escape Emma gladly took, given that it took her away from so many stares. Only the assassins playing guard then led her straight to her room and made clear that, once again, she would not be allowed to leave it.
Heaving an annoyed sigh, she stepped through the threshold and snapped it shut behind her without bothering with the lock. It wasn't as if anyone could or would come in.
She paced for lack of anything better to do and unable to sit still. It'd been a long day, her body needed rest but her mind couldn't bear the thought. Jamal was alive. He was alive and imprisoned and Altair hadn't bothered to tell her. Hadn't bothered to correct her when she assumed he was dead after seeing blood on his robes.
But he was alive.
Alive and somewhere in the castle.
She wanted to see him. Talk to him. Demand answers.
Answers that she knew wouldn't change anything, answers that wouldn't erase what happened..
She knew it would bring no satisfaction, no closure, but still, she needed them. Not that she could get them in here, nor could she go get them on her own.
So she was left to pace until dusk gave way to darkness. Moonlight lit the room well enough to see by, so she didn't bother with a fire. Not that she could sit still enough to strike one up. Now that Altair had presented her to the Brotherhood, would he continue ignoring her? Keep the armed guard on her at all times? Would anything change or would she stay a prisoner with nowhere to escape to?
A short rap against the wood brought her to a halt. Who would come visiting at this hour? Who would be allowed to visit?
Maybe it was Malik, he seemed the most likely.
Did she want company right now? Like everything else, it wasn't clear to her own mind. Screw it. Might as well see what he had to say.
None of the torches in the hall had been lit, the hooded figure invisible in the shadows, but clear he was wearing a dark robe. Standing aside, she let Malik in, a little surprised when he stepped through that he'd be so willing to be alone with her in the room. Reputations and all. But then again, who would tell? It wasn't as if the two assassins who played guard were much for gossiping.
The moment the door shut, he dropped his hood and shrugged out of the black robe, revealing not the one-armed Dai, but Altair.
Emma felt a lot of words bubbling just under the surface, a lot of things that deserved to be said. But she couldn't find the will to open her mouth. Instead she stood in silence, watching him closely as he dropped the robe over the chair and busied himself in building an unneeded fire. The air felt thick and clouded, heavy with words unspoken and yet defying attempts to break the silence.
As the flames built, becoming a fire too merry for the tension, Altair stood, breaking his gaze from it to lay a hand on the discarded robes.
"It feels foreign to wear, as if it does not belong to me, and weighs heavier than I could have imagined. To don it is to make enemies." Emma wasn't sure if he was talking to her or himself, but for once she stayed silent, watching him with a wary eye as he finally looked at her. Without the Master's robes and the hood to hide behind, he looked uncertain, almost vulnerable.
It wasn't a notion that equated with the assassin, so Emma chalked it up to a trick of the firelight.
"I do not wish to be at odds with you."
She barely resisted the urge to snort in disbelief. "So you shove me in front of the whole lot of assassins? You know that painted a target on my back."
His brow furrowed. "A calculated risk and a limited one. There are several among my brothers who remember seeing you as they woke from the control of the Apple. To them you are the siren who called them back to themselves. They will protect you and may dissuade others from attempting to cause you further harm. Several were also present when you identified where you are from on the map the Apple presented and Abbas was beginning to spread rumor of secrets I may be keeping."
So, not just a way to keep many more eyes on her, but to discredit Abbas before he could gain allies. It wasn't a terrible move, it was probably even a good one. If only he hadn't done it without talking with her first.
"You could have given me warning."
"You could have given me a name."
Emma growled, tossing her hands in the air as they hit the same circular conversation that started this mess."And you could have told me Jamal was alive!"
They could have avoided all of this, if he hadn't been so single minded that he wouldn't correct the assumption she'd made. The assassin did not do things without reason, at least as far as she had been able to tell in their brief time together. So why? What purpose had it served him?
"Why didn't you tell me you let him live?"
Altair looked to his hands, as if he might find his own answers written on his vambraces. "I…confess I do not know myself. I know only in that moment that I did not care about him. He was a threat that had been dealt with and there was another you had kept from me." He raised his gaze to meet hers, amber eyes practically glowing in the firelight. "That you still keep from me."
He took a step towards her, and when she did not back away, took another, until he was right in front of her. Her mind told her to back away, to keep space between them. She was still angry about the way he'd treated her over the last week, still fuming at how little credit he gave to her abilities.
His calloused fingers were soft against her throat as they brushed against her skin, tucking her hair away from the scab. "Why do you continue to protect a man who threatens you? Who harmed you?"
She supposed in his mind, it made little sense and the last time she'd tried explaining…well, neither of them had quite been in the listening mood. "I'm not trying to protect him, I'm trying to help you."
Altair raised a disbelieving brow, his thumb lightly stroking over the raised skin on her neck, as if to assure his mind of what his eyes could see. "How does it help me if I do not know who I cannot trust? I could have charged him with the duty of watching over you. What then?"
