by E. J. Mellow
“You just met him,” I accuse.
“And does that mean I can’t form an opinion?” She raises a brow. “Plus, I met him once before at the lab, remember?”
“Oh yes, your friendship goes way back.”
She punches me in the arm.
“Ow!”
“Please.” She rolls her eyes. “You fight nightmare monsters. That hardly could have hurt.”
“It did in spirit.”
She snorts and then swallows it back as Hector walks out of the hospital room.
“He wants to see you,” he says, his eyes fluttering to me before returning to the ground, apparently deep in thought.
Without answering, I brush past my guard and shut the door.
Taking the seat Hector previously occupied, I scoot closer to my grandfather. “Hi.” I curl my fingers into his cold hand.
“It’s getting bad,” he says.
“What is?”
“The war in Terra. It’s getting worse, isn’t it?”
“Um…” I lean away slightly, thinking this topic isn’t the best idea. “Maybe we should talk about something less…stressful.”
“Listen to me, Molly.” He pulls me back in. “I don’t know how much longer I’ll be here—”
“Don’t say that.”
“I’m in my nineties, dear,” he says tiredly. “I might be strong willed, but I’m hardly imperishable. And I’ve lived a good life, more than one, I like to think.”
“Yes, but—”
“There are no buts about it. It’s a reality for all of us. But life’s mysteries are not what I wanted to discuss right now.” He huffs another labored breath, talking obviously taking more strength than he has. I swallow and hold on to his hand more tightly.
“Then what?”
“I want you to know that I’m extremely proud of you.”
My chest tightens. “I know, Grandpa. You’ve told me many times.”
“Yes, but it’s important that you never forget. You’re about to face a very large challenge. One that rivals all previously. Trust me,” he adds, seeing me wanting to respond. “You need to remember to remain strong. Never forget the power of good that’s in you. You will find yourself doubting it. Fear will do that. It blocks out the light. You’ll wonder what the point of your efforts are when hate seems to always be a constant. When every life you save merely is met with ten deaths. I almost lost my way a few times, brought to the brink of my ending more than once.” His forehead crinkles. “But the people I knew who loved me, that were waiting for me, got me through it. I made myself survive for them.” His wise eyes, circled in soft, puffy skin, hold mine. “Do you see?” he whispers forcefully. “I will keep trying to survive for you and Charles and Kathy, but, like any lucky soul, I will hopefully slip from this world naturally. You, or anyone else, cannot fight this. And when the time comes, I want you to remember my words to you now. I believe you can stop this evil like those before you. Like me,” he adds with a secret grin. “You have always been a force meant for greatness. Show them.”
“Grandpa,” I choke out, tears forming in my eyes.
“I love you,” he says and then loosens his grip. “Now I must rest for a bit. I know once your parents come back, I won’t have another chance.”
“Okay,” I say. “I love you too.” Then I kiss him on the cheek, leave his room, and do the only thing I can after that.
I look for Hector.
—∞—
The night air is crisp as I exit the hospital, the summer fragrance of newly cut grass its perfume as I find Hector sitting on a nearby bench. Joining him, we watch the quiet, dark parking lot in front of us. A nurse strolls to her car, the white teddies on her scrubs shining under the moonlight. A little girl helps her father carry a bouquet of flowers as they make their way inside, her skipping feet a gentle rhythm of hope.
After a moment more of silence, I speak. “I used to think hospitals were a sad place. So much sickness and death contained in one building.” I lean back, crossing my legs at the ankles. “But then a week before my fourteenth birthday, I got hit with strep and bronchitis. If you don’t understand how bad that combo is, imagine shoving two spiked golf balls down your throat. It was horrible.” I wince at the memory. “But what sucked more was when I found out I needed to get my tonsils removed. I was miserable and terrified. I mean, it was the week of my birthday. But it couldn’t be helped, and two days before I turned fourteen, I went in for surgery. I ended up spending half of my birthday in a hospital bed.” I take in Hector’s frown as his gaze remains forward. “But the most amazing thing happened. My room was filled with flowers and balloons and presents from the friends that were originally invited to my party that got canceled. They visited with their parents, and we ate so much ice cream, too much.” I laugh, remembering the cartons the nurses brought in. “It turned out to be one of the best birthdays I ever had, and I realized something. Hospitals aren’t just a place for the sick and dying, but also for survivors. It can be a place to celebrate life.” I pause for a moment, watching a new car pull in, its headlights flashing across where we sit. “Profound things happen here,” I go on. “True friends are realized, love is renewed, and probably one of the most important things of all, forgiveness is given.”
There’s a beat of quiet, the gentle buzz of insects and whooshing of cars on the far-off highway filling the void. I’m not sure why I felt moved to share that story, but something about what I saw in Hector’s gaze as he left my grandfather’s room made me understand something about him, something he has probably tried to hide for forty years.
With a shaky breath, Hector leans forward, dipping his head into his hands. “I don’t deserve forgiveness.”
“I think that’s for the ones you’ve wronged to decide,” I say. “And it seems like he has.”
Hector’s pale face turns to mine, surprise in his green gaze. “Robert told you what happened?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know…”
“Give me a little more credit than that.” I incline my head and allow a moment of pensive silence before asking, “Will you tell me?”
