Brody mouthed that it’ll be all right to Drake and Loren, who now both had tape across their faces and were looking at him with fear in their eyes. Nothing more he could do about that. He felt another prick from the knife and forced himself to keep his eyes on Brandon’s.
“I’ve thought of how this would go when I finally caught you for years, you know? I knew I’d get you eventually, made it a point to, since that day,” Brandon leaned his face closer to him, “but I can’t bring myself to do what you did to me. Not even after living with it for all these years...”
Brody swallowed, hard, then glanced at his friends one last time. “Let them go. You have me, and clearly, I’m not going anywhere. You can do to me whatever the hell you want. Let them go,” he said just for the man in front of him.
Brandon took a small step back, a muscle twitching in his jaw. “Give me your hand.”
Brody looked down reflexively, his hands in fists at his sides. He lifted his eyes, watching the man in front of him carefully. He felt a shiver run through his body, made him want to curl up into a tight ball keeping all his parts tucked in, protected. He shook his head, put his hands behind his back.
Brandon sneered, said, “I’m told there are more nerves going through the hand than almost any other part of the body. That’s why so many people over the centuries couldn’t free themselves when a knife or a nail was driven through their hands into a cross…. It simply hurt too much.” He motioned to the tree behind Brody, stared at him again full-on. “Your hand!”
Brody shut his eyes. He wished this man would just put a bullet in his head, but he knew from the first it wouldn’t be any kind of a dignified, soldier's death. Yet, he didn’t see this coming. He cursed, opened his eyes and threw his right hand up against the tree, palm open, fingers splayed out. A small part of him hoped this man couldn't bring himself to do this. That he’d just stab him through the heart and be done with it. He tried to breathe normally to keep himself from shaking, tried not to think about what was coming. But it was all too much. “Bloody do it!” he snapped.
Brandon nodded and in one quick move drove the blade through the middle of his hand and into the tree behind him.
Brody screamed and shut his eyes at the blinding pain, couldn’t help it. He felt tears streaming down his face and he was shaking, but there wasn’t a thing he could do about any of it. It hurt to bloody breathe, hurt in a way nothing he’d been through in his whole life ever had.
Brandon’s cold, gray eyes stared at him with contempt when he looked at him again. “This is how you’ll sleep tonight, and likely every night until I get bored enough with you to kill you,” he spat at him, and then motioned to his men.
They grabbed Loren and Drake and took them away from the clearing, Brandon following them without a word or a glance back.
Brody let himself cry and whimper when they were gone. He couldn't bring himself to look at his hand yet, but he felt that the bleeding had slowed some. He didn’t think he would bleed to death from it, not until he pulled the knife out. The dying fire gave off just enough light for him to see a few meters in front of him but not much beyond that and it was dimming fast. He forced himself to look at where his mangled hand was pinned above him. The handle of the knife was worn, soft leather; better than metal that. Less slippery. He turned his body ever so slightly toward the knife and felt on the verge of blacking out from the agonizing pain. He forced himself to keep his eyes open and on the handle, calculating the fastest way to reach the damn thing with his left hand. Reach over, pull the thing out, breathe. He could do this. He had to do this. He wished there was something he could bite down on and almost laughed at his own stupidity. He grabbed a wad of his t-shirt and stuffed it into his mouth, gritting his teeth over the clump hard enough to hurt. He counted himself down from ten and suddenly he was on the ground in a barely conscious heap, the knife in his left hand, his other one gushing blood. He screamed into the soggy fabric, his whole body shaking from the pain, from the shock of it, but at least he was free. The blood. He had to deal with the blood. Then find the son of a bitch and kill him so he could free his men and all the kids.
He spat the t-shirt out and pulled it off, careful not to touch his right hand. He grabbed on to the hem with his teeth and used the blade to cut a long dry strip of the fabric, then wrapped it as tightly as he could around the wound, doing his best not to look at it too closely. He leaned against the tree and closed his eyes for a few precious minutes afterward, needing to get his breathing under control and his head to clear. Finally, he was ready.