Emma shrugged loosely, "Then you either would have been down an assassin or your problem with hiding a modern woman would have been resolved."
The hand on her neck constricted slightly. Evidently he was not a fan of her answer. Her hand found his vambrace, "But he's more useful to me, to us, alive and unaware that you know who he is."
"And yet I am unaware of who he is because you will not tell me," his voice rumbled with a growl.
Emma felt the familiar sparks burn up her throat, ready to return his frustration with her own. She bit it back, fought to squash it down and chain it in place. She would let him have it in a minute, but right now, she needed him to listen, and that wasn't going to happen if they were at each other's throats again.
"Because I didn't want you killing him like you let me think you'd done to Jamal. He's a bastard that deserves an ass beating, but doing anything to him right now would ruin the advantage."
"What advantage? It appears to me that he holds the advantage here. You cannot hope to stop him if he comes after you in earnest." His grip softened slightly, but refused to budge.
The blonde let out a sigh. "I know, but he's an idiot and a tempermental one at that. This scratch was because I got mouthy and he didn't like it."
"You are hardly convincing me of your point. He could kill you if you slight him again. As there seems to be little hope in curbing your tongue, I need to be able to stop this threat before he comes for you."
"I can look after myself, you've made sure of that," She raised her free hand, his throwing knife dancing between her fingers. "I've deterred him once, I can do it again. The point is, the ones easy to anger are easy to manipulate into spilling secrets."
Altair raised a brow, his eyes flashing from her to the small blade. "My fists are equally as capable and less risk to your life."
Emma rolled her eyes. "Just because he might tell you something doesn't mean he'd tell you anything useful. Men, especially men who think women are less than them, enjoy stroking their own egos by bragging about their intelligence and their plans."
"My assassins are not like the men of your world."
She snorted heavily. "Men are men, Altair. Exactly what were your assumptions of me when we first met?" The grimace that flashed across his face was answer enough. "And in this world many give little thought to what a woman might overhear, if they notice her at all. Just what secrets have your men spilled to the women of the garden, when they think only the blankets are listening? What might a traitor share, when he corners a woman he wants to make afraid of him?"
The assassin's brows furrowed heavily. "You would play a dangerous game for the sake of information?"
The moonlight flashed along the edge of the knife, the firelight dancing along the other edge. "A game of cat and mouse is more fun when the mouse thinks himself the cat, and my claws are long and sharp."
"I do not believe a cat is a fitting comparison for you," he murmured lowly, his lip betraying his amusement. "And what if this mouse has a stronger bite than you are prepared for?"
"That's my advantage. I won't underestimate him. I know what your brothers are capable of and I know how to handle a man who thinks he's got me beat by being a man." She raised a brow, "I got the drop on you, remember?"
"Do not forget how that encounter ended. Surprise is not a battle strategy." His hand left her neck to trace lightly along her right forearm and the scar there that he'd given her himself with his own hidden blade.
"Makes for a good escape strategy. I'm not looking to fight the guy, just trick him into giving up information and then getting the hell away from him."
The assassin's brows furrowed in doubt. "You assume that you could escape."
"Wouldn't have to be for long. You said it yourself, more of your brothers may protect me now that you've shown me off. I'd just have to get to one of them."
His scowl sharpened. "Why must you insist on this course of action? This is not your world."
"It's not, but it's my job to help if I can." she grabbed his vambraces, meeting his gaze, trying to get him to understand. "These men will doubt me. I've got tactics they'll never expect and you'd be a fool not to use it to your advantage."
"You could be hurt. You could be killed." he growled as if somehow that would make the words hit harder, "I cannot allow you to put yourself at such risk. Not if I do not know who the threat is from."
"I want to tell you his name and I will, but only if you swear not to do anything to him, not yet." Why was he being so bullheaded about this? Why couldn't he just trust her?
He shook his head. "I can promise no such thing."
Releasing a frustrating huff, Emma jerked away from his grasp to pace the short distance to the fire. "Why not?! I want to help, I'm trying to help. But I can't if you keep getting in the way of it!"
"This is not your fight!" he snapped, following close behind her as if proximity might make the words more convincing. "I will not have you harmed for something you have no business being a part of."
She scoffed. The threat was real yes, but it was hardly new. "I could have been hurt or killed every day I went to work back home. It's a risk I'm willing to take. You do it yourself! You have no right to tell me I can't."
His jaw clenched sharply, the firelight dancing dangerously in his eyes, "You are under my protection. I have every right."
Emma rolled her eyes, waving a lax hand in front of him. "Then I release you from protective duty, or whatever it is you think you're bound by."
"It does not work like that." He shoved away from her, the action lacking his usual fluidness, as if he were torn within himself. Emma followed him in turn. Like hell was she going to let such a lame excuse fly.
