The Balance of Silence (13 page)

They returned separately, Del to the circle of Bin’s arms, wiping away the remains of stubborn tears from her cheeks and refusing to talk about it except for a few terse words for Riv. “He’s over the next dune.”

Riv got to his feet, shooing everyone else away with a minimum of fuss. It wasn’t hard to do once they saw Del curl away. Their captain’s normally gregarious wife seemed a shadow of herself, hiding her 66

www.samhainpublishing.com

The Balance of Silence

face from the sun as Riv scrambled away over the hot sand, bare feet slipping on the dune a couple times in his haste.

“Pryce?” He thought he managed to keep the rising paranoia out of his voice fairly well, but maybe his estimation was off. Ducks looked up at him with a tiny, wistful smile, raising a hand to his throat. It hovered there for a second, ghosting over pulse point and voice box, then dropped back as he gave a defeated shake of his head.

“I’m…sorry doesn’t seem right. I didn’t know if she’d be able to do anything or not.” He sat down gingerly next to a clump of sea grass, pulling a blade loose and picking at it. Pryce wrote something, paused, erased it, and finally sighed and turned the notebook around to face him.

She said it’s like a wall. She could feel, or see, or whatever, everything that happened, and where
I…snapped…but she can’t get past it.

Riv bit his lower lip, reaching out and gently pulling a bare foot into his lap. His thumbs pressed into the insole, and Ducks gave a small but gratifying groan of approval. There was silence, or as close to it as you were going to get next to the water, gulls and terns crying off in the distance, the tide lapping endlessly at the shore.

I can’t say yes until I can
say
yes. I’m sorry, Riv.

He put himself into the foot rub, looking away from the small writing on the pad and down at the glittering sand between them. It was much, much easier to pretend he didn’t want to pound his fist into it over and over if he just lost himself in the deliberate movement of making someone else feel better. It always had been. Maybe that was part of the problem.

“I understand.” Anything else he kept back, because he was a shitty liar, and he couldn’t find words that wouldn’t have come out sounding like pleading. Pryce deserved to make his choices and have them respected, and Riv was damn good at letting people make decisions that hurt him.

I’m sorry. Really, really sorry.
The pad was shoved under his line of sight, and Riv made himself look up at Ducks and give him a halfhearted grin.

“You shouldn’t have to be sorry. I knew…I knew that things might not work out when I came here, and I’m still glad I did it. I hope I haven’t made anything worse.”

He was startled when Ducks leaned forward and grabbed him by the neck, pulling their foreheads together with a thump that made him grit his teeth. He looked into the eyes that were locked on his, and was surprised by their fierceness. The small shake of Pryce’s head was the definitive
no
on the subject, but he didn’t let go, and Riv let himself hold the moment, let Ducks hold him still and steady when his instinct was to run before it hurt either of them even more.

Eventually he reached for the notebook, allowing Riv to turn his head away and swallow past the lump in his throat.

www.samhainpublishing.com

67

S. Reesa Herberth and Michelle Moore

I should never have asked you to come here, but I thought maybe if I tried hard enough to say thank
you, it would just come out. I thought I could force it.

Riv shook his head. “I’m on the beach with my friends, and some hot guy keeps making out with me in the surf. I’ve got no regrets.” He shrugged a little, pushing a smile across his face, and Pryce managed to roll his eyes and look a little sad at the same time.

You’re a terrible liar.

Taking Pryce back to the hospital was one of the harder moments of the day, from the way their hands curled possessively around one another to the last kiss they shared outside the gate. By unspoken agreement, Riv made no offer to follow him in, to stay later, even to walk him to the door. If there was an end on the horizon, better it be a clean one.

So you’re leaving tomorrow afternoon, right?

“Yeah,” Riv said, leaning against the stone wall that framed the nearby gate. “Del has a regular check in with an orphanage on Indara in three days, so we have to get moving to make it there in time.”

Would it be easier for you if we just said goodbye now?

“Gods, Ducks…” His instinct was to reach out, but he tempered it, resting his fingers on Pryce’s arm.

