The Trial (The Tree House) (15 page)

“Come on, Ben,” I urged under my own tired breathing. “I’m sure there’s a hospital around here somewhere.”

“No hospital,” he slurred, “They’ll ask…too many questions.”

“We’ll worry about that after you’re fixed up.”

Ben planted his feet firmly so I couldn’t move him. “No,” he cracked with a pain-filled glare. His hair was hanging limp in sweaty strands down over his eyebrows. “I’m not going to the hospital.”

“What do you want me to do then, Ben?” I asked angrily and stared at the ground as I waited for him to answer.

Only the sounds of our breathing filled the air. Finally, Ben let out a sigh. “I just need to sit down for a minute.” Reluctantly, I led him into another alley and let him sit against a building. My brother closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the wall. “I just wanted to be the hero for once, you know?” he whispered then looked up at me with glassy eyes. “Instead of the bad guy. Just once.”

“Would you stop talking like that?” I asked feeling anger burning in my stomach. “Just stop talking like you’re not going to make it.” Any color in his face had completely drained and his hair was plastered to his forehead with cold sweat. “Come on, Ben,” I said. “We need to get back and get you fixed up.”

My brother looked up at me with drooping eyelids. His shoulders heaved and short breaths escaped his pale lips in clouds of fog. “I don’t think so,” he said letting his head drop to either side in protest.

I clenched my teeth together and sucked air in sharply. “What do you mean? Come on. Get up.”

Ben’s chest rose and fell with hard, shallow breaths. “Jack,” he wheezed. “You need to get out of here…now.”

I shook my head as my vision started blurring. I tried to blink the tears away but it only made things worse. “No way am I leaving you, Ben,” I said feeling my voice quiver from the cold. “You’re my brother…and I need you. Okay?” Maybe it wasn’t from the cold. “I don't care what you did in London.” The words were just spilling out of my mouth. “I don't care about any of that. It's not important. But you're my family. You’re my best friend and I need you to be okay.
Alright?”

“Jack.”

“No!” I interrupted getting down onto my knees so I was at his level. “I’ll carry you back or we’ll get a cab or take the bus.”

Now Ben shook his head. “You really think taking a cab or a bus would be a good idea?” he asked between breaths.

“I don’t care if it’s a good idea,
Ben
,” I snarled through my teeth. “It’s a heck of a lot better than yours. Stop trying to tell me to leave you here because I’m not going to.”

Ben blinked hard and locked his eyes on mine. “Yes
you are.”

“I’m not listening to you,” I said, my voice growing louder. “You’re going to survive and things are going to be fine.”

“Jack!”

“No!” I screamed clutching my brother’s shoulders. I pulled his top half up hard so his face was right in mine. “No!” I yelled again.

Ben coughed sending something spattering onto my shirt and his shoulders slipped from my grasp. I fell back onto the snow and touched a hand to my chest. When I pulled it away again, my fingers and palm were splotched with dark red. I don’t know when my mouth had fallen open but the cold air was beginning to burn the back of my throat.

“Go, Jack,” he choked, his head falling forward. A drip of red slipped out of the corner of his mouth and he squeezed his eyes shut, sucking in one last deep breath. Then he opened his eyes again, wide and unfocused. “
Go!”

Some invisible force pulled me to my feet and I stumbled back out of the alley. My legs seemed to take control, carrying me with lightning speed down the street like a rocket. The wind was howling in my ears, biting at my face, stinging my eyes but I pushed through.

I ran. I ran. I ran.

My feet scraped across the icy pavement every time I turned a corner, the momentum almost throwing me off balance.

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t swallow. I couldn’t breathe. Something was crushing my lungs as I ran. I ran. I ran through the darkness, never seeing places, never seeing faces, never seeing the corners I was whipping around. Only letting my legs push, my muscles strain, my body propel itself forward.

Finally, I turned into an alley and a wall rose up in front of me. Nothing told my legs to slow down until I
crashed into the snow and my body crumpled in on itself.

My lungs were on fire even as I screamed into the snow. Even as I inhaled, exhaled, inhaled the i
ce and as it coated my insides, I screamed. I screamed. I screamed until I felt like my throat and mouth were so raw they were bleeding. My hands were clenched so tight, my nails were biting into my skin. I could feel blood gushing from my fists. Pouring from my fingers. My eyes were squeezed shut so tight I was seeing bright white flashes of light but if I opened them, I’m sure I’d see the snow speckled with red. My hands covered in blood. My blood. Ben’s blood. It coated my shirt. It was all over me.

Blindly, I tore my coat off and ripped my shirt over my head, hurling it far away from me. The cold bit at my skin, gnawed at my flesh. Still the screams came through my gritted teeth. My hands clawed at my face, palms pushing hard against my eyes.
Trying to shove the images of my brother bleeding in the snow as far into the back of my head as they would go. I screamed trying to drown out the thoughts. I screamed trying to cover the sound of my brother using his last breath to tell me to run.

I screamed. I screamed. I screamed.

Blood rushed to my head making my lips tingle and my face grow hot. I screamed until my face was damp with tears. Then my scream turned to a sob and everything was silent.

