Another look passes between Maria and Angel. It's starting to annoy me. Mitchell stares at the fire clearly refusing to meet my gaze. Alex watches them, and when I turn he catches my eyes as if he were unsure of what was going on himself.
He speaks softly and simply. "Because they are brothers."
I hear a gasp. Maybe it's my gasp, but it's followed by a silence filled only with the snapping of the flames. "What?"
Maria huffs. "It's complicated."
It sounds very simple to me, but maybe I'm just coming at this with my Neutral version of common sense.
Brandon's with his brother for a few minutes before he heads back over to us. Gray Eyes scans the group of us, his eyes pausing on me a second before he walks off with large strides. At the edge of the group, Brandon stops. The friendly warmth of his gaze fades. Maybe he wasn't expecting me to recognize Gray Eyes in the dark, but he knows I did.
Brandon looks over the others. "She knows, doesn't she."
The whole group avoids looking at Brandon or me. Except for Alex. He looks from me to Brandon like he's going to be the one to step between us even though he just met me. For a fraction of a second, gratefulness swells up in me and I have to fight to keep it down. I don't know Alex any better than I know Brandon, and after staying with Brandon for a few days I was sure I at least had a feel of the man. But I was completely wrong. People will only tell you what they want to tell you, and what they don't tell you could be important.
The gratefulness is shoved down and I let my surprise anger quell up. It gives me the strength to stand, but my voice is so thin that it almost doesn't sound like it comes from me.
"Why wouldn't you have told me that?”
There's a shift in the air as all eyes fall on me even the ones previously looking into the fire, and it feels like they're actually looking at me as more than just a curiosity from the Neutral Territory.
Maria bites her bottom lip and takes a step back. Angel scratches at the back of his neck, and Mitchell goes back to looking away from me.
I expect Brandon to be just as fidgety, but he's not. His hands rest at his side and he looks right at me.
"You weren't ready."
My breath becomes very heavy. How would he know? How in the world could he possibly know what I was or was not ready for? Though I want to scream, I realize it won't do any good and will only draw the attention of the others are nearby. The last thing in the world I'd want is a crowd.
The tall, quiet man who's spent most of the night with Brandon chatting away from the group crosses his arms and stands up straight with a look of disapproval. I can't help feeling out of place and threatened again. Standing in front of them, I feel so very small. Brandon stands with hard pressed lips and expressionless eyes that are much too similar to his brother's. How can I ask for answers from him if he doesn't want to give them to me? How can I ask for answer when I don't even know what questions to ask?
Brandon clears his throat. He looks around at the group with his serious expression unchanging. "We should probably go."
The rest of the group doesn't say anything. Brandon waits for me, and the second I'm by his side, we walk back to his apartment together.
At the apartment, we still don't bother to speak. There's a hardness over Brandon, and though I don't like the dark of the apartment, I like this new side of Brandon even less.
"I'm gonna go to bed," I say, though it still comes out half sounding like a question.
Brandon shifts in the darkness, the tiniest bit of light streaming in from the window lights him up enough that I can barely make his outline out. "You're pissed."
I should be. If this were a normal situation I probably would be. "No. I'm not."
He doesn't say anything and I make my way to the bedroom, trying not to accidentally hit my shin against the small table in the center of the room. I move too fast in my attempt to reach the far wall. My head spins and I reach out my hands for the bedroom doorjamb to have an anchor in the darkness, only the bedroom isn't dark. It's lit by soft moonlight shining through the window and lighting up the room a pale silvery blue. I step into the room without needing to hold onto anything and stop at the foot of the bed.
Brandon steps into the room and into the light too though he stays near the door. "It is pretty isn't it?"
I turn my head towards him slowly. Even with the light, my back was to the living room so there's no way he could have seen the look on my face and yet he's standing here echoing my thoughts. This seems to happen a lot more than chance and coincidence would predict. Under my sweatshirt, the hair on my arms stand up.
He takes another step in the room though he stays back with his hands in his pockets and his eyes towards the ground. "There is more I didn't tell you."
I swallow and wait. He shifts from one foot to the other and exhales again.
"I can read minds."
The sudden silence as he waits for me to process that thought frightens me and I have to reach forward and grab the metal rail of the bed. The cold metal against my hand spreads the goose bumps from my arms to the middle of my back between my shoulder blades. I hadn't thought to ask him directly about whether he had a power or not. I mean, isn't that just the sort of thing you'd know? Sort of like the way I knew just by looking at Angel that he probably has powers of some sort.
Brandon shifts again. "It's not intentional. I just pick up stray thoughts that rise above the rest. I can't shut them out. I've tried. I hear them no matter what even if I don't want to."
There really isn't much to say to that. I probably don't have to say anything because if the thought is strong enough he's probably picking it up already.
I lean more on the one hand resting on the slowly warming metal of the bed rail. "Why didn't you tell me?"
His words quietly slip into the dark, sliding into the space between us with so little effort. "You were barely holding it together as it was." Brandon shifts. I have a feeling that there's more he wants to say, so I wait. In a lower voice, he adds, "And maybe I wasn't ready."
