The Bargaining Path

by T. Rudacille

  ***

  My head injury was mild, so Adam allowed me to sleep, or at least, he allowed me to hover in some hollow space between consciousness and the dark oblivion of unconsciousness. I know that I must have been somewhere between because I remember distinctly the barrage of images and sounds that ran rampantly through my vulnerable mind: James, Violet, Penny, and Eli, all alive, but very tired; Don struggling to keep his—our—people from revolting and going off on their own; Adam's mind struggling to steel itself against my unintentional invasions, during which I would discover that his condition was worsening far more quickly than it should have been, and he could not heal himself despite how hard he was trying. He could not heal me, either, and he was trying harder to do that...

  My eyes opened, and instantly, I became aware that my vision had cleared up. My head did not feel as heavy. When I realized those two things, I frowned, knowing why his condition was worsening more quickly than he expected: he did not realize it, but he had succeeded in partially healing my head, and healing me had drained a large portion of his strength.

  “Adam...” I whispered. His head was on top of mine, and after a second, he raised it so I could raise my own. When I looked at him, he smiled weakly at me in an attempt to pretend like all was well.

  “You are not fooling anyone. I heard you while I was half-asleep.”

  Ignoring what he knew was a blatant attempt on my part to get him to tell me honestly how badly he was hurting or how grave his condition had become, he made a joke.

  “Were you only half-asleep? By the way you were snoring, I would have bet my life that you were peacefully perched at the farthest reaches of sleep.”

  “I do not snore!” I snapped at him, somewhat more irritably than I truly felt. “James has never mentioned it, and God or the Gods know he would have...” Adam was chuckling softly now, and I gaped at him in disbelief for a long second. “Do not laugh! You are lying, and... Do I really?”

  “You do. But let me assure you that it is a very lady-like snore. Very quiet. Also, I believe that it is the result of your nose being bloodied.”

  “More than likely. You do love the alliterations this evening, don't you? 'Peacefully perched', 'being bloodied', and my personal favorite, 'stupidly stubborn.'”

  “Yes. I should apologize again for that.”

  “You have actually apologized twice for saying it already. Once, you asked me to excuse the alliteration, which is a form of apology, I suppose. Then, you apologized for saying it at all. There is no need to keep apologizing, Adam. Though I appreciate it, we do have bigger fish to fry, as they say.”

  “Yes, we do. But still, I must say this: I could not stop him from hurting you, and you were defenseless, as well, but you were endangering yourself by spouting off at them. I was afraid that he would kill you, and furious that I could not stop him, so I reacted with anger at you, and I am very sorry. However, I will also say that I was genuinely angry with you.”

  “I am sure.” I replied, “Again, I accept your apology, alright? I understand.” He looked at me expectantly, and I narrowed my eyes at him. “I am absolutely not apologizing for what I said and did, but I will apologize for the emotional toll that it took on you.” I sighed and rolled my eyes to the patch of inky black sky that was visible through the almost perfectly circular clearing of trees above us. That patch was dotted with so many tiny stars that they all seemed to glow together in one conjoined, beautiful mass.

  “That sounded sarcastic.” I told him, “But I meant what I said. I am sorry that I cannot be sorry, also. And...”

  “By the one God, woman, you must practice your apologizing skills.”

  “No, I need not practice anything of the sort. I am not sorry, so... I am too exhausted for this, and have you not noticed that they are asleep?”

  “I have noticed.”

  “Well, hello?! Why did you not wake me the moment they drifted off?”

  “Because your snoring was wildly entertaining.”

  “If my hands were not tied behind me, Adam, I would be hitting you repeatedly right now.”

  He chuckled, but his body immediately tensed and lurched forward. Instantly, sweat broke on his forehead, and for a moment, he actually cringed visibly. But when I blinked, the expression was gone, replaced with his usual look of cool indifference, but still, I could see his jaw clenching.

  “Do not say anything. Please. Do not say anything about it.”

