Grip (The Slip Trilogy Book 2) (16 page)

T
he gunshot scared everyone, but not Benson. It registered somewhere deep in his brain and helped snap him out of his funk, but it most definitely didn’t scare him.

There’s very little left to be scared of. Sure, he’s got more people he loves that could be taken away from him. His mother, his friends, Harrison, Geoffrey. But he knows it’s inevitable anyway. They’re all traitors to the government which means they’ll all be found and killed eventually. There’s no point in being scared of the inevitable.

People are running and safeties are being clicked off and tents are being torn down, but Benson just sits there, waiting for fate to come and destroy them all.

Move, you fool!
a voice says inside his head. An awful, beautiful voice, speaking from the grave, her tongue as sharp as ever. Luce.

“Can’t,” Benson says, licking his lips, which are already getting chapped from the cold.

I’m dead but you’re not. You think I’d want you to wait around to die? To let those you love die? Do you REALLY think that’s what I would want?

A thick knot of pain accumulates in his gut. Because he hasn’t considered for one bot-lickin’ second what Luce would want. Well, that’s not entirely true. She told him she wanted him to take care of Geoffrey, which he’s planning to do. But what if she had a hundred other wishes that she didn’t have time to speak before her heart stopped beating? Should that make them any less important?

He’s going crazy. Dead people don’t speak in your head. They don’t speak at all. It’s his mind playing tricks on him, a side-effect of the smothering sadness that threatens to suffocate him. Is this how his mom felt when she thought he was dead? Is this why Janice lost her mind and ended up in the asylum? Is insanity passed down genetically? He can almost picture the gene for crazy hiding somewhere in his brain, waiting, waiting, waiting…for something to set it off, to give it life. A trigger. A psychotic break event. Like the death of someone you love. In less than a week, Benson has lost
two
people he loves, more than enough to drive any sane person crazy.

Movement draws his attention as Harrison and Destiny are dragged into camp by two strong guards, a guy and a girl. Harrison looks angry and self-satisfied, all at the same time, while Destiny looks different than he’s ever seen her. Vacant, empty, her eyes roaming the camp but seeming to look right through it—the exact opposite of the strong, self-assured girl he met back in Refuge.

“What happened?” Jarrod says.

“Her gun accidentally went off,” Harrison says.

“I’m sorry,” Destiny says. She sounds genuine enough, but Benson senses something off about her apology. Like she’s really apologizing for something else. To someone else.

Jarrod grimaces, looks at the woodsy canopy overhead, as if seeking patience from some divine force of nature. “Every Hawk within a hundred miles will have registered the sound and are probably already triangulating our position. We have to move.”

“I’m sorry,” Destiny says again, but all she gets are glares and shaking heads. Benson feels sorry for her. The last thing she needs is more attention drawn to her.

Right then, looking at the way Harrison’s and Destiny’s hands brush against each other, Benson makes a decision. He’ll honor Luce’s life by protecting the rest of his loved ones. Pop Con will have to pry his friends and family from his dead fingers before they’ll kill them too.

“Do you approve?” he whispers to Luce, his vision blurring.

Just then the clouds split open for a moment, letting a single ray of sunshine through, painting his cheeks with warmth.

Her answer is clear:

Yes
.

~~~

When they hurriedly break camp, Benson finds himself surrounded by his friends. Check and Rod and Gonzo and Geoffrey. They seem to form a barrier around him, as if protecting him from the outside world.

He grabs Geoffrey around the shoulders and pulls him next to him.

They walk for hours, the group of friends following the ragtag troop of Lifers, led by Jarrod. They hang back from the rest, their unspoken words a cacophony amidst the silence. At some point Geoffrey starts weeping, silent tears tracing wet tracks down his cheeks. His shoulders and chest shake accordingly.

It’s contagious, and Benson notices his other friends crying, too.

But he doesn’t. His eyes are dry and burning, his shoulders stalwart and firm, like a castle’s stone ramparts. He doesn’t know why. He feels sad, depressed, full of emotion. Like he
should
cry. Like he
wants to
cry. Maybe he’s all cried out. Or maybe one of them needs to be strong while the others are weak. Maybe it’s his turn to be strong.

He ropes an arm around Geoffrey’s shoulders and says, “Luce was clever and brave.”

Geoffrey looks at him, surprised, his blurry eyes wide with curiosity. He licks his salty lips.

“When the cyborg was chasing us, she saved us. She found the hatch in the train. She risked her life by swinging down to kick him in the face. It was her idea to duck the moment the roof angled down. She
saved
us.”

Geoffrey nods in understanding.

The others seem to get what Benson is doing. Check says, “Luce was funny as hell.” His tears seem to vanish as a smile creases his face. “Most of the time I asked her out on dates just so I could get a good laugh from the excuses she’d come up with. Once she told me she couldn’t go out because she had to learn African click dialect.” Benson feels a rush of heat in his chest at the memory. That was only a year ago, but it already feels like another lifetime.

“I remember that,” Gonzo says, chuckling. “Anything you said to her, she just started madly clicking her tongue. Eventually you left without her, pretending to be angry.”

“I
was
angry,” Check says, but Benson can tell his friend is lying.

Rod says, “Luce had a good heart.” He pauses, as if trying to get his emotions under control. Benson understands the feeling—he’s somewhere between laughing and crying, his throat tight and his vision blurry. “Even when she was Picking pockets she only took what she needed for us to survive. Nothing more. Do you remember when she grabbed an entire case of food pills from that delivery truck?”

Check chuckles. “I was SO angry when she anonymously donated half of the bottles to that orphanage. We could’ve eaten for months off of those pills, but she said there were other kids that needed them more.” He turns to Benson. “That’s why she wanted you. You’re the only one of us who had a heart to match hers.” Benson’s eyes are overflowing, and this time he lets them. He just shakes his head and looks away from his friend.

“Wait, I got one,” Gonzo says. “Luce was a good friend. Before we met you guys”—he motions to Benson and Check—“she took care of Rod and me when we were really sick.”

“The Hundred Year Flu?” Check says.

“Yeah,” Gonzo says. “We had it bad and couldn’t go to the hospital, not without risking being identified as illegals. It was highly contagious. She should’ve stayed away from us, but she didn’t. Not for one second. My fever was so high I could barely understand what was happening. But I remember the cold touch of the spoon on my tongue and the warmth of the broth sliding down my throat. Luce fed us by hand. She kept us alive.”

“What happened?” Benson asks, the words scratching through his dry throat. He’s surprised he’s never heard this story.

“We got better,” Rod says, picking up the story. “We were at the brink of death but we survived. And then Luce got sick. She had it even worse than us. We got her to the hospital just in time, but had no money to pay. We pretended that we forgot our LifeCards and left her there. We Picked for twelve hours straight until we came up with enough money to pay for her care.”

“She survived,” Benson whispers. “She was always a survivor.”
Until yesterday
, he thinks.
Until Pop Con killed her.

He can already feel himself slipping back into a well of despair, powerless to stop it. But then Geoffrey finally speaks. “Luce loved me,” he says. “All of you, too. She told me that all the time. Said how lucky she was to have me, and that we found all of you. She was grateful for what she had, and never talked about what she didn’t. Even though I hated when she was overprotective of me sometimes, she was the best sister I could’ve possible been given. I—” His voice cracks as a fresh torrent of saltwater streams from his eyes. “I loved her so much.”

They cry together, a mixture of tears and smiles and memories of a girl who meant the world to them.

When the tears have run out and the hole in Benson’s chest is at least partially filled, he notices the forest thinning. It’s almost like a knotted ball of string slowly untangling, coming undone. Walking is easier and faster and then they’re out, staring across a wide flat plain. Forlorn houses and stunted buildings form an unimpressive small-town skyline.

And for the first time since Luce’s death, Benson’s legs feel lighter, as if maybe he can walk on his own again.

He knows it won’t be the last time her memory haunts him, but he also knows he’ll get through it. With the help of his friends, he’ll get through it and he’ll help them get through it.

Whatever comes next, they’re in it together.

Focusing on putting one foot in front of the other is the only thing that keeps Destiny from crying. And she
hates
crying. Loathes it. Even when she was little she wasn’t a crier. A fall from a bike and a skinned knee? Suck it up and get back on. No friends, no family? Get over it and survive. No one’s going to do it for you.

The only time she remembers crying was after her parents were killed by the Hunters. For a moment she thought it was raining, raising her hand to wipe the unexpected moisture off her face. When she realized what they really were—tears—the anger hit her so hard her eyes dried in an instant. She didn’t want to validate Pop Con’s reign of terror by crying over what they did. So she lifted her chin, firmed up her quivering bottom lip, and smiled so big she thought her face might split open. She smiled for her parents, and she vowed to survive for them.

The memory feels like a punch to the stomach, knocking the wind from her chest and turning her legs to rubber. She stumbles, crying out, watching helplessly as the ground seems to rise up to meet—

A strong arm grabs her firmly, catching her in mid-fall, and pulls her erect. She meets Harrison’s eyes with her own for a moment, but then looks away. His hands are still clenched around her arm, as if he’s afraid she’ll be knocked over by an errant gust of wind the second he lets go. His fingers seem to burn tracks along her skin.

She pulls away, muttering a completely understated “Thanks,” and then continuing her one-foot-in-front-of-the-other march. Even as she feels Harrison hovering behind her protectively, she wills strength back into her legs. It works and she immediately feels sturdier, more solid, as if the ghost that had replaced her has gone to haunt someone else.

She can do this.

Right?

She can live, despite all those—all those…

Dead, sightless eyes stare at her. Blood spills. Fire rages. Smoke jams itself into her throat and she can’t breathe can’t breathe can’t breathe

CAN BREATHE.

Squeezing her hands into fists, she sucks in a ragged breath, fighting off the memories. Another breath. And another. It’s like her body has been erased of all instincts, like she has to think about every breath, has to remind her own heart to beat in her chest. Blinking takes effort, as if she has to force her lids up and down, up and down, else her eyes remain open for eternity, until they dry up and shrivel into prunes.

The thing that’s killing her the most, however, is that she’s no stranger to suicide. As a Slip, most of her human contact has been with people who are forlorn, distraught, hopeless. Many of them spoke of suicide so openly it felt like having a conversation about the weather. Others whispered of death only in the safety of the dark night. And on one awful eve, she witnessed a man hanging himself, the light in his eyes already gone before she could lift the weight—his own weight—that was pulling the rope tight against his neck.

She always thought suicide was for the weak.

But it’s not, she now realizes. Suicide can happen to anyone, because even the strongest people can feel weak for a moment, bent but not broken, chipped but not shattered.

One foot in front of the other.

One foot. Then the other. Repeat. Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat. Blink. Blink. Blink.

And then something miraculous happens. She stops thinking about walking, about breathing, about blinking, about her heart beating in her chest. But they don’t stop. Her body continues to work on its own, as if she didn’t try to blow her brains out, as if she’s not already dead, as if there’s

still

hope.

Because there is. There ALWAYS is. This is what she realizes as she walks toward the unknown, even if the thought is fleeting and one she knows she’ll have to capture again and again and again, probably for the rest of her life.

