Inherent Cost

by Alicia Cameron

  “I’m drawing attention to many major problems.”

  “I agree that the current Slave Control, Regulation, and Enforcement Agency has grown far beyond their intended power, and should be replaced with the Slave Regulation Board, as indicated in the SRA. You made a strong argument for why this SRA should matter to Arona, and I can’t disagree with it.”

  “Why?” Jere spat out. “You’ve never challenged any of their decisions before.”

  “No, I haven’t. In the past, the majority of the population supported the agency; if I wanted to stay on the right side of my people, I needed to go along. But things are changing. Just in the past few hours, I’ve received a stack of telegraphs from individuals and organizations demanding that I take action against the Slave Control, Regulation, and Enforcement Agency. I’ve received another stack panicking about disease and clinic availability. And I received a very lucrative offer of campaign support for my elections, contingent upon my support of The Slavery Reform Act.”

  Jere had to force himself not to smile. Mr. Wysocka must have offered the president a significant sum to sway him this quickly. For the first time in his life, Jere appreciated the level of political corruption that could go unchecked in places like this.

  “As president, I am being held accountable for all of the problems that are occurring. I need to change that, or my term will certainly end. Taking a very public stand on this issue puts me in a good position in the future. I’m hoping that my active involvement will push the issue in my favor.”

  “As a supporter of the SRA myself, I would appreciate that involvement,” Jere said, resisting the urge to ask why he was hearing this. He assumed that Arona’s leader would tell him soon enough.

  “I plan to publicly announce my support for The Slavery Reform Act today,” President Clemente said. “I would like to tell the people of Hojer that consultation with our experienced doctor helped to push me in the scientifically sound direction, and that you will be helping to advise my team on matters in the future.”

  “Why me?” Jere asked. Surely, there were other activists the president could have supported, other households he could have helped. He could have hired anyone with a pattern analysis gift to do research, even someone as horrible as Annika could handle basic reporting of facts.

  “You’re convenient,” the president said. “You’re highly visible. You’re one of my biggest problems, but I can’t just get rid of you. And you have significant motivation to go along with my requests.”

  Jere wasn’t sure whether that was a threat or just an observation. He figured it was a little of both.

  “You understand the value of working from a conservative, scientific perspective. You can promote evidence over emotion. I suspect that will be the best route to take as we proceed.”

  “We?”

  The president sighed. “You will accompany me to deliver the news to the public. You have considerable sway over this community and I want to take advantage of that. It benefits you quite a bit, so I can’t see any reason why you would refuse.”

  Aside from the fact that he had basically just threatened Wren and Isis, Jere didn’t either. “I’ll be happy to provide whatever you need.”

  Clemente smiled. He didn’t look happy; he looked accomplished. “I also wanted to inform you that I will be arranging for the release of your male slave. By the time you leave this office, he should be ready to return home with you.”

  Jere stared at him in shock, not certain whether he believed it or not. After a moment, the president slid a piece of paper over toward him. It was a presidential pardon, the likes of which Jere had sought last year, but had been denied. It freed him and Wren from any accusations, and stated that the seizure and subsequent evaluation had been made in error.

  “I don’t understand.”

  President Clemente gave Jere a tired look. “I know what you did to my daughter last winter,” he said. He should have been angry, but he just sounded tired.

  Jere waited, nervous. If the man knew what he had done, how and why was he helping him?

  The president slid over a photograph of Wren, tightly restrained to a table, covered in cuts, bruises, and burns. His eyes were only half-open, but Jere could see the pain, the distant look in his eyes. He hadn’t seen Wren look that way since he had first arrived in Hojer. He grabbed the photograph, crumpled it, and threw it across the room.

  “If you mention a word of this to anyone, or if you try to leave before this election is over, I’ll revoke that order and put your little pet back into the hell he’s been in for the past few days. Normally, I would have a problem exploiting you like that, but given your history with my family, I see it as putting us on equal footing.”

  Jere nodded, silent. He had never planned for his act of rebellion to have such far-reaching consequences when he did it last year, and he certainly never thought it would end well for him or Wren if he was found out. He still wasn’t sure that it was working out well.

  “As far as anyone is concerned, I believe that the SRA is right for Arona,” President Clemente explained. “I think that the healthcare reform is in Arona’s best interest, and I am siding with the progressive political parties that are most likely to keep me in office into the future. The Slave Control, Regulation, and Enforcement Agency is going far past their reach; as the president of Arona, I am taking the control back from them to prove a point and show Arona’s citizens just how committed I am to helping them maintain their property rights. I am overruling their decision to engage in harassment, which is why I’m releasing your slave and granting you and your household amnesty for the remainder of the election period.”

  Jere nodded, uncertain of what to say in response. Thanking the man seemed insincere, since he had no idea how many strings this favor would come attached with.

