Chapter 216

I sigh sharply out of my nose and take my seat next to Jackson, giving my mom and dad a final glare for good measure. My mom nods to me, a small smile gracing her lips, letting me know that she isn’t fully happy about it either. But, she wouldn’t have let it happen this way if it wasn’t necessary.

With a nod from my father, Hank begins by telling Jackson all about his years in the northern provinces – about working hard to bring medical aid to impoverished communities there, both wolf and human. Then he begins to speak of the Community, about never being able to break into it – listing the things he does and does not know, the gaps in his knowledge.

“Do you know?” Hank asks, clearly very curious. “About the status of the medical facilities within the Community?”

“I don’t know much besides my personal experience,” Jackson says, still feeling a little cagey. “I was trained as a warrior – they didn’t…they didn’t want me to know anything except what I was supposed to know. Everything I know about the medical facilities I know from being patched up inside them but…” he shrugs, “I heal very fast. I only had to go to the medical facilities once and from what I remember it was very…bare bones. Just a cabin like most of the others.”

“What sort of supplies did they have inside?” Hank asks, eager, and from the way he leans forward I can see that it’s all professional curiosity shining in his eyes. “Do you think that if we offered more supplies – completely free – just dropped at the door - that the Community would take them? Use them?”

Looking down at the table Jackson shakes his head sharply, his shoulders tense. But he doesn’t say a word.

I squeeze his hand, anxious for him, feeling the tension radiating off of him like heat from a flame.

“What is it, Jackson?” mom asks, leaning forward towards him. When I look up at her, I can see that she likewise senses that something is off and that her heart is in her throat. I swallow hard, knowing that she loves my mate almost as a son now and hates putting him in a situation where he’s uncomfortable.

Jackson raises his head and looks only at mom, the only person besides me who I think he’s comfortable talking to. “I’ll answer all your questions,” he says softly, tentative. “But…you have to understand. The Community values secrecy above all else – I have been trained since I was a child to believe that if I told anyone outside the community anything at all that I’m committing the greatest sin. I am…fighting a great deal of indoctrination here. You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t find it easy.” He shifts his gaze now to look between Hank and my father. “But I won’t hold anything back. It might just…take me a minute.”

“Thank you, Jackson,” my mom says quietly, and I see her fight her urge to reach across the table for his other hand. “You take your time.”

“I agree, son,” dad says, holding Jackson’s gaze with a gravity I know is innate to him. “Thank you.”

Jackson exhales deeply, hanging his head a bit, and continues. “The Community wouldn’t take the medicine – they’d see it as a weakness. They’d throw it out – destroy it. Not only would they be suspicious of anything given from the Moon Valley government, they believe that illness and injury only make you stronger, and that if you’re not able to survive it on your body’s capacity alone then you…probably shouldn’t live. Strength of the individual, and of the Community as a whole, was…critically important.”

Hank exhales a long breath as he begins to type some notes on his laptop, shaking his head, I think hating that the Community thinks that way. His whole creed as a doctor, after all, is to help everyone – especially the weak and the sick.

Jackson and Hank continue to talk for a while, Jackson answering each of Hank’s questions about the medical status of the Community to the best of his ability, though his answers are limited by the fact that the Community didn’t let him in on most of the information. Dad lets Hank ask all of his questions, but I see his tension growing, see him waiting patiently for his own turn to ask Jackson questions of his own.

And as I see it, I frown because…if this meeting is not to increase Hank’s knowledge of the Community’s medical status and see what we as a nation can do to help those people, then what the hell else is it about?

My dad turns his head a little, feeling my suspicious gaze, and he sighs and nods when he sees it. A tiny confession that there is more to this than just what Hank wants to know.

When Hank turns to my father, letting him know that he’s got all he thinks he needs from Jackson, dad finally begins to voice what I suspect is the real reason for this little interrogation.

“Hank has also told us some more worrying things about the Community, Jackson,” dad says quietly, though his deep and resonant voice has no trouble filling the room. “About the Community’s allegiances and their…stance regarding my rule.”

