MEMORIAM (17 page)

“Sev,” I said, my voice wavering. “Let him go.”

“You’re next!” he yelled.

“No Sev. She’s right.” Vince came over and pointed his gun at Sev’s temple. “Let the man go.”

The man glanced frantically from Vince to me. His eyes searched mine. What was he trying to say? Maybe it was a desperate plea for help. Short-lived love, through so many killings, was something I was learning – love and compassion for my victims.  Although I did not know this man, I felt his pain.

Sev rolled his eyes and yelled in anger, throwing the man’s head against the wall. He screamed as his head collided with it. His eyes rolled back in his head.

I covered my mouth in shock, tears filling my eyes. “Sev, how could you?”

Sev spat on the man’s body. Vince pulled back his trigger and pointed his gun at the man against the wall.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Finishing the job,” Vince said. I covered my ears as a loud
BANG!
went off and
the man’s shirt sprouted with blood.

Sev was seething. “He was already dying.”

“Yes, but he deserved to be put out of his misery.”

Sev was furious. “AAARRGGHHH!” He tackled Vince, throwing punches. Vince’s nose started bleeding. I covered my mouth in horror, tears streaming down my face. Sev reached for his knife. In that instant I reached for Vince’s fallen gun and pointed it at Sev.

“Leave him alone.”

“Put that away.”

“No.” My finger twitched on the trigger. Sev leapt off of Vince and came running after me. I dropped the gun and flung myself through the doorway and down the stairs. I hit the bottom hard and glanced up in time to see Sev pointing his gun at me. There was another gunshot fire and I shielded my head, hoping I wouldn’t get shot again. Thoughts ran through my mind: Sam’s and my kiss, the brown-eyed boy, and that unknown meadow.

“Sev! You cannot shoot another hunter! How many times do I have to tell you?” I heard Vince say. I clutched my ringing ears.

“He didn’t. He must have shot something else,” I said.

“She was going to attack me! I was defending myself!”

“No you weren’t and you know it. Zanna, I need your help.”

“I’ll do it.” Saevus crouched down beside me. “Are you all right?”

“She’ll be fine!” Sev yelled.

Saevus touched my head. “Are you in pain?”

“I’m fine.”

“It was an accident,” Sev said.

I frowned and looked up at Sev. “I doubt that.”

“I’ll be right back; Malina and I are securing the perimeter,” Zanna said to Saevus.

“I didn’t mean to kill him,” Sev said. He was gripping his hair, turning the edges of his face red.

“What is he talking about?” I asked Saevus.

He shrugged. “Sev?”

It was like he couldn’t hear us. He fell on his knees, shaking his head. “I didn’t mean to kill him; it was an accident. It wasn’t my fault.” Tears ran down his face. I was in shock. Saevus got to his feet and took a step towards Sev.

Sev’s head snapped up and his eyes widened. “The Head made me do it. All of it. He took everything.”

I swallowed. I’d always assumed Sev was crazy, but what had never occurred to me was that the Head was the cause.

“What did the Head take?”

Sev’s chin wobbled. He shook his head, inhaling deeply through his nose. His shoulder twitched and just like that, he stopped crying and stood up.

“Get out of my way.”

I stepped aside and he strode past, making sure to dig his shoulder into mine as he passed.

“What was that about?” Saevus asked me.

“I don’t know.” Vince was silent through all of this. Did he know more about Sev since he’d hunted with him longer?

Zanna came back into the room. “Come on. Time to torch.”

Saevus, Vince and I followed Zanna outside and down the steps to the base of the building.

“You sure know how to rile up Sev,” Vince said.

“An unfortunate trait I possess,” I replied. “How’s your nose?”

“Feels broken, but nothing a healer can’t fix.” Vince pinched the bridge of his nose as he spoke, wiping the blood that ran down his chin.

Rain began to pour, soaking us. I blinked furiously, glancing up at the front room upstairs where those three people were hiding. There was another loud boom. My mouth fell open in horror at the building that was sprouting flames.

“No!” I howled, running for the steps. I pushed past Zanna. “NO!”

