by J. L. Smith
“Yeah, one of the best,” Rayder added, standing gazing over the balcony now.
“I don’t want her left here,” Stef said, looking pleadingly at Kieran.
He nodded, “We’ll take her with us.”
Rayder looked at him sharply and I thought he might argue. It would slow us down, certainly, but she was our friend. He sighed and nodded, giving his consent, although I suspected that Stef and Kieran would not have asked for it on this occasion.
“Thank you,” Stef whispered, going back to her sister. She knelt down and brushed a strand of Susie’s bloody blonde hair from her forehead, before leaning over to talk to her twin quietly in her ear. My heart ached imagining what she was saying, the way she had to be trying to find the right words to say goodbye.
“You okay?” Rayder whispered from right behind where I was standing, causing the hairs on the back of my neck to bristle, as I had not even noticed that he was there. “I mean, after Bea as well.”
He brushed his knuckles against the side of my neck. I turned to him and nodded, unable to speak, as I was sure I would break down. He seemed to understand and wrapped his arms around me, letting me lay my head against his chest. I breathed him in, feeling a little safer, although just as sad.
“I’m ready to go now,” Stef said softly and I pressed my face against Rayder’s chest once more, before stepping out of his embrace, preparing myself to leave that forlorn, windswept place.
Chapter 22
The fortress was almost deserted by the time we got down to the balcony overlooking the courtyard, Kieran and Rayder carrying Susie. We had bound the fatal wound to her neck and cleaned her up as best we could, trying to give her the dignity in death that she deserved. No one was there to notice her. The place was a wreck, small fires still going from the explosions between all the ruined stonework and debris. The subsequent fighting had resulted in pure carnage, the bodies of guards and festival-goers strewn about everywhere. Looking down across the mess of human remains, the stench of blood was almost too much to bear.
“Do you think the rest have left?” Kieran asked quietly.
“Mostly,” Saffron replied, her nose crinkled in disgust. “Not much to stick around here for.”
“Hey,” a voice called from down the hallway.
It was Aidan, poking his head out of the seers’ room, where they had obviously been waiting for us. He hobbled out of the door, followed closely by the other actors, their chains clanging against the cold stone floor and weighing them down.
We trudged along the hallway to meet them and when we were in earshot, Mabel asked without hesitation, “Is he dead?” I took in the streak of blood across her short, pink hair and the dark blue and green bruise over her eye.
“Yeah,” Rayder replied and Mabel exhaled audibly, her face filling with relief. “Bea and Grigor too.”
“Nice,” Aidan said, grinning despite his own bruises. It was just ordinary Aidan before us, devoid of any of the usual pretence when he went into actor mode. Perhaps he had had enough acting for one day. “Who killed the son of a bitch?” he asked, his voice dangerously low.
When Saffron did not say anything, Rayder answered for her, “Saff did.”
Aidan nodded at her in appreciation. “Bet it felt really good,” he said.
When a heavy silence followed his comment, their eyes started to dart about, seeming to take in our dejection and sense that something was not quite right. No one had realized that Susie was missing, that her body was lying across the balcony behind us.
“We lost Suse,” Kieran said into the silence, inclining his head in the direction of her body. It was a testament to our trust in them that we had finally told them our real names.
Aidan swore violently, his eyes finding Stef. “I’m so sorry, guys. Stef…” his voice trailed off and he just shook his head, words evading him.
The others tried to express a similar sentiment, no one really knowing what to say. There was nothing to say. They did not know her as we did and even we had no idea how to act.
Stef nodded, fresh tears coming to her eyes, “Thanks.”
“We need to get the hell of out here,” Saffron said fiercely. “Balen’s dead and this place is a dump.” She looked over at Stef, “We’ve got a friend to bury now.”
Stef bit her lip, glancing briefly back at Susie.
“Okay, let’s make this happen fast,” Aidan said, all business. “First things first. We’ve got to get out of these chains.”
“Right,” Rayder replied. “Grigor took the keys off me when we were first getting in here.”
