She pulled up a chair and sat quietly, looking at him, not saying anything for a while, hoping he’d say something first. He didn’t.
“What happened to you, Trevor, before, I mean…. All those scars on you. Who did that to you?” she asked finally, if only to break the silence between them. She saw his face tense up, but he didn’t look at her, didn’t say anything. “I won’t tell anyone else, I just need to know, for me.”
His breathing changed, and he finally looked at her, eyes dark, in pain dark. He must have refused the pain meds after all. His voice was tired, strained when he finally spoke, so very quietly, but there was an edge to it, too, anger maybe, as he remembered.
“I was about ten when I got to this one place, this tiny, dusty village. I don’t remember much before that…. Anyway, I was so hungry then, I knew for sure I was going to die. I was hiding in this barn, chewing on hay when a man walked in and saw me. He was the first man to whip me like that. I asked him for something to eat and he whipped me with a horse whip until I was all bloody, and threw me out, telling me that he’d kill me if I ever came back. I walked for days, and fell in with a group of boys, orphans, and the older boys there would whip the little ones. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I ran, only every time I found a new group of kids, the same thing would happen in a new place. In the last place I was in, they bet on how long we’d stand it without passing out or screaming, cheering us on. It was a sport to them, hurting us like that. I never thought I’d become like them, only I did.” His voice broke, eyes shut tightly now. “I would run if I didn’t have Sam, so you never had to see me again. I will, if you ask me to, but I hope you can find it in you not to.”
She leaned in and put her hand on his wrist. He flinched. “I don’t want you to run,” she said softly, and let go of him, not wanting to embarrass him. Trevor’s eyes were shut so tightly, she could see all the lines around them, making him look much older than he was. And she hoped he’d be able to let it go one day, the thing he did to her, the way he was with the kids. And she was glad Riley couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger.
She could finally let go the fear she always felt at night. Could let herself want to be touched, and maybe someday, Telan wouldn’t be so afraid to. Trevor seemed asleep now, likely because of whatever was dripping slowly into his veins, so she got up without making any noise, and very quietly left the room, and then ran toward Riley’s house, to the boy she liked, wanting more than anything to wrap her arms around him.
11
The Lost
Fuller, June 28, 2244, Reston
He tried to talk to Riley for days after the council, but he wouldn’t even look at him when he ran into him coming out of the room Trevor was in. He let him be, but it bothered him that he looked at him with a perpetual scowl now, as if he did something unforgivable. He went to see Trevor the day after, felt he had to make sure he was all right. Ella told him that he wouldn’t take anything for the pain, no matter how hard she tried to get him to, and all she could do was give him something to help him sleep.
He’d just woken up when she let him into the room, closing the door behind her in that soft way she always had about her. Trevor watched him as he pulled up a chair and sat, his fingers tapping nervously on his leg.
“You need to let it go, Trevor,” he said, “it’s how it works here.” He clasped his hands in his lap.
Trevor shook his head. “I can’t let it go. I did what I did, and it’s always going to be a part of me. But I won’t be any trouble for you here, I swear.”
Max nodded to this strange boy. “Ella says you won’t take anything for the pain, which tells me you’re still punishing yourself, and I’d like you to stop, son. What would it take for you to do that?” Trevor’s face tensed up at the words.
He didn’t say anything for a long time, his eyes shut, and then looked at him and told him in a whisper that they didn’t need to worry about him in that way, if that’s what it was. That he wouldn’t try to take his own life again.
“Because of Sam?”
Trevor just nodded and shut his eyes again, and he left the room after that, and ran right into Riley.
He stopped, but Riley ignored him and went into the room, not once looking at him. He had to let him be, so he’d waited him out for days now, and he couldn’t take any more of it.
Riley would be at home, given the late hour, and he hoped the kid wouldn't throw him out. He found him pacing in the kitchen, alone.
“Go away, Max…. I don’t want to hear it, any of it. Please, just go away,” Riley said to him harshly.
Max pulled the door closed behind him and sat down on the bench, watching him pace for a long time, not saying anything, hoping he’d calm down soon enough.
Riley finally stopped his pacing and faced him, staring at him with unguarded anger.
“He needed to do it. I know you could see that much. I wouldn’t have touched him, if he didn’t practically beg me to. I think he’s been needing to do something like that since it happened, since that night…. That it’s the only way he could live with himself. I’m sorry, kid. For what it’s worth, it hurt like hell to swing the whip at that boy’s back after everything.” He dropped his head on the table, exhausted from thinking about it, exhausted from everything.
He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder, Lancer’s, he knew, but didn’t have it in him to look up.
“Never thought I’d say this, but that kid is the most honorable criminal I’d ever met. I am glad it wasn’t me having to do it, is what I’m saying. Riley is too pissed off to see what you had to do and why, but he will someday. He also seems to be too pissed off to offer all of us some bloody tea, at the very least, so I’m going to go and take care of it.” And he went to put the kettle on the stove, and proceeded to loudly open and close all the cabinets looking for cups or whatever else he needed.