“I still want whatever I can have, okay? I can be your friend—” He cut himself off at the sharp shake of a blond head, waiting while Ducks furiously scribbled across the screen.

I don’t want you to be my fucking friend. I want you to be my lover. And I’m sorry. If I can’t have that,
then I don’t want anything. It’s too hard, especially knowing that it’s because I’m still
broken
.

Riv tried to hide the way his heart clenched at the words, but he doubted he was very successful.

Ducks pushed his chin up and ran his thumb over Riv’s lips before stepping back and writing again.

You should want more than this.

Riv started to protest, and Pryce clamped a hand over his mouth.

I
want more than this.
He shoved the notebook into his pocket, dragging Riv close and kissing him again. Before he could sort out what to say next, Ducks pushed him away and slipped through the gate.

Riv took the tram home, missing his stop the first time and walking back through the throngs of tourists just beginning to spill out of the restaurants looking for a good club. He didn’t even consider joining them, winding his way out of the shore district and back into the houses until he found himself in front of his mother’s place. The windows were mostly dark, though he could see her moving around in her room, and Del and Bin silhouetted in the window of theirs.

He let himself in the gate to the side yard and then into the kitchen, finding the teapot already on the stove and still warm. He poured himself a mug, not really caring what it was, and went back out to the porch, sprawling across the steps and looking out at the artistically arranged herb beds his mum worked so hard on. He remembered planting them the second year they’d lived here, after the divorce.

68

www.samhainpublishing.com

The Balance of Silence

What he couldn’t remember, not in all the time he’d spent in this house, was hoping that he’d grow up to be alone.

“Are you all right, love?” His mum came out onto the porch, the hinge of the screen door squeaking as it closed behind her.

“Fine. Just remembering what a pain in the ass it was to build up all these beds.”

She laughed as she sat next to him, slinging an arm over his shoulders.

“I’m sorry it’s such a short visit, Ma. I promise I’ll try to get back here soon.” He leaned against her, into the hug, and handed her the mug of tea, which she sipped.

“Riversong,” she said, and he winced inwardly. “Maybe we should meet somewhere else. I’d like to see Giverny, and Tasmin. I know there aren’t a lot of happy memories for you here.”

Riv didn’t reply at first, his curiosity warring against the possibility of causing her pain. In the end, he knew he’d regret not asking. “You ever hear from Dad?”

“Not really. He had an article published last month. Something about how survivors of child abuse process trauma in a different part of their brain than other people.” She didn’t look at him when she said it, staring into the darkened garden instead.

Sparing her pain was one thing, but Riv couldn’t hold back the sharp bite of a dark laugh. “Well, glad to see he’s stuck with his area of expertise.”

Riv cut himself off as her lips pressed into a thin line, no doubt holding back an apology that he didn’t want to hear again. It hadn't been her fault, any more than it had been his. “We could do that,” he said, picking up on the earlier thread of their conversation. “I have a friend who owns a house on Giverny.

Maybe he’d let us borrow it.” Describing Lew as a friend was something of a stretch, but he was pretty sure he could talk Denny and Jess into it. “You sure you wouldn’t rather go with a friend?” His tone was teasing, lilting over the last word like the bratty child he’d never been. She laughed again, but shook her head.

“No, and don’t you go prying into my love life, either. I just want to spend some time with my son.

My son who ran off to the stars and never comes to see his aged mother, I might add.”

“Aged, my ass. I could still wind up with brothers and sisters.”

“Good gods, no! One of you was quite enough.”

“I was a lovely child. You should be so lucky as to raise another child as good-natured and sweet as me.”

“Mmmm,” she snorted into the mug. “And modest as well.”

“What can I say?”

“Say you’ll try to be happy,” she told him, and he sighed.

“I am. I don’t actually
enjoy
— Never mind. I am happy, Mum. Just trying to find my way through something right now.”

www.samhainpublishing.com

69

S. Reesa Herberth and Michelle Moore

She hugged him again, and he let his head drop onto her shoulder.

