The door to the clinic opens and I’m surprised to see Ethan the Intern stroll in.
“Hey, Ethan,” I say. He looks as shocked to see me as I am to see him.
“Hi. Blake was it? What are you doing here?” he asks.
“Waiting for my partner, Kira, to get out of surgery. They’re removing a lesion or something,” I say, trying not to put too much emphasis on the ‘or something,’ but failing.
“Is she okay?” he says, looking concerned. His fists are balled and clenched enough that I almost think he might deck me, so I back up a step. What’s got him strung so tight?
“She better be,” I say. “She’s supposed to be out any moment.” He shoves his hands in his pockets and rocks back and forth on his feet, as if he’s trying to figure out what to say. Sounds like he mumbles “Crap, not now” under his breath.
“I better check in for my appointment. I’m late,” he finally says in a nervous tone and then walks over to the desk. After whispering something to the receptionist, he’s immediately motioned to follow her back to a room. I had to wait twenty-five minutes for my appointment. “It was good to see you again, Blake,” he adds before disappearing down the hall.
“You, too,” I mumble. I hear some loud voices coming from the hallway, but can’t make out the conversation. One of the voices sounds like Ethan’s, but I can’t be sure.
After Ethan disappears, I hear the fight continue behind closed doors. Then I make out fragments of a conversation between Kira and a nurse in the hall, which doesn’t sound pleasant. About a minute later, the nurse wheels Kira out in a wheelchair. As much as I’d like to question the doctor about what they did to her, I decide to take her home. She’s resisting a bit and mumbling something about hearing the voice of someone she knows and needing to wait to see if it’s really him, but I assume she’s just loopy on the drugs, so I get her out of there. Ethan’s here and I’d still like to avoid the two of them meeting.
She tells me everything’s okay, but doesn’t know the details of what they did. But then the chair comes to a halt and Kira’s looking for answers, and refusing to move until I tell her. So I do. I unload the stuff I know, leaving out the nastiness about what I think the SCI has planned, and it doesn’t take her long to cut to the heart of the matter. She was headed for hell and I didn’t warn her, and that is freaking betrayal with a capital B. Sugar coating it isn’t going to help. I did what I did for good reason and it’s too late to change it now.
I release my grip on her hands and push her on up the rest the way to our house, cursing the screwed up situation. Letting them assign me a partner was a mistake, but allowing myself to care about her and what she thinks was an even bigger one. My chances with her were nil from the get-go between my sins of omission, she being way out of my league, her lover boy being brought back from the dead, and my focus needing to be on my mission and not some volatile chick who can’t possibly understand how important my success is.
The truth is that I’m not sorry and I’d do it again. Had I told her at any point before seeing the Second Chancers, we’d have both been exposed as frauds and be dead—and it’s not like we’d have been given another go at life on another planet. I’m done apologizing. It’s time to stop fretting over my fake relationship and for me to get to work. She’s going to have to get over it and help me. Because neither of us will have a decent future, if we don’t deliver. Nor will my dad, the Exilers, or the Second Chancers.
Yes, whatever lust-filled or otherwise feelings I’ve got going for Kira (or my evil-ex) need to be extinguished for the duration. My father taught me to turn off my emotions. He’s an expert, having done it to all his colleagues post-Exile. He’d practically worshipped the Grand Council and Presiding Ten until he’d discovered their rap sheet. After that, he axed the relationship cords. It was much easier to plot against them without consideration of the human factor—all the dinners, parties, and stories they’d shared. He figured ‘screw them all, they deserve what they have coming,’ comparing them to the Third Reich during the Holocaust. They were playing Gad and mucking with the natural order of things.
I knew precious little about Garden City or its inhabitants until my father allowed me to join his band of humanitarians on a stakeout of the Eco barrier as a ‘teaching exercise,’ wanting me to learn survival skills. The group hoped to figure out a way through, over or under the toxic strip so they could steal supplies from an outlying warehouse. Doc Daryn came along to attend to the injuries he was sure the group would suffer, leaving his Cleave as nurse to the rest of the Exiled.
Our humble cave dwellings sat just two canyons away from Garden City, less than a night’s walk. So we’d left at sundown, traveled the night, and arrived by sunrise to a deep cave west of the city where we setup camp for the day. I was well accustomed to sleeping in sauna-like conditions, so curled in the back of the cave against a cool rock and slept until woken.
The first night we traversed a three-mile stretch along the barrier, throwing rocks from a distance to see if there were dead spots between the triggers of the deadly gasses. Despite it being mid-night the lights of Garden City glowed—a vast difference from the canyons back home where we had to use lanterns or flashlights.
Our group was able to determine that there were indeed dead spots in the barrier. However, the men weren’t able to throw far enough to map more than the first twenty feet of the pattern, and unfortunately the spaces appeared too small for a human foot to safely step between. While the men fought to uncover the barrier’s secrets, my father taught me the plants of the canyons, showing me which varieties were edible, those that were poisonous, and others that stored water. He instructed me how to craft a makeshift rope from canyon brush, tie knots, and chisel foot holds into canyon rock.
