Ruin

Seven

Brandon comes home late. The sun has already gone down, and I've managed to figure out how to light the oil lantern on my own by the time he walks in the door.

I'm in the kitchen with the lamp still sitting on the kitchen counter where I found the matches. When he enters, I take a quick look at him. The strands of his hair over his face are wet, and his shirt has a ring of sweat around the neck and a spot on his chest. His breaths are even yet shallow, but his eyes are bright.

We both take the other in, trying to pick up clues as to where this dance will go next. Brandon is the one to start it.

"Sorry I'm late. Let me take a shower and I'll make dinner." He steps further in heading to the bedroom to grab clean clothes.

I step around the kitchen counter intent on changing the dance. "Uhm, I can make dinner."

His back is to me. Through the already thin shirt now soaked with sweat I can see the two light eyes of the dark skull across his back. He stops and turns halfway to face me, the eyes of the skull turning away. "You don't have to do that. I'll be quick."

We're both teetering on an edge, waiting for the other to show their colors. It's time for me to step forward and allow myself to be seen. "You basically heat up canned food for dinner. I can do that."

I brace myself for a misunderstanding, waiting for him to get angry at me for belittling what he does, but he doesn't. Brandon actually lets out a short quick laugh as he runs his hand through his hair. Emboldened by this positive reaction, I add on to my list of abilities. "And I figured out how to light the lamp on my own."

He smiles again and rubs at his chin. "All right. Fine. Just don't blow anything up."

I wasn't even aware that was a possibility.

It's strange to dig through his cupboards and the refrigerator pantry. I settle on some canned meat and potatoes as the main course and heat up some green beans for the side. Nearby the cans are a couple of spices I recognize, and I use them sparingly in the food to help bulk up the flavors the way Uncle Wiley taught me to do. By the time Brandon is done with his shower, the food is finished.

He takes a seat at the table and I hand him his plate. It lingers before his eyes as he closely inspects it before setting it down. Then he notices me watching him. He slides his fork in and takes a bite.

As he's chewing, he doesn't say anything. Then he actually smiles at me before taking another bite. "All right. You can make dinner from now on."

Things seem to break during dinner, rearranging themselves into something more comfortable, and yet something still feels off. Brandon does seem to try. We don't speak about earlier, and he doesn't ask me anything personal. It's just topical conversation about the food and what I did to it while carefully avoiding asking where I learned how to do it.

We clean up the plates and the pans I used, the two of us side by side in the small kitchen at the sink. By then a silence has grown over us and we don't fight it. It's easier to deal with than trying to make small talk without touching on something that will set us both back. Once we're done, I take a seat on the couch. This has been the after dinner spot the whole time I've been here. We sit here and try to think of things to awkwardly talk about, but I don't think I can take it this time. I need to get out, or at least learn something new.

I keep my eyes down on my toes as I stretch them out. "So what do you do for fun?"

Brandon sits on the couch next to me and smiles. I get the sense he's been waiting for me to ask. "We hang out usually." He lifts a hand and motions towards the door with his thumb. "Out there."

Out there in the dark with the only source of light the glow from the fire pits. The thought creeps me out, but that's the old me from a different territory and days ago. I need to learn more about this place to survive.

"Are you seriously thinking about going out there?" he says as he raises an eyebrow.

It surprises me that he picks up on that so quickly, but I don't bother mentioning it. It's just more proof that Brandon is the sort of person who notices small details which means that there's no point in trying to lie to him. "Maybe."

That makes him grin. "I'll take you if you say so."

It's the first choice I've had since our house was invaded in the middle of the night. I can stay hidden here in the apartment or I can go outside with Brandon and see the others I've watched from the balcony up close. I lift my chin and take a deep breath intending to make the choice that's the obvious right one, the one that is most beneficial to my learning to live here and beginning to accept my fate, but instead I find myself blurting out, "Is it even safe for me to be out there?"

By the dim light of the lamp, his eyes are clear as the corners of his mouth curve up. "Well, yeah. I mean, I am Henri's son."

True. He is Henri's son. No one's going to hurt the leader's children. That alone isn't enough to make me feel safe even if it is enough to make him feel it's okay. But I find that I don't want to stay hidden. If I'm going to learn to survive, I need to face this new reality and learn more.

"I want to go." My voice is small. Despite this new strength and determination, my voice quivers and so I speak softly in an attempt to hide it.

Brandon looks doubtful. Still he accepts my decision. "All right, well, you're going to get cold. You need a jacket or an extra shirt or something."

I doubt that I have a jacket. That night they only let me pack what was in my dresser drawers. Maybe I could've packed more, but when you're faced with the barrel of a gun it's hard to remember things like coats. Still, I go to the room and dig around in my duffle to see what I did bring and find an old grey sweatshirt.

