No one had mentioned when dinnertime usually was, so Parker and Jarod wandered over to the house next door at around five-thirty. Though Clint had insisted he wasn't really the leader, just the person who'd lived there longest, first-come first-serve rules had allowed him to claim what was indisputably the nicest house. High, arcing ceilings, immaculate hardwood floors, an incongruously state-of-the-art kitchen… more than all that, it was warm. Sandra had mentioned buying space heaters, but Clint and Gwen's house seemed to be the only one with a boiler in the basement.
A cheer went up as the new arrivals stepped across the threshold. A collection of beaming cultists were crowded in the atrium, two of them holding a banner with "WELCOME MARCIE AND JAROD" on it in beautiful script, accompanied by a host of little pencil crayon sketches. One sketch showed Miss Parker, another Jarod. The resemblance was extraordinary.
"I hope you know," said Parker out of the side of her mouth, "I'm never going to forgive you for handing them my name."
Jarod laughed along with the crowd of cultists, wound an arm around Parker's shoulder, and dropped a kiss on her shoulder.
"Consider it payback for withholding mine," he murmured as he came away.
"I don't know your—"
"Jarod!" said Clint. He grabbed Jarod by the bicep and pressed a tall glass of beer into his hands. "Come meet everyone. You too, Marcie."
Too many names. Benji. Charlotte. Sothea and Maggie. Sandra and Webster and Clint and Gwen. With the exception of those Parker had met before, the names went in one ear and out the other. And apparently, this was just the inner circle.
It became a kind of interview.
"Jarod, what do you do for work?"
Jarod looked down at his shoes, adopting an appropriately contrite expression. "Well, I — I'm kind of between jobs right now."
The Serene Few knew that already. Sandra and Webster had first run into Jarod while he was printing off job application forms. Were they testing the new recruits? Perhaps a couple of them still suspected every newcomer of being a Mountie in disguise.
"That's alright, we're all between jobs here," said one of the men… Sothea, maybe? "How about you, Marcie?"
"Temp work," she grunted.
"Hope you're more than temporary here," said the maybe-Sothea, then yelped. Clint had stood on his foot.
Without anyone acknowledging the decision aloud, the group drifted into gender-segregated clusters. Perhaps this was the done thing for these people… or perhaps they were trying a divide-and-conquer approach on the newest prospective cultists.
"Do you like the banner?" said one of the women eagerly. Parker was prepared to put five dollars on this being Charlotte. She had long, straight, blonde hair and a melodious voice.
"Yeah, sure. Very… lifelike."
"Exactly! See, Gwen?" said Charlotte triumphantly, tugging on her friend's arm. Yes, Parker was pretty sure this was Charlotte. "I knew she'd like it. Gwen made it!"
It was hard to tell with Gwen's complexion, but she seemed to be blushing.
"You drew us on the banner?" said Parker. She looked at the banner again. It was the same sort of style as the marigolds on each occupied door. The Parker and Jarod on the banner were both wearing the same clothes they'd worn earlier that day.
"I may have had another reason for visiting you earlier," Gwen confessed. "Sandra didn't bring back any pictures, so I had to check to see what you looked like. I love to draw. And paint! I can't seem to stop."
Now that Parker knew to look, she spotted the various murals and smaller paintings accenting the walls here and there. The entire house was Gwen's personal art project.
As Charlotte continued to brag about her friend's artistic accomplishments, Gwen paid only intermittent attention, her gaze flicking now and again to where her husband stood, surrounded by his attentive audience. Over by the piano — how had they brought in a piano with farmers' market money? — Clint was loudly recounting the story of his and Gwen's relationship.
"We were together for a year or so," he said. "But we broke up around the same time I set things up here. Not a — no, not a coincidence, Jarod. Gwen didn't believe enough. I told her that, and she understood that. She understood that she needed to improve herself before we could be together."
"Believe?" said Jarod, politely curious.
