Paradise of Lead Trilogy

by Mackenzie Morris

  Byron turns to Damien who looks just as confused and concerned as he is. "I think they shot his van."

  "Are you okay, darling? Did the big meanies with guns get you?" Isidore runs his fingers over the bullet holes and makes tiny whimpering sounds. "It's okay. It's okay. You're gonna be okay. What did you say?" He places his face on the hood. "Yes, I still think you're beautiful. You will always be beautiful to me, baby."

  Now all of Byron's suspicions are confirmed. Isidore is insane. Maybe that microchip is eating away at his brain.

  Isidore then climbs onto the hood, pulls off his shirt, and begins to passionately kiss the windshield.

  "Um . . . let's give Isidore and his van some alone time." Damien says as he takes Byron's arm and they go back into Rubble City.

  7

  Away now from the bustle and cleanup of the new destruction of Rubble City, they drive up to the top of an isolated cliff where the world is calmer and their thoughts can escape for a while. Still within walking distance, they are able to get back inside the city gates in case something happens. Damien has recovered and is asleep in the back of the van. Isidore is attempting to explain how to play blackjack to Blice who only stares unemotionally at Isidore.

  Byron and Leena joke around and talk while the sun sinks lower in the sky. After the intensity of the fighting yesterday, they finally are able to relax and enjoy some time away from it all. Byron picks Leena up in his arms and sits her on the van. He takes off his shirt and wipes down the hood of the van. "Let me clean that right quick. I don't know what Isidore did on there last night. He was really getting into it."

  She giggles and something awakens inside of Byron. Could this be what he doesn't want to face? When he is with her, something comes alive within his mind and his soul. No, it can't be. He has some other things on his mind first.

  "So . . . where did you learn to hold your own against inquisitors like you did yesterday? That was amazing. I don't know of many men who can fight like you do."

  Leena blushes and shrugs. "I don't know. Maybe there are just a lot of things about me that people will never understand."

  "I'd like to know more about you." Byron says as he traces her pink lips with his fingertips.

  Leena pulls away from him and looks at the ground. "Oh, well . . . there's not much to tell."

  "Do you have any family?"

  "Not that I know of and if I do, then there's a reason I don't know about them or care to." Leena says.

  Byron rubs her leg. "You never did tell me your last name."

  "Because it doesn't matter."

  A foreign and tantalizing idea creeps into Byron's mind. Should he kill it off before it spreads or is it what needs to be done? "What if . . . what if you could have a different last name?"

  Leena looks at him with her wide brown eyes. "Byron . . ."

  Byron looks into her eyes. He almost says something. He almost believes the flowing emotions in his heart. He opens his mouth to speak and ask a question, but he turns away. "Never mind."

  She moves closer to him and takes his hand. "Are you-"

  "No." He lights a cigarette.

  "Oh. Well, if you were, I'd say yes." Leena says.

  "M.A.G.E.s can't get married."

  "Isidore's a priest."

  Byron runs his fingers through his hair. "Forget about it."

  "Okay."

  "Besides, people who get married have to love each other." Byron says.

  Leena pulls her hand away and sighs as she leans against the windshield. She starts drawing something idly with her fingers in the dust that clings there.

  He said something wrong, didn't he?

  When she does speak, her tone is altered and hollow. "I used to believe in romance."

  Oh hell.

  "We live in the wasteland. Forgive me if I am still tethered by childhood dreams and clouded visions of reality."

  "That's really pretty." Byron says.

  "I used to read a lot before the Inquisition started burning the books." Leena says. "I thought it would be good for me, but all it has done is give me a false sense of hope for a world where happiness will never exist. What are we doing here, Byron? What do you want from me?"

  What does he want? He wants her. That's the one definitive answer he can think of to a question like that. "I want you at my side."

  "That's the best answer I'm going to get, isn't it?"

  "I'm not your knight in shining armor." Byron says. "I don't do the whole love thing. I can never love you."

