Blake at age two, looking up at a man with a mean face. His mother is smiling and telling him to call the man daddy. Later in the same day, he watches the man hit his mother for burning dinner. One year later, the man puts his cigarette out on Blake’s arm for knocking over his beer. By the time he’s old enough to go to school, Blake’s arms are covered with burn marks, and his mother won’t allow him to wear short-sleeved shirts. She tells him he will be in trouble if anyone sees the marks on his arms.
At age ten, Blake’s stepfather hits his mother and knocks her down the stairs. At the hospital, Blake’s mother insists she tripped over a laundry basket on the stairs. A nurse takes Blake into a private room and asks what really happened. Blake tells the nurse that Randy hit his mother. He is taken away by a woman who is kind to him. Soon after, his grandparents come to take him home with them, promising that no one will hurt him again.
For a year, Blake lives with his grandparents in Piper’s Bend. He likes it there. His grandparents are kind, caring, and loving, and they would never dream of hitting him. But then one day, Blake’s mother shows up with papers from the court, awarding her custody of her son. She tells Blake’s grandparents that she has divorced Randy and that Blake will be safe. His grandparents try to fight the order, but lose on grounds that his mother has proven herself to be capable of raising her son alone.
On the drive back to New Mexico, Blake’s mother tells him that what he did was very bad and that he will have to be punished for telling lies. When they arrive, Randy is waiting. He beats Blake for having him arrested and makes Blake watch as he beats his mother for raising a liar.
At age thirteen, Blake confronts his mother and asks her why she stays in an abusive relationship. She becomes angry and tells Blake that Randy wouldn’t beat them if he wasn’t a horrible child and a liar. When Blake tries to tell her this isn’t true, his mother hits him with a belt until she draws blood.
Blake is now sixteen and he is aware that his mother’s drug addiction is what keeps her in an abusive relationship. Blake has long since given up on trying to get help and simply tries to avoid dealing with either of them, but the abuse continues from both his stepfather and his mother. His grades are suffering and his chances of a college scholarship are slipping away. He tries to get an after school job, but gets fired after Randy locks him in his room, preventing him from getting to work on time. One night, he sneaks out, intending to call his grandparents, who he has not been allowed to have contact with since his mother took him from them five years earlier.
Randy catches him trying to use the pay phone at a gas station. He drags Blake behind the building and beats him with a tire iron, breaking nearly every bone in his body. Blake is left for dead. He is found by an employee hours later and is rushed to the hospital by ambulance.
Blake is lying in the hospital room, fully aware of his surroundings, but unable to communicate with the doctors. His mother is holding his hand and crying, but in her halfhearted apology, she is still insisting that Blake was to blame for everything that had happened to him. Blake’s anguish overshadows the memory. He loves his mother, but he hates what she has become.
The doctors are telling Randy that they know what happened. A witness has come forward who saw the whole incident. They tell him that Blake is brain dead, that he won’t live long enough to testify in court, meaning that Randy will be charged with murder. Blake is happy to hear this, until the doctors tell Randy that they can get the charges thrown out as long as he and Blake’s mother agree to turn the body over to the hospital for research. Neither Randy nor Blake’s mother hesitate before saying yes.
The doctors wheel Blake’s hospital gurney into an ambulance. They are cracking jokes and taking bets on how long he’ll survive the experiment. Soon after, Blake is taken into a building, down a long hall, to a room with no windows and a lot of medical machinery. As they connect Blake to the machine via a series of needles and electrodes, the image fades and Blake is standing on the beach. His grandfather is setting up fishing poles and his grandmother is loading a packed lunch into their personal boat. As they call out for him to hurry up, Blake knows that none of this is real, but he doesn’t care. He runs to the boat, smiling at the only two people who ever truly loved him.
Renee collapsed with a strangled cry. The air rippled once again and the vice-like grip released her, but she still found it hard to breathe. When she looked up at Blake, it was through tear-filled eyes.
