He slid up the tree, looking at his friend. “All right,” he said quietly, and that was that. All he’d need to say to him.
Soren smiled, gray-blue eyes crinkling in the corners, and lunged at him, hugging him, making him want to smile, something he hasn’t felt like in far too long, and it felt right to do this. Everything about this felt right.
They caught them on the third day. Soren was off at the small stream getting some water and he was packing up their supplies when he saw six soldiers walk into the clearing they slept in last night, the embers still burnt-orange-hot in the fire. He didn’t know any of them. They looked older than the camp’s patrol guys usually did. They had their guns drawn, and they were scowling at him. The oldest-looking of them finally walked up to him and told him to put his hands out in front of him. He did. The guy quickly snapped biters around his wrists, not saying anything, but pulling tightly, as if he was angry at him. Maybe he was. These guys probably tracked them through the woods for the last two days and nights.
“Where is Trad, Maxton?”
He shook his head. He had to warn Soren, so he’d know, and maybe he’d still be able to run, so he whistled loudly enough for it to travel to the stream, the signal they worked out to mean danger. He hoped Soren heard him and would run.
The man glared at him. “What was that for, Maxton? I asked you a question, cadet. Where is your friend?”
He shook his head again, and the man turned him around roughly and pushed him against the tree, making his face dig into the rough bark, took out his nightstick, and then hit him on his back, hard, over and over again. He saw Soren running to the clearing from the corner of his eye, screaming at the man to stop.
They dragged both of them to the flier, nobody saying a word to them. The trip back to the camp took less than an hour, so they didn’t make it all that far after all. They walked them through the entire grounds of the place, in front of everybody, boys screaming insults at them, at him, mostly. Soren was at least liked. They took them to the dungeon—that’s what the boys called it because it was supposed to be dark and wet and the only place below ground they were aware of. And it was. Dark and damp, with bare concrete walls and nothing to sit or lie down on, nothing in there at all. Nothing but the tiny stream of light that swam tepidly toward them from the dusty light bulb in the ceiling, making barely enough light to see each other by.
“You’re a bloody idiot. You should have run. He wouldn’t have killed me or anything, you know that. Why the hell didn’t you just run?”
Soren stared at him, shaking his head. “Would you have? If he was beating me like that?”
He didn’t know. Didn’t think about it, but probably not. He just knew that he wanted Soren to run, is all. “What will they do to us?”
His friend slid down the wall, looking up at him.
He remained standing; didn’t want to sit on the floor that he couldn’t see well enough, didn’t trust it.
“I don’t know. Nobody ever runs away from these camps. I’ve no idea what they’ll do. Beat us and throw us out, maybe. I’m sorry, Lan, I truly am.”
He slid down the wall next to him then. It didn’t matter about the floor, didn’t matter about anything but the fear of what would happen.
They sat in silence for hours, and finally, the door opened, metal grating on metal, making the little hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. The two guards grabbed them and shoved them out of this tiny room and up the stairs, and then outside to the square between the dorms. It seemed all the cadets were there, lined up in rows, watching them, and he couldn’t figure out why at first, and then he saw it and knew what this was, knew that Soren was right. There were two posts in the middle, next to each other, and the Dean, wearing white, stood like a statue, facing the crowd of boys, waiting. The guards pushed them to the posts and had them face the cadets. Soren looked at him, whispering how he really was sorry for this again, but he shut him up. He hoped he wouldn’t scream. Didn’t want to scream in front of these boys.
“Cadets Maxton and Trad betrayed your trust. Betrayed the oath they took. They are what we call deserters, and we do not tolerate deserters at this academy. Our laws prohibit us from executing anyone under the age of fourteen, and as much as I disagree with this prohibition, we have to follow the laws. In lieu of that, these cadets will be lashed by their former classmates. Let the pain and embarrassment of this moment stay with them for the rest of their cowardly lives. I need the junior classes to step forward.” He signaled to the guards and they untied their hands.
“Take your shirts off.”
They did, Soren holding his head high, standing straight. He hoped he was, too. He needed to just get through this without embarrassing himself. He’d never been whipped before. Never saw anyone whipped before, either. He hoped he could take it. There were only forty boys in the junior classes, including them.
The guards had them face the posts as they shackled their hands to the metal restraints above their heads. He looked at Soren, his face hard, eyes afraid. He nodded to him and waited.
“Any cadet who takes pity on either of these two cowards will get the same treatment,” the Dean barked.
He saw Baylor walk up to Soren and swing a cane at his back. He heard the swoosh through the air and the thud against Soren’s back and he flinched, couldn’t help but flinch, and he could feel the boy standing behind him then. He closed his eyes. The pain was immediate, searing, spreading all the way down his back. He dug his fingers into the post, hard, keeping his eyes closed, waiting for the next thud on Soren’s back, hoping both of them could take this. He felt his mind go blurry after a while and his knees buckled. It felt good to let go, to not feel the pain anymore, so he did, only to wake up to an angry face of the guard holding something under his nose, something that smelled awful. He felt ice-cold water on his face and felt himself being pulled up to stand. Soren was looking at him with concern in his eyes, his face wet too now.
