by Cheree Alsop
Brie threw me another smile, the kind that crinkled her nose and laughed at being caught, and she left through the door into the house. Jayce followed her, then stopped and turned to me with his hand on the screen door.
“Just don’t hurt her, that’s all I ask,” he said in a serious voice, his brow furrowed.
“I won’t, I promise,” I replied.
He nodded and disappeared into the house. I hoped deep down that I could live up to my words.
I leaned back against the porch railing. My heart pounded and my muscles ached. I wanted to fly to clear my head, but flying would only be putting the others in danger. I rubbed my eyes with one hand.
“Hey man, what’s up?” Zach walked up the porch steps and took a chair near where I stood. He leaned back, propping his shoes up on the porch railing.
“Not much. Just enjoying the view.” I indicated to where Rory had just face-planted in the grass in an attempt to hit a wide ball. Several other students stood around him laughing.
Zach laughed also. “Yeah, volleyball might not be the best idea. I like to observe rather than participate. Save myself for football, you know?”
I nodded and we watched in silence for a while.
There were several more bad attempts to get the ball over the sagging rope. It amazed me that the players on the other side still stuck around, but everyone seemed content to laugh at whoever’s turn it was.
After a few minutes had passed, Zach put his feet back down and turned the chair so that he faced me. He cleared his throat. “It’s wrong what they’re doing to the Galdoni.” He studied me, his expression grave.
“You know.” I said it as a statement, and took a deep breath to calm the foreboding that rose in my chest.
His brow furrowed, but he nodded. “It made sense. You’ve been around a couple months, don’t have any history or past that I can scare up, you always wear the coat, and I’ve never seen anyone fight like that.”
“It sort of comes naturally, if you know what I mean.” I gave him a tired smile.
He nodded. “I’ll bet.”
Silence fell as several students ran down the stairs to join the game on the back lawn. “So, what now?” I finally asked.
“You mean am I going to turn you in?” At my nod, Zach frowned. “That wouldn’t be a very good way to repay you for saving my sister.” Silence followed. I watched him study his hands out of the corner of my eye. He flexed one, then the other, looking at the veins on the back. He cleared his throat again. “I do have a couple questions, though.”
“Shoot.”
He picked at a hole in the knee of his jeans. “I don’t get why they do it. Why do they fight? If it is so wrong and unethical, why don’t they just say they won’t kill each other?”
I pulled a chair up next to him and sat down to give myself some time to think. I tried to make sense of what I wanted to say, then finally gave up and shook my head. “It looks so black and white out here, away from the Academy. But when you’re there, fighting and trying to survive is all you know.” A memory swept through me.
Two older Galdoni were beating on a younger one who had been punished for stealing food and was being starved. He had snuck out of the barracks one night and broken the kitchen lock. Guards found him and we had all been called out in the middle of the night to participate in his punishment. When volunteers were called for, about half the group raised their hands. The young Galdoni looked so scared I couldn’t bring myself to join them.
Two were chosen and told to beat him until the whistle was blown. The young Galdoni tried to fight back, but by the time they were finished, he would feel his punishment for a long time.
“Now, what did he do wrong?” the lead guard in lean black armor asked. He tossed a serrated knife in the air and caught it by the blade, then did it again, catching it by the handle.
“He stole food,” one of the younger Galdoni said in a tentative voice.
“Wrong!” the lead guard yelled. His voice echoed down the hall like the crack of a whip. He backhanded the Galdoni who had spoken. “That’s for giving the wrong answer.” He then kicked the boy in the gut and he fell to the ground gasping. “And that’s for saying it like a coward!”
He turned and glared at the rest of us. “What did PK309 do wrong?”
“He didn’t fight!” an older Galdoni yelled out.
The guard sneered down at the beaten Galdoni. “He tried, but he didn’t fight.” He raised his voice. “Is trying fighting?”
“If you try, you die,” we shouted together one of the mantras that had been drilled into us until it pounded with our heartbeats.
“You must do,” the lead guard said. “Those who fail to do, die.” He glared at the two Galdoni who had carried out the beating. “Take him away.”
I shook my head and pulled myself back to the present. “It’s kill or be killed in there. When that’s all that matters, it truly becomes all that matters. And you’re taught to believe that your life is only worth those whom you can kill.”
“But don’t they know it’s wrong?” Zach gave me a frank stare. “You know it’s wrong.”
I met his gaze. “I know it’s wrong because I’ve lived outside of it. If I had met you in the Arena, there’d be four fewer humans in the world.”
His face paled slightly, but he didn’t look away. “I don’t believe you.”
An example came to mind from my history class. I opened a hand. “Take terrorist attacks. People have been raised to believe that this nation is full of corrupt, satanic people whose mere presence defiles the world. They believe that they are following the wishes of their maker by destroying even just a few, and usually at the cost of their own lives. And why do they do it? Because that’s the way they’ve been raised. It’s all they know, all they’ve been taught to believe, and they have no reason to question those beliefs.”
“So the answer is to give them a reason to question?”
