Riley walked around her and pulled her up, turning her to face him and wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly, not letting her move. “It’s all right, kid. I think you are the least broken person I’ve ever met, if it matters. Telan will get over it too, with time. I’m never not going to be sorry for what happened to you, but you won’t get any pity out of me, I promise. I know how that is, to feel that. I think all of us here do, in one way or another. This place is full of broken people, Selena. You’re not one of them, trust me on that. But you should go and talk to that boy in there. I doubt he’ll hold any of it against you. Truth be told, I’m surprised he didn’t beat the shit out of me…. He should have. Go ahead, kid.” He let go of her and went in to check on Lancer, giving the kids some space.
“I don’t know how much more drama I can take, Riley,” Lancer said quietly when he walked in.
He walked over and sat on the edge of his bed. “I like them. The both of them. They are decent kids, likely more decent than we ever were. Don’t be too hard on her, if you can help it.”
Lancer smiled at him, a full on smile, a first in what seemed like years now. “He spilled her secrets. He deserved to get slapped for it. She’s all right in my book, is what I’m saying. I’m just not sure making you a murderer sits well with me, and I’m guessing that’s your plan. Hunt him down and kill him…. Tell me I’m wrong.”
He wasn’t, so he shook his head, Lancer just nodding to him.
“If the council were to decide his punishment, would we execute him?
He didn’t know. They never had anything like that happen here, so he told him as much.
“He raped her, didn’t he?” A whisper, that.
“No, but I think he would have,” Riley said quietly, and curled his hands into fists, trying to stay calm. “It was before she got to the orphanage, and she’d been there since she was eleven, from what Telan told me. She was just a kid, just a little starved kid who didn’t have anybody to take care of her but that boy, and he beat the shit out of her and then did that to her”—he dropped his eyes for a flash, and then looked at his friend again—“I can try to kick him out of here, but he doesn’t strike me as someone who’d leave peacefully for one thing. For another, I can’t get past thinking that he’d end up someplace with a bunch of starving little kids and do it to them too, and I couldn't live with that.”
Lancer stayed quiet for a long time, keeping his eyes closed, and he thought for a moment that he passed out on him. “In my lab bag, the old torn up gray one I have, front inside pocket, you’ll find a few blue capsules. Take them and find a way to get him to take it. Catch him drinking or something. They’ll dissolve in anything liquid, hot or cold. He’ll die from a heart attack in twenty minutes. It’s the best I can do for you. You’re not putting a bullet in his head, as much as you might want to. We can’t have that here, and you, of all people, know that. This is the next best thing.”
Riley was stunned. The man had something like this on him this whole time, the whole time they’ve been trying to keep him safe, keeping their eyes on him, so he didn’t kill himself to spare them, and none of them knew he could have done it whenever he wanted to. It didn’t add up, that he didn’t. He seemed to want out as soon as he knew how sick he was. He stared at him for a long time, not quite knowing what to say.
“You don’t know me very well, Riley. You think you do, but you don’t. I never wanted to kill myself. I just didn’t want to die the way I thought you’d make me, is all. I would have eventually done it, but I wanted a bit more time with you. And I wanted to wait for the others to come back so I could say goodbye, only Max bloody beat me to it, that old son of a bitch…. Get out of here, kid. I’m beat,” Lancer said weakly, and closed his eyes, a small smile playing on his lips.
He kissed him and watched the smile turn into a frown, but he knew he was pleased, and he let him be.
He was grinning to himself when he lay down on his bed. Lancer was back, and happy about it, by the looks of it. He had buried him in his mind so many times, it still seemed impossible that he wouldn’t die, not for a long time. And not for the first time he was thankful that Brody didn’t pull the trigger on his father all those years ago. Max was the best of them, the only one of them who had the courage to break his word, and he knew it took everything for him to do that.
9
Poison
Trevor, June 18, 2244, Reston.