  It was partly a command, partly a plea. If it had been completely the former, I would have gabbed about his moment of weakness and his severe injury until he was contemplating head-butting me in order to shut me up. If it was completely the latter, I might have kissed him. That does not cast me in the best light, I know. But I would have, simply because my lips against his would have momentarily excised the pain from his consciousness. Instead of his lips, though, I leaned forward with great difficulty and kissed his cheek.

  “We have to go. We are running out of time. If ever there is a moment when we are going to be able to escape by sneaking off, this will be it.”

  “Oh, we are going to sneak off?” He asked me, and though I knew he was gearing up for one of his humorously sarcastic jokes, I recognized how very tired he sounded, and how he was also trying to move swiftly away from his moment of weakness, just like I was.

  “Do you grow your fingernails very long and file them to dangerously sharp points? Will you use them to saw through these vines? My, Brynna, I never noticed such monstrosities at the ends of your beautiful hands...”

  “Your injury is hampering your wit; that was a terrible joke.”

  “Was it terrible? I would say that it was not good, but to call it terrible...”

  “No.” I flung my body forward, trying to break the vines free from the tree. Surprisingly, they did creak and split slightly when I leaned as far forward as I could go and applied the full weight of my body against them. “The joke was terrible. But I forgive you. Now, lean forward like this.”

  “I... I cannot, Brynna.”

  I looked back at him to find that all signs of good humor—the glint in his eyes, the smirk on his lips—had gone completely to be replaced by that blank slate. He was ashamed, I knew, for having to admit how weak he had become and how terribly his injury was paining him.

  “Okay. It is alright.” I leaned forward, pushing harder against the vines, ignoring the jabbing of the thorns in my skin, not daring to grimace even slightly as several tore into my chest, scratching into me deeply enough to draw blood...

  “Brynna, stop.” Adam told me.

  I slumped back against the tree, sweating from the effort it took to keep pushing with all my might against the vines.

  “This is much harder than it looks. Do not judge me for being tired.”

  “I do not judge you. When your strength has returned, we will both try.”

  “You just said...”

  “I have re-thought what I said. There is no place for my weakness right now. If you were wise, you would leave me after we break free.”

  “You should know by now that I am not going to do that. It is not an option. Also, your weakness is the result of an injury, therefore I cannot judge you for displaying it however minimally. Just sit back, and let me handle this. They are almost broken.”

  I was able to scoot myself forward in the dirt a little bit because the vines had given way slightly. With a cautious glance up at the place where my father, Paul, Rich, and their thugs had fallen asleep, I pushed myself forward again, and that time, the vines split.

  My joy at breaking free was short-lived, though, because just as I prepared to maneuver my hands in front of me, I heard clapping behind me. The sound seemed to shake the trees with its deafening volume, and when we whipped around to find the source of the noise, we found Paul standing behind us, beaming brightly.

  “Ms. Olivier, you are a woman of many talents. I am now sure that Tyre will find you most amusing, and your life will be spared. You seem to have a fancy
for men as old as or older than your father, so this will not be all bad for you, I reckon...”

  Paul. Paul with his humor-infused tone and his complete lack of anger at my escape. The man merely found me entertaining, like I was a child demonstrating a clever trick at an elementary school talent show.

  “I am actually glad to see that you are awake, Ms. Olivier. There is something I wish to discuss with you. Stand up.”

  “No.” I said, “Whatever you need to discuss with me, you can discuss with me in front of him.”

  “I cannot, and I will not.”

  “What is to stop me from running away? From disarming you and running off?”

  “Oh, Brynna…” He said, and he gently grasped my upper arm and pulled me onto my feet, “You and I both know you could never leave him. Come, come.”

  He began to lead us away, and several times, I looked back over my shoulder at Adam, who was watching us go with the slightest look of consternation on his face. I did not think that Paul would hurt me; if he tried, I could easily take him, even with my hands tied behind my back. Either Adam feared the slight possibility that Paul would be able to pull out his gun and shoot me before I could overpower him, or he feared that I truly would run away. More than anything, I wanted to reassure him that I would not leave him, not even if I knew in certainty that I truly would be able to escape. Despite all that had occurred between us, we were in that debacle together, and so we would escape it together, too.

