The Trial (The Tree House) (10 page)

“Thomas, we’re going to go meet up with a couple more people and then we’ll be able to explain a bit what’s going on,” David said.

“It’s Root,” the kid replied quietly. David and I both glanced at him in the mirror waiting for him to explain. When he met our eyes, he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I was named after my adopted dad and he wasn’t a very good man, so I go by Root.”

The three of us spent the rest of the car ride in silence. David decided to go a different way to avoid the traffic jam and I decided I would attempt to get comfortable enough to get some shut eye. After sleeping on a hard floor for the past few days, this cushioned seat felt like I was resting on a marshmallow and it didn’t take long for me to doze off to the sound of the warm air coming out of the vent and the rain hitting the window.

Chapter seven

Root was the only win in our first couple weeks of trying to find the other patients. Ben and I walked into several houses and apartments to find the walls splattered with blood and bodies on the floor. Other times the homes were empty but I could sense the fear and panic that had filled the place only hours earlier. Every time we were just barely too late. The
constant feeling of failure was becoming agonizing. I could see it in Ben’s eyes; the longing to save even just one life after ending so many. The disappointment in Sy’s and David’s and Root’s eyes every time we came back alone made me feel sick to my stomach and it took everything in me not to collapse in on myself like a dying star right there in the doorway.

Instead
, I found my sanctuary up on the roof of this place that Sy and David called the Tree House. Ben would always go into the tree room. It was a room on the first floor where a tree grew up through the foundation, covering one corner with its wide trunk and sprawling branches. He liked to sit in the limbs and pretend he was somewhere far away. I liked it up on the roof. I would rather be on top of the tree than enclosed in its branches. Perhaps it was my claustrophobia that made the constricting, tangling limbs seem so unappealing. I hated the feeling that my lungs were folding up and crumpling in my chest and I couldn’t quite take a full breath no matter how much I tried. But out on the roof, the air was cold and sharp and it burned and made me feel alive.

It was weird to think that here I was, here my brother and I were
, with so many peoples’ lives slipping through our fingers, so many deaths on our minds and yet the world was going on as if nothing was happening. One of the most infuriating things about the world is that it goes on, blind and unaware, even as your own little world is crumbling, breaking into pieces in your hands. One day you have parents; the next day you’re an orphan. One day you have a place and a path. The next day you’re drowning.

It doesn’t matter though. No one cares. The rain falls, the sun rises, people go to work and to school and on dates. They get stuck in traffic and yell and honk their horns. Toilets flush and ceiling fans spin. That’s when you realize that most of it isn’t about you. None of it is. Life doesn’t include you at all. The world will keep turning, never once missing a beat.
Even after you’re gone. Even long after you’re dead.

One day
, Ben and I stumbled upon a particularly gruesome scene. We made our way back to the Tree House and I was just about to go throw my guts up when Root came down the stairs to greet us with another file. Ben took one look at my colorless face and stepped in front of me. “I don’t think we can handle any more today, Root,” he said with a shake of his head.

“There’s no time,” Root replied pushing his glasses up his nose. “If you hurry, maybe you’ll get there before the suits do.”

I shook my head. “What makes you think this one will be any different?” I muttered swallowing the bile rising in my throat as I recalled the brain matter splattered across the living room wall.

The shrimpy kid peered at the two of us, furrowing his thick eyebrows. “You aren’t allowed to give up,” he said sternly. “Maybe if this wasn’t that big of a deal, but these are lives we’re talking about. You’re not allowed to give up
on people that need us.” Then he shoved the file into Ben’s stomach and trudged back up the stairs.

My gut churned wildly as Ben drove toward our destination. I don’t know if it was his crazy driving or the dread of knowing what we were going to find when we got there. It was probably a mix of both.

“Ben, why are we doing this?” I asked quietly. “Why are we putting ourselves through this torture?” My brother spun the wheel hard throwing me against the window and then slammed on the brakes. “What’s your problem?” I yelled rubbing the side of my face where it hit the glass.

Ben leaned over me and opened the door. “You don’t want to do this? Then get out,” he barked, his eyes drilling into mine. I just stared for a moment with my mouth gaping open, words stuck in the back of my throat. I hadn’t expected him to pull over in the middle of traffic. Cars honked behind us. “Go on,” he said nodding toward the sidewalk. I shut my mouth again and clenched my teeth hard causing my head to throb more. “Either you’re coming with me, Jack, or you’re walking back to the Tree House.”

At last
, I pulled my door shut and sat back in my seat. Without another word, Ben put the car back in gear and pulled away from the curb. We drove in silence until we reached the neighborhood Root had told us to go to. Then Ben parked the car a block from our target house.

“I remember their
eyes,” he said finally. I turned to look at my brother. “Their faces. All of them so hopeless.” He glanced at me. “You don’t know what it’s like to see the fear in a person’s eyes and know you’re the one that put it there. I’m sick of it.”

I looked away as his eyes became glassy. “Alright, Ben,” I said quietly. “I get it.”

“I don’t think you do.” Again, I met his look. The sadness was gone and replaced with anger. “I need a win, Jack. And these people; they’re just like us and they need us right now.”

“Alright,” I repeated putting my hands up in defense.
“Alright, alright. I’m sorry. You’re right.” Then I got out of the car and shut the door. Ben shut his too and the two of us started for the house.

Once we made it up the steps, Ben pressed his ear to the door and wrapped his hand tighter around his gun. We were silent for a moment as he listened.
“Anything?” I whispered. Ben shook his head then went to try the knob. The door opened and I felt my stomach twist. This was all too familiar. What kind of massacre were we going to find once we got inside?

