Brothers Read online

  I ran on, but my legs shook and he came closer and closer.

  “Stop!” he hissed. “For pity’s sake stop! We’re near the train tracks!”

  He sounded younger than I remembered. Something in his words rang a subliminal alarm bell, but I was too tired to pay attention—and too desperate. He was close, so close…

  Arms closed around me, hauled me in and held me so tightly I didn’t think the shin thing was going to work a second time. “Stop!” His voice was so urgent now, I couldn’t help listening. “There’re train tracks ahead, do you understand? An electric rail. Please stop. I only want to help you.”

  “Help me?” My voice was thin. I wasn’t sure how much more of this could I take. “Who…who are you?” Not the driver. In the sliver of moonlight filtering down into the trees, I could see he wore a balaclava. “Why would you help me?”

  “Because I’m on the run from the EuroGov as well. I’m on my way out of the EuroBloc, in fact. And I’m guessing that’s where you need to go. You can come with me, if you want to. I have the whole trip planned.”

  I stood there, almost leaning against him, my mind… swaying…with the shock and confusion of the evening. On the run…leaving the EuroBloc…I could go with him.

  Where had he come from? Balaclava and…and gloves and all?

  The car! The crashed car! He wanted everyone to think he was dead! He must really be against the EuroGov, then.

  Could I trust him? No, no one could be trusted. But I didn’t have much choice but to go with him. I mean, I was standing in the middle of the dark forest, with nothing, with my hands cuffed, without the first clue what to do or where to go. Of course I had to go with him.

  “Yeah, I’d like to come.”

  Hang on…hang on! My stomach suddenly felt like a gripper locomotive with a broken cog, sliding back down, down, down the mountain, with nothing to hold it onto the track…

  “Good,” he was saying. “Because I’m worried about how you’d make out on your own.” His grip loosened, releasing me back to the mercy of the cold night air, but his hands traced the nasty ‘bracelets’ on my wrists. “Hmm, we’d better—”

  “Wait!” My throat felt tight with fear, now. “Wait, I have a sister! Will they…will they take her…instead of me? Isn’t that what they do?”

  “Not in this case.” He sounded very sure.

  “Why not?” Let it be true, oh let it be true.

  “Because you’d been taken into the EGD’s custody, hadn’t you? Your parents were no longer responsible for you—they were. It’s just their tough luck they lost you. There’s no way they can legally take your sister in your place. The moment they put you into that car, your sister was safe.”

  My heart was slowing again, but I was shaking hard with relief and leftover fear. “Are you…are you sure? You’re not just…saying that to make me feel better?”

  “I am absolutely certain.” He sounded it, too. “I’ve studied all the vile Registration laws in considerable detail. They cannot touch your sister. There’s absolutely nothing to stop you making a run for the border.”

  I swallowed, still shivering, though it was all relief, now. I believed him. He knew. Daisy was safe. I’d never even thought about that in the car, when I grabbed that pistol.

  He tapped my handcuffs. “First thing tomorrow we’d better look for a farm workshop or something. Get those off. For now, let’s get away from here. Far away.”

  “Right,” I said nervously. Well, he sounded confident. And he did seem to have a plan. And some idea what to do.

  But…I really wasn’t sure why he’d revealed himself to me. Because I was quite certain he didn’t need me. The opposite, in fact. But the one thing I did know was that I didn’t know how to survive on my own. This guy was probably my only hope. And as soon as his common sense caught up with him and he realized what a liability I was going to be, he’d leave me.

  Wait…what if I…? Well, that might force him to stay with me…or it might just make him kill me. But everything was going to be a gamble from now on, wasn’t it?

  Before I could chicken out, I raised my hands, not too fast, but not slow either, and grabbed the top of his balaclava…a split-second pause, to check just how violently he was going to react. He did nothing, so I yanked it off.

  He was young. Way younger than his confidence had suggested. Eighteen or close to it, no older. His hair was dark, his eyes almost invisible in the dimness.

