Drake took a few steps towards him and gripped him by the shoulders, the boy not moving, letting him. “I am sorry, Brandon, I truly am,” he said softly.
Brandon squirmed away, looking furious when he looked at him again. “I don’t want or need your pity or whatever this is,” he hissed through clenched teeth.
Every instinct in Drake wanted him to hug this sad man, to comfort him in some way, but Drake had a feeling the boy wouldn’t let him. “I don’t pity you, Brandon. I am a tad ashamed of myself for how I’ve been with you, is all. I am sorry for that. As for the rest of it, we’ll keep you around, I think,” he said finally and stepped away from him.
Brandon shook his head. “Why doesn’t anybody here listen to me? You’ve been working for weeks on a better plan than the one I have, and you’ve come up empty, so you don’t have any kind of choice about it. I don’t want or need any of you to save me! I need to end it. I’m supposed to end it.” He took a breath, shook his head, said more quietly now, “I spent my whole life not quite knowing who I was or what I was supposed to do. I know it now. For the first time in my life, I know exactly what I’m supposed to do, and none of you here seem to get it or to trust me on it. I am the last of them, and in case you haven’t figured that part out yet, there is no chance of me ever fathering children. I am the bloody dot at the end of that horrific sentence and you need to let me do what I feel is right, but please, let me do it in peace,” he said, looking like it took every bit of control for him not to bolt.
“Admirable. Admirable but stupid. Brody’s father thinks he killed everyone in Reston, only he didn’t. Lancer is the one who pushed the button, so in his head, he thinks he’s the one who did it. Doesn’t make any difference, though, because neither of them meant to do it. I don’t think you meant to be born to the family you were born to. Don’t think you meant to be tortured your whole life by your own mother either.” Brandon winced and averted his eyes, and Drake felt bad for him, but he wasn’t done. He took a step closer to the boy. “None of it is on you, kid. There isn’t a thing you can say to me that’ll make me okay with letting you kill yourself because you feel guilty or ashamed for something you couldn’t help, even if I did still hate you. And I did know, for what it’s worth. I see the way Loren and you look at each other.”
Brandon dropped his eyes.
“Don’t you dare be ashamed for something you didn’t choose, kid. Be ashamed for pinning Brody to that damned tree, and for making those little kids cry at that camp, but not this, not any of this.” He took a step back, watching him.
“I am. Every single day,” Brandon whispered, without looking at him, and turned away.
He let him be for a while and then joined him by the water, not looking at his face, not wanting to embarrass him any more than he had already.
“None of us here thought we’d make it this long. Funny, how life works. You’re not wrong for wanting to do it your way…. I would have likely tried to do the same thing in your place, but…. Getting yourself killed out of guilt or shame—there is a wrongness to it, even if you don’t feel it, and even if you end up doing a lot of good by it in the end. There are better ways to die, and you likely will, too, but not like this. Not for something as stupid as your bloody name.”
Everyone was asleep when he got back, so he stayed up, tending to the fire, waiting for Brandon to make his way back, only he never did, and it felt wrong to go after him again. He rolled out a blanket and slept outside the way they always used to in the beginning, throwing in a few pine branches every now and then to keep the mosquitoes at bay, and when he woke up, the fire was blazing and the tea kettles were boiling.
He watched Brandon tending to the flames through slitted eyes, smiling at the kid. He sat up.
Brandon faced him, and then carried a mug of steaming tea to him, a few fresh sage leaves floating on the top.
“Did you sleep at all?” he asked, taking a first scalding-hot sip of his tea.
Brandon shook his head. “No, but I think I might have a plan all of you could live with. It doesn’t involve me getting blown up, but I want to wait for the others….”
He nodded to him, got up, and fixed a kettle of coffee, pouring Brandon the first cup as the rest of the boys slowly came out of the flier.
Loren walked over to Brandon, saying good morning and blushing, the way he did every time he saw him, and he couldn’t help himself.
“Oh, bloody grow up, Loren. You’re not a teenager anymore. Nobody here is blind or stupid either, so you don’t have any secrets. And for what it’s worth, none of us give a shit who you like. We don’t choose that, not any of us.”
Brandon’s voice caught him off guard at the stream as he was finishing washing up, the man moving as silently as Brody. “Please, don’t ever do that again. What you did with Loren…. He lost someone for how they were. I don’t know what Zoriners do to people like us, but Alliance and the Eagles—they kill them.”
Drake blanched, feeling every shade of guilty. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know … have you? Lost someone?” He faced him, and the boy winced and dropped his eyes, uncomfortable.
He reached over and took him by the shoulders. “Then you two owe it to yourselves to stop hiding from everybody and each other. It’s the scariest thing in the world, to love again after losing someone. Just ask Brody, but not letting yourself—it’s dying all the same,” he said and walked away from him, letting him be.
He used to be better at judging people, he thought, embarrassed that he was like that with him this whole time, and for what he put Brody through over him, and he hoped the kid was a generous enough soul to forgive him for it someday. Everything about him screamed that he wouldn’t be around for long.