Riley didn’t move from where he was, letting Lancer make all that noise, ignoring the both of them. Max couldn’t take it, the noise, so he got up and snapped at Lancer to stop making a bloody show of it and to just sit down, and then finished making all of them tea, dropping a few fresh sage leaves into Riley’s cup.
Riley didn’t touch it, didn’t sit down either, and he didn’t have it in him to fight with him.
“What did you want him to tell us, Riley?” he asked after too long of this silence between them, not looking at him.
Riley turned away from them, staring out the tiny window, as if he could see something in that darkness that would help him find the words for whatever he was feeling, and finally told them, quietly, how Trevor grew up and what happened that made him run like that and how it was for him afterwards. Told them, too, that he didn’t know that he’d been tortured like that, that the boy never told him that part for some reason, so he doesn’t know how he got those scars. Finally he faced them, his face looking all sorts of sad, and whispered, “I didn’t think people changed all that much, Max, didn’t think any of us did, but he really is decent, and I almost killed him. I almost bloody killed him.”
Max walked over to him and pulled him into a hug, Riley surprising him by notfighting him on it, and he walked him to the table and handed him his tea, watching him take a few sips.
“Where the hell are they, Max? It doesn’t make any sense for them to be this late, it just doesn’t,” Riley finally asked the one question that’s been fraying everyone’s nerves for days now, only they never once talked about it.
Nobody knew where they were training. The way Brody did it, they could be anywhere, so long as it was wooded. He didn’t know what to say, so they all sat there in silence, waiting for Brody and the rest of them to magically walk through the door, stinking of fires and filthy, as they always did. Telan and Selena came in after a while, faces flushed, as if they’d been running and they all said their hellos, and went back to their silences, the kids disappearing without a word into the rest of the small house.
He must have passed out for a while after that, hi
s head digging into the wood of the table, because he didn’t hear the door open until he heard her voice, Laurel’s voice. He was up, staring at the face of the girl he’s known for years now, the girl who loved his Brody in the way he hoped would last their whole lives…. She looked a mess, her boyish field clothes dirty and torn in places, her face sporting a few bruises and frightfully tired-looking. He registered Riley’s soft voice finally and then Laurel’s again.
“They have them, all of them, Brody and Drake, and the kids,” and she slumped into the chair, sobbing.
Riley had his arms around her, telling her that it’ll be all right, that they’ll go get them just as soon as she was calm enough to tell them where the hell they were and who had them.
Lancer made her a plate of cold meat and some veggies and a cup of coffee and set it all down in front of her without a word, but she wouldn’t even look at it.
Finally she seemed calm enough to talk. “Gregory was guarding the camp that night. He is the little skinny half-breed, the one with all those freckles on his face. Anyway, he must have dozed off. I was in the tent with the girls when they came and got us. That woman’s kid, Hassinger’s boy is in charge of them, only he isn’t a kid anymore, and he knew who we were somehow, knew it was our camp. Anyway, his people marched all of us out to the clearing, all the little kids and me, and pointed their guns at us. Gregory couldn’t stop crying, you know, just kept making those awful sounds, because he was on guard duty, but he couldn’t have done anything anyway, not really, not with how many of them there were, and I kept trying to tell him that, but he wouldn’t listen to me, just kept sobbing like that…. Sorry, it doesn’t matter about that. Brody, Drake and Loren came out, their guns drawn, and this kid, Brandon, his name is, he just looked at them and laughed. They didn’t even go in to get them from the tent they were sharing, they didn’t need to.
“So Brody and them dropped all their weapons on the ground without a word and Brody walked up to this Brandon, begging him to let me and the little kids go, telling him that he remembered him, knew who he was and he was okay with it, but to please let the rest of us go, that they were just a bunch of little kids. The man just snarled at him, looked at all these kids and then screamed that they were a bunch of Zoriners and half-breeds, not kids, and the only one he would let go was me.
“He wouldn’t let me take anything, just what was on me, because he wanted Brody to know that I wouldn’t have much of a chance of making it either, but since he insisted that he let someone go, he’d grant him that much. I had to then, couldn’t do a thing about it. I don’t know where they are now, but I can get us back to where it happened. You have to let me, Riley, you just have to. We have to get them back,” and she dropped her head, crying in that soft way she had.
Lancer took Riley to the side, telling him to go get Ella, and have her bring broth and anything else she might think she’d need, and that they had to let her sleep. They’d need some time to get everybody else ready to go anyway, and hopefully get some more intel out of Laurel. It would help them to know how many of them there were, if nothing else. Riley left without a word after that.
He looked at the girl and she wasn’t crying anymore, her eyes fixed on Lancer, a surprised look on her face.
“What happened to your hair, Lancer? And why are you here?”
Lancer smiled at her and went into the room Telan and Selena were hiding in, calling for them to come out. They did, looking at Laurel uncomfortably.
“Laurel, meet Telan and Selena. They came here together. Max brought them. I am here because Ella took some bits of Telan’s stuff and put it into me and I’m told I might be all right now. I am bald because of all the poison you kids kept injecting into me all this time.” He was grinning widely when he said it.
Laurel was still staring at him with that look, and then she was up and running to him, throwing her arms around the man, “You mean you are not going to die, Lancer? You’re okay?”
