by David Estes
Trevor faces forward, speaking in a monotone voice, apparently oblivious to my trepidation. “He showed up at our doorstep a week later, badly beaten. Ribs crushed, arm broken, teeth chipped. I don’t think he’d eaten or drank since he left. He was so skinny, broken, his lips cracked and bleeding, along with his spirit. But the worst was when he turned around, pointed at the back of his head.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, try to think of something—anything—to get the visions out of my head. It’s like Cole’s story all over again, and that one didn’t end well.
“His skull was cracked open and gushing blood,” Trevor continues evenly. “It was a fresh wound. The Enforcers had abused him for a week and then brought him home, only to inflict the final wound just before dumping him on our doorstep.”
“A message,” I whisper, opening my eyes to blurred vision.
“Yeah, don’t steal from the Sun Realm.” He pauses, but I know that, just like Cole’s story, this one’s not over yet. All this is somehow leading up to my mom. “We struggled on for a while, my mom procuring flour by trading our meager possessions, which she used to bake bread. Every day she rolled her bread cart into town, traded loaves for basic necessities and more flour. We ate the leftovers.
“But eventually the trade in our subchapter dried up. She couldn’t get enough flour to make her bread, and even if she could, there was no one to trade with.”
“What did she do?” I ask.
“There was nothing to do. The only ones getting by were the miners, so she applied for a job in the mines. Yeah, she and a few hundred other star dwellers, all men, with experience to boot. She was laughed off the site.
“By then I was sixteen. Not quite old enough for the mines, but old enough to help. A friend of mine told me about a way to get food. Not legal, mind you, but we were desperate.”
I glance at him, understanding flashing in my eyes. He doesn’t have to justify his actions to me.
“The Enforcers were put up in the nicest accommodations in town, supported by the President’s ‘Safety and Security’ budget. Of course they were well fed too. My buddy learned where the food shipments came in, at what times, and how many men would be unloading them. Twice he’d managed to slip into the truck and steal whole cases of canned food. He almost got caught the second time, but he figured with a partner it would be easier to avoid detection.”
“But you got caught?” I guess.
“Actually, no. Evidently we were natural thieves, because we got away with it for weeks. The first time I brought home my share of the takings, my mom wept. She never asked me where I got it from; instead, she chose to thank God for the food in our nightly prayers.”
“So…” I say, unsure where all of this is going.
“Sorry, this is all linked—I swear,” Trevor says. “So one night I went out with my friend for our usual thieving, but someone else had beaten us to it. We were biding our time, being patient, waiting for the perfect moment to make our move, when one of the truck guys came out of the building and entered the truck via a ramp. We heard him say, ‘What the hell—you filthy rat!’ His feet stomped back down the ramp. He was carrying this scrawny, dirt-smeared kid, whose hands were clenched around a couple of bags of rice as big as his head. The trucker shouted something to someone inside, and a moment later an Enforcer the size of a house was on the loading dock, grinning like he’d just been given a gift.”
Even with my eyes open, I picture the events unfolding, like a crumpled-up paper being gradually smoothed out. Trevor puts his journal flat on the ground next to him, settles the flashlight in his lap so it’s facing up, casting an eerie spotlight on his face, and then starts punching his fist into his hand.
“My friend said, ‘Let’s get the hell outta here,’ and then took off, not waiting to see if I’d follow. Perhaps I should have. But something about the kid reminded me of myself. Hungry. Alone. Willing to do anything for a couple of bags of rice. I ran out of my hiding spot behind the truck’s tire and bashed into the trucker’s knees. It was just the distraction the scrawny kid needed. The guy dropped him and he was running before he even hit the ground. The Enforcer grabbed at him, missed, but managed to get a hand on the collar of my tunic as I tried to scramble away.” I know how the rest of the story goes. He went to a juvenile facility—like me—and then turned eighteen and ended up in the Max—just like I would have if I hadn’t escaped. But wait—
“You didn’t even touch the Enforcer,” I say. “Surely your sentence in juvie wasn’t more than a year or two.”