  Once we were a safe distance away, Paul and I sat down on two small fallen logs across from one another. Paul observed me for a long time, and I stared back into his searching gaze despite how exposed and uncomfortable it made me feel.

  “If you had to guess, what would you say is the reason for me bringing you here?”

  “I do not want to have to guess, and therefore I will not. Just tell me.”

  He smiled slightly, still looking into my eyes, but now the searching quality had left his gaze and he seemed resolved, as though he had, in just a few seconds, completely cracked the riddle of me.

  “Brynna…” He said, “You must know that your situation is dire. If you continue to prod your father and Rich the way you have been, they will kill you.”

  I gaped at him, completely dumbfounded for the first time in a long time. Then, I began to laugh, quietly and weakly, because my face hurt, but certainly in genuine entertainment.

  “Are you giving me a lecture on behaving myself? Are you trying to lead me to believe that you are concerned about me? That you merely do not want them to hurt me? What, is Tyre giving you some sort of bounty for turning me in, and if they kill me, you go home to your wife, poor, despondent, and pathetic? Have you any control over them, Paul?”

  “I do. Of course I do. But it is a long walk to our camp, and I need to sleep. I am the only one who can hunt. You will not be in my sight at all times. In any one of those moments, they could lose control on you, and despite not being ‘evolved,’ as you all like to say, the consequences such a loss of control would have for you are too dreadful to imagine. I actually will not think about them, because they curdle my blood, truly. Tyre would punish them if harm were to befall you, but he would not kill them. They only fear death, because they have suffered through worse in life already. I am sure you heard your father mention the Confessionals.” Paul looked away from me, and in the dim light of the torch he had been carrying, his eyes were cast in shadow. “They are the worst times. For all of us. Even Mary and Rich had to repent. They had to suffer the worst.”

  “And what is the worst?” I asked, only because I wanted to know what physical torture my father had been forced to endure.

  “Lashings, mostly. But being left exposed to the elements for days on end is another popularly given punishment. Most of the people who receive that one don’t survive for very long.” He looked at me, and his eyes had now taken on again that glint of mischievous amusement they always had, “The crows get very hungry. Some are given copious amounts of a plant called Silent Shade, which erases all the senses and paralyzes the body but leaves the mind utterly alive. For the thinkers like you, that punishment tends to get the job done. They repent afterwards. They repent during, I’m sure, but having no faculties of language, they can only moan and groan for the full seventy-two hours it takes to wear off. There is the Belladonna-Ipecac Treatment; low doses of the former cause the most disturbing delirium, and a diluted form of the latter causes excessive vomiting. Somehow, those two states being experienced repeatedly, in rapid succession, lead to repentance quickly. In fact, that treatment has the second-highest success rate. I suppose after spending hours rolling about with terrible stomach pain, a racing heart, and a mind full of darkness and demons, one does not want to spend the next several hours retching and vomiting until there is nothing left but acid and blood to expel. We warn our followers ahead of time that that treatment is the one with the highest casualty rate, and yet so many choose it. Let’s see, what else? Well, especially stubborn women get nights with especially pious men. Especially stubborn men watch their wives, who are genuinely especially stubborn, as well, get nights with those same especially pious men. Then there are the one-month stays in the Dark Rooms. One month in total darkness, and then twenty-four hours in bright light.”

  “That would kill someone. It would send his body into shock. So, nice try, Paul, but you are lying.”

  “It certainly would not kill a person, not after just one month. You must conduct your research more closely, Brynna. Don’t you remember that in your country, people were buried underground after the worst of the Waste Wars for six months? They lived. They were just never quite the same again, were they?” I shuddered, remembering it. The Wastelands. The No-Mans’ Lands. Entering them meant death; attempting to cross them meant suicide, and yet people tried. People tried and failed.

