by David Estes
Tawni is next to me, screaming, her face contorted with fear and disgust. Brody has killed Trevor, and we’ll be next if I don’t do something. Our only chance is now, right now, no time to think, to plan, to strategize.
With a horrific yell I charge Brody, slam my shoulder into him, thrust him off of Trevor. At the same time, I search frantically for the gun in his hands, ready to wrench it from his grasp. To my surprise, his hands are empty, and I naturally scan the stone floor for the weapon.
“Adele,” a voice says next to me. “It’s over.”
My head jerks to the left and I see Trevor pulling himself to his feet, my gun dangling loosely from his fingertips. His tunic is covered in red, slick and splotchy. Blood. But not his. Brody’s. I turn back to Brody, who I’m straddling, nausea rolling in my stomach, churning and heaving. His dead eyes stare lifelessly at me and I notice the hole in his temple. Frantically, I roll off of him, throw my head to the side, vomit all over the floor. My hair is in my face, mingling with my regurgitated breakfast, but I don’t care.
The guy who was so nice to me when I met him, who taught me to shoot, who nearly kissed me just this morning, is now dead. “You…you killed him,” I manage to blubber, still staring at the floor.
“I had no choice,” Trevor says.
“No—I didn’t mean it that way.” I pull back from the putrid scent of my upchuck, wipe my mouth with the top of my tunic, push my soiled hair away from my face. “Thank you. I meant to say thank you. You saved my life. Both of our lives.”
Trevor’s eyes are steely. “I’d do anything for your mother.” Implying what? He only saved me because it’s what my mother would have wanted?
“And for me?”
“Eh, I guess for you too, by default.” There’s humor in his words, barely betrayed by a wry smile he can’t hide.
“Trevor, I’m, I’m—”
“She’s sorry,” Tawni interrupts, moving between us. “She’s always had trouble with the S-word.” Although I can tell my friend is freaked out, her face ashen, her lips thin, she manages to put a smile on my face with her words.
“I’m sorry—really sorry,” I say.
“Don’t worry about it,” he says, thankfully not giving me a hard time. “I know you both must be in a bit of shock, but we don’t have much time. We still need to leave for the Moon Realm soon, but given what’s just happened we’ll need to brief General Ro—I mean, your mom—right away.”
“Can we get cleaned up first?” I say, motioning to Tawni. When I look at her, I realize she’s perfectly clean and tidy and looks ready to go. It’s me who’s a mess. A nervous laugh escapes my throat. “I mean, can I get cleaned up first? Oh, and you’ll probably want to change, too,” I add, trying not to look at Brody’s blood all over Trevor’s clothes.
“Of course. I’ll take you to your mother’s personal quarters for all that.”
“What about…the body?” I say, looking away so Brody’s dead corpse is out of even my peripheral vision.
“Don’t worry about that—I’ll take care of it.” Trevor’s voice is so firm, so calm, I wonder how I never saw this side of him before, how I never trusted him. But then again, after what happened with Brody, I may never trust anyone again.
* * *
It’s one of the best showers I’ve ever had. Not only am I scrubbing away the dried blood, my own filthy bile, and sweat, but I’m exfoliating away Brody’s lies and treachery. Although I’m shaken up, I’m alive, and I feel like it’s a new beginning for me. A chance to stick with the people I know and trust. My family, Tawni, Tristan, and now Trevor. A lot of T’s in the bunch, which is fine by me.
After toweling dry, I leave my dirty tunic in a pile in the corner of the bathroom, where my mom told me to. She said we’ll probably never be coming back to this place anyway. My new tunic feels wonderful against my clean skin. When I move back into her bedroom, she and Tawni are waiting for me.
“Tawni told me everything while you were getting ready,” she says.
“Mom, I’m sorry I didn’t trust your judgment. You too, Tawni,” I say, looking at the floor. I’m ashamed of myself.
“It’s okay. I am completely shocked it was Brody, too,” Mom says.