"In God," said Clint. "And in what we do here. We're the few, here, the few who know where the world is headed. The only refuge from the chaos. When my Gwen came back to me, she finally knew that. Right, sweetie?" These last words, he shouted across to the kitchen, where Gwen was leaning as far as she could towards her husband's words without falling over. She jumped.
Skittish. In my experience, skittish often means traumatized, Jarod had said.
"That's right," answered Gwen with a broad, open-mouthed grin. "Now we're stronger than ever."
"He gave you a benchmark of faith to reach, before he would take you back?" said Parker, quieter. What kind of a love was that, one person giving the other a goalpost to reach in exchange for love?
"Yes," said Gwen. Either she didn't hear the judgement in Parker's voice, or she cheerfully ignored it. "I didn't have enough faith. Now I do, and we're so much stronger. I bettered myself for him."
You complied with him, Parker wanted to say. You sculpted yourself into his dream wife. It was too early for the truth, though. Gwen wasn't ready to hear it, and it would only scare her off.
One of the women came by with a tray of sandwiches. Parker took one, sniffed it, didn't let it anywhere near her mouth. It didn't smell like Kool-Aid, but you never knew. That was the sort of thing cults did, right? Mass suicides by poison? She watched Jarod until she saw him bite into one, then followed suit. If he wasn't worried about poison, neither was she.
The sandwiches were not a universal hit, however. As soon as Clint bit into his, he grabbed a napkin and spat the mouthful into it.
"Gwen!" he barked. "What is this?"
"Uh," said Gwen, her face abruptly drawn and scared. "Um, sandwiches? Are they okay?"
"Yes, I know they're sandwiches," Clint laughed. "What kind? Is this tuna?"
Gwen didn't seem to be able to move, let alone answer. She didn't really need to. The sandwiches were tuna, as anyone present could attest.
Finally: "Yes? Uh, yes. Tuna, sweetie. Do, do you not like—"
"Oh, I like tuna. This is just… sweetie, it's garbage." He threw his sandwich in the trash. Clint didn't seem all that angry. A little embarrassed, a lot disgusted. He laughed to himself every couple of words, as if to talk himself down. "Terrible stuff. What on earth did you put in it?"
Gwen began rattling off ingredients like a hand-shy student rattles off her times tables.
"Yeah, yeah," Clint said, nodding. He came over and placed a hand mechanically upon his wife's shoulder. "Just… sweetie, you can do better. Especially when we're welcoming new neighbours. Better next time, okay?"
"Better next time," Gwen repeated. Her breathing was jerky, the inhales becoming strident.
"Oh, for the… go to the washroom, take care of it."
"Yes," Gwen gasped, nodding vehemently. "I'll be back soon."
She turned on her heel and rushed up the stairs, her breathing growing louder and louder the higher she climbed. Parker caught Jarod's eye across the room. He looked up at the second floor landing, and she knew he wanted to follow. His chest was moving just as Gwen's had: jerky, each breath sharp and sudden. Parker shook her head almost imperceptibly.
She needed to get up to see Gwen without Clint realizing she'd done so. Part of the source of his annoyance seemed to be that Gwen's sandwiches — which were inoffensive at worst, tasty at best — were spoiling the first impressions of his latest recruits to The Serene Few. If Gwen's breakdown was enough to make "Marcie" leave the party, Clint might come down hard later.
Parker jerked her chin in the direction of the dining room, which was out of sight of the stairs to the second floor. Jarod glanced from the dining room, to Clint, to the stairs, and back to Parker, but she wasn't sure he had understood until he pointed to a collection of guns on the dining room wall and loudly asked Clint about it. The men moved off, listening to Clint wax about his beloved arsenal.
Once she was sure they were out of earshot, Parker pulled Charlotte aside. Sandra followed too, uninvited but curious.
"Do you have a tampon I could use?" she whispered.
"Ah, no, sorry," said Charlotte. "I don't get periods anymore. I doubt Maggie or Sandra or any of the others have one, either—"
"No, I don't," said Sandra with an apologetic grimace. "Gwen might, but uh. I think she's busy."
