Laurel took his hand without asking if she could, not looking at him. He liked that about her. She didn’t ask, didn’t want to intrude. It’s as if she trusted that anything he would ever want to say to her, he would, in his own time, and she didn’t need to pry. But she was always there with a soft look or a touch. And there was a strength to this girl that she didn’t know she had. He remembered stitching her up at the clearing, and how she didn’t move at all. Even his boys, the soldiers, would have at least flinched, but she just lay there as if it didn’t bother her at all, only he knew that it did, but she took it, because she didn’t want him to feel bad about hurting her. And then finding all those flowers for Trina and putting them in her hair like that, someone she didn’t even know… It was the kindest thing anyone has done for him in a long time.
He recalled now that he never so much as thanked her for it. He stopped, looking at her face, “Laurel, what you did for her earlier, the flowers…” and he couldn’t get the rest of it out. Just stood there, frozen, embarrassed, staring at this sweet girl.
“It’s the least I could do, Brody. I think it would have maybe turned out differently if I didn’t run out there like I did. I didn’t know what would happen, just didn’t trust all of them not to kill you, so I panicked. I am sorry.”
It never even occurred to him that she would be blaming herself for what happened the whole time, and it made him feel every kind of wrong for not being nicer to her these last few days.
He took her by the shoulders, making her look at him, “It wasn’t your fault, Laurel. None of it. I had it under control. My crew would have never given you up to her. I just didn’t know anybody could do what she did. It shouldn’t be possible. But it wasn’t your fault. You have to believe me on this, you just have to.”
He let her eyes go, and they picked up the pace to catch up to everybody.
The cemetery was still there, only not at all like he remembered it. The trails were overgrown with grass and weeds. Vines and flowers were growing around old tombstones, peeking out from the cracks. But it smelled of something sweet and summery, orange blossoms maybe, and there were finches in the trees making an awful lot of noise, and honey bees flitting between the wild flowers. He spotted a green grasshopper in the grass and crouched, waiting for it to jump so he’d catch it.
For some reason he really wanted to catch this bug, to hold it in his closed palms, feel it jumping and tickling his skin. They used to catch them with Riley all the time for bait, only he couldn’t ever bring himself to use them like that, and always let them go from the little glass jar when Riley went home. He couldn’t put a hook or a needle through anything unless he had to, not after he made Riley cry like that when he caught that beautiful dragonfly for him and stuck a needle through its chest. It was the largest dragonfly he’d seen, and he remembered how its wings had all these rainbows in them, shimmering with all the different colors, only when it stopped moving, it didn’t look like that anymore.
The grasshopper was safely hidden in his hands now. “I want to show you something, Laurel,” he was holding his hands closed in front of her, nodding with his head for her to look. She did, and then he opened them and the grasshopper jumped all the way down, its bent skinny legs tickling his palm. She smiled at it, and then at him, a full on smile. So he told her about Riley and his love of bugs when they were kids, and about these grasshoppers, and then named everything else that he knew that was around them, so she could take it with her, no matter what else happened here. He wanted this girl to have enough pretty things to remember to maybe push out some of the sadness she’d seen.
He heard Riley calling his name, so he ran over to where his friend was, and saw what he was pointing at. They were all standing in a patch of weeds and wildflowers, a giant elm growing in the middle of it. The elm looked ancient, but all the flowers were brand new, some still holding their petals inside their stalks. He stood there for a long time looking at it, imagining Trina sitting under that tree, her long legs outstretched in front of her, curling her naked toes in that way she had, reading one of the old books she was always reading on her screen. She’d let the bees and the dragonflies land on her, never shooing them away, the breeze making her hair fall into her eyes, only she never seemed to notice it, not when she was reading. But she’d jump up all giddy, smiling at him on hearing his steps, always making him feel a little guilty, as if he woke her up from a really nice dream. She’d like it here, he knew.
He nodded to his friend, and ran back to the flier, not asking anyone to follow him. He needed to do this alone. He told Loren to take the shovel to the group and help them dig a grave for her, and then turned off the cryo unit. He watched her in silence for a few minutes, and finally leaned in and planted the last kiss he would ever give her on her lips. He fixed the flowers in her hair, and then gently, as if she really were asleep, picked her up and carried her all the way to the little cemetery, to the little spot by the elm tree. They all helped put soil on top of her, leaving just her face exposed. Riley handed him the shovel, but he couldn’t do it. Couldn’t put black dirt on her face, so he shook his head at his friend and turned away from it, from watching him do it.
And when it was over, Loren sliced a few branches off a nearby oak with his long knife, and cleaned all the bark off, and then neatly fashioned them into a cross with a piece of rope. He held it out to him, looking at him awkwardly.
“I brought the burner pen if you wanted to put her name on it, sir. Or I could do it for you if you want me to.”
