Rise Against the Faultless (14 page)

“You didn’t like Frank?” Shane
asked after we left the meeting room and were out of earshot of Ann.

Honestly, I had been quite fond
of him, “I just think your mother must be onto something with him.”

“You’re… different, Raily. I
can’t really put my finger on it. And it’s not that you’ve just lost your third
wooden leg.” He looked down at my injured leg. “Are you ok?”

“I’m fine. I’ll admit that I’m
pretty exhausted from walking around without my crutch this afternoon, though.”
He wordlessly swooped me up and carried me to my room.

“Shane, I don’t want…”

“Resistance is futile. I’m
carrying you to your room. You’re just wasting more energy arguing with me.” I
gave up. We arrived at my room and he placed me on the bed with all the grace
and effortlessness of a veteran musician playing piano.

“Thank you,” I conceded.

“Tell me what’s wrong.” He
stared at me, eye to eye, and I knew he wasn’t going to just drop it.

“So you like Frank, but does he
like you? I know you had to spend time with him, as I will.”

“I just assume that everyone
likes me, Raily,” he smirked at me, “now quit trying to skirt the question.”

“You are so full of yourself.
You don’t think it’s possible that someone out there might not like you. It
would surprise me if someone out there
did
like you.”

“You like me.”

I scoffed and shook my head and
came up with an excuse for my odd behavior, “I’m hurt, I’ve been hobbling
around here, unable to run or fight. I’m embarrassed, if you must know.”

“Oren didn’t come out
unscathed, though.” He said it angrily, but he had a smile on his face.

“You didn’t have to do that for
me, you know.”

“I’d do it again.” He sat down
on the bed beside me and lifted a hand to my cheek. Suddenly, he looked very
sad. I had noticed that Shane hadn’t been his usual self all day, but I hadn’t
said anything. “You need to rest.” He left me there, with my giant book from
Frank to read over. I couldn’t tell if Frank actually wanted me to take a quiz
or not the next day, either way, I needed to be prepared I guessed, and
otherwise I would do nothing but sit in this room, drowning in my own thoughts
until I could make my escape in the next couple of nights.

I opened the pages and flipped
through, trying to find the Combat section that Frank wanted me to read. I
loved the smell of old books like this. It just wasn’t the same reading on our
tablets. I much preferred having something physical, that I could see my
progress and hold in my hands.  I found the Combat section and skimmed the
large page, and then I noticed, there close to the bottom, words handwritten
very slightly:

            “I know about DS.
I’ll help. -FH”

I read and reread the words.
How could Frank know about Dale? What did he know? I stopped and thought about
the words inked on his upper arm, “Semper Fi”. I needed to find out what it
meant and why this was a connection to our janitor at school. Was this a trick?
Did Frank want to see if I would blab to him about Dale? Was he working with
Ann? It didn’t matter how much I liked him if he was one of her spies.

I thought back to Frank’s first
words to me, “If it were twenty five years ago I’d call you Maryl. You look
just like your mother did when she was your age,” He knew my mother, a long
time ago. Could it be that Frank was one of the original members of the
Defectors? But when things went south, what side of the line had Frank landed
on?

Ann acted as if she were not
fond of Frank at all. If I were to believe that, I would say Frank was on the
side of good. How would he know that I knew? I didn’t know Frank well enough to
trust him, but the fact remained that he was already in the loop and I couldn’t
change that. So I only had a few options. I could pretend that I had no idea
what he was talking about and try to cut off any further discussion. I could
admit knowledge, but deny that I was trying to take action. Finally, I could
admit everything. I could just let Frank know that it was true, that I planned
to get Dale back, that I would do so by any means necessary, and that I would
accept his help. This would be my riskiest move yet, but I knew that I had
little time and even fewer resources. Frank could prove to be an invaluable
source of information. Everything in me was telling me to trust it and make
this leap of faith.