“Blake, I’m…”
“Don’t,” he cut her off gruffly. His face was contorted with anger, sadness, guilt, and shame. “Don’t say it. Don’t tell me you feel sorry for me.”
Renee faltered. She was going to say she was sorry, but she imagined she wouldn’t want to hear that if she were in Blake’s shoes. How could she be sorry for something she couldn’t even comprehend? There simply wasn’t a word to express the scope of anger, disgust, horror, and the myriad of other emotions that twisted her stomach into uncomfortable knots.
“He got away with it,” she said with quiet disgust. “It was on the news. They didn’t release your name because you were a minor, but I remember the story. They just said that a teen in West Mesa had been found beaten to death after attacking his family. The… the toxicology report said that you tested positive for a bunch of things, like meth and cocaine. They went out of their way to make you look like the villain. It worked. Blake, I am sorry,” she said, unable to hold back her tears. “I’m sorry because I actually believed the news stories. Our health teacher even took the opportunity to turn it into a lesson about how drugs tear apart families.”
“At least they got that part right,” Blake spat bitterly.
“But, I don’t understand,” Renee went on. “Randall Lawson was cleared of all charges because they said he acted in self-defense. How? He had a history of abusive behavior against you and your mother. I guess I can believe that the hospital issued a fake toxicology report, but even they can’t erase public record.”
“They didn’t have to,” Blake said with a sharp laugh. “All they had to say was that a piece of trailer trash from the ghetto went on a drug fueled rampage. Who’s going to care enough to investigate further? I’m willing to bet that everyone who saw the news was glad I was dead.”
“I wasn’t glad,” Renee said sharply, “and you’re not trash.”
“You just said you believed the story,” Blake countered. “This is why I didn’t want to bring you over here, Renee. I didn’t want to put you through this. Do you remember when I told you about Steve? Remember how I told you that he chased me into my head with the intent to kill me? This is why he didn’t. He saw what you did and he felt sorry for me. I wasn’t a threat. I wasn’t a worthy adversary. I was just some pathetic kid who couldn’t stand up for himself and his mother. I’m…” Blake cut off with an anguished cry and turned away from Renee, pounding his fist on the canyon wall.
Renee reached out and put her hand on his shoulder. “I was in tenth grade, Blake,” she said in a quiet, pleading voice. “I was naïve enough to believe that everything I saw on the news was true. Yes, I believed the story, but that did not mean I was happy you were dead! I’m not a heartless jerk. I… I don’t feel sorry for you. I mean, how can I? How can I sympathize with a situation that I can’t even comprehend? My life was a breeze compared to yours and I feel like the world’s biggest jerk for worrying about all of the stupid and embarrassing crap you saw in my head. I’m angry for you, Blake, angry and disgusted that people like your stepfather can get away with murder.”
Blake took a deep and calming breath before turning back to face Renee. The damage was done. There was no taking back what she now knew. But they still needed to survive. He couldn’t allow himself an emotional meltdown for the same reasons that he told Renee to get her head together the night before.
“You asked me if I ever thought about escaping,” he said with a deep, shuddering sigh. “Now you know why I haven’t. We’re in a messed up situation, Renee. Our lives ar
e threatened every single day. At any point, they could get tired of the experiment and pull the plug on us. But as awful as that is, I’ll take living like this over real life any day.”
Renee didn’t know what to say, so she hugged him instead. It was a simple, yet powerful gesture that tore down the fragile wall of stoicism that Blake had erected. His sobs triggered her own tears. She understood his reasoning, but his situation only strengthened her desire to escape. That his stepfather was not rotting in jail right now was beyond injustice. No, jail wasn’t punishment enough for what he did. Renee wasn’t a vindictive person, but for a moment, she wished she had the power to make Blake’s stepfather trade places with him. If anyone deserved to be haunted by their own subconscious, it was Randy Lawson.
“I’m sorry,” Blake said, pulling away from Renee with a final sniff. “I mean, thank you… for not running away, but I’m sorry I dragged you into this.”