  Paul continued to talk, and I surfaced from those memories to listen.

  “Here, when people opt for that choice, they tend to lose their minds. At least a little bit, anyway. There are other means of repentance, but those are for the worst offenders. Well, the lashings are bare minimum for all, but the rest… For men like your father, there is the rest.” He looked up at me and leaned forward ever so slightly, “For people like your mother, there is even more.”

  “Are there people like my mother?” I asked, “I always felt that she was one of a kind: a negligent mother, a vilely self-centered and pathetically dimwitted politician, a whorish drunk who bent backwards over desks and office couches in exchange for career advancement… Just a far below par excuse for a human being who did not crawl her way out of a bottle long enough to even acknowledge that the world was ending, I am sure.”

  I laughed, and it was a sound more bitter than I had wished to make. I wanted him to think that I was unfazed by any aspect of my mother, be it her lack of maternal affection, her insufficiency as a human being, or even her death.

  “She was probably so drunk when it happened that it took just a tiny spark from the great blast to light all that booze in her blood on fire. She probably went up like a bombed oil rig. Do you remember those? Did you get coverage of that in Germany?”

  He nodded, smiling slightly out of the corner of his mouth, looking peaceful.

  “Well, at least she didn’t feel it.” I continued, “The booze always kept her nice and warm, and numb. Inescapably, mercifully numb.”

  “She didn’t feel it. You’re right, Brynna.” His smile grew, “She didn’t feel it, because she’s here.”

  All of my apathy towards our conversation evaporated, and I was looking up at him with widened eyes, absolutely transfixed. But quickly, the rapt interest disappeared at my urgent, spiteful behest, and I regained my visage of disinterest, boredom, and now, a little bit of anger.

  “Do not think that I am so stupid that I believe that? I saw her die.”

  “You saw what you thought you should see, then, Brynna, because I only just saw her three days ago. She is alive, but she is not
well. Your father brought her and John, her lover.”

  I snorted again with laughter, thinking that his story had to have been the most ridiculous and poorly executed I had ever heard. There were so many fallacious lines of reasoning, so many “plot-holes.”

  “My father hated John, and John hated my father. They…”

  “…both love your mother. Your mother would not leave the house unless John came with her.” He leaned even closer to me, “She also would not leave until he assured her that you would be on the ship.”

  “Your story is utterly ridiculous. It is also horribly trite. My mother, knowing that the end was near and her life could end, suddenly had an epiphany, and in said epiphany, she finally realized how cruel she had been to me, and after that, she rediscovered her love for me. Is that how it happened?”

  “Brynna, the only name I hear come out of her mouth these days is yours.”

  “Do you have proof that she’s alive?” I asked, but I answered before he could. “No? I did not think so.

  “I do not have it on me, no. So, you will have to trust my word. Think about it for just one moment, Brynna. Think about the possibility that she might be alive. Think about how that will feel, to see her again.”

  “It will more than likely feel like the first day of my menstrual cycle: like an annoying, unwanted inconvenience that instantaneously puts me in a foul mood because of how pointless its existence, or in this case, her existence is. You truly think I have any desire to see her again?”

  “Well, you might not, but your sisters and brother sure do.”

  “Penny has never cared about her. Violet and Eli would love to see her, yes, but if you think I would tell them this tale, if I were to see them again, then you are wrong. I will not feed them your lies. I will not raise their hopes only to see them dashed.”

  “You will see them again, Brynna. In a day or so, at the opportune moment, when they are least expecting it, I am going to help you escape. Adam is going to lead you to his village. I know that the six of us cannot invade alone; we will surely be killed. But there are many there whom Tyre wants, but he doesn’t know how to find it. There are people in the camp now, and they could leave the village once you arrive, come to us, and lead us back, but really, they are there to observe, to learn your ways, your weaknesses. Besides, we only want Adam, Janna, Don Abba, and a handful of others. The rest of you can live in peace until they have been properly disposed of. Then, unfortunately, my dear, we will turn our gaze to the rest of you. But…” He held up his finger and smiled, “It is a benevolent gaze, I assure you.”

