Riley knew what they did as soon as he opened the door, and he had tears in his eyes and a huge grin on his face. They ate the fish and potatoes out of nice plates with flowers on them, sitting on the soft, embroidered pillows on the floor. And then every piece of candy they had stashed away for this after that. They took sips of Andy’s moonshine out of a bottle, not a thermos, and they didn’t have to steal any of it. Andy left it for them in the middle of a table, with a Happy Birthday note to Riley under it. And afterwards, they ran around the warehouse with bags of milk and salt, trying to make ice-cream, hitting each other with them, spilling the milk onto each other’s faces, and laughing. They learned how to do it this way from the old crazy woman who always talked to them when they walked to school in the mornings. Nobody in Waller seemed to know who she was, not even a name. She told them people in the old days used to make ice-cream just like that, only it didn’t work for them, but they didn’t care that it didn’t work that night.
He must have closed his eyes remembering, because he didn’t see Laurel walk up to him, but there she was, standing right in front of him, pulling on his hand, trying to get him to move, “Come play with us, Brody. Ams promised me she wouldn’t try to kill you anymore, at least not tonight, because she said she is too happy to be angry now, even at you, so she won’t.”
He saw Ams standing on the far side of the giant fire, still smiling, waiting for her friend. He couldn’t do this.
He shook his head, “I can’t, Laurel. I am sorry, but I can’t.” She nodded softly letting his hand go, and ran back to the fire, her arms waving wildly, child-like.
It didn’t matter if Laurel got Riley to let her go with him; he couldn’t take her. This girl running around the fire was good, Riley good. He couldn’t make her go to a place behind the walls, without trees, and fires and Ams in it. He could never do that to her, even if she thought she wanted to do it. Even if it was the only way for him to help Trina. But he could tell she had her own reasons for this, from before him. He had to find a way to talk to her, get her to tell him what happened to her, so maybe he could help her not want to go back anymore. He walked over to them, smiles suddenly gone from their flushed faces, and looked at her, “Can we talk, please,” and went back to the cave, hoping she’d follow.
She did, after a while, and stood there in front of him, watching him, waiting.
“I need to know why you want to go back. Not because of Trina, but from before you met me, the other things. I need you to tell me, if you can, need to know what happened to you.”
She slid down the wall and sat next to him, like the last time, and told him about all of it, starting with when Riley fell into the compound, and how Ams saved him. She told him about Hassinger, and what she did to Riley, and how Ams had to stitch him up after that, and he couldn’t help but flinch when she told him that. And about meeting Kaia, the non-mute mute, and things not adding up for her after that. She told him about Drake, and how she snuck sage leaves to him for years without anyone knowing. How he helped them run, and then Drake and Keller, and how he was kind to Keller in the end, and he knew she told him that part because she wanted him to think of Drake in that way, but he always had anyway.
She told him finally about finding Reston, the city with nobody in it, and all that happened there. About the way Stan looked at her and Ams at first, and then finding that field of bones and knowing why he thought of them that way. And how Ella took the tag out of Drake there, and Stan gave Ella her voice back.
And she told him about how it changed her, being in Reston after she knew what her people did to everybody there. How she thought the implant in her could make her do horrible things. Maybe not now, but someday, because it didn’t make sense for anyone to do something so awful to someone else on their own, without something making them do it. Told him how she asked Stan to get it out of her, hoping that he could, and him drawing it for her on a pad, the tiny connected dots inside a drop of blood, and telling her that he couldn’t get it out of her, out of any of them. And how she almost killed herself with Drake’s mushrooms after he told her that, to make sure her implant never hurt anybody, only Ams and Riley wouldn’t let her.
She stopped then, not looking at him, just breathing. He reached over and took her small hand in his, wrapping his fingers around it as tightly as he could without hurting her, feeling every kind of wrong for asking her to tell him any of this.
“I am sorry, Laurel. You don’t need to keep going. You don’t need to tell me anything.”
He had no right to make her remember this for him. He knew he couldn’t help her fix how she felt, make her un-see any of what she had seen. He leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes, waiting for her to go, but she didn’t go. She took a deep breath and kept going.
She told him about leaving Reston, and about finding the waterfall, and she seemed happy telling him about that. He thought of Riley looking like he wanted to go to the water earlier, and knew now why he didn’t. She told him how after the waterfall, the next morning, she knew for sure for the first time that Ams really loved Riley, and that something changed for the two of them, because Riley was smiling all morning after that, couldn’t help smiling, and Riley never really smiled. And finally, she told him how she saw Drake running to them, a worried look on his face, and Riley telling them to move back, but they were all making too much noise, so they stopped, and Riley was on the ground watching the smoke from the fire that spooked Drake like that, an awful lot of smoke, and then he was running out there, running through the trees and screaming his name.
He put his head down at that. He knew the rest of it. She didn’t move, didn’t take her hand away from him. He could barely hear her breathing. He looked at her, made himself do it, to make sure she was all right after telling him all of this, but she just sat unmoving, calm, staring at some spot in front of her.
“I know you don’t want to let me help you, Brody. And I think I know why, and it’s not just because you gave Riley your word. You don’t want me or anyone to help you because you don’t think you deserve it. In the same way you won’t eat, or let anyone be kind to you. That’s the real reason.” She looked at him when she said it, and he lowered his eyes. She was right, of course, but he wished she didn’t quite figure him out like that.
She turned to him, making him look at her, “I am sorry for making you uncomfortable. Sometimes I just don’t know to keep my mouth shut. But this, what I want to do, this isn’t about you, Brody. One way or another, I am going to go back, by myself if I have to. At least this way it’ll mean something to somebody, and you can keep me safe until I get there. But I am going, no matter what you or Riley or Ams say. Unless you are willing to put one of those bands on me, I am going.”
