Outlier: Rebellion (57 page)

Suddenly Wick’s pants are at his knees and the Sanctum boy’s lips are kissing down his body. This is the first time his mouth has gone so low. Wick’s pulse is in his ears, he feels his chest thumping with the panic of yearning, and Athan’s lips tickle down his chest, playing at his left nipple, a tongue, and then his right, hot breath, a gasp, and then his abs are explored one by one, lower still, lower, and when he feels the mouth wrap around his man downstairs, it takes everything in him not to cry out in a crazed, joyous moan.

The next while does nothing to help Wick’s goal of getting to school on time, nor does it serve in making them any cooler. In fact, by its too-soon end, both their heads of hair are sopping wet.

When they’re finally downstairs, Lionis is already serving breakfast to a slowly-eating mother. Minding the addition of Wick and Athan, he’s already set out two more plates and stirs oatmeal in a pan. The two of them take seats at the remaining stools, creaking under their weight, and talk about the exciting drama of last night’s heroism. His mother plays it off, detailing every little thing she could’ve done more properly while Athan assures her that she took quick action and made right a delicate wrong.

“It went well,” Lionis agrees, pushing the oatmeal around the pan with a spatula, “but the ideal setting for a birth is in a hospital. They’re Sanctum-regulated, and too many accidents could happen at home, not to mention—”

“Accidents happen in hospitals, too.” Wick retorts, annoyed at Lionis’s presumptive attitude. “You’re so quick to blindly trust authorities and big Sanctum-aided establishments like the hospital. They wouldn’t even let mom work there after she
healed
a person, just because she disobeyed them.”

“Well,” Lionis begins, always having a know-it-all counter to everything, “there’s a reason for rules and protocol. You can’t just push yourself around with no regard to the order of things. No offense, mom.” She quietly says, “No offense taken,” between her bites. “But the Sanctum doesn’t just sit over us to torment our lives. They give us shelter. They give us opportunity to advance, to grow, to prove our worth before the Royal Legacist by the age of seventeen-and-one-half. They give us food, clothing, places of entertainment. They’re responsible for everything we have.”

“And they’re responsible for everything we
don’t,
” Wick spits back. “And for every sweet luxury they make you
think
you have, the Lifted City’s got twenty more. For everything they give, they take tenfold. Look around you, Lionis. Wake the fuck up.”

His brother narrows his superior gaze, the spatula steaming in his heat-gaining clutch. “I’m not the one here who
sleeps.
”

“Please,” Ellena interjects, silencing them both. “Please, you two. Please … not today.”

It isn’t until Ellena has shut the two of them up that Wick even remembers Athan sitting right next to him. He’s instantly filled with shame.
So often I remind myself that you’re a Son of Sanctum. So often, I forget.
Maybe all the anger in his heart is for the two others who are not present at their breakfast table. A missing father, a lost brother. Maybe no one’s to blame.

“Sorry, Lionis,” he hears himself saying, his voice small and gone. “Sorry, Athan. Sorry, mom.” The fever eases from his face. The red feelings and the seething demons that were just stirred begin to calm. Even his own fork feels hot to the touch, gripping it so firmly as he was during the argument.

His brother Lionis does not apologize, continuing to cook breakfast in a silent, self-important cloud.
And that’s okay,
Wick decides.
Maybe I don’t deserve your sympathy.

No one knows, even still, where his father has gone. He broods over it on his way to school. The mother keeps speculating, saying that though they’ve been estranged for over ten years, he might’ve gone to his brother’s, wherever he lives. No one except Halves and Aleks have even ever met Uncle Redge, and that was only when they were four and five years old, respectively.

Professor Frey still teaches. On his first day back—was it three days ago, or two?—she told him in private to mind his own life for now, to not bother with any worries outside his normal school schedule and, worst of all, to keep away from the Noodle Shop. “What about Rone?” he asked. “What about Tide? Cintha?” But she would not answer, her tone turning cold and, without words, suggesting for him to not ask further about it.
They’ve been excused from school further,
she told him.
But not you. You must be home with the boy. Go about your life, do your day-to-days, and mind nothing else.