My eyes flash at this because…what?

“They’re citizens, aren’t they?” I ask, sitting up straighter and looking between Jackson and my father. “Of Moon Valley?”

“They are,” dad says, nodding to me. “The lands the Community lives on are within the borders of Moon Valley – everyone born there has the rights of a citizen.”

“That’s not how they think of it,” Jackson murmurs, looking down at the table.

“What do you mean?” dad asks.

My mate lifts his eyes to meet my father’s. “I mean that…if they draw maps, they would draw the borders differently. They understand the Community to be a sovereign nation within itself. I mean, no one talked to me about it – not in those terms. But the way we were asked to think of ourselves? They…certainly do not think of you as their King, sir. And they do not at all see the laws of Moon Valley as applying to them.”

“You keep saying ‘them,’” Hank says quietly, curiosity thrumming in his voice. “Jackson, do you…not understand yourself as a member of the Community?”

“Not anymore,” Jackson says instantly, turning his gaze to Hank. “Ella and Ariel know this – but I had some time living in the Capital before I came to school here, time during which I was meant to acclimate myself to Moon Valley customs so that I would not stand out so much at the Academy.”

Mom’s mouth twitches a little, like she’s aware that three months was not nearly enough. But Hank and my dad stay still, letting Jackson continue.

“During that time,” Jackson says, moving quickly now, I think not wanting to remember it, “I…learned a great deal about the world, and about Moon Valley, and all the things that the Community purposefully kept from me. All the lies they told me, which they asked me to believe were true.”

He hangs his head now and I tighten my hand in his, wishing there was something else I could do to make this easier for him.

“I made a decision in those three months,” Jackson says quietly, looking down at the table, “even before I met Ariel that…I was never going back. What they do to people is not…right. I’m not stupid,” he says, raising his eyes again and looking hard at my father and Hank, “but…I am ignorant. What I don’t know about this world could fill a library – but I do know that what the Community does to its people is wrong. That there should be more…free will. If that’s a thing.”

My heart breaks for my mate as it does every time he tells me about his life in the Community. Once glance at my mother lets me know that she’s feeling the same. Dad, however, remains stoic, his eyes on Jackson.

“I have to ask you, son,” dad says, his voice tight and stern. “Why the Community would risk your learning so much about the world by sending you away. Why did they send you to the Academy.”

Jackson straightens shoulders and looks my dad in the eye. “I was sent as a spy, sir,” he says, solid and even.

My eyes flare in shock at this bland confession.

Jackson glances towards me but then looks back at my father. “It’s not a secret – it’s never been,” he says, shaking his head. “I told both Ariel and Ella that I was sent to the Academy to learn cutting edge military techniques and technologies. That when I felt I had learned enough I was expected to drop out and desert, to return to the Community to share that knowledge with them.”

Dad raises his own eyebrows in surprise, glancing between me and my mom, perhaps wondering why we didn’t tell him this. I blush terribly – but honestly, Jackson isn’t doing that anymore, so why would I tell?

“And are you still a spy?” dad asks, returning his hard gaze to Jackson.

“I am not,” Jackson says, almost harsh in his vehemence. “I’m never going back there. I’m not telling them a damn thing.”

Dad studies my mate for a moment, clearly working hard to decide whether or not he’s telling the truth. My spine stiffens at dad’s even needing to think about it and I glare hard at my father, even though he doesn’t look at me.

“You’re enrolled in a military academy and receiving a salary from Moon Valley, Jackson,” my father says, straightening up and leaning across the table a bit to look hard at Jackson, to impress him with the depth of his meaning. “Part and parcel of your education and your pay is the assumption that you’re willing to fight for our nation. If you’re no longer allied with the Community, does that mean you understand yourself as a citizen of Moon Valley now? Are you a patriot?”

Jackson takes a long moment to stare at my father, his throat working hard. Then slowly, without looking at me, he squeezes my hand. “No sir,” he says quietly, looking hard at my father. “It does not.”

My gasp rings out in the silence of the room.