For the second night in a row, finding sleep proved to be a challenge to Sam as he fretted over all of the trouble surrounding his house-family. If they could only hold out until the hover was ready before someone collided with their breaking point, they could make it off of Fervor and leave all of their cares behind them. He worried what would become of Francis once they were gone, but he also realized that taking him along would cause any existing problems to persist. They could bring him along if he would willingly submit to having his gift removed by the Languorite and pass over any authority that he possessed to Elliot, something that the Teller would surely refuse to do. Francis had not wanted to go with them in the first place. He certainly would not agree to it if it involved such stipulations. As Elliot had mentioned, Francis needed to feel like he was in control, and as things were getting more stressful, that need seemed to be intensifying.
There were also no guarantees that leaving Fervor would help Sarah cope with what they had just learned. Sam admitted that it was unusual, and a little shocking, but he was quite certain that he could live with the fact that where they had come from was not quite normal. He was more curious about what had become of the odd ones that had managed to survive – the ones that Royce had discussed discovering. He had planned on hunting the Control out the next day and trying to drill him for information, but in addition to overcoming enduring fears of the black-haired boy, Sam now found himself plagued by the restrictions placed upon him by Francis. He could go to the school the next morning on the basis of doing more finding, but he would not be able to prompt Royce with questions. If Royce were going to provide him with anymore answers, it would have to be at the Control’s choosing and not Sam’s request.
When Sam arose sleepily the next morning, a disgruntled-looking Elliot and a chagrined Sarah were preparing to set out for the beach. Nathan had left, and Francis and Fiona were up. The Keeper was milling about, having already started on her household chores for the day, and she was trying to give Francis as much of a cold shoulder as she could muster. This did not seem to put the Teller off. He was watching her as much as he had been since she had emerged from her room, but Sam thought there was something off in Francis’s mannerisms that day, something different. There was heightened interest and intensity to his pale green eyes that had not been there before, as well as a nervousness to his movements that seemed out of place for Francis. Sam did not like it, and he was tempted to stay behind to reassure himself that there was nothing unusual in the works, especially since his Teller had been acting somewhat out of the ordinary in general lately.
Unfortunately, his finding urges eventually overcame any reluctance he had to leave, and when he saw that Sarah and Elliot were finally ready to go, he beat them to the exit.
When Sam opened the door, he found the morning to be less than pleasant. The air was damp and cold and the sky was gray, but there was no sign of actual rain. The weather cast an additional air of gloom over the house, but it did not deter any of them from attempting to achieve their objectives for the day. As the three reached the bottom of the front steps, Sam started out on a separate pathway while Sarah and Elliot headed towards the shore. When Sarah noticed that the Finder was not joining them, she stopped abruptly.
“Where are you going?” she called out to him.
“To do some finding,” he called back. “I’ve helped you as much as I can. You don’t need me anymore for anything associated with the hover. Right now I’ll only get in the way, and you know that I still have to find. I’ll come to check back on you later, when I’m done.”
Elliot was visibly relieved, pleased that he would be able to work in peace and not be assuaged with questions, but Sarah drooped in response to Sam’s words, her eyes sad. She understood, nevertheless, and did not suggest that Sam shouldn’t go.
Rushing through the trees without worries reminded Sam of the days before Royce had left the house, earlier on when the Control’s hostility still remained fairly minimal. That was when Sam had enjoyed finding the most. Dashing across the other house-families’ spaces was so much easier without Sarah and Elliot, and he liked being alone. He had not had much opportunity to do things this way lately and had almost completely put the thought out of his head that he was about to confront the Control on his own terrain. There would be no Nathan to rush to his rescue if things went wrong. Then again, Sam and Royce were now on much more even ground. It was possible that Sam could even hold his own against him.
