The Smaller Evil (15 page)

THE DESTINY OF OTHER MEN.

As strange as it sounds, your own origin story is easy enough to imagine. And while it's not something you choose to talk about—you don't tell the girl and you don't invite questions about yourself—it's a story that's important. It's the stuff legends are made of. Almost too unbelievable to be true. But fantastic enough to have faith in.

You picture it happening like this: A man, a good man and a wise man, is put in jail for some small infraction. A misinterpretation of the law. An ungenerous act. You're not sure about the details, but details are where the devil lies in wait, so it's not like you look too closely.

This wise man is patient about his situation. It will take time to unravel, but he'll land on his feet. He always does. And he's wise enough to recognize this time as an opportunity for self-reflection. To think about his own weaknesses. His frailties. His power isn't what it used to be. He lacks shine, if not vision, and for the most part, only a certain type of person is drawn to look beneath his surface anymore. Only they aren't the people he needs to keep growing. It would be easy to convince himself otherwise, but self-deception's the only kind that's never gotten him anywhere.

While he waits for salvation in the form of a man of the law who saved him so many years ago, he makes the most of his current situation. Which is to say, he listens more than he talks. There's a lot to listen to; the man he's locked up with likes to talk and talk and talk.

This talking man's a sad one. He's lost hope and for good reason; every opportunity he's had—and he's had a lot—has been squandered. Or smoked. Or thrown away. He won't be saved anytime soon and there's nothing left to take away his pain. He speaks of his regrets as if confessing his sins. Worse even, as if he believes confessing might help.

The wise man knows it won't help. He knows that shifting one's belief system in the face of hopelessness is the most foolish sort of thinking. But that doesn't stop him from listening and listening well.

After all, one man's hopelessness can so often be another man's destiny.

ARMAN LAY IN THE DARK
with his eyes open, with his chest rattling. Listening. He waited until the cook was in a deep sleep, her breathing slow, heavy, and hot against his back. Then he slipped from under her arm and out of her bed. He found his clothes. Dressed. Crept to the window. It opened easily. He slid out feetfirst, letting himself drop the last foot or so to land in the soft dirt. That's where his damp shoes were. He sat on the ground to put them on, then glanced into the woods around him.

His shoulders drooped to see the darkness. To see nothing. There was a part of Arman, bruised and sad, that didn't want to walk back to his cabin and face reality. But he didn't want to stay here, either. Or go anywhere else in the world. He simply wanted to crawl beneath a tree, curl in a bed of pine needles, and vanish. But he didn't do that. A lack of courage, perhaps, or a lack of faith in his ability to ever finish what he started. Instead he picked at his arm until the feeling passed, which meant there was blood.

And pain.

Eventually Arman got to his feet and began moving. He didn't know where he was going, but he marched with purpose, walking until he'd
passed the meadow, where there was no sign of any bonfire, the domed building, which was now dark and still, and the spot where he'd left the van, which of course wasn't there and maybe never had been.

Finally, he reached the far boundaries of his existence: the iron gate.

Arman wasn't ready to leave, not yet, but it occurred to him that he could slip from the compound and check something. Just for the briefest second. He remembered the way the van's tires had squealed as he'd turned up the drive. Surely that would have left burn marks on the asphalt. Surely seeing those would prove the van had actually been here and that he wasn't crazy.

So he
had
to look.

The gate was locked. The heavy chain was wrapped around both sides, padlock dangling from the center. Arman walked up. Gripped his hands around the metal bars. He intended to climb over as he'd planned to before, although the task was more daunting now that he was actually facing it. He gazed up at the top of the fence, which appeared to be a good twenty-five feet high and lined with spikes. Arman prayed he wouldn't get impaled for his effort. There was no harness or rope, this time. No one to coach him from below.

Placing a foot on one of the decorative scrolls, Arman braced himself, then leapt, catching his other foot on a hold above the first. From there he pulled himself up with a groan, straining with each arm to reach above his head.

