Helios Beginnings (The Helios Chronicles #0.5) (3 page)

Helios, age 14

“What are you doing, Harrison?” Ben asked as he walked into the room.

Andrew sat on his bed against the wall, using the blade he had broken off from a plastic razor, to go over the heavy scar he had on his chest. He’d been in the group home for a month. It was his fourth facility in two years in addition to the five foster homes he’d resided in. All in all, nine placements in a three-year time period, which he recognized wasn’t a good number. He had reluctantly decided that this home was alright. It wasn’t as hideous as some of his other placements and his roommate didn’t seem completely horrible.

“Harrison! What the fuck are you doing?” Ben asked again as he sat on his bed.

After everything that happened three years ago no one knew what to do with him. As far as Andrew knew, he had no family to step up to the plate and take him, so he ended up in foster care. According to Mrs. Samson, he had not ‘connected’ in any of his previous placements so far, which he didn’t disagree with. The counselors kept telling him he needed to talk about everything that happened. There was no way Andrew was going to do that. He had no intention of reliving that nightmare. The blade cut deeper into his skin causing him to flinch.

“Mind your own business, Ben,” Andrew said through gritted teeth.

“They're gonna send you to the mental hospital if they see you doing that.”

“I don’t care,” Andrew replied nonchalantly.

All Andrew knew and cared about was that he needed the scar to be gone, but he couldn’t seem to dig deep enough to make another scar to cover it up. Tears started to escape his eyes as the pain became too much to bear. His hand was shaking uncontrollably as he dropped it into his lap. His breath hitched at the sight of his blood but he swallowed back the bile. He never wanted to remember what happened to him, but he couldn’t figure out how he was supposed to forget it when there was a constant reminder permanently etched on his skin. His eyes shut tightly as he moved the blade back to his skin.

“All you’re doing is scarring it up more,” Ben said, concerned, watching the blood drip down his roommate’s chest.

Andrew shrugged, thinking that it wasn’t scarred up enough because he could still see it. Ben didn’t get it. No one did because no one could comprehend his pain or begin to understand that every time he saw the scar, he remembered. He remembered in every painstaking detail what his mother did. He remembered being in the hospital and he remembered how his body shook, as if ice cold water had been poured over his head, when the social worker told him that his mother had committed suicide and that his dad was going to be in prison for the rest of his life. But mostly he remembered the sorrow in his heart knowing that his own mother had wanted him dead. The whole thing made him want to throw up.

“Why don’t you just get a tatt to cover it up?” Ben suggested.

Andrew looked up at him curiously. “Who is going to give a tattoo to a 14-year-old?” he stated angrily.

“Steve has a gun, he can do it. It’s better than what you’re doing now. ‘Cause that shit is just gross and if you keep doing that, they’re gonna send you to the psych ward. I’ve been there Harrison, trust me, you don’t want to end up there. It’s fucked up and once you get in, they don’t wanna let you leave,” he said, tossing a towel at him.

Andrew grabbed the towel and blotted the blood off his chest. A tattoo was a good idea. If he marked it like that then no one would notice the scar. Ben sat down on his bed. Andrew could feel the weight of his stare. He didn’t look at him though. Instead, Andrew lay down. The towel pressed against his chest as his eyes closed. He just needed to sleep. If he could sleep, maybe it would be okay. Although, he knew that things would never be okay for him.

"Moon, gone, no more, moon, sun set, needs to set, can't..."

Andrew startled awake. The room was dark. His eyes shifted to the side. Ben was sleeping on his bed with his back facing him. Reflexively, Andrew swallowed and took a deep breath. He still had the towel on his bare chest but when he tried to move it, he realized that it was now stuck to the dried blood.

“Shit,” he muttered and gingerly removed the towel from his wound which bled slightly.