  He returned my searching gaze solemnly. “Well, now we really had better stick together like glue.” A smile peeped. “Happy?”

  Heat rushed to my face, as I realized he knew exactly why I’d just done that, and I found myself stammering. “Y…yes. Uh, my name’s J…Joe, by the way.”

  Well, he seemed to have taken it all right. I suppose revealing himself to me, offering to help, making no attempt to stop me seeing his face and then turning around and killing me would really make no sense at all.

  He was smiling again. “Joe. Pleased to meet you. I’m—” He hesitated.

  He was going to lie, wasn’t he?

  “I’m…K.”

  Okay, not quite a lie. That was…surprisingly nice.

  “K. Hi.”

  Present Time

  Somewhere in the French Department,

  EuroBloc

  K

  I ran. And ran. And ran. Joe’s blood soaked into my top and trickled down my chest and back, but it seemed like a million years before I finally dared to lay him on the ground.

  His balaclava was gone, snatched away by some clutching twig, and his eyes glistened in the moonlight. No time to speak—or even check if there was life in them—soldiers’ voices carried to my ears from not all that far away. I wouldn’t have dared stop at all if I wasn’t so scared that if I didn’t do something about the bleeding, by the time it was actually ‘safe’ to take a break, Joe would definitely be dead.

  Shielded—please, Lord!—behind what I thought was a thick bush, I dared—had no choice but to—pull out my red flashlight and shine it at Joe. My chest knotted up as I took in the extent of the wetness that’d spread up the front of his jacket and halfway down his pants. Oh God, should I have stopped sooner? But the soldiers had been right on my heels.

  I pulled up his clothes as quickly as I could and got a look at last. The hole in his back was tiny, just off centre to the left of his spine, but the exit wound on the other side of his abdomen was the size of a small child’s fist. My stomach knotted up, making my entire upper torso rigid with shock and dread. Joe needed a doctor. No, he needed a fully equipped hospital emergency department. Now. Or fifteen minutes ago.

  A twig snapped somewhere behind us... Quickly, I shed the rucksack, slipped off my jacket, rolled it into a makeshift bandage and tied it around Joe’s body. Yanking my belt out of its loops, I buckled it around for good measure, trying to get the jacket as tight as possible.

  Finally, pocketing the flashlight and hauling the rucksack back on again, I managed to breathe a few words: “It’s okay, Joe, I got a bandage on, but we’ve got to move.” As I hefted Joe back up over my shoulder, his faint whimper of pain was music to my ears.

  Dead boys didn’t whimper.

  JOE

  Shadowy trees flashed by upside down in the dim moonlight, trees and bushes and unidentified twisting shapes... Sometimes branches yanked my hair or managed to catch my cheeks. I felt dizzy and disorientated. My mind seemed to be working ever so slowly through a haze of pain and…and…haze.

  I’d been shot. I was sure of that much.

  K was carrying me. That seemed fairly clear as well.

  Other questions gradually floated up. How badly was I hurt? How long would K bother to carry me for? What would happen when he put me down and left me?

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer to those questions. But my mind insisted on slowly but surely grinding out the answers. When he left me, I would die alone on the forest floor. Or the soldiers would find me. What would they do? Drive
me straight to the nearest Facility so my undamaged organs wouldn’t go to waste? Horrendous as the first fate seemed, I preferred it to the second.

  Maybe he wouldn’t leave me.

  And maybe we were on the moon. What was I to him, really? When the soldiers got too close or he got too tired or…or if it became clear I could no longer go on…he’d put me down. Make some excuse, maybe, and slip away, leaving me to my fate. Just as my parents had done. Just as God had done. I knew real love didn’t exist, the lesson had been too agonizing to forget.

  Could I go on? Hard to tell, hanging here like this. But from the horrible, leaden dullness that gripped my entire body, I’d a nasty feeling going on under my own steam was no longer an option. My life was entirely in K’s hands. It’d kind of been ever since he found me, but now it was literally so.

  The only question was whether he’d try harder to save me than Mum and Dad had done.