Parker made a face, mugging for all she was worth. "I wouldn't ask, but it's an emergency. Do you think she'd have some in her room?"
"Yeah, maybe," said Charlotte. "Top of the stairs on the left. Do you want me to show—"
"Thanks, but I've got it. Thank you so much." She was laying it on a little thick, but the other women didn't seem to notice.
Parker climbed the stairs. It wasn't hard to find the bathroom, she just had to follow the sound of Gwen crying. The girl was trying her best to stay quiet but, bluntly, it wasn't working. Parker knocked softly at the door. Within, the sound of crying paused, then continued with a loud hiccup and renewed laboured breathing.
"Yes? Clint?"
Where did "sweetie" go?
"No, it's…" She cursed Jarod internally for the nth time. "It's Marcie."
"Marcie?" said the querulous voice. "I'm okay. I'm just not feeling well. I'll be back down s-soon."
"Let me help," said Parker, not knowing how she could, but knowing she had to try. She had to be the person Gwen went to when she needed help.
No response from Gwen, only the high-pitched wheeze of her breathing. Then, just when Parker started to entertain thoughts of trying a different tack, the door swung open a crack. She pushed the door the rest of the way open to reveal Gwen, sitting on the tiled floor with her woolen dress pulled over her knees. Her breathing hadn't calmed at all, and a panic attack was in full swing. Parker lowered herself to the floor on her good leg.
She was so out of her depth, she couldn't even see the ocean floor. How do I stop a panic attack? Breathe slower, sure, but that must have occurred to her already?
"Breathe slower, honey," she said anyway, because something was better than nothing. Gwen stared up at her miserably. Her breathing did not slow.
"I can't," she moaned.
"Can I — can I touch you? Is that okay?"
She didn't want to touch Gwen. It didn't feel like a great idea, but what else did she have? Her brain was tossing up nonsense about putting a stick between her teeth and turning her on her side, but no, that was for seizures.
Miraculously, Gwen nodded.
Parker was not big on being hugged. Hugs tended to make her feel restricted and confined, and she didn't know what to do with her hands. She wasn't big on hugging others, either, but given the choice, she'd rather do the hugging than be hugged.
She hugged Gwen now, gently, the way she'd like to be hugged. No confinement, no restriction, no expectation for reciprocation. Just human contact and safety. Gwen shook under her hands.
"It'll be okay," said Parker.
"You don't know that," said Gwen. "What if he doesn't want me again? What if he makes me go away?"
Oh. Oh, this would be harder than she thought. Gwen, who had been forced to pass a test to be with the man she loved, lived in fear of failing his standards and being cast out once more.
"You will still be okay. You can get through anything."
It was generic nonsense founded on a few minutes' worth of knowing the girl, but Parker thought she'd like to hear those words if she were ever in such a state.
"L-look at my hands," said Gwen through gasps for air.
While Parker wasn't looking, Gwen's hands had curled into rigid claws, bent inwards at the wrist.
"I can't mo—I can't move them. Why can't I move them?" Gwen's sobs redoubled in strength as her terror mounted.
"It's the hyperventilation," said Jarod from the doorway. Parker hadn't heard him come up the stairs. "It leads to decreased calcium—"
"Don't care, Jarod, how do we stop it?" Parker snapped.
"The same thing you're doing. Slow breathing. Slow breath in, breathe out without pushing. You're doing great," he said, soothingly, and for a bizarre moment Parker wondered which of them he was talking to.
Parker pushed up the sleeve on her sweater to reveal her watch. She twisted it to face Gwen.
"Here, look at the second hand. Breathe in for five seconds… four, three, two, one…"
Jarod lowered himself to the floor and closed the door behind him.
"Let it out," he said, chiming in. "Don't push. No, don't push the air out. You're doing fantastic."
All the while, Parker massaged Gwen's hands, and finally, they loosened. Gwen's panic had petered out into quiet sniffles.
