Finding Sage (The Rogue Book 1) (12 page)

              “You’d never be on this table if I hadn’t been so reckless.”

              “I know,” Ishmael responded.  “But you can’t change it now.”

              “Ishmael—”

              Before Tariq finished his sentence, Ishmael’s eyes closed and his head fell back.  Tariq fell on his knees.  He wanted to scream, to lash out, to throw something.  Break something.  Kill something.  Yet he couldn’t.  All of the strength was drained from his limbs, and all he could do was sit on his knees, helpless.  Salah laid his head on Ishmael’s chest, crying. Their brother was gone.

              Behind the old warehouse, Eli and Silas dug the last few pounds of dirt from the hole they had made.  Salah and Tariq slowly lowered their brother into the ground as the cold and bitter wind struck their faces.  They took one last look at the face of their deceased brother as Eli and Silas began putting the dirt on top of his corpse.  Alice and Lilly watched quietly with somberness, unsure of what this tragic event meant for them.  Tariq closed his eyes, capturing the image of Ishmael’s face in his mind for as long as he could.  A tear escaped his left eye and he quickly wiped it away.  Tariq looked at the landscape of trees and fields behind them, his face firm and strong. 

              As Salah remembered his brother - the wonderful and intricate web of emotions that only he could ever truly understand - he felt like a part of him had died.  He remembered the countless memories he shared with his brother; the mischief, the fights, the good times, and the regrets.  As he slowly came to terms with reality he realized things would never again be the same.  He once hoped they would eventually be able to return to Toronto as a whole family, all five of them, just as things always should have been, but he now realized that was impossible.  Things would never again be the way they were.  They could never go home.  So the question remained: what happens now?

21.

              The warehouse soon proved itself a valuable resource.  Eli said shortly after Ishmael’s burial that he had used it as a hideout several years ago and left various resources when he left, in case he ever needed it again.  They had found several weapons: mostly swords, bows, and knives, but also a few guns.  Silas had grabbed several of the weapons for himself the first chance he got.  He wanted to trust the others, but he was still hesitant.  He liked Eli, but could not help feeling skeptical of him.  Or at least of his judgment. 

              After gathering weapons, Eli pulled out several boxes of food.  It mostly consisted of canned soups, dried fruit, and water bottles, but it was more than enough to satisfy their growling stomachs.  While they were divvying up the food, Silas was quick to speak up and ensure that they took no more than they needed for each meal, since they had no idea how long it would be until it was safe for them to move on.  He expected Eli to object to his taking charge, but to his surprise, Eli simply smiled and nodded in agreement.

              Once they had fed themselves and set the food away until the next meal, they each split off to separate corners.  The group was divided, brought together only by convenience and circumstance.  They were brought together by tragedy, but even association by the horrors of their lives could only do so much to unite people that were already fragmented and shattered inside.

Silas sat against one of the innumerable boxes, running the blades of two daggers off of each other, allowing the metallic shrieks to distract his mind.  Lilly sat next to him, leaning her head on his shoulder.  They had been talking off and on for several minutes, but were now silent.  Lilly was tired and Silas was deep in thought, so they both were content to sit quietly. 

Silas waited patiently, hoping for an opportune time to speak with Eli.  He heard footsteps and looked up to see Eli walking towards him, looking at the ground and muttering erratically under his breath. 

“Eli?”

“…he’d look better with a mace stickin’ outta his—huh?”

Eli looked down to see Silas sitting on the ground looking up at him.  He had a grim and somewhat accusing look on his face, although he did not appear to be angry. 

“I need to talk to you.”

Eli cocked his head to the side and looked at Silas with his abnormally large eyes and then beckoned him.  Silas stood up and walked with Eli, waiting a few moments before speaking so that Lilly could not hear them.  Silas looked behind himself several times, paranoid even in the seclusion shared with only five other fellow refugees. 

“What’s up wi’ you?” Eli asked.

“When I was being interrogated before you broke me out, the agents kept asking me about a name,” Silas said.  “And I’ve heard the same name a couple of times from people here.  I want to know what it means.”

Eli stared and blinked several times, but Silas said nothing.

“Bro,” Eli said, “You’re the mind-reader. Not me.”