“I’m sorry about your young man, love.”

But Ducks wasn’t his young man, or apparently, even a friend anymore. In a few short hours he and the crew would ship off again, and then he wasn’t sure that he’d be anything to Pryce at all. The same lump from before stuck in his throat, but there wasn’t anything behind it. He didn’t cry, wrapped in his mum’s arms, but he buried his head against her shoulder and wished for a long time that he could.

70

www.samhainpublishing.com

One day he would probably get around to not pushing his luck to the absolute bitter end, but apparently that day was a little too late in coming. The transport hover had been barely crawling down the mine-riddled main street of what had once been a thriving town when it was suddenly surrounded by armed men. Well-armed men, the sight of whom was more than enough to send the car’s driver into a wide-eyed and muttering panic.

Riv forced himself to stay still, hands in plain view on the dashboard. He wasn’t armed; neither was the driver nor the translator. “What now?” he asked quietly, eyes flicking from the driver to the group now standing on all four sides of the car, guns at the ready.

“They kill us and dump our bodies in a mass grave,” said Morai, his translator.

The smile was ill-suited to the words, and Riv flinched. “Is that our only option?”

This time the smile was accompanied by a shrug. “We could make a run for it. They’ll shoot, but they might miss. Or maybe just wing one of us. Better odds to make a run for it, I’m thinking. You got an opinion?”

He could sense rather than see the frantic nod coming from the driver’s seat. “I think the consensus is make a run for it.”

“No sense in giving them the advantage,” Morai said, tapping the driver’s shoulder, and Riv was thrown back against the seat as the car shot forward. They all dropped low, and Riv tried not to feel the bump as they sped over someone. Seconds later, it was impossible
not
to feel the first blasts rock the vehicle, and they only made it to the end of the street before they spun out, skidding across two lanes and the deserted sidewalk.

“Go, go,” he urged the others, reaching across the seat to pull the driver out into shelter provided by the immobile car. He clutched his ReliefCorp tags as they swung loose from his shirt, pushing both men ahead of him into the abandoned storefront. Plaster and dust rained down on them all as the onslaught of fire continued.

“ReliefCorp! ReliefCorp, damn it!” he yelled over his shoulder as they stumbled over the debris.

There was a pause in the gunfire, and he looked between his translator and driver, both every bit as terrified as he was trying not to be. “Go. Go out the back, hide somewhere. Take the beacon and call for help as soon as you can. I’m still supposed to have immunity here. I’m going to try and hold them off for a few minutes.”

S. Reesa Herberth and Michelle Moore

“They’ll kill you,” Morai said plainly. Their driver had needed no urging to leave though, and the door let in a flash of light before banging shut again.

“I’m obviously not a local. I stand a better chance than you.” He pressed the beacon into Morai’s hand and turned around, holding up his tags in plain view as the first two men rushed the open door, weapons trained on him.

“ReliefCorp!” He shook the tags at them and saw the flare of a blaster before he had time to register that one of the men had raised his gun. Blinding pain hit him in the gut, and he fell to his knees. The rise of the floor towards his face would have been more alarming if he hadn’t passed out before he hit the ground.

Come back now.

But he didn’t want to. He was tired and sore, and nothing he did seemed to stem the eventual tide of cruelty.

Riv, you have to come back now.

He felt the ache in his center ease, drawn off and siphoned away, but he shied away from the softly intrusive voice urging him back to himself. It was easier to give in to the exhaustion.

He had a vague feeling of pain, and drifted in and out. His throat was so dry he could barely swallow, and he thought he remembered asking for water, but not if it ever arrived.

“He’s been stupid since—well, you know,” said a familiar female voice, and he recognized it as Del’s. He didn’t hear a response, but he had the impression that he groaned.

“Shhh,” someone whispered, Del or her companion, and he felt a cool hand on his face before he fell back into the drift and lost his way again.

He wasn’t sure if he stirred first, or if the voice coming from the side of his bed had been speaking before he tried to move, but it all came together for him at nearly the same moment.

“Riv?”