Alliance: The Complete Series (A Dystopian YA Box Set Books 1-5): Dystopian Sci Fi Thriller

by Inna Hardison

  They walked down the main street and then turned to where smaller houses were, walking in silence. He was surprised Eryn didn’t turn the ray on to see by. He could barely tell one house from another in this darkness, but Eryn seemed to know where he was going. He finally stopped at the door of a small gray roofed house, at least he thought it was gray in this light, and opened the door.

  He walked in, Eryn going to the old piano. He stayed by the window, not facing him, not wanting to make him uncomfortable.

  After too much silence suddenly, there was this melody, one he’d never heard before, and yet there was something painfully familiar in it. He turned, watching him play, but the man had his head bowed and he did not look up.

  He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes, the little shack of their old house in Waller coming into view behind the eyelids, and then Ella’s kid face looking at him with tears in her eyes. And Ella taking him by the hand out of the shack and into the woods, running, always running, away from whatever his father beat him for that time. And when his lungs were burning from all the running, Ella’s soft voice telling him to lie down on the grass and close his eyes, and to picture something she called an ocean, dark blue never-ending water, a meeting place for all the waterfalls in the world, she told him.

  And when it didn’t hurt so much anymore, they’d slowly and silently walk back, and his mother would be making supper, dropping just a few leaves from one of those pots into whatever was cooking on the stove, and his father wouldn’t look at him or talk to him.

  A hand gently squeezed his shoulder and he flinched, Eryn’s pale face in front of him, the man smiling thinly, and then shaking his head.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Riley, and not the kind you wanted to see. Forgive me…. I played the first thing that came to mind. Most of the happier stuff I know, they made me learn it. What I’m saying is when I play for me, I play what I’ve picked up on my own, afterward. Anyway, I’m sorry,” he said very quietly, and walked out the door, giving him space.

  He put his head into his hands and just now realized there was wetness on his face. He closed his eyes, blinking the tears out of them, and thinking how nice it would be to think back on his life without all the sadness. To dream of Samson as he was, without the little grave, without the hole in his chest that he never saw, but couldn’t stop imagining after Drake told him. And his mother with those rare smiles on her face and not the always-there fear for him and Ella. And Brody, still carefree and reckless. Brody from before that damn broadcast, before all the guilt.

  Eryn was waiting for him on the porch, still and silent as he realized now the man almost always was. He knew all too well what sorts of dreams haunted him in his sleep, the things he never talked to him about, to anyone.

  He draped his arm over his shoulder as they walked back in silence, the silence he was grateful for. He caught the scent of something summery and sweet on the breeze, looked at Eryn’s face, and grinned at him.

  “When was the last time you went swimming?”

  The man stopped, staring at him, surprised, and shook his head. “I… I don’t swim,” he whispered, uncomfortable.

  He grabbed him by the arm, and took him to the river, feeling oddly excited about it. It’d been years since he went swimming at night, and he was grinning like a kid when they finally got to the bank. “Tonight, I am teaching you to swim. Someday, I hope to teach you to talk or maybe even laugh.” He smiled, jabbing him in the arm.

  Eryn looked apprehensive, afraid, but he didn’t argue with him, just silently stripped down to his boxers and waded into the water to his chest, facing him, eyes down, trained on the dark water.

  Riley stripped and dove in, head first, spraying cool water all over Eryn, trying to get him to relax. He couldn’t remember what it felt like, not knowing how to swim, and he hoped he could do it right, the teaching of it. It seemed he just always swam somehow. He recalled dimly his mother counting the seconds he could hold his breath underwater when he was very small, but nothing after that.

  He made Eryn lie down on top of the water, face-up, cradling him under his back, and told him to slowly relax every muscle in him and that if he did it right, he wouldn’t even have to swim, he could just float on top of the water with the current and not drown. Eryn closed his eyes and he felt him go less tense after a little while, his long fingers trailing the water, and suddenly his face changed and he looked like he couldn’t breathe, and then he was gasping, panicking. He grabbed him and stood him up, the man gulping in air as if he had drowned. It didn’t make any sense for him to do that, but whatever it was that made him panic like that, he didn’t want to do that to him again.

