Outcast: A Corporation Novel (The Corporation) (7 page)

Eta smirks. “Dhevan knows how to get under the skin, that's for sure. And it seems that Kerick has picked up on the same skill.”

I snort. “Yeah, something like that. Or it could just be neither of them like me. Though I can't possibly fathom why.” I put down my spoon. “I'm handsome, funny, and can carry a conversation in almost any company. I'm a likable guy, Eta! Everyone in Dahn loves me.” Well, loved. I’m not sure how they feel about me now.

“You're not in Dahn anymore, are you, boy?”

“But I came here to help them! I'm the one who was giving them the newsletters, to give them the hope and courage they needed to stand up against what was wrong.”

“You are first and foremost the President's son, in their eyes.” She pats me on the back of the hand and never lets her smile waver. “Give them time; they’ll see in you what I do.”

“And what do you see in me, Eta?” My optimism and self-esteem has been taking a hit lately. I need at least one person to believe in what I’m trying to do. “A selfish, immature boy playing games he can’t win?”

“I see a caring young man who just wants to help the people he loves.” She stands up. “I’m going to rest before the meeting tonight. I suggest you do the same.”

I'm lucky I get to see a side of Eta others aren't privy to. I cherish it. “You mean you're actually going to come to one?”

“Why do the young have such loose and liberal tongues?” She smacks me playfully on the back of my head. “Give me your shirt, I'll get it washed.”

“Huh?” I look down. I'd completely forgotten the blood spattering. I grab the back of my shirt behind my neck and pull it up over my head. “Thanks.” I hand it over slowly, with a sense of respect for what’s on the material. It may be the last part of Kalaen that I'm ever this close to. Eta must be thinking along the same lines because she pauses when she takes it from me, resting her fingers on mine.

७

“You up, yet?” Eta yells from somewhere in her small house—sounds like it could be the kitchen.

“Yeah, I'm up,” I call out. I scratch at the back of my head before pulling on my pants. I walk out into the kitchen, which isn't too far from my room.

“You're shirt's dry.” She tosses me the thin, tan fabric from the back of a chair, without looking my way. I catch it, mid—flight. It's still warm from the fire as I slip it over my head and onto my body. I look down. All evidence of Kalaen is gone.

“Thanks,” I say pulling out a chair and dropping into it. “Heavy schedule this afternoon?”

“Afternoon is over. It’s evenin’ time, now.”

I look out the window. Sure enough, the light is low. “Did I really sleep the day away?”

She takes a seat across from me, setting some stale bread and what looks like paste in a bowl for supper. “When you haven’t been sleeping at night, your body will take what it needs whenever it can get it.”

I take her in, it looks like she's aged a good ten years since Karis and I came back from Dahn and my father took Ajna. This isn't an easy time for anyone.

“I've been thinking about these dreams of yours.” She takes a bite of the paste.

Her statement takes me by surprise. I haven't said anything to anyone about my dreams. “Don't know what you're talking about.” I take a hearty bite of the bread and swear I'm pretty close to breaking a tooth. I chew it, with aching jaw, before I swallow the dense lump.

“Ethan, my house isn't so big that I don’t hear you tossing and turning with the ferocity you put behind it.”

“That bad, huh?”

She studies me with her stare. “Why don't you tell me what they’re about? Maybe I can help, or at the very least you something to help with sleep.”

“It’s nothing, really.”

She scoffs and rolls her eyes. “When
your
nothing
starts keeping me up at night, it becomes
my
something
.”

“I can deal with it, get it under control. I can make them stop. I mean, there are tons of alleys in Neech; it really isn’t anything special I found the one from my nightmare—they all look alike. It was just a coincidence.”

“You found the alley from your dream, in Neech?” Her voice lilts up in surprise.

“Yeah.” I let my shoulders drop a fraction of an inch. Carrying around this seemingly nothing of a secret, especially after finding the alley this morning, draws a lot of my strength and mind. Two things I need every spare inch of if I'm to break the hold the Corporation has on Neech.

“Tell me, Ethan.” The softness of her words works at my resistance.

I take a breath, deciding to go all in. “It's not really a nightmare, I guess. Nothing bad is happening, but there's just something about it that scares the living daylights out of me. Every time.” She nods for me to continue. “I'm young, no older than eight, and I'm running through the streets of Neech. I turn down an alley and hide in the shadows. I'm so scared. I think I'm trying to get away from something, but I always wake up before I can find out what.”

She nods her head slightly. “And it's the same every time?”

“Every time.”

We’re both silent. “There’s more. Tell me.”

“You’re going to think I’m crazy.”

“You live with me, boy. I already know you’re crazy, but I can’t help you if you don’t tell me everything.”

“It’s more of a feeling, or a sense of truth. That somehow, Karis is connected to this dream. I don’t know if it’s in a real sense or not—I don’t think it is—but she’s a part of it somehow and when I’m awake, I dunno, I feel like,” I pause to think, “like I don't really know her anymore. Or myself. Like part of me is a different person, somehow, and that part of me doesn't love Karis. And that scares me.”

“A house divided cannot stand, especially the one inside of us.” She thinks it over. “Sounds easy enough, though. I'll give you some tea tonight that will help. We'll see how that works and go from there. Now tell me what happened in the alley this morning.”

“I was in the Square, waiting for Kerick, and I recognized the area of town I was in. And not from just my time here. It was more than that, it was familiar. Then, it kind of hit me—I knew this place. I'd been there before. It was the alley from my dream. I don't know how, but I know for certain it is.”

Her expression doesn’t change. At all. “I have some tea that will help.”

