by Kyle Andrews
For a moment, the two memories swirled together. She was alive and dead at the same time. Then, once the memory of their shared meal began to lose the battle for dominance, Justin took a deep breath. As he inhaled, the memory of Libby was still so fresh and strong that he could almost touch her. But by the time he exhaled, she was gone and his heart broke in a way that sent shock waves through his entire body. He tried to remember her smiling, but the memory refused to come back. He tried to remember the sound of her voice, but he couldn't. He wanted so desperately to be able to feel her there with him in any way possible, but it wouldn't happen. All he saw was her blood.
He squeezed his eyes closed tightly, hoping to do away with the memory. He wanted to fall asleep again, so that his mind could be at peace. He was hoping that when he woke up once more, he would be able to feel that fleeting moment of joy. But the sun had other plans. It forced him to get up and to confront the reality of the world.
Libby is dead.
Just thinking those words was wrong. They sounded like gibberish inside of his head. They didn't go together. They were just hollow sounds that meant nothing.
He pulled himself off of the couch and stood still for a moment, listening to the silence around him. There were no sirens. There were no screams. To simply take in the sights and sounds of that room, one would never know that the world was ending.
The plan was to go back to sleep. Justin walked into his bedroom and he wanted to collapse onto the bed, but the moment he walked into that room he saw the ruffled blanket on the bed. The pillows that weren't where they were supposed to be. Everything was exactly as it had been when Amanda was resting in that bed. He hadn't been home since.
It seemed like a hundred years had passed since he brought Libby's mother back to his apartment, after saving her from certain death at the group home. He sought her out because Amanda had always been kind to him. After his parents died, she made him feel like someone still cared.
He thought that bringing Amanda back to Libby would be the happiest moment in their lives. One point for their team. Finally a victory over something, rather than being constantly knocked down. But the reunion didn't go well. Amanda discovered what her daughter had become and she didn't like it.
Libby was already hurting from that fight with her mother when she heard the Mayor calling for her to turn herself over, in exchange for Collin Powers' life.
The pieces of the puzzle were coming together in Justin's head. He traced each decision back to its origin. Each emotional blow. And what he discovered was that Libby's death was the end result of his good deed. If only he had left things alone. If only he had allowed Amanda to stay where she was, Libby would still be alive.
He asked himself if he would be willing to trade Amanda's life for Libby's. If given the choice, right then and there, would he choose to save Amanda, or would he let her die in that home for Libby's sake?
The answer made him a horrible person. But it was what it was.
He wanted to pull the covers over his head and go to sleep, but he couldn't lie in that bed, on those sheets and with that blanket. He stripped the bed completely, throwing the dirty linens in the corner of the room. Then he climbed onto the bare mattress and curled into a ball. He closed his eyes, trying desperately to go back to sleep. He stayed there for an hour, wishing for rest to come, but it never did. He was stuck in the waking world.
There was a knock on the door.
It seemed strange at first, as though there shouldn't be anyone left in the world to knock on his front door. Wasn't everyone dead? Wasn't he alone now?
He didn't even bother to get up. There was nobody that he wanted to see, so it would be a waste of his time. Either someone from the Garden was coming to check on him—in which case, they could rot for all he cared—or the violence and looting was still going on and the person at the door was a crazed madman. If that were the case, they would surely let themselves in whether Justin got up or not.
There was another knock on the door. This time, Justin was annoyed by the sound. Whoever it was should have realized by now that he didn't want to speak with them. They should have some respect and at least let him mourn the dead for a day or two before pestering him for whatever intelligence he had gathered the night before.
He would have reported in if they had held up their part of the bargain. It might have been an unspoken agreement, but they were supposed to take care of Libby. She was supposed to be safe at the Garden. That was the reason why he brought her there in the first place. They were supposed to have her back, yet nobody cared enough to stop her. They just wanted their damned library.
Another knock on the door. This time, annoyance turned to anger. He obviously wanted to be left alone. He obviously didn't feel like speaking to them. He obviously wanted them to go away, and yet they continued to knock on his door, more concerned about whatever they hoped to gain from him than they were about him.
Justin got out of bed and walked toward the front door. His fists were balled. His jaw was clenched. He planned to open the door and let the person standing outside know exactly where they could shove their intelligence.
He planned on seeing Aaron standing in the hallway when he opened the door, offering fake sympathy in order to ease Justin into talking to him. Or maybe it would be Rose, sent by Aaron because she and Justin were friends and she could sympathize with what he was going through.
But when Justin opened the door, neither of those people were standing outside. Instead, Justin found Uly's girlfriend, Marti. She was standing with her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes red with tears. She had never been particularly fond of Libby, and Libby never really loved her either. But if there was one person in the world who knew what Justin felt in that moment, it was her.
Marti stood silent for a second or two. The two of them looked each other in the eyes and everything she felt the night that Uly died was written across her face.