I sat up and leafed through
every page in the book, looking for more clues, or anything else that Frank
might have left me. What I had told Shane, was not untrue. I was exhausted. I
lifted up my pant leg and saw the awful blue and purple stains left on my skin.
It actually looked worse than it felt, but I would be good enough to be ready
to go out on my mission the night after tomorrow. While reading the gigantic
book, I drifted to sleep. It was the first time I actually slept since Dale was
taken, a deep sleep anyway. I knew it would happen sooner or later. My body
couldn’t keep pushing on like this, with no sleep and trying to heal itself. In
my dream I was running through perpetual woods. Every few steps, my leg would
break. Over and over this happened. I tumbled to the earth, only to pick myself
up again to continue my endless journey. I couldn’t see where I was going, nor
where I had come from, I just knew I had to keep pushing on.

When I woke up, I looked down
at my leg. It looked wonderful. I couldn’t believe how big of a difference. It
wasn’t nearly as swollen and even the bruising had subsided. I had to attribute
it to the sleep. I felt much better, not as fragile as I had the day before.
The rest made me better able to face the day. Which was a good thing, because
Adrian was at my door just before sunrise.

He looked awful. His hair was
messy and he had bags under his eyes. He couldn’t have slept much, if at all.
He took me out to the turbines to tell me that I could go out tomorrow night. 
He said he could buy me and my team five hours. He said for each of us to be in
our rooms, in our beds right before 12 am. At that exact time, our PID’s would
go into a sort of autopilot mode. The location and health reporting would be
overridden. So if we were running, for instance, it would still appear as
though we were sleeping and our location would report that we were in our beds
for the duration of the mission. We had to be back in bed at exactly 5am.

I had no clue how he figured it
out, but I was so grateful. He told me the exact point where we could leave the
campus. “Rai, you can’t take any chances while you’re out there. If you even
have the slightest inkling that you’ll be caught, just leave.”

            “I know the risk you’re taking for me, Adrian.
Thank you.”

            “I’m not worried about me, Rai.”  He pulled me
close to him and put his hand on my cheek, “I’m worried about you. If you’re
caught, you know what will happen. You’re risking their lives, too.”

            “I don’t have any other choice. This is what has
to be done. I have to get him back.”

            “Good luck, then. We’ll meet for breakfast the
next morning. I’ll look a lot like I do now.”

            “You do look a little… tired.” I smiled at him.

            “I don’t think you’re allowed to insult me right
now. I’ll be lucky if my head is still attached to my shoulders in a couple of
days. But I am pretty proud of myself. It wasn’t an easy task.”

            I got back to my meeting room in just enough
time to walk in the door sans crutch. It was the closest I had come to being
late since my arrival at the training compound.

            “Ms. Stone, I’m afraid you’ll have to spend at
least part of your day with Frank Hoster again. You’ll spend the other part in
training. It seems as if you’ve made enough of a recovery to keep up.” It
almost sounded like a question.

            “Yes, I think I’ll be able to get along ok.”

            “Good.” She paused before saying, “We’ll go over
a few things this evening.”

            I got a bit nervous at this. If she found out
what I was doing, I’d surely never see Dale, or quite possibly anyone, else
ever again.

            I left without comment. Shane came with me to
meet with Frank this time.

            “Shane! My boy, it is good to see you again.”
Frank welcomed Shane warmly and gave him a big hug. This was surprising to me
considering how he felt about Ann.

            “It’s good to see you too, Frank.  Have they
been treating you well around here?”

            “You know how it is. Lucky you, getting to work
with this one!” Frank nodded in my direction. “I hope you’re treating her
well.”

            “I try my best, she doesn’t always make it easy,
though.”

            I frowned at Shane and I tried to figure out
their relationship. How can Frank and Ann feel so bitterly towards one another,
but Frank and Shane feel so fondly about each other?

            Frank’s expression turned serious for a moment,
the first time I’d seen him serious, “I know yesterday was hard for you, and
I’m sorry.”

            Shane looked at me and slapped Frank on the
shoulder, “Well, I really have to be going. Besides, don’t you two have work to
do?” What did Frank know about Shane that I didn’t?

            Shane left and Frank said, “Now that’s a good
kid. We all know he got it from his father.” He let out a roaring laugh at his
own joke.

            “What did you mean about yesterday being a hard
day for him?”

            “I think that’s something you might want to ask
him. Not my business to share. So, are you ready for your quiz?”

