Jake wraps his arms around Rose and squeezes his eyes shut against his tears. Rose is here, and he doesn't ever want to let her go. He hadn't realized how much her absence has been a constant ache inside of him until it finally eases. They're not safe, not really, but they're together.
They'll be able to figure things out now that they're together.
"Let's talk over here," she says, and he loosens his embrace enough to let her pull him away. She doesn't speak again until they're nearly to the other side of the supply room. "Do you want to start, or should I?"
"I'm sorry." The apology tumbling from his lips doesn't feel like enough, and he should have found the words to frame it properly, but they're out of his mouth before he can try. "I'm sorry for everything. I didn't— I didn't know who Susan was when I started meeting with her, but I still met her without telling you. I thought you'd be safer if you didn't know, but you're not, and—"
"It's okay." Rose stops and gives him another hug, no doubt knowing how much he needs it. How much they both need it, he suspects. "I understand."
Jake isn't sure it's forgiveness, but he hadn't asked for it, and understanding is more than he'd hoped for. He still remembers the fight he'd had with Rose months back, the one they'd never truly resolved, and he knows she'll be remembering it, too.
"We're okay," she continues, and he can't help but relax at her words. She wouldn't say it if she didn't mean it. She might put her feelings aside for now, but she'd make sure he knew she planned to talk to him about it later if that were the case. She always has in the past. "We're together again, so we can fight through this and come out on top."
"I hope so." It's a whisper. "But you…. You're hurt."
"I'm fine."
She's not. He'd seen her limp, the careful way she holds herself, the tightness in her jaw that tells him she's holding it together because she simply cannot afford to fall to pieces now. Still, if she's making that claim, it's something she can fight through. She might have fought through worse.
"Don't let worry for me ruin this for you. I know we're not safe, but I'm glad you found your family." He knows from her tone that she's sincere about this, too, and she squeezes his hand as if to emphasize her point. "I'm glad they love you. Your father is kind. A little naïve, maybe, but kind. Genuine, too."
His father.
Right.
The man with Rose is his father.
Jake hadn't forgotten, exactly, but it hasn't really sunk in, even now. The unassuming man from the shop is his father, and now he's here. With Rose. "How did you find him?" There are so many questions he wants to ask, but that one's most important right now. That one will tell him who else might have put it all together.
"I saw the glow of magic through a window of that shop in Chinatown, and I could really feel it once I was past the threshold. Your father met me out front. By the time I— You were gone by the time I got to the back and up the stairs."
"That was you." If he'd been sure at the time, if he'd dared to take that risk and find out, if he'd trusted Rose just a little bit more, just a little bit earlier— "You were the one who picked the lock and came inside? I was— We were so close. I was still there. Not caged, not by that point, but there. Susan and I didn't leave until after you came."
"They really did have you in that cage?"
"I wasn't exactly expected company." Rose might've gotten a much better reception, even being Huntsgirl, since the American Dragon—since Haley—knew her face. "They saw my mark. They didn't trust me. When Susan came, she recognized me, and she told me…. She told me who I was. To them. But she still made some sort of deal that bound my magic to my word before she let me out."
"She bound your magic?"
Jake shrugs. "More like she bound me with my own magic. It was…. I know why she did it. I wouldn't be here with her if she hadn't. It was still…. It was more than I thought it was when I agreed, even after she told me about it."
"You might've still been caged when I found you if you hadn't agreed to it."
"Maybe."
"But instead, I missed you." Rose's voice is quiet. "If I'd ended the fight with 18 earlier, maybe I wouldn't have. Or maybe I'd have missed seeing anything magical about the shop in the first place."
18. Jake had suspected as much from what Dolores had told him. "18 challenged you?"
"If she was there on orders, she took it further than she should have."
"She deserved whatever you gave her, then," he says decisively, but Rose looks away and drops to sit cross-legged on the floor. He joins her, wondering how long he should wait before changing the subject. Rose is—was—Huntsgirl. Fights have never fazed her before, and it's not like she's close to 18.