She wanted to say something, that much was obvious. But when she couldn't find the words to express herself, she just shook her head and moved toward him, wrapping her arms around him and holding onto Justin as tightly as she possibly could. It took Justin a moment to figure out how he wanted to respond to her. He had gone to the door looking for a fight, but as she held onto him, Justin was brought back to the night that Uly died and the way the two of them had held onto each other for comfort.
His anger melted away, and Justin wrapped his arms around Marti. Though she had never liked Libby, he could hear her crying and the sound of it caused him to lose whatever control he had over his own feelings. He couldn't help but cry with her, holding onto her as though the fate of the world depended on it.
When they had hugged for as long as they could stand to hug, they sat in Justin's apartment, saying nothing to each other. There was nothing that needed to be said. Both of them knew what the other was thinking and feeling. Both of them knew that there were no words that could possibly make any of this right. There was no comfort to be had, except for simply being in the presence of a friend when Justin had forgotten that such things even existed. It was something. It was important.
After a good amount of time had passed, Marti looked outside, toward the clear blue sky and said, “Nobody was at school today. After last night, nobody even bothered. Half of the city is messed up. The other half is still hung over from messing up the first half. You got lucky. You got a day. Tomorrow, you have to go back to real life and pretend that you never even cared.”
Justin's first instinct was to argue with her. What was the point of going back and playing their games? What did he have to lose by telling them to go to Hell?
But the way Marti looked at him when she turned away from the window told him that he had plenty to lose. He still had anger inside of him, burning brighter by the minute and fueled by pain. He saw that anger in Marti's eyes, hidden somewhere beneath the cool, emotionless face that she was presenting to him. No more tears. The time for that was over.
When
Marti was satisfied that Justin could see the anger still inside of her and what that anger meant, she gave him a slight nod. There would be nothing to gain by lashing out and getting himself killed or sent to a reprogramming facility. But if he played the game, maybe there would be a chance to put his anger to good use. He didn't know how that would happen exactly, but everything inside of him relied on that possibility.
9
Moving through the city when it was still dark out was difficult. Though there were more people out than usual, the police and HAND were more likely to look at each face than they would be on a normal day. Collin, Tracy, Mek and the girl wouldn't be able to simply walk down the street. Even if HAND didn't spot them, there was no way to be sure that someone else wouldn't. Collin was a celebrity, after all.
They moved through shadows and down alleys, slowly making their way toward their destination while ensuring that they were not being followed. To lead HAND back to a Freedom base would mean death to anyone who lived or worked in that base.
After sunrise, Mek led Collin and the others to an auto repair shop, which was still in operation, though there were no cars being repaired at the moment. It wasn't surprising, since few people could afford a car and fewer people could afford to have their car repaired.
Collin, Tracy and the girl sat in a small waiting room that was located to one side of the garage, while Mek spoke with the man who ran the place. There was a coffee pot in the corner which looked tempting at first, but upon closer inspection, Collin realized that the pot was filled with mold, not Coffite.
Tracy took the little girl to one of the waiting room chairs and sat her down, looking the girl directly in the eyes and pointing a finger at her as she said, “If you move, I'll end you.”
The girl looked down at her hands and remained quiet.
Tracy walked to Collin and smiled at him. She said, “I have a niece, so I know how to handle kids.”
“By threatening to kill them?”
“It gets them to eat their dinner too.”
“Have you ever tried being nice to them?”
Tracy thought for a moment before saying, “No.”
“She's scared.”
“She was trying to lead HAND back to a Freedom base.”
“She doesn't even know where a Freedom base is. How was she going to lead them there?”
“Well, she's sure as hell not one of us.”
“And with your recruiting skills, do you blame her?”
“Geez. Leave a guy to get tortured for one month and he comes back all soft and emotional.”
Collin moved closer to Tracy and looked her directly in the eye as he said, “If I were soft, you'd be dead a month ago.”
Tracy fell silent, realizing that perhaps this was not the best topic to joke about. She swallowed hard and nodded, letting him know that she got the message.
As he moved away from Tracy and back to the chairs where the girl was sitting, Collin tried not to look like a terrorist or a kidnapper. He smiled at the girl as he sat next to her.
“Where do you live?” he asked her.
The girl didn't answer. Collin accepted that she didn't feel like talking to him and decided to leave her alone. As he waited for Mek to get back, he rolled up the sleeve on his left arm. He wanted to look at what had been done to him. He wanted to see how ugly and deformed the wounds really were.
It took him a second to build the nerve to look down at his arm. He held his breath as his eyes moved toward the wound and he got his first good look at it.
For weeks, he'd had the image in his head. He could see a little bit from the corner of his eye as he lay strapped to the table in the HAND building, and his imagination filled in the rest. He imagined a horrible, jagged wound. Purple and swollen. Infected. Oozing puss. Now it would be poorly stitched, forever deforming his arms, just as his legs and chest would be. Parts of him would be burned. Parts could be missing entirely, for all he knew. He would be a monster.
But when he looked at the wound, that wasn't what he saw at all. What he saw was a clean cut, about six inches long. Bruised and a bit swollen, but neatly stitched (save for the stitches that had been pulled during his escape). It had bled, but it wasn't bleeding badly. If he were to guess, Collin would expect to have minimal scarring when all was said and done.