            Here it was, he wanted to know what I was going
to do. If I’d admit to knowing what his note was about. I got nervous all of a
sudden. It was such a big risk, I’d only known him for 24 hours, but I’d
already made the decision, and putting it off wouldn’t do me any good.

            “I am ready. I found the text to be an
interesting read. Quite helpful.”

            “I assume you started in the Combat section?”

            “Yes, and that’s where I plan to end it at as
well. You’ll help me?”

            “I will. More than happy to, in fact. I have
faith in you. You’ve aced your first quiz.”

            “Thank you. I trust you. What is it that you
have for me today?”

            “I don’t have much time with you today, but I do
have some more study material for you. I’ve been working on it for quite some
time.” Frank led Cyril and I back to the rows of books. On the way there, he
nodded towards her and lifted his eyebrows, silently asking, “Is she in?” I
nodded a subtle “yes” to him. “Good,” he said the word aloud.

            Frank walked straight to another large book. It
had a dark olive hard exterior and the pages were yellowed at the edges. It had
no title on the front. “This might help you get where you’re going, sugar.”

            “Thank you.”

            “And might I suggest, that you take all the help
from Shane that you can. He’s quite the ally.”

            “I’ll consider it.”

            Yet another person trying to convince me to
trust him. I still wasn’t sure. I did need all the help I could get and when it
came to Ann, who would be closer to her than her son? But he wouldn’t work
against her.

            I did get to go back to Combat training. I was
paired with Lo for sparring today. I imagined they did this to ease me back
into it, since they knew Lo wouldn’t be hard on me. Shane met up with us, and
was harping on me to rest. When he left to go speak with someone else, Lo spoke
up, “I see he’s still got a vested interest in you.” Lo still hadn’t gotten
over what I’d done to Adrian.

            “It appears that way.”

            “Careful there, Rai. You don’t know him like you
know Adrian.” I could see that Lo would not be on Cyril and Frank’s side when
it came to Shane.

            “I know him pretty well, he seems ok to me,”
Cyril piped in. She shot Lo a glance that could have caused a fight with lesser
people.

            “I’m being careful. Don’t worry. Either of you.”

            My leg was feeling pretty good, but by the end
of the day I was ready to rest it. Shane and I walked back to our meeting room
together while Cyril went to retrieve my crutches.

            “I’ve been wondering, what did Frank mean about
you having a hard day yesterday? I’d noticed you weren’t entirely… you.”

            “I did leave your room without trying to make
any moves, didn’t I?” He laughed it off. I just looked at him. “Ok, ahhh,
yesterday was an anniversary of sorts, for someone who was important to me.”

            “Like a girlfriend?” The thought made me a
little bit sad, and my voice sounded more disappointed than I would have liked.
I couldn’t let Cyril or Frank into my head. The fact was that they didn’t
know
if Shane was on our side or not. Besides, Lo’s misgivings gave me pause.

            “No, not a girlfriend. But it’s good to know
that you’re concerned about it.”

            “I’m not.”

            “No, it was my little brother’s birthday.”

            “I didn’t know you had a brother. I thought you
were an only child.”

            “He died. Five years ago.”

            “Oh, I’m sorry.” Whether Shane was a traitor or
not, I didn’t want to hear that a child had died. “What happened?”

            “He...” Shane just paused. He looked off into
the distance, like he could see the past.

            “You don’t have to tell me, it’s ok.”

            “No, I want to. It’s just that, I was there.
It’s hard.” I figured from this that his brother hadn’t died from a natural
cause. “He drowned.”

            “Oh, that’s terrible.” I thought of the terror I
felt, watching Dale being carried away, I couldn’t imagine how it would be to
watch him drown. This was the first time I’d seen Shane look less than
confident, sad, and even a little scared.

            “We’ll talk about it later.” He resumed his
usual self-assured demeanor. He pointed to the door, we’d arrived at the
meeting room. I’d made sure to bring the book that Frank gave me that day to my
room at lunch, before meeting with Ann. I didn’t want her to inspect it and
find any more notes that Frank thought to leave for me. I had put a few drops
of water on the note that he’d left me on the last book to muddle the words. No
one needed to see it.