It's such a normal, average thing. He speaks it softly, self consciously, like a boy admitting to a lie, sharing the truth even though he knows it will hurt. I can't just let it stay between us, leaving him out in the open, but I don't know what to say. Why wouldn't he have been ready? Doesn't he deal with this all the time?
Then I remember his words when I first got here and he told me everything. You don't like us, do you? He said it with a smirk as if he knew the answer. "Did you think I wouldn't like you if I knew?"
Brandon stays still, a shadow covering his face. "Do you?"
I take a deep breath, letting all the tension in my body gather, then I breathe it out. Once it's gone, a smile is free to make its way onto my lips, and I give him a nod before I realize he may not be looking at me. "Yes," I creak, swallowing a tear or two.
Brandon looks up, and though the shadows are still on his face, there's also a touch of moonlight outlining his smile. He takes one step closer, casually reaching out to rub the top of my head like any normal brother would. It seems that's enough. He doesn't say more on it. He just turns towards the door. "Probably time to go to sleep."
I lay down on the bed, and a moonbeam falls on my arm. The light reflects off my pale skin and I look like I'm glowing. For a while, I stare at the effect on my arm and the darker hairs that cast small shadows. This is something I never would have taken the time to enjoy before back home. I always had a light on when I went to bed. It was a convenience and a comfort to have a light on.
I think back to that night when Mom and me were separated and how I woke in the middle of the night with my heart racing as if I knew something would happen. Now I know what tipped me off to something being wrong when I woke up. My little night light was out. They had probably cut the power to our house to prevent us from turning on lights or calling out for help or disturbing the neighbors with the late night activity. But that hadn't helped when we were out front and Mom saw me. When she screame
d my name loud enough to wake everyone and probably send them to their windows to see what happened. Someone had to have seen despite their best efforts to avoid it.
And that thought makes me smile as I fall asleep with my arm still in the moonbeam.
Nine
The next morning, I wake up and lie still. Something feels different about this day. Maybe some internal clock of mine is tricking me into thinking that today is a weekend because we're going to the village today.
Back home, if this were a weekend, I would open the window and let in the fresh air so I could sleep in late. Birds would be chirping this early, sitting in the trees that decorated our street. I shut my eyes and listen for them, but all I hear is quiet. It seems everyone is asleep, including Brandon who would normally be up and making breakfast by now.
I get up and run my fingers through my hair to brush down the stray strands that stick up. Something inside me has opened but nothing is spilling out. It's opened so that I can see inside, and what I see is myself hiding, curled in a ball refusing to actually face what's going on.
It's like there are two parts to me. The one that is here and watching these things going on around me as if I'm not even here, and the other part of me that holds onto thoughts of my mother and home, protecting them with a ferocious fear as if someone might take them away. Or as if letting them free will cut me to ribbons.
I've only fooled myself into thinking that I was ready and that I was handling things when, really, I was still looking for a way to avoid looking at my future. But after last night, though it's still too soon, I know I have to do something. I have to find a way to live with what I know and find out more.
I pull the sleeves of the sweatshirt down. For a moment, I contemplate taking it off. The apartment is chilly, but not cold enough to require walking around with a sweatshirt on. Plus I slept in it, so it's all wrinkled and still smelling faintly of smoke. I don't though. I leave it on, smoothing it out, holding onto it and the memory of my mother. If she were here, she wouldn't be afraid. Or if she was afraid, she would still do what she needed to in order to survive.
When I step out of the room, Brandon is still laying on the couch. The apartment is dimly lit with the pale gray light from the rising sun bouncing off the bare walls. He'd normally be ready to head out before the sun has made its proper appearance, but it's technically his day off so he can get more supplies and drag me along with him as another important lesson about the Wildlands.
At the sight of me, he pushes himself up with his arms, slowly uncurling from his spot and then running a hand through his hair. “Hey.”
Right away I feel bad for waking him, but I'm so used to waking up early these past few days that it's become automatic.
“It's not your fault,” he says as he scrapes at the dark stubble at his chin. “I'm used to getting up early too.”
Even though I know now, it still surprises me that he responds to my thought so quickly. I realize he's been doing that all along, and I just never noticed before.
I sit down on the couch near him. His hair sticks up, and it makes me smile. If he is a dangerous tribe member like the rest, like his brother, then this small imperfection is reassuring. As if he catches my thought about his hair sticking up, he rubs at his hair, straightening it while at the same time managing to mess it up a little bit again.
I'm not sure what to say or why I came out. I didn't really have a plan. Words make their way out of my mouth and surprise me. “What's your brother's name?”
Brandon looks at me with that serious look of his that makes him look more like an adult than closer to my age. “Jimmy.”
It's strange; a man like that with such a normal sounding name. He's probably called Jim by close friends. James is probably his full name. Each name is different, foreign, when I compare them against the man I've seen bits and flashes of on my stay here.
