The Smaller Evil (3 page)

The van's other passengers streamed past Arman and up a cobblestone path. Only Beau wasn't with them. He wasn't anywhere. Arman's heart stuttered as he glanced around.
Crap.
Apparently Arman's daydreaming had made him miss something important. Again. He gripped his bag and hurried after the rest of the group. He was determined to pay attention from now on. He just had to focus. He just had to be a better person.

They headed toward a large domed structure that had been built into the hillside. Wood smoke puffed from the dome's chimney. And that was another thing that made this place a not-campground. Instead of tents, there were buildings, real buildings. Lots of them—from what Arman could make out—all made of wood, red where raw, but weathered silver. Beyond the dome was a large meadow ringed with small cabins and other outbuildings. Even farther, pine and cypress trees dotted the thicketed landscape, and dirt trails twined and vanished into a dark forest that stretched as far as the eye could see.

Breathing in the sharp scent of eucalyptus leaves and wafting licorice bushes that lined the path he was on, Arman's heart continued to rattle, not just with nerves, but excitement, too. His allergies had already receded in the few minutes he'd been here, and whatever “
alia tentanda via est
” meant and whatever kind of place this happened to
be, at least it was
different
. Here he could be someone new. Here he had no history of embarrassing himself or not making friends or being the weird, sickly one-off sheep no one thought was interesting or valuable enough to look for when he inevitably wandered off, lost inside his own head.

At least, not yet.

Arman snuck one last peek over his shoulder. He gave a long stare back down the dirt hill drive toward the iron gate, but it was too far away for him to see, and this realization calmed him, dousing whatever was left of the paranoia he'd generated by stealing from his stepfather and running away. Because not being able to see the gate meant he couldn't see where he'd come from.

And
that
meant, for the very first time in his entire seventeen years of life, Arman believed he might actually be safe.

BEFORE HE COULD STEP INSIDE
the domed building to join the others, Beau pulled him aside.

“C'mere,” he said, appearing from nowhere to place a hand on Arman's shoulder, steering him away from the flow of foot traffic and out toward the meadow. He'd changed clothes, which confused Arman. When had that happened? No longer dressed in jeans and the thin button-down shirt he'd been wearing during the van ride, Beau was now in all beige—still pants and a shirt, but the style wasn't one Arman had ever seen before. The clothes he wore were sort of loose and flowy. Like they were built for a different climate.

“Is everything okay?” Arman asked. Walking in Beau's longer shadow, he felt lacking. Insufficient. Had he already been judged unworthy of being here? Beau had invited him after only meeting him twice and so it was definitely possible he'd made a mistake. Maybe now he needed to fix that mistake by asking Arman to leave.

Shut up. That's the
zero effect
talking.

Maybe so, but why was he being singled out? Where was Kira? And Dale?

Arman started to do the thing he always did when he felt like he'd disappointed somebody.

He began to sweat, in all sorts of terrible places.

And he picked at his arm, gouging his skin with his nail.

Beau stepped down into a garden of some kind. Arman made himself follow. Grass crunched underfoot and the garden was lush, bright, filled with the flowery scent of summer and the sleepy buzz of the dragonflies and the soft burbling of a cool, stone fountain. Beau talked to Arman as they walked, murmuring about self-sufficiency and pointing out things like a knotted grove of apple trees and growing tubs for herbs and a reverse irrigation drip system that could double their crop of heirloom tomatoes and even a whole cluster of white-lidded beehives, but Arman wasn't catching his words. Not really. His mind wouldn't focus. He kept picking at his arm, digging deeper. Everything felt fuzzy.

“. . . very glad you're here,” he heard faintly. Then: “Arman?
Arman?
”

He dropped his hands to his sides. Felt the sticky ooze of blood and prayed Beau didn't notice. “Yeah?”

“You okay, son?”

“Yeah, I'm fine. Just a little hungry, I think. I feel kind of dizzy.”

“Did you eat lunch?”

“No.” Arman blushed more. Harder. Hotter. Whatever. He was too embarrassed to admit he'd forgotten to pack himself food. Who
did
that?

“I'll take you to the kitchen, then,” Beau said firmly. “I'm sure the cook will be able to find something to hold you over until dinner. Can't have you getting sick or malnourished while you're out here, okay?”

Arman nodded. The pounding of his heart slowed and his mind cleared. So he wasn't being asked to leave before even really arriving?
That was good. That was definitely good. He pushed his shaggy hair back and squinted up at Beau.