I nodded with a slight frown. “Yes, but the real problem is how to do it. Do you think if the nation says, look, we aren’t bad people, anyone will listen?”
He shook his head.
I agreed. “No, of course not. And therein lays the conundrum.”
He put his feet against the railing and pushed back so that his chair balanced on two legs. “There’s got to be a way.”
I glanced at him. “To end terrorism or to stop the Galdoni from killing each other?”
“Both.” He smiled. “And maybe to keep us from killing the Galdoni.”
I fought back a smile. “That would be good.”
We sat in amiable silence for a few minutes, then he asked, “What about the masks?”
“What do you mean?”
Zach’s brow furrowed. “Is there something special about them or are they just part of the armor? I’ve never seen a Galdoni battle where they don’t wear them.”
My gut tightened and I ran my fingers along the wooden railing beside me. “The masks are sacred,” I said quietly.
Zach nodded as if he had expected something like that. “How so?”
My breathing slowed as I thought of the lectures and of the rituals that were pounded into us until we accepted them without question, and believed them without suspicion. I took a deep breath. “The Arena sands are sacred, our trying ground for heaven. The masks show our respect for the Arena.”
“What would happen if you fought without one?”
I shook my head and rubbed my brow. “No Galdoni would enter the Arena without a mask or take his mask off during battle. To do so would forfeit one’s chance of making it into heaven.”
“Do you believe that?” Zach asked quietly without any hint of derision or judgment in his voice.
“I don’t know what I believe anymore,” I admitted. “My whole world has turned upside down.”
Zach gave me a sympathetic glance and let the topic go. I watched the volleyball players, but my mind stayed in the Arena.
***
We got home well
past midnight, but none of us felt quite ready for bed. Brie and Jayce checked in with their dad, then came over to lounge on the sofas and chat about insignificant things while Nikko clicked away on his laptop searching for information for yet another of his research projects. Brie rested her head on my shoulder and Jayce sprawled on the other couch with one foot on the top cushion and the other on the floor.
Jayce and I talked about other animal traits Galdoni could have used. We had gone through the major defense abilities of the common predators and Jayce was now reaching for any we had missed. It took several minutes for my mind to register that I could no longer hear the rhythmic click of Nikko’s typing.
“How about long necks like a giraffe?”
“Why, so we could eat from tall trees or something?” I replied with a glance at Nikko. His brow was furrowed and lips tight as he stared at the computer screen.
Jayce laughed and slapped his knee.
Nikko's jaw twitched from gritting his teeth.
“What’s up, Nikko?” I asked, concerned.
“Or a beaver’s tail,” Jayce continued, oblivious. “Could be handy if you ever want to take up pottery.”
Brie noticed Nikko’s lack of response and sat up. “Nik, whatcha looking at?”
Nikko finally looked up. He met my gaze. “It’s not pleasant.”
At Nikko’s tone, Jayce stopped laughing at his own jokes and sat up straight.
Nikko turned the computer so we could see the headlines.
“Galdoni Attack Citizens in Bar, One Dead, Three Injured,” a news page proclaimed.
My heart skipped a beat. “There must be a mistake. They wouldn’t attack defenseless civilians, would they?”
Nikko rubbed his eyes. “It says they were in the back corner of a bar at a table when the Arena fight aired. No one noticed them because they wore long coats.” He glanced at me but continued, “Apparently, some guys in the bar started joking about the fight and saying derogatory things about Galdoni, and the two Galdoni attacked. By the time the police got there, the place was torn apart.”
“And the Galdoni?” Jayce asked.
“One was shot, and the other taken back to the Academy.”
Silence filled the room. It pressed around me until I couldn’t breathe. I rubbed my palms on my knees in an effort to bring the feeling back to my hands. “That's really bad. How is anyone going to accept Galdoni into normal society with this kind of stuff happening?”
Nikko stared at me. “You have a plan?”
I shook my head. “No, just something Zach and I were talking about.”
Brie stared at me and Nikko’s eyes widened. “You mean, he knows?”
At my nod, Jayce hurried to the window and peered out into the night. “Are you crazy?” he said over his shoulder. “He probably told the cops.”
“No. We have an understanding.” Jayce looked at me like I was crazy and I shrugged. “He called it a fair trade for me saving his sister. I trust him.”
Jayce glanced out the window one more time and shook his head. “Okay; it’s your decision.” He sat back down on the couch and gestured at the computer. “But that’s definitely not going to help things.”
“Not at all.” I rose and made my way to the bedroom. “I’m going to try to get some shut-eye. See you guys in the morning.”
I closed the door behind me and settled on the bed, but too much had happened for sleep to claim my weary brain. I felt caged, trapped, like the inevitable was drawing closer and I wouldn’t have my freedom much longer. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I opened the door, made my way through the now empty living room, and left through the back door into the welcoming embrace of night.
I walked through the trees behind the house, grateful for the darkness of a new moon. I had left my coat at the house, a careless move, but I doubted anyone was out and it was too dark to see clearly anyway. I found a clearing and took to the sky.