“Yeah, even though I didn’t think it was Trevor, I was surprised it was Brody,” Tawni agrees.
“You are?” I say, looking up.
Mom answers for both of them. “Yes, I never would have guessed him, which is probably why Trevor and I couldn’t figure it out.”
“About Trevor…” I say.
“That’s okay, too. You’d only just met him, and it was perfectly normal for you to be skeptical of him, especially because I know he can be quite…grating sometimes.”
“Someone must be talking about me, because my nose is itching something fierce,” Trevor says, pushing through the half-open door. He’s smirking in that way that I used to find so irritating, but now seems somewhat endearing. It’s amazing how much difference a change in perspective can make to how you view someone.
“Trevor, I just want to say again that I’m so—”
“No more apologies,” he says. “I know how much you hate that word, so I won’t make you say it again.”
“Thanks,” I say, thoroughly humbled. He’s being so nice to me. Why didn’t I see this side of him before?
“I’m just glad you’re all okay,” Mom interjects. “Trevor, I already owe you so much, but now…” I’m surprised when I see tears shimmering in her eyes. My mother the general. Still the same compassionate woman I remember. She blinks them away. “Let’s just say there will always be room for you at our table.”
“I might just take you up on that,” Trevor says. He maintains his smirk, as if everything is no big deal, but I can tell from the lightness in his eyes that he’s touched. He claps his hands together. “Okay, the generals have agreed to meet. They seem very interested in ‘the new developments’ that I told them we want to share.”
“Good. Let’s go,” Mom says, rising, no trace of the weakness that had clouded her eyes only moments earlier.
“Me too?” Tawni asks.
“Of course. You’re all a part of this now and you all have valuable information.”
For some reason I hesitate. “What if the generals are all working for the Sun Realm, too?”
My mom looks at me seriously. “I’ve considered that possibility. But don’t let one person’s lies affect your ability to trust anyone. While one or more of the generals may be against us, I don’t believe they all are. We just have to trust that there are still good people in this world, Adele.”
I don’t know if I can do that, not after what Brody tried to do—what he did do—but I don’t say anything, just nod. I ignored my mom’s judgment once.
I won’t do it again.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tristan
I’m still feeling a rush of energy through my chest when Ben walks in. It’s been over an hour since I saw Adele, but the effect is lingering. It’s like there’s a bubble inside me, leaving me airy and light. I expect I feel kind of like Ben felt when he saw his wife again.
The only thing that was weird was when she told me about this Brody guy. He seems like a real creep to me, trying to kiss Adele when they should be preparing for a war. Although I can’t really blame him—I might’ve done the same thing if I was in his position.
I realize Ben is standing over me and I look up, surprised. I expected he was coming in to spend some quality time with Elsey, who’s across the room reading a book with Roc, while I sit and daydream about Adele, bask in the few minutes of uninterrupted conversation I had with her.
“Something’s happened,” Ben says. He’s wearing a frown, which concerns me because I haven’t seen it much from him.
Adele’s hurt—I just know it. Evidently my inner concerns make it to my face because he says quickly, “No one’s hurt, thank god.” I take a sharp breath out that I’ve been holding in.
“Then what?”
“A sergeant in the star dweller army was working for the sun dwellers. He tried to kill Adele and Tawni.”
I suck in a short breath. “What? How? Why?”
“Unfortunately, I don’t have all the details. I’ve only just received an encrypted message from Anna. Evidently my wife’s second-in-command rescued the girls from their attacker. Shot the guy—killed him.”
A thought flashes into my head. “Brody?” I ask.
Ben’s head jerks slightly. “How did you know that?”
So Brody is Adele’s mom’s right-hand man. “Uh, Adele mentioned his name.”
“What? In what context?”
I stare at Ben, wondering why he’s so interested in the guy who saved Adele’s life. I’m certainly not going to say he tried to kiss Adele. “I dunno. Just that she met him during training.”
