Brothers

by Helena Newbury

  I nodded, as much to reassure myself as him. I knew I should trust him: he had more experience than any of us in this kind of thing. But all I could think about was Sylvie. It had been over an hour since she entered the tent. I should never have agreed to this. “Is everyone okay?” I snapped for about the tenth time.

  What I meant was, is everyone alert? Is everyone watching? With six of us keeping the tent in view, there was no way Sylvie could leave without us knowing. Two or three would have been plenty. But I wanted to know we were doing everything we could. Carrick and Annabelle sounded off, then Kian and Sean. But Louise stayed silent. “Louise?”

  “Yep!” she said suddenly. “Sorry! I mean: I’m here.”

  I whirled around, trying to find her. Then I spotted her, staring at a stall that sold birthstones for babies. Help your baby sleep soundly! Only $19.99! “Pay attention!” I snapped, more harshly than I meant to.

  Kian’s voice came over my earpiece, authoritative and calming. “It’s okay, brother. I know it’s hard but we’ve got to wait it out.”

  I was silent for a second. My fists itched with the need to hit something. I hoped to God there were at least four cult members in there, one for each of us. When we went in, I was going to annihilate mine, pound him into a bloody pulp on the floor. These are the bastards who took our parents. The rage rose inside me, scarlet and burning, but the fear was still there, coiled around it like a snake, twisting my guts into a tight, hard knot. They took our parents...and I let Sylvie go in there. It tightened and tightened until I had to let the words escape. “What if they’re— What if they’ve got her in there and they’re...doing stuff to her—”

  “This is Sylvie,” said Carrick. “Sylvie. Anyone tries to touch her and they’re going to lose the arm.”

  I knew he was right: Sylvie could take care of herself. But this was worse than when I’d had to watch her fight, back in New York. Then, at least I was right there watching her. Knowing she was in danger, unable to see her or do anything...is this how the girls feel, when they know we’re in the shit? How they hell do they cope? I was almost panting with tension, now. I wanted to yell, to scream, to charge in there. Just standing still was the hardest thing in the world. “We should have put a microphone on her,” I muttered.

  “Too dangerous,” said Kian. “You’ve heard what they do to people who try to investigate them. This way, she’s just another recruit. And that means they won’t hurt her, not here in a public place. The only danger is if they took her away somewhere and we’re all watching the tent. So—”—his voice had been growing harder but he suddenly softened, maybe remembering it wasn’t some Secret Service guy he was talking to. “So just hang in there, okay, brother?”

  And suddenly he was there beside me. He slapped a big, comforting hand on my shoulder and looked at me, questioning and concerned.

  I sighed and nodded, relaxing a little. God, it felt good to be with my brothers again. I looked towards the tent. Why didn’t I propose? I’d nearly done it just before we left for this place, had actually caught her hand in the hallway and put my hand on the ring in my pocket. But it had felt wrong, then. Like we were promising to be together forever but our very first act would be to separate. I knew that if I asked her then, I wouldn’t be able to let her go through with this. So I’d pulled her close and just kissed her instead, letting the ring drop back into my pocket.

  Now it sat there scalding my thigh and I wondered why I’d been so stupid. As soon as I get her home. The second I get her home.

  “Five more minutes,” I said darkly, glaring at the tent. “Then I’m going in after her.”

  28

  Sylvie

  It all just came out. My parents dying, Alec and I trying to support ourselves, his injury and coma, my volunteering to fight in his place. I never normally talked about personal stuff: I’d shared my story with the others, when we’d arrived at Sean and Louise’s house, and of course I shared everything with Aedan. But I’d never tell my life story to a stranger.

  Now...it was as if I was connected to Martin, in a way I’d never been connected to anyone. It was like basking in the warm glow of a fire when you’re cold. All he was doing was silently listening but it felt somehow active, as if he was drawing my secrets out of me. Having secrets from him hurt, like they were jagged little slivers of ice, and pushing them out of me brought welcome relief.