The wind filled my wings as though the sky had missed me as much as I had missed flying. It felt so good to feel the air through my feathers. I beat down hard until I flew so high the cold breeze ran a chill down my spine. Lights dotted the houses below, warm windows where families slept unshaken by the hypocrisy of their callous world.
The judgment was harsh because I was entangled in the human world more than a Galdoni was supposed to be. I wanted to be a part of it so badly, but I kept seeing AR527’s face, still and cold as the high night sky. As good as it felt to fly, I couldn’t chase away the foreboding in the back of my mind. I knew I had to make it stop somehow.
I pushed away all thought and flew as hard and as fast as I could. The wind rushed past my face, stealing my breath as the crispness brought tears to my eyes. My wings ached to fly faster and I obeyed. I dove and rose with the swells, circled buildings and followed winding roads until I flew above checkered farms and sleepy cattle. The scent of fresh-cut hay tickled my nose.
I flew low enough to run my fingers along sheaths of wheat, soft and ready for harvest. I followed the ditch that watered the fields to the river that fed it. A few ducks and drowsy killdeer started at my appearance, but I was gone before they could make a sound. A beat of my wings brought me above a quiet town of scattered houses and a lone church. I circled the church once, questions crowding my head. I shoved them deep inside and flew away into the night.
I kept telling myself that Brie, Jayce, and Nikko would be better off if I didn’t return, that my presence brought them danger and I didn’t want to hurt them. But Brie’s voice was constantly in the back of my mind, her words a whisper above my dark thoughts. I heard her say ‘I love you’ so many times I almost let myself believe that it was okay, that I wasn’t a monster, that loving me wouldn’t turn her into a monster, too. I almost believed it.
Regardless of my intentions, I recognized the buildings as the wind brought me back. I barely glided, my wings heavy with the unaccustomed strain. They ached when I finally landed in the small forest, but it was a good ache and my body relished the feeling. I felt more alive than I ever had before, and more torn by my two battling lives. It seemed that everything in my life was a battle somehow.
All thoughts fell away when I stepped through the trees and saw Brie asleep on Nikko’s back porch, a blanket slid halfway off her shoulders and a flashlight lying dim with low batteries next to her foot. Starlight played across her face like tiny fairies soothing her with their soft songs of midnight. Her hair, pulled from its braid, fell across her cheek, the brown strands turned to gold by the faint light that spilled through the window behind her.
At that moment, I didn’t want to go back to the Academy so badly my chest ached.
I walked quietly up the steps and eased down next to her. I opened my wings, grateful for the cover of night, and pulled her close. Brie leaned on my shoulder for a few minutes and I listened to her breathing change as she awoke. It reminded me of when I first met her and a smile touched my face.
“Kale?” Her voice was quiet, disbelieving. She turned her face to look up at me and I saw the tear tracks on her cheeks. “Kale? I came here to talk to you and you were gone. I was afraid you wouldn’t come back.”
My heart constricted and I held my breath, afraid of the feelings my heart already gave away. “I had to come back,” I finally forced myself to say.
The tears in her eyes caught the starlight. “Because of me?”
I shook my head. “Because I have a test tomorrow.” Her brow furrowed and I smiled. “Of course, because of you.” She laughed and slapped my shoulder; I pulled her close. She rested her head on my chest and I imagined that she could hear the way my heart skipped a beat just from being so close to her. “Brie, I-I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Then say you’ll stay.”
“You know I can’t do that,” I replied quietly, even though I wanted to say the words she asked to hear so intensely they almost came out instead.
“I know,” she said after a few moments, her voice muffled against my shirt.
Brie must have seen it in my face, because she held me tight as though she would never let me go. “I love you, too. Just promise me that if we can find a way to stop it, you won’t go back to the Academy.”
I rested my chin on the top of her head. Her scent filled my senses. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I promise,” I breathed into her hair. She held me tighter and I closed my wings around us.
The silence, so perfect that I barely dared to breathe for fear of breaking the spell that held us together, finally drifted away when Brie sat up. She leaned against me, her brow furrowed. “Tell me something about when you were younger.”
“There aren’t many pleasant memories,” I replied carefully.
“Tell me anything. I feel like you had to go through it all by yourself. I want to know what you went through.”
I searched my mind for something that wasn’t too dark or violent. One memory came to the forefront and I hesitated. “Well, there is one.”
She nodded encouragingly. “Go on.”
I closed my eyes and saw the papers piled untidily on a desk. They were covered front to back in a hurried, tight penmanship, lines scratched out and tiny sketches drawn where words failed.
“Roommates were rotated on a weekly basis so that we didn’t become more than acquaintances with any other Galdoni. But one particular roommate, SR587, and I, somehow skipped the rotation and stayed together for a couple of weeks.” I could see him sitting hunched in the corner of his pallet with a pad of paper on one knee as he squinted in the faint light.
“I’d never met anyone like him. He didn’t talk much, which was fine because I didn’t either. But he continuously paced around our tiny room like he was going to explode. Then he would rush to the bed, grab his pen, and write like mad until the next training session. Of course, he always hid everything under his mattress in case the guard showed up for a room check.”