Reaping (31 page)

“Yeah,” I say, and put my hand in his. He pulls me to my feet, and, without saying another word, we run toward the Resistance rendezvous point to join the others.

“...Might not make it.”

Might not make it. Jahnu might not make it. Jahnu is injured. Jahnu might not make it. Jahnu might leave me, too. Jahnu, dying. Jahnu, my best friend. I never worried about Jahnu. He was quiet, patient, careful. He was supposed to make it. He was safe.

I lean on Eli’s shoulder, and feel the medic’s words echo in my mind, over and over again. I can’t process it, I can’t move forward from that, I want to hold on to it as a possibility, as a ‘might,’ and never ever let it go further. It’s impossible. He can’t leave. He can’t die. He’s been my best friend since we were in diapers. We were going to grow old together. We were….

But he might make it. I cradle that thought like a baby. If I nurture it enough, it could grow into a reality, it could come true. In the next room, the surgeon cuts through muscle and bone to keep Jahnu alive, and it could happen, it could.

Beside me, Soren’s got his arms wrapped around Kenzie, rubbing her back in slow, methodical circles. She looks into the distance as if nothing exists. I, too, feel as if nothing exists anymore except the vague comfort of Eli’s presence and the thread keeping Jahnu in this world. The Farm certainly doesn’t exist anymore. Many of the workers fled into the woods, including Luis and Rose, and many others died. The rest are under lockdown. The second decisive battle in Resistance history, and, just like at Thermopylae, we were utterly caught off guard by the severity of the Sector’s response. Evander Sun-Zi, true to his nickname, brought to Round Barn the flaming wrath of a dragon.

I sit and stare at the floor waiting for news, vaguely aware of people coming and going. Someone puts a blanket around my shoulders. Someone else puts a drink in my hand.

“Drink this,” Rhinehouse says. 
Rhinehouse? When did he get here?
 He hands me a cup of something vaguely brownish. I stare into it, watching the liquid swirl and lap up against the edges like tiny tides against the seashore. Not that I’ve ever seen the seashore. It’s only something I know from my dad’s poems. Oh, Lake Okaria has waves, he used to say, but it’s not the same. Now Jahnu may never see the seashore. Never feel the ocean tide rushing over across his skin. Never grow old with Kenzie. “It’ll help you sleep,” Rhinehouse says.

“Come on,” my dad says. 
Dad? 
My father gathers me into his arms and ushers me down the hall to a dimly lit room and a rickety bed where Kenzie is already asleep. He pulls the covers up over both of us, sets the cup on the floor beside me. “I love you,” he whispers and brushes my hair back from my cheek. 
I remember the feel of my knife on the Dragon’s cheek.

I roll over and stare up at the ceiling.

“You okay, Little Bird?” Eli asks. 
Where’d my father go?

“Yeah,” I say. 
No,
 I think.

“Remy?” Soren asks, his voice hushed. When did he get here? I look over at him, sitting gingerly at the foot of the mattress. Next to me Kenzie is sleeping, a few stray red curls peeking out from under the blanket. “Did you kill Evander Sun-Zi?”

“No, I didn’t kill him. At least, I don’t think I did.”

“What do you mean, ‘you don’t think you did’?” Eli says. He’s kneeling beside me, eyes tired, hooded with worry. “Either you did or you didn’t.”

They’re both whispering, but their voices pound against the inside of my skull like drums. I shake my head. “I’m sure he looked dead, but I didn’t kill him.”

“We’re expected at a briefing in ten minutes,” Eli whispers. I push myself up.

“All of us?”

“You don’t have to attend. You can rest.”

For once, I’m glad he offered me an out. I don’t think I could talk if I tried. I can barely understand my thoughts, my actions. I don’t understand who I was out there. Who I’ve become.

The droplets of blood collecting around the knife as I carved my initials into his cheeks.

“Okay. I’ll stay here with Kenzie.”

Eli leaves my side. Kenzie moves slightly, and Soren gently eases himself up and moves to sit next to me. He takes my hand in his. I stare at his whirlpool-blue eyes and wish I could lose myself in them, just disappear, drown in the depths of those irises, forget everything, and swim in them forever. But I can’t.