"Oof," said Gwen, laughing through tears and snot. She shook her hands. "Those will be sore tomorrow. Wow."
"It's scary when that happens, but it doesn't mean anything bad is happening. It won't have any lasting harm," Jarod explained.
Gwen looked between the two of them.
"You're both away from the party." To Parker's horror, Gwen started to tear up again. "They'll notice. I've ruined your night."
"They won't notice," said Parker hurriedly. "I said I was getting a tampon."
"And I said I was grabbing a bottle of wine from our car. We have time."
Gwen hiccuped. "Why are you being so kind?"
"Because you deserve kindness," said Jarod simply.
Gwen didn't look like she believed him, but she also didn't argue.
"Come over tomorrow, okay?" said Parker. "You can help us settle in."
Gwen's features brightened. "I'll paint your marigold, the one for your door!"
Parker suspected that this was not the usual timetable for a door marigold. As far as the rest of The Serene Few knew, "Jarod and Marcie" were visiting for the week and then leaving. Then again, perhaps Gwen knew more about Clint's hopes for their new guests than she was saying.
Once they were sure that Gwen had recovered from her panic attack, they trickled back down to the party, one at a time, so it wouldn't be obvious where they'd been. The party-goers were crowded around a billiards table, taking bets on a game between two of the men, Webster and Sothea. Jarod returned from his errand outside some minutes after Parker, bearing apologies that the promised bottle of wine had shattered in the cold. He slipped an arm comfortably around her waist and leaned close.
"One of the men is missing," he whispered. "Did you see where Benji went?"
Parker shook her head. She wouldn't be able to pick Benji out of a lineup, let alone say where he'd disappeared to.
"Probably nothing," said Jarod, which meant it was almost certainly something.
"So, Jarod," said Clint. His arm, too, was around his wife's shoulders. "And Marcie. How did the two of you meet?"
They'd discussed this in sparse detail the day before, ultimately deciding to keep as close to the truth as they could without veering into Centre weirdness.
"We met as kids," said Parker. "Through my father."
She felt Jarod's eyes on her and looked around to see Jarod staring at her with overpowering adoration.
"She was the first girl I ever really knew," said Jarod. Ostensibly he was addressing their audience, but he never looked away from her for a second. "Once I laid eyes on her… that was it for me. Nobody else could compare."
Charlotte tittered.
"That's adorable. Love at first sight, eh?"
"And second, and third, and fourth… etcetera," said Jarod. "We were apart for a few years for school, and then life brought her back to me."
Parker wished he would look away. She was under the focus of a headlamp, and she was starting to believe it. Jarod was an exceptionally good liar. He always had been.
"Yet I still had to chase him down to get him to commit," said Parker with a quirk of her lips. "Men, eh?" Get him to commit. A ghoulish euphemism for his current contract with the Centre, she thought. At the reference to one of the worst things ever to happen to him, Jarod grinned. Either he was in a good mood, or an even better actor than she'd realized.
"I—augh!"
Jarod shouted in pain, his arm pulling away from Parker's hip to seize his head in both hands. Parker felt the loss of his heat at her side immediately and grabbed for him as he stumbled sideways. Gwen moved as well, catching his elbow before it hit the billiards table.
"You okay, Jarod?" asked Sothea. His pool cue had frozen mid-strike.
"Yeah," said Jarod. "Yeah, I'm fine. I get migraines sometimes, that's all. I'm sorry, gents, but I may have to call this a night."
There were disappointed but sympathetic groans around the assembled group.
"That's too bad, but there's always tomorrow. We have the whole week, right? Even longer, if you're up for it," said Clint.
"Yeah," Jarod gasped. He had to hold on to the billiards table with both hands to keep from collapsing. "I should be fine tomorrow. Miss — Marcie, can you…?"
"I should help him get back to the house next door," said Parker. So saying, she tucked one of his arms around her shoulder. It felt a little ridiculous: him, using her for a crutch. She, using the cane for a crutch. If the cane slipped, they'd both of them go down in a heap.