Everyone was by the fire when he got back, Brandon sitting next to Loren, the way he almost always did, only they weren’t talking. But Drake could tell something happened between them by the way Loren’s face was, vulnerable. He watched them for a little while, and suddenly, Loren picked up Brandon’s hand, squeezing it hard, and not letting go, holding it, and it was enough. Enough to know that whatever was between them, they were both okay with it, that they weren’t ashamed of it anymore.
1
Mahler
Amelia, August 17, 2244, Eagle Compound.
She remembered the day she met him. Not the actual date of it, but how it happened. She was angry at Riley that morning for something, likely a mess he made after one of his fishing expeditions, only instead of fixing it, she went for a walk. The street she was on was farthest away from the center, and there wasn’t a soul on it. She liked it for that, for the quiet of it. And then she heard it, this strange noise, only it wasn’t noise, not quite. It was different, pleasant somehow. Music, she suddenly knew, she was definitely hearing music. She stopped at the house it was coming from and listened for a long time, and when it stopped, she walked in, without knocking.
There were candles burning softly around the windowsill and she thought it strange for anyone to be burning candles when it was barely past morning, and then she saw him, this man sitting at a large wooden thing that looked very much like a piece of ancient furniture, only she knew it wasn’t, knew somehow that it’s where the music was coming from. A piano, her implant filled in the blank. His eyes were closed when she walked in, long light brown hair framing an angular face
“Have a seat then, now that you are here. Anything, in particular, you want me to play?” the man asked, still not looking at her.
She walked closer to him and sat on a stool by the window, watching his long fingers brush butterfly-wings soft over the keys, not pressing them, waiting.
“Well, what will it be?” he asked again.
She didn’t know any music, but it embarrassed her for some reason to admit it to this man. She reached into whatever her implant knew of music and there wasn’t much and pulled up the first name she could pronounce. “Mahler then, if you would,” she said in a timid voice. Too timid.
The man nodded and hi
s fingers raced along the keys playing what she assumed was Mahler, only she regretted it immediately, this bit of music sounding so full of menace, it scared her.
She closed her eyes, waiting for it to be over and hoping it didn’t take too much longer, and then it was and she felt the man standing in front of her, watching her. She looked up and felt herself blush, so she bolted upright, wanting to run from this room, run from this man who was looking at her with too much fire in his eyes.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you. I am Eryn. I was playing Chopin before–much more palatable. My apologies,” he said pleasantly and dipped his head. He was standing much too close to her but there wasn’t room for her to back away.
She forced herself to look at him then, not quite knowing what else to do. “I am Amelia. Thank you for this…. I need to be going now.” She pointed to the door, the man stepping fluidly, gracefully away from her.
His voice caught her at the door. “You are Riley’s girl, aren’t you? Forgive me, if I’m prying. I just got here a week ago, so I don’t know everybody. It was nice to meet you, Amelia.”
He didn’t turn around to look at her when he said it but there was a tension she didn’t like in the way his body was. She ran out the door and raced home, trying to figure out what was wrong with her that she felt so strange around this man.
She remembered it now, as she had for so many days, as she paced the small confines of her cell. She’d given up on counting the steps or the cracks in the wall after doing it so many times it made her head hurt. There was nothing for her to do but wait and waiting wasn’t ever something she was any good at. She missed them, missed them desperately, Laurel and the giant and most of all the boy she left behind, stupidly, impulsively. He likely hated her now, of course. The way she left him … it made her ache all over again thinking about what she said to him. She never thought she could be that cruel to someone, least of all that boy who has never been anything but decent to her, to everybody. She hoped these people would at least let her say goodbye to all of them before they do whatever they planned to do with her.
She lay down on her cot and closed her eyes, Riley’s huge brown eyes so full of hurt staring at her from behind her eyelids. Her words making him wince.
“I never loved you, Riley. You just happened to be the first boy I ever knew,” she’d said to him that night, coldly, and she didn’t even feel bad for it. She’d do anything to take it back, take back some of the hurt she caused him.
He didn’t even fight her then. Just stepped away from her. “I hope you find what you are looking for, Ams,” he’d whispered and turned away from her.
She should have known, somehow, should have known that what Eryn told her couldn’t possibly be true, but she has thought it herself so many times before, it fit. It made her feel less guilty for running from all these people who were good to her for so many years, people who loved her. And maybe a small part of her was still hard-wired to feel like a replenisher was supposed to, she didn’t know anymore. It didn’t matter.
She believed him when he told her that all the things she cared about, all her escapes into the old books, the stained glass windows and pretty bridges and art and now music–that none of it was made by Zoriners. That they were genetically incapable of making art. That was one of the things the Eagles were fighting to preserve somehow. She believed him when he told her that they weren’t interested in killing them, that they weren’t savages. That they’d known about their being at Reston for years and if they wanted to kill them, they would have by now, but they knew that it wouldn’t change anything long term. They just needed to make sure they could keep a strong enough percentage of unpolluted blood going for a generation or two until they could fix what was broken for all of them. And that she was their most important asset in making it happen, because she’d been with one of them, and she should know by now that something in her rejected him already or she would have had a child by now….