~~~

“Mom?” Harrison says, placing a gentle hand on Janice’s shoulder.

She turns and her smile fills him with warmth, from head to toe. Although she still talks to herself and doesn’t make much sense a lot of the time, every day away from the asylum seems to brighten his mother’s smile.

“Sit with me, Son,” she says, patting the windowsill she’s been curled up on, gazing out a dirt-smeared window.

Harrison gladly lowers himself beside her, his muscles aching. After Destiny’s attempted suicide forced them to move, they walked for hours. Harrison never left Destiny’s side during the march, despite the fact that she didn’t speak a single word, wrapped up in her own head. Eventually they reached an abandoned town miles away from Saint Louis. The group is now spread throughout the six floors of an old building that once housed a large Midwest bank that is now as bankrupt as the rest of the banks, with the exception of U-Bank, of course.

Destiny is in one of the corners of the room, waiting for him. She seems to be as anxious to get moving as he is.

They’re safe, for now.

But Benson will never be safe, not unless Harrison changes the situation.

“Every day that passes is like November rain,” his mother says, patting his knee.

Harrison’s not sure what she means, or even whether it’s a good or a bad thing, so he just nods thoughtfully. “Are you okay, Mom?” he asks.

“Do lions play with the mice?” she says.

Again, Harrison is clueless as to the meaning, but he hopes it’s a yes.

“Luce was a good girl,” his mother says.

“She was something special,” Harrison agrees.

“I’m scared for Benson,” she says, the conversation sounding more and more normal.

“He’ll get through it,” Harrison says. “We have to help him.”

“He needs his big brother,” she says, as if the two minutes older that he is counts for years and years of experience.

“He needs his mother more,” Harrison says. “Can you be there for him if I’m gone?” He knows he’s approaching the dangerous portion of the conversation, and his mother’s loose tongue could ruin everything, but he has to try to get a message to Benson. She’s his best bet.

“You’ll never be gone,” she says. “You’re a
real
person. You won trophies. You have an identity.”

“And Benson? He’s not real?” Harrison asks, genuinely curious as to how his mother’s mind works.

Her eyes seem to try to look at him, but settle somewhere just off center. “To me he always was. Your father, too, I think. But to the world, he’s a fake. He’s like Zoran. He exists, but not really.”

“Like a three-dimensional cartoon?”

She laughs. “You’re the only one that ever understands me.”

That small statement means everything to Harrison. If he was a different person in a different time he might be fighting off tears now. Instead his eyes are bone dry and burning.

“I need you to tell Benson something for me,” he says.

Her eyes finally meet his, and he’s surprised to find them crystal clear and lucid. The redness and puffiness is gone. If he took a picture of her with his eyes, she could be the same mother that used to embarrass him when she dropped him off at school. Her response surprises him, too.

“I’ll do anything for my boys,” she says.

“I know you will. But all I need for you to do is to stay safe, watch over Benson, and to tell him that I’m sorry. Can you do that?”

“Do ghosts challenge politicians to duels?”

Somehow, some way, he knows exactly what she means. “Yes,” he says. “Thank you.” He wants to hug her, to say goodbye, but he doesn’t want to arouse the suspicion of anyone who might be watching.