“We’re a team, Blake,” she said fiercely turning his own words on him. “That hasn’t changed. You did what you had to in order to save our lives. Don’t you dare apologize to me for that.”
“Well, anyways…” Blake shifted uncomfortably and looked around with a frown. “We can’t stay in Denver.”
“Why not? We’re already dressed for Denver,” Renee noted with a shrug. She was still upset, but it was clear that Blake didn’t want to talk about it anymore. It pained her to see him silently suffering, but she really couldn’t blame him. “And you taught me how to shoot.”
“Well, there are a couple of reasons,” he said, pushing his hair up off of his forehead with his hand. “One, I spent so much time here that I probably couldn’t even list all of the rules that I didn’t even know I’d created until I met you. And two, you already noted that this isn’t the best place to be a girl.” He thought about it for a moment and then looked up at Renee. His eyes were still rimmed red and watery, but he was smiling. “I think you’re going to like this.”
The air around them shifted and rippled. The tall cliff sides became a row of brick buildings and the cracked desert sand became uneven cobblestones. It was night and a damp, chilly fog reflected an eerie orange glow from the gas street lamps. They were definitely in a city, but still somewhere in the age before electricity.
“Where are we?” Renee asked, noting that Blake’s wardrobe had shifted. He still wore a long coat, but this one was a clean, tailored overcoat under which he wore a collared shirt and a vest with a watch pocket. He swapped his Stetson for a bowler. Oddly, a pair of old-fashioned motorist’s goggles sat above the brim.
“Victorian London,” he replied, adding with a mysterious smile, “…sort of.”
Blake stepped to the curb and put two fingers to his mouth, making a shrill whistle that echoed down the street. One of the horse drawn carriages that were lined up at the end of the block pulled forward, making an odd, wheezing and clanking noise. As it came closer, Renee saw that the horses were mechanical. The driver of the carriage was just as odd; a fully automated mechanical man built to look like he was wearing period costume, including a monocle and a metal mustache.
“Steampunk?” Renee asked. She didn’t know a lot about the genre, but it was infinitely cooler than regular Victorian London, where she would be required to act like a lady and wear constricting clothing.
“Um, it was kind of a guilty pleasure of mine,” Blake admitted with a blush, opening the carriage door and gesturing for Renee to get into the cab.
“All I know about steampunk is that goggles are an important fashion accessory.”
“It’s not that different from science fiction, but everything runs on steam,” Blake explained. “And everything is elaborately unnecessary, like mechanical horses instead of a simple steam powered carriage.”
“How long do you think we’ll last here?” she asked, trying to keep the worry out of her voice. The first thing she had noticed, after getting over the shock of Blake’s memories, was that the door to her mind had disappeared. She was now at the mercy of Blake’s mind and although he was by far more experienced at surviving, giving up control of her environment scared her more than she wanted to admit.
“Depends,” he said, pausing to call out an address to the mechanical driver. “If we can establish the rules, we might get another month at least. But we might want to start making a list of ideas in case we need to hop somewhere fast.”
“Do I even want to ask who our adversaries are here?”
“Mad inventors, mostly,” Blake answered. “Or rather, the army of machines they build to take over.”
“So, where are we headed now?” Renee asked, looking out the window. All sorts of mechanical contraptions clanked their way down the city streets including a few creepy looking clockwork spiders. If those were normal, she didn’t want to think about what kinds of monstrosities the mad scientists invented.
“Our lab, of course,” Blake said with an impish grin. “If we’re going to fight maniacs, we’re going to need our own steam powered robot army.”
Chapter 14
It took a little getting used to, but Renee was starting to like their new world. Much like the alien landscape, it was just off kilter enough from the real world to indulge her love of the extraordinary. She had fun coming up with different fashionable, yet functional outfits, and once again, she got to play the part of a pilot. Though this time, instead of a space ship, Renee was the commander of a huge, zeppelin-like contraption that was more like a pirate ship that floated through the air. Flying was so much fun that she began to wonder what courses she would have to take in college to qualify for pilot’s school. That is, of course, if she ever managed to escape her current predicament.
