Escape (Alliance Book 1) (17 page)

He knew Stan wouldn't go with them, even before he asked. Could feel it in the way he was helping them get ready, packing their supplies for them, running around places to get things they might need. He seemed eager for them to leave, knowing why they had to go now, and knowing that he couldn't go with them, could never leave this city for the same reason they had to. He told Riley that he knew however they made all the people here go to the fire, they didn't do that to him, because they wanted for someone to see it, to know what happened, someone to tell anyone who might find this city, the way they did.

Drake was okay now, and best of all, Ella had her voice back. She barely used it, but she had it, and hearing her say anything at all made him smile. He missed her soft voice, had been missing it for all these years. Ella putting him to bed voice, Ella making Samson curl up on her feet voice, Ella humming one of mother's old songs voice. She still seemed worried about it, having her voice back, as if she were afraid they'd be found out and punished for it somehow. And there was a coldness between her and Drake that wasn't there before. He knew it was something to do with her finally agreeing to let Stan fix her voice. They would be okay, Ella and Drake, he knew that, somehow had always known that, and that gave him the tiniest bit of hope that not all things were unfixable.

They set out two days after he made Laurel and Ams the promise that he felt he had to make, just after enough light splashed into the city to where they didn't need to use their rays to see by. Laurel and Ams clung to each other, chatting, softly, comfortably in that way they had with each other now, as if they finally realized that they, too, were stuck together, and they might as well get used to this new Ams and new Laurel. It didn't worry him anymore what he promised these girls. He spent most of that night thinking and worrying about it and there was no more point in it. He had to believe that the implant was just data, or none of this made any sense and there wouldn't be any reason for them to keep going.

Stan gave them a rough map to follow that would take them to the closest city in about ten days. Drake kept listening to his comm for any soldier chatter, but there didn't seem to be anybody in these woods. Ella walking close to Drake was a good sign that they would make up and be happy again together, like they seemed for a bit when Drake first came back to them.

He slowed his walk to fall back to where Ams and Laurel were, wanting a bit of company, liking the sound of their voices, and wanting to be closer to it. They were talking about something to do with Ams, about her family, and he was suddenly not sure he wanted to hear any of it, but they didn't sound sad, so he stayed. Laurel was telling Ams that she had calculated in her head that it didn't make sense for Ella and Drake and Riley to all end up in the same compound as her and Ams unless they all came from some place that was nearby, and she knew Ams and she didn't come from Waller. But she thought that wherever they were born had to still be close to where they were, only there wasn't any way she could think of to figure out where that was without one of them remembering something, and because Ams at least remembered what happened to her, maybe they could find her family or what happened to them if Ams could remember more of it. But she couldn't. Not even what their house looked like, just Blanche. She remembered Blanche, and it made him ache for her that she remembered it.

He walked ahead of them after that, because he didn't want to see the sadness in Ams now, and he knew there would be sadness. It felt strange, this aching for someone else like that. Before Ams there was just Ella and all the years of looking for Ella and thinking about Ella, and there was nothing else for him then, after he left Waller, the day that he knew for sure Brody did that ugly thing they all said he did, but nobody believed it. He remembered that, couldn't help remembering that.

Janet was talking to him in that way she knew she had to ever since she started taking care of him, the way that didn't make him feel like a little kid, the way without pity, "You know how you asked me to look into Brody after everyone said he killed himself?"

He was sitting across the table from her. He took a deep breath and nodded.

"Well, I talked to one of Andy's old friends, the one who still had some access to the nets then. Anyway, Brian, that's his name, he tracked Brody to Boston, a hotel in Boston, Riley. He took the room for one night, and he never went anywhere else, not that Brian could find. There is no record of anything else. I'm truly sorry." She looked at him and he could tell she really was sorry to be telling him this about Brody, his Brody.

When someone brought it to Waller for the first time, that Brody killed himself in some hotel room a year ago, he went to see Andy, but Andy just looked at him in that way he had when you did something stupid, shook his head and said, "You, of all people, you... You, Riley, should know better. Brody would never do that to you or to me. Brody wouldn't kill himself, not for anything," and he closed the door on him then in anger for the first time in as long as he's known this man.

But he was right, Andy was. Brody was full of dreams then, full of adventures in his head, wanting so much to fix things, make them better. He was constantly talking to Riley about it too, the things he planned. How they could make it so nobody ever lost anybody again. And how because he looked so much like them, he had to be the one to do it, to break in, and then he could do it, and he would make them pay for what they did to his parents, and then to Ella, and to their parents, and he would find the asshole who shot Samson, that was the thing he seemed most angry about, and he would do something so horrible to him, something so unbearably painful, he couldn't think it up just yet. But he would, before he found him.

Riley let him talk about it, all of it. It didn't hurt him like it used anymore. He just wanted to find Ella. Nothing Brody could do would bring anybody back, he knew that, but Ella was still out there somewhere. That he could hold on to, and so he did, planning his trips to every town near a compound, learning where the compounds were and who was guarding them and how, putting everything he learned onto his screens so he didn't forget. All of that, the planning and the learning, took all of his time away from thinking things Brody was thinking, and he saw him less and less, and then that thing with footage of Max happened, and Brody breaking down at Janet's house, and the day he chased him, but Brody wouldn't stop. Then he was gone. Completely, entirely gone, without a word to anybody.

That was the hardest thing for him to get past, one of the reasons he didn't believe for the longest time that Brody killed himself like that. In his own mind, there was no way he wouldn't have said goodbye if he was never coming back. Brody could never do that to him. Only what Janet just told him meant that he could and that he did. He couldn't stay in Waller after that, or ever go back there either. There was too much Brody in Waller for him to ever go back there, Brody who was now gone, who let himself be lost. Waller was gone for him after that.