Trevor saw her staring at him with a look of horror on her face. It was dusk already, but he’d never forget those eyes. He turned away and thought for a brief moment of running, but he couldn’t do that to Sam, didn’t want that little kid to ever have to run again or to not have enough food. The people running this place were decent, so everybody said, and he knew Sam would be all right here if they agreed to let him stay, more all right than he’d ever been before. He didn’t think they’d kick the kid out if he ran, but he couldn’t take that chance, not with Sam, and just the thought of running again made him hurt. He walked slowly to the building they were staying in, remembering all the dusty, ugly places he’d lived in and then ran from and he knew deep down he was done running, and not just because of this little green-eyed kid he loved.
He knew one of the people in charge here would come looking for him. The girl recognized him, he could see it on her, and he could see, too, that she was afraid; deathly afraid. He didn’t blame her, after what he’d done to her, couldn’t ever blame her for that. He remembered sitting there for hours keeping an eye on her after he hit her, feeling more afraid than he’d ever been in his life, hoping she’d wake up or make a noise, but the girl just slept.
It scared him that she didn’t open her eyes again, but she was breathing evenly and he didn’t find any blood on the back of her head. He could tell he scared her worse than anything, could see in her eyes before she bit his hand that she knew what he meant to do to her. He was completely sober after he hit her, and he hated himself for what he almost did to her then, and he was glad she never came back to the warehouse after that. He always hoped she found a safe place. That nothing worse happened to her.
He went down to breakfast earlier than he usually did, needing to get this over with. Sam was still soundly asleep on his side of the cot when he got up, so he kissed him softly on the head, whispering to him that he loved him, and that he needed to believe that, even if he couldn’t see him anymore. He hoped these people would take care of him, didn’t see how they could hurt him for something that wasn’t his fault.
The dining hall was almost empty when he got there. He poured himself a cup of coffee, not feeling that he could stomach any food, and sat facing the door, waiting. He saw the man they called Riley in the doorway after a while, scanning the room, so he nodded to him, not getting up. Riley walked over and he stood, looking at the too-tired face of this young man.
“I know why you’re here,” he said quietly, registering surprise in the man’s eyes, and suddenly he caught the blur of Sam’s slim form running toward them. He cursed under his breath, all he had time to do before the kid wrapped himself around his legs.
Sam didn’t seem to notice the other man. He was looking up at him with that impossibly sweet face of his, tugging on him. “The girl over there, she has a really hard name, but she said she could teach all of us to swim, only I had to ask you first if it would be all right for her to do it. She said it feels like flying, this swimming does, but I don’t know what that feels like, but I want to, I really want to….” He was finally out of breath, still looking up at him.
“You can tell her that I’ll be glad if she taught you to swim, but right now I need you to go back to your room and wash up, brush your hair, do all the things you normally do, and then come down to breakfast with the other kids. Deal?” he said to the kid in as even a voice as he could manage.
Sam nodded, grinning, and was gone.
Riley hadn’t moved through all of it, but his face was tense when he looked at him again after trailing Sam with his
eyes.
Trevor’s hands shook, so he stuffed them in his pockets, hoping he was quick enough to where Riley didn’t notice. “I knew one of you would come find me…. I saw her yesterday. I was waiting for you, just didn’t think he’d wake up so damn early. He never seems to want to wake up at all on most days. I won’t fight you on whatever you need to do. Just … take care of the kid, if you can. He isn’t like me. He’s decent, and he doesn’t have anybody.”
“Walk with me,” Riley said coldly, and turned to the door.
He followed without a word. Riley stopped him as soon as they walked onto a trail and told him he had to search him for weapons. He turned around and held his arms out to the sides, letting the man pat him down. Riley seemed surprised that he didn’t have anything on him, but he didn’t say anything, and they walked for a long time after that in silence, taking a collection of narrow, winding trails far enough away from the city to where he likely couldn’t find his way back on his own. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t ever going back there again.