The fire was still going, embers glowing their vicious liquid orange. He had to find them, had to find Drake and Loren, and maybe with some luck, they could save all those kids. He could see their faces, could hear Gregory sobbing. That poor kid was likely still crying wherever they had him, thinking all of this was his fault. An owl hooted in the distance, its strange voice reminding him of what he had to do to get to Drake. He took a deep breath and did his perfect imitation of a whippoorwill – three short trills followed by a longer one. He walked slowly, silently through the woods alongside the trail Brandon’s men had taken, listening. After what seemed like too long of Drake not responding, he stopped and called out again and kept walking. He saw a small stream of smoke after a while, Drake still not sounding back, but he knew where they were now. He just didn’t know what to do with the knowing.
Seven of Brandon’s men were at the fire. He didn’t see Brandon among them. There were a few dozen tents scattered around the huge clearing, so unless these people all used one tent per person, there were far too many of them to fight, even if he managed to free Loren and Drake and they could get their hands on some of these men’s weapons. He crouched behind the thick brush and watched the men, trying to catch snippets of their chatter, hoping it’ll lead him to the tent Drake and Loren were in. But the wind was all wrong and their voices didn’t carry, and he never got all that good at reading lips. He leaned in closer, crouching very low, making sure not to make any noise, and pressed his head against the trunk of a birch sapling, its tender, sweet smell making him think of Laurel. She loved these trees so much she insisted they plant some in front of their house in Reston. And they did, only they were still tiny spotted sticks with barely any branches on them.
He felt a hand land heavily on his shoulder, and an unmistakable shape of a gun barrel dig into the back of his neck and he froze. “Did you really think I’d walk away leaving you with everything you’d need to run? Drop the knife and stand up!”
Brody didn’t move, couldn’t bring himself to face any more pain just yet. He felt the familiar jolt go through him, and he let himself fall then, looking up at the stars for the briefest of moments before his eyes closed on him, but he could still see their shapes moving slowly behind his eyelids, floating softly as if on water.
Water was everywhere on him when he came to, buckets of it being poured over him in quick succession. He was chained to something, a wall maybe, he couldn’t tell yet, but he was definitely inside a cave. The wall behind him had that textured, rough feel to it. A few holes cut into the opposite wall provided the only light source, and he could tell by the beams shooting through them that it was early afternoon. He took all of that in through slitted eyes not wanting to let whoever was pouring water on him know that he was awake, buying himself a bit more time. The water was ice cold, making him forget about the hole in him, and he wanted to savor not feeling that pain for a little longer.
“He is awake, sir.” Brody heard a timid voice from right in front of him, and he opened his eyes, Brandon’s steely gray ones watching him. The man with the timid voice picked up the empty buckets and left the cave.
“What would it take for you to let all my people go? I won’t try to run anymore, don’t have it in me. Not that I could, either. So you have me. Let them go. Please, just let them go,” he said in a tired voice, careful not to sound angry at him. He wasn’t all that angry either, knew why Brandon hated him as much as
he did, and that it wasn’t just because he hurt him with that knife all those years ago. It was because he thought he killed his mother.
“I did. I let them go this morning. We kept all the weapons they had, and for some stupid reason, none of them had any comms on them, so they can’t call for help. It’ll take them at least a day to get back, too long to rescue you, even if they could find you here. In case you didn’t notice, we’re not at the campsite anymore.” Brandon walked away from him, pacing the length of the small chamber, his hands clasped behind his back.
“Thank you.” He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. He believed him. Believed that everybody was safe, so it was just him who would die. That was all right….
Brandon was still pacing. He could hear his measured, soft steps, back and forth. He was unbearably tired from all of this, his hand hurting worse than anything again. He needed for it to just be over so he could stop bracing for the pain. So he could let go.