“I want you to know—” he hesitates. “While we were out there with Bolts flying and everything on fire … I saw you standing over Vale. I saw what happened.” I nod numbly. “And then Vale, taking down the other guard … I want you to know, no matter what happens … with any of us … I really care about you, and I want you to be happy. I want us both to be happy someday. Okay?”

I don’t understand, so I just nod.

“I just wanted to say that.” He strokes the back of my hand.

“Okay. Thank you. I want you to be happy, too, Soren. Can you hand me my cup?”

I drain it and hand it back. He leaves the room, and as the sleeping draught takes effect again, I move closer to Kenzie. In her drugged sleep, she pulls me near, and even though everything hurts and nothing exists but the possibility of Jahnu not being with us anymore, I feel warm and safe next to her. We retreat to our own sanctuaries of unconsciousness, refugees from the pain of possibly living in a world without the brilliant, patient, kind, loyal, funny, sweet, peaceful man we both love.

It’s the smell that pulls me halfway out of sleep. Rhinehouse has hung rosemary, thyme, lemongrass and bags of dried rose petals everywhere to try to mask the scent of dead flesh coming from the burn victims.

“Can’t this wait? They’re still sleeping.” Vale. I recognize his voice, but in the fog of my drug-induced sleep, panic grips me and all I see is Evander’s boot on his throat, Evander’s bolt pressed against his temple, Evander’s knife in his shoulder.

I gasp, sitting up and throwing the covers off. “Vale!” I cry out. Then I remember that he is okay, that we are still here, I calm down. Beside me, Kenzie moans.

“No it can’t wait.” It sounds like the Director’s voice, but I’m not quite sure. “Get her up and bring her to the meeting room. Now.” Definitely the Director. And whatever they gave me, they must have given twice as much to Kenzie. I attempt to run my hand through my hair, stand, and pull the blanket back up over her shoulder. The taste in my mouth is horrendous. 
What was in that stuff?
 I push the door open and step out into the hallway. Vale’s standing just outside as if he’s on sentry duty.

“How is Jahnu?” I ask.

“Hanging in there, but….”

“But?”

Vale looks away. “It doesn’t look good. He’s stable, but the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours will make all the difference.”

Suddenly, the idea of Kenzie passed out while Jahnu’s life hangs in the balance really pisses me off. “Maybe Kenzie should be in there with him, instead of sleeping in here with me. Whose idea was that?”

“Doctor’s orders. He said she needed to get some sleep. We can wake her up before heading to the briefing, if you want. Did you sleep well?”

Vale reaches up as if to touch my face, but catches himself midair and instead lets his arm drop awkwardly to his side. He clears his throat.

“The Director wants to see you.” He looks like he wants to say something else, so I wait. I place a hand on his forearm. His skin is warm under my fingertips, but he pulls back, just out of my reach, nervous, or jumpy, or something. He takes my hand then and leans forward, and I almost think his lips might touch my forehead, but he stops and looks down.

“I want to thank you.” His voice is thick and soft, with an intimacy that both confuses me and sends me tumbling into unfamiliar territory. The space between us feels wildly different than before. I find I cannot move. I am drawn to his warmth like iron filings to a magnet. “You saved my life.”

“And you saved mine. The shooter. You took him down.”

He nods, and then asks, “What did you do to Evander?”

His question, though there’s no hint of accusation or disgust in his voice, brings me up short and I pull away, breaking the moment, feeling the accusation and disgust well up inside myself. I say, perhaps too defensively, “I didn’t kill him. I didn’t even really hurt him.”

“I know that now, Soren told us, but—”

I look at the wall. I can’t bring myself to say it and look at him at the same time. “I cut him.”

His hand instinctively moves to his face where his fingers rub over his chin, as if he could feel the ghost of the pain. “On his face?”

I nod “He’ll have the letters ‘R’ and ‘A’ scarred permanently into his cheeks.”

He draws in a slow breath. “That explains everything.”

“What happened between you and Evander?” the Director demands even before I’m through the door.

“Why does everyone keep asking me that? I didn’t kill him. Though he doesn’t deserve to live.”

She’s glaring at me, and even though she’s about a centimeter shorter than me, her ferocity combined with the drugged haze makes her look about three meters tall.

“Evander and Corine made an official Sector broadcast yesterday denouncing you as the leader of the group of rebels that destroyed Round Barn.”

