"I have half a mind to shoot you, mute, for good measure. What do you say to that?" The mustache walked up to him and stuck the barrel of the gun under his chin. "Here, or should I aim for your dick?" The gun traveled lower. "You still even have a dick or did they cut that off too?" The other two laughed, holding on to their crotches, pointing at his.
He had to let them. He stood there, head still down, not looking the mustache in the eyes, trying to make his face look calm. They wanted their entertainment. They wanted their dumb, mute, maybe dickless slave. At least they stopped kicking at Riley's ribs. That was something.
The jacket of the mustache beeped in short bursts. He took his comm out and pressed it to his ear. "Yes, of course. On our way. Yes. But... I understand." He flicked it off, and Drake noted with not a little satisfaction that the man was no longer laughing. None of them were.
"Hassinger wants him, apparently alive," the mustache spat toward the other guards, "and you too, although I've no idea what she could possibly want with a dumbass mute. Let's move it." The gun jabbed Drake in the back, and the commotion behind him let him know the boy was dragged to his feet and walking. At least he could still walk.
He'd never been in this part of the compound before. He didn't even know it existed. He always thought all the floors here went up, but they just went down, using an old service elevator at the end of the hallway you could only get into with a fingerprint scan. He needed to remember this if he had any hope of finding his way back here. He didn't think Hassinger would execute him. Male slaves were far too rare for that. And she seemed to genuinely feel sorry for how dumb Zoriners were. It made it easier for her to convince the girls of their inherent gifts, their purpose.
The guard with the ugly mustache pointed at a large metal door with his comm and it slid open, as if running on gears, the grinding, metallic noise making his teeth hurt. The room looked like he always imagined old prison cells looked. Bare concrete walls, a tiny bed, a sink, a toilet, and two metal stools in the middle.
Hassinger stood with her back to them when they entered. Without turning around, she lifted her hand and beckoned them all in.
"You are dismissed, all but Drake and the boy. Leave." Her voice was colder than when she was giving her speeches, but still not unpleasant. There was a huskiness, a softness to it as if she’d spent her whole life never needing to raise it to be heard.
The guards shoved Riley into the middle of the room, pushed him onto one of the stools, and left, silently, but for the grinding of the opening and closing of the door. She was still standing with her back to them.
"I will need help guarding this boy, and I need it to be someone I can trust not to talk." She turned around then, looking him over as if he were an especially interesting species of pig.
"Nice to finally make yourself useful, isn't it, Drake?"
He nodded, hoping his face didn't betray the dread he felt about the boy, about what she wanted him to not talk about.
She seemed satisfied with her inspection. She took his hand and programmed his print into the door's id pad, and handed him a comm. "You'll need these two to get in and out of here. Do you know how to use them?"
He nodded again and moved to stand by the door, as he thought she'd want a guard to do.
Hassinger walked over to where Riley was, slowly, as if time was of no concern to her. "Name. Do you have one, Zoriner?" She sat down opposite him, staring at the top of his head. Drake watched her reach out and roughly grab Riley under the chin and jerk his head up. "You will look at me, Zoriner. I want your name."
Riley was looking at her now and shaking his head.
Why wouldn't he lie? Make up a bloody name. She had no way of knowing what his actual name was. What could it hurt? He wished Riley wasn't sitting with his back to him, wished he could talk to him in some way, even if just by shaking or nodding his head.
Abruptly, Hassinger got up and walked over to the wall behind the bed, and pressed her fingers into the wall, as if she were typing something into it. The wall slid open and a sleek, metal tray came out. She picked up a small, thin-bladed knife and walked over to Riley. "Stand up."
He did.
She shoved the chair out of the way, walked around him, and with one move, sliced his shirt open.
Drake flinched and noted with dismay that Riley did not. He was playing a dangerous game, Riley was. He was being defiant. It wasn't smart of him, and if anything, Riley was smart. That couldn't have changed in the few years he hadn't known him. He needed to find a way of helping him somehow or this was going to end badly. He couldn't do that to Ella, not this.