“I am deathly tired.”
The man stopped pacing and looked at him, his eyebrows angling in surprise.
“What I’m trying to say is I won’t be terribly entertaining for much longer, so get on with it. Whatever you want to do to me, you won’t get much enjoyment out of it if I keep passing out on you, and I feel like I might,” he said and closed his eyes again.
The chains moved, their metallic clanging fraying his nerves. He felt hands on him snapping biters around his wrists and his knees buckled at the pain. He let them drag him like that, not having the will to do much beyond that. After a while, he was pushed to the ground, a cot under him. It didn’t make any sense that they’d do that. He opened his eyes. Brandon was crouching by him and one of his men was fishing for something in a large bag, and then Brandon lifted his head and poured warm liquid into him, making him swallow it. He drank until there was nothing left. For a moment, he thought Brandon decided to poison him. He lay still with his eyes closed, waiting to see if he felt any kind of sick from what he just drank but it never came. He felt better, and he remembered that he hadn’t eaten since long before they grabbed them, however long ago that was. Brandon was just trying to keep him alive so he could finish him off the way he wanted to.
“I know you’re not asleep. Look at me,” Brandon said, sharply, after a while.
He did.
“It’s just us now. If you think you can take me, you should know that I have my weapons on me, and I am well-trained, so you won’t get very far with it. But you can certainly try.”
Brody shook his head. He didn’t think he’d make it out of there the way he was, even if he killed this man.
Brandon nodded, looked down for a long moment, said, “All these years I’ve been hunting you and I still don’t know why exactly. Don't know much about her... Hassinger... Tell me”—his voice turned strange, something shaky in it—“I’d like to know why I went through what I went through back then.”
He didn’t know what he could tell him, didn’t know anything about her, nothing but what she’d done to Riley and then Trina, and he didn’t see how telling him any of that would help him. “Would you mind if I sit up? It’s hard to talk like this.”
Brandon nodded and helped him sit up, leaning him against the wall they put the cot next to, Brody’s hand smacking into the wall as he did that. He cried out and dropped his head, forcing himself to just breathe. At least there were no tears this time, he thought dimly, then decided he didn’t give a shit. He could cry or scream in front of this man and not feel embarrassed about it if he needed to. It wouldn’t change anything. He looked at his hand for the first time and felt on the verge of being sick again. Someone took the wrappings off when he was out and he saw the hole in it seeping blood, his whole hand red and swollen. He shut his eyes, waiting for the pain and nausea to dull some, enough for him to be able to speak.
Brandon held a bottle of some kind of med spray and a clean bandage in his hands when he looked at him again.
“You’re going to patch me up now? So I last longer?” He shook his head, said through clenched teeth, “Don’t bother. Infections take longer to set in than I got left. And I won’t pass out on you from the pain or anything if that’s what you’re worried about, I promise.”
Brandon reached over and grabbed onto his wrist. He tried to wrench it away, gasping at the pain, but the man held on, not budging.
“Stop fighting me,” Brandon said, looking at him.
He felt his vision go blurry at the pain and he wished for a brief moment his heart would just give out, but he could feel his pulse throbbing through the wound in his hand, loud and strong and fast. No such luck, then. He stared at the man, whispered through gritted teeth, “Let go… I don’t want you bloody touching me.”
Brandon flinched, looked down for a small moment, then uncurled Brody’s fingers from the fist he was making. That must have been where all the new pain came from. A thin stream of fresh blood ran through the hole, dripping onto the dirt below. He could hear each drop hit the floor, softer and softer now. The pain, too, was becoming more and more fuzzy by the second. He heard Brandon talking but the words were too far away to catch, too quiet, and it suddenly felt too dark to see him clearly, too dark to see anything.
Brandon held a small box under his nose when he came to and it took him a few seconds to remember where he was and all that happened. He looked at his hand, bandaged and lying in his lap. The biters were gone. Brandon sat in front of him looking at him, his hands empty. Stupid of him. He tried to picture himself lunging at the man, jabbing him in the throat.