  Leena is quiet for a few minutes as she puts her machete down and closes her eyes. Byron watches the sun dancing on her eyelashes and the tiny slivers of light in her hair. What can he say to make her happy? That's what he wants, but he can't tell her what she wants to hear.

  She sighs and takes his hand. "I see. But you can make love to me, right?"

  Byron pushes her down on the hood of the van and rolls over on top of her. "Of course. There's a difference."

  "Is there?"

  "You don't have to love someone to make love to them. Love isn't real, Leena."

  "Then what do you feel for me?" Leena asks as Byron pulls at her shirt.

  "I care about you very much. I will protect you and keep you safe. That is worth so much more than some fake mythical emotion. I deal in hard, real life facts and love isn't in my range of feelings because it's something that women make up."

  "Then will you make love to me, Byron?" Leena asks then unbuckles his belt.

  "All you had to do was ask." As Byron moves over her body and becomes lost in her again, something catches his attention. "Are you crying?"

  "No, I'm fine." She says.

  Not this. Not right now. He's already too far past being able to stop. "I don't want to stop."

  "Then don't." Leena says as she looks away from him. "You'll do what you want anyway."

  * * *

  Byron holds Leena close to him and they dangle their legs off the side of the canyon where the fog rises from the trickling river below them in the pink evening sunlight.

  "Byron, I love you."

  He doesn't answer back even though his soul is screaming for him to say something. But he can't. His rational mind holds him back and keeps him silent even as Leena looks up at him with her large begging eyes, waiting for him to answer and acknowledge what he has been holding back. He doesn't say a word. Instead, Byron watches the tiny birds soaring overhead and the glitter of the sunlight on the shards of broken glass littering the canyon edge. And far below them, countless lives have ended when from this very spot, hopeless men and women have taken one final step to end their insurmountable suffering. There is no love in a world as bleak and destroyed as this one. Maybe hundreds of years ago when the earth was still blessed with forests, rivers, and grass, maybe then there could have been love. Not now. To even profess such a thing would only serve to mar the purity of the legend of it all. Any attempts at love in this time are a mockery to what Byron has read in books from before the war. So he holds Leena close and hopes that she can understand why he can never love her.

  "Why drag me into this and keep me here?" Leena asks. "How can you be so loving and tender with me if you don't love me? If you want me to go, I'll leave. I'll find some work in Rubble City and you can go back to being with the kind of women you're used to. I won't be angry. I just want the truth. I see glimpses of the way you feel for me, but then you cover it up and hide it away. Please tell me you love me, Byron. That's all I want. I want to be loved."

  "I can't tell you that. I'm sorry, but I will never love you. You mean so much to me, Leena. But love isn't something I can ever feel. No one will ever be good enough for me to tell them I love them. Call me selfish or blind, I don't care. If I loved you, I would know it. I've never loved anyone and I don't plan on starting now. I don't love you so I'm not going to lie. I'd appreciate it if you stopped pestering me about it."

  "What happened to you in your past to make you this way?" Leena asks. "Why are you so cold to p
eople?"

  He's not going to have this conversation. Besides, there's nothing to tell. There's nothing wrong with him. He has nothing to hide about his past and nothing that will explain the way he feels. "Drop it, Leena."

  "No. Look at me." She takes his face in her hands and looks into his eyes. "Why won't you tell me what is hurting you so much to make you like this? You are the only man I have ever loved and seeing you this way is tearing me apart."

  "You know how I feel about you. I shouldn't have to give it some label and make it into something that doesn't exist."

  Leena lets go of him and moves forward towards the edge of the cliff. "What would you do if I jumped?"

  "I won't let you jump." Byron says.

  "What if I fell?"

  "I will never let you fall."

  "Will you miss me when I die?"