"Why not? I accept the risk!"
"I do not!" he paced towards the window and away from her, his hands clenched tightly at his sides.
"That's a bullshit excuse and you know it. Why won't you let me help?" He turned as if to head for the door, as if he realized this conversation wasn't going to get him what he wanted and it was likely only a matter of time before it spun out of their control and one of them did or said something they would regret.
"I have told you why." She should let him go, let him leave and try again the next time they could talk. If there was a next time. What if it was days again?
She cut him off, blocking his exit. "You've told me nothing! Let me do what I was trained to do!"
"And if you get hurt again or killed?"
She growled, they'd been over this already! "Then I get hurt again or killed."
"That is not good enough." He turned away from her again, Emma following on his heels.
"It should be! A threat of injury is worth it to find out what they're up to. Why can't you see that?"
He turned on her, his hand tangling into her hair and forcing her chin up as his lips crashed down onto hers. Heat and shock rocketed through her nerves, her body responding before her mind could process what was happening.
Altair jerked away, moving sharply to the door with stiff shoulders.
Emma barely had the time to gather her scattered wits before he was pulling it open. "This conversation isn't over."
He paused without looking at her, his shoulders sagging. "It is over for tonight. We will speak on the morrow."
Then he was gone, leaving a crackling fire and searing lips behind. Emma remained frozen in place, her mind stuck replaying those last moments again and again. Where the hell had that come from?! From Robin she would have understood, from Malik she could justify, but Altair? He was hardly the type to just…kiss someone!
Of course, the bigger question was why it left her mind spinning in circles.
And it spun all night, flipping between why he'd kept Jamal's imprisonment a secret from her and that damned kiss. Neither of it made sense. Neither of it made rest easy or the situation simple.
By first light she was pulling the door open, frowning at finding Kazamir on the other side. He eyed her for a moment before stepping shortly to one side, giving her enough room to pass if she so chose.
"I want to see Jamal." She had little hope he would just obediently take her there, but it was worth a shot.
He raised a brow. "None but the Master can approve such a thing."
Go figure.
"Fine, then I'll go see the Master," she huffed, side-stepping past him.
As usual, he turned and followed a pace behind her. By this point she could almost ignore him.
She expected him to intercept her before she reached the stairs up to the Master's study, as he had all the times before. But he didn't. He stayed behind her, his eyes watching her as warily as he was the other assassins in the library.
There would definitely be no escaping him. At least not today.
Not that her target today was outside of the castle.
Emma paused as she reached the top of the stairs. Altair was at his desk, a half dozen scrolls opened up before him. The tightness in his shoulders, the bend in his back, the very way he sat at the desk differed so dramatically from Al Mualim, yet even that could not stop the very room from causing her heart to race, could not steady the hitch in her breath.
"Emma." She blinked, finding him already a pace away from the desk, his brow furrowed.
He approached her slowly, stopping further away than usual. She was dimly aware of Kazamir disappearing back down the stairs, his steps ringing in her ears.
Conflict and confusion raged behind the assassin's eyes, she couldn't guess what he was about to say before she cut him off. "I want to see Jamal."
Her voice did not come out as strong as she'd hoped and she cursed her inability to control her reaction to this room. She'd been here before, after the battle, and not felt the cold breath of terror on her neck, why now?
Altair's brow furrowed further before settling into grim neutrality. "You will have your chance to speak to him…at his trial."
Her thoughts stuttered. "Trial? Altair I can't…I don't need an audience."
His sigh carried the weight of the world. "It is our way."
"But what if I said something, what if I revealed something important in front of him?" Her mind scrambled for something, anything, that could sway him.
"I will not keep secrets from my brothers. Nor will he be asked what he might have heard. What you said dies with Al Mualim…and him." His gaze was unwavering, watching her closely.
It took only a moment for his meaning to be clear. "You're going to execute him. You're giving him a trial but are going to execute him anyway."
A small voice whispered that it was the only possible solution. It wasn't as if she were against the death penalty, after all. Some men just couldn't be redeemed, shouldn't be. But to decide that before his trial?
No part of Altair's countenance indicated he found satisfaction in his own words or in the deed that he knew awaited him. "The trial is his chance to explain why he betray his brothers, to confess and pray to find peace in the afterlife."
Emma held no love for Jamal, she knew her reaction to believing him dead had purely been selfish, that a large part in her defending him now was not for his own sake. It probably made her a terrible person, but her own mind had forgone reason. "What if he only did what he did out of fear for his life? Actions under duress aren't his own choices. Or what if he was under control of the Apple?"
He regarded her carefully. "Stealing under threat of death is one thing, to betray the Brotherhood, to allow torture, is another."
He stepped closer to her, his touch feather-soft against her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. "If you believe he was under the control of the Apple, if you believe he had no say in his own actions, then mercy may be owed to him. But you must swear as such at his trial and Emma, you must be certain."
