Carnal

Chapter Forty - Fatal Allegiance

Clouds stained pink, orange and red by the setting sun floated beneath me at a leisurely pace.

Stars twinkling against a dark blue sky hovered in the space above me.

It was tranquil sight from my spot beside a window on the jet.

The state of the soon-to-be-sleeping earth calmed my racing mind. After a day of events that seemed to happen in the blink of an eye, I welcomed the slowness of the world around me.

In the moment of quiet, as everyone around me either slept or sat in silent thought as I did, I suddenly remembered what Cain had said to me:

I love you.

Those three words were almost enough to make me forget the hours of uncomfortable silence and days of emotional distance that had preceded.

Almost enough.

Hearing it didn't feel right, but I couldn't decipher if it was because I hadn't expected it or if there was another reason.

The knot that formed in my stomach at the thought of Cain was an uncomfortable mixture of nervous apprehension and lustful infatuation.

Looking down at the earth hiding beneath a blanket of cirrostratus clouds, I wondered where he was in that moment.

No one had heard from him since he'd left the conference room to follow Jacob that morning. Although Jai hadn't said anything pointedly, I knew he worried about Cain. It was evident in the crease that formed between his eyebrows when he talked of him.

I looked over to see Jai flipping through the photos Zahra and I had gotten from the hotel where Daniel had been abducted.

I knew he had to have memorized every pixel on those pages by that time as he had been looking them over for hours at that point.

My attention then turned to Zahra who was sleeping with her head against a closed window shade.

I couldn't help but notice how she slept with a hand on a concealed blade she wore in a strap on her thigh.

After the day she's had, I wouldn't trust any of us either, I thought.

Finally, I looked down at the young girl, Anvi, who was sleeping with her head on my lap.

Covered by a heavy wool blanket, her body laid in the seat beside me with her legs curled up and tucked close to her chest.

Despite the uncomfortable position, she seemed to be sleeping soundly.

Looking at her, I felt nothing but pure and utter sympathy.

She was still mourning the death of her father while being forced into a role she couldn't possibly fill at her age, much less understand. On top of this, she'd just learned of the possibility that her father was still alive.

I had tried to shield her from the rest of the conversation that followed her identifying her father, but I knew it wouldn't be long before she figured out just what it meant that he was still alive:

He was alive because my grandfather hadn't killed him; meaning he was useful for Jacob's cause.

He was the traitor that Jacob had referred to.

It was ironic really, that the only person able to identify the traitor in that conference room was the one who had no idea what was going on.

Genuinely, we would have been there for days interrogating people who were innocent and we never would have suspected that Anvi held the answer we were looking for.