  "Of course." Byron says. "If I lose you, I will lose a part of myself. Just because I won't say it, doesn't mean I don't feel a longing, deep connection with you. You are the most important person in my life and I don't think I can live without you. All of my life, I have been chasing after something that has been just out of my reach. I thought I had it with Aleesha and Meygan. But I didn't. I have it with you. I don't know what kind of crazy fate stuff had to happen for us to meet when we did, but I'm grateful and indebted to whatever force brought us together."

  "Normal people would call that love." Leena says.

  Byron shakes his head. "Well, I'm not normal and I will never call it love."

  "Do you know how much this hurts me?"

  "It shouldn't. It doesn't change how I feel about you." Byron takes her hand and pulls her back towards him. "Now get away from the edge. I can't chance losing you. God, you are so beautiful in this light."

  Leena kisses Byron's cheek before standing and brushing the dust from her pants. She grabs her bag and slings it over her shoulder. "I'm going to stay in town tonight with a friend."

  Byron stands and takes her hand. "A friend?"

  "Yes, a friend. I didn't know that she lived here and I haven't seen her in years. She runs a charity kitchen for the people who can't afford to buy their own food. She has a greenhouse where she grows her own vegetables."

  "Be careful." Byron says.

  "I'll be fine." She pulls her hand away from him. "You've seen me fight. You have nothing to worry about, silly."

  "You don't have the best track record of defending yourself. Remember what happened the other day? What happened to you fighting back then?"

  "I did fight, Byron." Leena says. "I told you that I got away then I got lost in the desert. I don't plan on getting lost in the city. Trust me." She grabs Byron's face in her hands. "Do you trust me?"

  Byron looks into her brown eyes and sighs. He can't expect her to trust him if he can't trust her. "Okay. I trust you. If anything happens, you hide until I get there. Listen, the reason I am so protective is because I am terrified that something will happen out of my control and I will lose you. I can't lose you."

  Leena smiles and puts her hair up in a ponytail. "Thank you for caring. I appreciate it, but I really don't need to be corralled like a horse all the time. You can let go of the leash. This dog can bite." She gives him one last smile then jumps out of the van and takes off towards the city.

  Byron watches her until he hears something in the very back of the van. He leans over the seats and sees Damien curled up and looking out the window. What now? He crawls over the seats and sits next to Damien. "Damien? Are you crying? Did something happen?"

  Damien wipes his eyes on the back of his hand. "No. I just can't deal with this very well on my own. I miss Maria."

  "Your fiancé?"

  "Yes." Damien says. "Seeing those inquisitors slaughtering people like that . . . it hurts to know that I was almost one of them. I could have been there right alongside them, killing without a second thought. So, what do we do from here? Stay in Rubble City until more inquisitors show up then fight them too? I overheard you talking with Isidore the other night and were you two serious? Do you think we can fight back?"

  "It's always a possibility." Byron says. "I don't know how many people would want to come with us, but it's a possibility."

  The silence spreads around them as the sun starts to set and the glowing orange in the air cascades down on the sand dunes and rock formations in the distance. Byron studies Damien. They may be the same age, but something about Damien is more youthful and innocent as well as more experienced and deteriorating. Damien watches the lights flicker to life behind the lead walls of Paradise, now barely visible across the expanse of the wasteland.

  "I want to go back." Damien says as he places his hand on the window.

  "To where?"

  "To Paradise. I want to feel the comfort of those walls, the warmth of my bed, and the arms of Maria. I want to see my children again, if they are even alive. I miss my friends, the places I'd go after work, the happiness. I miss that the most of all. I'm not the man I used to be and it hurts to know that if I had let Isidore die, I would still have the life I want."

  "Was it worth it?" Byron asks. "If you knew back then what would happen to you because of it, would you have saved him?"

  Damien holds his knees to his chest and looks out over the sparkling lights of Rubble City. The wind catches in his blonde hair and the hazy glow of the night sky shimmers on his tear-streaked cheeks. "Am I a bad person if I say that I'm not sure?"

  "No. It makes you human."