  He walked him out onto the bank without a word and then dried himself off with his flimsy shirt as best he could, watching him. Eryn stood still, not moving anything, but his hands were in fists, head down.

  “Hey,” he walked over, trying to hand him his clothes.

  “I’ll find my way back, Riley. You should go,” Eryn whispered, not looking at him, embarrassed.

  “I can’t do that. I’ll take you back, whenever you’re ready. Whatever happened to you out there, you don’t have to tell me. I won’t pry. But I am taking you back,” he said sharply, set the clothes down by him on the dry sand, and walked away, letting him be.

  He was fully dressed and dry and ready to go back, feeling exhausted enough to maybe sleep for a few hours when Eryn finally started putting his clothes on.

  “I’m ready,” he said very quietly, still not quite looking at him. It would be a long walk back, he thought, and it was, long and silent.

  He could tell Ams wasn’t back yet as soon as he walked into the house, and he was tempted to go to Brody’s to get her, but he knew he shouldn’t do that, not yet anyway.

  Eryn walked over to the window and stood peering into the darkness, not moving a muscle. He watched him, hoping he’d talk to him after all, but he didn’t say a word, just stood motionless at the dark window and he was too damn tired to keep waiting. He sighed and was about to go to bed when Eryn suddenly turned and looked at him.

  “One of the punishments they used… they’d hold my head underwater for a long time, at least it seemed like a long time, and I’d panic and breathe the water in, and it hurt like hell doing that. I don’t know how to not be afraid of it. I should have told you before. I am sorry for that, for scaring you. If you still want to try to teach me, I am okay with it, I’ll let you. But I’ll understand if you can’t.”

  He walked over to him, Eryn not dropping his eyes, not hiding now. “I’ll teach you anything you want, anything that I can. But you can’t keep things like this from me. You could have bloody drowned tonight, and it would have been on me. I need to know you didn’t mean to do that because it doesn’t make any sense that you’d walk out there like that if it scared you that much. I need to know if you still want out. I won’t let you use me for that,” he said sharply.

  He could see his jaw tense and his eyes dart down for a beat, but then he seemed calm and he was looking at him again. “I do, but I’m trying my best not to. I’m tired, and frankly, never having to dream again appeals to me. I can’t promise you that I won’t do it someday, but I give you my word that I won’t use you or anyone else here to help me. I wouldn’t leave you with that. And drowning would be about the last way I’d want to go,” he said quietly and stuck his hand out.

  Riley shook it, surprised by the man’s honesty.

  “Can I ask you a personal question?”

  Eryn nodded. One small, slow nod.

  “Did you love her?” He knew his voice was shaky, couldn’t help that.

  Eryn blanched but didn’t drop his eyes. “Not in the way you’re asking. I didn’t expect to care for her at all at first, and then I did, just not in the way you do. I don’t know how to explain it. I loved things about her, the way I guess it feels to love a friend, only I never really had that. I see the way you look at her and I don’t think I ever felt that ab
out anybody.”

  He smiled a small smile at the man and nodded.

  The sky was still dark, but barely, and he considered not sleeping at all, but he was too bloody tired from all the walking he did today and from all the worrying about everybody.

  He climbed into bed without bothering to undress and closed his eyes, thinking of little Blanche who looked like Samson snoring softly in the corner of the other room, trying to picture Ams’ face when she finally got to meet it. He drifted off with Samson’s puppy face looking up at him with those always guilty eyes he had, the feel of soft fur under his fingers, and for the first time in years, he didn’t see him with the hole in his chest, didn’t see the empty coat rack, the blurry words in yellow on the swinging door, or Samson’s collar on the floor.