Her jaw fell slack. He had given her the power to save Jamal, to spare his life. All she had to do was say the word. Swear Al Mualim had used the Apple to control him and he would live.
But was she certain? Was there any truth to it?
She remembered too well the splitting pain that erupted in her head whenever the Apple was used anywhere remotely near her. Yet her sessions with the mad Master were so blurred she could not rightly recall one from another, let alone if the voice had attacked any time outside of those sessions. She recalled Ida and the other villagers under thrall, the blank, empty eyes staring at her without a conscious soul behind them. Had Jamal ever looked like that? Had he ever seemed to be anything but himself, an assassin trying desperately to redeem himself by doing whatever it was that was asked of him?
"I…" she swallowed thickly, trying desperately to pick at a solid, real memory. Had his eyes been clouded or not? "I don't know."
It would be easy enough to lie.
To say she remembered it clearly.
To spare him.
Her memory was too warped for it to even be a real lie.
She could do it and not trigger any with a lie-detector sense. She knew how.
But should she?
Killing him was simple. Whatever he knew, whatever threat he could be, could be erased with the swing of a sword. Men died every day. If he lived, he could sell what he knew of her to whoever had the coin. He could put her in danger, put the Brotherhood and Altair in danger. He could betray them all again. He'd already done it once, before Al Mualim had the Apple.
He should have been executed then, would have been, had Altair's fall from grace not occurred at the same time. Al Mualim could hardly spare one and not the other, could hardly waste an unintended puppet when so nicely presented to him. Only Altair had been able to cut his strings before the end.
"Please," her voice cracked, "let me talk to him."
Altair stood silently for a long time, lips drawn in a tight line as his eyes searched hers. "If you lie for him at the trial, we will know, and my brothers will not trust you."
"Please."
His chin jerked down once, his jaw clenched tightly. He did not think it a good idea, but he was allowing it anyway.
Emma followed as he led the way back down the stairs and into the twisting, dark bowels of the castle. Silence buzzed loudly between them but neither could find the words to break it. With every step, equal parts hope and dread flared to life in her chest, her heart trying desperately to beat its way free.
She couldn't say how many stairs they descended, only that the stone walls grew cold and damp to the touch and only the torches on the walls dimly lit the path. Eventually they reached a door guarded by an assassin she didn't recognize. He nodded once at Altair, retrieving a key from his sleeve to unlock the door and let it drift open. Darkness lay beyond, the suggestion of shadows indicating that barred cells lay beyond.
Emma made it three steps past the door before she hesitated, placing a hand on Altair's forearm to halt him as well.
"I should do this alone."
She didn't want to. Every cell in her body screamed not to, that she wasn't ready, she wasn't strong enough. But she needed to be. Had to be.
"That is not…"
"I need to," she cut off his protest, lowering her voice though the guard at the door did not seem to be paying them any attention. "I need to know what he heard, but they may not be things you should hear."
He had no way of knowing what she could know that could harm him to hear. Hell, she had no way of knowing what she might know that could screw up this entire time in history. But it was like he said, if Jamal died after his trial, then whatever she said would die with him, so long as Altair wasn't there when she asked.
Though regret and disagreement marred every move, Altair handed her the torch. "Speak quietly. I will be on the other side of the door."
His meaning was clear. If he heard one sound he didn't like, he'd be busting back in here and damn what secrets he might learn.
Emma nodded, taking the torch in an unsteady grip and watching the assassin disappear behind the solid wood door as it closed. The lock did not click.
Releasing a shuddering breath, the woman turned towards the line of dark cells. She couldn't see Jamal. She couldn't see anyone.
"Why are you here?" a voice rasped from the darkness, sending Emma's heart into her throat.
Approaching the cell where the voice came from, she squinted into the dark, barely making out a hunched gray blob on the floor, propped against the far wall. "Jamal?"
The torch was not enough to let her see him clearly, but there was no doubt it was him.
"Why are you here?" he repeated roughly. "You will have your chance to accuse me before the Brotherhood."
"I'm not here to accuse you." Why was she here? The questions didn't seem that important anymore. "I just want to know why."
He snorted derisively. "Why? Why did I do the bidding of my Master?"
She frowned. "You let him torture me."
His head rolled to one side almost lazily, his tone harsh and condescending. "Who are you to me but a woman with secrets my master had need of? What cause did I have to stop him?"
Was this really the man she had defended? Who had kept her alive even if only to drag her to the next session with the orb? Her nerves frayed, itched to leave. The Sense came alert. Her fingers found Altair's throwing knife in her pocket.
There was nothing a caged man could do that he hadn't already.
"You knew it was wrong." She didn't always remember screaming, but her throat had been raw enough that there was little else she could have been doing.
"Right and wrong," Jamal spat on the stone floor, "who decides which is which? The Master? A king? A god? What is right to one is wrong to another. I was right to do as I was commanded, I was right to betray a dying and weak Brotherhood, and Altair will be right to execute me."
