“My favorite Zoriner boy. I should have known you’d be here. So… Let me fill you in. I need the other girl, Amelia. Something tells me she is close by, but Laurel here won’t tell me where. I am simply trying to get it out of her, or maybe inspire Amelia to come out on her own and save her friend. You remember this, don’t you, Zoriner?” And she swung the whip into Laurel’s back, slicing through her shirt. Laurel screamed. He felt hands on him, too many hands to fight off, Brody’s boys. Brody was on his knees now, in front of Hassinger. The boys dropped him to his knees next to his friend.
“She is not lying, Dana. We don’t have her. She stayed behind in Reston. I’ll take you to her. Under guard if you want. She is not here. Please, don’t do this. You can hit me if you want to again, not her.”
She walked up to him and slashed him across his chest, and then Brody, and he saw out of the corner of his eye Trina running out of the woods towards Brody, tears in her eyes. Hassinger hit them both again, and again, and then stopped, noticing Trina, staring at her with a smirk on her face.
“Love! Isn’t it grand, boys? Especially the illegal kind. So, Ellis. Would you like to tell your crew here that you are in love with this Zoriner girl? You fall in love with your pets too?” she said slowly, a smile in her voice.
She walked over to one of her guards, took the gun from him and aimed it straight at Trina. Brody was fighting the five boys holding him down, trying to get up, screaming that he would kill her, one way or another, he would bloody kill her, if it took him the rest of his life to do it, and she laughed at him, and then turned and shot at Trina, over and over again, even when she was on the ground and not moving.
“That’s what you get for trying to play me, Brody,” she spat at him. Brody collapsed then, screaming into the grass, wailing into it like an animal, and he knew there was nothing any of them could do for him after that.
He felt tears running down his own face, making it hard for him to see. He was looking at Hassinger’s blurry laughing face, and the faces of the three guards, smiling, and pointing at Trina’s slim form, and he saw Laurel standing behind Hassinger, holding something in her hand, only Hassinger seemed to have completely forgotten about her, so she didn’t turn around, and then she was falling to the ground, a look of surprise on her face, a deep gash in her neck spraying blood all over her dress.
Brody’s crew lifted them both up, looking confused, as if they had just woken up. It’s as if they were connected to Hassinger’s thoughts and now that she was gone, they were back, trying to piece it all together. The guards were running to the flier, one already on the steps, only none of them made it. He watched them fall and not move again, and ran over to Brody. He was still lying on the grass, face first, making those impossible sounds, Laurel crouching next to him, her small hand on his back. He stopped where he was, not quite knowing how to help him.
He saw one of the boys flip Trina over on her back and check her pulse. There was no point. Nobody could have survived that many charges. Brody finally got up and walked over to her sprawled body, sent the boy away, and knelt by her head, running his hands through her hair, whispering something at her. They had to let him be.
“Who is second in command here?” he asked.
A tall skinny boy came towards him, “I am. Damon Brax.”
The boy stared at him as if he were a pest, arrogance coming off him in waves, but he was too hurt to care.
“I need you to get all the boys out of this clearing. Send two boys to quickly search the flier, and the rest of you need to clear out. Stay close, but for now, we need to give him some space.”
“We don’t take orders from darkies. In the same way we don’t take orders from apes, sir,” the kid spat, grinning at him, the other boys stifling laughter.
He was about to break the kid’s jaw, but didn’t get a chance to, as Brody was suddenly standing between them, glowering at the kid.
“Disconnect your implant syncs, all of you. That’s an order. You still take those from me, right?”
The boys reached into their pockets and got their screens out, all punching in something that only took a second.
“Your weapon, Brax,” Brody said in his soldier voice.
The kid handed it to him, and before he could do or say anything else, Brody put a bullet through the middle of his head.
“Does anyone else here have a problem with my Zoriner friend? Don’t be shy, boys. I trained you not to be cowards. Anybody else who thinks this kid belongs in some zoo exhibit, step forward and take a bloody bullet for it. Anybody?”