I already knew to find shelter from the sun for the day, but he taught me tricks of how to tell which cave ran deepest. And upon our return that first night, he schooled me on ways to build a safe fire pit within the cave to ward off creatures, and to cook any available food or sterilize water. He had Doc continue on into the morning, teaching me first aid skills—from burn treatment, to bandaging a sprained ankle, to proper care for cuts, bruises, bites, or gashes. I look back and blame my eagerness to be taught for his later decision to make me a permanent student in his school of Theran life and coup d’état.
Night two had been spent trying to dig under the barrier, with zero success. I was forced to watch the debacle from a distance. The sandy, rocky nature of the canyons caused immediate collapse and the gas bombs to ignite, the men barely running to safety before causing permanent damage to their lungs and skin, even while wearing Doc Daryn’s safety masks. This frustrated my father since Garden City had an elaborate tunnel system, but even the engineer in the group couldn’t figure out a safe way to proceed given their limited tools.
The men, lungs too weak to try anything else, returned early to the cave to rethink their strategy. As they did so, and by request, my father told me stories of the evil men who controlled Garden City and the other cities on Thera, every story justifying why my dad found it okay to steal from them. For me it was enough to know that we’d die without the food and supplies, but my father chattered for hours without break, describing the government, the Second Chancers, and a bleak life of endless rules and lack of choices.
The men left me behind the last night as they walked the distance of the barrier all the way to the ocean, trying to determine if there was a way in by sea. I’d spent the early part of the night at the mouth of my cave, gazing at the city and canyon lights, pondering the words of my father, and wondering if I’d ever live in a city such as the one before me, or the fantastical one my father had promised my mother he’d take me to somenight. Things like running water, bathrooms with toilets and showers, kitchens with refrigerators and stoves, not to mention technological gadgets were absolutely foreign to me, no matter how accurately described.
Bad, evil men were also alien to me. The Exiled men could be characteriz
ed as rough, but who wouldn’t be that way given our living conditions? From my father’s tales, those Exiled from Garden City were done so for unjust causes. That night, however, I met face-to-face two very bad men who’d been Exiled for excellent reason.
I saw two figures scrambling up the canyon face towards me, and thinking they were part of my father’s group I’d called out to them. But as they got closer I realized they weren’t familiar. I immediately recognized their Exile attire, so knew they’d been in the city recently, as every Exiler ditches the orange suit first chance they get. One man stood at least six and a half feet tall, was at least twice as wide as my father, and curly black hair covered his head, neck and arms. His companion had a small build, but a bald head and scruffy gray beard. At first they were friendly and I’d always been taught to be polite, so I invited them into the cave.
“You Exiled like us, Boy?” they’d said.
“My dad was Exiled before I was born, and all our friends are Exiled,” I’d responded.
“You live here?” the tall man asked.
“Nope, we live a night’s walk from here,” I said, wishing my father would return so he could answer their questions.
“Then why are you here all alone?” the small man asked.
“My dad and his friends are out, but should be back soon,” I said, even though I had no idea when they would return.
“We’ll hang with you and keep you safe, then,” they’d said. And stay they did, making small talk and asking questions about Exiled life until my father and friends showed up a couple hours later.
As the group entered the cave and my father called out to me, the big guy grabbed me into a chokehold, my legs flailing beneath me. He threatened to snap my neck if my father didn’t do exactly as prescribed. I remember gasping for air, but not being able to suck in enough. It felt like a three hundred pound weight was crushing my chest. Despite all the death I’d seen at a young age, it never occurred to me that kids could die. Or that Exilers could or would even want to kill other Exilers.
Exilers always arrived desperate, greedy, and willing to do anything to survive, so my father had been well versed in proper etiquette for diffusing panic. He greeted them warmly and assured them they were amongst friends and not harsh government dictate. Upon the promise of food, supplies, and lodging to the men, the man released his grip and dropped me to the cave floor. I scrambled to my father’s feet shaking, but my father’s eyes stayed trained on the men as his sales pitch continued.
My dad peddled our community as a luxury desert spa, plus promised the men they’d have first dibs on the next ship to bring supplies to Garden City that the Interceptors planned to pirate. The men lapped up the vision of freedom and long-term survival, and then hiked the distance to our caves with us that night. The large man forced me to ride on his shoulders to ensure my dad kept his end of the bargain, but upon getting there and being offered a meal by Doc’s Cleave, he’d let me join my sister as he and his cohort ate and surveyed the area. It’s not like I could run and escape either of the guys, plus we’d led them to a place with hundreds of potential hostages.
During the meal, the men admitted to being Exiled for murdering an innocent family to steal their things. I could see my father digest the information. His band of misfits meant everything to him and having murderers in the group’s midst meant unacceptable risk. He signaled his colleagues behind his back and one left quietly. When asked where the guy had gone, my father lied and said he’d gone to get the Captain of the Interceptors so the men could discuss the upcoming ship raid. The men continued to eat while keeping an eye on easy prey if things went sour.
