by W. A. R.
She groaned.
Her nerves were a tattered mess, fraying at the edges and leaving her desperate for some kind of simplicity, some kind of answer. She needed an ending, one way or another, and she only wanted it to be a good one, especially considering her story may be ending soon. If she were to ask herself if it would be worth it, without a doubt she would say yes…if it could bring back Brian, Shelly, and Miles, yes. And yet, in her heart the thought terrified her. She didn’t want to fail her people, but it appeared to be exactly what she was going to end up doing. She shifted on her feet, turning and glancing at the busted barn door now, having wondered back outside to her place of choice as of the past few days. She thought of her brother, questioned what he would do if put in her position, and she figured he would first tell her to kill him, to torture him, but then, he would tell her to forgive him…after all, isn’t that what their father would have done? Her heart ached. And Shelly…sweet, confused Shelly…she would tell her to follow her own instincts and do what she thought was best…that she would support Amber in whatever she decided to do. These thoughts were tearing at her. Her mind then drifted to Miles…and by this point she was nervous and to the point of tears. She closed her eyes and could make out every fine detail of the man…his broad shoulders and long arms, his athletic build and kind eyes. He had cared for her for so long, and he had been her protector, her lover, her friend…and she had never had the chance to tell him how she cared for him. She bit back the tears that formed and grimaced at the pain of her lip. Immediately she remembered Miles’s kisses and touches, how he had caressed her with everything he had, driving her mad. How had she forgotten all of this in the past week and a half? Had she completely ignored it? No, she knew she hadn’t. On those long dark nights when she couldn’t sleep her mind would drift to him, reveling in the memories that lasted the span of a lifetime. Recently, however, she had been so desperate in getting them back to her, so confused about how to do it and what needed to be done that she had simply put it all away, locking it away into a secret compartment that only she knew about. He was her voice of reason and understanding, her strength…he was a gift to her…made for her and only her…and he never knew that. She had never told him. He was her reasoning and she, his compassion.
He would tell her to do exactly what she was going to do, after little protest, of course.
With a heavy sigh, she stepped forward, lifting her foot up and over the broken door, her eyes searching the barn for Damien. She wasn’t sure why she looked for him every time she entered the barn; it wasn’t as if he were going to get up and walk away. Still, her eyes scanned over the wooden walls and the dirty floor until they rested on him. He was still filthy, as was she. It was one thing she disliked about their current situation. There wasn’t enough water to bathe, to cleanse themselves, at least not yet. Not until…she wavered on her steps when she saw George sitting there in an extra chair. What was he doing there? She asked herself, halting her forward momentum. He turned to look at her, his eyes curious and slightly accusing, while Damien appeared concerned. The notebook was in his lap, and the pen in his hand, and quickly he wrote down something in large letters before turning the notebook to face her, his eyes wide with worry.
Are you alright?
For a moment, she was confused. Her wounds were wrapped and covered, aside from her lip, but it was too dark under the roof of the barn for him to notice that. And then it hit her. What had happened had taken place right in front of him. She sighed in concession, finally moving and stepping up to her chair. George watched all of this in silence and she wondered what was on his mind. She shrugged in response to Damien’s question, avoiding George. She wouldn’t ask him to leave; her heart and her mind were heavy and she couldn’t let him leave without an explanation. “I’m okay. Why are you concerned?”
He stared at her for a long moment before he began writing again.I only return your own concern for my well-being. Ouch. It was like a mental slap. Was she concerned for his well-being? If she had to guess, she probably was, at least a little or else he would be starving and dying from dehydration. She saw George toss a wide-eyed curious look at her and she groaned inwardly. Damien must have witnessed this as well, as he began scribbling once again on the paper before holding it up.George was giving me some water, asking me questions. Amber lifted her brow at the two of them.
“What kind of questions?” she asked and George looked at Damien, defeated. He ran a hand along the length of his face.
“Tattletale.” George mumbled under his breath to Damien and Amber couldn’t hide the small smile that tilted up the corners of her mouth. She wasn’t sure why she was smiling, maybe it was Damien’s distraction, taking the subject off of her concern to one of George’s interrogation, or maybe it was George’s defeated posture and name calling. Damien glanced at George for a moment before handing her the notebook. Curiously, she took it and skimmed over everything Damien had written. After a minute, she sighed, tired of the day already.