Emma didn't know what she was really expecting when she came down here, but this wasn't it. "You want to be executed?"
"I said he will be right to do so, I do not seek it out, nor do I have need for your pity." She recoiled and he coughed a harsh laugh. "That is why you are here, is it not? To know you are better than I for your pity, to pretend you will care when you give the order for my head and that it is different if you do not swing the blade yourself."
"I'm not here for myself," they both knew that was a lie, "I just wanted to know why, I just wanted to know if it was something you could control."
He tipped his head, his brow scrunching. She thought it might be the first honest expression she'd seen on him. "You are asking if I was enthralled to his orb, if I did what I did because I was not in control of my own body? What good would such a confession do?"
Emma stepped closer to the bars, wishing the man would come further into the light so she could see him properly. "It could save your life."
He paused, body unmoving. When he spoke, his voice was overtaken with confusion. "You would give me, a man complacent in your torture, the opportunity to lie to save my neck?"
She didn't have her father's ability. She couldn't inherently know if he lied, but she liked to think she had a pretty good ability to see one anyway. It was probably stupid. He'd made no indication of regretting his actions, of being anything less than a selfish bastard. Yet something else was nagging at her. She ignored the feeling telling her to leave. She couldn't. Not yet.
"Yes. If you swear you were enthralled, I will believe you and I will speak for you at the trial." Maybe he would bite, maybe he would drop the act and reveal himself as a different kind of man. Maybe he wouldn't, maybe he would lie or mock her for her naive idiocy.
The chance was his.
Several moments passed in silence as Jamal mulled over his options.
"No."
"No?"
He growled, lurching forward, grabbing the bars by her face, his lip twisted into a sneer. "No foolish girl, I was not enthralled. I did it all of my own volition. I was under no control but my own and I will swear to all this if you claim otherwise. I would rather die than owe my life to you."
He wanted to scare her, he wanted her furious at him, he wanted her to march out convinced he deserved death, that it did not matter that his death was imminent.
His eyes betray him.
Fear lay behind brown irises.
Yet as she met his stare and held it, she thought she saw conviction there as well.
He didn't want to die, but he didn't want to be saved.
Her gut twisted. What other option did he really have? It wasn't as if his brothers would ever accept him among them again nor could he simply be expelled, not with what he knew of their organization. His choice was a lifetime in this cell or death.
And he chose death.
Her Sense told her to get out, to leave him to his fate. She ignored it.
She tried to remember what the girls had said about him, about his original betrayal to the Brotherhood. He'd orchestrated allowing the Templar army through the gates of the village. He'd allowed them to come to their door and only Altair springing a carefully laid trap had saved the castle from being sacked.
Everyone here could have died because of him, including Altair.
"It was Al Mualim who made the Brotherhood weak, wasn't it? That was why you betrayed them the first time." A weak and dying Brotherhood he'd said, but it was being led by a traitor, by a man who endeavored to enslave them all.
"I betray them because it was right to do so," he spat, turning away from her.
It wasn't good enough.
There was something else there, something under the surface. Like a scab that needed to be scratched, it infected her mind and refused to let her walk away. No matter how loud her Sense was telling her to leave it.
"Did you know he was a traitor? But no one would believe you?" Maybe he did, maybe he thought he had no other choice. Maybe the Templars just paid better.
Jamal released a strained breath, returning to the back of his cell and letting his body slump against the wall.
"It matters not. I will die soon and my intentions will mean less than nothing."
"You don't have to."
He stared at her, brows pinched. "Why do you wish me to live? To spend my days regretting that I did not step in for you? I do not and I will not. It would have made no difference."
"I don't…" Her hand clenched the metal bars tightly. No, she didn't want to save him for the sake of his pity or regret.
He chuckled, a raspy, unpleasant sound that struck the stone walls sharply. "No, this is nothing to do with me. This is for yourself. If you can save me, perhaps you might convince yourself you were not too weak before, that you might have saved yourself eventually. You would not. You were too weak to save yourself then and you are too weak to let me die now."
His words were a sharp slap as the truth of them rang in her own ears. She could not call him a liar because he wasn't. It wasn't about what she might have said, it wasn't about why he didn't step in, none of that was what really mattered.
Saving him wouldn't fix herself, wouldn't fix that feeling of helplessness that she couldn't shake. She certainly was no one special or good for trying, because it wasn't out of selflessness, it wasn't out of compassion.
But the longer she stood with him, the more she wanted it to be and the more desperately she wanted him to live.
And she knew that he was right; she was too weak to save herself then and too weak to let him die now. A quick death was his mercy, not life.
Her head hurt and she pressed her forehead against the cold metal as emotions she'd long fought to ignore and hold restrained broke free.
"Why?" Her voice escaped small and meak, pressure building behind eyes she squeezed tightly shut.