As he looked upon that wound, he was still holding his breath. His eyes were blurred with tears. He was aware that both Tracy and the girl were looking at him, and all he could think was that it wasn't fair. After everything he had been put through over the previous month, he deserved to have the proof of the twisted horror show that had been performed on him. He deserved to have people look at him and realize exactly what he had been put through. He didn't want minimal scarring. He wanted to look like a monster, because that was what they had created, even if he hadn't realized it until that very moment.
He pulled up the sleeve on his other arm and found a similar wound. He had started breathing again at some point without even realizing it. Now he couldn't catch his breath. It was wrong. It was very, very wrong.
His legs had somewhat longer wounds, but they were still as neatly stitched. His chest, which should have been one gaping wound that exposed everything inside of him, was nothing more than a three inch incision. How was this possible? How could they do this to him?
He didn't burst out crying in deep sobs. Luckily, Collin managed to push back the flood of tears before he looked like a complete lunatic. But Tracy and the girl were both looking at him as though they expected him to snap. They expected him to start screaming or crying, or something. Truth be told, he was tempted. But he couldn't allow himself to be seen as broken. No matter how much damage had been done, he couldn't give HAND that victory over his life.
Looking over to Tracy, Collin said, “I could have sworn these would be bigger.”
“They're big enough, Collin.”
She looked down to his wounds and Collin could see in her eyes that she was disgusted by them. To her, they looked horrible. When he looked to the little girl, he could see the fear in her eyes. She was scared by those wounds. He shouldn't have let her see them. It was a stupid mistake.
He quickly pulled his sleeves back down and smiled at the little girl. He was hoping to think of some witty comment to make that would put the girl at ease and defuse the situation, but he couldn't think of anything funny about that moment.
That look of fear in her eyes shifted as she watched him cover his wounds. Though she didn't say anything to him, the girl appeared almost sympathetic for a moment.
“Collin, this is Will,” Mek said so loudly that it caught all three of the people in the waiting room off guard.
Collin saw Mek walking toward him with the man who ran the garage close behind. The man had a bag slung over his shoulder.
Mek was aware that he had stepped into a delicate moment, but the realization only slowed him down for a second. He walked to Collin, who stood and nodded a greeting to the man that he'd already seen before, but had never been properly introduced to.
“Will needs to run a scan,” Mek told Collin.
“To check for tracking devices,” Collin nodded. He'd been expecting something like that ever since they left the HAND building.
He straightened his shirt and brushed some dust off of his pants before standing straight and telling Will, “Do what you have to do.”
“This'll only take a sec,” Will told him, setting the bag down on one of the waiting room chairs.
From the bag, Will removed a small device which looked as though it had been cobbled together from bits and pieces of technology that had been gathered over the years. Will was an older man, who wore dirty blue coveralls and a matching cap. He had a white beard and a pleasant smile on his face, though his teeth were in various states of decay.
As he moved toward Collin with the scanner, Collin took a deep breath and held it. His heart was pounding in his chest, though he couldn't explain why. Was it the fear of being tracked? Being u
sed to lead HAND back to a Freedom base? Of being used as a tool of death and destruction against his own people? That's what he thought at first, but he didn't feel any emotional reaction to those thoughts.
When Will raised the scanner toward Collin's head, Collin flinched. He caught himself before he took a step back, and closed his eyes, trying to slow his heart. It was the scanner. Though Collin knew that Will was a friendly and the scanner was harmless, he couldn't help but feel nervous as the man moved toward him with that piece of technology in hand.
When he opened his eyes, he found Will standing still, waiting for Collin to allow him to proceed. It was embarrassing. He didn't like the idea of people seeing him as weak. He didn't like the idea of people treating him with kid gloves. He didn't want sympathy.
“Just do it,” he told Will, sounding more harsh than he really wanted to.
Behind Will, Mek stood, watching this whole thing unfold with a furrowed brow. He looked as though he was evaluating Collin's reaction and making a note of it, for when he reported back to his superiors.
“I'm fine,” Collin assured him.
Mek nodded his understanding, but that didn't help Collin to feel any better about the situation. He wasn't even sure at this point whether or not he was fine. He was reacting to things that he shouldn't react to. He was starting to crack, but why? He'd spent a month being tortured without breaking and now that he was relatively safe, he was going to fall apart? It made no sense.
“You made quite an impression, you know?” Will said to Collin as he moved the scanner slowly over Collin's head, making sure that he didn't miss even a small area.
“I did?”
Will smiled and told him, “My son never showed any hint of doubting the authorities. Then he started hearing whispers at work. About you. Next thing I know, he's bringing it up at the dinner table. Nothing big. He's not ready to know about me or what I do yet, but for the first time in a very long time, I see... I see potential in him.”
As Collin listened to Will, he realized that this was exactly what he had hoped to accomplish when he allowed himself to be taken. But at the same time, he had never expected to be around to witness it. He expected to be killed, not tortured or rescued. He never wanted to be a hero. He didn't know how to be one.