I recognize it just by touch and weight. This was my mother's old ratty sweatshirt. It was sizes too big for her and relegated to being one of those pieces of clothing she wore only inside the house and maybe for a second if she had to run to the end of the driveway to pick up mail.

This is an unexpected piece of her that somehow found its way into my clothes. My throat swells, but I don't cry. I never borrowed her clothes. One of us must have mistakenly put it in my dresser drawer with my clothes.

Brandon calls to me softly, asking if I'm ready or I've changed my mind. I toss the sweatshirt on over my head, the insides scratching at my nose but instantly warming me. It's stupid, but I do feel a little safer. Like a reminder that Mom is with me even when she's not, that I do have some part of her in me, and if she saw me now, she'd be proud of me.

We walk down the stairs to the ground floor. At night the whole place is even more sinister lit only by the faint flickering of light from the fire pits.

At the foot of the stairs, Brandon waits for me with his hands in his pockets. I stare straight at him, some dark deep part of my brain warning me that the attack happened here, just feet away from where I'm standing. It's a thought I drown out as Brandon smiles at me as if to give me encouragement. But there's also the smallest hint of pride from him and I can only guess that it comes from seeing me take such bold steps in so short a time. I wrap my arms tightly around myself, gripping the worn sweatshirt.

Downstairs, people stand around the fire pits talking and laughing. Some couples hang out on the edge of the light with their arms around each other, some kiss, some practically rubbing against each other and I turn my head away. It's not bothering anyone else, and if I stare that will only make it more obvious that I'm an outsider. Not that it isn't obvious already.

There's a girl dressed in a normal old shirt, ripped and worn, with a pair of dirty jeans. She wears no shoes, so she stands near one of the pits in the distance in front of us with her hands outstretched to absorb the warmth. Right away I realize she's another one like me and Mitchell, but she looks worse. There's a cautious weariness to her. She glances furtively at the others standing around the pit with her. They stand around drinking from glasses and old plastic cups. The man seated next to her moves and it makes her flinch just as we pass by. She reminds me of the girl I saw on the balcony that one day, and I briefly wonder if it's her.

We cross the street, no words between us. People wave at Brandon and smile. Some even call him by name and he only smiles and gives them a nod like he's one of the popular guys walking the hall. I'm not sure if it should make me comfortable or make me more nervous that he's so well known. It makes sense if he's Henri's son that people would give him a grudging acknowledgement, but the ones who greet him seem to honestly do it, not out of obligation, but just because they're happy to see him.

I glance up at him trying to get some clues in the same way he picks up so much just by glancing at me. There's a lot that I don't know about him still. Though we've talked, we haven't really talked about anything of substance, and I make a decision that I will see if he'll open up to me about his life here and his past.

Across the street, Brandon heads towards a fire pit in what looks like an old parking lot. There's a small group of people already there, and they look up at us when they see Brandon. I notice three people right away. One tall man who stands on the other side of the fire as we walk up, his bright eyes on the two of us and a smile on his lips that makes the hair on my arms stand up and brush against the inside of my long sleeves. Another tall man stands with his arms crossed behind a chair that seats a petite girl who smiles at Brandon first in greeting.

Then all of their eyes then fall on me.

"This is my sister, Paula." Brandon says it loudly to all of them without a hint of shame though I'm sure they can see that I'm not like them right away. No one says anything though. The girl sitting down pours a glass and offers it to me. Brandon is the one to politely refuse for me and when I look up at him, he smiles, "Trust me. You won't like it."

I glance around at the others and let my eyes adjust to the firelight. The first one I notice is the girl who looks hardly older than me. She hops up from her chair and motions at it. "Uh, you wanna sit down?"

The last thing I want to do is be an inconvenience, so I refuse at first but she insists and Brandon gives me a soft nudge in the shoulder without even looking at me. He's talking to a large man much taller than himself who speaks quietly in soft grunts as Brandon mumbles questions to him. So I take a seat and hope that I can get on with my simple observations.

But I'm surprised by who's sitting near me in a chair, his hazel eyes looking away and avoiding me completely. It's Mitchell. When we walked up, he was sitting down and so he was completely obscured by the fire as we walked up. I want to ask him where he's been, but for the man standing next to him.

The man is tall and wiry. He looks young, just like Mitchell and Brandon. By the fire light, his eyes look almost purple. There's a slim chance that it's just a trick of the light, but silky blue hair falls over his forehead, and that is definitely not a trick of the light. He eyes me with one hand on the back of Mitchell's chair and right away I'm sure that he's Mitchell's caretaker the same way Brandon's mine. There's a dangerous gleam to his eyes. He watches me as if picking out all my weaknesses.

