Outlier: Rebellion (2 page)

But of all the boys, Link makes her the most curious. He told them he has no brothers and lives alone, but she followed him from a house where two other boys in fact lived, so she already knows he’s a liar. That makes him all the more interesting. He even has a mom and dad.

I once had me a mom and dad.

Following Link and his wordless party of blue, she tracks them down three streets before a foot accidentally kicks into a trashcan … her own foot. They turn—all eight of them—and she just stands there.

They still don’t see her. They don’t see her because her Legacy of invisibility won’t let them.

“Cat,” one of the younger guys mutters, deciding. “Just a cat, keep going.”

“I don’t see no cat,” another complains, squinting.

“It’s gone now. Move on.”

After a length of annoying debate, they finally move on with Link pushed ahead of them. Kid keeps up, this time caring
not
to attack anymore trashcans. She hates drawing attention, even if she cannot be seen.

It isn’t too much longer before they arrive at the apparent destination: a sanctuary at the edge of the tenth ward slum. She didn’t take the boys to be the praying kind. Are they here to donate? Help the poor? Maybe she could join their band, help the world smile more. There are so many terrible things out there, as living on the streets has taught her. Kid lets herself smile, having drawn close to them as they approach the door of the sanctuary.

The nearest one politely knocks. A priest with heavy eyelids answers. He observes the visitors a while before speaking. “Welcome to The Brae, boys. Have you a life to save tonight?”

“Yours,” the boy in front says, and a knife finds the priest’s throat and draws red across the length of it.

Kid’s smile is gone.

The blue cloaks drop to the ground like curtains. Beneath, the boys are dressed in chains and black tatters, and the screams from within the sanctuary are all she hears as they press inside, blades drawn, knives thrusting. The leader of the boys, a lean and youthful boy with black gunk caked around his eyes, throws the butt of his sword against another priest’s face as they push into the sanctuary. Kid follows them into the main hall where rows of benches hold startled innocents. A boy whom she presumes to be the leader’s younger brother—practically his twin, similar of face and build—shoves one of the older ladies, threatening her with a thin curved blade Kid doesn’t know the name of, and demands something from her, her jewels, her life, the sanctuary’s money keep. It’s so difficult to make out words with all the screaming.

Then an unlucky priest who speaks up gets his jaw knocked sideways, blood painting the wall behind him. “Where’s your Three Goddess now?” the attacker cries out, laughing maniacally. “Go ahead!—Pray! Pray! Ask them to save a life now! Save plenty of ‘em!”

She spots Link passing through the hall less boldly, the scared faces of innocents seeming to bring pause to his actions. Kid slouches against a wall, feeling the hope that lived only a moment ago in her heart turn black as the blood that now dances on stone and fist and sharp, sharp metal.
Oh, what boys’ hands can do …

“Link,” calls out the leader with black gunk about his eyes. “Food, glass, and money from the chambers. It’s ours.” And like a good boy, the one called Link grips his sword, puts on a menacing sort of face and takes off.

Such a good boy a liar makes
, she thinks with a scowl.

The moment he’s gone, the other gang-boys start to laugh. “What a tool,” one says between guffaws.

She’s been watching them for a while and can tell there’s something different about the one called Link. He isn’t like the others, he doesn’t belong. But he seems to want them to
think
he belongs. Is there a game being played here among these boys? Does she not see it?

In the corner of the room, Kid observes a mother with her baby squeezed in arm. It touches her, the baby, mommy’s embrace … Kid’s a young enough age where she can almost remember her final wake, but it’s been long enough that she questions whether she’s recalling it at all, or just lying to herself. All babies in the world sleep until the age of two. Then they wake up for the last time in their lives, forever after staying awake, dreams never to find them again. Until they’re dead, maybe.

“Did you see it?—the hilt of his sword??
Tell
me you saw it,” a boy snickers to another. “It was all pink.”

“Yeah,” replies the other, sneezing with laughter. “A pink handle, I saw it. Who paints a sword pink??”