Riley stopped in a small clearing and dropped the bag he was carrying, his back to him. Trevor put his hands behind his back, waiting, hoping this would be quick, and that he wouldn’t embarrass himself.
The man finally turned around, and then looked at him for a long time. “Why didn’t you run?”
He didn’t know how to explain it to him, to anybody. It didn’t matter, so he shook his head. “Will you let him stay with you?” He hated how shaky his voice was.
Riley nodded.
He dipped his head, looking into the man’s surprisingly soft eyes, and said in a voice that he hoped sounded much more like him now, “Do what you came here to do then.”
Riley pulled a thermos out of his bag and slowly walked over to him. “I’ll let you run, if you want to. I didn’t think I would have before, but I will. You can take the kid and run, or you can go alone and we’ll take care of him. You have my word on that.”
It surprised him that he’d offer him that, after what he’d done. Surprised him and made him hurt. He didn’t want to run. He never again wanted to run, but he didn’t know how to explain it to this stranger. He shook his head, but the man kept looking at him, waiting, and he couldn’t help it then. It didn’t matter if he told him now, and something in Riley’s tired face made him not want to lie to him.
“I’ve been running since I was a little kid. My father … he was good to me. I watched him scream at my mother, watched him beat her savagely for years. Watched him do other things to her too, things I didn’t understand yet. He’d tell me afterwards that it’s how it was supposed to be, that she wasn’t good to him, and he was helping her be better. She never talked to me, you know, just looked at me like she hated me, like she didn’t know what to do with me”—he closed his eyes, remembering—“one night they were screaming for a very long time and I couldn’t sleep, so I crept out of my room and watched them. I had just turned six. He punched her hard in the face, and she was bleeding, and then she was screaming at him again. I remember thinking then how it didn’t seem to be working, how it didn’t make her any better, what he did, but I didn’t feel bad for her for some reason, and it bothered me that I didn’t. They were in the kitchen, and when he hit her like that, she fell against the counter and he turned away to put his hand in the sink…. She watched him run cold water over his hand for a beat, grabbed a knife and ran it into his back.”
He stopped, catching his breath, Riley standing in that same spot, eyes down, hand wrapped so tightly around the thermos, his knuckles were white. He needed to get the rest of it out, so he rushed through it, wanting to get it over with, the remembering of it.
“I screamed and ran into my room. I remember pushing all the things I had against the door, remember being afraid of her. And when I woke up, she was gone. All her things, too. I knew she wasn’t coming back. I stayed in that house until I couldn’t find anything to eat, and I’ve been running ever since…. I don’t have it in me to do it anymore.”
Riley finally looked at him, his jaw clenched, and he felt bad for spilling all of it, for making this stranger feel like that because of him.
“I’m sorry. You asked, and it felt wrong to lie to you,” he said softly. He looked at the thermos, knowing somehow that he planned to poison him with whatever was in it, that it wouldn’t make sense for him to be offering him a drink now, and he cringed at the thought of dying like that. “We used to kill rats with poison…. I know I likely deserve it, but—” and he couldn’t find the words for a beat. “I won’t give you any trouble, I swear. I won’t fight you. You can tie my hands if you need to, if you don’t trust me on that. I’m asking you to please not make me die like that.” He took a step toward Riley, hands still clasped tightly behind his back.
Riley dropped the thermos on the ground, not moving for his gun, staring at his face, and he really needed for this to be over. He knew it would happen ever since he saw the girl. He was ready.
“I gave Selena my word that you wouldn’t be here when she woke up this morning. I can’t go back on it now. But I don’t have it in me to shoot you. I am begging you to please run. There are small Zoriner camps all along the river. You’ll find a place to belong to,” the man said, and it embarrassed him, making his face burn.