  “So, let me explain out loud what I perceive is the entirety of your brilliant, dastardly plan: First, you orchestrate mine and Adam’s escape; then, he leads me to his village, where you already have spies, spies who could easily lead you there and save me the trouble, but then I lead you to the village despite all of that, you take Adam and these others, and then, what? I get my mommy back?”

  “Precisely.”

  “And then my family and I go on the run.”

  “No, you allow us to take over, and we treat you kindly as a result of your help and your willingness to live under our laws, which mind you, are not nearly as bad as you make them out to be.”

  “Right.” I said with a snicker, “Lashings, forced administration of toxic, mind-altering drugs, rape, light deprivation, and being left to the elements to be eaten by crows are not nearly as bad as they sound.”

  “It is all about choice, Brynna. Free will, if you will.”

  “I won’t. Does anyone have the choice to say ‘no’ to punishment?”

  “Your mother certainly doesn’t.” His tone dropped to complete seriousness and even a little malice. “After the mess she made of Earth, she and her three colleagues who made the trip have not had it easy. Their punishments have been public, and they have been brutal. She has suffered all of the ones I have mentioned, plus one hundred more.”

  “And what does John do? What does my father do? Do they just sit by and allow it? Do they say it is the will of God?”

  “No. John has been beaten within an inch of his life many times for trying to shield her from us, for trying to run away with her, for trying to gather a resistance together to fight back… But he has been nursed back to health, because we need a man with his skill set. Your father, on the other hand, has just begged Tyre like a pathetic puppy dog to call off her punishments for a year now. When he has to go out on these missions, it devastates him; say what you want about him, but he loves your mother.”

  For just one blink, one quick heartbeat, a jolt of electricity struck my heart and mind. The shocks fizzled away, reverberating through my arms and legs and rattling my bones, before I had even acknowledged them, and I was saying, “Yes… I know he does…” with more fury than I intended. Reverberating through my ears and through every empty corridor of my mind, I heard a fist pounding on the door, screaming her name, and then I saw a flash of red, red on my hands… And her arms—not my mother’s—were around me, and her voice—not my mother’s—was telling me that everything was going to be okay, everything was going to be okay, everything was going to be okay… But then, my eyes blinked once, and my heart beat once, and it was as though the moment had not happened at all.

  “She is very stubborn, Brynna.” Paul was saying, “So stubborn that Tyre says he has never seen anything like it. I would say that she is unbreakable, but there is no soul that can’t be broken. Not even hers. Not even yours.”

  “Her soul can easily be broken. Your prohibition on alcohol is the quickest way to do it. The poor woman has nothing to keep her warm at night. Is she back with John again? God, I thought he had moved on to someone more deserving.”

  His frustration was evident when he spoke again.

  “Brynna, do not make jokes anymore! Believe what I am saying to you. Believe it, and take this deal. If, after you escape and arrive at Adam’s village, you lead us there so we can acquire him and those others, we will give you your mother.”

  “What about John?”

  “We will give you John as well.”

  “Oh, but I thought you needed him?”

  “We do, but if he is part of your conditions for this, then you may have him. Besides, I would not give you your mother when she is damaged goods. I only trade merchandise of the highest quality in deals as important as this. I will not sell her to you when she is broken and despondent and near death as a result of her separation from him. We have tried multiple times to separate them, but he just gets himself in trouble, and she…” He stopped and shook his head, “It’s endless, what she does.”

  “I do not believe this story for a minute, Paul.”

  “You don’t now. But you will.”

  “What is the point of this secrecy? Why didn’t Tyre come himself to offer me this deal?’

  “Because he knows nothing of it. This is ‘my baby,’ as they say. This is my plan. I am an ambitious man, Brynna…”

  “Famous last words.” I murmured.

  “…and I hatched this idea because Tyre could not. It is one that he has not thought of, and if it is successful, my rewards will be bountiful. Here and in heaven.”