"Why are you weak? Because you were not designed for this life, you were not forged by fire." His tone lacked malice. It was not an insult, it was simply a matter of fact.
Yesterday she might have argued that fact until she was blue in the face. She was a police officer in New York City, descended from cops and soldiers who always stood and fought for what was right and good. But that was her world. This was not. This was not the life she'd been raised and trained for. The fires of her own forging did not give her the edge needed here.
"Why did the Master torture you so? What else would a man mad with power do, when denied strategies and weapons that could grant him further power? That is the only answer this life will grant you." How ironic, a dry voice in the back of her mind noted, that the man facing death would be offering her a modicum of pity.
Once again, he was right. Life did not owe her answers, and with the man who actually tortured her dead, there would be nothing to do with her memories and fear except to face them.
"You want me to let you die, to speak against you at your trial?" She met his gaze and found a steel she could not beat down.
Jamal's face softened and she felt she was finally seeing the man as he truly was, without the facade of derision meant to dissuade her attempts to save him. "I ask you only to stay silent, and allow me to be set free."
It went against her very nature.
She owed him nothing.
He'd allowed her to be tortured.
He offered no apology for it, showed no remorse.
Yet his refusal to offer a straight answer made her believe there was more here.
He'd betray them once, unable to follow Al Mualim's rule. He'd been caught, spared but placed under the Master's watchful eye. There was likely nothing he could have done, beyond keeping her alive.
He didn't want her pity.
He didn't want her rescue.
He didn't even ask for her to call for his head.
He only asked for her to be silent and allow the sentence to be leveled against him without protest.
None of his answers had satisfied her roiling mind. None of it had helped settle her frantic thoughts. It never would.
The door creaked as it opened. Evidently Altair had felt he'd given her enough time to talk. Jamal turned to look at him, scowl sharpening.
It was not Altair's frame in the doorway. Nor did he appear to be on the stairs beyond.
"I told you you would see me coming," Mundir purred, stalking into the dungeon.
Emma recoiled, her back striking the bars of Jamal's cell. Altair was nowhere to be seen. Neither was the guard originally posted on the door.
Her hand jerked towards her stashed blade, brushing cool metal but unable to grasp it before the assassin was upon her, his forearm slamming into her chest as he yanked her wrist away. Stars danced across her vision, lungs gasping as they tried to regain lost breath.
"No need to spoil the fun. Your tricks will not succeed a second time," he chuckled darkly, the sound sending ice down her veins.
Present Day
"I thought Eliot was meeting us here?" Matt looked around the empty street, his Sense quiet though he knew eyes were on them, watching.
David looked around at the cold cars, frowning as he checked his watch and confirmed unnecessarily that it was the time they'd agreed on.
"I'm sure it is only his duties holding him up. We will have to go without him." It didn't take a detective to know that something felt off about the cop's tardiness, but there was nothing they could do about it at the moment. It wasn't as if they brought their phones with them on this little outing, so there was no way for the younger man to reach them if it really was work holding him up.
"I still think we should try it my way," Matt huffed, shoving his hands in his pockets in a weak attempt to ward off the growing chill of fall.
David glanced at his son, tucking a stack of papers under his arm. "You may still get the chance, depending on how this plays out."
He walked easily down the sidewalk, the picture of belonging. It still amazed him, in a sad, frustrated way, that he'd thought he'd known this street so well. It'd been part of his beat back in the day; hell, he'd solved a homicide in that brick apartment across the street, and yet, he'd never known an Assassin safehouse sat in the middle of it.
They approached the front door to the building, so innocently resembling any other apartment complex that took the security of its tenants seriously.
Matt raised his hand to the line of buzzers next to the door. Either someone would let them in or he'd become annoying enough with it that they let him in anyway. David caught his hand before he could hit the first one, shaking his head lightly. Shifting, he pulled a key from his coat pocket, fitting it perfectly into the lock. The door swung open on well-oiled hinges.
His son stared slack-jawed at him. "How?"
David offered only a light grin. "I may be retired, boy, but I still have a few tricks up my sleeve."
Unlike Matt's plan to be an annoyance until they got attention, David's entrance into the building garnered them instant company. Not three steps into the hall and two assassins flanked them with a third cutting off their path.
David smiled in a manner that was just barely not a bearing of his teeth. A clear facade of pleasantness over danger. "We are here to speak with William Miles."
The assassin in front was not one he recognized, though Eliot had had more direct exposure to the lot of them (unbeknownst to them, of course), and bore a heavy scowl. "It is 3am."
The retired detective nodded once slowly, as if acknowledging a simple child. "Then I suggest you wake him."
"Or I remove you from the premises," the man growled, crossing his arms over his chest stiffly. David glanced at the movement, noting that-as he guessed-the assassin in front of him had not strapped on a blade before accosting them.