Malina grabbed me but I shoved her away. “Let go of me!”

“You’ll burn, you fool!”

“They’re still in there.” I fell to my knees. Vince ran over and dragged me away from the steps, holding me in his arms.

Faint screams and wails faded over the howl of the wind and the hail coming from the sky. Smoke poured out of the bedroom window where the people were. The fire crackled and the building groaned before the roof collapsed. “No,” I whispered. I didn’t care if everyone was staring. Those people deserved to live.

Vince lowered his voice so only I could hear. “Why didn’t you kill them?”

“They deserved to live,” I said through gritted teeth.

“You can’t hold onto the idea of saving everyone any longer. You need to let go.”

CHAPTER NINE

I was underwater. There were bright lights above the surface. I kicked my feet furiously, trying to get to the top. There was someone else underwater with me. I swam down to see who was lurking in the depths.

When I got closer, I saw the little boy with curly brown hair. His body turned so I could see his face. He wasn’t moving. Panic took over my senses. I took his arm and pulled him up with me, trying to reach the surface. When I reached out my hand hit a sheet of glass that separated us from air. My lungs were screaming for oxygen and I was light-headed. I kicked the glass harder; the boy was losing color in his cheeks. Bubbles escaped my mouth and with them, all the oxygen I had left.

I gasped for air, sitting upright in bed.

“Vi?”

“Sorry; bad dream.”

It was only a dream. The boy was a dream. I lay back down and closed my eyes for a second. The boy’s colorless face was still there. Sam stroked my forehead.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

I rolled over on my side, away from Sam.

“When do you have Memoriam?”

“In half an hour.” I stared at the blank wall in front of me. Sam let me take the side closest to the wall so I never had to worry about falling off. He had fallen off countless times in the past several nights we’d spent together, but he never complained. Through the empty space I found Sam’s hand and held it loosely. I didn’t want to lose him. I wanted to hold onto him forever and never get out of that bed, to tell myself that everything was going to be okay instead of the falsehood that more nightmares would force their way into my brain and take over.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked.

“Us.” I turned and snuggled into Sam’s arms. “I should probably get going.”

“I know.”

I lay there for another few minutes, staring at the ceiling. My mind replayed the conversation we’d had the night before about Sam’s family.

“We should find your family once we escape.”

“Oh yeah?” Sam asked. “And why’s that?”

“Why wouldn’t you want to find your family?”

He shrugged
.
“I don’t know if they want to be found. Especially by me.”

“What do you mean?”

“A few years ago I started disagreeing with some of my family’s political views, the biggest one surrounding the Pax’s general lack of authority. We weren’t standing up for ourselves the way we should have been. My dad disagreed. It got to the point where he couldn’t stand me anymore, so he kicked me out. I was eighteen at the time and obviously still in school, so the only choice I had was to move to Stoclo.

“When the Head took over and started carting Pax away, I went to find my family. I’d made a plan to go into hiding until it was safe to move to another rector. The night before I was getting ready to leave, my brother was executed on the news station. Apparently he’d been training to join the Pax Council and the night before his last training day, the Council was stormed. He was one of the ones who got shot. I never found out what happened to my parents.”

Sam had been quiet when he finished telling his story. When you hear painful stories like that you want to hold onto that person more tightly than before. I wanted that for Sam, to hug him and tell him everything was going to be okay, and that we were going to find his family, but he was right. There was no guarantee that his parents were alive, and even if they were, there was no telling whether they’d welcome Sam back after what happened.

Now, I scooted closer to Sam and rested my ear on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. He ran his hand through my hair, brushing it aside so my face was bare. My eyes glazed over the freckles on the bridge of his nose.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said. “I’m the luckiest man in the world.”

“Keep the compliments coming and I’ll stick around.”

He grinned. “I plan on having you stick around for a long time.”

“Good.”

“Do you want to meet me in the prison after Memoriam? I’m trying to find weak exit points. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“No, I want to,
” I said.

“All right.”

I got out of bed and went over to the door, Sam following behind me.