"I don't know if she did," Rose finally whispers. "You, me, 18, everyone else— We shouldn't have had to live the way we did. The way we are." She looks back at him. "I don't know how much they know about you or what they've learned about me, but I can't— We can't— I'm not doing this anymore. I might not have my family like you do, but I won't be part of the Huntsclan."
"What?" The question is out of his mouth before he can think about it. "We don't have that choice. We never did."
Whatever Susan says, he still doesn't have that choice.
Does he?
Running away is the closest he'll come to what she wants.
Isn't it?
"Not officially," agrees Rose, "but it's not like we've been playing by the rules for a while, is it?" Her mark is hidden beneath the gloves of the initiate uniform she's wearing, but she pulls her hands into her lap and rubs the thumb of her opposite hand over the dragon's head all the same. "Besides, if 18 wasn't lying, they've got something about you on tape. We're both compromised even if they aren't going to slay you."
Jake had been having a small bit of success in ignoring the ache in his chest, but it comes back full force with Rose's words. "About that. I…. I'm not a dragon anymore."
He'd have to be blind to miss the confusion in her eyes. "What?"
"There were other dragons, and they…took it from me. They'd prepared some kind of ceremony, I think, and activated whatever it was when they caught up to me. It— Susan says they took my dragon chi. I'm as human as you are now."
Not telling Rose what else Susan had said—that a former dragon will be consumed by the loss of their chi eventually—is not a deliberate withholding of information, as far as Jake is concerned. He'll tell Rose everything eventually. Just not right now. She doesn't need to know right now. That won't help either of them.
Besides, he doesn't want to think about this.
Thinking about it makes the ache worse.
"I didn't know that was possible," murmurs Rose, even though Jake knows she doesn't know that because he hadn't known it, either, and she'd never have kept the possibility of something like this from him.
Even if it's no longer something he wants.
Even if it's come too late for him to go back to the Huntsclan.
"They want Susan to wipe my memory of it, but she hasn't yet," he admits. Hopefully, that truth will be enough to distract Rose from what he'd lost before she can read the heartache in his eyes and hear it in his voice. She needs to know what happened, but if he can distract her, if he can distract himself…. It'll be easier to handle it all if he can, at least for now. Coming to terms with what all of this really means can be something he deals with if they survive past now. "She doesn't want to, but they know that. I don't know how long they'll give her the choice."
Rose blinks. "I'm surprised they trusted her with that choice at all. Even if it's a decision that should fall to the American Dragon—and I suppose to Susan in her absence?—wouldn't her own bias force them to take that decision out of her hands?"
"You'd think," Jake whispers. After the briefest hesitation, he adds, "Unless they believe Susan can get something of greater value from me before that point. There must be something for them to be willing to take this risk." If it's information from him, Susan hasn't asked him anything particularly suspicious except where the Huntsclan headquarters here are located, and that's clearly information the dragons could have gotten from the American Dragon. That doesn't mean they wouldn't be after something else, though. Or— "They knew the American Dragon was missing. That doesn't mean they knew she was here, but if they did…."
"She's here?"
"Yes. That's why we're here." Well, it's why Susan's here, and Jake's not sure he'll get a chance to go to records to find more answers now. Getting Haley out will have to be the new priority, since he won't be able to get the others out without her. Susan wouldn't go, at least, so he doubts Jonathan would, and Rose would worry about him, so—
"The Huntsclan managed to capture her? I thought she was somewhere safe."
Safe.
Jake can't remember the last time he'd thought he was somewhere safe.
One of the nights he'd been training with Rose in secret, maybe. Or when they'd had the time to sneak off to their cave. He certainly hasn't thought of the Huntsclan as safe since his dragon powers—
He's not going to think about that right now.
He's not.
"No," he says, because answering Rose's question is so much easier than contending with the thoughts in his head. "I mean, she might've been, before this, but— She had an application. Somehow. She walked into this."
"But the screening—"
"I know."
"Could she have gotten past that? Or— She wouldn't have intended to be caught. It'd be easier to find her if she were, but that wouldn't make sense. It would be far too risky."
"I don't think that's a risk she'd want to take," Jake says slowly, "but if she's not missing so much as on assignment…." He trails off. "I don't know enough to say that the dragons wouldn't be willing to sacrifice her to ensure their own safety. Her family wouldn't, which is why they wouldn't have been told if she was assigned this, but the others…. I'm not sure. There could be something else, though."