“Okay, so any ideas?” Aidan asked.
“Yeah,” Neal responded, extracting a bunch of keys from his jacket pocket. “Let’s start with these.”
“Where’d you get them?” I asked, raising my eyebrows in surprise at seeing Rayder’s keys once more.
“Off Grigor.” When we all continued to look confused, he added, “Once he was dead and you guys had started moving towards Balen already.”
Saffron made a noise which sounded a bit like a surprised laugh, “Only you, Neal.”
Rayder shook his head in near wonder and Neal shrugged, saying, “I figured he had to have something useful on him.”
“You figured right,” Mabel said. “Let’s get these things the hell off us. These chains are killing my wrists,” she added impatiently.
The chains fell off them easily, as the keys slid into place, allowing them their freedom back. They rubbed their wrists and ankles gingerly, grimacing and smiling at once as the tension eased.
“Okay,” Neal said quietly, when each of them had stepped out of the heavy, almost medieval-looking chains, “before we go, I’ve got to check on something.” He glanced at Rayder and added, “Someone.”
“Neal, I don’t think,” Saffron started to argue, but then seemed to change her mind. “I’m coming with you.”
“Go,” Rayder nodded. “Meet us back at the vehicle in thirty minutes.”
As Saffron and Neal rushed off, Aidan said, “He’s not going to find anyone. We haven’t heard anyone coming past here, except you guys. Everyone’s gone.”
“When it’s your mom, though, you have to make sure,” I said, suddenly seeing a childhood image of my own mother making lemonade in our tiny kitchen.
Aidan nodded, his eyes following Neal and Saffron as they left us. “So, cars,” he said to Rayder, back to planning our exit.
“Yeah,” Rayder replied immediately, “you guys take the truck we came in and we’ll find another one.”
“You sure?” Aidan asked.
“Yeah,” Rayder said, “there should be a few options out there.”
“Let’s go steal you a car, then,” Aidan said, starting to smile, before looking over at Stef, the beginnings of his smile vanishing.
We made our way out of the fortress, around the smoldering courtyard with the red litter of dead bodies. We passed through the great arch leading to the menacing-looking metallic gates which served as the entrance to the fortress, noting more fires and the remnants of explosions as we went.
“How did Neal even manage to plant bombs in all these places?” I asked absently, to no one in particular, shaking my head in wonder.
“He’s impressive, I’ll give him that,” Aidan replied, his steps syncing up with mine. “You get yourself into some trouble back there?” he asked, raising his eyebrows at my bruised face.
I shrugged, not really in the mood to talk about Bea and Balen, especially while Kieran and Rayder struggled to carry Susie’s body through the front of the fortress.
“I take it they came off second best?” Aidan said, pressing me.
“Yeah,” I finally responded. “It was Bea.”
“So, you’re the one who got her in the end. Must have felt good.”
“It did and it didn’t,” I said quietly.
He studied me for a moment, before saying, “I know what you mean.”
I was sure he did. If you roughed it alone in the desert long enough, you were bound to know exactly what it meant to both love and hate the feeling of revenge.
We fell silent again as we walked through the gate to the fortress, leaving that cold, hateful place behind us. I almost breathed a sigh of relief and then remembered Susie, who would never breathe again. Tears caught in my throat and I had to swallow them down, ignoring the burn of unshed grief in my gullet. I looked out over the lonely view below us, the rocky slope leading away from the fortress, still almost half full of neglected vehicles, belonging to those who had died or fled some other way. There were bodies out here, too, lying almost peacefully in pools of blood, the violence of their deaths only a memory now. Dotted here and there were people, still alive, some looking lost or injured, none of them looking as if they meant anyone any harm. We wasted no time on them, making our way directly to the actors’ vehicle, left just where we had parked it.
As gently as they could, Rayder and Kieran lay Susie’s body on the bed of the truck, her right leg coming to rest at an unnatural angle. I had to look away and caught Stef’s eye, the raw pain I saw in her making me feel ill.