“See you soon?”

He nodded. I reached up to move my hair back to scan my neck but Sam stopped me. His breath smelled of lavender and his lips tasted sweet against mine. My mind went into overdrive as my lips lingered on Sam’s. Hands slid up my torso and my mind flashed back to a pair of hands sliding over my chest. I pulled away from Sam.

“What?”

“Nothing. I should go,” I spluttered. I couldn’t explain the truth to Sam about how when I got close to him, it triggered unknown memories that scared me. There was nothing Sam could do to stop that, which made me all the more nervous about giving into him. Our relationship was moving faster than I had intended and I wasn’t sure if I wanted it to slow down.

Down in the weaponry, Trent was waiting for me. I hadn’t really thought about our last run-in with the hand gun. Was Trent going to bring it up?

“Ready for another round?”

I guessed not. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

The Memoriam routine had become robotic to me. We went into the room and Trent hooked up the cords as I sat in the chair. I was already zoning out when Trent spoke. “This session will be twice as long compared to past ones.”

“Why?”

“Those were the orders.” He tapped the tablet and I felt a zap run through my skull. I rested my head on the headrest, took a deep breath, and waited for the darkness to grow until I could not see a thing.

The darkness was gone. An image of Sam and me replaced it. I was sitting next to him on a bench. His hand was on my knee and I kept leaning over to kiss him. Something he said was making me laugh, but I couldn’t hear what it was…...the images were growing foggy.....they shifted and I found myself in a hallway, running to the end. Sam was missing. I turned a corner and froze. Sam was standing across from me holding a gun. He said something but I couldn’t hear it. Was I deaf? My missing sense changed so I could no longer breathe. I clawed at the space in front of me until the world grew dark again....

I was falling through space. My stomach was clenched in a tight knot. I fell past stars and planets and asteroids until I saw a light up ahead that was growing brighter and brighter. I held up a hand to shield my eyes.

“Welcome,” a voice said. It echoed through space.

“Where am I?”

“You have moved on.”

“Am I dead?”

“You are no longer alive on Earth, but you still exist.”

It was impossible to see past the bright light; all I could make out was the figure of a man. I reached out my hand, reaching for the light. Was it a person? My fingers touched the light and it vanished. The scenery changed again to a meadow. Across it was the house where I had killed that little girl. She could still be in there, waiting for me like before. I wanted to run but my feet would not move. I fell over in the dirt. Why were my feet stationary? The door to the house flew open and the little girl ran through the tall grass, a knife in her hand. She was getting closer. My feet still wouldn’t move. She raised the knife above her head as she came closer. I screamed and covered my head, crouching in a ball.

The girl was gone. I came out of my protective stance and looked to see where the girl had disappeared to. Instead of the girl was the little boy with brown curly hair who I had seen before. He came over and placed his hand on my back.

“Vi, are you okay?” In his other hand that hung by his side was a plastic knife. I frowned and examined his features. His dark brown hair was curled in ringlets that tickled his forehead and freckles sprinkled his cheeks. Did I know this boy? I glanced around the meadow to make sure we were alone.

“Hi, Vi! Watch this!” the boy squealed. He swung his plastic knife around. I was laughing.

“Good job! Now try and stab me.”

The boy laughed and threw back his head.

“Come on!” I yelled.

He lunged the knife into my side, grinning. A pain exploded in my torso so severe I screamed in anguish. The boy wasn’t smiling anymore. My vision was going in and out of focus. Where had the boy gone? 

“There you are!”

My vision focused and I saw Sam standing in front of me. He touched my shoulder. “I thought something had happened to you. I got you a surprise.”

I sat up.

“It’s your favorite, remember? You told me you loved delphiniums, so I got you some.”

I reached out and touched the small petals. “Where did you find these?”

“It wasn’t easy. I snuck into a community garden across Stoclo. You would think they are almost extinct or something.”

“Thank you.” Something out of the corner of my eye caught my attention.

“Sam...” The Head was coming through the meadow towards us. He was here for Sam – I knew it.