Defiance

by R. S. Broadhead

  “Keep your head low, Ryker, sounds like they don’t need much to set them off.” I was dying to know how things had changed. It was just on the other side, but I couldn’t get to it.

  “Believe me, dude. I have been. Some of the crazy shit I’ve seen lately is just unreal.”

  “Like what?”

  He chuckled nervously. “Well, first off, some people are saying that Fate has been manipulating the branding system.”

  “What the fuck?” After seeing what happened with Sophia and Izzy, I couldn’t see someone picking people off to die just because they wanted them to when it wasn’t their time to go.

  “I know. Goes against everything Reapers stand for. I’ve even heard that some Angels and Demons are working with them. They’ve killed people out in the streets for petty shit. I’m telling you, you’re better off in there. Hell, I might want to join you before long.”

  “You don’t want to be in here. Trust me.” The bitterness was thick in my voice.

  “What’s wrong? Did you have a rough night?” I didn’t know if I wanted to go into all the details of my breakdown. But who else did I have to talk to if not Ryker? He was the only one willing to give me the time of day, and honestly, I would go crazy if I didn’t vent to someone.

  I took a deep sigh and launched into telling him the details of the night before. “I’ve never thought about killing myself until last night. I was still staring at the sheet debating whether or not to use it when you got here this morning.” Now that I was telling someone else about it, it suddenly seemed like the stupidest thing I’d ever thought about doing. I had so many reasons to keep going. My life couldn’t end at my own hands in this cell. I looked back toward the sheets and shook my head.

  “I know it can get rough, but just stay strong. Them sending that girl in there is killing you, brother. Just try to fight through it.”

  I tried my best to follow his advice. It was hard. Extremely hard, not to get depressed. Sophia’s visits came any time I wasn’t expecting them. The middle of the night, while I was working out, talking to Ryker, hell, even once while I was taking a shit. Her moods were just as crazy. The visits shook me for weeks after. The same thing over and over—her crying with distraught agony—and the invisible force causing her pain or sadness beyond reasoning. Grim knew what he was doing when he ordered this punishment. During the course of these visits, I was never able to talk with her like I did when she thought I was her mother. And even then, it wasn’t the conversation I wanted to have with her. I wanted her to talk to me. Cade. If I told her how I felt about everything that happened to her, it might make how I was feeling better.

  The years started to go by faster than I anticipated as my walls became covered in tiny scratch marks from the months gone by. Of course, it didn’t matter much to me since I didn’t age. I would always look like a man in his late twenties to the human eye. The walls were my home now. I was used to being in them. Even the monthly shower freaked me out since I was being taken out of my comfort zone. All I did was work out to keep from getting too down about being in there. I was so in shape, the Demoral escorting me laughed about it.

  “What you getting in shape for, boy? Got a hot date with your hand because that’s all you’ll ever get with those muscles. You’re never getting out of here, so there’s no need to look like that,” they would say.

  Each time, my hand would itch for a feel of their bones cracking under my fist, but I held it together. Silence was golden, and I wasn’t giving them any reason to treat me the way they had some of the other prisoners. I was an institutionalized man with no backbone, even though I was stronger and faster than I had ever been. The beatings and deaths were becoming more frequent. It was getting out of hand. The smallest thing would set the Demorals off. They were getting too much joy out of treating others so irrationally. But they could. There was no one to tell them they couldn’t. No one knew what was going on down here. Or no one who mattered could do something about it.

  Ryker continued his visits, periodically bringing me something he had stolen, and giving me the same excuse of ‘they didn’t use it, so they’ll never miss it.’ Every time I would warn him how reckless he was being. If they caught him there was no doubt in my mind they would kill him. He dismissed my concerns with the notion that he was too slick for them. Despite his stupidity over the situation, it made me feel good that he was willing to risk his life to give me things to occupy my time.

