Sapience (6 page)

“Drive her home.” His voice was hard.

The whole world around me shook in a violent confusing earth quake. It took me a second to realize he had thrown the helmet into my head. He started to laugh and strolled up to the house. I had never seen this side of Adrian before and it frightened me.

I tried to get to my feet. Between my spinning head and burning side I had to stop and catch my breath on my knees. Blood trickled from a gash the helmet had made in my forehead. How could Adrian just snap like that?

I turned my head slowly and for the first time saw Brianna’s horrified expression. She looked like she had just witnessed a murder. I didn’t know what to say. I just stared at her and she just stared right back. There was no way of knowing what she thought of all this mess.

I sighed and without grabbing the helmet climbed up onto the seat of the bike. Blood dripped off my face onto its clean surface, staining it red. Good, Adrian deserved it.

Brianna squeezed my side as I turned the bike toward the driveway. The pressure on my ribs hurt horribly but I didn’t dare object to her.

“Where am I taking you?” My voice betrayed no emotion. Her arms slid around me as I sped up. The pain in my ribs spiked and yet I didn’t let on.

Her warm breath on my ear made my hart race. “Go through town.” She said.

I tried to keep quiet while we drove. Before long I couldn’t help myself. “Why didn’t you try to defend yourself?” The question had been bugging me and I couldn’t help but ask.

“What do you mean?”

I scanned the road before pulling out, her question slightly frustrating me. “The Kingdom’s soldiers were going to hurt you and as far as you know, Adrian and I were coming to take you back.”

She was quiet for a while before she spoke. “I would do anything to keep my family safe, even if it meant surrendering myself to the Kingdom’s soldiers.” She paused again. “And if you and Adrian are here to capture us there is no use in fighting… we would lose before we began.”

My next words came out in a rush.

“Why do you think we are here to capture you? We are just trying to hide, like you. I would never do anything to harm you. This is stupid, you need to understand.”

Her grip on my waist tightened. The pain in my ribs doubled though I don’t think her intention was to bring me pain.

“I didn’t ever mean to scare you.” My voice was quiet.  I wasn’t sure if she had heard me.

“I’m not supposed to believe you. The others will be furious.” Her lips skimmed my ear. It made it hard to concentrate on the road.

I strained to keep my focus as I followed her directions through town. “Then don’t tell them.”

“No.” She snapped. “I could never lie to them.”

“Then tell them the truth.”

“I don’t know the truth.” She whispered.

“Yes you do. Are you ever going to give me a chance?”

“No. why should I?”

“Because I haven’t done anything to make you think otherwise.”

We rode for a while in silence. She did no more than point me in the right direction until we stopped in the middle of a trailer park. All the trailers were old and run down. I couldn’t picture Brianna living in a place like this. She hopped off the bike but paused before walking away and turned to me.

I noticed a curtain pull back in one of the broken trailers. Blue eyes peered out in our direction, the others.

“Was this all one big plan to figure out where we live?” She stared, her eyes piercing right through me. How could she say that? Did she not know what I went through for her today? This girl was making me so angry.

“You caught me.” My voice was cold. I didn’t bother to see her reaction before I floored the bike away.

I drove home in silence. I was so wrapped up in my thoughts, I barely noticed the drive. I was positive Brianna believed the truth. No matter what she said.

When I got to the house Adrian was watching TV in the living room. He made no attempt to acknowledge my existence so I walked straight past him to my room.

If only I still had my mind, I would confront Adrian as an equal. I would explain that it was useless to keep going for the others. Brianna, Spencer, they were just a waste of our time and it would be better to just move on.

But I didn’t have my mind and I was nothing more than a bug under Adrian’s foot. My word didn’t count anymore. So instead I went to my room and stared at the ceiling trying to fall asleep.

Chapter 5

             
I couldn’t sleep a mix of memories kept me from relaxing. The screams of students being dragged away by hulking soldiers, agents ready to pounce on anything suspicious, Brianna’s lack of common sense. Even the idea of Adrian being in the same house kept me awake. From that night on I never had a good night’s sleep.

The next morning after saving Brianna, at school the soldiers returned to publicly execute the principle in front of the student body. No one screamed, we were all being held to watch at gunpoint. There was a giant rock by the field house, I passed it every day on my way in. The firing squad painted it red. I couldn’t wait for the first rain, to wash the sick reminder away.

I tried to push the image out of my head but the fact that it was my fault wouldn’t let it leave. This too added to my lack of sleep. After the execution the entire next week the halls were patrolled by soldiers. None of them recognized me. I was thankful Adrian hadn’t been lying.

The students walked from class to class wearing solemn expressions. Some tried to act like nothing had happened, most didn’t talk at all. No one dared protest, or even try to complain. They didn’t want to end up being just another stain on the rock.

To my horror, from time to time I would catch the wandering eye of a student watching me as we passed in the hall. I never exchanged words with them but I could tell they knew what I had done. My life now hung in the balance of what they were willing to tell the government. Thankfully they kept it to themselves. For how long, I couldn’t be sure.

I wondered why they would do that for me? Not turn me in and get the soldiers to stop patrolling. I guess people under the Kingdom’s rule stick up for each other more than the government knew.

Brianna slipped from class to class avoiding me as much as possible. When gym class came she fell quickly into her old habit of not looking in my direction. At least this time I would catch her sneaking a peek every now and then.

Part of her believed I was telling the truth. That is what I finally decided.