Rose huffs. "There always could be something else, but we don't have enough information to guess what it might be."
They really don't.
This time, Jake's not sure Susan does, either.
She certainly hasn't told him of any suspicions, but then again, he hasn't asked.
Still. Jake doesn't want to think about whether he's being manipulated right now. Or if he's bait, come to that, since that's hardly outside the realm of possibility. Thinking that the American Dragon—his sister—might be experiencing a similar fate is hardly a comfort. Better to change the subject before Rose presses for answers he doesn't have. "If you met Susan's husband at the shop—"
"Jonathan," supplies Rose, and Jake nods in acknowledgement.
"If you met him at the shop, why are you…here? He's not a dragon."
"I know. But he said— He said he was your father. And he knew your name."
Jake frowns. He can imagine Rose being as surprised as he had been, but that hardly explains everything. He can take comfort in the fact that Dolores was wrong and that Rose isn't here to turn in Jonathan, since they'd hardly be having this conversation if that had been her objective, but—
"He might know my family, too," she whispers, her words seeming to struggle to leave her lips, "but even if he doesn't, even if he's wrong, he's still treating me like family. Like I'm you. Because we're friends."
Ah.
Jake can understand that.
Even if Jonathan is wrong and he doesn't know Rose's family, or even if he's not wrong but her family is awful like 23's, Rose would still hope, especially after meeting Jake's family.
It wouldn't be in her to not hope, even if her head didn't want to for fear of her heart breaking.
"He was going to take me to your aunt's," she continues after a beat, and she's sounding more like herself again, "but 32 found us first and brought us back here. It might have been bad luck—we couldn't avoid every camera—but we ran into 88 and 89 at the restaurant where we were picking up food, and they might have reported in about finally meeting me."
The sound Jake makes is more one of disdain than anything else. "We ran into them, too. They said you had a secret mission?" It's easier to think on that than the rest of what Rose has said.
"I wanted an explanation for Jonathan's presence. I was trying to get them to renounce the Huntsclan before they had a chance to give me up, but they wouldn't bite."
"They've renounced them now. It took some encouragement," he admits as she gives him an incredulous look, "and some threats, but their sense of self-preservation finally came through."
Is it ironic, saying that when he hasn't yet renounced the Huntsclan?
Probably.
But it's different with initiates within their first year.
It always has been.
"Not the only good luck I've had tonight, then," murmurs Rose. Louder, she says, "I met a new friend at the restaurant. He's behind this power outage, and he's going to try to get into records and surveillance and destroy everything that he can."
Jake doubts Rose would use the word friend lightly, but this new friend of hers apparently has more skill in his little finger than 42 does in his entire body. Getting around the Huntsclan's defenses would hardly be child's play, let alone doing any sort of damage when people would be actively working to counter every move made.
He wonders what the favour cost her.
He wonders if she knows.
He wonders if she cares.
"I'm already compromised," she reminds him as the silence stretches. "And regardless of whether the Huntsclan found out about your mother's side of the family, you're not welcome here, either. Not now. We both know that."
She's right, as always.
They do both know that.
"We'll have a chance this way, even if…even if it's not enough."
"We're still bound to them," he says, but he knows even before she opens her mouth that she's going to deny something they've always taken as truth.
"Then they can consider this my unbinding," she says with a fierceness in her voice that hadn't been there a moment ago. "If you still think you'll be tied to them whatever you do, they'll win. They'll have you because you're already expecting to lose. And we can't— We have to hope. Even if it's hard."
Jake isn't sure if Rose's conviction comes from the promise of a family, relief at being united despite the odds being against them, a bit of borrowed optimism from someone else—presumably Jonathan—or something else entirely, but he's not sure it would have been there yesterday.
He knows he wouldn't have found himself wanting to believe her so easily yesterday.
"Do you really think we can do it? Break away from them when we…." He trails off but lifts one hand to brush the dragon snaking around his eye.
He's already accepted that he doesn't have a place in the Huntsclan anymore, even now that he's fully human. Compromised agents are too great a risk.