She got up, and walked to the door of the cave, and then turned around, looking at him with sadness in her eyes, “I need to know something, Brody.”
He nodded, looking up at her.
“Would you have gotten Ella and me back if Riley didn’t trick you?”
He slid up the wall fast, too fast, scraping his back against the rocks, anger making his face burn, “You think…. What kind of a monster do you think I am?” But of course it made sense for her to think that. It’s the only damn thing that made any sense. He shook his head at her apologetically, “I am sorry, Laurel. I am not angry at you for asking this. It makes sense. I am okay with it, I promise, but you can’t come here trying to talk to me again.” He hoped he didn’t sound angry when he said it. He tried his best not to. He just needed her gone. Needed to be left the hell alone. By all of them.
She walked back to him, and without asking, wrapped her small hands around the fists he was making. He wanted to shove her away from him, and if it were Riley or anyone but this girl, he would have, but he couldn’t do that to her, so he stood still, letting her keep her hands on his, making himself look into her serious, blue eyes. He deserved this, this girl thinking the worst of him, but it still hurt.
“I don’t think you are a monster, Brody, but I think that you do. That’s why I asked. To see if it would hurt you. I am glad it did.”
He felt himself flinch and wished she wasn’t standing close enough to see it.
She let go of his hands, and kept going, much softer now, “You said earlier you weren’t like Riley, but you are exactly like him in this. He, too, punishes himself in the stupidest ways for all the things that aren’t really his fault; all but the one, maybe. He didn’t care if Ams shot him when she found him on the lawn at the compound. He had her hold the gun against his chest asking her to pull the trigger, and then didn’t care if she took him to Hassinger, even after what that woman did to him. He thought he deserved it somehow, because he failed, because he didn’t think he could save his sister after all.
“And the only bad thing I ever saw him do, I think it would have killed him if Ams didn’t come around and started talking to him again. He bullied her into coming with him, using me as bait. She didn’t want to run, but I did, so he told her he’d take me but only if she came too. I didn’t tell you that part. Ams wouldn’t talk to him for days after that. I had to take his food to him and put HealX on his scars, and I watched him do what you are doing, watched it for days. Punishing himself, looking as if he wished he were dead, not eating, not speaking either. All those horrible things you did, or think you did, he did all of them too, in his own way, only he did them to a little girl who didn’t even know him well enough to like him yet, not to his best friend. But you are like him, whether you see it or not… I am sorry I hurt you, Brody. I needed to know for sure who you are. I think I do now, and we will talk again,” and she left then, and he didn’t know what to do about her after that.
Riley came in, looking at him in his old Riley way, but he didn’t know how to tell him any of this yet, so he slid back down the wall and shook his head at his friend, and he let him be. He watched Riley dig through his bag, and pull out a shirt. The one he had on was wet for some reason. He pulled it off, too much light landing on all the scars he could see above his bandages, thin white lines diagonally drawn across his back. He felt sick looking at it, after what Laurel just told him.
“I am going to kill her, Riley. Someday. I will find her, and I will kill her.”
Riley turned around, surprised look on his face, “Kill who, Brody?”
Of course. He had no way of knowing that he knew how he got those scars.
“Hassinger. I am going to kill her.”
Riley crouched in front of him, concerned look on his face.
“I had Laurel tell me what happened to you, to all of you. I think she told me everything she thought I could take. And then some things I don’t think she meant to tell me. You and Ams things. I think she wanted to go back even before me. Because of all the sadness, the sadness on you at the compound after what you did to Ams, the way Stan made her feel, the field in Reston. I think she means to go back, Riley, and I don’t think any of us can stop her.”
“I know. But we can’t let her. At least not until we know she’ll be safe. I don’t trust them, Brody, the Alliance, only now, after what you told me about Trina, I don’t trust us either. It’s like they are all playing some kind of game, and none of us know what it is or why they are doing it. I need to know for sure she’ll be okay if she goes back, and until I do, she can’t go anywhere. We can’t let her.”
He nodded, letting Riley know that he was with him on this if he needed him.
“Brody, whatever Laurel told you about me and Ams, she did it for a reason. She gets people, reads them somehow. It’s like she can see through everybody. Her telling you that, she meant well by it, and I don’t mind you knowing. I’m actually glad that you do. I am not the saint you think I am, Brody. Never was.”
He left him alone after that, and he didn’t want to think about Laurel and all the things she just told him, so he made himself think through everything he learned about the Alliance in the last few years, trying to connect it all up so it made sense, but he couldn’t do it. Riley was right, it wasn’t adding up. But Hassinger would know. They just had to get their hands on her, and make her talk. He still had her on the ECH. All he had to do was tell her that he had one of the replenishers. She’d come for that. And he’d make her talk, and then he would kill her. He went through Riley’s bag and found his comm, and typed in the GPS numbers for a secluded spot he scouted with his crew a while ago. It was about a six-hour walk from here, if they didn’t slack off. So he punched in the time-stamp of tomorrow at six in the evening. It should give her plenty of time to find a private flier and get Trina.
He told her that she wasn’t going anywhere with the girl until he had Trina, and that if she were smart, she’d come alone, as he’d have most of his well trained crew on standby, and she didn’t want him to have to reach out to his crew for this. He signed off, and for the first time felt hungry enough to eat. He joined the others at the fire, ignoring the angry looks from Drake and Ams, just listening to them talk, and he hoped Riley didn’t kill him tomorrow morning when he’d have to tell him what he just did.
One way or the other, tomorrow all of this will be over. He needed for this to be over, before he completely lost himself to his anger, to the relentless chase for Trina and to the guilt he went to sleep with every night for his parents, and guilt for what he had done to Riley. He just had to make it through the night now. That much he could manage.