He nodded, still smiling at the girl.
She went to Telan and hugged him then, the kid looking down, not knowing what to do with it. She was beaming at him, her whole face smiling in that way she had. “I don’t know you yet, Telan, but I think I love you,” she said to him sweetly and planted a kiss on his cheek, Telan blushing profusely, keeping his eyes down.
Selena was hiding a smile, not wanting Telan to think she was laughing at him for how awkward he was with all of this, he guessed.
Laurel looked at her for the first time and hugged her too, “It’s wonderful to meet you, Selena.” And she smiled at her, and he knew she liked both of these kids, could see it in the way she looked at them. She walked over to him, finally, and she wasn’t smiling anymore, “We’ll get him back, Max, we have to. He wouldn’t have let him go, you know, not after what he’d done to him. We all knew it. Knew it was personal for him,” and she dropped her eyes.
He looked at Lancer, confusion he felt likely written all over his face, because he didn’t even wait for him to ask. “Remember when we first met I told you that I watched your son almost kill a kid, because of what his mother did, because of Trina? That was the kid, Max. I begged Riley and Brody to let him go. Brody didn’t want to at first, but…. Anyway, they let him go. I haven’t thought about him in years. Didn’t know he was one of them now, none of us knew. I’m sorry, Max.” He turned around without saying anything to anyone else and left the room, and they heard the door to his room close softly behind him.
Laurel looked exhausted. He put his arm around her and nudged her to the door. “I’ll walk you home. We’ll have Ella drop by there with something you can stomach and whatever else you need as soon as she can, but we all need to get some sleep,” he said to her softly, the girl just nodding to him. The kids were still standing there, not knowing what to do. “You too, kids. Go get some sleep. It’ll likely be a loud morning in here tomorrow,” and he left, Laurel leaning on him.
He should have left Riley a note or something, but he was too damn tired to do that. Telan or Lancer would tell him, so it’ll be all right. Laurel was silent the whole way, keeping her eyes on the ground in front of her, and he didn’t want to pry, didn’t want to hurt her by asking anything. He knew this girl loved his son and would have never left him if she didn’t think it could help save him, save all of them. He pulled her in closer and whispered again and again that her Brody, their Brody, will be all right.
12
A Good Death
Brody, June 28, 2244, Reston
Brody watched Laurel go – her walk silent through the woods. She looked at him just once and nodded, a tiny nod, and he knew Brandon made a mistake letting her go like this. Knew she’d make it back to Reston.
Brandon had his men take all the kids away, leaving four of the bigger men to guard Loren and Drake. They had them kneel at the fire and tied their hands behind their backs, Drake and Loren not fighting, letting them, likely because Brandon was pointing a gun at Brody’s head.
Brandon put the gun away and one of the men started toward them, gun in his one hand, a set of biters in the other. Brandon shook his head at the man. “There is no need. He won’t touch me”—he faced Brody—“will you?”
“No,” Brody said quietly, looking at the younger man.
Brandon smiled at him, a strange smile, Hassinger’s smile, and he couldn’t help but feel all the hatred for that woman flood into his bloodstream.
“That’s how you looked at me when you ran your knife into me that day. I relived it so many times it’s etched into my bones,” Brandon said, not smiling anymore. “So much hatred in your eyes when you sliced into me like I was a bloody carcass of a butchered hog.” His voice was so strained it was almost a hiss. In a flash, Brandon was on him, punching him in the gut over and over again.
Brody fought to control his instincts to fight back with everything he had, but his hands must have made fists of their own accord.
Brandon hit him so viciously his knees gave out and he was surprisingly gratef
ul for this bit of time to get himself under control. He lifted his head and glanced at his friends across the fire. Two of the four goons stood behind them with guns drawn, forcing them to watch. The other two stood a few steps to the side of Brandon, their faces impassive.
“Get up!”
Brody desperately needed a few more minutes but time was what it was. He hauled himself up trying not to wince at the pain, looked Brandon in the eye. “Please, don’t make them be here for this,” he said slowly, quietly. “They had nothing to do with it, you know that…”
“Maxton had to watch what you did to me. This is for him.” Brandon pushed him roughly to the tree, then took a knife out of his weapons belt followed by a narrow sharpening tool and very calmly and slowly proceeded to sharpen the long blade.
Brody leaned his head back against the trunk and closed his eyes, trying to keep himself calm enough to think of some way he could still save everybody.
“Hey, Brandon,” Drake’s voice reached him from across the fire. “I think you are forgetting something. Brody let you go. He didn’t have to, but he did. You owe him. That’s how it works no matter which bloody army or group you belong to. I’ll make a deal with you, kid. You want to run that knife into somebody for what was done to you? You got it. There is more room on me for you to play with anyway. Let everybody else go.”
Brody shook his head at his friend, Drake ignoring him, keeping his eyes on Brandon.
“Muzzle them,” Brandon said to his men, and faced him again. He wiped the knife on his pants and put the point of it under his jaw, pressing down just hard enough to draw blood.
Alliance: The Complete Series (A Dystopian YA Box Set Books 1-5): Dystopian Sci Fi Thriller Page 65