I wanted her on my side so badly. When I left her at the trailer park I was furious. I was mad that after all I had done to protect her she still didn’t trust me. If I couldn’t get her to believe, then I probably wouldn’t get Spencer to either. No Spencer, no rest of their family. I had to find a way to show her the truth.

It was a little over a week before students started talking again. It wasn’t the same as before, but things were improving. One day, I decided I was going to try and talk to Spencer. I took one step in his direction and stopped. The way he looked at me, I wasn’t so sure he wouldn’t kill me right there in the hall. Best to keep working on Brianna, that’s what Lillie was telling me every night at least.

Eight days after the principle’s execution she was shooting baskets in the gym, by herself, before class. She made no attempt to acknowledge my approach.

“Hey, Brianna.” I said, trying to judge her reaction.

“Blake, come here.” She waved over my shoulder then turned back to the basket.

Blake ran up to her like a stupid puppy dog ignoring me completely. At least the run in with the soldiers had cooled the tension between us.

That was the last time I attempted to talk to her, though every day she was there in gym trying not to look in my direction, failing every now and again to quickly look away. I tried to ignore Lillie’s persistence that I try again.

Eventually I found that flirting with the other girls at school helped, not get rid of, but more or less numb my feelings toward her, but only for seconds at a time. To my surprise they took my flirtatious attitude strongly and I found myself a bit overwhelmed.

Ashley, a quiet, sandy blond-haired girl from my second hour, took hold of a simple complement I gave her when the teacher assigned us to be partners. She grew more and more friendly with each passing minute. The next day a similar thing happened with Page, a red-head in my first hour, and again the next day. By the end of the week I found myself trying to slow things down. It started to feel like I was picking up a new girl every day. Okay, so maybe all the attention wasn’t so bad. My days got a lot more exciting, that was for sure. The dialog was a bit on the boring side though. After becoming a trained assassin, talking about cuddly animals and the weather just wasn’t cutting it for me.

Through the following weeks the girls complained that I hadn’t called them yet. To be truthful, in the end the one girl I really wanted to call ignored me. Why couldn’t Brianna be more like these girls? I expected my lack of enthusiasm to push most of them away. Strangely they approached me more.

Neal wouldn’t let the new attention go unnoticed, he called me a month after I saved Brianna to ask my approval on a girl who had seen him hanging out with me and now liked him, don’t ask me how that worked.

“She’s like a ten, and I think she might even play video games!” He practically cheered after I told him that if he liked her he shouldn’t care what I think.

“Are you going to ask her out?” I said. To be honest I couldn’t see it happening.

“What if I just wait for her to ask me out?” You could tell by his voice that just the thought scared him.

“Stop.” I demanded. “Suck it up and ask her out.” Maybe if I had my old mind I could have told him some better advice. Understanding how these girls think was turning out to be impossible.

“Okay” His shaky voice whispered back.

The next day the sandy blond-haired girl, Ashley, managed to find me after every class. I smiled and gave her a playful shove every now and then. It made me feel good to see the joy in her eyes.

She was a good friend and made it obvious that she wanted to be more. I don’t know what it was but I just didn’t feel that way about her. She was attractive and funny, I couldn’t find a good reason why I didn’t like her. I even tried to force myself to.

At lunch Neal came to sit at our usual table with a chubby blond-haired girl. The “Ten” from our phone call I presumed.

“Hi William!” The girl said before they even sat down.

“What are you guys up to?” I asked.

Neal jumped into a ramble about some science project they had paired up together to do. I couldn’t help but notice the “ten” looking at me. Actually I couldn’t seem to find a way out of her sight. I felt like I was under a magnifying glass. Neal didn’t notice.

When he was getting to the end of his story, Page, the girl from first hour came up and sat down next to me. Neal’s girlfriend grew pretty rude after that. She started to cut Page down, I almost couldn’t believe it. Page did her best to ignore it, every once in a while her face would turn red and I half expected her to dive across the table. Neal didn’t notice that either.

After lunch Page babbled on about her parents buying her a new car. I nodded and acted interested the whole way to class. It caught me off guard when she followed me through the gym doors inside. It seemed like she was definitely planning to be late for her next class.

“Did you hear about the new Splitting Ways movie in the theaters?” She said, blushing. “I hear it’s really good.”

“No.” I said. “I guess I haven’t been watching TV lately.”

“Oh...” She twisted her hair around her finger. “I kind of was thinking of going to see it.”

“You are?” I tried to act oblivious to the truth of what she was asking. “Tell me if it’s any good.”

Her face was ashen as she looked down at the floor. I felt bad for acting oblivious.

“I was hoping maybe, you would like to come with me?”

For a split second I started thinking of an excuse but the guilt won me over and I reluctantly forced a smile.

“I’d love to.” I said. In that same instance I glanced back to see Brianna staring at us from the bleachers. Had she been listening to our entire conversation?

When I turned back Page was beaming. “When do you want to go?”

“I’m free tonight.” I shrugged.

“Me too.”

“I’ll call you tonight then. Shall I pick you up or do you want to meet there?” I didn’t know where the theater was but it couldn’t be hard to find.

“Do you mind picking me up?”

“No.” I said. “I can do that.”

“Ok, call me.” She smiled and turned, joyfully to exit the gym. I shook my head and turned back to the bleachers to find Brianna still staring with a pained expression on her face.

I paused to stare back for a second then started to walk past her up the bleachers. I took a seat while waiting for the gym teacher to start calling attendance. It was hard to grasp the rush of emotion that shot through me. I had told Page I would take her to the movies and yet all I could think about was Brianna watching us. She hadn’t been trying to hide anything, it was almost rude.