I’m not sure if it’s because of what I just shared or the exhaustion of the day or both, but with a sigh he begins his story.
“Robert and I…we were inseparable. I hardly had to speak for him to know what I was thinking or feeling, and oftentimes we would go days without saying a word. We didn’t need to. I could predict what he wanted just as easily as I knew I needed to take a next breath. Robert…his friendship was like nothing I’d ever known.” Hector twists his hands in his lap. “I had been Robert’s Vigil guard for nearly ten years before he was called into the war. I, of course, enlisted with him, making sure we were in the same troop, and eventually we were placed into the Thirty-Fourth Division, sent off to Italy to fight the Germans southward to Monastery Hill. The terrain was filled with mountains covered with boulders and cut by ravines and gullies. The ground was so rocky we couldn’t even dig foxholes for safety. We had no shelter, and the weather was freezing cold and wet. Plus, there were no nearby portals for me to meet with Robert back in Terra when he did eventually give in to sleep. It was torture watching over him those nights, not knowing what was going on back at home. After weeks of this, my control started to slip. I became anxious and jittery, every small noise…” Hector stops for a moment, swallowing back the hoarseness. “The Germans had three months to scout and prepare defenses before we arrived, and everywhere seemed to be planted with mines and booby traps. It was on a night trek that it happened. We got ambushed. There was firefight everywhere, explosions that caused the wet dirt to cake the fallen bodies.” Hector’s coloring is ashen. “I don’t know what happened, but I…I snapped. I ran. Away.” He forces the word out with torment. “Robert, he…he went after me, was yelling at me to stop, but I couldn’t hear or see anything but the massacre around us. It seemed so much worse than the Metus back at home, so pointless. But then I heard it, a mine going off be
hind me, one of our brothers setting it off, and I was thrown to the side. When I came to, I knew my face had gotten hit with shrapnel, but I also knew, knew, Robert was closer to the blast range.”
I take in a sharp breath.
“I eventually found him unconscious in the mud. He had so much blood covering his uniform that it was hard to tell where the largest wound was.” Hector lets out a snort. “And they said he was one of the lucky ones…lucky,” he repeats in disgust. “His leg got the brunt of it, but the doctors thought they could save it, save him. I stayed by his bed as long as I could. Until I knew he was in the clear, and then…then I left.”
“You resigned,” I say.
“I failed him,” he corrects, scrubbing a frustrated hand down his face. “Failed in my one and only duty.”
“And you didn’t let them treat your scar.”
“A reminder.”
I press my lips together to hold in the oh, Hector I was about to breathe, pretty sure that’s the last thing he wants to hear. So instead I sit with him, quietly, and let the space around us hold his words, his memories, before the wind carries them away.
It all makes sense now. His years of torment, of reducing himself to the lowest rank and appearing heartless—all fueled from thinking that’s what he was, what he deserved.
“No matter what you think,” I eventually say, “my grandfather would never have blamed you for what happened. He lived, Hector. If anything, he seems upset that you left.”
“That made it worse.” Hector stands with a jerk. “I knew he would forgive me. He would never have held me responsible. He was always so understanding, is so understanding. But I ran,” he says with a curled lip. “When I was supposed to be the protector, I ran, and my cowardice almost got us both killed. I couldn’t look at him without feeling all my shame and failure. I couldn’t…” Hector trails off, seeming to no longer have the energy for words.
“But now?” I ask.
“Now…now I had to. I had to see him, for his sake. I needed to tell him why I left. And even if he forgives me, I still don’t forgive myself.”
I watch him, the way his tall form stands still against the night. “Accepting forgiveness or not, it doesn’t stop the fact that it was brave of you to come.”
“By the stars,” Hector snorts, incredulous. “Can you Speros get any more selfless?”
“You can certainly try me.” I give him a light smile.
As if my words draw another thought from Hector, his gaze turns inward.
“What?” I ask.
“I have to tell you something.”
“Okay…”
He regards me cautiously. “It’s about Aaron.”
Instantly my stomach tightens.
“It’s because of me that he was able to find you.”
My head jerks back. “What?”
“We traded,” he explains. “But I didn’t know who he was besides a defected Vigil. We swapped information, news on Robert for things happening in Terra. It’s my fault, Molly.” He balls his hands into fists. “It’s because of my stupid fear of returning to Earth that led Aaron to you.”
The ground grows unsteady under my feat.
“But if I knew who he was, what he was planning.” Hector sits beside me again, his expression desperate and imploring. It looks completely awkward on his usually smug face. “I would never have done business with him. I swear.”
So much pain, so much torment that he’s brought onto himself. It’s enough, I think. All of it. I just want to start anew, fresh.
“No,” I say. “I don’t think you would have.”
He blinks, shocked. “You believe me?”
“What good would it do for you to lie about this?”
“But…you’re not mad?”
I let out a large breath. “Yes, your interest in my grandfather might have led him to me faster, but Hector, Aaron was already looking for the next Dreamer. He would have found me eventually.”
“He…how do you know that?”
“Because he told me.”
“He did?”