Drug dealers or master killers, 3am really was the sweet spot for catching them unprepared. "You are welcome to try, and then you can explain to Miles in the morning why there is a city-wide manhunt for Tristan and Federico."
The man's eyes widened a flash before he could school his expression. Good, he recognized the names. David continued breezily, "You'll notice that our officer companion is not with us. I assure you, if you make the incorrect choice, the manhunt will be frontpage news by sunrise. Now, let's try that again. I suggest you go wake him."
The other man's jaw worked harshly before common sense won out. "Take them to Mr. Miles' office."
"No need for such an escort, we remember the way." David flashed a predatory smile, stepping easily into the assassin's space as he passed him, Matt following a step behind. The flanking assassins remained behind them, uncertain but not willing to let the two men walk off on their own.
"How long do you think he'll keep us waiting?" Matt mused as he sat, kicking his boots onto the wooden desk.
David eyed the two men who closed the door behind them and stood just outside the door, pretending to prevent them from leaving. "William is not an emotional man. This is unlikely to garner a dramatic response from him. How fast he comes to us is solely dependent on the information he has hidden in this room."
The retired Harp dropped his papers on the desk, stepping around the heavy wood to experimentally pull at the drawers. None of them opened.
Matt raised his brows. "You think they'd let us in here if there was anything worth hiding?"
"That would depend on what they believe to be worth hiding." David answered, pulling a lock-picking set from his jacket pocket and scratching the pin against the locks on the desk drawers and the filing cabinet. Voices reached them from the hall beyond and he tucked the kit back into his pocket, pulling the first paper from the stack he'd brought with him and folding it several times.
The door swung open as David sat himself leisurely, tucking the folded paper into an inner pocket. William Miles' eyes shot to the movement, narrowing as the man strode around to his own side of the desk. His gaze paused on Matt's boots offending his desk, then fell to his drawers. Matt dropped his boots to the floor, though remained slouched in the chair.
The tension in Miles' shoulders increased tenfold. "I do not take threats against my men lightly, Harp, nor do I this brazen attempt at theft."
"I assure you, Mr. Miles, there was no attempt," David shifted, his entire demeanor switching away from amused indifference, "And nor do I take lightly lies and attempts to keep me from finding my daughter."
William Miles was a dangerous man, brimming with anger and indignation. The younger Harp kept his eyes on him while watching his father in his peripheral. David Harp appeared a peaceful man, but the fury flowed just under the surface, a calm river, ready to drown the unwary in its depths.
"I have not…"
David cut the other man off sharply, "Save your continued lies for someone who has the time for them. It was your assassins Tristan and Federico who broke into Emma's apartment and gave her the information that set her to investigate Abstergo. Now either they were acting under your orders or you lack control over your own people."
Miles pursed his lips and Matt enjoyed seeing the man off balance. He sat in silence, steepling his fingers in front of his chin as he carefully weighed his words. "I admit, I withheld information I had on your daughter, but only because I could not understand it and I did not know how to explain that which I could not believe."
Matt straightened. Finally! David's voice held an obvious growl, "I suggest you find the words."
The head of the assassins sighed, leaning back in his chair. "I shall tell you what we know, though I do not expect you to believe me. Abstergo, the Templars, have been seeking to end the assassin order for centuries, and for centuries they have failed."
"We know this already," Matt huffed, tapping his real foot impatiently.
Miles acknowledged him with a short wave of his hand. "Always they are seeking new ways to rid themselves of us. Murder has been effective but they can never eradicate us all….unless they prevented our Order from ever forming, cut out the roots before we grew to become a problem."
Both men raised brows at him in near tandem, but it was the younger who asked the obvious, "How the hell could they do that when you've been around for centuries?"
"Time travel."
David scowled, Matt snorted. "Time travel. You want us to believe they tried to go Terminator on you all?"
Miles nodded seriously. "I know it does not sound believable. I did not believe it myself at first. But they have brought in experts in the field of physics, time, and engineering. They have built a machine which I believe they may have gotten to work, to allow them to travel back in time."
David felt his body growing cold, the answer already whispering in his mind but desperation denying it. "And you think Emma…"
He couldn't even say the words, to give voice and life to the possibility. It was insane, it was impossible, it would mean she was entirely out of reach.
"Yes. I believe the night she broke into their building, they tested the machine on her."
The elder Harp sat in silence, working hard to find some way to deny what was being said. His Sense remained quiet, giving no lie to the man's words. Miles truly believed what he was saying. The truth of it rose like a tsunami, bearing down to crush him.
"You can't….Dad, you can't honestly believe this." Matt wanted to laugh it off, but as he stared at his father who did not call the lie, humor fell to dread. "Come on, call it a lie."
His voice cracked, the Marine falling away as a scared boy looked to his father for the words that would make it all better.
David couldn't offer those words.
