Sapience (21 page)

I spotted Brianna standing outside of her classroom talking to some shaggy haired boy. Neal kept walking. A weird feeling crept into my stomach and chest.
 For someone so disciplined as I, the power of this feeling was overwhelming. The kid gave me a dirty look as I walked up. When Brianna spotted me she smiled and excused herself from the conversation.

“Who was that?” I asked as she took my hand and started toward the lunch room.

“That was Billy, he was our neighbor back in the trailer park. He’s a nice boy.”

“I don’t like him.” I said.

She just laughed “Oh shut up!”

When we got to our seats the lunch table was churning with excitement for the party. Word had gotten out about the high stakes football game and people were planning on arriving early. Nobody wanted to miss the game.

By the time lunch was over I was beginning to grow anxious. The whole school would be crammed into our yard and every eye would be there watching to see who gets banished from the county. Things were getting out of hand. Not to mention what Adrian was going to do to us when he found out about the bet.

My anxiety only grew as the day went on until the final bell rang and I practically ran to my car.

“Slow down speedy!” Brianna called when I was half way across the parking lot. “What’s the rush?”

“I guess I didn’t realize I was going so fast.” I said. “I’m just in a hurry to get our patio done.”

“I hope it turns out nice.” She said while turning to sit on the hood of my car.

“Me too.” Though it wasn’t done yet, we only had a little bit left to do. From what we could tell so far it actually did look pretty good.

When Spencer got to my car we hopped in and I punched it home. There was heavy cloud cover and a light drizzle splattered against my windshield as I pulled into the driveway. Brianna followed me out back to the almost finished patio. We stopped to admire a newly added section.

“What do you think?” Josh asked.

He was standing next to a wall that formed a half circle around our patio, it came up to just past his waist. The majority of it was topped off with a granite counter top. I walked up and looked over the smooth transition as the bricks curved around the patio, it was seamless. In the dead center of the wall the countertop parted to be replaced by a grill. Four knobs stuck out of the wall below the grill and below that was a small wooden door, I imagined that was where the propane tanks would go.

Josh rested against the far side, lining up and cementing in one of the last bricks. He ran his finger across the brick, a hot flame licked a symbol along its surface. I noticed that all the other bricks were similarly marked.

“It took me all day to build.” He said cheerfully, coming around to our side of the barbecue.

“It looks wonderful.” Brianna said. “Now all we have to do is place the last few bricks into the patio and it will be complete.”

“Sorry we couldn’t get it done sooner.” I said.

“Are you kidding? You guys have done so much in the past week.”

“We should be all done in an hour or so.” Brianna said, wrapping her arm around my waist. Every time she touched me it left my entire body tingling. I don’t think that is normal for an assassin to feel.

The patio looked vibrant, even with the pale sky over head. It made our back yard more filled out. The bricks were lined up in a large circle, there was plenty of room for a picnic table to be set in the middle. The weapons shed was to our right, it had been painted up to be bright red. Beyond that the forest towered over the yard and stretched all the way around the house. This was our own private sanctuary.

“Things are turning out nice.” I said.

“Just in time for the party.” Josh added.

I stopped and looked at him. No one had mentioned the party yet. “Who told you about the party?”

“Adrian.” He said it as if the whole party was Adrian’s idea. “He has been planning it all week, says he wants to meet as many people from your school as possible. That way he will know who to watch and what not. Personally I can’t fathom how he can track all those personalities from one party but then again I seem to always be saying things like that when it comes to mental users.”

“Who to watch,” I asked. “What do you mean?”

“He wants to know who is nosy and who might start running their mouth and starting unwanted rumors. I think that was part of it, to be honest I tried not to listen as he was talking. I haven't spoken to the guy since we moved in and I wasn’t about to start then. That didn’t stop him from talking though, just went on and on about personality traits. "If you ask me he probably wants to use them for something, human sacrifice I bet.” He paused to think for a moment. “He said he can predict the future, if he knew enough of the people involved. It was about then I came out here and started work on this. The guy makes me mad, probably because he tricked us into moving here, point is I can’t really stand him.”

“Would you like to help us finish it?” Brianna asked. I looked to see what he thought.

He glanced up and shook his head. “Cant, Lillie has big plans in preparation for the party. I’m afraid that my afternoon is already booked… she wants me to scrub the bathrooms. Not that I mind Lillie, I know she is a mental user but she ain’t bad. She has really been working hard to help us settle in. Rachel and I decided to give her a break.”

When Brianna and I started to place the first pavers down Josh headed into the house.

As I lined up a brick I was wondering why Josh would turn soft on Lillie all of a sudden. And then I thought of something that hadn’t occurred to me, we shared a bond. Each and every one of us had gone through a similar experience growing up, it was hard to stay mad at somebody you felt a kinship with.

“What was your worst moment when you were growing up under the Kingdom."  I asked, watching a scar on her thumb as she placed the paver. “Out of everything.”

The question lingered in the air like a cold breeze. I half wished I hadn’t said it, that I could take it back so we could talk about something less painful.

She looked away for a moment before turning back with a haunted look in her eyes. I thought she was going to speak but didn’t, she turned back and began placing another brick. Her jaw was set tight, I could see her clenching her teeth. It felt like forever before she even said anything, when she did she took a long stressful breath.

“When I was ten years old they found my biological parents.” She whispered. “I was allowed to leave the government building and go live with them for a month.” She was very guarded as she spoke, almost as if she were trying to distance herself from her own words.