He walks away, turning the crosshairs in his eyes on his brother, who speaks quietly to Check in a corner of the room. He hasn’t destroyed anything in a while, so he figures now is as good a time as any. And for once, destruction is so very necessary. “Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” Benson says.

“Can I talk to you?” Harrison says.

“I guess,” Benson says. Check doesn’t move.

“Alone?”

Check looks at Benson, who nods. Check scoots away, casting them a sidelong glance before melting into the shadows.

Harrison knows what he has to do, for his brother’s sake, but the words still stick in his throat. When he pauses, Benson asks, “Is Mom okay?”

“She’s fine,” Harrison says. The truth slides out so much easier than the lies sticking to his tongue. “Better than fine. She seems happier than she ever did when we were kids. Having us together…it’s made a big difference for her. Having you alive again.”

“I was never dead,” Benson says.

“But to her you were. To me you never existed.”

“Sorry to interrupt your life,” Benson says bitterly. Harrison knows he doesn’t mean it; he’s grieving for Luce, as he should. As it turns out, he’s played right into Harrison’s hands.

“You’ve got to get over it, bro. Just watching you is depressing.”

Benson’s mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. Harrison has shocked him, which is exactly what he wanted to do. “Get
over
it?” Benson says incredulously. “She’s dead,” he growls, his teeth clenched.

“She was just some chick,” Harrison says. “There are many more where she came from.”

Benson’s on his feet in an instant, his chest pressing into Harrison’s, his eyes on fire. He’s breathing heavily, his fists clenched, and for a moment Harrison thinks his brother might actually hit him. He almost wants him to. It would make this all so much easier. So much more real.

But Benson doesn’t, because he’s not Harrison. He might look like him, wearing the same expressions in a slightly softer way, but he’ll never be the same. He’s far too good to be Harrison. Far too good to be from the same womb. Benson’s chest continues to heave, but he doesn’t take a swing. Instead he says, “You don’t know a damn thing about my life. You don’t know a damn thing about what matters in life. Winning some stupid hoverball game is nothing. Having a bunch of fake friends is nothing. Loving yourself more than anyone else around you is nothing. Luce. Was. Everything. You’ll never see that, and THAT’S what makes us different. You might be my brother by blood, but you’ll never be my family. Now leave me the hell alone.”

Harrison can feel the heat in his cheeks, the blood rushing to his head. It’s not anger. It’s shame. Although he knows Benson’s words are built on extreme sadness and Harrison’s own spiteful lies, they cut him deeper than a butcher’s carving knife could.

Because, in a way, they’re true. Benson has lived a real life, with real friends, while he’s lived on a cloud with a false bottom. A cloud that disappeared the moment Harrison decided to rescue his mother, leaving him in an eternal freefall, one which will likely dash him to pieces if it ever comes to an end.

He turns and walks away from his brother, feeling hate-filled eye-lasers slicing across his back.

Although Harrison has achieved the outcome he wanted—his brother’s hatred—it doesn’t feel good. Nothing about it feels good.

At least he knows Benson won’t follow him where he knows he has to go.

~~~

Despite the sliver of hope Destiny managed to grab onto during their long march, she’s still ashamed of herself. Harrison had been so good to her, had saved her twice, and yet she was willing to throw all his sacrifices away because she couldn’t handle living in her own skin. And then he saved her again.

She’s pathetic. Hopeless. Damned. Those words, particularly the last one, send her mind falling into a familiar death spiral, one that will only lead her to do something foolish.

Where is the strength she found not that long ago? Her strength used to come so easily, and now it feels like a math problem with numbers that keep changing every time she figures out the solution.

So she blocks out those terrible words one by one—

Pathetic

Hopeless

Damned

—by humming a lullaby her mother used to sing to her. Her mother who sacrificed everything so she could live. She still can’t believe she was going to toss it all aside like a dusty old toy.

Right? She
was
going to do it, wasn’t she? Even now, she can’t be sure. Just because you’ve got a gun pointed at your head doesn’t mean you have to pull the trigger. Maybe pointing the gun at your head in the first place is enough to show you’re serious about admitting your mistakes.

But it went off
, she reminds herself.
I pulled the trigger.
But even that might’ve only been because Harrison collided with her, she realizes, feeling a blossom of hope in her chest. Maybe she
wasn’t
going to do it.

Either way, she screwed up. Big time. But so did a lot of people. It wasn’t all her fault. And Pop Con is really the one to blame. She keeps telling herself these things, regardless of whether she believes them or not. Maybe one day in the future she will.

Maybe one day she can find redemption, just like Harrison said.

The Lifers won’t let her volunteer for perimeter patrol again, and they definitely won’t give her a gun, but Harrison convinces them to let them patrol together. Like a buddy system. He’s good with people, flashing his pearly whites and making small talk until they agree to his wishes.