They said their goodbyes and tottered back across the ice-slicked path to their new home like a team in a three-legged race. Up the stairs, a brief fumble with the front door, and through. As they stumbled into the front hall, Parker caught a noise on the air, a creak and a click, coming from the back of the house. She lowered Jarod into a chair in the kitchen and hurried as fast as one good leg could carry her to the back door, but there was nobody there, and no sign or shadow against the snow outside.
On the way back, she quickly fetched the counteragent from where she'd stashed it in her bags and came back downstairs. When she returned to the kitchen, Jarod had ditched the chair and was lying with his head against the cool tiles. She sat on the floor next to him to prepare the syringe.
"I heard it… too," Jarod said, his voice shaking from the pain. "The noise. Did you see anything?"
"At the back door? No, no one."
She could do the injection in her sleep by now. Tourniquet, find the vein, slide the needle home. Jarod's head rolled back against the floor for a moment. Was the wait a little longer than it had been, back in the early days?
When he came to, Jarod pushed himself up to a sitting position and wrapped his arms around his knees.
"That's barely three days now," said Parker quietly. Three days between shots. That was half of what they'd started with. At the beginning, she'd feared this job would last the rest of her career. Now, she feared it would last far, far less than that.
"I know." The words came out strangled, through a constricted throat.
They sat there on the kitchen floor in helpless silence until Parker summoned the motivation to stand and mount the stairs. There was no talk of a roll in the hay; unsurprisingly, the blunt fact of Jarod's uncertain future spoiled the mood.
She missed the warmth, though. Her bed was cold, each blanket feeling like she'd pulled it straight from the freezer. A space heater rattled away in the corner of the room, doing enough to keep her from freezing to death in her sleep, but not enough for real comfort. She pulled her sweater back on, slid under the covers, and curled into a tight ball. Eventually, her shivering calmed, and she was able to drift off.
Gwen turned up the next day with her paints, her brushes and spare bits of decor scavenged from the house she shared with Clint. She and Jarod passed each other at the door, she on the way in, he on the way out.
"Do you think you'll stay long?" she asked as she sketched a goose above the mantel in Jarod's room. The goose had been Jarod's request. Something about how they walk barefoot. As if that were in question.
"We were invited up for the week," said Parker, half-distracted by the task of scrubbing the soot out of the fireplace. Why had she claimed the room upstairs? It was bigger, sure, but it didn't have a fireplace.
"Right, I know," said Gwen. "But… do you think you might stay longer? It doesn't sound like you have a nine-to-five to get back to. Um, no offence meant."
"None taken."
It was hard to know when, exactly, she and Jarod should express interest in staying for the long term. Best-case scenario, they'd demolish The Serene Few within the week and the point would be moot, but that was unrealistically optimistic. If they were too eager about it, they might look like undercover cops trying to get through a case as speedily as possible, as opposed to the curious yet cautious couple they'd created in the minds of their hosts.
"… So, do you think…?"
Parker realized she hadn't answered the question.
"You know what they say about fish and houseguests," she said lightly. "We were invited for a week, it'd be rude to stay longer."
"Oh, but we really do want you to stay longer!" said Gwen. "If you said you were interested, Clint would agree immediately."
"We wouldn't stay unless we were invited," said Parker, staying firm.
"Oh," said Gwen, a little deflated. "Okay."
Now, hopefully, Gwen would do Parker's job for her and go to her husband with the news that Jarod-and-Marcie would like to stay indefinitely but were too polite to ask directly.
Parker seized a broom, making to sweep the floor.
"Oh, no, I'll do that," said Gwen automatically. Parker raised an eyebrow. "Well… your leg. You can't hold a cane and a broom at the same time, right?"
She was right. It hadn't occurred to Parker, even now, months into her relationship with the beech wood cane at her side. Vacuuming was awkward enough.
"Uh, yeah. Thanks. I'll keep dusting."