“We’ll give them five minutes, boys. You can work on your swings.” The Dean’s voice broke through the fog in his head. He could hear a smirk in it.
And then Soren’s strained voice cut through the giggles of the boys. “Just get on with it, if you would. I don’t want to miss dinner.”
And they did. He couldn’t stop counting, couldn’t stop holding his breath for each strike, but he didn’t pass out again, and he didn’t scream, wouldn’t let himself. Soren kept looking at him, eyes dark, in pain dark, and finally when it was over and they untied them from the posts, Lancer reached out and grabbed his friend’s hand, needing to hold on, so he didn’t fall, Soren looking grateful for it. The medics were there with the stretchers but they didn’t want to be taken out of the square like that, not after what they just went through. They walked, not looking at anyone, holding on to each other, not saying anything, and the cadets weren’t screaming insults at them anymore. Few of the boys even had the decency to lower their eyes.
It took two weeks for their wounds to heal enough to where they were deemed fit for training again. The Dean came in with two men dressed in strange gray uniforms with yellow markings on them.
“At ease, cadets. You have been assigned to continue your training with the S-Squads. Do you know why we call them that?”
They didn’t.
“Because they are suicide squads, boys. From here on out, you don’t exist, as far as the Alliance is concerned. You have zero access to our neuro nets, zero protection. Nobody to save your behinds is what I’m saying. On the bright side—you get no implants either. Nobody in there does. So you did get your freedom after all,” he said, smirking, and he walked away, leaving them to the men in grays who stood flanking the door like statues.
They marched them to the clearing outside the camp, and he saw two fliers a few meters apart, and he knew what it meant.
“Permission to speak freely, sir,” Soren asked in a strained, quiet voice.
“Permission denied.” The taller one shoved Soren toward the fli
er away from him.
Soren stopped, ignoring the gun at his back, and screamed that he’ll find him again, that he promised he would find him again. The guard pulled the trigger.
Lancer knew he was just stunned, not dead, but it didn’t matter. He ran to his friend, and his vision went suddenly dark, Soren’s body blurring into the grass, the grass he was now smelling for some reason. His friend’s smiling eyes stared at him from the green blades, gold flecks in the middle, his voice whispering something to him through the haze, something he couldn’t make sense of, but it made him want to smile.
That’s what he’ll have to hold on to from that boy. Not his bloodied back or the weeks of his apologizing to him in the med bay. He’ll hold on to the smiling blue-gray eyes and the soft whisper making him feel that it would be all right for them in the end. That in some small way, they were still unbroken and free.
11
Embers
Brody, June 7, 2236, Reston
Brody was glad Maxton was with them. There was a quiet confidence about him. It’s as if he’d simply decided that they would be able to pull this thing off, if they did it just right, and there was no need to worry about it going wrong. So they worried about training the girls and the rest of them properly instead. Maxton took over all the hand-to-hand stuff, and he was glad he did. He was better at teaching it, and the girls didn’t seem as afraid to hit him as they did the rest of them. Maybe they didn’t think they could hurt him, but they took to it, and they were all getting much better at it. He noted, too, that the man was kind to everybody. Kind to Drake, and Ella, and the girls, and he knew for sure that Riley was right about him, that he never meant any of the insults he spat out when he first woke up in the tower that day.
He found him sitting in the comm room, his head resting on his hands on the desk.
“Hey, Lancer…. Stan wants to talk to us about something he found.”
He didn’t look up at him. “Give me a minute, Brody.”
His voice was shaky. Something was wrong, he could feel it.
“Brody, please. I just need a minute.”
He left him, closing the door behind him quietly, hoping nothing new happened that would put them in danger.
He’d know soon enough. He still felt embarrassed in front of this man, still felt guilty for what he did to him and that kid, not quite trusting that Lancer was over it; that he ever could get over it.
Stan was pacing in front of the wall, not looking at it, head down. His shirt was buttoned wrong again, but nobody had the heart to tell him. It’s just how he was, always missing a button or two, never quite looking put-together.
He sat next to Riley and waited for Lancer to come in. The girls haven’t worn the dresses Stan made them since that day, and he was grateful for that at least. He knew they would have to soon since they planned to go in a few days, but at least for today, he wouldn’t have to worry about that.
Lancer walked in, looking his normal calm self, apologizing for making everyone wait. He sat by himself, not looking at anyone but Stan, nodding to him.
“Okay then. So Loren and I have been going through all the chatter that we could scavenge from Crylo, trying to figure out who was in charge there, of the lab mostly, so we know what we are dealing with, and this name came up, and… well…. It could be someone else with the same name, of course, or a fluke of some kind—” He stopped, looking uncomfortable.
“Spit it out, Stan,” Riley said.
But Stan was looking at him, not Riley, and he knew that whatever it was that they heard had something to do with him.
He got up and walked over to him. “What is it, Stan? Just say it.”
Stan put his head down, not looking at him. “Fuller, Brody, that was the name, Max Fuller. He is one of the people in charge of the lab and we don’t know what else….”
Nobody made a sound. They just sat there looking at him.