He nodded to the kid and took the cross and the pen from him. All the other tombstones and crosses here had names and dates on them, but he couldn’t date this, couldn’t look at such a small number in-between, so he just wrote Trina on it in a shaky hand, and stuck it in the middle of the fresh grave. He took a tiny bit of soil and shoved it in his pocket. That was all he’d have left of her now. All he could bear to take of her.
Everyone was looking at him with sad apologetic faces, and he couldn’t take it. He needed to be alone. He thanked them and turned into the woods, looking for some place deserted enough to just be, and they let him go. He knew they would. That not even Riley would follow him. He walked for hours, not quite finding any place he wanted to stop at, but the walking felt good, and finally, when his legs couldn’t take it any more, he went back to the flier, hoping they wouldn’t make him talk when he got there. They didn’t. Riley brought him some supper Drake must have made earlier. It looked like something Drake would make, full of that meat stuff, and some broth that tasted a little bit like the stews Trina’s mother made for him in the winter, and he couldn’t eat any more after thinking that.
And then Riley leaned over him, handing him a thermos of something, he assumed tea, only he wasn’t in any mood for tea, so he shook his head at him, but Riley just unscrewed the top and handed it to him anyway. He knew what it was then, and he was grateful for it. Grateful for the fuzziness it would bring, for the soft blurred edges of Trina’s face, for the sweet jasmine smell that was always on her dissipating into something bitter, more Andy’s warehouse smell than flowers, and when he couldn’t take any more of the stuff, he gave it back to Riley, making him drink with him.
He felt his arm around him when he started drifting to sleep, and it felt good to have him hold him like that, without needing to say anything. Felt good knowing that he still had his Riley. That he hadn’t lost him after all.
THE UNWANTED
Riley
[Zorin Council, Waller, May 13, 2236]
Brody was long asleep when he finally pulled a soft blanket over him and disengaged. He could sense he didn’t just come here to bury Trina. Could see it in his face. He needed to protect him somehow. He found Trelix and Loren going over something on their screens.
“I need to ask you something. If I wanted to track a person without them knowing, what would I do? Is there something you have or can make that won’t be noticed but would give me a location?”
Trelix wal
ked up to him then with his screen.
“We didn’t just come here to bury the girl, did we, sir?”
He shook his head at him.
“You don’t need to call me sir anymore, Trelix. But no, I think he had something else in mind and I think he doesn’t plan on involving any of us. I want to keep him safe, if I can, but he can’t know about it.”
Trelix pointed to his screen then, and handed him a tiny round of something sticky, like old gum or a piece of roof tar, melted in the summer heat.
“You can drop it into his pocket. It’s a transmitter. I programmed it already with the signal. This will tell you where he is within two meters, unless something is blocking the transmission. We scanned this place flying over and the only place that was blocked were the cells on the bottom level under the Council’s building.” He handed the screen to him, and went back to his seat at the controls.
It felt good knowing that these soldiers seemed to actually care about Brody. That they weren’t just following orders anymore. He dropped the sticky thing inside Brody’s sleeve pocket. It was the one he used the least, so it seemed safer than where he kept his weapons or screens, and finally went to sleep, dreamlessly this time.
Nobody was in the flier when he woke up, but he heard the chatter of voices from down below. He looked through the tiny window and saw the small fire going, and everybody but Brody was there. He pulled the screen Trelix gave him out, and stared at the dot, moving at a very slow speed down Leander Street, turning to Wisteria and then to Realon. That’s where the Council building was. He knew that. Everybody in Waller knew that. He grabbed two stunners and his knife, and ran down the steps to the fire. Drake was just pouring tea for everybody.
“Brody’s gone to the Council, Drake. I thought he might, just didn’t think he’d be up so damn early. I need you to come with me, please. We have to help him. I think he means to kill somebody there, for Trina, for giving her up to them. I know you are still angry at him, but I can’t take anyone else. I can’t have Alliance soldiers marching through the streets here. I won’t ever ask you for anything again, I swear.” He said it panting, in a rush, hoping Drake would help him.
“I stopped being angry at him a long time ago, Riley. I love that boy with all my heart, always have. I just need a minute, okay?” Drake interrupted him gently and ran into the flier.
Ams walked up to him, eyes big, afraid, “I don’t like this, Riley. Just the two of you going. You have to at least be able to talk to us if you get in trouble. Get Trelix to give you something so we can hear you. I am not asking you not to go, I know I can’t do that, but do this for me. I need to know you are safe,” and he nodded to her, planted a kiss on her lips and went back to the flier to talk to Trelix and Loren. They fitted him with a comm that wasn’t traceable to anybody. The frequency would only connect to the flier. And he put another one of those sticky trackers in his pocket, so they could tell where he was.
“If we get in trouble, you need to get the girls out of here, back to the cave or Carthage, if there is any place you can land there. You can come back to help us after that, but you can’t risk them, not any of them. It’s the only order you’ll ever get from me,” he said, looking at the young man’s face.