“They let you leave?” I didn’t mean to interrupt her, but I couldn’t help it. For the government to let her leave, that was unheard of.

“It was the greatest moment of my entire life to date.” She said with a sigh. “I got to go to a real elementary school. Mom packed my lunch every day. Oh and the home cooked meals, William you wouldn’t believe them. I got to taste my mother’s hand made food, which made it even better, like I could taste the love in it or something you know? I went to bed full with a bedtime story from dad every night.”

“I can’t believe they let you leave…” I was truly astonished. I wished she would stop there. And we lived happily ever after, the end. If that were the case she wouldn’t be here right now and this wouldn’t be her worst memory…

“I never even questioned it.”

I started to talk but she cut me off.

“Everything was going so well until one day after school I got off the bus to find a black van sitting out front of the house. As I walked up, a firing squad stepped out.”

“Firing squad!?” I was horrified, were Brianna’s parents massacred?

“You didn’t think President Mead would let my perfect life last forever did you?” She asked patiently.

“No… I just liked the idea of you living a happy and normal life.”

She turned and started tamping the paver level with the others. I waited for her to continue with the story but she didn’t. She had her back to me, I think she might have been trying to hide a tear. She acted as if she were wiping dirt off of her face. I wanted to comfort her but didn’t know how.

“Did they make you watch?” I asked, afraid of the answer.

“They called my parents outside using a blow horn and gunned them down as I tried to run to their side. After that they hauled me back to the government buildings. That teddy bear that I brought from the trailer park, the one I hide a gun inside. My parents gave it to me, I was clinging to it as the men through me in the van. It has been with me ever since.” She stopped tamping and leaned back. “There, done. How does it look?”

I was at a loss for words. “Brianna I…”

The Kingdom worked through fear, that was what it did best. Killing Brianna’s parents would have sent her a clear message, we are in charge and can do anything to you we want. But there would be another point, they wanted to make her hard, this act placed her one step closer to becoming an emotionless killing machine. In this case their “lesson” had back fired.

“I know William, our old life was hard but we are here now so let’s look to the future.”

I tried to make a smile that wouldn’t come. The pain Brianna had endured made me both angry and sad at the same time. It made me want revenge.

“From that moment on I vowed to do everything in my power to destroy the Kingdom.  Every time I look at that teddy bear it reminds me. That is why I convinced the others to escape a year ago.”

I looked at her thoughtfully. “You were the one who started it.”

“What about you?” She asked.

I winced, things had been so bad, to relive the worst was hard to even think about. There could be a thousand different moments I could mention, but one came to the forefront. They had forced me to kill an innocent person. They did it in a way that made it my decision, I could die or I could kill somebody, those were my options.

“There was a boy named Adam.” I said, mustering my strength and looking her dead in the eye. This was a story I had never spoken out loud. “He was a friend of mine, a fire user. We couldn’t have been more than twelve years old, we were caught goofing around when we should have been training takedown techniques.”

Her blue eyes were wary but they never left mine. I wondered if she would think less of me after she heard what I had done.

“They locked Adam and I in a room together for a long period of time with no food and little water. It’s hard to remember for how long, I could have told you before I lost my mind but now I just can’t grasp the full details of the memory. It had to have been weeks, maybe a month.”

“So they starved you.” It wasn’t a question.

“At first we would ration our water and drink it systematically, it wasn’t long before we were just downing it as it came in. We were just kids you know, we couldn’t hold our composure together as we might now. When they finally gave us food it wasn’t enough for two people. Being as smart as I was, I knew that only one of us was going to be allowed to live. Our health steadily declined as we tried to split up the small scraps of food, we were nothing but skin and bones in the end. After being starved for so long, there came a point when I knew, if we split what little food there was we both would die.”

“So what did you do?” She asked.

“I’m still alive today aren’t I?”

“But what happened to Adam?”

I took a deep, troubled breathe “We fought. I saved as much energy as I could until he grew too weak to keep on. And then I kept all the food for myself… After that first meal I got stronger and he grew weaker. Things went on like that until he was dead and they let me out of the room.”

From that day on they would never catch me goofing around again. I had become a killer, my hands would forever be stained with Adam’s blood. I would be lying if I said all of me had come out of that cell. There was a piece of me still in there, dead and rotting with Adam's corpse.

I didn’t say the last part out loud, I couldn’t.

I watched her, waiting for the moment when she would jump up and storm away. It was a grotesque thing I had done. Instead she moved closer and embraced me in her arms. I welcomed the warm touch of her body against mine. I could feel the chill that had entered my body start to dissipate.

When she let go I leaned down and set the last paver into place. “I think that should do it.” I said.

We both stepped back and admired our work. The patio was large and round with a brick wall and barbecue on one side. The rest of it would be filled with chairs and a table in the coming weeks.

“What are you doing making a high stakes bet at school?” Adrian asked. We turned to find Lillie and him walking up from the house.

“It’s all because Blake won’t leave us alone.” Brianna said.

Adrian gave her a mischievous glare “And whose fault is that?”

“Mine.” I said, drawing his attention.

“That was a very foolish thing to do.” Lillie said “Did you even think about the attention this is going to draw to us? And what are you planning to do if we lose?”

“Oh, we aren’t going to lose.” Adrian cut in. “But it was still out of line for the three of you to have done this.”