“You know what I want.  Tell me who Sage is.”

Eli stood in silence for a few seconds and stared past Silas, unresponsive.

“Well?  Are you going to answer me?”

Eli blinked rapidly and turned his eyes back to Silas.

“Sorry, what?”

“I asked if you’re going to answer me.”

“No, no, no, before that.”

“Tell me who Sage is.”

“Aha.  Now that I can do.”

Silas waited, but Eli said nothing more.

“Well?”

“What, now?  You never said now.”

“Eli!” Silas raised his voice in a frustrated tone.

“Take some ice bro.”

“Take . . . wait, what?”

“Take some ice.  Ya know, like take a chill pill.  Only without the drugs.  Drugs is bad, man.  Bad.  I tell ya, back in the ‘60s, I met this one dude in the back alleys of New York.  He was a low-brow, man, and I—”

“Are you gonna tell me what I want to know or not?” Silas asked.

“I just said I would, dude.”

“Well?”

“Just not yet,” Eli said.

Silas clenched his fists and pursed his lips.  He felt like an atomic bomb impending on an inevitable explosion.  He reminded himself what the shrapnel of his unleashed anger could cause and took a deep breath.

“I was tortured because of this guy.  Do you know what water boarding feels like?  Cause I do.  My life and Lilly’s life are in danger and I have a right to know what we are facing.”

“Yep.”

He fumed a bit longer, then approached a topic he hadn’t dared breach before.  Even as he spoke, he could hardly believe the words pouring out of his own mouth.  Yet he didn’t stop them. 

“Eli, you don’t want me on your bad side.  I have power you can’t combat.  I can lock someone inside of their own head permanently if I want to; like a life-long coma.  Is that what you want?”

Eli tilted his head back and laughed maniacally, causing Lilly to cast a confused glance in their direction.

“Yeah.  Right.  The guy who can’t get over one accidental kill is gonna put me to sleep forever.  Nice try, man.”

Eli patted him on the shoulder and walked past him.  Silas scowled, both angry with Eli and chilled by his own threat, and reluctantly walked back to his spot on the wall. In his emotional state, his mind involuntarily opened up and stretched, and as the flood of information poured into his mind, one fact caught his mind’s eye: Lilly had been watching them the entire time.  It didn’t surprise him, but it occurred to him that she might have overheard his lapse in judgment.  He looked at her, trying to discern whether she had heard anything unscrupulous.  She said nothing, but had a painful look in her eyes.

“You want to say something, don’t you?” he said to Lilly. 

He wanted to cringe as those words came out of his mouth.  He was trying to encourage her to speak her mind, but it came out like a challenge; a power-obsessed authoritarian begging his underling for a chance to reassert his dominion.  Was he that much of a control freak?  Must everything he says come out in that way?   Was that the real reason he wanted to lead?

“He isn’t lying,” she said.

Silas frowned and a bout of nausea stabbed him in the stomach.  She had not only been watching, but she heard every word.  Some leader he was turning out to be.

“Did you hear what we were saying?” he asked, just in case he could be wrong.

“No,” Lilly responded.  “I watched him.”

Relief flooded through him.

“How could you tell whether or not he was lying from watching him?” he asked.

“Everyone lies, and everyone shows it.”

Everyone lies . . .

Silas’ guilty nausea returned as the sentence bounced through his head and echoed through his mind.  He frantically searched his own memories for his conversations with Lilly.  He didn’t like what he dug up.

“When have you seen people lie?”

“Eli lied when he said he wanted you because of your power.  When he lies, he keeps eye contact the entire time.”

That intrigued Silas, but he dreaded what she would say next.  He saw the hesitation in her eyes, as if what she was holding back pained her, but she thought it might be more painful to release it.

“And you lied when you said you and your dad got separated.  You talk slower and play with your hair when you lie or when you get nervous.”

Silas hung his head involuntarily.  She was right.  He’d wanted to share with her, to help her feel like she could trust him.  But the truth of his dad and why they ended up apart was too painful for him to revisit, to even mention.

“It’s ok,” Lilly added frantically. “Everybody lies.”