“I’m going to get a truck,” Rayder said briskly, and I noticed that his hands were shaking. He did not meet any of our gazes, “Kieran, I need you. The rest of you, stay here.”
He was dictatorial again, our leader on a mission, with only his trembling hands to give away the emotional turmoil we were all feeling in the wake of Susie’s death.
“I’m coming,” Aidan said, brooking no argument, as he joined Rayder and Kieran.
The rest of us waited for them, Stef climbing into the back of the truck to sit beside her sister. I started to walk away some place more private and then thought better of it.
Completely unsure whether I was judging the situation correctly, I asked Stef hesitantly, “Do you want me to sit with you?”
Stef looked down at me and smiled, her eyes growing moist, “That’d be nice.”
I climbed into the back of the truck and took Stef’s hand. There was nothing for either of us to say and so we just sat there, Stef lightly stroking Susie’s leg from time to time, while I squeezed Stef’s hand every so often, hoping the gesture made up for what my words could not.
It was not long before Rayder, Kieran and Aidan came back with a mustard-colored truck with ample space for us all to sit in the cab. They were vague about how they had acquired the vehicle, but the gist of the story was that the keys had been found near the truck, along with the owner. The latter had died and none of us really wanted to know anything more than that. We simply transferred our possessions from the actors’ vehicle into the new truck, grateful for the comfortable set of wheels. I looked away as Rayder and Aidan carried Susie from one vehicle into the other, thinking how much better it would be when she was safely buried. At least that way, we could remember her as she once had been and not this bloody and cold corpse.
As we were finishing up our preparations to leave, Saffron and Neal returned. One look at their faces told me that they had not been successful.
“Nothing?” I asked Neal, even though I knew what the answer would be.
He shook his head and I patted his shoulder awkwardly, a lump rising in my throat seeing the expression on his face.
“There’s hardly anyone left,” Saffron said, confirming what Aidan had told us. “The girls weren’t in their quarters.” I briefly wondered how Saffron must have felt, returning to where she had experienced so much pain and abuse.
“Maybe they all escaped then?” I said, hopefully.
“Maybe,” Neal responded, not sounding the least bit hopeful.
“She wasn’t in the courtyard, or anywhere else we checked,” Saffron said, where the implication was obvious. They had not seen her dead body and so there could still be hope.
Neal nodded again, this time not responding. I could not imagine what that must feel like – the unknown, the relentless searching through each new face you met for one which your heart would know anywhere. He would always wonder what had become of her and if I knew anything about the world, it was that some things just did not work out. Neal would probably never know what had happened to his mother.
“Sorry, bud,” Rayder said at the same time as I gave Neal a brief hug. Stef hugged him next, unable to say a word.
“Thanks, guys,” Neal replied self-consciously, righting his glasses. “I didn’t expect much, but you know…” His sentence was left half finished, but we did know. When it was family, you never stopped believing.
The actors got ready to leave then and we said our goodbyes. I felt I knew very little about any of them, even Aidan. I had a feeling that, like most of us, what you saw was not quite what you got. Pretences kept us all safe. Pretty red-headed Christal, who had flirted shamelessly with Rayder that first night we had met, seemed subdued now, in shock after all we had been through. I had imagined her a constant flirt, but she looked vulnerable and anxious now, her cheek bruised almost black. She got into their vehicle with barely a wave to any of us, while the others gave their hugs and kisses.
Ranic, of the crooked nose and curly hair, kissed me heartily on both cheeks and I almost expected him to bow, his manner so dramatic. I think it was only the somberness of Susie’s death which stopped him. Jody, her purple braids pulled tightly into a great bun at the nape of her neck, gave me a shoulder punch, telling me to look her up any time, while Mabel thanked me a little too intensely for ridding the world of Bea. Aidan must have spread the word and I was glad that I had not gone into any details with him. Mabel went on to confess that she thought Balen deserved to know what it felt like to lose someone he loved, too. Her eyes misted up as she said it, no doubt remembering the one she had loved, and I squeezed her hand, before glancing briefly at the boy I loved. Losing him was unimaginable. As if sensing my thoughts, Rayder looked over at me, something like a shadow crossing his face, concern in his eyes as he again seemed to take in my bruises.