  "Isidore is my friend, but I lost everything. Everything. Maria's dead. I know it. They wouldn't have let her live. My children were the truly innocent ones. Both boys. They looked just like me. Xavier was three and Zach was one." He holds his face in his hands. "Maria and I were days away from getting married. She had her dress and she was so excited. I can still see her smiling face and smell her skin. I got too prideful and thought that I could stand up for someone and they would see that there was no point in killing. I was wrong. Maybe I should have let Isidore die." He looks up and sighs. "But even as I say it, I know that wouldn't have solved anything."

  "Have you talked to Isidore after finding out that he was the boy you saved?"

  "No. What would I say?" Damien asks. "What I did should speak for itself. I don't know if he cares or not, but I did. I still do. I know he's hurting and I know that if I had tried to do something earlier, I could have stopped the Inquisition from killing his parents. I could have helped, at least."

  "There's nothing you could have done to stop that one, Damien."

  "And this is why I end up losing everything I care about. I care too much."

  "It's good to know that someone can still care about people." Byron says as he puts his hand on Damien's back.

  Damien looks up at Byron with tears in his eyes. "Did I do the right thing?"

  "You did. And even if Isidore never talks to you about it, I know he's grateful."

  "You know, when I met you in prison, I had no idea that you were such a good person, Byron."

  "The truth is, I'm not." Byron says with a small smile.

  "Well, you put up a good act, then. Thanks. Hey, would it be weird if I asked you to hold me?"

  Byron puts his arm around Damien's shoulders and pulls him close. "Not at all. It's gonna be all right. One way or another we will find a way to make this right. They can't push us around forever."

  "Can I ever return to Paradise?" Damien asks.

  "I don't have an answer for that. But I'm sure that if God's paradise is a real place, then you will be welcome there."

  Damien holds onto Byron's arm and they sit together under the pale moonlight, two men thinking back over their lives and being the strength for the other to continue on, to keep looking forward past the darkness of the world around them.

  8

  When Byron wakes up, Leena's laughter fills the air and he smiles. Wait. Who is she talking to? He rolls over and peeks outside the van. Leena and Isidore are holding hands and laughing. This isn't good. Surely Leena di
dn't take what Byron said the wrong way, right? He slides open the door and fixes his hair as he glares at Isidore.

  "Good morning, Sleeping Beauty." Isidore says as he points to the front door. "You should check the morning news for the day."

  "Morning news? What the hell are you talking about?"

  "Just read the note on the window."

  Byron goes to the window then pulls down the note and reads it.

  Isidore's New Rules:

  1. No sex in the van.

  2.No sex around, under, on top of, near, against, behind, or any other prepositions you can think of involving the van.

  3. Oh, and no sex with the van, just in case that wasn't clear.

  4. No touching my radio. (That means you, Blice McSage.)

  5. No stealing my tequila. (That means you, Byron Erikson.)

  6. No pretending these rules don't exist and hiding this paper under the seats like you did your half-eaten sandwich. (That means you, Damien Montgomery.)

  7. No sex with my radio, my tequila, or this paper. I really shouldn't have to put this one.

  8. Leena is my gorgeous goddess whose skin rivals the finest silk blankets of Paradise. She is the most beautiful woman in the entire universe and Byron should really tell her how he feels and stop being an ass so they can get married.

  "Leena made me add the last one." Isidore says.

  Byron rubs his eyes and tries to fend off the headache growing behind his eyes. "Of course she did."

  "Are my rules clear enough for you now, Mr. Erikson?" Isidore asks. "Don't think for one minute that I didn't see or hear you two having sex on my van last night. You two are disgusting. I guess I have to find some worse punishment for you because washing the van didn't go so well."

  "What about Leena? She never gets in trouble because of it."

  "I have arranged certain . . . payments from Leena for her part in the crime."

  This doesn't sound good. "What are you talking about? I've already claimed her. She's mine."

  "Not everything has to be about that, Byron." Isidore says as he starts the van and everyone closes the doors.