Ben shrugs, as if he was never really that interested anyway. So Brody saved Adele and Tawni, but—
“Who was the attacker?” I ask.
Ben stares at me strangely. “The guy you just said. Brody.”
I put a hand on my head, run it through my hair. So Brody saved them from Brody? Are there two Brodys? “Wait…what? I thought you just confirmed it was Brody who saved them?” I’m getting more confused by the minute, as if Ben and I are running around in circles chasing each other, fake tails stuck to our butts.
“No, no. Brody was the attacker. Anna’s second-in-command rescued them.”
My mind is whirling. “But I thought Brody was her second-in-command.”
“No, that’s Trevor.”
Trevor? Who the hell’s Trevor? Some other guy I don’t know about apparently. Some guy who didn’t try to kiss Adele apparently. Soooo…
The guy who tried to kiss Adele tried to kill Adele? My jaw drops when I finally understand. Funny how changing two little letters in kiss transforms it into the deadly opposite: kill. Just thinking that word and Adele in the same sentence sends shivers down my spine. If he was working for my father, clearly he was trying to get close to her for information. I’m glad she didn’t fall for that crap.
“Adele said Brody was friendly to her,” I say.
“What do you mean friendly?”
“I don’t know—a nice guy, I guess. Trying to get close to her. Perhaps trying to get information as it turns out.”
“Well, he’s dead now.” Ben’s eyes are as sharp as daggers. He’s happy this Brody dude is dead. Not that I’m not.
“Remind me to thank Trevor when I meet him. So are they on their way here now?”
“No, that’s the other thing I wanted to tell you. There will be a slight delay because of what happened. They want to tell the generals they had a mole in their midst, try to get them see what’s happening, that the Sun Realm is playing games with us, hopefully convince them to travel to the Moon Realm with them.”
“So what do we do?”
Ben shrugs. “We wait.” Ugh. Already I’m tired of waiting. “There will be another peace summit, which my wife and at least one other general from the star dweller army will attend, so that’s being planned, but other than that, there’s nothing really for us to do right now.”
“Okay,” I say.
“Get some food. Get some rest. Hopefully by tomorrow they’ll be closer to getting here.”
“Okay,” I repeat, because I’m all out of things to say.
* * *
I swear one of my least favorite things in the world is waiting. It’s not my father’s bad politics, or the sun dweller soldiers, or even the dust-filled moon dweller air that’s killing me. No, it’s none of those things. It’s the waiting that’s killing me. Slowly, second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour. Sucking the life out of me, making me grind my teeth and pick at my fingers, and bang my head against the wall.
I’d almost welcome Ram to stop by and beat me up again—at least it would kill some time, get my blood pumping again, break up the monotony of the gray stone walls and slap of cards against the table where Roc and Elsey are playing some game.
“I gotta get out of here,” I mumble, to whoever might be listening. No one.
Or Roc. “Okay, master. Let’s go for a stroll down that one tunnel—you know the one, right?—that leads to that other tunnel—the gray one with the brownish rocks. And then we can walk down that other gray tunnel that splits into two other gray tunnels. It’ll be way more fun than sitting here playing cards with two of the coolest cats around.”
I smirk. “One—don’t call me ‘master.’ And two—Elsey’s cool, but I’m struggling to figure out who the other cool person is, unless you’re referring to me?”
“Ha ha, very funny. It’s me, you dolt. Dolt—oh, I kind of like that. It definitely suits you more than ‘master.’” He uses two fingers on each hand for the quotes around master.
Elsey giggles. “Are you sure you aren’t brothers? You fight like Adele and I did when we were little.”
I see Roc’s spine stiffen, so I answer casually. “What do you mean ‘were little’? You still are little.”
“I most certainly am not!” Elsey scoffs.
“Are too! Would I be able to do this”—I leap off the bed, rush over to her, and grab her, picking her up and swinging her around—“if you weren’t little?”