Trelix nodded, and then stuck his hand out, “Understood. You have my word,” and he shook the kid’s hand, grateful that he no longer seemed to look at him as if he were an insect, even without the threat of being shot for it. It felt good to shake his hand like that, and he trusted that he’d keep his word, no matter how hard it would be for him to abandon Brody.
They walked for the first few miles in silence, using little side streets to not attract any attention. Their clothes were still Zoriner, but too new looking for most people here. Stan outfitted each of them with enough shirts and jackets to get them through months without them needing to patch anything up. The air smelled of summer, and when they walked under some towering old trees, he could see the white blooms, covered in bees, and he could smell the sweet fragrance that accompanied him home every day from school. It was the scent from before everything went bad for him in Waller, before he lost everybody. Everyone he loved trapped in this tiny smell, and he couldn’t take it, so he ran, not caring if Drake could keep up, ran until he was far enough away from these trees to where he couldn’t smell it anymore.
“Ella and I want to stay here, Riley,” he felt Drake’s hand on his shoulder, “it’s the last place they’d ever expect to find us, and nobody here knows what happened to me anyway, so to them, it’ll just be like I went some place else and decided to come back. And Ella… Nobody will know it’s her now. Nobody left here is old enough to put it together. You need to let us.”
He stopped, staring at Drake.
“How can you stand it, Drake? This place? All these houses that no longer have their people in them, people you knew?”
Drake looked at him softly, old Drake like.
“I am not sure I can, Riley, but I have to try. For her. It’s the only home she remembers. She spent her whole life missing it. I owe it to her to try,” and he walked away, towards the Council building.
He was right, he knew. He had to do this for Ella, had to try, and he hoped for the briefest of moments that maybe someday he could walk into his old house again, and Ella and Drake would be there, tending to the tiny old yard, and growing their own herbs in mother’s pots out back, and they’d have a kid or two and a dog, and he knew they’d name the dog Samson, even if it were a girl, that they would do that for him, and deep down he was okay with it, with letting them stay.
The Council building hadn’t changed. It stood grimly, grayly, all seven stories of it, the tallest in Waller. He knew they’d search them for weapons when they got there, but nobody would expect Zoriners to carry stun guns, so he took his and Drake’s and pulled the metal bits apart from the plastic, and stashed the parts around his various pockets so nothing showed up in the machine. His knife was metal, nothing he could do about that, so he stuck it in between two stones at the entrance, and nodded to Drake. His screen told him that Brody was one floor below them. He’d never been there, but most places underground seemed menacing to him now, after Hassinger. He swallowed and opened the doors.
The machine and a solo guard lazily manning it let them through without any issues. They walked to the elevators, but couldn’t find any buttons to go down a level. There was an exit sign down the hallway, suggesting that there might be stairs in that direction, so they took off at a brisk walk. He put together the guns as they walked and handed one of them to Drake, nodding to him to turn it on. The place seemed deserted. It didn’t make sense for such a large building to be completely devoid of people.
There were indeed stairs here, and soon enough they were walking much more slowly through the dark hallway of the first basement level. There were no signs and no people. He heard him before he knew it was him. Brody screaming. He had never heard him scream like that, and it scared him. Drake stopped him, caution written all over his face, and walked in front of him, not letting him run to where his friend’s voice was coming from, in raspy screeches, as if he’d been screaming like this for a long time.
Finally, he could see the door, metal, with a tiny glass window in it. All the sounds were definitely coming from there. He flipped the switch on his gun to lethal without thinking, and noted that Drake did the same. He watched Drake peek through the glass, standing there for far too long for him not to lose patience, and when he couldn’t take it any more and walked up to where the glass was, Drake’s hands were suddenly on him, pulling him away from it, away from this door, back towards the stairs. He fought him, hitting him on his face, hard, but Drake didn’t budge. He sat him down on the stairs, panting, holding him by his shoulders, not letting him move at all.
“You can’t go in there, Riley. I can’t let you. I am sorry, but you just can’t. I will get him out of there, but you can’t come. You have to promise me you won’t move, Riley.”
He nodded, and
put his head into his hands. He just needed him out of there, needed for the screaming to stop.
He waited for a long time before he heard Drake’s voice talking to Brody, whispering something to him, only he couldn’t hear Brody at all, and then they were in front of him, Drake cradling Brody as if he were a child, carrying him up the stairs, and then running down the first side street and through the back alleys, towards the woods. Drake didn’t turn towards the flier, just kept going deeper and deeper into the woods and finally gently sat Brody down on a patch of grass in a tiny clearing. He couldn’t see any bruises, or blood, or scars on him. Brody looked whole, still wearing all of his clothes, but his face wasn’t his. He was looking at him as if he didn’t know who he was or why he was crouching in front of him. Drake walked away from them, picking up dry sticks and branches, as he walked, as if he planned on making a fire.
The Cross (Alliance Book 2) Page 10