  Then he suddenly glanced at his phone and jumped to his feet, collecting his paperwork. “Oh God, I’m sorry. It’s been over an hour,” he said. “I’ve kept you way too long.”

  I blinked and just stayed sitting there. “What?” No, it’s okay. I don’t want to go.

  “I’m sorry,” said Martin. “I’d love to hear the rest. But I have a thing I have to go to.”

  I felt this sense of...loss. Like I was being dragged away from the warm glow, maybe forever. Martin moved towards the tent door and I looked at it in horror, imagining how cold it would be outside. “Please,” I said. “Can’t we keep talking? Maybe I could come with you?”

  He shook his head. “It’s really just for members. Just five or six of us sitting around talking. I shouldn’t really—”

  “Please!” Somewhere, distantly, I was shocked by how forcefully I said it. “I want to. Can I come?”

  He bit his lip and I prayed. And then he seemed to take pity on me. “Okay,” he said. “But we’ve got to go right now.”

  I nodded quickly and stood. It was harder than it should have been to push my chair back and get clear of the table, but Martin helped me. And then he led me to the back of the tent and pulled aside the canvas. There was a door there. “This way,” he said, pushing it open. Blinding daylight flooded in, dazzling me.

  I frowned and stopped for a second. Somewhere in the back of my mind, there was a memory. A sort of warning. Something that I must not do.

  “Come on, Sylvie,” said Martin. He stepped halfway through the door. “Or I’ll have to go without you.”

  That woke me up: I could feel the warm glow slipping away, the further I got from him. I caught up to him and followed him to his car.

  29

  Aedan

  “Enough.” The five minutes I’d given it were up.

  “Wait,” said Kian beside me. He grabbed my shoulder but I tore away from him, marching towards the tent. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Sean and Carrick muscling forward to join me, all of us converging on the canvas door. I was breathing hard, shoulders already pulling back, fists coming up, ready to smash and grab and throw. I am going to devastate these fuckers.

  I burst through the tent flaps and saw—

  Nothing. A table with a jug of water. Some crates. No sign of Sylvie or anyone else.

  “No,” I said aloud. I heard the others flood in behind me. “No. No, no, no—”

  “That’s impossible,” said Kian, his voice tight with fear. “We were watching the door!”

  “Is there a second room?!” Sean’s voice was incredulous. We all started checking the walls: was there another part to the tent? Was it bigger than it looked?

  Then I found the opening at the rear. Swept the canvas aside and found the door. I felt the bile rising in my throat. “Oh Jesus,” I whispered in terror.

  I pushed open the door and we were looking at the parking lot. Cars. A million cars.

  Carrick barreled past me. “I’ll get my bike,” he said. “They might still be here, or on the street!” He sprinted off.

  Sean was next out of the door. “I’ll drive up and down the rows, try and spot her.” And he ran off to fetch the Mustang. But I knew it was useless. For all we knew, she’d left almost an hour ago.

  I turned to see Kian standing there with his hands up to placate me. “She’ll be okay,” he said quickly. “She’s smart. She’s strong—”

  “It’s Sylvie!” I yelled. And I just lost it: I took one step forward and punched him full force in the jaw. Even with his size and weight, he lifted clear of the ground and crashed down on th
e desk, snapping its legs. The glass water jug shattered and the ice bucket spewed cubes across the floor. “It’s Sylvie, not one of your fucking Secret Service agents!”

  He lay there glaring up at me, furious...but then I saw how pale his face was, underneath the anger. “I know,” he croaked.

  He was feeling the same fear I was. He wasn’t trying to be an asshole. He was just trying to reassure me. I turned away and let him get up. I wasn’t up to apologizing, right now. “We need to call the cops,” I said and pulled out my phone.

  Kian got slowly to his feet. “We can’t,” he said. He sounded so calm. How the fuck did he do that? “They’ve got people deep in the cops.”