“I cut off the power supply to their illegal meat factory, but beyond that, all destruction at Round Barn was Evander’s doing.”

“They say they have video of you carving the ‘symbol of the Resistance’ into Evander’s cheek.”

My cheeks flush. “They’re lying about the footage, there weren’t any drones nearby.” I don’t mention that the video footage I took captures that moment in excruciating detail.

“Answer me!”

“Yes, I cut him.” I say, trying to keep my voice even.

“What the hell did you do that for? And what symbol are they talking about?” she demands.

“It was the letter A for Alexander and the letter R for the Resistance. And for ‘Remy.’”

She studies me for a moment. “That’s not all.” She takes a step toward me and out of the corner of my eye, I see my dad flinch. “Tell us everything that happened, Remy. Everything. We need to know what we’re dealing with.”

The pain etched into my father’s face cuts me as surely as my knife cut Evander’s flesh. 
Would he rather I killed him?
 Everyone stares at me, waiting. The heat from Vale’s body warms me, and I realize he’s stepped closer, and I’m glad he’s there.

“That’s all,” I say, shaking my head. “Some part of me wishes I’d killed him. But I didn’t. I’m glad I didn’t.”

Carving into Evander’s skin was primal. It was an out-of-body experience. The act arose from a place so deep within me I don’t even recognize it now. Cutting him solved nothing, I know that. But I don’t regret it, either.

“What made you think it was a good idea to carve your initials into the Dragon’s face? By all that’s sacred, Remy, what were you thinking?”

He deserved it, after what he did to the workers at Round Barn. He would have killed Vale. He would have killed me. How can the Director not see that? A little scar on his cheek won’t ruin his life. She shakes her head at me as if I’m a wayward child. The rage bubbles up again, nearly choking me.

“What was I thinking? I was thinking of my sister and my mother. I was thinking of my dad and Eli. I was thinking of my friends, Rose and Luis, whose lives are ruined because of Evander—because of the Sector, because of their lies! I was thinking of everyone who died, everyone who was burnt by that airship. Everyone else that I’ve never met that Evander killed, as if they were bothersome flies. Cockroaches to be exterminated.” I couldn’t stop the words from pouring out. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see his boot on Vale’s throat. You didn’t see how he looked at him, how he looked at me. You didn’t see the look on his face as he watched dozens of people go up in flames. He was 
happy
. He would kill you, me, every single one of us and not even think twice. He’s the personification of 
evil
. And he was unafraid, even when I could have killed him. And believe me, I wanted to make him afraid.”

“Please. Tell us that’s everything, that’s all that happened.”

I don’t say a word. Everyone in the room is waiting. I meet Eli’s gaze and he’s looking at me with awe, as if he’s never seen me before. Soren and Bear and the rest of them, looking up at me as if I’ve grown a second head. A much scarier head. With horns, maybe.

“Remy,” my dad says. “Is there anything else? We need to know.”

“That’s all. Except when he woke up, he spat in my face and said ‘you’ll pay.’ I knocked him upside the head with my Bolt and that’s it. That’s everything.”

The Director looks as if she wants to shout at me some more. But in the end, she sighs.

“Here’s what’s happened, Remy, because you did this thing.” Her eyes are boring a hole in my skin. “They’re painting the battle as a victory against the rebels who kidnapped Vale, and they’re claiming you’re the newest leader of the movement. Evander’s gunning for you. Not just the Resistance. 
You
. To try you for treason, war crimes, and mass murder.”

War crimes? Mass murder?

“They’ve pledged to track you down and execute you on public broadcast, for the whole Sector to watch.” She pauses to take a breath. “Evander even made a personal statement after the official transmission.”

“What did he say?” I ask, but I feel as though I already know.

“He said, ‘No matter where you go or how hard you try to hide, Remy Alexander, you’ll pay.”

I pull out a chair from the table and sink into it. I should be shocked, trembling with fear. But I’m not. Instead, I’m thinking of everything they’ve done to strip me of who I am. I remember my mom and dad giving me the news that Tai was dead. I remember sitting across a desk from Vale’s dad while guards applied electrical feeds so they could tase me over and over again. I remember Soren’s bruised face as he recoiled from General Aulion, and my father bending over my mother’s lifeless body as more OAC Black Ops—Vale’s mother’s operatives—dropped from airships overhead.