Trevor smirks. “You know the system all too well. I got fifteen months, assuming good behavior, which you shouldn’t assume.”
“What did you do?”
“Once inside, I started fighting. I was determined not to let any of the weaker kids get bullied. I don’t know what it was—something to bring me back to life, I suppose. A reason for living you could say.”
“There are some bad dudes in juvie,” I say, speaking from experience.
“And I wasn’t a good fighter,” he admits. “But that didn’t stop me. I learned the hard way. I had four broken noses, many a cracked rib, always bruised knuckles, and more black eyes than I can count. But I managed to not die, and with each fight I got tougher and more capable. Some of the tough kids even started to respect me because I never ran away from a fight. The weaker ones who I protected were thankful, and I watched with joy as their sentences expired and they were able to leave juvie unharmed.”
“Meanwhile, your sentence grew with every fight.”
Trevor grimaces. “Exactly.”
“But didn’t you want to get out so you could see your family?”
“Of course. But I wanted to do it on my terms. I couldn’t just sit by in an oblivious haze while the helpless kids got the poo kicked out of them.” Inside, I’m ashamed, although I know that’s not Trevor’s intention. What he’s just described is exactly how I spent my time in the Pen. An oblivious haze.
“Okay,” I say. “So you turned eighteen?”
“Six months ago,” he says. “They moved me to the Max straight away. I almost got killed my first day.” His tone is light but his words are serious.
“You tried to fight just like you did in juvie,” I say.
“Yep. Just like in kid prison, the Max had the weak and the strong and everything in between. The only problem was that the strong were a lot freakin’ stronger. So I’m in the yard scoping things out my first day. I’m all alone, you know, because I don’t know anyone. A bunch of tall, ripped dudes are playing hoops, some other monsters are throwing up dumbbells and doing pull-ups and stuff, and I’m just watching, trying to learn the ropes. A small stone in a big mine.”
My mind grabs hold of each piece of new information and sucks it in, looking at it from every angle, and putting it on a new shelf for safekeeping. It could have been me in the Max, experiencing the same things Trevor did.
“As I’m scanning the yard, there was an accidental bump as one of the bigger guys passed a tall, scrawny punk who looked like he didn’t belong. It all happened so fast, I don’t even know how…” His calm narrative hitches for a second and I can almost feel his heart beating faster as a rush of adrenaline pours into his system from just the memory.
It was a major event in his life.
“Before the big dude takes a swat at the skinny guy, I’m already on my feet moving, thinking I’m back in juvie. I dunno, it just became an instinct for me. Just as the heavyweight landed the knockout punch on the guy’s nose, I came up behind him, ready to land my own finishing blow.” He pauses, rubs his jaw for a second, as if feeling an old bruise that’s never fully healed.
“I reckon this dude had at least ten times the experience in fighting that I did, along with more grit, more raw firepower, and better overall instincts. While I thought I was going to hit him with a surprise attack the size of a small train, he felt me coming the whole way, probably because he’d been in dozens of street brawls where he had to have eyes i
n the back of his head to avoid getting a rock or bottle smashed over his skull from behind.
“His elbow flew back at the exact moment I was gonna hit him, cracked me in the jaw, broke it in four places. I don’t remember this part, but I was told afterwards that my head slammed off the ground. But the guy wasn’t done yet. Evidently he didn’t appreciate me coming at him from behind, because he moved in for the kill, to snap my neck or stomp my brains out or something. That’s where your mom comes in.”
“My mom?” I stare at him incredulously.
“According to what I heard later, she flew in like a bat—no one seemed to know exactly where she came from—jumping between the gargantuan and my half-destroyed body. Although the dude had her by about half a foot and a hundred pounds, she was way quicker and had ability to boot. Ten kicks later—my best guess is there were two to the groin, three to the head, two to the stomach, two to the knees, and one to the throat—and the guy was out cold. She saved my life that day, so now I’ll do anything for her, which includes doing whatever it takes to protect you on this mission.”