“That's it?” I ask, a bit let down. I was hoping for more fanfare than that. A bit more
ooh
and
aah
. Most of all, I was hoping for the answers I didn’t have.

“The right tea can fix just about anything.”

“Even the fact that I didn't recognize Karis or Journey when they found me, toppled over in my own vomit?”

“Tea has seemingly magical properties sometimes.”

I stretch my arms over my head. What I wouldn't give for a hot shower right now, rather than her tea. “Sounds good.”

“Tell Karis about these dreams of yours yet?”

“Uh, no, not yet. I wasn't going to, actually.” This catches her interest.

“Why not?”

“Well,” I take my time, in an attempt to grab the right words. “There's no real reason to tell her about them; I mean, I don’t even know what they mean yet. Besides, she has a lot on her mind as it is.”

“Or they could be something and it'd be a good idea not to keep them from her.”

Okay, now Eta is just irritating me. Why the detailed interest in Karis and my relationship all of the sudden? Time for a subject change. “Find anything useful in Karis' canisters?”

“Not yet, but if there's something to be found, we'll find it. How are the meetings going?”

I shrug a shoulder, taking a bite of the porridge. “Okay, I guess. Karis and I are trying to gather more members, but Neech isn't exactly overflowing with courage these days.”

“Keep trying, they'll come around.”

“Yeah, but we have a little issue called time. My father is a calculating man, and I know he has something big planned, and it can’t be good. We need to be proactive, be on the offense.”

“And what exactly is
your
plan?”

“Not sure yet, but it'll come to me—faster if I had more people to work with.”

“Have patience, Ethan. It's going to take some time for folks in Neech to know they can trust you.”

“I wish Karis' word was good enough.”

“If only things around this place were that simple.” She gets up, taking our bowls and setting them in the sink. “Just keep your head down and stay out of trouble.”

I grab our dusters from their hooks, handing Eta hers. I open the door and wait for her to pass through. She wraps her scarf around her neck, pulling it snugly. I snap the elastic bands of the mask around my head. “I never go looking for it,” I say.

“That's what's so disturbing.” She pats me on the cheek and walks out into the street.

७

Except for Java, the owner, The Tavern is empty. He's sweeping the floor when I enter and mutters a muffled greeting to me, without ever looking up.

I take the chairs from the table tops and arrange them in rows in front of the speaking area Java's set up. Really all it is is a tall, round table for me to place my papers on. Nothing fancy. In Dahn, we would have had a great podium with lights and voice enhancement. Cushioned chairs for the spectators and refreshments. There would have been music and laughing and chattering.

Here, there's only dim light, creaking and uneven wooden chairs, the smell of stale food fringed by the faint odor of old urine and garbage that hasn't been taken out yet. If I’m going off past attendance, there won't be many people that turn up, which is a blessing, since The Tavern isn't all that big to begin with, just enough space for about twenty or so people.

Karis is late. Again. It used to be that she was here in time to help me set up; although I don't need much assistance lining up a few chairs. But lately, she slips in just before we’re getting ready to start.

There's a creak and a cool breeze that wraps around my ankles and shins. I turn around to see her slip through the back door. She unwinds the scarf from her neck and chin and tugs her mask down on top of that.

“Sorry I'm late,” she says, short of breath. She must have hurried to get here. “I had to run a quick errand after work.”

“Anything interesting?”

She stiffens ever so slightly. “Oh, you know. Not really.”

I can't shake the feeling she's not telling me the truth, but I don't know why she would feel she needs to keep something from me; which makes me want to find out what that something is.

“That's nice,” I say, instead of pressing her for more information like my instincts tell me to. But then, she smiles up at me, and I'm less suspicious. “How was your day?” I ask.

“It was a day.” She shrugs her slim shoulders and shrugs off her duster.

“Hey,” I say, wrapping my arms around her, “about this morning.”

She shakes her head. “It was nothing. Don’t worry about it. We all have so much on our minds lately.”

I look her in the eyes, really look at her, and smile. “I love you.”

She stares at me for a moment, like she's looking for something. “I know,” she finally says, wrapping her arms around my waist and sets her head on my chest.

I rest my lips on her hair, breathing her in. We stand there and I think to myself,
Forget the rebellion. Forget my father. All I want is this, and I’ll pay any price to keep it.
“I missed you.”

“I missed you, too,” she says as she pulls away, but not all the way. She goes up on her toes and kisses me gently.

That one moment of contact grounds me and brings me back to Earth and puts everything in a new perspective. It's okay if she’s keeping something from me, because if it were important, she’d tell me. I have no doubt. And when I know more about what's going on with my dreams, I'll tell her about them. Then, we won't have anything between us anymore.

I pull her tighter against me and lift her up a little, kissing her again. “I love you,” I say for the second time. I set her feet back on the ground, her cheeks flushed.

“I love you, too. But we'd better finish getting this place set up. People will be here soon.”

“Yeah, all five of them,” I say with a sigh. Karis smoothly removes herself from my hold and lays out the remaining few chairs.

“I hope more people start showing up. If we want to change things—if we want to make a difference—we're going to need more than a handful of people,” I say.

“We will. But it will take time. Just wait, more people will come.”

“That's one of the several things we don't have.”

“They're scared, Ethan,” she says with sudden irritation. “They're fearful that the Corporation will find out about the meetings, that they'll be punished somehow.”

“That's a possibility, I'm not going to tell them otherwise, but it's worth the risk. We'll never see freedom if we play it safe.” My voice rises a little. Our tender embrace moments ago seems to never have happened.