She was angry now, really angry. “You can stop saying that, Brody. You haven’t been a boyfriend in days, just the bloody instructor. I get it. What will you have me do now, sir?”
He was watching her, eyes softer. “I want you to hit me as hard as you can. That’s an order.”
She shook her head. Whatever game this was, she was done playing it. Not after today.
“Hit me, Laurel. You need to let that anger out, so I need you to hit me,” he ordered, glaring at her.
“Will you threaten to shoot me if I don’t like you did your boys for refusing your stupid order? Because unless you are willing to do that, I am not touching you, Brody. Not shooting at you and not hitting you. I’m just not.”
And he suddenly lunged for her, laughing but she squirmed away, and then he was panting, not in a good way, either. She really bloody hurt him today. Brody never got like that before.
She threw her arms around him, holding him, letting him catch his breath. “Girlfriend, not recruit. I don’t know what I did to your heart but we need to get you some help. What you’re doing, this not being able to breathe thing, it’s not okay. You can’t go anywhere like this. Not until we know what it is and can fix it. You just can’t. We have to tell Ella and Riley. We have to.”
He was shaking his head at her, all serious again. “We can’t, Laurel. I’ll be all right, I promise. But you can’t tell them. It’ll go away on its own. I just need a little bit of time.”
And the way he said it, she knew that whatever she did to him wasn’t going to go away on its own, that it was serious, bad kind of serious, bad enough to where he didn’t want anyone to know, bad enough to where she knew she’d tell them, even if he never talked to her again after that. They would have to go to Reston anyway to get the right clothes for them and supplies and to talk to Stan. Ella could fix him there. They had places where he could be fixed like the place she took the tag out of Drake. He needed that, and he seemed to know that he did but she knew him well enough to know that he’d risk dying before he told anybody he was in pain, and she knew he’ll be doing his best to hide it from everybody. She didn’t owe him that, didn’t owe him watching him be in pain or watching him die. That wasn’t part of any deal she made.
They started back, walking slowly. She didn’t want to rush him and he seemed okay while they walked, not panting.
“I know what you are thinking and you need to promise me that you won’t do that to me. I am asking you to please not do that.” He put his arm around her, turning her around, making her look at him.
“I can’t, Brody. I can’t promise you that,” she said, and she ran from him, ran to the flier as fast as she could, knowing he couldn’t chase her the way he was, the way she made him, and knowing that he’ll probably never be boyfriend again, just the instructor but, hopefully, he’d be alive.
2
Awake
Riley, May 25, 2236, Reston
He had just fallen asleep when she shook him awake, and not in her normal gentle way. She was panting, eyes full of tears, and far too awake for however late it was. He jumped up looking at her, waiting for her to catch her breath and hoping it didn’t take much longer.
“Brody, whatever I did to him with that stupid gun, he is not okay, Riley, only he doesn’t want anyone to know but I promise you he is not. And he is going to be all kinds of mad at me for telling you when he gets here but I couldn’t help it. He can’t breathe like he used to and he pretty much collapsed in on himself in pain, when we were just walking before, couldn’t move kind of pain… I am sorry but we have to help him, help fix it before we go anywhere, we just have to. Maybe Ella can do it in one of those big med floor places in Reston like she did with Drake but he can’t go to Crylo like this—”
He saw him before she was done but there wasn’t a thing he could do about it, so Brody heard most of it. He was leaning on the wall of the flier by the door, his face flushed. Laurel must have figured out he was behind her now because she wasn’t saying anything anymore, not looking at Brody, either. He got up and walked over to his friend, only Brody was still staring at Laurel as if he wanted to hit her. He took him to the clearing, away from her, and sat him down on a log, looking at him, reading his face. He didn’t see any pain in it but his hands were in fists, only it could have been anger, not pain.
“If you tell me that you are okay I’ll take your word for it and I won’t tell Ella or anybody else. But I need to know for sure,” he asked softly.
Brody shook his head.
Not okay then. He walked over to him and put his hands on his shoulders. “Go easy on her, Brody. She wasn’t wrong. I would have done the same thing, as would you, and you know that. We’ll figure it out. I am sorry this happened, Brody, I truly am.” He left him alone after that, not knowing what else to say to him.
Ams was already at her target when he woke up, Drake teaching her today. He was good at this, almost as good as Brody but Ams was a terrible shot. She didn’t seem to have any patience for it. Just kept unloading the weapon into the tree, not hitting the target, and then putting more bullets in it and doing the same thing again. Drake watched in silence. Riley hoped they didn’t run out of ammo, the way she was doing it. He watched her lock her hand around the gun, holding it so tightly, he thought she’d break it. That’s what was throwing off her aim but Drake wasn’t saying anything, just letting her do it.
He walked over to him, whispering so Ams wouldn’t hear them, “Please tell me you know why she is all over the place like that.”
Drake nodded.
“What am I missing here?”
Drake leaned over to him, smiling his crooked smile. “What you are missing, Riley, is that this isn’t target practice. It’s anger management. She is shooting at that tree as if it pissed her off. I want her to let it all out and, when she is calm, I’m going to adjust her grip on the gun and she’ll hit the target every single time.”