The wind was howling now past the opening to the alley but I couldn’t hear traffic or anything else. Other than the sound of my heart racing and my blood pulsing in my ears.

It took me a while
, but I finally staggered to my feet. The cold had soaked into my skin and was chilling my bones. It was squeezing my lungs, making it hard to breathe.  Looking down at the snow, I was surprised to see no blood. None on my hands either. Though there were deep crescents indented into my skin from my fingernails. I didn’t see any blood but I felt it. Not mine, but Ben’s. Coating my hands the way that first suit’s blood had coated my back.

I walked over to the wall slowly and rested my forehead against the brick.
It felt molasses was creeping slowly through my veins. I closed my eyes trying to focus on my breathing, on the frigid cold but I could still see my brother’s eyes as he stared wildly, trying and failing to focus as he faded.

The guilt was spreading through my body like a disease in my blood. Every pulse of my heart felt like a punch
in my gut; like the universe was punishing me for being the one that survived. I beat my fist against the wall, rage escaping my throat in the form of a cry. This was all my fault. If I had just used my gun like I was supposed to, Ben would still be alive.

I was a coward.

Even as I hit the wall with my fists again, again, again, Hailey could have been out there being hunted. If she wasn’t already dead.

I screa
med until only my rage was left smoldering, burning deep down in the pit of my soul. My throat and my insides felt ravaged and raw and hollow like I’d been gutted out with a spoon.

After my hands hurt too much to move, I dropped my fists and stepped away from the wall. My shirt and coat had landed in a heap on a patch of ice so they were cold and damp when I picked them up.

What could I do now? I pulled my coat on feeling something heavy in my inner pocket. I reached in and my sore fingers wrapped around cold metal. I pulled out Ben’s gun and stared at it. I’d completely forgotten he had stuffed it in there a little while earlier. My gun had fallen into the shadows when I’d dropped it. Not that it had done me any good when I had it. As I turned the gun in my hand, Ben’s ring caught the light and I looked at it for a second. The blue stone sparkled like a fire was trapped inside. It was mine now, according to Ben. The gun was mine. And so was the responsibility of keeping everyone safe. Of finding Hailey and stopping Eli. Of saving the world. And I didn’t want any of it.

Only a few days ago my hands had shaken as I’d held my gun. I’d trembled at the thought of getting hurt or killed or becoming a leader. I still didn’t really want be, but I just couldn’t get myself to care anymore. It didn’t matter if I found Hailey. It didn’t matter if I found every last patient on that list and saved them. It didn’t matter if I didn’t make it through the night. And now as I shoved the pistol back into my pocket and trudged back out of the alley, I had no idea where I was going. But my hands were steady, the smoldering rage in me was thawing out my frozen body, and I wasn’t afraid anymore.

Ben

Chapter one

My eyes shoot open. What happened? Where am I? What’s going on? My heart is hammering so hard, it feels like an animal is trying to break through my ribcage with every beat. As I try to slow my heart and breathing, my eyes scan the unfamiliar room. Everything is clean and white and chrome. The sound of blood pulsing in my ears fades and I’m able to hear the soft
, constant beeps of the monitors on either side of me.

Trying to sit up, a sharp pain
rips through my abdomen making me yell and throw my hands out. They’re stopped in midair by tubes and wires stretched taught and attached to me with needles and staples. I can't lift anything higher than a few inches off the table without being stopped by some restraint. I lay there for a moment as panic washes over me.

“Hello?” I finally yell, my voice coming out raspy and shrill.

Nothing happens at first. Then a light above me comes on slowly, getting brighter and brighter until my eyes hurt and I have to squint. A shadowy head enters my vision and peers down at me, not quite blocking out the light.

“Hello Ben,” a voice says calmly. “I'm glad to see you're finally awake.”

“Who are you?” I ask. This time my voice doesn't squeak as badly.

“We almost couldn't save you,” he continues without answering my question then says something else under his breath.

“Why am I here? What's going on?”

The shadowy face leaves my line of sight and I have to crane my neck back to see him.

“You'll find out in due time, Benny Boy,” the man says before strolling back out of the room.

“Hey!” I yell after him
and try to lift my arms. As I yank, the staples rip into my skin making long red cuts. With one more painful jerk, I tear myself free on one side and bring that arm over to pull the staples and needles painfully out of my other arm.

Remembering the searing hot pain in my stomach, I sit up slowly
, clenching my teeth as my side throbs, and pick up the edge of the sheet that covers me. A bandage is wrapped tightly around my middle. Carefully, I pull the tape off and unwrap the gauze. A jagged stitched line glares back at me. The skin is puckered and red and dried blood and something sickly brown is smeared all over my left side.

“What the...” I touch the stitches carefully and feel a
nother sharp pain tear through my insides.

What did they do to me? Lifting my head up more, I peer around the room. It’s smaller than I thought. I’m sitting up now on a metal table that stretches almost the whole length of the room, only leaving about a foot of space on either end. Three of the walls are clean white tile reminding me of showers in a high school locker room. The fourth wall is almost completely taken up by a big mirror. My reflection stares back at me – or rather, a freaked out, about-to-barf face stares back at me. I go to
move my legs to get off the table but more wires and tubes keep them in place. In frustration, I rip them out of my skin and throw the cloth off of my middle. I’m very much naked.