  “You do know we’re immortal, don’t you?” I asked condescendingly, “So heaven is a very, very distant place. Like, if all things go ideally, you will never see it.”

  “There are many of us up there, Brynna. There is a legion of us. We see heaven. Randomly, we are told it is time to see heaven. And we go, and we are unafraid. We take that last journey, because we were meant to take that journey. Death is a part of life. God made it so.”

  “Oh, God…” I whispered, and I was slowly shaking my head as I looked at him with disdainful sadness, “You people are out of your minds.”

  “Think what you will. Right now, all I care about is that you believe this story and that as a result, you say that you will think about our deal.”

  “I will not say that, because I would never betray Adam. Find your ow
n way to our village, and keep the drunken shrew, would you? I have already forgotten her face completely, and soon, I think and hope, I will forget that she ever existed. If only the same could happen with Daniel, I would be completely square for all eternity.”

  “Brynna…” He reached out and placed his hand on my knee, “Look at me.”

  I did.

  “It occurs at random intervals, so she never knows when they are going to come for her. But when they do, they drag her from the home she shares with your father, throw her into the city square, and then they submit her, publicly, to the worst things a human being can be submitted to. When it is not public, it is even worse—twice now, she has died and been brought back by the Pangaean healers. She is their Eve, the ultimate fallen woman. She pays the price for the sins of all of them, all the people who were responsible for the destruction of Earth. She pays the price for the fall of our kind. And every night… every night, she tells John that she deserves it. She cries and cries, and she tells him that she deserves it all… because of what she did to you. He tries to tell her that it’s not true, but she insists. Whenever I am in the room with her, or when Rich, or your father, or Tyre are in the room with her, she just begs to see you again. She wants to put it all right, Brynna. She loves you so much, and all she wants is the chance to tell you that, and to tell you that she’s sorry, and she would take it all back if she could. Believe me, sweetheart, she is alive up there, but if they keep this up with her, no amount of Pangaean remedies are going to heal her. She’s going to be lost to you again, and she will never have gotten the chance to make up for all she did. She told me one night that you left her a note, and all she would say was that you were right. That you made the right choice. That you had done her the greatest kindness you ever could have done when she didn’t deserve it. ‘You or them.’ That’s what you said, isn’t it?”

  That earlier jolt of electricity to my heart was nothing compared to this bolt of lightning sent from Zeus’s hand. Because I had stopped breathing, my heart’s beats stumbled several times, and my head began to spin again. Surely, my father could have seen the note and repeated its message to Paul at some point. But there was that chance that it really had been her… And that note had been for her, hadn’t it? I had not intended it for my father…

  “Brynna, just think on it. I will give you weeks. I will give you months, if you need them. I am a patient man. Just tell me that you will consider it.”

  I stared at him, seeing not his face but her hands, with the perfectly manicured nails, the veins protruding on the backs not unattractively, the light ring of skin one could always see when she took off her wedding band, which happened every night when she first came home from work… I closed my eyes and allowed my mind to fall back into the past even further; I watched her face contort behind the screen that left it completely unfocused, and I heard her cries, so soft, so delicate, so different from the loud, boisterous, babyish ones she had always made when she was drunk. That time, she sounded so tired, so afraid, so sad, so… old. And she whispered something, but her voice was as hazy as her face. Her words were a mystery to me. But she repeated herself, and then held the slip of paper to her heart.

  For one brief moment, more than anything else in either world, I wanted to know what she had said. In that strange way that one always knows when he or she is being talked about, I knew that her words had been about me. Was it an insult? A final proclamation of her ill-feelings towards me? A reminder to herself that her breaking of our bond had been the right thing to do? Or maybe… or worse… her words were none of those things…

  “Yes or no, Brynna? Will you consider it?”

  My heart ricocheted around my chest, even more confused than my mind was for the first time ever. But my lips formed the words, and my voice spoke them, and he smiled after they were said, after they were hanging in the dense Pangaean forest that was always watching, always listening:

  “I will consider it.”