I’m speechless. Even though I’ve seen my mom act all tough general while in the Star Realm, I’ve never seen her fight. If Trevor’s to be believed, she’s incredible. I find my voice. “Wow, so that’s it? That’s why you trust each other?”
“After that I sought her out, thanked her, and we sort of became friends. She taught me to fight and I pledged myself to her.”
“So you can actually fight now?” I ask.
“Hold on a minute, I could fight before, I just wasn’t—”
“Chill. I’m just messing with you,” I say, cracking a smile.
Trevor’s face goes slightly red, but he manages an awkward smile. “Right, I knew that.” It’s good to see him on the defensive for once.
“So why were you such a jerk to me when we first met?” I ask.
Trevor really laughs now. “You weren’t exactly a peach,” he says.
I screw up my face. It’s true. “I know, but I didn’t know you, and—”
“And what? I didn’t know you either.”
“And…you knew my mom, so I would have thought you’d have trusted me,” I say, feeling good about my argument.
“Hey, I pledged myself to your mom, not to you. And considering all the rumors going around about you and Tristan hooking up…”
“There was no hooking up,” I say.
“Whatever you want to call it,” he says. “Chasing each other around or whatever. If you were with him, then I thought for sure something was wrong with you.”
“But Tristan’s on our side,” I argue.
“Yeah, but from where I was coming from that was pretty farfetched.”
“And now?” I ask, sticking my chin out.
“Now what?”
“Now that you know Tristan’s one of the good guys, do you still think something’s wrong with me?”
“Jury’s still out,” he says, straight-faced.
“Ha. Ha. Right back at ya.”
“Did I hear my name?” Tristan says, surprising me from the side. I’m surprised because I didn’t feel him coming. I know it sounds weird, but usually I can sort of sense when he’s near, and when he gets closer the pull toward him gets stronger. But this time I feel nothing. Come to think of it, the buzz in my scalp and the tingles along my spine are gone too. I’ve gotten so used to them whenever Tristan is near that it’s almost stranger not feeling them.
“I was just telling Trevor how he can only trust you as far as he can throw you,” I joke, trying to cover up our missing magnetism. Does he still feel it?
“She’s right,” he says, playing along. “I’m a real scoundrel at heart.”
“When we have a bit of a training session later today, you might be surprised just how far I can throw you,” Trevor says.
“We’ll see about that,” Tristan retorts.
Guys, I think, always flexing their muscles, whether with words or fists. “Anyway,” I say, “considering I’ll probably beat you both later, let’s get some breakfast and save the talking for the strategizing.”
“Hand-to-hand combat is no place for a girl,” Trevor says with a sneer. He sounds more like the old Trevor now.
“Then you haven’t seen her fight,” Tristan says, pride in his voice. My cheeks and neck warm when he says it.
“Actually, I have,” Trevor replies. “And I wasn’t that impressed.”
“So you were impressed,” I say, catching him in his words.
“Mildly,” he says, “but I’m not sure I’d be comfortable hitting a girl anyway.”
“Then I guess that’ll make it easier for me to hit you,” I say.
* * *
Breakfast is quick and bland. We won’t train until later, choosing to travel when we’re energized.
Our upward climb continues for three, four, five, six hours, who knows? I stop paying attention to time at some point. There’s very little talking as that takes energy—energy we can’t afford to waste. We only stop twice to pee and rehydrate.
Eventually the tunnel levels out and a few hundred feet later we find words scraped into the rock wall: Welcome to the Sun Realm. I silently thank the Resistance tunneler for the casual signpost.
We’ve done it! Well, the easy part that is—just getting here. The hard part is still to come. The funny thing is that it doesn’t feel any different than the Moon Realm—at least not yet. It’s still just a dark, gray, monotonous tunnel. A Sun Realm tunnel technically, but a tunnel just the same.
