The Cross (Alliance Book 2) (13 page)

“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.

He gently put his hand on Brody’s shoulder. He didn’t move, just kept staring at him, a question in his eyes.

“Brody. You have to tell me what happened there. I heard you screaming.”

He shook his head, not moving anything else, gray-blue eyes without any suns in them, looking at him blankly.

“It’s Riley, Brody. We grew up together, remember? I am the asshole who wouldn’t shoot you to get Trina back. And that giant of a man looking for sticks, that’s Drake. You know him too. He was always good to you, Brody, good to all of us.”

Brody shook his head, not talking.

“Please, talk to me, Brody. Whatever it is they did, you can tell me,” he whispered softly, but he didn’t even look at him. He was staring at the grass he was sitting on, hands running through the blades.

He got up and went to find Drake. He needed to know. Whatever it was, Drake would have to tell him now. Drake had a large pile of sticks ready, sitting at the edge of the clearing, and he kept adding to it, as if he planned on camping here overnight.

“He won’t talk to me, Drake. I don’t think he even knows who I am, so you have to tell me what you saw. I can take it, whatever it is, I promise. You have to,” he said, trying to keep his voice from shaking. He crouched in front of the giant, looking up at his face, waiting. Drake sat down in front of him then, and nodded.

“They had him tied up to this chair so he couldn’t move. Not even his head. He was alone in the room and there was this long screen in front of him, and they were showing him things. Things they did to Trina. They were showing her having these babies, four of them, Riley, and they didn’t look like Zoriner babies, they were all light, Alliance light”—he swallowed, and shook his head, eyes on the ground—“They’d take these babies out of her, and then they’d hold them up in front of her, and she was screaming, reaching for the babies, but they wouldn’t let her hold them or anything. They drew blood from the babies, from their little feet, and then this Alliance woman looked at the blood through this silver machine and I couldn’t hear what she said then, but they took the two little ones away and the others… They put them in these tubes and they were gone. And Trina was just lying there in the bed, strapped in, screaming like they were ripping her heart out, and calling out for Brody. She was screaming his name, Riley. It was only a few seconds of footage but they kept running it for him on a loop, and he couldn’t turn away from it, couldn’t do anything. He had his eyes closed when I got to him, but he could still hear it, could still hear Trina screaming his name.” Drake shook his head again and looked at him, sadness all over his face.

“We have to get him back to the flier, Drake, even if we have to take turns carrying him,” and he walked back to where Brody was, still sitting where he left him, fingers running aimlessly through the grass, not noticing him approach, not noticing anything.

“Can you walk, Brody? We need to go back to the others. We’ll carry you if you don’t think you can,” he asked.

Brody got up without word, not looking at him, and nodded. It took a very long time to make it back through the woods, too long to do it in silence.

He stayed close to Brody the whole time, but Brody just walked, not paying attention to the branches hitting him in the face, not even trying to move them aside. Drake ran ahead of them, probably to tell everyone to leave Brody well enough alone. It was eerily quiet in the flier when they got there. Drake handed a thermos of tea or likely spiked tea to Brody, but he just shook his head at him, walked over to his old seat, slumped down in it and closed his eyes, and nobody could think of anything to do or to say to him after that.

T
HE
T
RACKER

Laurel

[
May 14, 2236, the Flier Outside Waller
]

Nobody could do what Drake told them they did when he came into the flier, panting, like he’d been running for a long time, and finally telling them all to not say anything to Brody, to just let him be. Nobody could do something that heartless. But of course they could. These same people made a whole city of people go into the fire. She remembered that. Would always remember that.

She sat next to Brody as he slept, or at least she hoped he slept, and after a long time of just watching his face, and him not moving at all, just breathing, she reached over and took his hand in hers, and he didn’t seem to notice it, so she held it until she was finally tired enough to drift off. He was still sitting next to her when she woke up, as if he hadn’t moved at all, eyes still closed. She didn’t know what she could possibly say to this boy, after what he saw them do to Trina, didn’t have the words for it, so she silently held his hand, waiting for him to stir.

She felt and then saw Riley lean over her, handing her a small thermos.

“This will make it bearable for him for a little while, if he needs it, Laurel. I don’t know how he’ll wake up from this. I don’t know if he’ll know who you are, or any of us for that matter. He didn’t seem to know me or Drake yesterday. If you think he needs to just sleep again, this will help,” he whispered, and walked away, leaving her in charge of this broken boy.

Everybody was down in the clearing but her and Brody. His eyes suddenly flew open, and he jerked his hand away from her, staring at her with anger, and in a flash, his hands were around her neck, strangling her. She couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything. She wanted to scream, but not getting any air in made it impossible, so she just sat there, looking into his eyes, at the sparkles of gold in them. Something changed in his face and he let go of her, jumping a few steps away from her, hands in fists at his sides.

“I am sorry, I am so sorry, Laurel. I didn’t know who you were. I am sorry,” and he ran from her, ran down the stairs and away from the clearing into the woods. Her neck and throat hurt too much to yell after him. She followed him, slowly, trying to get her breathing back to normal. She found him after a little while sitting under a large birch, that’s what everyone called these strange spotted trees she loved so much. She was glad she knew the name for them now. It fit too, unlike some of the other new things she’d learned.

“Please let me be. I know you mean well, but I can’t. I can’t talk about it. Not to you or to Riley or anybody. I just can’t, Laurel. I am sorry I hurt you earlier. I know who you are now. I won’t forget, I won’t hurt you again. You are safe from me, all of you. Please, just go.” His head was down in his hands and she couldn’t see anything of his face like this.