"What'd you do to it?" asked Gwen. Her face flattened in panic. "Um, not that it was your fault. And not that you have to tell me. You know what, pretend I didn't say anything."
Parker uttered a low laugh. "It's fine, Gwen. It was my fault, actually." She paused, considering. Was there any reason not to tell the truth? Anything that would give her away? Well, she couldn't say it was a bullet — that would strengthen the argument for her being a cop. "I got hurt, got some nerve damage to my leg, but it might have been fine if I had just stayed at the hospital. I was too impatient. I wanted to get back to my real life… as much as I have a real life. Now my leg might be like this forever."
"Oh," said Gwen softly. "I'm sorry. That's really hard. I hope that you're nice to yourself about it, though." She had a faraway look in her eye as she shepherded around a pile of dust with her broom. "That's the worst part, isn't it?"
"What is?"
"That it was in your control, and it went badly anyway. I think that would be the worst part, for me. Control is nice, but sometimes it's easier when the responsibility is somebody else's. Or nobody's at all."
Parker nodded. "Yeah."
Mulling over the truth of Gwen's words, she picked up the clock from the mantelpiece and began to dust the clock face… and paused. There was a small, pinhole camera in the centre of the clock face, where the hands intersected. She took up her dust cloth again and averted her eyes from the camera, pretending not to have noticed.
So they hadn't left unwelcome surveillance back in Delaware. Here, too, they were being watched.
How many more cameras were there, and where were they? Were there other forms of surveillance, too? Parker's morning was lost to the hunt for hidden surveillance, under the pretense of tidying the house. In all, she found thirty-two cameras, all of which she left where they were in order to avoid suspicion. Thank God for small mercies, there were none in the bathrooms — even cultists have some small sense of modesty, apparently. The exception to her policy of leaving the cameras alone was the identical clock on her dresser. She rubbed the clock face a little harder than was necessary to lift the accumulated grime, and the camera in the centre loosened and bent sideways, poking out at an angle. Now, when she replaced the clock, it would offer a view of the baseboards, rather than her sleeping form. She found zero bugs. Either they were very well hidden, or The Serene Few had prioritized visuals over audio. It made a kind of sense — it was a lot easier to scan video than audio.
She thought back to the previous night, to the sound they'd heard at the back door. Clint and his followers had to have been pretty confident Jarod and Parker would pick this house over the other vacant options, but they couldn't be certain until move-in day. Then there had been the conspicuous absence of one of the men, Benji, from the party. At least in part, the welcoming party had been a front to get them both out of the house long enough to plant cameras. Maybe bugs had been part of the plan, too, but they'd interrupted Benji mid-heist when Jarod had gone home early with the QSM blues.
Jarod came back in time for a late lunch, having spent the morning making friends among The Serene Few.
"They all have a couple of ideological points in common," he explained while indulging in Gwen's second batch of cookies in as many days. "They feel burned by the rest of the world. They see the growth of humanity as a bad thing — growth in scientific advancement and population growth, both kinds. They distrust authority, which is hard to argue with. And they hate chemicals. Anything 'unnatural' disgusts them."
"I knew a couple of girls in college like that," said Parker with a shrug. "They usually just become vegetarians and go to Tibet to meditate, or something."
"Instead, these people started a commune in a New Brunswick ghost town. Takes all kinds." He chewed thoughtfully. "Another thing — they all seem very concerned about our relationship."
Parker's brows knitted together.
"Why? If I were them, I'd worry about Clint and Gwen's relationship. They definitely have a couple of glowing weak points in their marriage. It's just a matter of where we should cram the crowbar."
"We" was comfortable now. They were a team. If Parker was honest with herself, it was nice. If someone had told her six months ago that she'd soon share both a functional working relationship and incredible sex with Jarod, she would have had that person committed. It was the complete package.
(Almost.)
"That's not all," Jarod continued. "I also had two separate people ask me if the beds in our house were big enough."