  “Your speed train ticket to the evaluation facility has already been purchased; it leaves in twenty minutes. You should leave now so you’re not delayed. My press team will stop by your clinic later today; I think that would be a perfect place to announce the latest news. You will also announce that you have found a way to speed up these exams—keep your additional procedures if you must, but stop the slowdown. Stop turning patients away.”

  Jere was on his feet immediately, eager to put things in motion. He wanted Wren back in his arms more than he wanted almost anything else in the world. As he turned to leave, he was stopped by a final statement from the president.

  “I’ve put in a recommendation regarding the state of your clinic. It should be cleared for the treatment of slaves in just a few days. After all, Hojer will need a place to treat slaves if the SRA passes.”

  “Thank you,” Jere said, pausing for a moment to contemplate the situation before dashing out the door.

  He was finally going to retrieve Wren.

  Chapter 30

  Reinstated

  Wren had no idea how long he was interrogated for. There were no windows to judge night or day, and the people just kept hurting him, asking him questions.

  At first he thought the cauterizing gun would only be a threat, but he soon found out that the threat was real. So were the beatings he got for fighting against the restraints, for screaming, for banging his head against the wall that he was restrained to.

  He managed to knock himself unconscious once, but after that, they made sure there was something padding the back of his head.

  They mostly asked about Jere, about the anti-slavery activists. At some point, Wren realized that drawing his torturers down the wrong path would be the best way to keep them away from his real problem, his cursed gift, the damned firesetting that had done nothing but plague him with problems since he was taken. He distracted himself from the pain by creating elaborate stories, tales of deception and plots against the state, making sure that all of them were so unbelievably false that even the slightest investigation would disprove them. His efforts only served to infuriate Arnsdale more, as she continued to seek the answers to her question.r />
  What was Jere doing in Hojer?

  Who was behind his actions?

  Why were they trying to destroy the fabric of society?

  Wren felt some satisfaction at knowing that the woman was so far off in her assessment; she was paranoid about her position, her agency, when what she should have been focusing on was Wren’s gift. In between torture, when Wren was left alone to suffer, he fantasized about just how fun it would be to burn the place to the ground, to inflict wounds on them like they had on him. They knew his gift was doing something when they burned him, but as far as the healer could tell, his speed gift was simply speeding up his heart rate and increasing his temperature. Wren let them believe it, even as he held the firesetting gift hostage inside of his own body, knowing it would betray him if he dared to let it escape.

  A part of him simply thought Jere would rescue him. He would get help from Kieran, or pay someone off, or maybe make good on all those healer threats he had made and murder his way through the evaluation facility, but Jere never came. It was those moments when he started to doubt his partner that it became hardest to control his gift, even harder than when they burned the most sensitive parts on his body in an attempt to get him to confess to something that didn’t even exist. Arnsdale told him that Jere was promoting the SRA, that he had met with talent scouts who would set him up with a more lucrative job in another state.

  Wren didn’t want to believe it, but she shoved the new reports in his face, forcing him to read the quotes that Jere had made, the ones that showed how little he cared about the petty needs of a community that violated his rights, the ones that reminded everyone how overqualified he was for the position, how he found slavery “repellant,” and “an invitation for disease.” Arnsdale showed him the list of places where Jere was supposedly looking for work, including a number of states without slavery.

  Slowly she convinced him that Jere had given up on Wren already and moved on to his real passion—ending slavery, even at the cost of ridding the world of slaves by euthanizing them all. It didn’t make sense at first, but as his mind twisted, he started to believe it. After days of no sleep, food, or rest, he trusted nothing other than his desperate instinct to hide his firesetting gift.

  When the torture stopped, he assumed they were just figuring out what to do with him next.

  “You’re a mess,” a new doctor stated, shaking her head. “I can’t believe this is what I come in to.”

  Wren had long since stopped replying. He waited for the pain, the psychic jolt, whatever the new doctor was going to do to him. They had gone through three already, wasting valuable psychic energy hurting and healing him while monitoring his response.

  This one didn’t seem interested in hurting, though. In just a few minutes, Wren was amazed to feel the burns healing, the welts that covered his body closing up, the nausea and dehydration subsiding. Once the ringing in his ears stopped, he could hear Arnsdale ranting about something in the hallway, but he couldn’t hear what it was.

  “What are you going to do to me?” he asked the new doctor. He was so tired, but he knew that if he gave up completely his gift would betray him somehow.

  “Executive order,” the doctor informed him. “I’ve only got a few more minutes to make you presentable.”

  The words didn’t make sense, and Wren didn’t try to make them. Perhaps they were going to put him on display somewhere, take him to a research facility, publicly execute him. He had heard of worse.

  The new doctor not only gave him his clothes back, she helped to dress him as well. Wren just stood there staring at her, confused, as she guided his limbs roughly through the holes. When she finished, she tried to balance him on his feet, but he sagged. He was simply too weak; she hadn’t healed him well enough in such a short time, and his body was drained.