The living room wasn’t splattered with blood like most other times, but it did look like there had been a scuffle. I looked around shaking my head. Pillows and cushions were thrown around the room; picture frames were crooked on the walls or smashed on the floor. Worst of all, I could feel it.
The panic, the terror. We were too late. Again.

“Eli nine, us one,” I muttered and sank down on the bottom stair leading up to the second story.

Ben picked up a pillow from on the couch and let it fall on the ground. “I just thought–” A
clunk
like something falling above us cut my brother’s words short. Immediately, I sprang up and pulled the gun from my pocket. The two of us shared a glance. Someone was up there.

Ben went ahead of me up the stairs and we made our way silently, our backs to the wall, our fingers on the triggers of our guns. I hoped I wouldn’t have to use mine. Over the past cou
ple of weeks, I hadn’t shot off even one bullet. I wanted to keep it that way. I didn’t want to know what it was like to take a life the way my brother did.

When we made it to the top floor, Ben paused in the hallway to listen. There was a senior photo on the wall in front of me and I recognized the girl from the file Root had given to us. Emma Ellis. She had dark red hair, freckles and green eyes. She looked smart and quiet and nice. But
judging by the mess downstairs, I’d never get to find out what she really was like. There was another picture down the hall further but I didn’t get a chance to look at it before Ben kicked the door in front of us and rushed in. When I hurried in behind him, my gun clattered to the floor.

“No, no, no, no. Jack, help me!” Ben yelled as he ran toward the middle of the room.

A stool lay over-turned on the floor. That must have been the sound we heard from downstairs. One end of some sort of power cable was twisted around a light fixture in the ceiling and the other was wrapped around a boy’s neck. He hung there motionless as Ben grabbed a hold of his legs and lifted. I quickly snapped out of my stupor and went to help my brother. I had to stand on the stool to reach the end of the cord and my fingers were shaking and kept slipping on the hard plastic.

“Come on, Jack!” Ben gasped from below me as he struggled to keep the cord slack.

Finally, I was able to undo the knot and Ben and the unconscious boy crashed to the floor. My brother quickly got out from underneath him and put his ear to the kid’s chest. He didn’t have to tell me. As soon as I saw him begin pushing on his chest I knew it was over. I gritted my teeth and pushed the heels of my hands hard against my eyes, squeezing them as tightly shut as I could. I just wanted to be out of there. I just wanted to be back home with my parents, with Ben, all sitting around the dinner table, my brother talking about London and how great everything was going. I wanted to sit there and laugh or argue or just listen. Anything was better than this. Anything was better than listening to my brother try to force this dead kid’s heart to start beating again.

My thoughts were interrupted by a loud croaking gasp and I whirled around to find Ben
drenched in sweat bent over the boy. This boy who looked around the room with wide, crazy eyes and gulped in air like there was no tomorrow. Well, just a few seconds ago there was no tomorrow for him. A wave of relief washed over me and I felt like I could cry. Instead, I swallowed hard and picked my gun up off the floor and put it away before taking one of the kid’s sweaty, clammy hands and helping him to his feet.

“Are you alright?” I asked him, clapping him hard on the back, mostly in hopes it would help him breathe a little better.

He continued to take deep, ragged breaths and I don’t know if he couldn’t answer me or just didn’t want to. I didn’t care either way. He was alive. Finally, there was a break in the clouds.

“Who are you?” Ben asked him. “What are you doing here and where’s Emma?”

Still the boy didn’t respond. His eyes met mine and it hit me how full of sorrow they were. “I don’t think Emma made it, Ben,” I said without breaking eye contact.

As we headed back to the Tree House, we still didn’t know the kid’s name. We didn’t know why he was at the house. We didn’t know why he hadn’t been taken along with Emma and her parents, but I had an idea of why we found him hanging from the ceiling. The guy came with us willingly but kept his mouth shut, hands in his pockets and head down the whole ride back. I could tell by the way Ben tapped his thumb on the steering wheel and kept looking in the rear view mirror that he was frustrated at the lack of answers we were getting. I was just relieved that we had gotten someone. Finally, we weren’t going to get back to Sy and David and Root empty handed. I seemed to be the only one happy about this.

When we’d walked in the back door and gone up to the main floor, a look of absolute confusion was written across the others’ faces. Nobody said anything until I had finally mentioned that the kid may need to have his neck
looked at. It looked badly bruised and the cord had left a shallow cut that had bled a little.

“What’s your problem,” I asked Ben after the room had cleared. “We found someone.”

Ben sat down on one of the couches Sy had found and put in a circle around a fire pit. “It’s not the same,” he replied tossing his gun onto the cushion next to him.  “He may not even be a patient. We just kept some random guy from killing himself.”

“It’s still a life, Ben,” I snapped narrowing my eyes. “He’s just as valuable as any of us.”

Our argument was cut short when Root cleared his throat causing both of us to jump startled. Neither of us had realized he’d come back into the room but he somehow had slipped into his chair at the table. His hands rested on the laptop Sy had supplied him when he’d gotten here.

“Even though Jack is right,” he started without looking away from the screen. “This kid is, in fact, a patient from Eli’s microchip trial.”

Ben glanced at me for a second. “What?” he asked and went to look over Root’s shoulder at the computer screen.

I followed after him and leaned over Root’s other shoulder so I could get a good look at the file. “Logan Carter,” I read out loud. “What was he doing at Emma’s house?”

“She’s my sister.”

The three of us turned around to find Logan standing at the bottom of the steps that led up to the third floor. He was slouched over, and his face was still pale but not as deathly as it had been when we first found him. There was a white bandage covering one side of his neck where the cord had cut him.