Despite seeming impossible, her determination to escape had become an obsession that she just couldn’t let go of. Seeing as Blake had already made his feelings on the subject known, she kept this to herself. There was no point in hurting his feelings by making him think that she simply didn’t enjoy his company. To be completely honest, she adored his company and although it embarrassed her greatly to admit, Renee had developed a bit of a crush on him over the last few weeks.
Of course, she never would have said anything or acted on her feelings under the best of circumstances, let alone now. Though not quite as impossibly handsome as the boys she fell for in her mind, Blake was still very much out of her league. With his large, blue gray eyes and impossibly long eyelashes, his was the type of boyish handsome that would have caught the eye of more than a few girls in her school. Besides, if by chance he did return her feelings, Renee had no way of knowing if it was because he actually liked her or if it was because she was literally the only other person in the world at the moment.
But any hope Renee might have secretly harbored died the moment they jumped from her head into his. Every day, Blake became more and more distant. When he did speak, it was only to ask her to do something or to coordinate an attack against their enemies. Her answers were equally measured and neutral. She wanted to tell him that nothing had changed. She needed him to understand that she didn’t think any less of him. If anything, she was even more impressed by his strength and ability to survive, but her own awkward insecurities held her back.
It was hard for Blake to ignore the shift in Renee’s attitude toward him. He couldn’t blame her entirely, not after having all of the horrors of his life bombard her, but it made him uncomfortable nonetheless. The casual camaraderie was gone. In its place, a cautious awkwardness had sprung up. Whether she realized it or not, Renee’s new habit of second-guessing her every action was becoming unbearable. He was beginning to wish he had taken his chances against the corporate enforcers. Sure, they probably would have ended up in prison or they might have even died, but in his own irrational way of thinking, both options were better than having Renee feel sorry for him.
The funny thing was, he had felt sorry for her. Yes, he realized how insane his logic might have seemed to an outsider, but the way he saw it, his life and the abuse he had suffered
was a tangible horror. On the surface, Renee had a good life. She came from a loving home and lived in one of the wealthy neighborhoods that Blake would have been too self-conscious to even walk through. She never missed a meal because her mother had sold the food stamps for drug money. She shopped at thrift stores because that was her style, not because that was all she could afford. But Blake had been in her mind. He had seen what even her parents hadn’t been able to see. For all that Renee had, there was one invaluable luxury that class and privilege could not provide for her. A real friend.
Sure, there were a handful of kids who were kind and she wasn’t a complete social pariah, but Blake knew there was a huge difference between having someone to sit with at lunch and having a best friend who knew your every wish, desire, hope, and fear. Renee’s own insecurities might have been partially to blame, but from what he saw, it didn’t appear that any of the other kids she knew had even tried to make an effort to get to know her. Even with his awful home life, Blake had still had a couple of good friends who had his back. He always had a place to crash if Randy was on a rampage, even if it was a beat up sofa or a sleeping bag on the floor in his friend’s room. All Renee had was her books and her imagination, and that tugged at his heart in a way that nothing before had.
Blake wanted to fill that void. He wanted to be the friend that Renee deserved. Not out of pity, but because he truly liked the kind, gentle, and caring soul that she was. Their interests may not have been exactly the same, but their ability to find common ground was effortless. Sure, the fairy world had been a bit much, but Blake couldn’t deny that the fantastical elements Renee had introduced to their world added a level of excitement and adventure that he’d never realized he was missing. But to get that back, he first had to make Renee realize he was still the same person he had always been.
“I could make them disappear, you know, but I have my reasons as to why I don’t.”
“Huh?” Renee looked up from the spyglass she was fixing. It was quite late and the two of them had been working silently on separate projects for several hours. Blake was sitting on the floor by the fireplace, his head bent over the clockwork mouser that he was trying to repair. The cat-like robot was supposed to trap the mice that made it into the laboratory, but one particularly feisty rodent had chewed through some of the joint wires.
Kind of Like Life Page 10