  I ignored him. My hands were shaking so hard with fear, I hit 8 twice before I got the 9 of 911.

  Kian put a hand on my wrist, catching me just before I hit call. His lip was bleeding but he still managed to keep his touch gentle. “If the cops tip them off, if they guess she’s trying to infiltrate them, they could kill her.”

  I slowly moved my thumb away from the call button. Every muscle in my arm was screaming: I was squeezing my phone so hard the casing creaked. Sylvie!

  Sean’s voice on the radio, breathless with panic, the Irish coming through strong. “She’s not anywhere in the parking lot.”

  Carrick, his Harley’s engine thumping in the background. “Nothing on the street.”

  I turned and kicked the nearest thing, a crate of Coke. Cans flew and scattered but the soft canvas walls soaked up the impacts with no sound at all. We’d thought we were being so fucking clever. Everyone had warned us not to do this. Everyone. And now they had Sylvie. We were in completely over our heads.

  Kian reached for me again but I just shook my head and barged out of the tent, back into the fair. Thousands of people were cheerfully chatting away, buying and selling, unaware anything was wrong. I wanted to scream in their faces. Didn’t they realize she was gone? Didn’t they realize I’d lost her?

  Kian caught up to me. I could see the guilt in his eyes: all those times he’d told me not to go into the tent, all those times he’d said everything was fine. “We’ll find her,” he told me.

  But we had no idea where to even start looking.

  30

  Sylvie

  The sunset was lighting up the interior of Martin’s car in oranges and golds by the time we arrived. I had no idea where we were: it was an upmarket, leafy suburb but I didn’t know if we were north or south of the city. But it didn’t matter. As long as I stayed with him, I could stay within the warm, comforting glow. The idea of being away from him was cold, cold like a lamppost on a freezing day, so cold I was worried that if I thought of it too long, my mind would stick to it and hurt when I tore it away. I’d never felt so desperate to stay in someone’s company. Not even….

  I blinked.

  Aedan. Why had I had to concentrate to remember his name? I must be tired.

  Martin showed me inside. It was modern and comfortable and very clean, with couches that looked like they’d wrap you up in a warm hug. Thick blackout blinds were already drawn and the only light came from table lamps spaced around the room on low tables, the walls disappearing into shadow.

  Four people were already there, two men and two women. They were in two pairs, their voices quiet. The mood was hard to describe. It was like those moments you get very late at night, when the party’s long over and a few close friends sit around having earnest, heartfelt conversations. I was nervous for a second. They must know each other very well, to talk like that. What if me being there was awkward?

  But immediately, one of the women jumped to her feet and ran over. She was older than me, with long straight black hair shot through with strands of silver. “I’m Julie,” she told me, smiling. I found myself smiling back. “Come and sit down. We’re going to be great friends.”

  Great friends. The words seemed to roll around inside my head, inside my heart, and a part of me lit up pink and bright. I smiled even harder and that seemed to please Julie.

  I thought I’d be talking to Martin but he started talking to the woman Julie had been talking to and she sat with me. As she asked me my name and we began to talk, I realized that each pair was made up of one newcomer, like me, and one person like Julie or Martin, from...I frowned. From...the cult? That was the word I remembered having in my head, when I came here, but it seemed so silly, now. This wasn’t a cult. It was just a group of friendly people. When I go home, I need to tell everyone how wrong they were.

  We seemed to talk for hours. Julie wanted to know everything about me, so much that my mouth got dry and they had to keep bringing me more Cokes. Sometimes, the three newcomers would talk together, telling our stories. There was a man called Frank, in his fifties, and a woman called Melanie who was a little younger than me, dressed in knee boots and an expensive skirt and top. Most of the time, though, I talked one-on-one with Julie, Martin or the other man, a blond-haired guy called James who had rolled-up shirt sleeves and a nice smile.