As he approached the school, a shudder went up his spine, still haunted by the vision of bleakness that did not correspond with his memories. He wanted to see the school as it had once been, and not the way that he was seeing it now. He paused before entering, reconsidering the choice that he had made to come in the first place. It was an all out battle between fear and curiosity, and in the end, curiosity won.
Sam crept up towards the door. Elliot had not extinguished the lights when they had departed, but his magic had expired once he had left the general area, so there was only darkness in the corridor past the entrance. Sam had been expecting that, and reached into the bag that he had brought with him, pulling out the glow torch within. It had been some time since he had last used it, but the method of activation still remained fresh in his mind, probably because it was some of the very limited magic that he could actually use. The Finder cautiously reached for the door and swung it open rapidly with an exaggerated jerk. He illuminated the device clutched fervently in his fist and stepped forward.
He followed his finding instincts that led him to what once was the school cafeteria. There were things in the kitchen that were prime scavenging items, but which had been left untouched by Royce. Sam noted the likely reason why. They were all items that required the use of a cooking implement, and while Royce had unlimited access to one, he no doubt had no idea how to make it work. There was always the option of cooking over an open fire, but that required knowing how to work one of the fire-making devices, and Sam doubted that the Control could do that either. That made those particular food items useless to Royce, but a perfect find for Sam. He started dropping some of the packages into his bag.
“Stealing from me now?”
Sam was so startled by the sudden sound that he almost dropped both the bag and his glow torch.
“You can’t make claim on this, Royce. The school is fair game for finding. You know that. Besides, if you could use this, you would have used it by now. Don’t play dog in the manger.”
Sam felt his breath quicken, and he couldn’t bring himself to turn around and face the Control.
“Fair game for finding, yes. Fair game for a Finder, no. I would have no cause for protest if you were a Keeper, Sam, but your being here goes against the Directives. Where’s Fiona? How did you and Sarah manage to get in here in the first place?” Royce sneered.
While there was still a bitterness to his words, the underlying threat that Sam used to detect was not there anymore. Tensing his shoulders, the Finder finally got up the courage to turn around.
“We aren’t bound by the Directives anymore,” Sam acknowledged.
“And how is that possible? How did you escape the stasis as well? Does it have anything to do with that man who was here?” the Control snorted, hands on hips.
Sam nodded. He did not see any harm in revealing any of what was going on to the boy who had already chosen to go against the Directives and would be on the outs with the scholars. If he answered Royce’s questions and kept the conversation going, who knew where it would go.
“That was Elliot, a technician from the mainland. He has been helping us. He’s providing us with a way to leave Fervor,” Sam admitted.
“You’re going to leave Fervor?” Royce murmured in disbelief. His eyes brightened in the soft light from the glow torch. “You have a hover? I’m surprised you’re willing to tell me all of this. What if I told the scholars?”
“That would mean exposing yourself when you hadn’t followed the Directives. I don’t think that
it would be worth it to you. You’ll find yourself with just as much trouble on your hands as Francis will have when we leave.”
“You managed to hide this from Francis? You’re leaving him behind?” Royce said.
“No, he knows. And as far as staying behind is concerned, that’s his choice. He doesn’t want to leave Fervor,” Sam suggested.
“Hmph,” the Control scoffed. “And you trust him on that? I would wager that he’ll turn you all in the first chance that he gets. I’m surprised he has let you get this far, but maybe he’s just playing with you. He can do anything he wants, now that I’m not there. If he hasn’t abused his power yet, it’s just a matter of time. That control freak will eventually tire of the games and start showing his true hand. Then you will all just become hapless slaves to his whims. I’d rather be here alone than in your shoes when that happens.”
“He wouldn’t turn us in,” Sam retorted. This conversation was not going the way that he wanted it to with Royce questioning him and not offering anything in return. “He said he wouldn’t, through the connection, and you can’t lie that way.”
Royce smirked at this.