  My heart ached in a way that had nothing to do with the pain burning through my belly. I’d take the bullet pain, any day.

  Why didn’t you even try?

  Why did you lie?

  This ‘God the Father’ K talked about was just like my real dad, too. All this stuff about him loving me, and then he let me get shot like this.

  But as I hung there, limply, and K ran on and on—his shoulders heaving as he panted under my weight—stuff that K had said filtered slowly back into my mind, rolling around like water in the bilges of a boat.

  …People do evil things, not God…

  …God simply permits them to…

  …Because otherwise we’d just be his puppets…

  “Would you like to be a puppet, Joe?” K had asked me. Again I heard my vehement, “No!”

  Was this the price of that ‘No’?

  I was losing track of time. The sky had lightened. My heart leapt at the thought of dawn…of being free of this darkness, of being able to see. But…if we could see, we could be seen. Maybe light wasn’t good after all.

  K was muttering something to himself as he slogged up a steep rocky slope. He wasn’t running now. His shoulder was no longer hot under me, despite hours of exertion. He must be whacked. He’d been whispering prayers for miles?…hours?...millennia?...but the rhythm of his murmurings had changed. He was debating with himself.

  Whether to leave me?

  He slipped behind some bushes and…yeowwww—ow—oww…I barely bit back a scream as he laid me on the ground.

  “Sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, Joe! It’s okay, you’re down! Just lie still, I’m going to look for a hiding place. This rocky area looks promising. Don’t make a sound, I’ll be back soon.”

  And he was gone.

  It felt like another bullet had just slammed right through my heart. The pain was terrible.

  He wasn’t coming back, was he? He was too exhausted to carry me any further, so he’d told me a comforting lie to make me feel better—just like Mum and Dad did—and he’d split.

  Hot tears spilled from my eyes. Anger surged inside me, anger at me. I’d known better than to trust anyone, surely, but I had—or I wouldn’t be crying like this. Well, I didn’t need K! I’d take care of myself.

  But when I tried to roll onto my front, ready to get to my feet…I couldn’t. Pain stabbed my abdomen, but I barely managed to get one shoulder off the ground. My body felt like a limp rag. I flopped back, and the question I’d been trying to avoid stormed squarely into my mind.

  Am I going to die?

  I tried to lift my head enough to look down the length of myself. Argh, it felt like a concrete railway sleeper attached to my neck, so heavy…somehow, somehow, I lifted it until my chin pressed to my chest and managed to focus. Some rolled up clothing—K’s jacket?—was strapped around me, gleaming damply in the faint light. Was that…dew?

  It wasn’t dew. The jacket was soaked with my blood. My head thudded back onto the ground as my strength ran out. So much blood.

  How much more could I lose? K clearly didn’t think he could do anything for me. The cold feeling that gripped my belly had nothing to do with the wound…or everything to do with it.

  Yes, whispered a helpful/unhelpful little voice in my mind. You are going to die. Here on the ground. Alone. K left you to die. Alone.

  I was crying again. Crying like a baby, but I couldn’t stop. My mind had fragmented into a million agonizing shards of fear and pain and hurt. I just retained the sense to keep as quiet as possible. If it was all over, I’d rather die quickly—comparatively quickly—here in the forest, free, than be kept just alive enough, just long enough, to die on a cold gurney, my body pillaged and scattered.

  But I couldn’t stop sobbing. Pain and weakness robbed me of all control. I didn’t want to die. But even more, I didn’t want to be unloved. Alone and unloved and undefended and…unwanted. Or…not wanted enough, just up until I needed something, really really needed something.

  My parents didn’t want me enough, nor did K.

  My brain made a few feeble attempts to defend K, asking if I wanted him to die too, if I wanted his family to die—what would be the point of that?—but I couldn’t stop the tears.

  He didn’t have to lie. He could have just said Sorry, but I have to go; I hope you understand. I’d probably still be crying, but it wouldn’t be quite so bad.

  A rustling in the bushes…then a hand settled on my shoulder.