Miles unlocked his desk, pulling out a file that he opened and set before them. "Energy spikes indicate a massive draw of power after she disappeared, another a few weeks later, and several, slightly smaller surges in the months leading up to it. I lost several assassins during this time."
He paused, flipping through the pages to a schematic of some machine that could have been a futuristic telephone booth. Another page listed notes that were technical and observational with no emotion to them. "Their previous test subjects did not survive, but according to their notes on the machine, she did. But…she is in the past."
David narrowed his eyes, noting the notes lacked anything truly telling other than that the subject was alive and the machine was tracking location. "And the second surge? An attempt to bring her back?"
After all, what good was time travel if it was a one-way trip?
Miles shook his head, flipping again to a short stack of personnel files. David recognized the look of mercenaries when he saw them. "They sent a group of their own men. This period they went to…it is a critical time for both Assassins and the Templars. They would need only to kill one man to destroy the future of our Order."
Matt scanned the notes, despair and anger fighting for dominance. "So she's alive and stuck in the past. Who cares who Abstergo is after. We just need to break in, hack the stupid machine, and bring her back."
"And just who will you bring, to successfully hack and operate such a device?" Miles challenged. "These schematics are too basic for us to even attempt to duplicate it, let alone understand how it works."
Emma's brother growled lowly, "I will hold the whole damn building at gunpoint if that's what it takes to find someone to turn it on."
"There….is no indication in their recordings that bringing someone back is possible." Miles admitted reluctantly, face pinching as if he wished he were anywhere else but staring down the Harp men.
"That's bullshit. They'd just sacrifice their own men like that?" Of course they would, Matt knew, Abstergo didn't care what bodies they left in their wake, not even if they were innocent.
"To kill Altair Ibn-La'Ahad? Yes."
The name meant little to nothing to either man, except that it meant Miles knew one very important detail that he hadn't yet shared. "You haven't said when she was sent back to."
David knew his daughter. And while he could say he was proud of the woman she had become, her brash and bullheaded nature would only hurt her if she had ended up in a year that was less than kind to such women. Was it fifty years ago? A hundred?
Their war had gone on for so long, but there had to be limits to time travel, right?
William Miles folded his hands neatly onto his desk, his eyes carefully watching both men. "She was sent back to Jerusalem, the year 1191."
Matt stared. "The Crusades. You're saying she was sent back to the fucking Crusades?! They killed her."
His sister, who couldn't control her sass on the best of days, sent back to an era of war and where women were viewed as little more than property? She wouldn't last a week!
"Our latest intel suggests that she is still alive, and in the company of Altair no less." Miles offered, holding greater concern for the Harp that was staying quiet than the blustering Marine. Loud anger was predictable, quiet was dangerous in the worst ways.
"What does that even mean? Who the fuck was this guy?" Matt barely kept himself from leaping up to pace. How could it possibly be a good thing that his sister was with the very guy Abstergo was trying to murder? She'd be alone against a half dozen mercenaries.
"Altair saved the Order from extinction in 1191. Emma being with him means she will likely live a long, full life, under the protection of the Assassins." Of course, it would matter greatly what time of the year she met the man, and they did not have all of the information about that that Abstergo had. It'd been weeks since their last successful intel-gathering mission. Their recent success had set the Templars on edge. The building was an impenetrable fortress now. What he shared now would just have to be enough to satisfy the Harp men until the defenses were relaxed.
"A long full life, trapped in the past." Matt rumbled, hands clenched tightly. He wanted to hit something. He wanted to fight. He wanted to do whatever it took to have his sister safe and home again.
But if what Miles was telling them was true, however impossible and unbelievable as it was, then it was all for not. There was no bringing her home. No rescue. She was lost to them.
No.
He couldn't believe that. He wouldn't.
His eyes cut to his father, waiting for the man to say something, to move from the statue he'd been for the last several minutes.
David stood slowly, carefully, his body taunt like a compressed spring. "I thank you, for finally be truthful, Mr. Miles. I hope from now on, information may flow more freely between us. We will be in contact soon."
Whatever the leader of the assassins was expecting of the older man, it wasn't that. He appeared truly shocked, recovering only to nod at his men when David opened the door to find them still on guard. The two parted, allowing David and Matt to step out of the office.
Neither said a word as they walked out of the safehouse, nor as they trekked down the cold, dark street back to the Camaro that gleamed like a sinister black beast in the shadows. Matt swore when David turned the key, the car snarled louder than normal, feeding off the roiling emotions of the two men.
"Now what?" Matt asked, noting the white knuckles of his father's grip on the steering wheel. "Abstergo sent her to the past."
Their mission was a failure. Emma was beyond their reach. Abstergo had done the impossible and created time travel but hadn't been smart enough to create a way back. They couldn't save her. Whether by a sword or age, she was gone.
"Now," a calm tone, packed with explosive emotion. "We burn them to the ground."
Captain: *Cackles* Phew! That was a ride, no? :D
Until next time!