“You are asking about what happened earlier? I already told you…”
George looked at her sharply. “I wanted to know what happened and what was said from his perspective.” He bit out and Amber was taken aback at the stern tone in his voice. He turned in his seat to face her head on. She shook her head and handed the notebook back to Damien.
“Afraid I wouldn’t tell you the truth?” she asked him and he shrugged, turning away from her. She frowned then, watching as he chewed the insides of his cheeks.
Finally, he sighed. “I was worried and I know how you leave some things out for the well-being of others. I needed to make sure both Buddy and you were alright. How are they anyways?”
She studied him for a long moment before smiling fondly at him. “George, you are an amazing friend.” She complimented him and he groaned and rolled his eyes, turning from her and trying his best to hide the smile that turned up his lips. After a moment, she leaned forward in her seat, facing Damien. Her stomach twisted into incomprehensible knots. She needed to get through this, and even so, she had come to a decision previously about what to do in the end. She knew that decision wasn’t going to change. She didn’t mind that George was there to hear her questions, and to read the answers that were given; after all, she was going to need him there anyways. “They are both fine…a slight fever, a little twitching but slowly getting better. They just need time.” She looked at him fondly with a slight uncertainty. “You can get back to your questions after I leave. I won’t be but just a few minutes.” She sighed, offering her absence shortly. George nodded and then glanced at her curiously.
“I’m done anyways. There wasn’t much to ask. You can go ahead and do whatever you need to do.” With this, he eased up to stand and reflexively Amber caught his arm. Her fingers gripped his forearm tightly and he looked down at her with wide eyes. She swallowed at his silent question: What’s wrong?
“Please stay here. I need to speak with you as well.” As she said this, she saw something dark enter his eyes and she knew that he suspected that she was meaning what had occurred the week before. He wouldn’t be wrong, she conceded, but it was far worse…or better, maybe…than he suspected. Still, she needed to ask Damien while she had the nerve to do it, and George needed to remain there for that. “I came out here for a few reasons, the first being that I need to ask you a few questions. Think you can answer them honestly for me?” George looked at her inquisitively while Damien nodded, agreeing with her request. She cleared her throat then, suddenly feeling nervous. She felt as if she was going to breakdown, but she needed to ask these things…she needed to understand him before she decided anything else. “Why did you volunteer to do what you did?” she asked, the words tumbling from her mouth and both George and Damien were taken aback. She cleared her throat and forced herself to speak slowly, to separate her words. “And you know exactly what I am talking about. Your father didn’t force you to infiltrate the group. You decided to on your own.” They both stared at her for a long
moment, but Amber kept her eyes on Damien’s troubled ones. She wasn’t going to explain how she knew that, because if she were honest, it was merely an educated guess. She hoped he didn’t call her bluff. Finally, after much tension had passed, he looked down at the notebook in his lap and the pen began flying against the page. George remained silent, watching the interaction that occurred before him.
Months ago, my father said there was another mission. They were leaving and I volunteered to go with them. When we found Derek’s group I saw an opportunity and I took it.
Amber narrowed her eyes at him. “What opportunity?” and he narrowed his eyes right back at her. She felt the situation weigh down under all of this and for a moment she questioned whether or not she really wanted to know the answer. Damien thought for a second before hastily writing. She had forgotten George was there, and everything within her warred between compassion and understanding and brutal hate for the man that he was and for what he had done. Finally, he turned to the notebook to her.
Let me ask you something, and I want you to think really hard before you answer. When we took Brian, Shelly, and Miles…why do you think I came back? I could have left with them and not come back. I heard you on the radio. I could have called them over to kill you then, but I didn’t. I came back. Why?
George shrugged, confused. “To rub it in that you had all won? You wanted to gloat, to have us surrender instead of fight.” Damien shook his head at George and Amber felt a rock settle in her stomach. She shuddered. He had known that she was warning them? That she knew as they drug her people away? Obviously, he knew, so back to his question: Why had he come back? Since he knew that she understood what he had done, then he knew as soon as he got back to the house and saw her that she was a threat. She had destroyed his mobility that day, and he had to have known it was coming.
Did I gloat?
George clamped his mouth shut, taking in Damien’s words. No, he hadn’t gloated. He tried to convince them to give up. Was that done to anger her? The question began taunting her. Had he planned it all out and if so…what outcome had he expected?
“You knew I was warning them? That I knew you were a traitor?” She asked, clearly still in shock at his admission. Damien leveled his gaze at her and she shifted under his scrutiny.
Yes.