"If the beds — oh." Light bulb moment. "I see. Wow. They could give the Centre security team a run for their money."
Jarod paused mid-bite. "What do you mean?"
"Don't look right at it, but do you see the black disc above the oven timer?"
Jarod looked, and simultaneously did not look. Parker spotted the moment he recognized the object. His jaw clenched.
"Cameras." He sighed. "This again. Should we be worried about bugs, too?"
"Not as far as I can tell."
She related her findings from the house-wide sweep.
"You left them where they were?"
"We can always 'find' one later and pretend outrage, if we need them out. For now, we can control the narrative."
Jarod nodded approvingly. "I've got some experience in that area. So, they must have noticed we slept separately last night. And whoever monitors the cameras…"
"… Told everyone. 'The Serene Few' is a fancy name for a clique of anti-social gossip hounds." She shrugged. "Let 'em talk. As long as they're talking about something as sordid as your blue balls, they're not talking about whether or not we're secretly cops."
Parker was settling in for the night when she glanced at her cell phone and noticed a voicemail notification. She cued up the message as she pulled on her pyjamas.
"We have something we need to discuss." It was Sydney's voice. He started the message without greetings or introductions, presumably in case her phone fell into the wrong hands and she was forced to explain why someone had left a message for a "Miss Parker". "The next time you're in Fredericton, drop by the temp office. It's work-related, no need to bring Jarod."
No need to bring Jarod? That didn't sound like Sydney at all. Leaving Jarod behind was a good idea regardless — him being around might dissuade anyone hoping to wire their new house with even more surveillance equipment — but why would Sydney insist on it? Parker slid under the frigid blankets, wondering. If it was a counteragent delivery, Jarod wouldn't be allowed to pick it up alone, but there would be no risk to bringing him along. She would find out tomorrow what Sydney wanted, but the question bounced around her skull for as long as it took for her to drift off.
She woke an hour or so later, trembling out of her skin from the cold. The temperature had dropped during the night, had plunged past the previous record for that winter with commendable ambition. She curled in on herself and rubbed her arms, but it was no use.
The floor was cold when she slid out of bed, but not as cold as her bed. Heat rises, and the heat from the fireplace in Jarod's room had made it to the floorboards on the second floor, but no further. Not thinking too much about what she was doing, she made her way down the stairs, as barefoot as the goose on Jarod's wall. She only stopped when she reached the door to his room, and even then only for a split second. The night was cold, and he was warm. It didn't need to be more complex than that.
As she eased open the door, the light from the hallway fell across Jarod's sleeping face. He'd pulled the blankets up to his chin, so his face was all that was visible of him. In sleep, the looming deadline of quicksilver madness ceased to weigh on him; the lack of that weight showed in his face. The flames in the fireplace had long since died, but the coals in the grate still glowed. She sat down on the edge of the bed and, after a moment's hesitation, slipped into bed next to him.
Jarod twitched and a groggy grumble disrupted his slow, deep breathing. She froze. Was he so light a sleeper? Jarod laughed, low and sleep-coloured.
"What?" she hissed.
"Your feet. They're so cold."
"Oh," she said, and snickered. "Sorry." She rubbed some friction into them until they were tolerably warm.
"Too cold upstairs?" he asked, his voice muffled by blankets.
"Yeah."
"That's okay."
He wriggled closer and helped her drape the blankets and duvet over herself, folding her in a cocoon of blissful warmth. The night was cold, but they were warm. It wasn't any more complex than that. There was no talk of sex, no acknowledgement of the end of their unspoken rule — sleeping together, yes, but not sleeping together, that was more than what they were — just a sleepy exchange of mutual goodnights, then they both turned over and dropped into unconsciousness.
One perk of this assignment was the late mornings. Once Clint et al. had them both locked down as full-time cultists, they'd be added to the duty roster, but as guests, they could sleep in. When Parker woke, she did so by degrees. She slowly became aware of the solid, warm mass at her back, the arm curled around her from behind, the leg draped over hers. While asleep, Jarod's body had unwittingly curled itself around her.
