Alliance: The Complete Series (A Dystopian YA Box Set Books 1-5): Dystopian Sci Fi Thriller

by Inna Hardison

  “May I please go?” he asked, desperately needing to get away from him, get away from all of them.

  “No. You may not. Not until you tell me what’s making you coil up like a wire.”

  He shook his head at him. “You need to let me go.” He made to get up.

  Riley let him and stood in front of him, blocking him.

  “Please, move,” he whispered through clenched teeth. The man just shook his head at him, looking at him with concern. He couldn’t help himself then. He pushed him, hard as he could.

  Riley staggered back a step and then grabbed him by the shoulders. “All right. I’ll let you go, but you won’t like it. Here is what’s going to happen. I’ll have you placed in one of those rooms we hold prisoners in at the council building, nothing but a cot and a toilet, if I can’t trust you not to run, and right now, I can’t. You look ready to bolt, and I’m not risking it. So it’s that, or we talk. I won’t tell anyone what you tell me,” he said, his voice rising.

  “I did that with you, Riley, and I’m not doing it again,” he snapped at him, angry.

  Riley stepped back and dipped his head. “You’re right, Telan. I’m sorry. I won’t ask you anything again,” he said in a strange, quiet voice. “But you’re not free to leave. I am going to have Brody take you home, kid.” Riley reached for his comm.

  “—Don’t, Riley. Don’t do that yet,” he shook his head, looked up at Riley’s face, said, “I need to know I am not a coward. That’s why I need to go with you.” He forced himself not to drop his eyes, but he could feel the heat of embarrassment on his face, the discomfort of it all making him want to run.

  Riley put his hand on his shoulder, gently. “I haven’t known you very long, but enough to know that you’re not a coward. But dying or getting someone else killed is about the worst way to prove something like that to yourself…. I owe you an apology, kid. I broke my word to you, and it hurt you and the girl, and I’m truly sorry for that. I didn’t know what else to do, but I’m sorry I lost your trust.”

  “I am sorry, Riley,” he whispered, dropped his head.

  “You’ve got nothing to be sorry about. I deserved that. I don’t blame you for not trusting me after that, is what I’m saying, so I won’t pry. I still can’t take you with me, but if you want me to, I’ll help train you. I’ll understand if you don’t. Would you please stop hiding from me?”

  He forced himself to look up, and said quickly, in a rush, “I let the kids at the place I was at beat the shit out of me, and I never did anything to stop them. I didn’t fight back, just stood there and took it, for years…. I need to know for certain that it wasn’t because I was afraid.” He looked away, hiding.

  “If you weren’t afraid, it would make you stupid, not brave. But why did they beat you?” Riley asked, his voice soft again.

  “I was a freak,” he whispered, still not looking at the other man.

  Riley pushed him down on the bench and crouched in front of him, blocking him. “You need to look at me, kid. It’s common courtesy to look at the person you’re talking to.”

  He did, Riley’s eyes full of concern, making his face look older.

  “Here is what I think. I think you were angry that you were different, that you didn’t quite fit in that place, and you didn’t like those other kids very much, didn’t like them at all, so you wanted more than anything to not be like them. But they belonged and you didn’t, and it made you feel like there really was something wrong with you…. I think you let them beat you for that.” Riley stood, still looking at him.

  Telan blanched, feeling the anger rising in him, hands bunching up into fists.

  Riley stood silently watching him for a while and then lifted him up by the shoulders and stepped back from him.

  “Go ahead, kid.” Riley nodded to him. “You should have beat the shit out of me days ago when I broke my promise to you. Do it, if you need to. It’s all right.” He put his hands behind his back, his eyes still smiling at him.

  “No.”

  “What was his name? The one who hurt you the most?”

  He didn’t want to think about him now, didn’t want to remember any of that. “Devin,” he said in a small voice.

  “Here is what I want you to do, Telan. Pretend I am him. Picture his face right now in front of you instead of mine then let me have it. I promise you won’t break anything.” Riley smiled at him, nodded.

  Telan clenched his teeth and shook his head at the man.