He made it to the top like that—slowly picking his way up the scrolls. Swinging his leg over was a dicier move, involving a lot of grappling and cursing, but he managed to do it without compromising his reproductive system in any way, thank God. Arman shifted his arms and tried lowering himself to the bottom, but he slipped halfway down, leaving himself dangling ten feet in the air. His shoes scrabbled for
support but found nothing.
Shit.
He had no choice. He closed his eyes and let go, dropping to the ground with a thud.

For a moment, Arman lay stunned. He didn't move. The fall not only wrenched his spine, it jolted his wounded head—a harsh reminder that pain could be sharp and jarring, not just smothering. He squeezed his eyes shut and waited until the worst had passed. Then, when he was able, he crawled to his feet and staggered down the long drive to the main road. It wasn't easy to make out in the moonlight, but after walking in circles, he found what he was looking for: fresh rubber marks scorched into the asphalt, not yet faded by dust or time or sun.

Arman breathed a long sigh of relief. Well, he wasn't
totally
crazy. He had proof of that now. The van had been here, and its subsequent disappearance meant someone was screwing with him. Or Beau. Or both of them.

That's when he heard it. From somewhere behind Arman came a gruff voice asking, “Just what the hell do you think you're doing?”

ARMAN TURNED AROUND. FELT HIS
hackles rise. Sure enough, it was Brian. Stupid Brian.

“What do
you
want?” he sniped back.

Brian ignored him. Instead he pulled a military-looking walkie-talkie from under his weird clothes. Apparently the guy
did
have a holster of some kind. What else was under there?

“I found him,” Brian said into the handset. “Yeah. He looks all right. Couple scrapes, maybe. Looks like he fell or something. He's down by the gate. I think he's trying to leave.”

“I'm not leaving. I'm not going anywhere. And who are you talking to?” Arman demanded. “Why are you following me?”

Brian put the walkie-talkie away. “I'm following you, idiot, because it seems there are some questions that you need to answer.”

“Well, what if I was leaving? How would that be any of your business?”

“It'd be my business because I'd have to stop you.”

“With a gun?”

“You think I need a
gun
to stop you? Yeah, okay. Maybe you are delusional, kid. Let's go.” He took a step toward the now-open gate.

“Why should I listen to you?” Arman called after him.

Brian didn't look back. “What choice do you have?”

Arman had no answer for that, and so he was marched back to his own cabin, where the lights were on. Kira and Dale were standing around worriedly, along with Mari, the dark-haired woman, and Dr. Gary. It was basically a shitshow of every single person he didn't want to see at the moment.

“What are you doing?” he asked them.

“Where were you?” Kira's eyes were wide. “We couldn't find you.”

“Why do you care where I was?” He looked around the room. “Why do any of you care? It's the middle of the night.”

“Sit down,” Dr. Gary said.

“What?”

“I said sit down.” His tone was firm. “We need to talk to you.”

Arman sat on his cot. Held his stomach.

Mari sat beside him. The cot springs squeaked and sank beneath her weight. “Arman, Beau didn't show up in San Francisco today.”

He stared at her. “What?”

“The person he was supposed to be meeting with called us. He hasn't shown up. And no one can reach him on his phone.”

Arman glanced up. Everyone was looking at him.

“Did you hear what I said?” Mari asked.

“I heard you. And I already told you what happened. So it's not surprising that he didn't show up. He's not going to. I wish that weren't the case. I really do. But it is.”

Mari winced. “If something happened, you can talk to us about it. That's all you need to do. Just be honest.”

“I am being honest! I swear.”

“I warned Beau about this,” muttered the dark-haired woman. “Bringing kids here for no reason. They don't know what they're doing. They never want to listen.”

“He had to know we couldn't use them all,” Dr. Gary said. “I mean, look at them. It's not like they're—”

“Enough!” Mari glared at them both. Then she turned back to Arman, her expression softening. “Please, dear. You know I care about you. You know you can talk to me.”