He let them be after that.
He went to find Ella, and when he did, it seemed she already knew. Laurel must have told her because she looked at him as if he kicked a puppy.
“It was a stupid thing to do, Riley. I know it wasn’t you who did it, not quite, but you were all too cavalier with them stunners, so something like that was bound to happen, and it was bloody stupid of you that you let it. I don’t know if I can fix it is what I’m saying. I’m not a surgeon and, if you recall, they don’t have anything to knock him out with, and I am not cutting that kid open like that, I’m just not. So you and the rest of your soldier boys need to find something we can use to at least make it bearable for him or I’m not touching him, not after I had to with Drake. And this kid isn’t Drake.” She took a deep breath, then put her hand gently on his arm. “I don’t know if he can take it, not with what I’d have to do to him. The rest of your training, for now, will have to happen in Reston, because we are leaving in an hour. We have to fix it before there is permanent damage. Somebody should have woken me up with this last night.”
He ran to the clearing to get Drake and Ams, but they were gone, and then to where Brody and Laurel were supposed to be training, only they weren’t where they were supposed to be either, so he ran to the flier, and it seemed everybody already knew. They were all strapped in and ready to go, nobody saying a word.
He went into the cabin and watched Trelix maneuver the flier into the air and then told him to shield it until they’ve landed wherever somebody must have already decided they were going to be landing.
“Do you know if anyone got in touch with Stan?” he asked.
Loren nodded. “We did. He’ll meet us at the tall building you had him in with the drawing, whatever that means. And he knows about Brody, Sir.
“Thank you, Loren, and please stop calling me Sir.”
The trip only took an hour. He saw the dead city in the distance through the little window he was staring out of and turned away from it. He knew where the field was and didn’t ever want to see that again; didn’t want t
o see anything here, less Stan. Stan, he was okay with seeing again.
They put down just on the edge, sufficiently covered by trees and brush but much closer to the center of the city than where they camped out the last time. Nothing has changed here, not even the smell. It’s as if none of the trees bloomed yet only he knew, of course, that they had. He hated being in this place. He could hear the rest of his group following him, Brody’s boys walking next to him, guns drawn, their faces serious.
“There isn’t a soul left in this whole place, boys, but that man Loren spoke to. You won’t need your guns,” he snapped at them.
They nodded but kept the weapons pointing as they were.
He saw Stan running to them, waving his arms and smiling. Poor bastard missed them. Only he stopped waving and smiling when he saw the Alliance soldiers with their guns drawn like that.
Riley got in front of the boys, holding his hands up. “I need you to put those away and go to the back, please, and whatever you do, don’t pull the guns out again.”
And they did, no questions asked.
He ran up to Stan and hugged him, smiling at him. “Don’t mind those boys. They are with us, and they are good kids. They are actually with Brody, whom you haven’t met, and he looks like them but he isn’t. I’m making very little sense now.”
Stan grinned at him and they went into the building they camped out at when they were here last.
Brody stood next to him in the elevator and he saw his face go hard, and then he turned away from everybody, panting. He grabbed him but Brody just shook his head and then the doors opened and they were out. He sent everyone to the large room with the drawing in it and stayed with his friend.
“It’s not what you think, Riley. I’m okay. I just wasn’t expecting it to feel like that. It was… I don’t know how to explain it. I’ll get used to it,” he whispered.
He didn’t want to press further. Maybe he was afraid of heights or small, fast-moving boxes. Whichever it was, he would tell him if it became important enough for him to know.
The room hasn’t changed at all since they were here last and he wished he was smart enough to file them all into the room on the other side, the one without the bloody thing Stan drew on the wall. He turned away from it, had to turn away from it, and he caught Brody staring at the damn wall, his eyes large, and then looking at Laurel, a question in his eyes. Laurel just nodded softly and turned away.
“I put a few things together for you for the broken kid. I don’t know if it’ll be enough but that’s all I could find. We should go whenever you are all ready. Maybe, not all of us. Ella and two people to hold him down and if he’s got somebody else he wants to take, just in case. Sorry, I shouldn’t have said it like that. I just say whatever pops into my head.” He was looking at Brody apologetically.
“I am not an idiot, Stan. It’s okay. I am glad you just say what comes to mind. It makes this easier. I’ll take Riley and Drake if they are okay with it. I’m good with that. I am ready if everyone else is.”
Laurel was watching him—tears in her eyes—but she didn’t move toward him, just stood there looking at the back of his head. He couldn’t do this to her, what he was doing. She didn’t deserve this.
“Brody, can I have a minute,” he snapped at him, walked out into the hallway, and leaned on the wall, just far enough away to where the others couldn’t hear them through the door.
Brody stopped a few steps away from him looking too calm, given what was about to happen.
“You have to let her come, and I know you know that. You can’t do this to her,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound angry.
“It’s between me and Laurel. You need to leave it alone.”