“He would find a way around that if he really wanted to. Do you know why he was chosen to be a Teller? They picked him because he was smarter than the rest of us. All of the Tellers were like that. For some reason they decided that intelligence was somehow a factor in good judgement, and they wanted their appointed leaders to play their role as directed. They didn’t account for things like ambition, jealousy, or power-lust. They didn’t figure that those of us with more common sense might outwit their brainy figureheads.”
Sam frowned slightly. He hardly considered Royce’s current position a measure of how well he had outwitted Francis. This was just another form of posturing on the part of the Control, attempting to tear others down in an effort to build himself up.
Royce eyed him warily.
“So if everyone is aware of what is going on, why are you here alone? I would have expected you to bring a buddy to back you up. My friends are going to be arriving any minute. Not that I have to warn you, I don’t owe you anything, but I thought you might like to know that they won’t take kindly to you stealing from me either, or nosing around here for any other reason. You should have known that you wouldn’t be welcome here. Do you honestly think I believe that you came back here just for the purpose of finding?”
Sam didn’t answer. He couldn’t explain why he was there, other than for the finding, because that would be making his intentions of wanting to retrieve more information clear, and Francis’s instructions would not allow him to dig. The fact that he could be there at all was a technicality, and one used to Sam’s advantage.
“Speechless, eh? That is so not like you from what I had gathered from the others.” Royce’s eyes narrowed. “Francis gave you some sort of order, something that prevents you from asking too many questions, didn’t he? You must have been getting too close to something he didn’t want you to know.”
“Not exactly,” the Finder confessed. “Francis was concerned because Elliot told us a few things that really upset Sarah – things related to the stuff you mentioned yesterday. He didn’t want me making things worse.”
“That explains it,” Royce chuckled cruelly. “She always was a touchy little bitch, wasn’t she? Couldn’t hack the truth that you Littles are a bunch of freaks...even more than us Bigs. I was surprised to see her with you yesterday, traipsing around on your Finder trip. Does this mean she’s your girlfriend? She’s no Fiona, but she’s not that bad to look at.”
“We’re just friends, and I don’t want you calling her that. She doesn’t deserve to be called that, and she never did anything to hurt you. I was the one who ratted you out to Francis,” Sam murmured, his face reddening. “She’s helping Elliot fix the hover, and she had come to help find the tools and parts that we needed.”
He felt his muscles tensing, quietly fighting the rage that brewed within him in response to the Control’s callousness.
Royce rolled his eyes. “Relax, twerp. I’m kind of grateful about all of that now. I’m glad to be out of that house, and I wouldn’t be interested in a flaky little thing like that. Although, if all of you have aged properly, I wouldn’t mind getting an eyeful of Fiona. I can just imagine the mess back at that house. She must be fighting the other boys off at every turn.”
“No. Things haven’t changed that much. She wouldn’t come out of her room at first, and when she did they were nice about it,” Sam replied.
He did not mention anything about the latest tensions in the house. He did not want to add any fuel to the fires of Royce’s mean-spiritedness.
“For now maybe, but you mark my words. They won’t stay that way. I may not be book smart, but I know people. You and your house-family are staring down the barrel of a loaded gun. You may have thought I was bad, but at least I couldn’t control your thoughts. Get on the wrong side of Francis and you won’t be able to run and hide. I’m much better off how and where I am. It may be rough, but at least I’m free,” the larger boy mumbled.
“Are you telling me if you did have the chance, you wouldn’t want to be Connected?” Sam questioned.
“I’m telling you I’m glad that I never had the option. Now get out of here. I’m not going to say it again. The other Controls will welcome you even less than I do. They are angry at you lot for throwing me out of the house. They think I’ve been done an injustice…so beat it.” Royce tossed Sam one last package of food, one that had been slightly out of the Finder’s reach, and gestured towards the door.