“Yeah, right before he stabbed me with a knife,” I add dryly.
“Oh” is Hector’s only reply, and then after a moment, “Well, you took this a lot better than Dev.”
My brows climb up my forehead. “You told Dev?”
“I was rather forced to.” Hector straightens, his temperament of superiority slipping back in place. “It was one of Elena’s conditions for the two of us to work together. Something about clearing the air.”
I let out an astonished breath. “I’m surprised you survived.”
“I’m sure Dev wished I hadn’t.”
I don’t contradict him.
But by the stars… Dev knew this and didn’t tell me. I normally would get annoyed by something like this, but for some reason, after everything, I find myself too tired for such an emotion. Dev telling me earlier versus Hector telling me now would have made little difference. We’re still standing where we are, knowing the truth.
“We good?” I ask. “Or do you have a few more confessions you need to get off your chest?”
Hector surprises me by chuckling, and right then I see the young man that my grandfather would have been such good friends with. “Yes,” he says, “I think we are.”
As we reenter the hospital, a slight grin on both our lips, I think how strange this visit home has turned out. I came here thinking it would be filled with heartache, but it’s proving to be a huge leap in not only Hector and my grandfather’s relationship, but between Hector and my own as well.
Through the next few days, my grandfather’s recovery appears stable, enough so that I feel lighter, and dare I say happy, as I return to Terra.
But as I walk through the portal to the DCC, I find Dev waiting for me along with my entire entourage of Vigil guards, now double in size.
I glance at them curiously, barely able to say a hello, before I register Dev’s panicked gaze and coiled muscles. In quick long strides he comes to me, grasping my hands and forcing out words that poison the very air I breathe.
I feel the blood drain from my face. The lights in the room spark and flutter as my energy spirals in havoc.
This can’t be real.
This has to be a sick joke. For how can fate really be so cruel as to not allow me a moment to hope? To rest?
“Molly.” Dev shakes me slightly. “Did you hear what I said?”
I look at him, look into his ruggedly handsome face, and want to scream, YES! Yes! I heard you. But I remain motionless, silent, catatonic as his words tumble over and over and over in my mind.
Aaron has escaped.
Aaron has escaped.
Aaron has escaped.
— 31 —
“I still think this is a bad idea,” Dev says as he and Hector follow me down the white corridor, my oppressively large entourage of Vigil guards circling us.
“And I still don’t care,” I say as we turn a corner in the Prisoner Barracks, a building located on the eastern side of the city. The majority of the facility lies underground, and I try not to draw parallels it has with the DCC. “Elena didn’t forbid me.”
“And Cato?” Dev asks.
“What Cato doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
“I’m sure he would beg to differ,” Hector muses.
“And anyway,” I say, “he’s an elder. He probably already knows, and I don’t see him trying to block our path, do you?”
“She’s got a point.” Hector glances to Dev.
“Shut up,” Dev mutters before tugging my arm, bringing me to a stop. Odi steps forward with pursed lips, zeroing in on Dev’s grip.
“It’s fine.” I wave him back.
“Think about this for a second.” Dev pins me with his blue gaze. “She’s the one who helped him escape.”
“Wait, what?” I ask in shock before rolling my eyes. “Yes, Dev, I know.”
He merely glowers. “You should be on lockdown, not strolling in to visit
the enemy.”
“And that’s what you think Aurora is now? Our enemy?”
“No. I’m just saying…” Dev groans, scrubbing his hand down his face. “She obviously can’t be trusted!”
“I know,” I say hotly and then, after a calming breath, say more softly, “I know.”
“Then what are you looking to gain from this?”
“I—” I’m not sure. I just need to see her. Ask her why. How could she betray us, me? Aaron’s out there now, she helped him get out there, and if he was smart and I was lucky, he was now very, very far away. But something tells me he’s not. Something tells me he’s much closer than any of us would like, and waiting. For what? I’m not certain, except it can’t be for anything pleasant. Holding back a shiver, I glance to my guards. I feel ridiculous with so many now orbiting me, but it was either this or, as Dev so eloquently put it, be placed on lockdown, stuck in some windowless room deep in the DCC for Terra knew how long, until they could locate the escaped prisoner. Well, I was not about to allow that to happen. I was the Dreamer, for Terra’s sake, have taken down bigger and badder nightmares than Aaron. And still will.
“I want answers,” I say to Dev, and before he can utter another word, I nod to Odi to continue our quick pace to where Aurora is being held.
Her gray uniform covers her hunched-over form that sits behind the chrome table, her arms locked together by blue rings of Navitas in the center, and I take in her dead stare that’s fixed onto the table’s surface. Dev, Hector, and I stand on the opposite side of a one-way glass, Dev’s anger palpable.
“I don’t know how much you’ll be able to get out of her,” the ward, a rather large burly Nocturna, says from behind us. “She hasn’t muttered a word since she got brought in.”
“She looks horrible,” I say.
The ward merely grunts.
“Are you sure about this?” Dev asks again.
I nod.
“You won’t be given that much time with her,” the large man says. “And you’ll need at least…” I can sense him looking around to my guards. “Five of your Vigil to accompany you.”