  “Hey, Joe, shhh, shhh. Is the pain really bad?” K. It was K. “Shhh, it’s okay, I’ve found quite a good place to hide. As soon as I get you in there, I can give you some painkillers, okay? Can you be brave for just another few minutes?”

  Brave? My tears had choked off mid-sob, I was that shocked to see him again, but I couldn’t understand how he could call me brave just now.

  “You came back…” I said stupidly.

  His eyes narrowed as he looked down at me. It was getting a lot lighter, now. “Of course. I’m really sorry, Joe, I thought you heard what I said before I left you. I was just looking for somewhere for us to hole up. Come on, up we go.”

  Owwwwwwwww…

  He hadn’t thrown me over his shoulder again, thank goodness—though his rucksack was missing—but simply hefted me into his arms. By the time the pain had died down enough for my vision to clear, he was wriggling through some rock formations and hanging undergrowth and laying me down in a narrow crack in the cliff face.

  Owwwwwww…

  When I opened my eyes again, K was gone. My heart crashed right back to the ground. He’d hidden me and then he’d left.

  But…no, there he was, at the entrance, on hands and knees, crawling backwards into the crack, peering closely at the ground. Oh, getting rid of tracks. He scrambled over to me without bothering to stand again and brushed my hair out of my eyes in that gentle way I often objected to—‘I’m not a baby!’—though right now I couldn’t think why I’d ever complained. His smile was warm...but strained.

  “Right, let’s get you fixed up a bit better. Painkillers first.” He didn’t manage to sound quite confident enough to fool me.

  He unfastened his rucksack, already stowed further back in the crack, and dug out the ‘magic bag’—his first aid kit. Supporting my head carefully, he fed me at least ten pills, which must be about eight more than it said on the packet. I guess he knew it was safe. Or did it…simply not matter anymore?

  The terror monster began to chomp up my insides again. “K?” I whispered.

  “Yes, Joe?”

  “Please don’t leave me.” The words squeezed out, cowardly and selfish and quite unstoppable.

  He pillowed my head in his lap and stroked my hair back again. “Of course I’m not going to leave you, Joe.” He sounded totally…dismissive…of the idea, as though I’d just suggested jumping off a cliff would be a wise and sensible course of action. “Just lie still and let those pills work. Then I can change your bandage without hurting you.”

  “Is there…is there any point?” It came out half a sob.

  “Any point?
” K sounded closed, almost wary.

  “Changing it.” There was no almost about the sob this time. “I’m...I’m going to die, aren’t I?”

  K was silent for far too long. “If the soldiers miss us,” he said at last, “which I think they’re likely to do—”

  “Won’t they bring dogs?”

  “I walked along several streams. I think I lost them quite well. But they’ll probably walk through here in a line, searching. I don’t think they’ll find this place, and once they’ve gone, I’m going to carry you down to the nearest town and take you to a doctor; get you put to rights.”

  “Doctor’ll turn us in.”

  “They might not. I don’t think we have any choice, anyway.”

  For a few minutes, I was happy to lie there, enjoying this fantasy of a doctor and waiting for the pills to act. But I had too great a craving for the truth, these days.

  “K?”

  “Hmm?”

  “How far is the town?”

  “I’m…not sure.”

  That didn’t matter either, did it?

  “K?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Am I going to die?”

  K

  Joe’s quiet persistence wrenched at my own unpierced insides.

  “I’m not a doctor, Joe. I have no medical training. But…” Joe hadn’t stopped with the comforting, best possible case scenario. That meant he really did want to know. I took a deep breath, as though that would help somehow. “Yes. I think so.”

  Joe squeezed his eyes closed. He sniffed slightly but didn’t break down again. His courage tore up my insides some more.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry, Joe.”

  His eyes opened again and stared at me, bleak and pain-filled. “It wasn’t your fault,” he whispered back. “At least you tried to save me!”

  I had no answer to that. How deeply his parent’s failure had hurt him—and no wonder—but I had no idea how to heal that hurt, other than with love. And if he could only forgive them, of course.