Then it was just Aidan left, shaking Rayder’s hand.
“Seriously,” Rayder said, apparently picking up a conversation the two of them had been having without us. “You guys risked a lot by coming here. We couldn’t have done it without you.” Aidan nodded in appreciation and Rayder continued, his voice low, “Thank you. Most people would’ve turned us down.”
“As you’ve probably guessed by now, we’re not most people,” Aidan replied.
“Yeah,” Rayder responded, half smiling, “it’s good to know there are some of you left out there. But, we still owe you the cash,” Rayder said, back to business. “I’ve left it in your truck in the glove box.”
“Nah, you haven’t,” Aidan said, the twinkle back in his green eyes. “It’s in yours. We’re not going to be taking that.”
“Why?” Rayder asked, sounding a little irritated. “We had a deal.”
“Yeah and deals change,” Aidan said lightly. “We hated Balen just as much as you. Let’s leave it at that.” He smiled and added, “We’ll, no doubt, exaggerate our role in his downfall, if that’s good with you.”
I smiled, but Rayder still sounded annoyed when he said, “I don’t like owing anyone any favors.”
Aidan held up his hands in a gesture indicating surrender, “We’re even. We helped you guys get to Balen and you guys offed him. End of story.”
Rayder still seemed unsure, but Saffron chipped in, “Hey, we could use the cash. It’d help set us up for whatever we’re going to be doing next.”
“Yeah,” Rayder conceded. “You sure about this?” he asked Aidan.
“Sure,” Aidan replied, nodding firmly.
“Thanks,” Rayder said, “but, we don’t owe you one.”
“Nope,” Aidan said laughing. “Any ideas what you’ll do next?”
Rayder scraped his hand through his hair, clearly still a bit agitated, and said vaguely, “A few. Nothing set in stone.”
“Well, look us up some time,
okay.”
Rayder nodded without making a response, so I added with far more enthusiasm, “We will. Anyway, we still need to see you guys perform. With scripts, this time, that is.”
“Oh, what, you didn’t like our improv that first night?” Aidan asked teasingly. “If I recall, you chose to go to sleep just when things were about to get interesting. One word: striptease.”
It felt strange to be joking when Susie had just died and I did not know how to respond. Aidan had not really known her and so I could not blame him for wanting a few light moments. I rolled my eyes dramatically at him and went for, “I’ll settle for a hug now.”
“I’ll take it,” Aidan said, wrapping me in a bear hug. “Hmm,” he said, smelling my hair, his voice only loud enough for me to hear, “you still smell edible.”
I gave him a playful punch, “Behave.”
“Never,” he said, winking. “See you around, lovely lady.”
I could almost feel Rayder’s eyes boring a hole in the back of my head.
And then, just as swiftly as they had come into our lives, Aidan and his crew of actors set off, leaving only a cloud of dust and tire marks behind them. It felt a little odd for it just to be us again, but even more so as it was us, without Susie. None of us looked back as we left the fortress, instead looking ahead, to the nearly setting sun. Our triumph was emptier for having lost our friend. Part of me wanted to celebrate what we had accomplished, at least congratulate those of us left behind on what we had achieved. The organ harvesting trade was dead and buried, under a pile of stones and smoldering ashes, left out for the birds to peck at on the top of a forsaken turret. But, there would be a time for smiles, a time to feel the extent of what we had done. This was not that time.
We made camp that night some two hours away. Ironically, it was the warmest night we had had in months, winter finally beginning to thaw out and give way to spring. We were to bury Susie in the morning and none of us felt much up for sitting around the campfire, trading war stories.
Rayder approached me as I was readying myself for bed, taking my hand to lead me around our new truck for a little privacy.