  He slept with slightly sticky wetness of a soft puppy tongue licking his hand, and a girl’s voice calling out to him from the darkness, telling him that it’ll be alright, her warm hands on his back washing him gently as she kept whispering those words to him and he couldn’t tell if it was Ella’s voice, or Ams’, or his mother’s, but it didn’t matter for some reason. It only mattered that he believed it and that it made him feel at peace.

  Epilogue

  Riley, January 5, 2245, New Reston.

  He watched Loren give the signal that they were good to go. The rest of them huddled in that large room in the office tower, the one that still had their names on the wall in Stan’s surprisingly neat handwriting, watching the screen of the broadcast. They wanted to see it the way everyone else would, and the girls flat out refused to go to that field unless they had to again….

  Eryn was speaking, softly, quietly, staring directly into the lens. They wanted him to go first, his story being the longest and the most gruesome. He didn’t flinch, his voice steady through all of it, even when he spoke of Alerton putting a bullet into that little girl’s head or talking about horrific punishments he endured. It was the first time most of them heard any of it, the younger kids gaping at him.

  Brandon and Loren were up next, and then Lancer and Max, and they kept theirs short, not wanting to have this drag on. And then one by one all these little kids stood up and walked over to where the camera was, holding hands. Telan was in the lead, staring into the lens unblinking, his gray eyes calm. The few dozen of them standing there like that sent as clear a message as any. These kids were blond and dark and olive-skinned and they were all standing there, telling the strangers watching them on their various screens in towns and cities they’d never been to their stories. Most of them were orphans for one reason or another, and their stories were a few shaky lines at the most.

  Eryn came back and flicked on a holo he’d been working on for a long time that very quickly explained the lies they've been fed about the drastic differences between Zoriner and Alliance DNA, behavior, abilities, but he did it all softly, did it with the full understanding of why the elders at the Councils felt they had no choice when it all started, and strangely, it made it more believable than when Drake did it.

  He glanced at Ams’ face, streaks of water on it, Laurel’s arm over her. Brody wasn’t watching anymore, his back to the screen, eyes on the empty street down below.

  And finally, it was over. It had taken them almost four months to reach out to all of the Council members and get them and their families into Reston. Two of the twelve refused to even listen to them, and three others told them in no uncertain terms that they fully believed in the righteousness of what the Council had been doing, but they expected that much. The others were currently in hiding in the various empty houses in Reston, under guard.

  They made sure the Eagles knew they had the bulk of the Alliance Elected Council, and they dropped that bit of info into the broadcast as well, so there was no way the Eagles could just nuke the city. The next move was up to the Council.

  They all knew nothing would change overnight, even if everything went in their favor. Knew that it would still take years to wipe out any resentments that have been bred into generations, but they knew, too, that however this turned out, they had taken the first step. That if nothing else, youngsters who watched what transpired today, who listened to these strange stories would make lesser soldiers against them because of it. For now, all they could do was wait.

  He felt a heavy hand on his shoulder, the sweet smell of sage on it. He smiled, looking up at the giant.

  “I want to show you something, Riley,” Drake whispered, and he followed him without a word. Drake took him quickly to the kitchen they used here before, the large steel table covered in smallish round cakes, different kinds, too, by the looks of it. Drake was grinning. “I think we ought to celebrate. I had a bunch of the younger kids help me, so don’t think I stayed up all night or anything. I’m too old for that now. Come on, kid. You know what to do,” and he jabbed him softly on the shoulder.

  “I could kiss you, Drake,” he said to the giant, smiling at him. He grabbed a tray loaded with cakes, and carried it as if it were a child, slowly, carefully. Max and Lancer and the rest of them were in the room, talking in loud excited voices, and suddenly not talking anymore. He set the stuff down on the large table without a word, Drake doing the same with his pile, and stepped back to the door, Drake’s arm around him.

  Brody walked over to the wall with all their names on it, his face serious, serene almost, and wrote, “January 5th, 2245. New Reston.”