He watched the boys standing there, heads down, not looking at Brody.
“No takers then? Get the hell out of my sight.” He threw the gun on the ground and walked back to where Trina was, and nobody made a sound after that.
He found Laurel sitting against the tree, her eyes closed.
“How did you do it?”
She looked at him, as if not understanding the question.
“I always have a knife on me, Riley. You taught me that,” and she turned away again.
He knew this conversation would have to wait, and as worried as he was, he’d have to let it go for now.
“I hate to do this to you, Laurel, but I need you to stand up. I need to see how bad it is,” he asked softly. She did, and the gash was still bleeding hard. He ran to the flier, hoping there was a med kit of some kind, and when he came back with the kit, Brody was there, waiting for him, “You should let me do this, Riley. I’ve done it before. I know how to. And I’ll have to do yours too.” He forgot about his own wounds, forgot about Brody’s too. He nodded to his friend, and held the torn fabric away from the wound while Brody put the stitches in. She had her head in her hands, lying face down in the grass, not even crying when he did it. And when it was over, she got up and told them she was going for a walk, and they didn’t dare stop her.
His weren’t as bad as Brody’s, the bandages taking the brunt of all but two of Hassinger’s blows. Brody stitched them up quickly, apologizing to him for all of this over and over again, only he shut him up, and Brody didn’t talk after that. Brody’s were deep, too deep for him not to be screaming when he had to fix them, but he just sat there, not moving, looking at the clearing, looking at Trina. And when it was over, he pulled Brody’s head into his chest, and held him like that for a long time, running his fingers absently through his hair.
After a while, he finally told him what he needed to tell him, “It wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known she could take over your crew like that. None of us could have known that… But I know you, and I know that you’ll be blaming yourself for this, no matter what I say, no matter what actually happened. I need to know that you won’t do anything stupid. I can’t bear to put a band on you again, but I will if I have to protect you from yourself.”
Brody stood up, looking at him strangely.
“You either trust me to keep my word or you don’t, but it can’t be both. And if you don’t, you need to put that band on me, and not take it off every time you feel guilty about it. I am okay with it either way. But don’t you dare ask me this again,” he said quietly, his voice steady, and then put his hands out in front of him, staring at him, not moving a muscle.
He shook his head, “You are right, Brody. I am sorry,” and he got up, embarrassment making his face burn.
They turned towards the clearing again, and saw Laurel crouching at Trina’s head, weaving some long stemmed yellow flowers into her hair. They watched her for a long time, and when she was done, she walked over to Brody, and took him by the hand, “You need to find it in you to say goodbye, Brody, and you need to tell us what she would have wanted, how she would want to be buried and where, and we’ll have to do that for her.”
He watched Brody walk over to Trina then, slowly, and kneel by her head again. Laurel leaned on a tree next to him, her eyes closed, “I changed my mind, Riley. I don’t want to go back. I don’t ever want to go back.” He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her in close to him, and they stayed like that until all the stars came out, Brody still kneeling by Trina. They had to let him be if it took him all night, he knew, so he took Laurel by the hand back to the thicket they hid in earlier, pulled the net Brody made over them and they slept.
W
ALLER
Laurel
[
May 9, 2236,
the Camp at the Cave
]
Riley’s brown eyes were hovering over her when she woke up. He was shaking her awake, saying something that wasn’t quite registering yet. She jumped up, hitting her head on the branches and leaves overhead, which didn’t make sense to her, and finally her head cleared enough to remember. She climbed out of the thicket, following Riley to the small fire. Brody and two of his crew were sitting there, talking in whispers.
“Trelix and Loren can fly those things, so we’ll need them with us for now. They don’t seem to have any issues with Zoriners anymore. I checked,” Brody said and he wasn’t smiling when he said it. The boys put their heads down, afraid or embarrassed, she couldn’t tell. Brody stood up then and signaled something to the boys. They got up, heads still down and walked over to Riley, “We will do what we can to help you and to protect you, sir. We swear that we won’t put you or your people in danger, sir,” and Riley shook their hands, nodding at them without any anger on his face.