Arman's chest felt like an overfilled balloon. “But I told you what I know. I told you everything that happened!”

Dr. Gary huffed. “That stuff about the van disappearing? Come on.”

“But it's
true
. I was just down by the road right now. There are fresh burn marks from the tires. I made those! When I was driving!”

“Burn marks?”

“Yes! I can show you!”

“Why would I care about burn marks?”

“The kid was leaving,” Brian said. “He'd climbed the gate.”

“I wasn't leaving!”

“Yes, you were.”

“Fuck you!” he snarled.

“Arman!” Mari snapped, something he'd never seen her do.

“I'm sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn't mean it.”

But of course he did.

• • •

The adults left soon after, but not before imposing the dark promise of
further discussion
and a reminder that no one was to leave the compound without permission. Arman understood full well that “no one” meant him. He mumbled agreement but could tell the trainers still weren't happy with him. That was a feeling he hated, but he didn't know
how
to make them happy. Telling the truth wasn't the answer. They wanted a truth he knew was a lie: that he knew where Beau was. That something had happened between them that meant Arman would be foolish enough to come back to the compound and make up some
outlandish story about suicide and head wounds and vanishing vans.

Or desperate enough.

Arman lay on his cot and rolled away from his roommates. His head hurt more than ever.

Kira crouched beside him.

“Arman,” she whispered. “Why didn't you tell us what happened? You talked to both Dale and me, and you didn't tell us
anything
.”

“So?”

“So . . . don't you see how it looks?”

“No, Kira. Why don't you tell me how it looks?”

“It looks bad,” she said. “It looks really bad.”

He rolled back over to face her. “Well, what am I supposed to do? Do you think I
like
this? First I'm told I'm crazy. That I hit my head and made everything up. Then I'm told that I . . . I don't even know!”

“Well, I don't
know
what you think. Because you don't say anything about yourself.
Ever.
But I do know that you need to come clean about whatever it is you did—”

Arman sat up. “I didn't do anything! Stop saying that!”

“Don't yell at her,” Dale growled from across the cabin.

“I'm not yelling! She's pissing me off!”

Kira got to her feet. Stared down at Arman with her arms crossed. “I knew you shouldn't have come here. I didn't want you to. I even told Dale what you were like back home.”

“Oh yeah? What am I like?”

“You're always ruining shit because you don't know how to be normal! It's annoying. Some of us want to be here, you know. If you don't, then go. But don't make us all miserable just because you are.”

It felt like a rash had broken out all over his body. “You don't know the kind of things that go on around here, Kira. I mean it. You don't. Not
everyone's like Beau. Some of these people, they just want your money.”

She scoffed. “So you're the expert? You know better than me, when I'm the one who's actually been following this program while you've been running around doing God knows what and taking pain pills?”

He flared. “A doctor gave me those pills!”

“I bet.”

“You don't know what you're talking about.”

Kira lifted her chin. “I know you didn't pay to be here, not like the rest of us. So maybe
you
don't get to lecture me.”

“He didn't pay?” Dale asked.

“No, he didn't.” Kira turned around. “That woman trainer told me she looked at the books and he was the only one who hadn't paid. She wanted to know if I knew why, so I told her he must've lied his way in here somehow. That's he's no better than his felon father.”

“Don't say that!” That was it. Arman was on his feet, ready to charge.

Dale leapt across the cabin. Grabbed on to him by the shirt collar. “What the hell do you think you're doing?”

“Nothing!”

“You're acting crazy, you know that? Like really crazy.”

Arman squirmed. “I'm not like my dad! She needs to take that back!”

“I'm not taking anything back,” Kira said.

“Look,” Dale told him. “I don't care about your dad. I don't care about any of this. You just need to calm down.”

Arman wrenched himself free from Dale's grip. Sat back on his cot with his heart pounding. “I am calm.”

“Good.”

“I'm going to sleep now.”

Dale nodded. “That's good, too, Arman. You do that.”