  I had just gotten through an exhausting set of pull-ups when I heard the familiar low cries. The dust scattered as I jumped down from the over hanging beams. I wiped the sweat from my brow without turning around. I waited for her to be ripped from the room by the invisible force or tortured in front of me like every other time, but nothing happened. After several minutes, I finally looked around. She was sitting on the corner of my mattress. Cautiously, I walked over and sat near her, still expecting our time together to be cut short.

  “Sophia?” I asked barely loud enough for even me to hear. Her sobs stopped as she looked in my direction.

  “Say it again.” Her lips were cracked with dried blood, but she still managed a small smile.

  “Sophia…” I said again, a little louder this time. I was hardly able to contain my excitement. She was acting normal. She was seeing me. This could be my chance to make some type of amends with her.

  “It’s so nice to hear it. No one has called me that in forever. Do I know you?”

  “I was there the day you died. I tried to help you, but I couldn’t. I’m so sorry.” I ran a hand down the side of her face. She flinched slightly before taking my hand in hers.

  Her head turned side to side, studying me. “I remember you. You tried. There wasn’t anything you could do to stop what happened. I know that now. No matter what the outcome was, I can’t tell you how much it means that you would be willing to fight for us.” Her words warmed my heart. I thought she would hate me. I was the reason her soul could not rest for eternity. A relieved sob escaped my throat. “My sister…”

  I sniffled slightly. “They told me when she was shoved through the portal her soul was lost. I thought she might have lived, but one of the bad Reapers that came killed her before the portal could close.”

  She shook her head. “That isn’t right.”

  “I know it’s hard to handle, but that’s what happened,” I said, trying to reason with her.

  “No, it isn’t what happened. My sister may have been wounded, but she isn’t dead. My sister is alive, that’s the reason they can’t find her soul.”

  Five

  My head spun, leaving me dizzy and disoriented. My breath seemed to be trapped in my lungs, causing me to splutter in short panicked spurts. How could she still be alive? The knife hit. A Demoral never missed a target.

  “Sophia, how do know she’s alive?” I asked. My voice shook. I took a deep breath to calm my rapid pulse before she sensed something was wrong. I couldn’t help but pace the room. The pacing seemed to make things better, almost clearer. Yeah, clearer, at least that’s what the voice of reasoning in my head kept repeating.

  It felt like an eternity before she cleared her throat and answered me. “Because. I’ve been a little sneaky. I like to play hide and seek by myself since me and Izzy use to play it all the time. It helps me feel like I’m still close to her. I miss her so much.” She paused, and a smile hinted at the corner of her lips. “I was playing one day, and I overheard my Angel talking with hers. No one can find her. Lost soul or still human, no one has been able to escape being found. They don’t know what’s going on. Her Angel made the comment that she had to be still alive and marked with a protection.”

  For the first time since that unthinkable day, I had hope. I saved one of them. Warmth rushed over my entire body as I plopped down on the bed. The invisible dark cloud that I placed over myself seemed to lift with this newfound knowledge. I saved her! It was almost too much for me to bear. Emotions flooded me that I hadn’t felt in years.

 
“You have no idea what this means to hear you say that. All these years it was so hard dealing with losing both of you that day.”

  “I just found out a few days ago. The thing is, she’s been missing this entire time, and no one has really cared until now. They’re hunting her.”

  My eyes shot in her direction. My joy was only short lived. If they were getting heated over finding her now, then something was up; they needed her. Or, at least, they thought they did. Why did I have to be stuck behind this wall? It appeared the job I started all those years ago wasn’t over. I needed to get out of here. It was an unbearable concept for me to even fathom. Outside these walls was a different world that I wasn’t a part of anymore. The fear consumed me, practically paralyzing my body. How could I do this? I dropped my head into the safety of my rough hands. Were these the hands of a man who gave up hope? No. They weren’t. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have stepped outside my boundaries that day.

  “Please. Help my sister. Help Izzy,” Sophia said.