Hassinger was back at the tray, calmly going through a variety of white handles. He couldn't tell what those were.
She finally seemed to have found what she wanted. It still looked like a handle to him, something that you'd put on the end of a whip maybe, but there was no whip part. "I don't care about your name anymore, Zoriner. So don't tell me. I want to know which of my girls you came here for. That I will make you tell me if it kills you. I don't expect anyone to miss you where you come from and Drake here – he doesn't talk. We are far enough underground where nobody will hear you scream, kid. Oh, and I forgot to tell you," she leaned in close to Riley's face, "I will enjoy getting that name out of you."
She was standing in front of Riley, her hand on that weird handle thing, fingers tapping on the plastic of it. She must have pressed something on there, for suddenly, a long, thin, razor-sharp piece of metal sprung out of it. He heard it vibrate through the air. It made his insides hurt.
She pulled out a small silver screen and pointed it at the ceiling. A metal rope flew out of an invisible opening, with a wide cuff on the end. She pulled the cuff through the slave band on Riley's hands and locked it in place. The rope went up, taking Riley's hands with it until they were up over his head.
He stood unmoving, head still up, but for just a moment Drake saw his face tense, an almost imperceptible knot appearing and disappearing in his jaw.
"It's been a very long time since I've had to do this. I've missed it." She waved the razor whip through the air, slowly, making sure Riley saw the thinness of it, the sharpness. She was watching his face, looking at him. Then she smiled, a full-on smile, and Drake knew that she didn't want Riley to talk, that she wanted to do this, to hurt him. She was a bloody sadist.
Hassinger walked around the boy, still playing with the whip. "There are twenty-six girls in this compound. Since you won't divulge the name of the one you broke in here for, I have no choice but to punish you for all of them. Your back is just big enough for that, lucky for you, or we'd have to move on to other places. Feel free to scream, Zoriner. It'll make me enjoy this more." She swung out her arm and brought the whip out some and then flicked her wrist, the whip curling away from Riley and then into his back with that awful metallic buzzing.
Drake watched as a deep gash opened up in the top of Riley's back. The hand was up again, and again, and again. He looked away. He wished Riley would scream, but by now he knew that he wouldn't. He closed his eyes, counting each of the blows, hoping the kid survived this. Hoping this was something that could be survived. Finally, the buzzing of the furling and unfurling metal stopped. He couldn't bring himself to look at the boy. He heard the rope come down and the metal on metal sound of the cuff sliding away from the slave band.
"Wake up, mute, and get him out of here. You can unlock his band when he is at the gate." She dropped the whip on the tray, pressed it into the wall, and without once looking at Riley walked out the door.
When the grinding stopped, he finally looked at the boy. Riley was swaying lightly, eyes shut, but still standing where she left him, his back just streaming redness. Drake ran to the sink and turned the water on, found the coldest setting, and let it run. He unlocked the slave band, and gently pulled what was left of the kid’s shirt off. He'd need it to try to take some of the pain away. The cold water should help. He hoped it would help. He soaked the shirt, fingers going numb a
t the coldness of it, and pressed it as gently as he could to Riley's neck and let the streams from it run down over the wounds. He kept at it for a long time, until Riley raised his hand, stopping him.
"I'm okay, Drake. I can walk now." He faced him and put his hands out in front of him, nodding to him to put the band back on. It hurt him to do this to him now, but the kid was right. He had to do it, had to play the guard until it was safe not to.
They walked very slowly through the hallways and then up to the main floor and to the lawn. There was a slight breeze in the air, and on it came just a hint of sweetness, jasmine or orange blossoms, though it was far too early for those to be blooming now. But there it was still, the kind of smell that should signify the end of school for the year when carefree kids roamed the streets falling in love, plucking leaves off of trees to mask the smell of stolen smokesticks on their fingers, but never these blooms. The good kids wouldn't touch the blooms. This Riley was one of the good ones.
They were almost at the tower. Riley walked slowly, carefully, not once turning around to look at him, not saying a word. Maybe he could tell him about Samson now. He had a right to know.