Clutching the sheet back around my
waist, I slowly walk toward the mirror only stopping when I am a few inches away from the glass. A bruise darkens one side of my face and a scratch runs along my cheekbone. There are dark circles under my eyes and crusty green stuff in the corners. A dried blood drip stains right under my nostril and there are a few places on my lips that have split and bled then dried. I look like I was in a fight.

Was I? My head hurts as I try to remember what happened to me before I woke up just a few minutes earlier. What happened? Where have I been and who was I with? Nothing comes to mind – other than the memory of feeling very cold and the ugly, painful cut in my side.

“I see you took out your IVs. Shouldn't have done that,” the man's voice tsks from an intercom in the wall.

I squint, barely able to make out the outline of the man's head and shoulders behind the glass.
“Why not?” I ask him.

“They were administering constant anesthetics. You're going to
be in a lot of pain as soon as it wears off.”

“I'm already in a lot of pain,” I say clenching my fists.

The man chuckles and I see his head shake from side to side slowly. “Oh Benny Boy,” he says. “You have no idea what pain is.”

I slam my hands against the glass. “Who are you?” I yell. I feel the sheet fall from around my waist and pile onto my feet.
Whatever. It doesn't matter.

The man stays motionless for a long moment behind the dark glass. My breath is escaping in fast bursts, fogging the window between us as I wait for him to say something. Finally, he moves slightly and the place behind the glass is filled with dim light. There’s a whole other room in there. It
looks a bit like a recording studio with nobs and levers, equipment and small flashing LED lights. The man is sitting behind a desk just staring at me calmly with his hands folded on the tabletop. A bunch of screens are lined up on the wall behind his head. One is a view of the table I'd been on from one of the upper corners behind me and another shows a long row of what looks like jail cells. The rest are various rooms like the one I’m in. Some of the tables are empty, but others are occupied. Some of them are alone while others are surrounded by people in white. I step back from the window looking from one screen to another. What is this place?

“Ben,” the man says.

All I can do is stare at the screens behind his head. One in particular has my attention. The camera is positioned directly above the table. One of the people in white has taken a scalpel and is now cutting a man open, all the way from his chin, down, down, down to where the sheet covers his lower half. Blood is seeping out of the cut and a couple other doctors are dabbing at it with a cloth, trying to keep it from getting all over the table. The one with the scalpel puts his instrument down then push his fingers into the cut right above the man’s bellybutton and I see his eyelids flutter. Then the doctor begins to pull him apart.

“Ben.” I tear my eyes away from the screen. “There are some c
lothes in the closet over there.” He directs with his head to my right. “Once you've gotten dressed, I will explain.” Then the room behind the glass goes dark again.

I stand there for a moment watching the spot where the screen had been. I could have sworn the guy lying on the table was awake. I
swear his eyes had been moving; that there had been sweat on his forehead. The man behind the glass is silent now. Maybe he’s still there just watching me.

“Hey!” I yell to him hitting my palms on the glass again and making it shutter.
Nothing. With an angry huff through my nose, I turn and press my back against the mirror. It’s ice cold and helps clear the angry haze in my head a bit. The man said I’d get answers. I just need to cover myself up first.

I make my way around the metal table and over to the closet in the corner. As soon as I turn the knob on the door, pain rips through my abdomen
for a third time, bringing me to my knees and drawing a savage sound from my throat. The pain isn't like a knife, or like fire, or ice, or any of a thousand other metaphors. It’s pain and it drowns out the world in a white flash of sensation.

When I wake up again, I don’t have to squint for anything to come into focus. The room I’m in now is about the same size as the operating room
, and the walls, the floor, the ceiling is all cement. I stand up quickly, the pain in my side having gone down to just a dull ache. A heavy looking door with a small barred window separates me from whatever is on the other side. I grip the cold metal bars and press my face against them so I can look out. A long hallway stretches to my right and left, the walls, ceiling and floor all cement too. It reminds me of a mental hospital.

“Hello?” I call into the darkness. My voice bounces off the concrete walls and echoes all the way down the hallway.

A small, weak voice responds. “Hello?” It’s coming from the door next to the one across from me.

I feel a twinge of hope in my gut. “Where are we?” I ask a little quieter. “What’s going on?”

“You shouldn’t ask questions,” the voice whispers back. I crush the side of my face against the bars, trying to see out. A wisp of white blonde hair hangs down between the bars from the window. Bony, pale fingers appear clutching the metal rungs. “It’ll just make them mad and you won’t get any answers anyway.”

My cheek starts hurting so I turn around resting my back against the door and slide down to the cold floor.

“What’s your name?” the voice whispers.

I press my palm against my aching side feeling the raised edges of a bandage through the gray shirt I’m wearing. They must have replaced the one I ripped off. “Ben,” I reply through gritted teeth as the pain sharpens for a second. “What’s yours?”

“Anna.”