Sam stooped to gather it into his bag and then headed for the door. He was a little intimidated by the fact that the other Controls would soon be making an appearance, but what had really motivated Sam to go was what Royce had said about Francis. The Control had been convinced that there would be trouble, and Francis’s behaviour lately had been more than a little disturbing. Considering how at odds the Teller and Elliot had been lately, that was Sam’s first concern. As he began jogging back towards the house, he reached out towards the beach and specifically the technician, through the connection. He was interrupted in his efforts, encountering Fiona in the connection part way there. She was searching frantically for a familiar mind, her walls thrown wide open.
“I don’t hate you, Francis,” he heard her think at the Teller. “I hate the fact that you hid so much from us for years before all of this started. I don’t understand how you could justify doing that. It was wrong. We should have known what they were doing to us. We should have known what they were planning. And I don’t like the power that you have over us.”
Sam was surprised to hear Francis respond. The Teller should have noticed how open Fiona was and that a second presence lingered nearby. There was something to Francis that was terribly distracted, however. Something disjointed even. It was almost as if he were focussed so single-mindedly on Fiona that he was blind and deaf to everything else. It was like tunnel-vision within the connection, something that Sam had never encountered before. There was an abnormality about it that seemed completely out of place.
“You always knew that I wanted you to like me,” he said. “I tried so hard, but nothing ever seemed to be enough for you – to make up for the mistakes that I had made. The more time that passed, the more I wanted you to like me. Well, now I want you to love me, Fiona. Tell me that you love me.”
Sam’s stomach lurched. It was one thing for Francis to tell people what to do, when he needed things done specifically for the benefit of the house-family, and Sam had even been willing to overlook the times that he had ordered people to do negligible things on a whim, but the Teller had no right messing with Fiona’s emotions.
“I love you,” she obeyed, in a mental whisper.
“Say it like you mean it,” Francis insisted.
“I love you,” she repeated, sounding much more committed to the statement this time. “What else are you going to make me do Francis? Haven’t you tortured me
enough? Please stop before you ask for something you’ll regret.”
Before he answered, he finally noticed that Sam had been observing.
“Put up your walls, Fiona,” Francis directed quietly.
She did as she was told and that left Sam without access to what was going on. He could have tried pushing through, but then Francis would likely give some command that would limit what he could do, and he didn’t want that. Still, the Finder was not about to leave things as they were. Instead, he located Sarah and Elliot at the beach through the connection and quickly pushed through Elliot’s fragile walls, knowing it was the quickest means of getting his point across. The technician recoiled instantly at the sudden intrusion, but could not avoid Sam’s abrupt message.
“Elliot, you told me to tell you if anyone was acting drastically different? Something’s wrong at the house. Francis is acting very strange, and I think Fiona might be in trouble. I’m sure that you and Sarah can make it back there before I can. Go! I’ll meet you there.”
He did not wait for an answer, now galloping breathlessly towards the house while searching desperately through the connection for Nathan. The Watcher was farther away than Sarah and Elliot, halfway through his circuit, and his walls were rock solid, just as Francis had instructed that they should be. Sam threw himself mentally at those walls—both pushing and knocking in one go with all of his might. It took three exhausting goes before the walls finally yielded and Sam burst in upon a very surprised Nathan.
“Sam?” he said, astonished.
“Go back to the house,” Sam begged. “You have to go back.”
“Sure, little buddy, I’m turning back right now. What? Why? Is it Royce?”
“No, it’s worse. It’s Francis. I’m not sure how we’re going to stop him, but Fiona needs your help. Hurry, Nathan!”
The Watcher did not need to be prompted twice. Sam could tell he had understood the urgency of his message and was now moving as fast as was physically possible. Sam had sped up as well, almost stumbling over several small anomalies in the path as a result. When the house finally came into view, he found his second wind and sprinted for the door. He scrambled up the steps, missing half of them in the process, and then charged in. Elliot and Sarah were both standing there looking helpless, but neither Fiona nor Francis was present. Sam knew they were in the house though. He could detect their walls there. Sam started towards Fiona’s room, fairly certain that he would find them within.
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