Another priest gets his jaw knocked sideways, for what, Kid doesn’t care anymore. The saddest thing is, none of the priests use their Legacies to defend themselves. So many abilities in this room, and no one even bothers to shield a face. Is that their pride, or their silly Three Goddess beliefs that stop them?
What’s it matter,
the girl wonders sourly.
Death and hurts can’t be stopped by the palms of hands. Everyone’s gonna die just the same, no matter their Legacy. They die as pathetically. Die alone. Whether screaming, pleading, laughing or silent, everyone dies the same.
She watches the priest beg, the sorry man he is.
No hand can stop death.

The scrawny Link returns, heaving with the weight of a sack over his shoulder. The sack is spotted in streaks of pink where Link’s hand clutches it.
Strange.

“I have it, Dran, all of it.”

And the lean, sinewy one with the blackened eyes and greasy black hair, Dran by name, sings to the scared priests: “It’s been fun, but gotta run. Thanks for donating, so very.”

In the way of the exit, a little girl stands clutching a doll, begging Link to help her. Apparently on their way in, one of them struck down her brother, who still writhes in silent agony on the ground. “Please,” she whimpers.

The one called Dran is studying Link, the rest of the gang too, all of them waiting to see how their new recruit handles this obstacle. Even Kid finds herself on edge, invested, her interest revived. Her heart begs him to be strong, to not give in, to throw away his desire to win these fools over, to stand against them.

Instead, Link rips the doll from the child and twists off the head—which takes more effort than he was expecting, clearly. He grunts in the effort before the head pops off with a sad little squeak. The girl cries out, but Link silences her by putting the pink hilt of his weapon into her cheek. This action moves a priest between them in some sad attempt at protecting the child, but Link is quicker and strikes him too, a blunt hit to the back. For a moment, horror flashes across Link’s face at the red he’s just drawn from the man’s backside. The priest attempts to rise for one pitiful second, then drops to the floor, unable, wailing in agony.

The moment that follows stretches on and on. The little girl and her brother, both on the ground clutching at nothing, pain seizing the boy in so many places he doesn’t seem to know where to put his hands. The struck priest, he can’t even turn over to witness what else is going on, his eyes in a panic. The rest of the sanctuary holds tensely, watching, begging good riddance to their intruders who with such ease slipped in and took all the money and food they had, every paper and cent.

Kid, the invisible bystander, the watcher, she just waits and waits with tired eyes, seeing all.

The little Link puffs up, playing proud of the horrors he’s committed, though his face tells another story, eyes trembling, lip quivering with uncertainty. He faces the room and cries out, “If anyone else wants to talk back, talk now so I can show you what your insides look like!”

No voice answers him, only silent, cold eyes.

Link drops the mutilated doll into the girl’s tiny lap before stepping over her to make leave. The others follow, each as though hopping a mere crack in the pavement, paying no mind to the blood on the floor or the quiet, swallowed tears of the sanctuary. Dran trails behind, taking a last glimpse over his shoulder to admire the pretty victory, a greasy sort of smile tickling his lips.

Kid doesn’t watch where they go, nor does she follow. Instead she observes the wounded of the sanctuary gather themselves, rising slowly off the floor, in pieces, emerging from dark corners of the hall and the stair and from beneath benches where they hid, not one of them saying a word for so long. The silence and shuffling of feet speaks enough.

If there’s anything Kid hates worse than the constant disappointment, it’s a liar. She whispers his name bitterly. The wounded boy on the ground stirs at the sound of Kid’s whispering, searching for the voice, so Kid thinks the name instead:
Link.

Liar-boy Link … liar, liar Link …

000
1
 
Wick

For once, he is not alone.