  Riley waited silently, standing uncomfortably close, watching him. “Do it, kid!” he suddenly snapped at him.

  “No.”

  “Why didn’t you hit me?” Riley asked, his eyes boring into his face.

  Telan dropped his eyes, embarrassed, not knowing how to explain it to him, to anybody.

  Riley lifted his head up by the chin, making him look at him again. “Were you afraid to?”

  He wasn’t afraid, he knew that much. It just felt wrong to do it, so he shook his head.

  Riley sighed and let go of him, and said slowly, carefully, as if it made him uncomfortable, “It takes a bully to hit a little kid, Telan. It takes a man to take it and not hit back when it’s the wrong thing to do. You may not understand it just yet, but you don’t need to prove a bloody thing to yourself. Not to you, not to your father. Forgive me for what I just did. I needed to know for sure what kind of man you were, and the last thing you are is a coward, and I would very much like to train you if you’ll let me. You’ll make a damn good soldier someday, I think. And now, I’m taking you home.” He threw his arm around him, and Telan let him, not feeling any anger at him anymore.

  They walked in silence for a while and he could see Riley smiling to himself.

  “What happened to her, the girl who saved you back in that place where Ella was?” he asked, and Riley suddenly wasn’t smiling anymore.

  “I don’t know, kid. I don’t know,” he said in a strained voice.

  “You loved her,” Telan said, without thinking, and regretted it as soon as the words were out, Riley looking at him with so much sadness on his face, he wanted to hide from him. “I’m sorry, Riley … I shouldn’t have asked.” He looked away, keeping his eyes on the street in front of them.

  “I still love her. She left me eight months ago, and I still love her. We all do, I think. Ams, her name is. I keep hoping she’ll walk into the damn house one day, as if she just went on a quick training trip, flinging the doors wide open and razzing me for the mess I turned our little place into…. Anyway, it’s how it goes sometimes. We move on and do what we have to do, and hold on to all the good we were lucky to have along the way. I was lucky to have known her for the years that I did. Luckier than most people ever get to be.”

  He let him be after that, hoping that this girl, Ams, comes back to him. That wherever she was, she was thinking of this strange man who loved her still, and that she’d find her way back.

  19

  Shame

  Brandon, July 23, 2244, Reston.

  Max was pacing the length of the chambers, nobody else saying a word. Finally, he stopped and looked at Brody. “We can’t take them like that, Brody. You know that. We just don’t have enough people, not if we are to believe the scouting intel, and I have no reason not to. I know I promised you, we all did, but if Brandon can at least get us in there—”

  Brandon wasn’t listening anymore, what Max just said about them promising something registering for what he knew it was, and he was up and running to Brody, hands shaking in anger.

  “What did you do, Brody?” he screamed into his face.

  Brody winced, shook his head at him, not talking.

  “What did you make them promise? Bloody tell me!” He shoved Brody in the chest, but he wouldn’t even look at him.

  He turned to Max. “Somebody here needs to tell me what it is exactly Brody made you promise about me. I have the right to know!”

  Max looked at his son for a flash, said, “He was just trying to protect you, and
he wasn’t wrong to do it, Brandon. No kid should have to pay for what their parents did…. He did what he had to do.”

  Brody stood unmoving, still and silent, head down, and he couldn’t help himself.

  “This whole time I’ve been coming to these meetings, telling you everything I knew, spilling things that I’d never told another living soul, and you’ve all been lying to me…. I may be an enemy to you still, but I am a bloody soldier. You had no right to lie to me like that! Am I your prisoner still?” he asked Max through clenched teeth.

  The man didn’t say anything, none of them did.

  “Answer me!”

  “No, Brandon, you’re not.”

  “I am going to leave now…. If you feel you can’t let me go, then one of you needs to shoot me in the back. Shouldn’t be too much trouble by the looks of it,” he spat at them and walked to the door. He stood with his back to them for a full minute, his arms held to the sides, giving them enough time to pull the trigger if they wanted to. But nobody made a sound behind him.