  Time seemed to go syrupy and thick. It felt as if we’d been talking for hours but I knew we couldn’t have been because no one made any sign of winding things up or kicking us out. I told my story, more slowly, this time, and with all the details. When I reached the most painful, personal part—the night when I was nearly raped at The Pit—Julie nodded sympathetically.

  And then asked me how it made me feel.

  I shook my head. “I’ve put it behind me.” It was the part of the story I always skipped over.

  Julie put her hand on my arm. “You need to get it out,” she said. “To heal.”

  I didn’t want to. The wounds had closed and I’d have to re-open them. But she was so nice. They all were. I wanted them to like me.

  So I told her. In detail. Halting sentences became gulping sobs. Warm tears fell into my Coke. Julie nodded and gave me encouraging smiles and I knew she was right: it had to hurt, to heal. But it didn’t feel like healing. It felt as if she was mapping every secret little place inside my soul.

  When I was finally done, she hugged me. “I know,” she whispered. “I know that was awful.” She drew back and her hands found mine. Then she knitted our fingers together. “But friends have to know each other, don’t they? And that’s what we are, now. Great friends.”

  And I blinked the last of the tears away and felt that bright, pink light shine inside me again, even stronger than before. She couldn’t have known I needed friends. I hadn’t even admitted it to myself until today. It was lucky, so lucky, that we’d found each other. I grinned.

  “Now that we’re friends,” she told me, looking deep into my eyes, “you can join us. We can all be your friends. Friends who’ll never betray you, who’ll always be there for you, no matter what. Do you know what Aeternus means? Everlasting. Come here.”

  She led me by the hand to the center of the room, where there was a big circular rug that looked hand-knitted. Martin was doing the same with Frank. James was bringing Melanie over. We sat down in a circle. The rug was surprisingly thick and comfortable and the six of us neatly fitted, as if it had been made for just this purpose.

  Julie took my hand and, next to me, Martin took my other hand. Their touch was wonderful: warm and smooth and secure. When all six of us were holding hands, it felt like the best thing in the world.

  “This is The Group,” she said. “We can all rely on each other here, Sylvie. She looked deep into my eyes. “You know what it’s like to have people leave you, don’t you?”

  I just stared at her as a deep, hot upwelling of emotion rose in my chest. My eyes suddenly filled with tears. Yes! My parents! How had she known? Had I told her about them dying? I didn’t remember.

  “Listen to me, Sylvie.” She squeezed my hand. “Listen to me very carefully. No one in Aeternus will ever leave you. No one will ever let you down. We will always be here for you. That’s what we’re about: helping each other, taking care of each other.”

  I nodded. All three of us newcomers did. It sounde
d so good!

  We ate a meal sitting cross-legged on the floor: bowls of sticky jasmine rice and chicken with soy and ginger. I was worried I was being rude, staying there: Martin hadn’t even wanted to bring me along, and wasn’t it getting late? But Julie said there was plenty for everyone.

  After dinner, we talked more. Then Martin was gently shaking me and I sat up, blinking: I flushed as I realized I must have drifted off to sleep, slumped against the side of the couch. I was bleary-eyed at first, but then James pressed a big mug of coffee into my hands and I started to wake up.

  We divided into pairs again, one newcomer to one Guide. Guides are just what we call ourselves, Julie told me. We help people when they’re joining. One day, you might be a Guide too.

  She asked me questions about my family and friends, writing down my answers. James was doing the same with Melanie and I overheard some of it. Her life sounded much more glamorous than mine: her dad was some sort of rich industrialist who owned skyscrapers downtown. “But I don’t want to be like him,” Melanie said, tossing her hair back. “I don’t think life should be all about money.”

  “That’s right,” I heard James tell her, and he gave her a grin, and Melanie sort of giggled and smiled back at him, entranced. “Aeternus doesn’t even need a lot of money, because there are so many of us. We all give $100 each month, just to keep things running.” He shrugged casually. “Some people give more, if they’re rich like your dad, but that’s up to them.”