“Put me down! Is that any way to treat a lady?” she squeals, but she’s giggling hysterically and I know she’s enjoying it, so I don’t stop for another ten seconds.
When I do set her down again, she brushes off her tunic with her hand and says, “Hmph. The scoundrel boys in the orphanage were more gentlemanly than you are.”
I’m about to fire back a sarcastic retort, maybe tickle her, maybe pick her up again, when Roc says, “Elsey, we’ve got something to tell you.”
The whole time I thought I was rescuing my best friend from a touchy subject, he’d been thinking about it, and I can tell he’s ready to talk about things, starting with telling Elsey our big news. “Like a surprise?” she says, her face lighting up.
“Sort of like that,” Roc says, staring at his hands. He gets up and moves to sit on the side of the bed and Elsey follows him. I remain standing nearby. Roc seems to want to do this on his own.
“What is it?” Elsey asks innocently, staring up at Roc with wide eyes.
“You know how you just asked whether we were sure we weren’t brothers?”
“I just said that not two minutes ago,” Elsey says, in that proper way that only she and people from the seventeenth century could say it.
“Well, as it turns out, Tristan and I, well, we actually…are…brothers. Well, sort of…I mean, we’re half-brothers. We have the same father.”
Elsey’s eyes are bigger than the artificial suns in the Sun Realm. “Your father is the President, too?”
Roc nods. “We both just found out. Like a couple days ago. It’s still a bit of a shock.”
“Wow,” is all she says.
“I don’t really want anyone to know yet though,” Roc says.
“Like a secret?”
“Exactly.”
“I swear on my friendship with my truest friend in the whole wide world, Ranna, that I will never share what you have told me with another soul.”
“Or you can just not tell anybody,” Roc says, chuckling.
“That’s what I just said!”
“Except it took you three times as long to say it,” I add.
“Oh, boys,” Elsey says, shaking her head, like we’re the ten-year-olds.
“Who’s hungry?” I ask, as I feel my stomach rumble. It’s late, but the nice thing about this place is that there’s always food to be eaten.
“Me, me, me!” Roc exclaims, waving his hand in the air like a child trying to get the attention of the schoolteacher. He’s doing it to entertain Elsey and she giggles.
“I would be honored to dine with you two strapping young gentlemen. Thank you for asking,” Elsey says grandly.
Roc and I just look at each other, laughter in our eyes.
We make our way to the commons, which are bustling as if it’s the middle of the day. Members of the Resistance are streaming all over the place, carrying packs of supplies, weapons, and body armor. Everything looks a hundred years old but there seems to be plenty of it. It’s as if the entire command center is readying to move out to war. The soldiers look like ants next to the heights of the honeycomb atrium above them.
Few of them are eating, however, so we easily spot Ben and his sister at a lone table, their heads together, their voices a whisper as if they’re discussing something treacherous, like an assassination attempt on the President; maybe they are. They lift their heads and voices when they spot us, donning big smiles and motioning with their arms for us to join them.
We do. “What’s all this about?” I ask as we sit down, sweeping my hand across the buzzing cave.
Jinny answers. “You didn’t think we’d be going into subchapter 1 without some protection, did you?”
“They’re all coming with us?” Roc asks incredulously.
“Sure,” Ben says. “The Resistance is all about being prepared. In the event that something happens, we want to be ready for it.”
“Will I be coming, too, Father?” El asks.
“Most definitely. You think after all we’ve been through that I’d let you out of my sight again?” he says, pulling his daughter into his side. For once, Elsey is just a kid, melting into Ben’s side, closing her eyes, her face full of love for her dad. It’s not something I’m used to seeing.
“Umm, food?” Roc says.
“Thanks, I didn’t know you were serving tonight,” I joke. “I’ll take some mashed potatoes and bread rolls with gravy, if they’ve got it.”
“Fat chance,” Roc says. “Those days are long over.”