Laurel got up, a question in her eyes, but Drake pulled her back down again, whispering something to her. Riley just put his head down, hands making fists on the table. He had to get out of there. “Thank you, Stan,” he whispered, and walked slowly to the door, closing it softly behind him.
He ran into the woods, to the clearing they used for target practice, trying to wrap his brain around what he just heard. So they did mean it, after all. That bloody footage that ran him out of Waller, that cost him Trina, cost him everything, they meant it. His father meant it. His father was probably there when they did what they did to Trina. He felt sick just thinking that. He walked deeper into the woods and threw up until he had nothing left. Lancer was in the clearing when he came out, leaning on a tree, watching him. He walked up to him, needing to get this over with. Lancer would try to talk him out of going now.
“Here, Brody, drink some. It’s just water.” Lancer handed him a small thermos.
“Just say it. I am pretty sure I know why you’re here,” he spat.
“All right. I had Riley and Drake tell me what happened to your parents, to you. I am sorry. I didn’t mean to pry, but I had to know what we were dealing with. There isn’t a thing I can say to you to make this any easier, so I’m not going to try. I just wanted to make sure you were all right. I didn’t come here to try to talk you out of going if that’s what you were thinking. I wouldn’t do that to you. But we might have to adjust our plans a little.”
He and his soldiers were supposed to be the ones dealing with the lab personnel, and now they must all be questioning if he could do it, could shoot his father if he had to. He felt he could. After everything that man put him through, he wanted to.
Lancer was looking at his face, eyes serious. Another thing for all of them to feel pity for him over. He felt a flash of anger at the man for it.
“Don’t. I had about as much pity from everybody as I could take. We don’t need to adjust any plans. I’ll do what I have to, no matter who is in that bloody lab. Sorry you wasted your walk.” He turned away from him.
Lancer’s hand gripped his shoulder, hard, stopping him, keeping him in place. “Look at me, Brody. We’re not done.”
He did, glaring at the man, still angry at him, angry at him for not letting him go, not letting him just be now.
“Have a seat. There is something I have to tell you, and it’ll take a little while.” Lancer slid down the tree, nodding to him to sit in front of him.
He did, and Lancer put his head in his hands, looking like he did earlier today.
“You remind me of someone. Someone I lost a long time ago. I spent years not thinking about it, but with you… you have the same eyes, Brody.” He lifted his head, looking at him, and asked quietly, “Do you know how people end up in the S Squads?”
Brody shook his head.
Lancer just nodded. “S stands for suicide, not secret or whatever everybody thinks it stands for. It’s for deserters from regular soldier camps and other criminals that they couldn’t just execute, usually because they were too young….”
And he let him talk then, not wanting to interrupt, putting his head down when he told him about him and Soren being whipped by their classmates, trying to imagine what it was like for these two boys to be standing there like that, with everybody watching, trying not to scream. And he could see this man as a kid, his face already serious, eyes unsmiling. Could see him running toward Soren and screaming at the guards, trying to get to him through the haze after being stunned, and the years of not wanting to let go, and then years of wanting to forget, and finally not thinking about it anymore. And he felt not a little guilty that of all the people here he was the one to remind him of the friend he loved, of someone he lost. He wished this Soren kid looked like Riley or someone who didn’t hurt Lancer, anyone but him.
“I’m sorry, Lancer.” He got up, Lancer standing too now, watching him. “I’ll stay out of your way, so you don’t… so you don’t have to be reminded of him. I know how it is. It’s like how I feel when I see Laurel in that damn dress, only it’s likely worse for you b
ecause of what I did.” He felt his face get hot, and put his head down, hoping Lancer didn’t notice.
Lancer lifted his face by the chin, not too gently. “Look at me, kid.”
He did, feeling even more embarrassed now.
“That’s not why I told you. I was thinking of all that earlier today when you came to get me, but I couldn’t talk to you about it then, didn’t know how to yet. I wanted you to know that you brought something back for me, something I tried to bury a long time ago, and I’m grateful for it. And that I don’t look at you with pity, as you seem to think. I just see him in you…. But you and I made a deal, and you’re not keeping up your end of it. You promised me that you would try to get over whatever guilt you feel for when we first met, and you really need to do that, because I can’t stand you being embarrassed like this every time you look at me. I don’t know what it’ll take for you to stop, but you really need to.” He let go of him.
Without thinking about it or planning to do it, Brody unclipped his gun and his knife from his belt, threw them on the ground next to Lancer, and put his hands behind his back. “I need to feel that we’re even. You’ve been nothing but kind to me, and it just makes it worse. It doesn’t add up, doesn’t make any sense for you to be like that with me after what I did,” he said quietly.
Lancer shook his head, staring at him, and then without moving anything but his hands grabbed him by the shoulders, squeezing hard, eyes angry. “I am not hurting you, Brody, even if it will make it easier for you. I don’t need to get even with you. I’d gotten over it a long time ago. But you… you need to find it in you to forgive yourself, and I don’t know how to help you with that.” He shoved him away and started to walk to the city, not looking at him again.
Alliance: The Complete Series (A Dystopian YA Box Set Books 1-5): Dystopian Sci Fi Thriller Page 42