  I looked up, but she was no longer there. I was alone. I needed more time with her. So many questions I wanted answered. Like where she was. She said Angel, so maybe she was in Heaven? But that didn’t make sense from what we were told. I had never seen or heard of a soul being treated like that in Heaven. I couldn’t drown in my sorrow anymore. With Izzy being out there and hunted, I knew what I needed to do. It was time for me to leave this place.

  It seemed to take Ryker forever to visit me. When I heard his voice on the other side of my door, I ran to greet him. “Ryker!” There was a loud bang, followed by several smaller noises.

  “Geez, Cade. You scared the shit out of me, made me drop all the trays. What are you so amped up about today?” he asked.

  “I need your help,” I started, momentarily reconsidering if I could trust him with this. But without him, I had no other hope. “I need to break out of here.”

  The silence seemed to last an eternity as I waited for his response. “Have you finally gone crazy in there? I mean, I always wondered when you’d crack…”

  I raked a hand through my hair and hit the stone door, before pacing away. This was hopeless. We would both be killed, even if he did decide to help me get out. “I haven’t gone crazy,” I said, trying to keep every emotion I had flooding through me locked away. “Sophia, came to me today. Her sister is alive and needs help. There are others after her now. She’s in trouble. Please…I need to help her. This is my chance at making something right with those girls since I failed them all those years ago.”

  Ryker sighed. “Just let me think about it.”

  I wanted to punch through the door, grab him by the throat, and choke him. I balled my fist and tapped it gently against the wall, as if living out my fantasy. I needed an answer now. “I don’t have time to wait.”

  “You’ve been in there for twenty-two years. I think you have time to wait,” he said as if my argument was the most outlandish thing he had ever heard. “I know you want to help, but I really don’t know if this is your fight anymore. You don’t have your Demoral abilities, Cade. You wouldn’t stand a chance against any of them out here. I don’t know if I can be the reason you get yourself killed.”

  I whipped around, stomping across the room while dragging my hands across my face. “Shouldn’t that be my decision?”

  “Well, yeah, but what about me? If I’m the one who lets you out, they’ll kill me too. Unless you don’t care about that type of thing.”

  “Ryker…” I didn’t know what else to say. This was going nowhere and fast. It seemed there was no hope on changing his mind. They would find Izzy, and I would never know why they were after her or what happened to her.

  “Guess that answers my question,” Ryker said, his voice low.

  I had hurt his feelings. Great. Just the thing I didn’t want to do.

  “I do care.”

  Nothing but silence.

  “Ryker?”

  Nothing.

  I darted to my mattress, picked it up, and hurled it across the room. My one shot at getting out of here just walked away and was probably never coming back. I leaned back on the wall before sliding to the ground, pulling my knees close to my chest. Think, Cade. Was there any other way out? No one had ever escaped the cells. Even if breaking out were a possibility, what waited on the other side would stop someone from going any farther. There wasn’t a day that went by without at least a dozen Demorals in this place. I glanced at the door. The only way to open it was from the outside. The slot at the bottom was just big enough for a plate of food. It was useless. I was stuck.

  Every minute that ticked by I was more convinced Ryker wasn’t coming back. A few days went by without a peep from him. I couldn’t do anything but stew in my own pity. I dreamt up so many different scenarios regarding Izzy, all of them ending in gruesome finalities.

  “Cade?” I opened my eyes from an uneasy sleep, not sure if I was still dreaming. “Cade? Hello?”

  I sat up, rubbing my eyes. “Ryker?” As if saying his name was a shot of adrenaline, I bolted up and ran to the door. “Hey!”

  He sighed, dragging it out way longer than necessary. I didn’t like the sound of that. It sounded like he was getting ready to deliver some bad news. “Of course I’ll help you. Do you have any type of plan so we don’t end up dead?” he finally said.

  I bit my lip and looked around the room. I honestly had no idea how I would get us out of here. “No. I have no idea.”