And he couldn’t help himself after that. “No, Brody, it isn’t. She is your girlfriend or whatever you are but she is my friend, and right now, you are hurting my friend. So no, I can’t leave it alone. And, more importantly, I don’t understand why you’re punishing her for trying to save your bloody life. That’s all she did.”
Brody stared at him in his angry way. “Are we done here? I’ll take Trelix and Drake. I don’t want you there,” he spat at him and turned away.
Riley ran out in front of him, his hands up, stopping him. “We’re not done. I don’t know where that switch is between Brody I know and love and this soldier Brody I don’t understand, but please, find it and switch it back because you’re not being you now, not to any of us, and I can’t stand to watch you do what you are doing. Not to Laurel. You can punish me all you want, but she doesn’t deserve this from you.” He was almost panting, so he stopped himself, his voice quieter when he spoke again. “Let me make it simple for you. She shot you, so if you die from this, she’ll spend the rest of her life with that. You can’t leave her with that. You just can’t. Now, we are done.” He walked back to the room, not hearing Brody’s footsteps behind him, but he didn’t care. He was too angry at him to want to turn around.
Brody finally walked in and he watched him walk over to Laurel and whisper something to her. She took his hand and he knew he made it okay for her to go with him. And when they were filing out of the room, Brody stopped and looked at him, old-Brody-like. “I’d rather it was you, Riley if you still want to do it, but I’ll understand if you don’t.”
Stan did that magic thing with all the lights again, flipping them on, before they got through all the dark places in this huge building. They were in the room he remembered, Ella doing whatever she had to do with all the metal things. Brody was leaning against the wall still holding Laurel’s hand, watching. Stan pulled some kind of a scanner out of his bag and walked over to Ella, explaining to her what it was and how to use it. Riley didn’t understand what half of it meant. He trusted the crazy scientist not to kill his best friend, at least not on purpose. Ella nodded after a while and went back to whatever she was doing.
Stan walked over to Brody and handed him a bunch of little pills.
Brody shook his head at him.
“You need to take these, kid. They’ll put you to sleep. That’s all we have here and even that might not be enough, but that’s all we can do.”
Brody dropped the pills on his palm, looking at Stan. “For how long? How long will they knock me out for?”
“A day, maybe two.”
Brody counted out half the pills and handed the rest to Stan.
He knew he was going to argue with him like he did with Drake that time, so he gently pulled him away from Brody, whispering, “It’s okay, Stan. I promise you won’t get anywhere with him. Just get him some water for those. He’ll be all right.”
Ella seemed ready. Brody leaned in and quickly kissed Laurel on the lips. She looked like she was going to cry at any moment and he hoped she’d wait until Brody was asleep. He watched him take his shirt off, not saying anything to anybody, and lie down, letting Ella strap him in. She had him take the pills and they waited until it looked like he was asleep and then Ella was running the scanner thing over his chest, making marks on him with something that looked like a pen but probably wasn’t, drawing lines on his chest.
She called him and Drake over and they pressed their hands on Brody’s shoulders, holding him down in case he moved, in case he woke up. He saw Laurel turn away when Ella cut into one of the lines she drew, and there was blood everywhere, not like it was with Drake, and he was worried something was wrong, so he watched Ella’s face, but she seemed calm enough. She was running the scanner Stan gave her over him again and it made a noise of some kind, and then she was putting something into him under all the cuts she made in his chest—a glowing skinny metal rod—and moving it around, watching the scanner. Stan stood next to her, pointing, making corrections to the glowing thing, and they were at it for a long time, long enough for his hands to feel numb. And suddenly, Ella’s face didn’t look so calm anymore.
He looked at Brody and almost jumped. His eyes were wide open. He was bloody awake and nobody seemed to know what to do now.
“I am guessing
not done yet,” Brody whispered, his voice strained. “Unless you have a better idea, you should probably finish it. I’ll close my eyes again.” And he did.
Ella and Stan went back to it and he saw Laurel huddling in the corner, crying into her hands. He wished, more than anything, he didn’t make Brody bring her. Brody looked asleep, just breathing too fast for it, and his jaw was clenched, but he didn’t move and didn’t open his eyes again. Not until Ella was done stitching him up. He tried to sit up then, only he and Drake pushed him back down on the bed.
Brody ignored them, looking at Ella. “Did it work?”
Her face was drawn, tension around her eyes. “I won’t know for a little while, Brody. I’ll have to run some tests, and then we’ll know, but you should probably rest first. And maybe take the rest of those pills.”
Brody shook his head. “I’m okay, Ella. Please, run your tests. I need to know.”
And she did then, and it seemed he would be all right after all.
Laurel came up to him and tentatively put her hand in his hair.
Brody didn’t move, letting her. And after a little while, he closed his eyes, and his face relaxed a little bit.
They filed out of the room, all but Laurel, and sat in the hallway, not talking, not knowing what to say.
“I am going to get us something to drink,” Stan said, and he was gone, and he wished that he’d thought of it earlier instead of the bloody pills. Maybe, he wouldn’t have been completely awake like that.
Alliance: The Complete Series (A Dystopian YA Box Set Books 1-5): Dystopian Sci Fi Thriller Page 34