“Whatever pity you feel for me, don’t. I did enough horrible things that I’ll never be able to make up for, not if I live a hundred lifetimes….” And he felt that he needed to just tell him, to make it okay for him to pull the trigger. “I beat the shit out of those little kids. Whenever they didn’t come back with enough food, I lashed out at them, slapped them around. I did to them what all the bigger boys did to me when I was one of the little kids, for years. I hated them for it, too, so I kept running when things got bad for me, only when I got to Colton, I was the biggest kid, and somehow I was in charge. I never thought I’d turn into the very boys I’d spent years running away from, but I did…. I was so scared I couldn’t keep all of those kids alive, I was angry at them for it, and I started beating them. And the girl…. When one of the kids brought her to that warehouse, I didn’t know what to do with her. I’d never been in a group with any girls in it. I went to sleep every night thinking that one day she’d run a knife through me, and I started beating her too. And then that night, I was drunk out of my mind and pissed at hell. I was fifteen…. It was the first time I was ever drunk. Last, too, but it doesn’t matter. All the kids were asleep, all but her. I don’t know what made me do it to her, never understood it after that. I know I wanted to hurt her, wanted to make her pay for what my mother did maybe. It doesn’t matter. I never thought about how my father must have been to her to drive her to do what she did, not until afterwards—” He stopped, the remembering of it making his voice hitch.
Riley hadn’t moved at all, just stood there, straight-backed, his face serious, but sad too, and he wished for a brief moment it were someone else who came to find him today, someone who wouldn’t get him to talk.
He took a deep breath and rushed through the rest of it. “I would have ended it myself, years ago. I wanted to, only I found this little abandoned kid, Sam. I named him that. He was too little to talk back then. He’s been tailing me ever since. What I’m saying is, I don’t have anybody but that little kid, and he’ll be much safer with you than with me. I would have run for him if you said you couldn’t keep him, would have likely fought you to let me, but I trust you to keep him safe now, so I don’t need to run anymore.”
Riley pulled out a gun, an old one, and took a step closer to him.
Trevor straightened, took a deep breath and nodded that he was ready, only Riley wasn’t pointing the weapon at him for some reason. He flipped it around and tried to hand it to him, and it didn’t make any sense for him to do that, so he kept his hands as they were.
“I trust you not to shoot me in the back. Maybe I shouldn’t, but I do. I am going to walk out of here, leaving you with this to protect yourself with, if need be. If you keep going on th
is trail, you’ll reach the river in twenty minutes or so. Turn right. You’ll get to one of the camps by sundown,” Riley said quickly, set the gun down on the ground next to him, threw the thermos into his bag, and turned away from him, his heavy footsteps disappearing quickly into the woods.
He waited for what seemed long enough and then picked up the gun and cocked it, took the safety off and pointed it at his head. He couldn’t hear Riley’s footsteps behind him anymore, so it felt safe to pull the trigger, and he did, the sound of it hurting more than the piece of metal going through him. He felt something hot and wet spreading from the top of his head, blood, he realized after thinking about it, and then his knees gave out under him, and he was falling. He was okay with falling, okay with all of it. He closed his eyes, hoping it didn’t take too much longer for the rest of his body to catch up to what he’d done….
He felt hands on him and then arms wrapping around him for some reason, lifting him up, and it didn’t make any kind of sense, and he wanted to fight these hands off him, didn’t want anyone touching him. He felt something cold and sharp touch his head and heard a strange scream, a high-pitched, awful scream, his fuzzy brain telling him that it was his, and he couldn’t help but let the darkness take him after that.
10
The Trial
Selena, June 24, 2244, Reston
She remembered the first time she went to see him on the Med floor. A tiny dark haired boy with sad green eyes was staring at her when she walked in. He had his feet up on the chair, hands wrapped tightly around his knees.
“Are you his friend?” the boy finally asked in a high voice.
She shook her head.
Alliance: The Complete Series (A Dystopian YA Box Set Books 1-5): Dystopian Sci Fi Thriller Page 63