He switched on the small nightlight to get a better look at what he was dealing with. After dabbing at the wound to stop the bleeding, he reached for the notebook he had stuffed between his mattress and box spring. He wasn’t sure why he hid it. No one really cared what he did, but he didn’t want it to fall into unwanted hands. He glanced once more at Ben to ensure that he was indeed sleeping and then turned his attention to his notebook, flipping to the page his pencil held. The pencil moved almost immediately. Andrew didn’t know why, but once he started drawing everything seemed to fall into place and the hurt seemed more manageable. Before he knew it, there was light coming in from outside the bedroom window and movement in the other bed in his room.

“Been up all night?” Ben asked groggily as he rubbed his eyes.

“Couldn’t sleep.”

Ben yawed and tore his tired body out of the bed. Words could not describe how much he hated his bed. It was too small for him and the lumpy mattress made his back hurt almost every night. He raised his arms and stretched his long torso and in doing so caught a glimpse of what Andrew had drawn.

“Is that an eclipse?”

Andrew closed the book and glared at him. “A what?”

“An eclipse. You know, it’s when the moon covers up the sun. It’s some rare phenomenon I read about, it doesn’t happen very often but they say it’s cool when it does,” he said, scratching at his boxer briefs before exiting the room to the bathrooms.

Andrew flipped opened the book and chewed on his lip. “An eclipse,” he wondered aloud.

Last night when he had awoken from his nightmare, the one that seemed to haunt him the most, it had been the only image that popped into his mind. By the time he was done, he had drawn at least six of them. Now that he knew it had a name, it seemed like a fitting choice considering what he was trying to cover up.

“How soon can we talk to Steve?” Andrew asked the minute Ben walked back into the room.

Ben rubbed his eyes again and shrugged. “I guess we can look for him today. I know where he hangs out but you know, he ain’t gonna do it today. That shit,” he motioned towards the dried blood on Andrew’s chest. “It’s gotta heal before he puts a gun to it.”

Andrew nodded and closed his book again. “I know but I want to talk to him. Get it set up.”

“Alright, well, get dressed man. You know we gotta be down there in fifteen minutes or they won’t let us go nowhere.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Andrew stood up, carefully pulling on a t-shirt. He ran his hands through his unruly hair trying to tame it without actually brushing it. He slipped on his worn pair of hand-me-down Nikes and followed Ben out of the room. He would abide by all the rules he needed to so that he would not be deterred before he could get this tattoo. This was not a want for him. It was a need brought about by desperation; desperation to forget the horrors of his past. He just hoped it did the trick.

Helios, age 16

“Holy Shit! Harrison, what the fuck happened to your back?”

Andrew quickly pulled his shirt over his head and turned to the kid in his room. “Why the fuck do you care?” Andrew belted out, already prepared to fight.

“Fuck you, I was just curious,” Robbie said as he sat down.

“Do I ask you why the fuck you sleep with the damn light on?”

Robbie looked up and glared in Andrew’s direction. That didn’t frighten Andrew one single bit.  He glared right back, staring down the boy who he shared a room with. Robbie was a small kid. A year younger than him but he looked like he was only 12. He and Andrew did not get a long in the slightest. Robbie asked too many unwanted and unnecessary questions. He was too nosy for Andrew’s liking.

“EXACTLY!” Andrew seethed as he grabbed his sketch pad.

Andrew sat down and flipped his sketch pad open. He recognized that he should probably feel bad about the night light comment. He knew exactly why Robbie slept with it on because Robbie talked and cried in his sleep. His father was a sick bastard and did things to him. Andrew was sympathetic to a certain extent. After all, his father had hurt him as well, just not in that kind of way. But ultimately, Robbie just annoyed the hell out of him, which limited the amount of fucks that Andrew gave. Andrew glanced at the clock and then back at Robbie who had a noticeable scowl on his face.

“HARRISON!” John said loudly as he walked into the room.

Andrew grinned, “Come on let’s go!”