  Nobody said a word. Nobody needed to.

  They sat around the fire at Brody’s that night for the longest time, talking quietly, drinking the plum wine Laurel kept making, though she couldn’t drink any of it herself. She looked different now, her face softer than it’s ever been, something new in her eyes, a bashfulness that wasn’t there before.

  He looked for Ams and finally spotted her in the corner, arms wrapped around Blanche, the dog snoring contentedly in the warmth of the fire and this human noise he was all too accustomed to now.

  He walked over to her, crouching by Blanche’s head, his eyes welling up for a reason he couldn’t explain. “It’s all right, Riley,” Ams said after a while in a whisper, taking his hand. He looked at her, gray eyes smiling at him, and it was. It was as all right as it would likely ever get for them. He nodded, put his head on her lap, and let this girl comfort him.

  A piece of him was dying here in this room full of people he loved, and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it but let the sadness take him. And for the first time, he knew why Eryn cried when he told him he was free, why he broke down like that….

  Ams was running her hand through his hair, softly, gently. He closed his eyes and drifted off with the scent of pine sap and the smoke reminding him of all the fires they’d shared over the years, the voices getting quieter around him, and he worried dimly that all of this would be gone when he wakes up. All these people with their soft voices, Ams’ hand in his hair, the warmness that was Blanche sleeping next to him, Laurel with her new face and the roundness in her….

  He forced himself to open his eyes and took it all in one last time, every person in this room and how they were, the peacefulness of it, the peacefulness he’d craved for so very long but that now frightened him. He caught Lancer’s eyes on him and turned his head away, but he was too late, Lancer leaning over him in a matter of seconds.

  The man unceremoniously grabbed him by the face, making him look at him for a beat, and then surprised him by planting a kiss on his forehead, looking at him strangely. “You’ll be alright, Riley. And all these people you dragged through all sorts of hell with you will be alright. I am taking you to bed.” He pulled him up, as if he weighed nothing, and pushed him gently towards the spare bedroom, Ams not following them yet.

  Lancer undressed him and pulled the blanket over him and then sat on the edge of the bed, watching him in silence for a while. “I never knew how to just be either…. Wasn’t ever any good at it, is what I’m saying. It was always easier for me at the camp and even afterward, just following orders, or doing what I ha
d to do to keep my men alive. This, what’s coming, I think it’ll be the hardest thing for all of us. We are ill-suited for anything that doesn’t involve killing someone or worrying about any of us getting killed. But there are over a hundred little kids here now, kids who will soon replace all of us, and they need the best in us. We get to teach all of these little brats how to do better than just survive, how to do better than we have,” Lancer whispered, his hand brushing the loose tangles away from his face, a smile curling his lips.

  “Go to sleep, Riley. All these unknowns rattling around that big head of yours, they’ll still be there tomorrow, I promise you. And so will all of those people in that room, and Ams, and this old son of a bitch in front of you who promised himself years ago to take care of you as if you were mine. I may not have always done a good job of it, but I’d like to have many more years of trying…. I love you, kid. Always have.” He leaned in and kissed him again, ignoring the wetness in his eyes.

  Riley squeezed his eyes shut and finally heard Lancer get up and leave the room. He let himself cry then, for all the awful things that happened that brought them here, and for every story that was broadcast to the world today, every orphaned child who now had a home in this sad city, and every Zoriner whose bones were buried in that field, Zoriners whose homes they lived in…. And he hoped that Lancer was right. Hoped they were decent enough to do right by all these kids, so they didn’t grow up so bloody broken.

  He tried to picture what it would look like: he and Brody teaching the kids everything they knew about fishing instead of training them to fight. And maybe this ghost of a man, Eryn, would teach the little brats to make happy noises on that piano, and Ams with her love for all the old books and buildings, she could give them all of that. He tried to picture the small details of it, but he couldn’t see it like that in his head, couldn’t see any of it clearly enough to make it seem real.