School is not the same without Rone or Cintha. Tide is likely unable to return indefinitely due to the glow; that neon will take
months
to fade away. The faint pink and purple lines on Wick’s arm are still there, but they no longer shine through his clothing. He now wears a shirt under his slim-fitting red jacket—as it has no sleeves—so as to cover his little luminescent parallel-lines secret.

As he sits in class today, staring at the empty desks of Tide and Rone, he wonders how many days it’s been. Ever since he’s returned home, he sleeps so much and spends his every minute home enjoying Athan’s attention that he’s lost track of days … Sometimes, it feels like Rain never existed, that it was just another dream of his … until he reminds himself of Athan. Indeed, Athan is no dream. Wick knows dreams quite well; when you run a slow tongue along the lips of a dream, it does not lick back.

Wick pushes his fists into his lap. He’s given himself a mid-class erection with just the thought of Athan.
Really, can’t I control myself better than this?
He’s so much to worry about, so much to feel awful about, so much to fear … and Athan wipes it all away.

During lunch hour, he sits at the empty table that would occupy Link, were he here.
Whatever’s come of my little brother?
Wick already assumes the worst, embittered with his own sick view of the world. Link has likely gone into the nights, involved himself with some gang, and gotten killed. They will never find his body. They’ll never know how it happened or why. If it was for some jealous rage, or because he’d overstepped himself, or because he spoke back to the wrong person. He always had a habit of speaking back when he ought not to. It could’ve been some drug deal, some exchange of pills or needles or chemical.

Suddenly, he realizes he can’t stand not knowing the fate of his Rain friends. He has to find out …
But I’ll do it with care.

Wick finds the school phone attached to the outer wall near a breaker box, relieved to find the line is operable today, as it so often isn’t. Recalling the number from the times Rone made use of it, he picks up the phone with five minutes left of his lunch break—not having eaten a thing—and calls the Noodle Shop. After six long rings, one of the cooks answers. Wick puts in his order: “I’d like … an order of S-Sanctum heads, please. Boiled, rather. Boiled Sanctum heads.” There is a long silence, and Wick worries that he’d gotten it wrong.
Was it baked Sanctum heads? Stewed heads?

He hears Rone. “Hello?”

“Hey! Wow, hey! It’s Wick. This sucks without you here.”

“Where?”

“School.” He looks about the yard and peers around the corner of the building, ensuring no one’s nearby. “I haven’t heard from you guys or seen you. Gan—Professor Frey told me I had to stay home to … look after my friend. Rone, tell me what’s up.”

He sighs into the phone, making it sound like a mess of static and frustration. “I just can’t, man. I just …” He grows silent.

Now Wick’s really worried. “Rone, tell me. Please.”

“It’s …” His voice grows faint, shaky. It takes Wick a minute to realize Rone has started to cry. “It’s … my sister.”

“Cintha? What about Cintha?”

“They took her.”

Wick’s heart speeds up so fast, he feels it near to burst from his neck. “G-Guardian? … What do you mean they took her?”

“One of them said she was at the building, near the Core … The Guardian said he recognized her. Then Cinth, she … she started to run. She should not have run. She should’ve played it off, lied, done a million things we’d trained to do before.” Rone sighs, his choked sobs are so agonizing in the phone. Wick belatedly realizes he’s never heard Rone cry. “I wasn’t even there. Arrow told me. And then Arrow admitted to me that she tore into the building when they went on that mission. He couldn’t stop her. She went in herself to find the Weapon. I punched Arrow in the face right there. I think I broke a nail. He’s already forgiven me, but I’ll never forgive myself, not for letting my sister get caught.”

“It’s not your fault,” Wick tries to reason feebly through the static-ridden line. He’s well aware that he’s now two minutes late getting back to class. “Rone, we have to meet up. Please. We have to talk about this.”