Drake and Ella already had the fire going when they got to the clearing. He missed the smell of the wood burning, pine sap spilling out of the logs. Stan found three lightweight tents for them so they wouldn't have to sleep out in the open like they had before. They'd have to share the tents, but it was better than the blankets. He knew Ella and Drake would share one, but didn't want to ask Ams and Laurel about the other two. Didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable, though by now he'd gotten used to watching Ams sleep, and the feel of her head on his chest. They hadn't done anything but that soft kiss, and he didn't mind that they didn't, but he knew he'd miss the feel of her next to him at night, the sound of her soft breathing, hair tickling his cheek. He hoped Laurel knew, and that Ams would miss it too.

"Riley, Ams is too embarrassed to tell you, but she wants to share the tent with you, and I kind of like my privacy, so, you two lovebirds, you should set up." He knew he was blushing every shade of red now, and that she could see it, even in this light. It was as if she read his mind. It also sounded very much like the old, not-at-all timid Laurel, the can't-shut-up Laurel, the one he thought he missed, up until now. Drake and Ella were smiling at him, and Ams, poor Ams was pounding on Laurel's arm and looking very much the red he felt.

It would be so easy to be angry at Laurel for making them feel foolish in front of everybody, but he was grateful. He'd get to hold Ams in his arms, and it was okay by him to have to blush a little to get that. So he walked over to the pack that had the tents in it, picked out the two smaller ones, and put them up, one for them and one for Laurel.

The food was so much better than the sawdust bars they ate after the compound. Stan found them all sorts of dried fruits, veggies, and meats that turned into delicious, perfectly spiced soups and stews when you dropped all the stuff into boiling water. He didn't think he'd ever get tired of eating this stuff. Ams was sitting next to him with her bowl, inhaling it as if she hadn't eaten in days. He smiled, watching her until she jabbed him in the ribs to make him stop looking. The strangest things still made her embarrassed or uncomfortable, like him watching her eat, he thought, and turned his face back to the fire, but he couldn't stop smiling.

They trekked comfortably through the rest of the week, not needing to kill any squirrels or rabbits, or snakes, for that matter, to make food from. It felt good not having to kill anything anymore. He never liked having to do that before and watching Ams stare at him in that way with the squirrel, and then not even eating it, though he knew she was hungry, he was glad he didn't have to do that now.

Yesterday was the best day of all, with Ams seeing her first ever waterfall and looking at it with those impossibly large eyes of hers as if it was the most incredible thing in the world, a thing of magic. He heard it before they saw it, only nobody else seemed to know what it was by the sound of it but him, and so he told them so they wouldn't be afraid. He told them how all the water that was trapped high up in the ice needed to find a way down to the rivers and the streams, and because it was coming down from so high up, it would be freezing cold.

Ams and Laurel weren't listening anymore, they were running like little kids, racing each other to the wall of water and then into it, and they were squealing at the coldness of it and laughing, and Ella and Drake too were laughing, and between the water falling like that and the laughter, it was the best sound in the world. He told them when they were all done making so much noise that stumbling on a waterfall in these parts was as good an omen as any and that waterfalls always brought the best kind of luck.

It was something his mother told him once, about the waterfalls and luck. She'd never seen one herself, but he didn't want to think about that now, or anything else that would let any sadness seep into this moment. So he watched the water, and when everyone else was done with it, walked into the wall of it and stood there with his eyes closed for a long time, and when he came out, he knew he was smiling.

They stayed there for a long time after that, running in and out of it, taking turns to wash their clothes and then waiting for it all to dry, and when they finally left the waterfall, they didn't have enough time to make it to the campsite Stan mapped out for them, so they slept on their blankets under the trees because it was too dark to put up the tents, and they didn't make the fire because they were all too tired to collect the wood for it, so they ate cold dried meat and bread and drank cold tea.

Afterwards, when everyone was quiet, asleep quiet, he laid on his side, looking at Ams, watching her sleep as has become his habit, and she reached over and wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close. So close he felt the warmth of her against him, and he was suddenly afraid of the way she was looking at him, the look he couldn't read, one he had never seen on her before.

She seemed to read the fear in his eyes, but instead of letting him go, she just whispered at him, so softly he read it on her lips more than heard it, "I think I love you, Riley," and then she leaned in with her face and put her lips on his, but not softly like he did with hers, and she kept at it for a long time, making him feel like his insides weren't his anymore, and the heat between them unbearable, and when he knew for sure he couldn't take it anymore, she let go, and he couldn't sleep for the longest time after that, tasting her kiss, remembering the look in her eyes, reading the words on her lips.

It made him smile now thinking about it. She must have seen it on his face, for he got another one of those jabs in the ribs, and he had to try really hard to make his face look like his old face now, the one from before the kiss and the words. When he finally thought he got it right, he saw Drake running towards him, something being not right written all over his face, so they stopped, but it was too late for Drake to tell them what it was. He saw the smoke already, and, looking at it through the trees, he could tell that it was a large fire, much larger than the ones they made.

"Everyone backtrack, don't make noise if you can help it," he whispered, hoping they saw it on time, hoping they were still safe.

He got down on the ground while everyone else stopped just a bit behind him, realizing that not moving at all was quieter than anything else they could do, and he watched as a group of young boys arranged themselves in a circle around the fire, fair headed boys, not Zorin. They were waiting for something or someone, and then he saw him, a somewhat taller, older, light haired boy wearing a soldier's uniform walking into the circle, his face to the fire so he couldn't see him, the younger ones watching him. He must have been saying something, but Riley couldn't hear what it was, just knew he must have been talking because he was moving his arms, gesturing as he spoke, and the way he moved seemed strangely familiar, but he couldn't place it.