Riley stopped at the gate and turned around, finally looking at him. "I know she's here, Drake. I will come back for her. I'll find her and get her out of here…I have to. But I can't use the tree anymore. I can't get you in trouble. I'll find another way."
Drake unlocked the slave band and dropped it on the ground. He didn't want the damn thing in his hands.
"I have to go, Drake," Riley whispered and faced the gate, waiting for him to slide it open.
"I buried your Samson, Riley. I found him and I had to get him out of there. Didn’t want you to be the one to have to do it, to see him like that. I'm sorry I couldn't save him. Couldn't save any of them. I wanted to tell you for all these years, but I just couldn't do it, didn't know how to."
Riley didn't turn around to look at him, just stood there, breathing hard, his broken back rising and falling fast. "Where? Where is he?"
"The back of the house, by the garden. It was too cold to go deep, but I dug as deep as I could... I had this old cross my mother had that she gave me. I put it in there with him. I didn't know what else to do. I'm sorry."
Riley nodded and put his hand on the gate.
He had to let him go now; go and cry for Samson again, and for the pain in his back, and for Drake, who couldn't save him from Hassinger today. Drake, who never saved anybody.
5
Scars
Amelia, March 28, 2236 (Present Day) The Compound
She needed time to process all of this. Marching him down to the headmistress would be the right thing to do, but she couldn't bring herself to do that, not yet. She needed to think, and she couldn't do that here, not while she was inadvertently pointing a buzzing weapon into the back of this strange boy. He seemed far too eager to be shot by her. They, Zoriners, were supposed to be survivors. Their savagery was predicated on a biological imperative to live at all cost. That's why they were thought of as so dangerous. They'd stop at nothing to survive, so this boy practically insisting she either shoot him or turn him in didn’t add up. She had to buy some alone time. Not here or anywhere where someone could see her or talk to her.
The morning wake-up alarm blared through the compound. This one was for the groups that had early morning chores today, so she still had a bit of time, but not much before her roommates got up. She felt more than saw him flinch at the sound.
"I need to go down before I am missed, and then I need a little time to process all of this…. I am not going to shoot you, so you might as well turn around and put your hands down."
He turned around then, but his hands stayed up. "You don't trust me... It's all right, Amelia. If you need to leave, you should secure me in some way. I get it. I'm okay with it," he said quietly.
He was right, she didn't trust him. Too much about this boy didn’t make sense, but she had nothing to bind his hands with, and even if she had, she was unconvinced he would be immobilized by a pair of cuffs for long. Then suddenly she knew. Maid-bands. Every room in the compound had them. Wide metal bands that they used to bind the wrists of new maids. The only way to get out of those was a fingerprint of the person who put the band on in the first place, or the guards, or the headmistress.
She walked him to the den that had an unmade metal bed, a chair, and a smallish sink with a mirror over it. Without a word, he sat in the chair, hands still clasped behind his head. The panel on the wall behind him slid open at her touch, and she reached in and took out the maid band. She pressed her index finger to the ID pad. The latch on the band opened without a sound, a small blue light pulsing on the outward-facing side.
She faced him. Riley didn't seem to move at all until his eyes registered the band she was holding. He jumped up in one fluid motion, all the calmness gone from him, as he stared at her, struggling to speak, panting. She took a cautious step back. Maybe she misjudged the stuff that didn't add up. Maybe he was indeed how all Zoriners were supposed to be, and he would hurt her now or even kill her. Instinctively, her gun hand went up and pointed at his chest. She wouldn't let him kill her quite so easily. She might be small and a girl, but the stun gun at the setting she had it on was lethal even to a full-grown man, and this boy was not quite yet full-grown.
He put his hands out in front of him and took a step toward her. "Go ahead." His voice sounded pained for the first time. So it wasn't rage or anger that she saw on his face, but pain, fear maybe. That, too, made no sense. It was just a piece of metal, not a bunch of undoubtedly broken ribs or worse, damaged organs. His hands shook slightly when she put the band around his wrists and used her finger to lock it in place.