With a hint of silver dotting his temple, the older man had a kind face. A normal one, too. He didn't have a pervy smile like that basketball coach back in middle school who was always trying to give him a ride home, or the pissed-off glare of Arman's stepfather who never wanted him around. He didn't even have the canary-eating-cat sneakiness Arman had learned to read in the seemingly placid face of his real father. There was just a presence about Beau. Something intangible. And honest. He exuded warmth without being sappy. Strength without being uncaring.

“Look,” Beau said. “I wanted to prepare you for some things before we go in there. Before we really
get started
.” He gestured toward the domed building.

“Oh, okay,” Arman said, although he wanted to ask,
Get started on what?

“You know, you being here. It's something special. For me.”

“It is?”

“Absolutely. The others who are here, well, they're paying a lot of money to learn what my program can teach them. It's knowledge we want to share, obviously, but to do that, we have to have a system. Our research must be funded. Maintained. You understand that, right?”

Arman nodded again, but the shakiness in his legs returned. Research? Maintaining a system? He was only saying he understood because he didn't want to be perceived as stupid, but that's pretty much what he was. He was bone clueless about whatever the hell Beau was talking about. He had a sinking feeling Beau knew it, too.

His eyes widened with sudden awareness. “Wait,” he said. “I can pay you. Is that what this is about? Kira said it was fifteen hundred for the week, and I've got that. I've got more, if you want it. I never intended not to pay!” With that, he slipped the messenger bag off his shoulder
and onto the ground. Dropped to his knees to rifle through it. He'd wrapped the stolen bills in newspaper, then plastic, before stuffing them in the very bottom, beneath his clothes.

“Arman, stop.”

“Huh?”

“That's what I wanted to tell you.” Beau knelt beside him in the grass, the warmth of the late-day sun flooding over them both. The bees hummed louder. A woodpecker hammered at a tree above them. “I don't want your money, okay?”

“You don't?”

“No.”

Arman froze, confused. “Why not?”

“For one, you can't afford it. However you got that money in your bag, well, I don't want to know. Two, it's important to me that you're here. Critical, actually.”

Arman opened his mouth. He wanted to say that he
could
afford to pay. Of course he could. He'd risked so much to come here, it didn't seem right not to use the money he'd stolen from his stepfather. It didn't seem right that his sacrifice had been in vain.

But Beau kept talking, kept using that slow, soporific voice of his. “I need something good this summer, Arman. Something I care about. There's been discord here, of late, I'm afraid. A certain ugliness. In fact, there's someone at the compound right now intent on destroying the life I've worked so hard to build.”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” Arman said. He meant it, too.

Beau's expression grew solemn. “You know, when I was a teenager, I was a lot like you. Trapped in a bad place without even understanding how bad it was. My mother was an unhappy person and her unhappiness poisoned me. Made me scared of the world. Scared of myself, actually.”

“And your dad?” Arman ventured. Then he held his breath.

Beau plucked a stem of clover from the ground. Cupped it in the palm of his hand. “My father was worthless. Utterly worthless. When he was around, all he did was tell lies. And not good lies. Awful ones. The kind that let you know that things can always be worse. The kind that let you know some fathers were never meant to have sons.”

Arman felt dizzy again. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. Beau was confiding in
him
. That felt important. More than important, it felt significant
.

Beau leaned closer then. Until their foreheads almost touched. “You can't tell anyone about our arrangement, though. Inequality breeds unrest. At least at this part of the process.”

“Oh, sure. Of course.”

“Later it'll be different. Later they'll understand that self-comparison is the medium in which illness is incubated. But now, not so much.”

“I see,” Arman said, although he didn't see. Not at all.

But clearly he'd said the right thing, because Beau nodded, relieved, standing again to rock back on his heels. “Life isn't fair, of course, but sometimes the illusion of equity is necessary. This is one of those times.”

“Um, yeah.”

“So I can trust you, Arman? To be discreet? And to take full advantage of this opportunity?”

Now Arman nodded vigorously. He could do both of those things. He would. And by not spending the stolen money, well, maybe that meant doing something else when he left here. Like not going back home. Ever.

He smiled up at Beau. He felt good. The two of them had a secret.

“Thanks,” he said. “Thanks a lot.”

Beau smiled back.

• • •

The kitchen was located in a building adjacent to the dome and the sweet-smelling garden. Beau and Arman entered through a sliding glass door. The room was large. Impressive. Ceiling fans cooled the air and the whole space was filled with spinning light and warm smells and chipped terra-cotta tiles.

Arman gazed around. Saw long stainless steel counters and double sinks. Even a walk-in freezer. How many people did they plan on feeding? How many people were actually
here
? There'd been nine of them total in the van, but then he remembered all the other vans, plus the cabins and the buildings. Beau murmured something about the dining room being through a pair of swinging doors, but Arman wasn't paying attention. He was too busy watching the cook, a young woman in a yellow dress made of the same gauzy material as Beau's clothing. She moved with an ease that made Arman embarrassingly aware of how tight his own clothes were. She also had bare legs and bright eyes that stared right back at Arman when Beau asked her to feed him.