  “All right then,” he whispered without turning and went to Brody’s. He needed to say goodbye to Laurel and grab the few things he had. He was done with them, but he could never go back to the Eagles now, not unless he went back to kill them. He’ll just have to find a way to do that without their help.

  Laurel met him on the porch, her face betraying that she already knew. She pulled him wordlessly into a hug and he let her. “I have to, Laurel. I can’t stay here now, I just can’t,” he said quickly and ran into the room he was staying in.

  It was full of light now, the curtains pulled away from the one large window, and he stopped in the middle, sniffing at the air. This small space already carried his smell somehow, and he stood for a few long moments just breathing it in.

  He was almost done rummaging through his stuff when he heard the door close behind him and spun around, Brody leaning on the door, blocking it.

  He slung the small go-bag over his shoulder and walked quickly to the door. “Move, Brody!”

  “We need to talk. I know you’re angry at me, but we need to talk,” Brody said quietly, not moving from the door.

  “I don’t have anything to say to you, and there isn’t one thing you can say to me that I want to hear.” He took another step to the door.

  Brody grabbed him by the shoulders and he squirmed away, swatting at his arms, breathing hard from all the anger in him, and Brody stepped back, holding his hands out in front of him, palms up.

  At least he wasn’t touching him anymore, he thought, without humor, recalling every bit of comfort he’d gotten from being wrapped in Brody’s arms, and knowing, too, how badly he’d miss him.

  “Do you still want to go in there to blow the place up or are you going back in to join them?”

  He snapped his eyes to Brody, hoping he was joking, but his face was somber, more so than he’d ever seen it. He flushed, anger making him want to lash out. “That’s what you think of me? That I’d get pissed off at you and run back to the people who are murdering innocents by the thousands to get back at you? Let me go, or confine me. I don’t think I care which at this point.” He threw his bag down and put his hands out in front of him.

  Brody didn’t move.

  Brandon dropped his hands after a while, waiting for this man to just let him leave.

  “I want you to take me with you. If there’s no other way to do this, I want to be there for it, in case something goes wrong. I’ll have Stan and Loren find a way of blowing the place up, but I’m coming with you to do it. I need you to let me,” Brody said.

  It was the last thing he expected, and he laughed at him, couldn’t help himself. “You want to get blown up with me, Brody? And I’m the one who needs protecting.” He shook his head, unable to keep the smile off his face. Brody blanched and dropped his eyes, his whole body taut as a wire, and he felt a twinge of guilt for laughing at him like that.

  “They know who you are, you bloody idiot, so, no, you can’t come. The only way you’d get in there is as a corpse.” He turned away and walked to the window, wanting some space from the guilty look on the man’s face. He couldn’t help being angry at him for what he did, knew he wasn’t wrong to feel that, but he knew, too, that Brody wasn’t trying to hurt him by it.

  He felt Brody’s hand on his shoulder after a while and he faced him, serious blue-gray eyes looking at him with sadness in them. Brody quickly dropped his hand, his eyes down when he finally spoke. “I didn’t think I had a choice,” he said very quietly and ran out of the room.

  Brandon picked up his bag, calmed himself, and walked out. Laurel and Brody sat at the kitchen table when he came in, not talking. He walked over to Laurel and she stood, eyes shining, wet. He pulled her into a hug, ignoring Brody, and told her that she was the best friend he’d ever made and that he loved her. She let her tears spill then, and he wiped them away, kissed her on the cheek, and walked to the door.

  “Brandon,” Brody’s strained voice stopped him.

  He turned, and the man was standing, not quite looking at his face, his whole posture uncertain.

  “Don’t. I know you feel you need to….” Brody took a few steps to him.

  Laurel ran into the garden, giving them space.

  He didn’t want space, didn’t want to stay here for another second, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave like this.

  “My whole life I was treated as if there was something wrong with me,” he said, Brody, clenching his jaw, still not looking at him. “When you took me to the first meeting, I actually felt like I belonged. For the first time in my life, I think. Felt like I was treated as an equal. I let my guard down with you, and it felt bloody good to do it. I don’t know if I am more angry at you or myself for it.”

  Brody looked at him finally. “I’m sorry, I truly am.”