“Wick, fuck, she was my
family
,” he goes on, sobbing, his voice breaking through half his words, “oh, Gods, fuck, she was all I had left. ALL I HAD LEFT! Our parents are dead, Wick, we’ve been living alone. I never told anyone that, not ever. After my dad was arrested and taken away forever, way back when we were kids, my mom lost it … she lost it and drank herself dead. Sanctum doesn’t know that, or else we’d be put in an orphanage. Now I’m alone, Wick, I’m all fucking alone.”

“No, you’re not. You have me. You’ll always have me. You have everyone else … Arrow, Yellow, all of us. You have Victra. Athan’s got your back too. C’mon, Rone. Meet with me, please.”

“I can’t. Wick, you need to—” He chokes, giving to a fit of sobs, then sniffling it away and finishing in half a groan: “You need to keep Athan safe and far away. Don’t come back. Please.”

“Rone …”

“I love you, man. Please don’t come back.”

The line cuts out. Wick stares at the phone, the world a blur.

He staggers back to class and earns a remark from Professor Frey about tardiness as he makes his way to his seat, though he admittedly didn’t hear a word of it. Every last speck of his hope and happiness was just shot down.
Cintha … They have Cintha.
He steels his face and stares at the head of the person in front of him, and he doesn’t see anything. His mind a fog, his eyes a storm, he sees and hears nothing of today’s lesson.
Link is gone.
He only hears his own breathing, and even that doesn’t make sense to him.
Dad’s gone. Everything and everyone.

When he gets home, he finds Athan in his tiny room leaning against the window his father long-ago built him, reading. Athan looks up at once, a smile breaking across his face. Wick decides not to tell him the news.
Call me selfish. Call me cruel. I’m just tired of feeling things.
He curls up next to Athan, nuzzling his armpit, and the day drifts away before he even bothers with dinner.
I don’t want to wake the world any longer. Let it sleep. Let it fucking sleep.

00
62
Ruena

The little boy Sedge is dancing in her room again. He wears all her prettiest. He drapes himself in all her longest. He throws about his neck all her silkiest. Then, donned in all the colors of the world, he prances around and sings at the top of his little soprano lungs, tunes with notes that only little puppies can hear.

“I want to hear the Ancient music again,” he begs, dancing on the cushions of her couch and giggling. “Please, please, please.”

Ruena sighs, the book in her hand going limp at the tempting idea.
But I think the slums below don’t deserve to have their power robbed of them for another day.
“You know what happened last time, Sedge. I can’t risk it again.”

“Small price for music so
beautiful,”
he half-sings, half-says, frolicking through her great hall, the sound of clacking shoes echoing up to the high, high ceiling.
The music
was
quite beautiful …

It’s always been impossible to keep Sedge from entering the Palace, even as absurdly guarded as it is. His Legacy makes it easy for him to squeeze into tight places. Even a cracked-open window. Even blades of grass in the lawn can hide him as he finds his way into her house and beyond the watchful eye of tens and twenties of paid guards. One of the most flexible Morphs she’s ever known, and by the creepy Legacist Impis’s hand, she’s heard of plenty.

He stops dancing at once, rushing up to the chair she’s in. “When you become Queen,” he says quite seriously, his voice still three octaves higher than hers, “can I be your prince? I’ll do your every bidding, I will. I’ll slay any who stand in your way.”

“You have it all wrong.” She returns to her book.

“I could be your Marshal of Protection.”

“There is no such Marshal.” She laughs. What else can the boy claim to be? “Sedge, that horrible tower is one of the loneliest and most miserable places to be in all of Atlas, and I’m not very fond of the Marshals for company either. Well … except perhaps Janlord, but that’s because he’s kind-hearted and honest.”

“I’m kind-hearted and honest,” he goes on, pleading.

“That’s because you’re still a boy. Give it some years, let the world bleed it all out of you.” Studying the anxious, puppy-like face on him that practically pants between his many exclamations, she honestly wonders how he’ll change as he grows up. It’s so odd, not to be able to even imagine it. She simply can’t see him wearing his adulthood. Will he still insist to wear her silks and high heels, worshipping every little insignificant thing about her until even her every spark feels as valuable as a chest full of perfect pearls?

There is a visitor at the Palace door. When the gates are drawn open, she finds Janlord looking rather grave.