That hurt worst of all. She’d been wanting a child for a while now, and she blamed Riley for it. Couldn’t help but blame him, given who she was. He always felt it, too, when she’d start to bleed, the sadness on her, and he tried, really tried to comfort her, telling her it’ll happen someday, when it was meant to, only it never did, and one day she decided she was done trying, and told him as much. He never questioned it either, didn’t fight her on it. He slept in a spare room after that, still kissing her goodnight, ever so softly, and then leaving without a word. She’d wished he would fight, would come into their old bedroom and tell her that he missed her and that it didn’t matter about the baby, but he never did, because that’s just how he was.
That’s why she didn’t fight Eryn the first time he touched her. It felt good just to have someone’s hands on her again, felt good to be kissed again….
She heard the door open and bolted upright. Eryn was carrying a small tray with a thermos on it, smiling at her. He set it down next to her, standing much too close. She curled her hands into fists and stared at him with what she hoped was hatred, wanting him to leave. She never wanted to see this man again, but she knew she would, for as long as they kept her here.
He put his hand on her wrist and she jerked it away from him, slamming her hand into the wall behind her. “You used to like me touching you. I miss those days,” he said softly, lips curling up in a sardonic smile.
She stood still, not rising to the bait.
He leaned in close to her face and whispered, “Kiss me, Ams, and I might let you send a word to anyone of your choosing.”
She turned her face away from him, fighting tears.
“Alright then. Suit yourself,” he said coldly and left.
She drank the coffee, enjoying the dark sticky bitterness of it, remembering all the times she’d had it at their old fires before she betrayed everybody.
She drifted to sleep, trying her best not to dream, only she always lost that battle now. Her mind stopped listening to her ever since she found herself a prisoner in this compound. She saw him as a boy now, the boy she just met, with all those scars on his back, his eyes, always looking at her softly, and then so full of fear when she told him she loved him after the waterfall. She heard Laurel giggling through the water, her voice ringing in her ears, only much louder now, much too loud for a single voice. She opened her eyes and knew it wasn’t anybody’s voice, but the alarm blaring through the compound. She’d never heard the alarm here before, but she felt it, knew in her bones what it was and she let herself feel a tiny bit of hope.
She stood by the door waiting, and then on an impulse, tried the handle, the door sliding open without a sound. She remembered counting the levels when they took her here, blindfolded. Five levels down from the surface, and she remembered them turning left down the corridor, so she bolted to the right, running softy, her bare feet feeling the cold of the concrete. The heavy metal door in front of her was open without her needing to even touch it, and she knew then that someone disrupted all the electronics in this place. She saw someone darting toward her, still too far away to have spotted her as likely as not, so she slid into the darkness against the wall, pressing into the hard stone with everything she had, and held her breath.
“I know you are still here, Ams. Come out and I might be able to save you…. What do you think your old friends would do to a traitor like you? You think they’ll be generous? I like you too much to kill you, Ams. I highly doubt any of them still feel that way about you, not after what you’ve done.”
She could tell he was close to her by where his voice was. She stayed as still as she could make herself, waiting, listening for his footsteps, but she couldn’t hear anything but her own breathing now, and it sounded far too loud even to her, and suddenly his hands were on her, gripping her shoulders harshly and then dragging her down the hallway.
She finally stopped struggling when he put a sharp knife to her neck, drawing blood, and let him drag her up the five flights of stairs and into the massive room she remembered from
when they first brought her here. She smiled at the scene in front of her, couldn’t help it. The Eagle council members were frozen in their seats, an old school gun pointing at each head. She saw Loren and Riley and a half dozen boys she didn’t know who were wearing Eagles guard uniforms, only they were the ones pointing the weapons at the council.
Eryn dragged her to the middle of the room, nobody making a sound, and stopped in front of a young man who looked familiar.
The man looked at her, gray eyes focusing on her face, and winced, and she knew who he was then, the boy they let go all those years ago, Hassinger’s kid. She looked over at Riley, but his head was down. Loren had him by the arms, and she could tell he was keeping him from lunging for her or maybe Eryn.
She felt a small trickle of blood on her neck and wished she could wipe it away for some reason, but she didn’t dare lift her hands now.
“Now that we’re are all here, let’s negotiate, shall we?” Eryn said, and she could hear a smile in his voice. “I need to know who is really in charge here.”
Brody, Lancer, and Max approached from wherever they were hiding before, Brody walking right up to Eryn, holding his hands up briefly and then putting them behind his back. “I am in charge. You don’t have much left to negotiate with. You don’t have anyone of interest to us to trade on,” Brody said quietly.
She flinched at the coldness in his voice and dropped her eyes.
“Alright then,” Eryn said, and moved the knife to her face, digging the point of it into her flesh right under her eye. “Hey, Riley…. Remember this face?”
Alliance: The Complete Series (A Dystopian YA Box Set Books 1-5): Dystopian Sci Fi Thriller Page 75