“Do it, if you need to,” Brandon said, calmly, as if reading his mind.
“I wish I could,” Brody said honestly. He looked down, hating how crippled he felt.
A long pause, then, “You’re right-handed.“
It wasn’t a question, and it suddenly hit Brody how much of an idiot he’d been. He should have given him his other hand, of course he should have. He might have had half a chance now if he had.
Brody lifted his head, stared at the man. “Bloody get on with it!”
Brandon ran his hands through his hair, looked him in the eye. “Will you tell me? About Hassinger…. I’d rather not hurt you to get it out of you. I just need to know.”
Brody watched him in silence for a beat. He seemed oddly unlike his bloody mother as he sat there in front of him, doing all he could not to look at his hand. He didn’t think this man had it in him to torture him and thought briefly of denying him, or making him beg for it. Maybe, he could trade on it for his life, though that seemed the unlikeliest thing of all. He didn’t think he’d let him go if their roles were reversed. Not if he thought he’d killed his family or a loved one. It just wasn’t done. But mostly, he felt ashamed for what he’d done to him all these years ago, when he was just a kid. He’d blocked it for all this time so he could live with himself. Yet, here they were.
“Will you let me go if I tell you?”
“No.”
Brody laughed. “You could have lied, you know? I might have even believed you....” He moved to stand, Brandon standing with him. “I don’t want to tell you about her. Don’t see how it would help me to do that, considering. But since you don’t seem like the lying type, I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll tell you what I know, all of it, and it’s not much, so it’ll be quick, and then you put a bullet in my head instead of killing me one jab at a time or whatever you had in mind. I’ll tell you what I know about your mother in exchange for a soldier’s death.”
Brandon didn’t move when he spoke, but as soon as he was done, Brandon grabbed his left hand and shook it. “All right,” he said, and took a few steps back from him, giving him space.
Brody leaned his head back and closed his eyes for a small moment, collecting his thoughts. He had to keep Laurel out of it so he quickly reworked the details of Hassinger’s death in his head to where it was him who ran the knife across her neck, but he told him everything else as it was. He took his time with it,
giving him enough details so Brandon could picture it. So he could see his mother hitting Riley with the razor whip, and then told him how she was with Trina, the way her face looked – so full of contempt – and what she said.
And how she kept shooting at that girl’s body long after she had stopped moving as if she couldn’t stop until nothing was left of her. And that he finally killed her for that more than anything; that he killed her because she laughed while she was killing somebody he loved, somebody who was decent and sweet and beautiful, and far too young to not be anymore, and who’d done nothing bad to anybody. He choked on that and dropped his eyes, fighting the guilt he felt for getting Trina killed.
Brandon didn’t make a sound while he talked, but he wasn’t looking at him anymore, his eyes trained on the floor of the cave, and then he turned and walked away from him, head down.
Brody silently waited for him to end it, and when the waiting got to him, he told him that it was the whole of it, that he didn’t know anything more.
“She was a monster after all,” Brandon finally said in a small whisper as if to himself, not facing him.
“She was,” Brody said honestly. “It doesn’t necessarily make you one. My best friend told me that once, a long time ago, when I thought that of my father. It’s not genetic, is what I’m saying. Anyway…. I’m tired and in an awful lot of pain. I’d like to get this over with.”
Brandon turned, looked at him for a long moment, then pointed toward the opening of the cave. “I’d rather do it outside,” he said and started walking.
It struck Brody as odd that he’d walk in front of him like that – exposed. He didn’t know what to make of it. It was as if Brandon was testing him in some way and risking himself to do it, and it didn’t make any kind of sense for a trained soldier to do that.
Alliance: The Complete Series (A Dystopian YA Box Set Books 1-5): Dystopian Sci Fi Thriller Page 66