Another mile or so down the track we find a set of stairs leading up to the right. My mom warned us about this: that there would be a number of tunnel exits, before a sudden end. This is the first we’ve seen and therefore, the tunnel continues further on, so we have a choice to make. Onwards or upwards. Unfortunately there’s no map for this tunnel, because it’s never been used. Before we left, Mom told us that because the passage was constructed so haphazardly and the rebellion was snuffed out so quickly, there wasn’t even a chance to map it. Originally the plan was for the secret tunnel to loop underneath each and every sun dweller subchapter, to be used in the event of an invasion by the Lower Realms, but there was only time to make it a few subchapters deep. They just haven’t had the time or the manpower to continue the project in earnest.
“What do you think?” I say to Tristan. “Any idea where we are?”
“Well, we left from Moon Realm subchapter one and headed due east. My guess would be somewhere between subchapters eighteen and twenty-one in the Sun Realm. What do you think, Roc?”
Roc strokes his now-stubbly chin. “Sounds about right. But it’s possible we haven’t even gone that far yet. We could still be in the subchapter fifteen to seventeen loop somewhere.”
“So where does that leave us?” Ram says, his voice a deep rumble.
“If we’re trying to get to subchapter one…” Roc says.
“We are,” Tristan confirms.
Roc nods. “Then we’ll need to either catch a train from subchapter seventeen or twenty-one, or cut across the Realm starting with subchapter eighteen.”
“If we decide to go on foot, it’ll be a three-day march at top speed,” Tristan adds.
“Why don’t we just scope it out first and then decide,” I suggest.
“The fewer people the better,” Trevor says. “I’d say two at the most.”
“I’ll go,” I say immediately.
“Me, too,” Tristan says. I’m glad. It might give me a chance to ask him about whether anything’s changed for him, like it did for me.
* * *
We start up the steps, me in front, Tristan close behind. I shine the flashlight up and up and up—at least fifty steps—but I can’t see the end of the staircase.
When we’re out of earshot from the others, who remain behind in the tunnel, I stop for a second, looking down at Tristan, who’s just two steps behind me. He stops, too, looking up at me curiously.
“Have you noticed any ch
anges this morning?” I say.
“What do you mea—” he starts to say, but then stops. He raises an eyebrow and squints an eye and generally looks confused—but then there’s a spark of recognition. He flinches and a look of something—pain?—crosses his face. “It’s…it’s gone,” he says dazedly. “The pull—it’s gone.”
So he’s felt it too. Or, more like unfelt it. I sigh. “I was hoping maybe I was just having an off day.” I feel a surge of something…relief or concern, or maybe both…through my bones.
“But how?” he asks. “Why?”
I turn and continue climbing the steps; the taps of his footfalls follow shortly after. “I don’t know,” I say. “It’s like we lost our electric charge.”
“But I…I still like you.”
I laugh. “I still like you, too,” I say, mimicking his emphasis. “We’re still the same people, have the same personalities, have the same attractions. But whatever drew us together in the first place is gone. I don’t know how else to describe it.”
“Are you saying it was something supernatural?” There’s a smile in his tone.
I’ve got no freaking clue. The whole thing makes no sense. I mean, I thought I was just attracted to Tristan because he’s hot and a celebrity and a really, really nice guy, caring and generous and loyal, and everything else a girl could want in a guy—and I am attracted to him for all of those reasons—but now I get the feeling that there’s more to the story, although I can’t even begin to explain it, especially not after what my mom said to me. It’s no accident that you and Tristan met.
“Not necessarily supernatural,” I finally say, “just something beyond us.” My explanation makes no sense, but it’s all I’ve got.
Tristan is silent for a few minutes, his presence given away only by the soft scrape of his boots on the stone.
The steps continue to rise before us, rough and jagged and almost haphazard, like they were built in a hurry, on a whim. Although my calves are burning slightly, it feels good, and helps to take my mind off of the change.
Tristan eventually breaks the silence. “Does this change anything?” he asks, a hint of concern in his voice.