“So why didn’t you get us when you had the chance? You aren’t making any sense.” Something shifted in Damien’s eyes and Amber suddenly felt cold. There was something he wasn’t telling her. Minutes passed by as they stared at one another with no word…no answer. Amber inhaled sharply, the cool air hitting her lungs and she knew she was ready to ask the question she had been dreading. “Alright,” she began, realizing he wasn’t going to give them a straight answer. Maybe she could get him to answer this one. “Next question: Why did you kill my father and my son?”
Damien looked at her while George studied him. Her voice was soft and confused, as if trying to truly understand the man, and who knew, maybe she was. Still, as he looked back at her, she felt an undeniable sense of foreboding come over her. She couldn’t shake it, not matter how she tried, and so, she remained mute, sitting there and waiting for an answer from this killer.
It’s complicated. It would only serve in making you angry. You wouldn’t understand.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Try me.” She demanded and again the tension between the three of them grew taut. As she sat there, she replayed the images in her mind, the memories and the cries, the begging and the hurting when it hit her. She leaned forward, placing her elbows on her knees. She put all of the pieces together then and it made her sick. Her eyes widened and she felt her pulse pick up its pace. He had wanted to get close to Derek’s group to hurt them, to make them retaliate. He had expected them to suspect his involvement with the monsters as he was the most recently arrived one into their group. Instead, they had found her people. After the two groups became one he developed a plan. He did it all for the same reason he infiltrated the group, the same reason he killed Kyle instead of Amber, and the same reason he came back to the house whenever he could have stayed with his people. She looked up and found him watching her sadly.
“You wanted to die. You…” she paused for a moment, her mind registering everything that was happening. “You wanted someone to kill you. You wanted me to kill you.” At this Damien nodded and began scribbling once more, hand movements jerky and his eyes darting back and forth between Amber and the paper. Amber felt both angry and saddened.
Murderer.
Betrayer.
Conspirator.
He had done all of this just so he could die. Still, it didn’t all make sense. If he wanted to die so badly, why didn’t he take his own life instead of committing sins that he couldn’t pay back? His transgressions tore other people apart, and he would never be able to fix that. It wasn’t fair. This man wanted to die, and so he took the lives of others? It didn’t make any sense and she wanted to strike him. No…that was too gentle…she wanted to hurt him, make him bleed and choke on it.
“No…no no. If that were true you would have just killed yourself.” George stated, voicing Amber’s thoughts. Amber kept her eyes trained on Damien, watching as he wrote quickly what he felt he needed to say, or well, express. She could feel George’s tension radiated from him, his bunched-up shoulders and twisted hands preventing him from doing anything or saying anything else. She wasn’t sure what to think, or what to even say and she felt everything inside of her numbing into nothingness. She was going to have to let it go, to let him explain so she could in turn explain her own dire situation.
Why are you asking me all of these questions now? It doesn’t matter why I did what I did. It will never change the fact that I did them. Besides, shouldn’t you be more worried about Buddy and Derek, or even Katie? She’s gone and they are crazy because she poisoned them!
He was trying to dissuade her and for some reason that only served to anger her more. She tried to tamp it down because she knew that angering her was what he had wanted…what he had wanted since this entire mess started. “There is nothing we can do for Katie. She was gone long before we found out. As far as Buddy and Derek are concerned, all we can do is wait for the effects to wear off. They are bound and present no danger. I am focused on you right now.” Amber felt her muscles tense and her shoulder blades contracted reflexively as a sign of intimidation. He noticed this and widened his eyes only slightly. “I know what you have done can’t be changed. If no one else realizes that, I do. You have taken away people dear to me and I want to know why; and Damien, you will tell me.” Her words were even and for that moment, she could feel the heat rise and she was once again the woman angered and uncaring enough to torture this man for the answers she wanted. He gasped and she smiled a little at this, her warrior rising to the surface. “Don’t mistake my kindness for anything less. I will hurt you again, should I feel the need to.” As she said this, her voice was calm…just as calm as it had been before. There is was again, that feeling of being torn between hate and ecstasy when she saw the fear in his eyes.