She hit snooze on the professional, rational response and wriggled closer to him. The morning was cold, and he was warm. She ducked her head under the covers and breathed in. Two warm bodies, sleep and sweat and simplicity. She turned off her brain and let it be simple for the moment, disconnected from work and from the ticking clock to doomsday and from everything holding her back. Her hand felt its way around under the blankets until it found his chest. It was moving, but not the slow, even movement of sleep. He was awake. Her hand trailed lower.
"Cameras," Jarod whispered.
Parker stilled. She raised her head up just far enough that she could see the clock on the mantelpiece, its camera trained on their exact position. She'd forgotten all about it in the night.
"Damn," she hissed.
Somehow, when she'd discovered the cameras littered around her house, she'd been so wrapped up in the cleverness of turning them against their hosts that she hadn't thought through the implications. Specifically, the implications for her capacity to get her rocks off in private. Must she go cold turkey for the rest of the job?
She craned her neck around to look at Jarod. Beautiful, she thought. He was beautiful.
"Do you want to give them a show?" she asked. She couldn't recall the thought passing through her head, but there it was. They could disable the cameras and draw The Serene Few's suspicion, or carry on as normal and leave their audience complacent.
(Or stay chaste for the duration of the mission, but right now, basking in his body heat, it didn't really feel like an option.)
Seconds passed, and Jarod hadn't answered. She shifted onto her other shoulder, so she was facing him.
His expression was hard and distrustful, and his gaze searched her face uncomprehendingly. The answer was clear: no, he did not want to give them a show. Then, the hard look melted away, and all that was left was the searching.
He shifted closer and kissed her, sweet and a little desperate. Parker's mouth fell open, startled. She hadn't seen the shift from no to yes, hadn't seen it coming at all. Instinct deserted her, then came surging back.
For the first time since Baltimore, Parker remembered — really, properly remembered — how it had been that first time. All this time since, she had remembered the excitement of it, the newness, the happy accident of something wonderful coming out of years of miserable enmity. She remembered the stark pleasure of it, the wobble in her legs after the fact.
She'd forgotten the tenderness. She'd forgotten how Jarod could kiss her like he was afraid she'd dry up and blow away if he didn't, how his arms made a home for her, how he'd murmured words of wonder and terror and a terrible, temporary happiness that he seemed to think only she could prolong. All this time, had they kissed at all? Kisses pressed to throats, to the inside of a thigh, sure. But mouth against mouth, tongue against tongue… not since Baltimore. All this time without, and now Jarod was kissing her like a man dying of thirst.
All this, brought back to mind by a performance for an audience. He was acting. This wasn't real for him. The realization struck the wind from her chest and pushed forth a sob that she channelled into a moan at the last moment. To survive, she whited out all thought and lost herself in the playacting.
It was lazy, languid, perfect for a long morning in bed. The blankets got pushed to the end of the bed — they didn't need them, the morning was cold but they were warm. Parker's bad leg draped over Jarod's thigh to give him room to move. They tangled and snared like competing vines, intertwining along every axis, fingertip to fingertip, from their mouths to their toes. His hands found hers where they'd balled themselves up in the sheets, gently straightened her fingers with his own, and held on tight as they clung to each other.
He drew it out until she was on the point of growling.
"Jarod," she pleaded amid a babbled stream of nonsense, stamping down a sob of frustration. "Let me… please, right there — no, don't stop."
He kissed her again as he pulled away, apologetic yet not even a little sorry.
"I want it to last," he said simply.
So do I, she thought, thinking of more than just release. But it won't.
As she'd predicted, it didn't last forever, and they were left cooling on the mattress. The morning was cold and so were they. With every excuse in the world to share a bathroom — the only unmonitored rooms in the house, mind you — Jarod showered upstairs while Parker used the ground floor facilities.
That suited Parker fine. At that moment, she wasn't sure how to act with Jarod without an audience.