I wonder why he didn't tell me about his brother too though I suppose there wasn't much time for that either. The first time I'd seen them together, I'd just gotten here and the second time, I was a little bit busy freaking out over watching a man killed in plain sight to care about how Brandon knew the murderer. And then I remember Henri mentioning that Jimmy wouldn't be happy about my staying here. What other Jimmy could he possibly mean?
Brandon clears his throat. “I'm sure you didn't come out here to ask me about him though.”
I give a shrug, "Maybe I did. I didn't really have a plan for conversation topics." I don't look directly at him, but I see him, slightly turned towards me, waiting and watching. How much of my thoughts is he really picking up? How much of my thoughts am I broadcasting? My thoughts are so strange. It's so easy for them to even sneak up on me that I wonder what it would be like for him to be able to catch those thoughts, things I probably don't even realize I put out, things that surprise even me.
In that strange moment, sitting there next to him with sleep in my eyes that I pick away, realizing that my own thoughts are as out of control as his ability to read them, I feel as close to him as if I've known him longer than a week. The words that slip out of my mouth surprise me, but they also don't. It seems the most natural to just ask him.
"What's going to happen to me?"
My throat sticks, and nothing more can come out. Brandon seems taken aback by my question, and I wonder if I was wrong to throw it out there with no warning. But his brother's words in the car ride here, though I haven't thought of them very often, they've stuck with me, hidden away just like the memories of Mom.
Brandon sighs, and I almost laugh because he sounds a lot like Henri, but he looks a lot like himself. There's more worry on his face than Henri had when I asked him the same question. He hesitates to speak whereas Henri was very quick to admit that he didn't know.
I sniff and can't help a short chuckle. "You don't know either."
He looks at me, and I can see him wanting to deny it, but his eyes betray him.
I look away and stretch my legs out. "The village is full of humans, isn't it? Wouldn't that be the best place for me?"
Brandon clears his throat and leans forward slightly. “It's not easy to get into the village. They have to watch their numbers, so unless someone dies or leaves...”
I nod at the blank wall. Of course it wouldn't be that simple.
Brandon stands. “I'm going to clean up, and then I'll start on breakfast.”
This is one of my last remaining days with Brandon. Soon enough, I'm going to have to head to Henri's and I have a feeling he won't put up with me as well as Brandon has. Today is going to be one of my last remaining days to learn as much as possible with someone kind enough to try and help me.
Mom said to trust Henri, but I don't know that I really can.
We head out for the village on foot. It's early so though the sun shines overhead, the chilly air still burns my cheeks.
In front of the building there are people hanging out, but the night crew appear less lively than the regular daytime crew. A small group of people looking more refreshed than the ones sitting before the dying fires relieve the ones who must have been sitting out all night. It's a move caught by chance, one that I would normally miss any other day.
Brandon walks with me, leading me down old streets with other buildings where people stand around out front watching me with narrowed eyes. At the sight of Brandon walking next to me they relax somewhat, though not exactly enough to hand out casual smiles like the people in front of Brandon's building.
As we walk, we pass others who are on their way to different destinations. Some of them smile at Brandon and completely ignore me. Not that I really mind. Sometimes it's nice to be under the radar.
The buildings we walk past are in a better condition than the buildings Henri, Jimmy, and I passed on the way in though many of them could use some paint. A few of the buildings have metal rails or edges that are rusting and it won't be long before they completely crumble. For the most part, these buildings are used though and so they continue to
live with a purpose.
At some point, the buildings taper off and then it is just a crumbling road weakened by weeds and surrounded by tall grass and green trees. The ground is mostly flat except for the hills in the distance in front of us and the mountains further off in the distance and past the city.
The sight makes me stop, and Brandon stops to look at me. He opens his mouth for a moment to say something, but shuts it again when I catch his eyes. Never have I seen open space like this. There are the agricultural lands in parts of the Neutral Territory, and that park that Rob tried to take me to that one time when his truck broke down, but those are all filled with people. Our touch is everywhere when you go to one of those places. Even in the park where they try to minimize it and give the illusion of wilderness. This is actual wilderness.
There is no way I will ever be able to get enough of the view. My nose is tickled by all the strange sweet smells from the plants mingling in my nostrils. I stand still for a good while watching the long grass bow as the early morning breeze sweeps along and listening to the rustling leaves of the large trees.
I look at Brandon sheepishly. "Okay, sorry, I think I'm ready now."
Brandon just smiles, maybe catching some of my thoughts. "If you get tired, let me know."
I nod. He's still looking out for me in a way, concerned that my flabby Neutral body isn't going to be able to make it all the way to the village. It's possible that he's right. But it might also be a good excuse to just sit out here and take in the landscape without any expectations or need to talk especially if I'm too tired.
But I don't, we continue on our way, the cool air and my curiosity driving me forward.
Ten
The village is a ramshackle of mismatched buildings that look as if they were pieced together with spare parts liberated from other buildings. I take in the sight, surprised at all the variation in the simple structures. Towards the middle of town, larger buildings that look like the ones from the city, complete with the dark mold growing on their sides. We had followed a road to get here, so I assume that this was something once, another place where people lived who must have been tied to the labs somehow though it's a bit of a distance away.
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