  He took a step to him and wrapped his arms around him, Brody letting him, and whispered, “I know, Brody…. Now, if you don’t think any less of me, be a true friend and help me. Max is right, and you know that. One way or another, I’m going to find a way to do this, but I’d rather do it right. Get your boys to wire me with something that’ll work quickly, so I’m not lying there for hours, a mangled mess, bleeding to death.” He stepped back, watching his face.

  Brody nodded after a while, took him by the arm, and walked him in silence to the lab Stan and Loren were using.

  Drake was there with them, talking with his hands, the way he only did when he was agitated, but they stopped talking when they saw them. Brody told them what he intended to do and that they had to let him do it; that they didn’t have any kind of choice about it, and that if there was anything they could think of that would spare his life, they needed to consider that first. Brandon shook his head at him, but Brody ignored him, looking at Loren.

  Loren told them quickly that he ran through all the scenarios over and over again, and there was no way to do this remotely, as they disrupted every external signal. That the only way to detonate anything in that compound was to use a neuro signal and the device would have to be inside a person for that to work. Nobody said a word after that.

  Loren put his hand on his arm and told him in a clipped voice to follow him, and he was grateful to be led away from them, away from Brody. Loren took him into a long, dark room, flicking the lights on as they went, and telling him to shut the door behind him. The place looked unused, but clean, sterile somehow. He spotted a few beds along the far wall and metal trays with what looked like medical equipment next to them. Loren walked him over to one of the beds and told him to take his shirt off and lie down.

  He did, feeling uncomfortable, exposed. Loren touched something on the wall, making the ceiling above the bed explode in a flood of bright white light, and strapped him in by the waist and wrists. Brandon closed his eyes, not wanting to watch what he’d do to him, trying his best to stay calm. He was afraid, and if it were Ella doing this, he’d try to talk to her beforehand, so he’d know what to prepare for, but he cou
ldn’t do it with this man for some reason; didn’t want him to know that he was afraid.

  “Are you going to knock me out?” he couldn’t help but ask when the waiting got to him.

  Loren was silent for too long, so he looked at him. The man shook his head, his face tense. He held a small, round piece of metal in his gloved hand, the light glinting off its surface making it look almost translucent, fluid as if it were alive. “When this goes off, it’ll rip through every part of you in a million pieces with a velocity of a flier going at full speed. You’ll feel every bit of it, so no, I am not going to knock you out to put it in you. I want you to be fully aware of what you’re asking us to do, and to feel every bit of the pain that goes along with it,” Loren said sharply and turned away to the tray with all the stuff on it.

  “All right,” he whispered to his back and closed his eyes again. He hoped he could take it without passing out or embarrassing himself. He felt a brush of something cold and wet against the skin on his chest and then the point of a blade and he forced himself to open his eyes. Loren was leaning over him, but he wasn’t slicing into him.

  “Go ahead, Loren. It’s all right.” He gritted his teeth to keep from screaming.

  Loren threw the small knife back on the tray, and suddenly his hand wrapped around one of the burn marks on his arm, making him flinch. “Is this what you’re paying for?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Please, just do what you need to do,” he whispered through clenched teeth and closed his eyes again.

  He felt him move away from the bed but didn’t hear any other noise.

  “I need you to look at me,” Loren’s voice reached him, and it sounded strange.

  He turned. Loren stood next to the bed, shirtless, his back to him, his head down. He’d never seen that many scars on anyone but Lancer before. He turned away, embarrassed.

  Loren faced him. “I sleep with my clothes on. I don’t wash when anyone else is around…. For ten years now I’ve protected it as if I did it to myself; as if it’s something I’m supposed to be ashamed of. You’re the first person in years to see me like this. The people in that compound under that bloody mountain, they did this. To Lancer, too, but you know that already. What I’m saying is, we all have our reasons for wanting them dead, and for most of us here, it’s personal. Only I want to do it out of revenge, and you want to do it out of guilt, but it doesn’t make any difference beyond that.” Loren leaned over him and took the straps off, and suddenly, he felt afraid of the way this man was looking at him.