When my father’s friend came back alone, the men got angry and started shouting out threats. My father stepped in front of my sister and me. Leila buried her eyes in my stomach, but I watched the scene unfold. The tall man grabbed my father and dragged him away from us. He began to squeeze my father’s throat.
I looked to my father’s friend to help. The friend nodded to me and pulled a shiny black object from the back of his pants and pointed it at the tall man. I recognized the black object to be a gun. A split second later, my dad’s friend pulled the trigger and a bullet spliced through the bad man’s face, splattering blood and brains everywhere. The unsilenced boom echoed through the cave. The sudden sound scared Leila so much that she peed her pants and dug her fingernails into my skin. I kept my arms wrapped tightly around her to keep her from seeing the mess.
It took several seconds for the small man to realize that his partner was dead and that he was on his own. He’d likely never seen a gun before. Once his shock faded and he realized the same fate could befall him, the small man tried to run. Several Exilers blocked his exit from the cave. Trapped, he raised his arms to surrender. My father’s friend gave him no mercy, however. He raised his gun again and fired at the small man, hitting him in the chest. Dead on impact, the small man fell into a pool of his own blood.
That was the first time I’d seen a gun used to kill men, but certainly not my last. The gun had been taken during a ship raid from an armed guard. The SCI had added security measures to all boats to discourage Interceptor raids. Although an Interceptor had been killed during the mission, the Exilers relished the score, previously having had to rely on dull knives, poorly fashioned ropes and clubs.
Thankfully, my father had whisked Leila out of the cave before she’d seen the bodies. I wasn’t so lucky, as I’d been tasked with cleanup. It took me hours to scoop body fragments and blood-soaked dirt into a bucket by hand. Then, my father forced me to carry the heavy bucket a canyon over to bury alongside the dead bodies. I helped push dirt over the dead men’s bodies in a shallow grave before being allowed to return to our cave and sleep in my dirty, bloody state. It wasn’t until ten days later that I’d been given the opportunity to bathe.
I’d held Leila tightly each day for months after, recurring daymares haunting me. I woke frequently in pools of sweat as I relived the pressure of the man’s arm against my throat and inability to breathe, the same man trying to squeeze the life out of my father, and then the executions of the two men by a close family friend. My dad rationalized the killings as self-defense, and even had self-defense not been required, he said the executions were necessary for our community’s safety. Judge, juror, and executor. How were my father’s band of Exilers any different from those who’d Exiled them?
As I ponder my father’s commitment to the Exiler’s plight, the more I question his tactics. The adage says, ‘all is fair in love and war,’ but should you bank the success of your mission on your seventeen-year-old son? At what point do the rationalizations strip you of your humanity? My hypocrisy slams me in the face. Didn’t I just rationalize my own crazy behavior to Kira? Convince myself it was okay to put her in harms way because the cause came first? Although, doesn’t the cause come first? I can’t put one girl over the welfare of so many. And it’s not like I knew her at the time I made the decision anyway.
The more I try to figure out a win-win solution, the more confused and unsettled I get. It’s completely messed up that my fake relationship with Kira is as close to normal as I’ve ever come. Do I crave the pull of normality or the girl? Regardless of which drives me to question everything I’ve been raised to believe, I need to reject both and focus. Maybe if I’m still alive when the SCI has been defeated and Exilers and Second Chancers freed I can try to do normal and build a life with someone. Who am I kidding? The thought of being saddled to a Cleave and kids makes my body involuntarily convulse.
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, who art black as hell, and dark as night.
William Shakespeare
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Kira
I close the door to my bedroom and bury myself underneath the covers, not convinced I can ever face Blake again. My thoughts return to the night of Bailey Goodington’s party. I’d left without forgiving Tristan and Bri. And look how that turned out. So, I know I need to forgive Blake. But
he has a lot to answer for. Blake and Ted Rosenberg used me to get Blake unquestioned access to this hellhole. Worse, Blake manipulated me to trust and like him, all to further his cover.
The Second Chance Institute also needs to answer for their sins. They’re behind both the explosion and Blake’s terrible childhood. Can you give an entire government the death penalty? And, if I’m for that does it mean I should actively support Blake’s cause? I’d certainly never turn him in, but I’m not ready to be a willing soldier either. Blake was trained for years. How could I possibly help him?
Avoidance is my best strategy for now and I have reasonable excuse to do so. My abdomen is swollen to five times its normal size and pain is shooting through my pelvic region as if an untrained acupuncturist assumed it proper to stick the needles in their full length. A gush of blood sends me running into the bathroom and the sight of it causes me to empty my stomach of bile and stomach acid into the sink. Better for the pain meds to take effect quickly, I think, as I reach for the bottle and down one. And, in case that won’t knock me out, I swallow a sleeping pill to signal that I’m done with this night.
As my eyes close, my thoughts turn to Ethan and how flawless he seemed. Why do I get attached to the flawed guys and the one perfect one disappears the moment I meet him? I’d swear that was his voice I heard in the clinic. I’m starting to think he may actually be here. I allow myself to focus in on what I remember of his smile and the cute way he rocked back and forth on his feet, and drift off to sleep imagining meeting him again.
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