It's not that he really wants a place, either. He knows he doesn't want to hunt for the rest of his life. He just hadn't wanted to let go of what had felt like his last tie to Rose.
Now, it seems, she's let go of it before he has, thinking he'd already thrown caution to the wind.
"Yes. We kept your secret together, and we can do this together, too, if you…. If we're still in this together. Are we?"
There's a note of uncertainty in Rose's voice that shouldn't be there after so many years, and it's surely only there because of how he's treated Rose these past few months.
He'd kept enough to himself, despite everything that she'd known, that she isn't sure of his answer now.
He won't make that mistake again.
"Always," he says, taking her hand. "We don't have to be 99 and 93 or 99 and Huntsgirl. We only need to be Jake and Rose."
"Jake and Rose," she echoes. "No longer of the Huntsclan."
"No longer of the Huntsclan," he repeats. The words are cautious, and part of him expects alarms to sound now that they've both voiced the notion aloud, but if the magical wards could have been set up to identify his intrusion or his betrayal, they would have done so before this. Maybe they really can slip the bonds of the Huntsclan without the Huntsclan instantly knowing and retaliating. Maybe there aren't hidden repercussions. Maybe the dragons wouldn't have been able to take immediate advantage if he'd trusted them enough to take this step within their hearing.
He wouldn't bet on that, though. Not any more than he would bet they'd have returned what they'd taken from him or not taken it in the first place. Not when they would still see him as a threat. No amount of information he could supply them on the Huntsclan would change that, since they'd always be looking for more, and he's sure the purple dragon would have loved having him locked up and at her mercy while she questioned him.
Even if the high and mighty Dragon Council doesn't officially sanction torture, he isn't going to assume it wouldn't happen behind closed doors.
Regardless, his voice sounds more confident even to his own ears as he continues, "I renounce the Huntsclan. We both do."
He can't feel any power in the words. Somehow, after all his conversations with Susan, he'd expected to. He'd thought there'd be a tangible difference, a loosening in his chest if nothing else, but they're nothing more than words spoken with conviction.
Then again, he's never signed a contract. Neither, as far as he knows, has Rose. Why would they have needed to? They'd been born with the Mark of the Huntsclan. As far as they'd ever been concerned, that had bound them to the Huntsclan at birth.
And renouncing it had never seemed like a possibility until recently.
He still wonders if it's enough, if he needs to say or do something more, but it's enough for Rose. The sudden hug she gives him is assurance enough that she believes him and believes that this has worked.
He doesn't know how things are going to play out. He doesn't know what's in the future. He doesn't even know if they'll have a future.
But Rose is right: if they don't try to break free, they never will.
And, hopefully, since Rose is right, Susan is, too, and breaking free is possible.
Renouncing the Huntsclan has always been the best first step towards doing that, according to Susan. The rest, whatever it is, should be easier now. For a given value of easier, no doubt. But he's not alone, and now he has someone he can trust without hesitation to watch his back.
Being with Rose…. If they can somehow get through this and not be tied to the Huntsclan? That's all that matters. Being human will simply make it easier for him to disappear.
Susan might look for him even if he asks her not to, but he doesn't think she'd interfere once she found him.
He's not sure about the rest of her family.
His family.
Rose thinks his father is nice, though, and apparently both Susan and Jonathan intended to take them to his aunt's place. Would it have been the same aunt? Would they have met each other or missed each other? If they get through this, would that aunt be willing to let them stay there for a few days while he and Rose plan what to do next?
No.
Jake doesn't want to ask about that.
He doesn't want to stay with a stranger who might very well decide she knows him even though she doesn't.
Even after everything, he'd rather stay with Susan.
If the cave weren't compromised itself, Jake would go there with Rose in a heartbeat, but after Dolores and the messenger fairies and his own loss of control—
The Huntsclan might know about it now.
They can't risk going back.
If they do, they certainly can't risk going back for longer than it would take to grab supplies, cover what tracks they can, and get out of there.
Jake reaches for Rose's hand again and squeezes it. "What do we do now?"
He might be unbound, but he feels unmoored.
"Whatever it takes to survive."