  He laughed. “Well, I think we need one of those before we go causing a shit storm and get us both killed or at least me and you locked back up. You just be ready when the time comes. I’ll figure something out.”

  “Thank you.” I wasn’t sure if he heard me or not. He never responded. I didn’t have anything to gather other than the weapons I had made and the whip I had pulled away from whatever was hitting Sophia the night she visited a few months after I was locked up. I had kicked it to the corner, and it had stayed there since that day. Its broken, cracked leather disgusted me, but I needed all the help I could get, so I picked it up and wrapped it into a tight circle.

  The time ticked by slowly. I circled the room until I couldn’t hold my eyes open anymore. Drained, I crawled on the mattress and fell into a restless sleep.

  Tossing and turning, I woke with any little sound until I started dreaming.

  Not really sure what I was dreaming about. It was all a haze, with muffled voices, and a girl I had never seen before. She looked so familiar. Where were we? I looked around at the tall buildings, definitely Earth, a street sign caught my eye. People crowded each other with large, colorful hats decorated with jingling balls. Vibrant lights, a multitude of colors, shone in every direction, while music filled with horns blasted in the distance.

  “It’s right around the corner, up there,” the girl said. Her face contorted in and out of focus like I was looking through the lens of a camera. The colors from the lights played off her hair, making it impossible to know the true color. She started to run. I tried to follow, but I was being held by something. Something sticky was around my feet, sticky and red.

  “Wait! I’m stuck. Hold on,” I shouted after her. She didn’t turn around. She was too far in front of me, soon to be lost in the hoards of people that floated around us.

  “Too bad about the pie. There’s a place around the corner that has the best in town,” a man said. His face was painted, and he was shirtless, holding a cup of something in his hand. He shook his head and glanced down at the red substance at my feet.

  “Pie?”

  “Cade! Pssh, Cade! Get your ass up. We need to move.” Ryker’s voice jostled me from sleep. I blinked a few times and became aware that I wasn’t alone in my cell. For a split second I panicked, retreating against the mattress. A dark figure stood against the wall, holding something. The stone door was barely open, letting a little bit of light shine through. It spilled across the figure’s shoes and nothing more. “Do you still want to do this?”

  It took a
minute for my brain to register what “this” was, but when it hit me, I knew I was more than ready. I jumped up, grabbing my stuff, and headed in his direction. “Let’s go.”

  Without saying another word, Ryker disappeared out of the small opening of my cell with me right behind him. Fear gripped me. I hadn’t seen anything but the inside of my cell and the small shower room they allowed me to bathe in alone. When they escorted me to and from the shower room, my head was covered with a thick cloth bag, and my hands and ankles shackled.

  We turned a corner, with lanterns floating across the ceiling. I winced. The dancing flames of oranges and yellows hurt my eyes. I never thought I would get to see light again. I had almost forgotten what it looked liked.

  I tried to focus on Ryker, who was running in front of me, but the only thing I could make out was his shaggy, shoulder length dark blue hair bouncing around. He motioned me to slow to a stop at a doorway with light pouring out and voices from inside. I kneeled behind him.

  “Any of you guys seen my clothes? I had a new uniform in my locker that I just ordered, and now it’s gone,” one of the Demorals said. No one said a word, just a few grumbles. “I swear, it seems like everything goes missing down here! I’m going to have to start locking my stuff up, I guess.” Ryker’s shoulders shook with silent laughter. Looks like I had the clepto sitting in front of me. Once the voices seemed to move away, Ryker waved us forward.

  We stopped at a door, and he slid a card across a scanner, which released the door for us to go in. There was a tiny passage with steep steps that curved. Higher and higher, we climbed. We both gasped for air, and started to slow. An alarm screeched through the deathly silent stairwell. They would be coming soon. There wasn’t any time to stop and rest. We had to make it out. The alarm gave us a much needed push to keep moving. We stopped as we got to the top and found another door, which Ryker opened more cautiously this time, peeking out of a crack before opening it all the way.