“You’re going to get caught?” Robbie said in that annoying, know it all tone. Andrew didn’t listen. He simply flipped him off and left the room.

“What’s wrong with him?” John asked as they snuck outside through one of their many escape routes.

Andrew shrugged nonchalantly. He had been at this particular group home for a few months and felt that it sucked worse than the others. But, on the plus side, he had met John the first day and they had hit it off immediately. John was there because his parents died and he got arrested while in his last foster home. Andrew thought he was pretty cool and they had at least the whole parents are gone thing in common. Plus, he always had weed so that worked for Andrew.

“I need to get the hell out of here, John. Do you think you can help me?”

“Where you gonna go?”

“I don’t know. I’ll be seventeen in a few months so I was thinking about hitching a ride to Los Angeles.”

“Do you have relatives out there or something?” He asked giving Andrew a strange look.

“Nah, all my relatives are dead but I figured I would just go to L.A.”

“Why?” He said turning up his nose. He hated everything about L.A.

“Because I can get lost out there, do some work under the table, no one will look for me.”

“Huh.” Is all he said as they continued walking towards Shooter’s house.

“Before I go though, I want to do that tatt I was telling you about.”

“That's gonna hurt like hell, Harrison. You sure you want to do that?”

“Hell, yeah! I’m sure,” Andrew said indignantly.

Andrew was tired of having people ask him about his back and why it looked like it did. The tattoo he wanted to get would cover his scars nicely. He’d been sketching it for the past couple of weeks and had the design almost completed. The way he figured it, once he got it, no one would notice his scars anymore. At least that’s what had happened when he got the tattoo on his chest.

“Alright man, I’ll help you.”

Andrew smiled and nodded. He knew he could depend on him. . They turned another corner and John lit up a joint and passed it to Andrew who took a long drag, letting the chemical calm the fire in his blood.

Helios, age 17

“Come on, Harrison. You want the money right?”

Andrew took a long deep breath, “Yeah, but...”

“And you don’t want to sell for Shooter, right?”

Andrew furrowed his brows, “No.”

“Then come on. I can’t do it because for one, I don’t look old enough and two, well, you are fucking hot man. I see the way girls, young and old, look at you. It will be easy.”

“Easy my ass.” Andrew took another deep breath and glanced at the woman in question, “How do I do this?”

John started laughing while Andrew glared at him. “Fuck you, man. You know what I mean.”

“Dude, look, I know you don’t want to do this, but what the fuck other options do we have? Do you have another solution?” He asked, arching his brow at his friend.

Andrew sighed and shook his head before looking at the ground. They had been talking for weeks about this. Andrew was not good at many things. He could draw alright. He could steal pretty well, but his fear about ending up in jail made that option difficult. He wanted to escape, not be trapped. He definitely didn’t want to be one of Shooter’s sellers. Most of those dudes ended up dead or in jail. Once again, two options he wasn’t too thrilled about. That left them where they were now, him contemplating doing something he knew he would regret.

“Harrison, just chill alright,” John said, drawing Andrew out of his thoughts. “Just give her one of them half smiles that you do that makes all them girls all hot and horny.” Andrew raised his head and glared once again, “Alright, alright, look, she’s got a ring on so she will probably be all excited that some hot young guy wants to fuck her.”

Andrew growled, deep in his gut and stared directly at John. If that old saying were true, that looks could kill, then John would most certainly be dead. Andrew shook his head, unsure exactly how he let himself get talked into this. Then he remembered; he needed the money so he could leave. He closed his eyes and took a few more deep breaths, willing himself to go through with it. When he opened his eyes, he wasn’t any more convinced than before. He ran his hand through his hair nervously.

“Well, what if she wants to do it in the car or something?”

“Convince her you need a bed. Tell her you want to go back to her place.”

Andrew let out an exasperated sigh. “What if she won’t do that?”

“Well, then take her to that Super 8 down the street. Then make sure her car door is unlocked.”