  The next raised voice he heard was Jere’s, and Wren wasn’t sure whether to be excited or terrified. Had any of the things that Arnsdale said been true? Was Jere really just interested in promoting some cause? It didn’t make sense, but then, why hadn’t Jere wanted him to have the chance to be free? Why had he let Wren go without a fight, and why had he spent all of his time on some stupid fucking SRA instead of attending the real problem—the fact that Wren was being tortured.

  Those doubts faded the second that Jere came into the room, pushing past the guards and reaching out psychically, probing for Wren’s energy. Wren felt Jere in the room and wanted to welcome him, but the lingering doubts gave him pause. He just wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t.

  “Wren,” Jere said the moment he saw him, the relief evident on his face. “Shit, what did they do to you?”

  Wren didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He had been so quiet that he almost forgot how to speak.

  Jere rushed over to him, shoving away the doctor who was still trying unsuccessfully to get Wren on his feet. In a moment, Jere’s arms were around him, and before Wren even had the chance to try and protest, he felt the familiar presence of Jere’s healing gift filling him, renewing his energy, giving him the strength to stand up on his own. When he was strong enough, he pulled away, earning him a very confused look from Jere.

  “I want to go home,” Wren said, breaking into tears as he fought to speak. He didn’t know whether Jere had abandoned him or betrayed him; all he knew was that Jere was with him and he was fixing everything properly. It only made Wren feel weaker.

  The trip out of the evaluation facility was a blur, as was the short walk to the speed train station. It wasn’t until they were safely hidden inside of a private train car with the door closed that anything started to make sense. Jere told him about the SRA, the threats he had made to leave Hojer, the unexpected support from the business community in both Hojer and the surrounding towns in Arona. He told him about the meeting with President Clemente, the one that resulted in Wren’s release and the reopening of the clinic. Wren was glad that it resulted in his release, but a part of him resented Jere for how busy he had been—doing everything but saving Wren. But then, wasn’t that what Jere had accomplished anyway? Wren went along with it, accepting his master’s decisions.

  “I’m so sorry, love,” Jere said over and over again. “I never should have let them take you. I never should have let them come anywhere near you. Are you sure you’re okay? When I started healing you, there were so many things wrong, things they only healed on the surface. What did they do to you? Why did they hurt you?”

  It didn’t matter, but Wren answered anyway, his voice raspy and dull. “They tried to make me confess to things you never did in the first place. They thought you were some sort of spy, some sort of planted weapon. They have no idea that it’s me who’s wrong. They had no idea about the gift. They still don’t. Even when they burned me, I hid it. I kept waiting, but you never came.”

  “I couldn’t,” Jere admitted. “I didn’t know where you were, I didn’t know what they were doing to you.”

  “So you just decided to get involved with the SRA? Maybe if you had stayed out of it like we agreed to, they wouldn’t have hurt me so much!”

  Jere was silent for a moment. Even though they had yet to connect through the mind connection, Wren could tell that Jere was suffering from guilt. It didn’t make things any less fuzzy or confusing.

  “I had nothing else that I could do,” Jere said. “I tried... there were no other avenues. I arranged that press conference because I was furious, because if they were going to ruin my life and yours, I was going to make damn sure that everyone in Hojer knew that they were doing it. I wasn’t going to go down without a fight, but I don’t know how to fight. That was the best I could do.”

  Wren shook his head. He didn’t know what he expected Jere to do, either, but that certainly hadn’t been it.

  “That’s what caught President Clemente’s attention,” Jere reminded him. “I’m not some sort of vigilante, I don’t have that much going for me... I save lives, I’m good at it, and that was the only thing I had to use against them. I had to m
ake it bigger than you or even the clinic. I had to pretend to be cold, uninvolved, act like this was a business decision, not a personal one. That’s what they understand. All they understand is pain, death, money. They have no idea how much I love you.”

  “I just need to sleep,” Wren mumbled, cuddling up to the back of the speed train seat. When he felt Jere’s fingers running across his leg, he jumped and jerked away. Jere looked at him with a mix of horror and what Wren hoped wasn’t anger.

  “I’m sorry,” Wren whimpered. He just couldn’t stand the touch, not yet.

  Jere looked crushed, but he nodded. “Take your time,” he said. “I’m here whenever you want me. To talk, to heal you, to put the mind connection back. Or not. You do what you need to do.”

  Wren needed to sleep, and the short speed train ride just left him craving more. The walk back to the house was silent, and it was all Wren could do to tolerate Isis’s joy when he returned. Paltrek was there, babysitting, from what Wren could tell, and Wren had no idea whose life he was returning to. He made his way down the hall, but the thought of climbing into a bed that he shared with Jere in the same room where he once burned his master to death turned his stomach. He made his way into what was once his bedroom, the one that was now used for storage of off-season clothes, and climbed under the covers like he could hide there.