Silas looked into Lilly’s sapphire eyes with dismay and opened his mouth to instinctively berate her. Before he unleashed his rash tirade, however, he closed his mouth and thought about the role he had played in her conclusion and ultimate declaration of subjective morality.

“Lilly, do you think of me as your father?”

“Yes.”

“Then listen very closely to what I’m about to say.”

Lilly said nothing, but looked at him with eagerness and anticipation.

“It isn’t ok that I lied.”

“B—”

“Let me finish.  I don’t want you imitating some of the things you’ve seen in me.  I’ve lived as a refugee for so long that my sense of morality has become warped, and I’m just starting to get it back.  I don’t want you to be a liar.  Do you understand?”

Lilly nodded slowly.  She understood that she’d upset him and felt guilty, but not nearly as guilty as Silas.  As he sat against the wall, he realized that although Lilly had the mind of a young adult, she still was an impressionable child.  The responsibility for raising her was more than for most parents.  If he wasn’t careful, he could turn her into a monster with no conscience.  The thought made him shiver and he attempted to shake the thought off in favor of something more pleasant.

Alice sat in her corner, facing the wall.  She had no tears, only determination.  She stared at the wall, focusing on one white spot and expending all of her concentration on it.  It seemed like a horribly pointless task, but it allowed her a serenity that was unmatched by the mental task of analyzing her current situation.  Her bliss was short-lived, however, and she soon found it impossible to maintain focus on such an infinitely small and insignificant task.  She broke her gaze from the wall and closed her eyes, only to see Rodge’s face again.  No matter how hard she tried, she could see nothing but him kneeling before her mother.  It haunted her dreams.  It pervaded her thoughts.  It pierced through her mind despite every cognitive barrier she could invent.  It was a horrific sight that she had involuntarily tortured herself with repeatedly, only to find the same inevitable result: immeasurable despair. 

As she receded into her misery, she realized someone was behind her.  He stood about twenty feet behind her, leaning against one of the warehouse shelves. 

“Shouldn’t you be throwing a pity party somewhere?” she said to Salah, with bitterness bleeding from every word.

“Probably,” he responded.

“Then you’re wasting your time. I don’t have tissues and sure don’t have a shoulder to offer for you to cry on,” Alice snapped.

She didn’t want to offend him, but figured it was the fastest way to get him to leave her in peace.  Unfortunately for her, he was not to be so easily deterred.

“Have you always hidden behind sarcasm?”

Alice’s distaste for this man quickly grew. 
Who does he think he is, my therapist?

“I’m sorry, I’m being rude.  My name is Salah.  I’m a friend.”

Alice turned around and looked Salah up and down, her eyes full of scrutiny.  His hazel eyes looked trustworthy, but she remained skeptical.  She didn’t know his angle.  She didn’t know his motivation.  Yet, as she continued thinking of him, she began to trust him.  He seemed friendly and sincere, even angelic.  Wait a minute. 
Angelic?!
  Her even face turned to a frown and then to a snarl.  So that’s what his “gift” was, as Eli called them.  Talk about a misnomer.

“Stay out of my head,” she snapped.

“I want to help,” Salah insisted.

“Leave.”

He didn’t budge.

“Now!”

“Yes, Princess.”

In the blink of an eye, Alice lunged at Salah, kicked his legs out from under him, and held him to the ground with her shoe.  She pulled a knife from her belt and held it to his neck.

“Don’t
ever
call me that again.  That woman is not my mother and I am not her daughter.”

Up to this point, Salah had no idea who the Prime Minister was to her, having been distracted by concern for his brothers, but now he did.  He mentally kicked himself for being so careless in his language.  He was starting to remind himself of Tariq, which left a horrid taste in his mouth.

“I meant no harm,” Salah assured her.  “Please.”

Alice reluctantly released Salah and went back to her corner, but sat facing him.  Salah rubbed his neck for a couple seconds, and then looked back to Alice.

“I get it.  You’ve had a rough couple days.  I’ll come back later.”

Alice watched him turn around and leave with curiosity.  Her suspicion outweighed every other emotion, but she felt a slight ray of hope creeping through the darkness of her despair.  She didn’t know if it was genuine or if Salah put it there, but was content to enjoy a short moment of relief from her misery.