There is a boy sprawled out on the ground with the gold of sunlight in his hair and the blue-grey of sky in his piercing gaze. A lifetime of feeling alone, wiped out the instant Wick’s eyes fall on this boy with the beautiful face. For some reason, they don’t speak. Nothing to say, maybe. What the hell can be said to a boy who turns strong, clever, brave guys like Wick into a helpless, melted mess? Red, furious light dances across their faces.
Fire,
he realizes belatedly.
Everything is on fire.
His chest, his eyes, his knees … Knees that all his life held him up, crumbling in the presence of this boy. Blue-grey eyes that smolder, dissolving Wick’s every pinch of strength. He imagines them opening mouths to each other … How he might taste … His smell lingering on his clothes …
You’ve gone and set everything on fire,
Wick accuses the boy, a smile playing on his face. He knows the boy’s lips are warm, and it’s not because of the fire.
For once, I am not alone.
Wick reaches for the boy, and the boy reaches back. Fire hugs them like a swarm of yellow friends. The boys grow closer and closer and closer … yet never seem to touch.

Then Wick opens his eyes, and it’s all gone. The fire, the boy, the touch that never happened. Gone.

How cruel a dream can be.

Wick hears breakfast sizzling in the kitchen before the aroma reaches him. With great reluctance, Wick abandons his attempt at squeezing himself back to sleep; the warm lips will wait for another night. When he pulls on a pair of pants, he finds the dream left him with one other considerate gift in his pants. Sighing, he gives an honest consideration to taking care of his distractingly peppy friend before heading downstairs, but judging by the dagger of sunlight striking through the window, there really isn’t enough time.

Getting ready takes Wick exactly fourteen seconds. After thrusting on the only pair of clean socks he owns, he coaxes his feet into a pair of running shoes with red stripes that cut up the sides. Pushing a spray of hair under the hood of the same red sleeveless jacket he’s worn for years—and long since outgrown—he opts not to don a shirt underneath, as laundry hasn’t been done in half a week and the jacket fits snugly enough without one.

He staggers out of the closet he’s called a room his whole life and makes a stop at the tiny bathroom he and his brothers and parents share, only to find the faucets make no water. “Come on,” he moans tiredly. “Just a spray. Just a trickle’s all I need.” With a sleepy, resigned sigh, he continues his short trek down the steep narrow stair to the den, stepping over a dune of dirty shirts that haven’t made it to the laundry and a half-dumped backpack.

He takes a creaky seat at the island counter, the only thing separating what can be called den or kitchen in their tiny, crowded living space. His brother Lionis, who generally inhabits the den as his own room, has left something loud and crackling in the pan.

“Cooking without water?” moans Wick, pulling on the short spikes for sideburns that play on his cheeks. “Hey, where’s mom?”

Returning, Lionis doesn’t reply, pitching a dash of who-knows into the pan. Lionis looks like a starved version of Wick. Lionis’s short brown hair is combed forward and pressed flat to his forehead today. He has the blunt nose of their dad and is always flushed with mad craters of acne, masked only by wiry, overgrown stubble that runs in patches up his cheeks. His eyebrows are two blunt dabs of dark that seem in a permanent state of concentration.

“Do you know where Link was last night? He wasn’t home when I …” Seeing the cold half-closed eyelids of his brother, Wick just gives up. He pushes palms into his eyes, trying to forget that beautiful boy in his dream.

From behind he gets a sudden embrace from two tiny arms, mom’s citrusy perfume finding him before her face does. “Hey. Morning, mom. Water’s out again. Where’s Link?”

“Upstairs.” She kisses him on the brow. “He stayed up all night working on a project, something for school.”

“Sure.” Wick knows better; his little brother’s late night antics are always suspicious. He doesn’t like how Link’s changed, turning from the bright thinker he once was into this angsty stranger who keeps secrets and wears too much black—even his hair’s dyed black. He even insisted on taking the whole room upstairs when Halves moved out. But Wick’s no room to scorn others for secrets, considering his own.

“Get enough sleep last night?” his mother whispers into an ear, and Wick nods irritably, shrugging her off.

It’s the family secret. Everyone knows children wake for the last time at the age of two … so why at seventeen does Wick still sleep? Mom coddles him and makes a fuss like he’s still her baby because the only people left in the world who sleep are toddlers. But Wick is no toddler.

“Breakfast,” says Lionis.

“Not hungry,” says Wick, disinterring his backpack from clothes and clutter on the sofa and checking it for his proper books before slinging it over a shoulder.