Then I remember Mitchell's words from the other day. "Brandon's a good guy. I'm sure he wouldn't ever force you to do anything you didn't want to do." Mitchell is human like me. Are there things that this man with his strange eyes forces Mitchell to do because he knows he can't fight back?

"So you're Neutral, huh?" The girl stands next to me with a glass in her hands. It's a simple question, but one that makes me uncomfortable. The blue haired man with the strange eyes watches me with the corners of his lips curling up.

The girl isn't accusatory about it, but it seems rather forward for someone like us to chat so freely in front of one of them. Put on the spot, I still don't know what to say so I just nod.

"It must suck for you to be out here then," she says.

The heat from the fire dries out my throat. I shrug. "It's not that bad really." But even as I say it, I can't help thinking about the attack I saw from the balcony.

"I'm Maria, by the way." She points to the one with the light eyes. "That's Angel. And that's Mitchell."

Mitchell gives a little nod. "We've met."

Angel smiles. "We're neighbors."

I've never met Angel before but it sounds as if he were including himself in the meeting Mitchell and I had on the balcony. I don't bother correcting him or saying anything about it. I glance down at my toes, twisting my foot and pulverizing little stones and sand grains beneath my sneaker against the blacktop.

Maria stays nearby me, almost hovering. We're quiet. Brandon and the other man stand far enough away as they talk that we can only catch their deep mummers over the crackling of the flame.

Something seems to swell between all of us. Questions meant to be asked saturate the air. Even I have questions I think I'd like to ask, but I'm no clearer on what I can or can't ask than I was on the first day.

Luckily Maria takes care of that. "So what do they say about us where you're from?"

The words blurt out from her mouth adding heat to the fire as my cheeks flush. I hadn't expected that at all, and I'm not sure how to speak honestly without insulting them and only making them mad. The three of them, Maria, Angel, and Mitchell all watch me and wait for me answer.

Brandon is still completely focused on the man he's talking to. There's a serious look to his face, his brows drawn, his mouth tightly closed, and I know that I don't want to disturb him.

I clear my throat and take a swallow. "Uh, well, not much. They didn't really know much."

It's true and it's not insulting. Everyone seems to accept it readily and there's even mumbles of agreement that the Neutrals would keep their people in the dark. It insults me, and I want to argue with them, but there's no use in it. They're right anyway, and I need to know more people than just Brandon.

"So, uh, what do they say about us here?"

Maria looks up at Angel. "Oh, you probably don't wanna hear that."

That kills the conversation and I go back to grinding rocks under my toe. No, I don't want to hear. They probably think we're all flabby weaklings and compared to them, I don't exactly disprove that idea. My cheeks flame again, so hot I want to put my fingers against them, but I don't because that will only call attention to it.

The quiet is odd when shared with strangers. Brandon stands with his back to us, talking to the other man still. Maria takes a drink and Angel runs his fingers gently over a curl on Mitchell's head that keeps sticking up. The move makes me nervous for Mitchell. It's intimate and tender in its own way which only makes me worry for the things he forces Mitchell to do.

I hold my hands together in my lap, squeezing my fingers tightly. Though I still have no idea what I can say, and I don't exactly feel comfortable, I still feel a need of some sort to gather information from the people assembled here. They have no reason to lie to me, unlike Brandon who wants to protect me and keep me safe.

I glance up at Maria who sips her drink casually while looking around to avoid looking directly at me, but I know she's paying attention to me. The second I look up her eyes are on me, and I nip at my lip before I just ask. "So can I ask about the Revolution?"

Maria tenses, her fingers on her glass turning white as she squeezes. "What have they told you about it?"

Angel crosses his arms. "More importantly, what have they told you about the labs?"

I glance at the both of them and shrink back in my chair. The only friendly face turned towards me is Mitchell, but he wears a bit of pity that doesn't make me feel better. "They were run by companies, and they were illegal."

That gets a look from Angel at the very least. As I'd expected. I hold my hands tightly, my throat suddenly dry from the smoke of the fire pit wafting towards me on a cool night breeze.

"That's not exactly right from our understanding." Angel watches me with his eyes narrowed like the sharp edge of a blade. "The Neutrals ran the experiments. On their own people."

I swallow, but there is nothing in my mouth but smoke. It burns down my dry throat, wiping away any moisture left. It's a lie. It has to be. They need a reason to hate Neutrals. It's just gossip, and gossip isn't the truth. What I know I've read in history books and been taught by my teachers who were there in some form and lived through it even if they were young children at the time. And my mom who worked for the government. Wouldn't she have told me the truth if everything I was learning was a lie?

Mitchell quietly clears his throat. Behind him, Angel shifts and uncrosses his arms to lean against the back of Mitchell's chair as he speaks. "We should tell her the bonfire stories."

Maria seems to like that idea. She smiles and nods. "Yeah, that's a good idea."