She felt him flinch when the metal touched his skin. He blanched. She'd seen so many maids wearing these bands when they were first brought here; none of them seemed in any pain or afraid. The bands almost looked like jewelry and didn't bite into the skin like ordinary cuffs did. Yet, he definitely looked in pain now, his eyes looking very much like Laurel's that time, silently begging her not to break her arm. He stood there waiting for her to do something or say something but looking past her face. Maybe he thought she was enslaving him. But they didn't have boy slaves, except for Drake. He was the only one. Everybody knew that.
"What is it?" He couldn't really hurt her now, not with his hands bound like this, and her still pointing the gun at him, so she took half a step closer to him, and gently put her hand on his shoulder.
He froze. "Please, don't...." It was a plea, not a request. His voice hurt somewhere deep in her chest.
She didn't want to hurt this boy. Time, she just needed some time. She ran quickly to the makeup alcove and dabbed a bit of concealer on the dot on her cheek, waited for it to dry and become invisible again, and ran all the way to the door and down the stairs to her room.
Her roommates would be just waking up now, so she sidetracked into the bathroom first, hoping Laurel and Stella slept as deeply as they usually did, and her absence had gone unnoticed. Poking her head into the room, she saw she needn't have worried. Laurel's head was still under her pillow, her blanket in a heap at the foot of the bed, and her pinkish toes moving with her breathing, making scratching noises on the sheets. She was dead to the world. Stella was just sitting up and rubbing the gunk out of the corners of her eyes.
Amelia smiled at her, and the two of them pounced on Laurel's back, jabbing their fingers into her ribs, not too gently, to wake up, not to tickle. Lateness of any kind was more than frowned upon - it was punished by extra chores for the girl and her roommates. Finally, Laurel flipped on her back and the two huge blue eyes flew open. They might all just make it if they dressed in a hurry. They fumbled through their dressers for the right color tee shirts: blue for Mondays. They pulled on their identically colored jeans and flats and bolted down the stairs to the kitchen.
They were almost the last ones in before the inspection. Laurel giggled at their almost lateness - she always
enjoyed cutting it close. Amelia could almost smell the adrenaline pumping through her now. She loved and hated this about Laurel. Ever since they met almost nine years ago now, they roomed together. Amelia was more of a daredevil back then but had sense enough to do it in secret. Laurel never seemed to have grown up, no matter how many training sessions she passed with flying colors.
Laurel would know what to do about the boy, about Riley. She found it strange that she just called the boy by his name in her head, and that it felt nice to do it. She needed that thing that Laurel had been born with, the thing hidden in the back of her perfectly implanted memories, that spark of doing bold, unpredictable things. The thing that made her smirk at the headmistress behind her back and never get caught. But she couldn't share this with her, at least not yet. Not her or anybody.
It was lucky for all of this to happen on a Monday. Mondays were for meditation and the girls were left well enough alone until dinner. Her group didn't have any chores today, except for the standard making of the beds and cleaning the room. Amelia stuffed her food into her mouth, unladylike, as her mind went over all the things that happened this morning.
She felt Laurel punch her on her arm, and almost jumped in surprise at the not too gentle jab, but then calmed herself and looked over at her friend with a smile.
"I'm starving, okay? Maybe I'm going through another one of those growth spurts, or maybe my body decided that my boobs need to be a little bigger than yours...." Laurel would buy this. This banter has become second nature to them. She needed Laurel to buy this. Stella was in her own world again, daydreaming of that perfect boy she was destined to make lots and lots of babies with. She didn't need to worry about her.
But she had to find a way of blowing Laurel off for the rest of the day. They usually wandered the empty rooms of the compound on Mondays, jabbering about teachers, and Drake and the headmistress, making up stories about people who used to inhabit this place or just horsing around.
Alliance: The Complete Series (A Dystopian YA Box Set Books 1-5): Dystopian Sci Fi Thriller Page 4