Trina was gone from the clearing when they walked to the flier, but she didn’t want to ask Brody what they did with her, didn’t want to ask him anything about that girl now. The one they called Trelix pressed a few buttons at the controls, and the flier took off, as if it ran on nothing, not making a sound. It only took them a few minutes to get to their camp, landing in the clearing.
“Loren, I need you to disable all the trackers in this thing. Trelix, follow me,” Brody ordered, and jumped off the thing without waiting for the steps, landing softly in the grass.
She saw Drake, Ams and Ella running towards the flier, towards Brody, and then Drake and Ella stopping abruptly, staring at the Alliance soldier. Brody held up his hand to them, “It’s all right, I promise. This is Trelix. We need him for a bit. I’ll explain in a minute, explain everything. Trelix, help Drake get the fire going,” and he walked into the cave.
Ams threw her arms around, pressing her close, hurting the wound in her back, but she didn’t want her to know about that yet, so she let her hang on to her for a long while, trying not to cringe, and finally when she let go, she grabbed her by the hand and took her to the stream. She didn’t want Ams to hear it from Brody, didn’t trust her not to lash out at him for it. She told her what happened with Hassinger, how she took over Brody’s crew somehow, and nobody knew how that was possible. And then about Hassinger striking her with that whip thing, and Riley pleading for her, and how the woman hurt him and Brody instead for a while, but that wasn’t even the worst of it. She told her how Trina ran out there like that to save Brody, and what Hassinger did then, and how she laughed when she shot that poor girl as if she were shooting a squirrel or a rat, as if she wasn’t even human. And finally, she told her that she couldn’t take her laughing like that anymore, so she walked up to her from behind, and slashed her neck open with her knife, and she didn’t even feel bad for it…
Ams stared at her with her liquid ready to cry eyes, not saying anything for a while.
“You can’t go back to them, Laurel, not after this, you just can’t,” and she looked at her in her little Ams way.
“I know. I am not going back. I need to ask something of you, Ams. I need you to try to be kind to Brody. I know you still hate him for what he did to Riley, but he is not a monster, Ams, he is really not, and he only did all of those things to try to save Trina. I saw him with her, at the clearing, when she was already gone… He loved that girl with all his heart. He blames himself for what happened to her, too, even though it wasn’t his fault. I don’t think that boy can take much more of anything. I like him, Ams. I know I shouldn’t, and it’ll never go anywhere because of Trina, but… He is good, Ams, Riley good, only he’d never believe that,” she said softly, Ams just nodding her head at her.
“I couldn’t be mean to him now if I tried. Not after what he lost, not after what you just told me. I promise I won’t hurt that boy. I see how Riley is with him, sweet and gentle and, in a strange way, almost happy. It’s like he got a part of himself that he lost a long time ago back, and I couldn’t ever do anything to take that away from him. But you… I can’t believe you killed somebody, can’t picture you doing it. I am glad you did. That woman was a monster, so I am glad she is gone. I just hope you are okay with it, that you won’t wake up one day thinking there is something wrong with you for having done it and not feeling bad about it. I spent so many days wishing I got a chance to put a bullet through her head for what she did to Riley at the compound. I think she died too easy. But I am happy I won’t have to think about killing her anymore… And that Riley would never have to see her face again.”
They walked back to the fire in silence, holding hands, and when they got there, there was tea and a small breakfast waiting for them, and everybody was gathered around, listening to Brody. He was speaking quietly, not in his soldier voice, in his blaming himself voice. He was talking about Trina, how the most right thing to do would be to take her home, to Waller. How she was one of the few people he knew there who loved that place, no matter how broken it was. He told them how none of them had been there in so long, they didn’t know what it would be like and if it made sense to risk showing up there at all now.