It felt so good, his anguish, his discomfort, because she knew now, now that he understood her intent, he would give her an answer. He would no longer evade what she wanted to know. Slowly, he tilted his head back and swallowed the saliva that had been building up in his mouth, coughing a little in the process, and finally he began writing. Amber leaned back casually in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest. George did the same, glancing at her and giving her a slight smile. She nodded back at him and they both turned to watch Damien write. The silence reigned on with the exception of pen on paper. He was writing tediously, and Amber couldn’t tell whether he was afraid or angry. Either way, she was satisfied at finally getting the result she wanted, and yet saddened because she already knew what the answers to her previous questions would be. When he finally finished, he threw the notebook at her, tears in his eyes and lips meeting in a thin firm line. He was angry and sad and George sat up, nimbly tak
ing the notebook from her tense fingers where she had caught it before it hit the ground. After a moment, he began reading it to her, Damien sniffling and looking away from them. Tears rolled down his face and his eyes flared at the wall, but he remained still, silent as George’s voice impeded their awkward quiet.
“Do you really think I have enjoyed watching my father destroy so many innocent lives? Do you believe I enjoyed being a part of that?” George hesitated as Amber looked on at Damien. George sighed. “I may have acted like a complete asshole, and I may have done things that I cannot justify or take back, things I will forever have to live with,but so have you. Where is Lance? Where are all those other people who were only doing what they were told to do? Where is my fucking tongue?” Another moment of hesitation and though George was reading it, she heard it all in Damien’s biting voice. Amber had to look away because for that second, that long wavering second, he was right. He was entirely right and it hit her like a punch to the gut. Yes, she had done them out of anger, out of revenge, and even out of necessity to escape, but in the eyes of he own moral soul, was it justified? Was she right in what she had done? Not in all of them, she knew. Quickly inhaling a shuddering breath, she listened as George continued. “I didn’t love my father and I never liked him. But throughout my life I have respected him, never wanted to cross him, and I wanted to make him proud. My mother wasn’t the only person he took from me. There was a woman…her name was Sara and she was like all of you…free to roam this twisted world…at least until we found her and took her back to the compound. She became a part of the community, and I loved her. She was kind, gentle, and yet so innocent. She took the time to show me the better things life had to offer. My father saw this and he threw her into…”George cleared his throat, seemingly uncomfortable with what he was reading. Amber leaned forward and glanced over his shoulder at the notebook as he continued. “…into a twisted form of entertainment, a game. He killed her while I sat there and watched. I watched her get torn apart and I heard her screams in one ear and my father’s laughter in the other…and I didn’t cry. Instead, I felt nothing…I refused to feel anything.”Amber suddenly felt sick. This was the man she was up against…this twisted waste of air was what stood between her and the rest of her family and suddenly, she wasn’t sure what to do. She felt insignificant and weak, fearing he would do the same to her family and there would be nothing she could do to stop it.“Whenever he mentioned another outing, I volunteered to go, and whenever they needed someone to infiltrate Derek’s group, so I saw an opportunity: either I would make him proud or they would kill me. Really, I was good either way. After that, you know how it went. We found you and your people; we lived in harmony for a while until it came time to do what needed to be done. I needed a distraction to get the weapons, and so I created one.”Amber wasn’t sure she wanted to hear anymore, but even so, that didn’t stop George from his continued interpretation of Damien’s hastily written words. Tears came unbidden and she did her hardest to keep them from falling. She looked up then to see Damien’s heated eyes locked on hers and she felt a chill skate down her spine.“After that, it happened so fast that it was unreal. I was torn between wanting to die and pleasing him. I was hoping for the first, desperate for the latter, and trying for both. I was worried when you tried to get them to stay at the house that morning but that worry soon went away, replaced with something else. Whenever I was in that parking lot, I replayed your words of warning in my head, watching as they dragged away your family and it hit me…I was no longer torn. I didn’t want to please him, I wanted to die…I deservedto die. And so, I told them I was going back, regardless of whether I wanted to or not. Honestly, I thought you would kill me the first chance you got…but no…you didn’t.” Damien lowered his head, and Amber did the same, wringing her hands together in a twisted blob before her, elbows resting on her knees. “You said I would have killed myself, but I couldn’t. I never could. It’s weak and tasteless. I refuse to be a pathetic human that can pull that trigger. If I were to die, which I was intent on doing, it would be by the hands of someone who deserved to take my life.”His eyes were on Amber again, and this time she couldn’t stop the tears that came out and rolled down her cheeks.“So, when you broke my limbs instead of taking my life, I grew desperate…and I killed your son. I killed him because I wanted you to do it…to end me. If I had a choice, I would have died by your hand rather than my father’s. I want to die, so why won’t you do it? Why?! Haven’t you had enough?”