She nodded. But she didn't take her eyes off Arman.

“I'm needed in the meeting hall now,” Beau told her. “Please send Arman back when he's finished.”

She nodded again, and with that he slipped away.

Arman sat shyly at the table the cook gestured him toward. She smiled at him when she did this. Or at least he thought it was a smile—a slight twitch of her lips that looked effortless, the way a ladybug might flap her wings. She poured iced tea from a large pitcher she took from the refrigerator and set a full glass in front of him.

“Thank you,” Arman said, gripping the glass, absorbing its chill. Thick slices of lemon and mint leaves floated among the ice cubes.

The cook didn't respond. She turned away from him and returned
to her work. Despite her silence, the room was filled with sound: Soft music spilled from speakers mounted on a bare wood shelf, and the atmosphere in the kitchen was peaceful, both drowsy and dreamy. Arman leaned his thin shoulders against the wall and gazed out at the meadow and the woods and drank the tea, slow sip by even slower sip. It tasted sweet.

It tasted like what he needed.

A plate appeared before him moments later. Simple food. Chunks of cheese, warm bread, slices of fresh fruit, roasted almonds, and a few drizzles of honey, all neatly laid out on a heavy ceramic plate. Arman stared. Then realized he was
starving
. He ate fast, using his hands, wolfing down the bread and honey first, followed by the almonds, lightly salted. Next he devoured the fruit: raspberries, blueberries, blackberries—all sweet as a miracle, they must have come from the garden—sitting alongside chunks of pink melon and the tiniest grapes he'd ever seen. Sugary juice ran down Arman's chin, his wrists, stinging a bit as it hit the patch of raw skin on his forearm, and he winced, forced to pause in his gluttony—a reluctant temperance—before continuing with his meal. Slower this time.

The cheese he only nibbled at, out of caution not distaste. Last year he'd been diagnosed with lactose intolerance—along with GERD—and while cheese didn't usually give him problems, it wasn't worth the risk or the pain.

Arman didn't much like risk.

Or pain.

So he left most of the cheese uneaten. That was fine. Sated and satisfied, Arman figured he should get himself to the meeting hall. Join the group. But sitting there, stomach full and stretched comfortably, with the drowsiness in his limbs and the good music playing over the speakers, soothing his soul, well, he didn't
want
to leave. He was not unaware that
this was the first time in a long while that anyone had taken care of him.

It felt nice.

But it couldn't last, could it? Nothing good did. Besides, he needed to do what he'd promised Beau: take advantage of this opportunity. That meant getting his butt to the meeting. He didn't need to fall any farther behind than he already was.

Pushing his chair back, Arman spurred his body into motion. He gathered the plate and glass, and walked over to the work area where the cook was washing lettuces and shucking ears of summer corn. It was strange, he thought, her being the only one here.

“Thank you,” he said again, setting the dishes down on the counter by the sink.

The cook whirled to face him. She stared, her eyes narrowed, her brows knitted tight. It was like he'd startled her. Like she'd forgotten his very presence. Wisps of loose hair fell onto her cheeks, her neck.

Am I really here? Can she see me?

“Sorry,” Arman said meekly. “I didn't mean to scare you.”

She continued to stare. She wasn't much older than he was, maybe college-aged, and she was pretty in a quiet way. It was the dress, perhaps. Or her kindness.

Arman squirmed. Tried to take a step backward. “I should go.”

The cook came toward him then, still silent but no longer quiet. No, she was bold in her approach. Imperious. Chin lifted, she stopped right in front of him, mere millimeters away. Arman froze. He'd never been this close to a girl, not alone and not ever, and he had no idea what she wanted. He had no idea where to look. A part of him hoped she couldn't smell him—all that sweating he'd done earlier,
God
—and Arman's lungs constricted, sinking into a breathless knot, as the hairs on his arms rose up in an effort to reach her. Like flowers bending toward the sun.

“Is something wrong?” he whispered. “Did I do something wrong?”

The cook's response was to lean forward and press her lips to his. She proceeded to do this, very gently, while at the same time shoving one hand down the front of his pants.

At her touch, Arman made a noise. An odd one. Part fear. Part longing. But the cook kept kissing him, kept pushing her tongue around inside his mouth. It was a sensation as invasive as it was pleasurable, a probing wetness that addled his brain while what she did with her hand down lower—all confidence and expertise—sent jolts of electricity through his stomach. His chest. His limbs.