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SIMON THOUGHT HE WAS dreaming. That his mind was replaying echoes of the fight in the tunnel as an attempt to purge itself from the horror. There could be no other reason for the sound of repeated impacts as a body was struck again and again. No other explanation for the squeak of shoes scrambling against the floor and the quiet desperation of muffled screams.
Then suddenly he heard Tristan cry out.
“Simon!”
His eyes snapped open at the same time he was pulled from his bed.
“What the—”
At first, he couldn’t understand what was going on. Who the hell were these people? How had they gotten into the studio? His eyes widened in unexpected horror. What had they done to his friend?!
Not only was Tristan no longer standing of his own accord, but he was no longer attempting to even try. He was being passed between a huge ring of people—each one contributing their own bit of pain to the collection—before he was shoved on to the next. One man was followed along behind him, holding him up and keeping a pillow pressed over his mouth to muffle the cries.
By the looks of things the pillow had slipped to the floor accidentally, giving Tristan a split second to try to warn Simon. It was back now, pressing against his face so hard it would be a wonder if he could breathe.
“What the hell are you—”
A blow to the face knocked Simon senseless, rendering him momentarily mute. He fell to his knees, staring up in a daze as the ring slowly opened then closed again to include him. Tristan was on the floor now, not moving. The pillow beside him stained with blood.
“Wait...” Simon slurred, trying to regain his senses. “There’s been some kind of—”
“Some kind of mistake?”
A face appeared in front of his own, sneering just inches away. The man it belonged to couldn’t have been more than thirty, but his face was already as scarred and grizzled as they come.
Simon stared for a moment, in disoriented fascination, before his head dropped down to his chest. Whoever these people were, they couldn’t have come at a worse time. One of the reasons he and Tristan had elected to stay the night and not leave until morning was that the two of them had battled a ludicrous number of people, and had lost an even more ridiculous amount of blood. It was an effort for Simon just to keep awake, let alone defend himself from these animals.
“Who are you?” he asked softly, stretching one hand down to the floor to keep himself steady. “What the hell do you want?”
Before the man could answer Simon threw his body towards the center of the ring, trying desperately to reach Tristan’s unconscious form.
“What the hell have you done to my friend?!” he cried. “What did you do to him?! TRIS—”
Another punch to the face and he was right back where he started.
The man shook his finger chidingly, as if Simon was a misbehaving child. “No, Guilder, you’ve got it wrong. You’re not the one who gets to be angry today. You’re not the one who just saw a moment you’ve been planning for the better part of a year snatched away by two inexperienced teenagers!”
Another punch, and Simon was on the floor.
His eyes flitted open and shut, staring at the man’s shoes. “Your moment...” He tried to string a coherent sentence together, but the minute they’d started hitting him it had reopened the cut on the back of his head. His hair, already matted with blood, wetted itself once more as he pressed his forehead into the floor, trying desperately to find the strength to stand up. “I don’t know what—”
“Don’t know what I’m talking about, right?!” The man kicked him once, before jerking him abruptly to his feet. “Of course you don’t. You and your friend are just a cog in the machine. Perfect little soldiers. You go where you’re told, when you’re told. Never ask a single question. Never once stop to think about why you’re doing what they’re telling you do to.”
Simon’s knees buckled as he tried to stay standing. “Never once...what?” Then something the man had said clicked into place. “Wait—Guilder? You went to Guilder?”
An echo of dark laughter flitted through the circle, filling Simon’s chest with dread.
When the man shoved him back to his knees, he was still smiling. “Guilder? No. No, none of us went to your beloved Guilder. But we do have ink. You think I could be hitting you this hard on my own? You flatter me.”
Simon mustered up the darkest glare he could. “What the hell do you want?”
“You know what, Simon? It’s funny you should ask.” The man crouched down so that they were on the same level. “You see, we’ve been asking your friend here for the last twenty minutes, and he’s refused to tell us anything.”
Twenty minutes? How the hell did I—
As if answering his mental question, the man flashed him a smile. “We gave you a little something to help you sleep. Anyway, we’ve been asking your friend over there, but he’s proven most uncooperative. So, instead, I’m going to ask you.”
His eyes dilated hungrily as they stared deep into Simon’s. “Where’s the brainwashing device?”
Simon blinked. Why was his tatù so slow? It felt as if it, too, had succumbed to exhaustion. Too much had happened too quickly, and he was struggling to keep it all straight. This man had somehow known where to find him, known who he was and where he went to school, and now he was asking after the brainwashing device?! How was this possibly real?!
“I don’t—”
“Wrong answer, Simon.”
Simon gasped aloud as he was picked up suddenly by someone he couldn’t see, and passed slowly around the circle. The pain was excruciating, each hit hurting more than the last, and by the time he was thrown back at the man’s feet he’d be willing to tell them just about anything. He had no loyalties to Guilder. He already thought the entire system was corrupt.
But Tristan didn’t tell them. It was the only thought that kept him sane. Tristan didn’t tell them, because he’s loyal. Because he didn’t want the information falling into the wrong hands. He paid a heavy price for it.
“I’ll ask you again,” the man smiled. “Where the hell is the brainwashing device?”
Simon spat a mouthful of blood at his feet.
“Simon, Simon, Simon...”
Again—he went around the circle.
The next ten minutes or so were more of the same.
As the interrogation continued, things began to blur. Colors faded, then brightened suddenly. Fuzzy outlines of people swooped in and out.
They look like knights, Simon thought blearily. The way they move like that—each one swooping in for the other. This big round circle...they look like knights. Knights of Camelot.
Finally, when it became clear that another hit might finish him off, he was dropped once more in front of the man. The longer the beating had continued, the more the man’s face had tightened with the faint traces of respect. Staring at Simon now, it was easy to see.
“You’ve got guts, kid. I’ll give you that. So does your friend over there.”
He made a subtle gesture with his hand and Tristan was suddenly dragged over, held standing by two men as his head dropped limply against his chest. Simon was also lifted and he gazed across the ring in horror, wondering what they were going to do.
“The problem is,” the man continued, “that bravery is misplaced. You’re fighting for a corrupt Council—a relic from a bygone age. Something that should have been replaced long ago. There was a chance that we could have done that ourselves. Just a small group of friends, trying to make a difference.” His eyes flashed with an anger he tried hard to control as he leaned closer to Simon’s face. “We could have done it with the brainwashing device. We were coming for it this very night. But we show up at this bloody forsaken spot—and what do you know?”
A hand pulled back the curtains to show the fire still going strong.
“So the thing is, Simon, you’re going to have to make a choice.” He stepped back suddenly and walked around so he was standing behind Tristan. “You’re going to have to choose what you’re more loyal to. Your Council, or your friend. Because I swear on my life, Simon...”
He whipped out a knife and held it to Tristan’s throat.
“...One of them is going to die for you tonight.”
This can’t be happening. Simon’s own breathing was very loud in his ears. This can’t be happening.
Tristan’s eyes were still closed, but his body reflexively stiffened when it felt the pressure of the blade. There was a quiet moan, and he struggled against the hands holding him.
“Please...” Simon could hardly breathe. Could hardly even begin to breathe. He couldn’t manage to do anything as long as they were holding that damn knife to Tristan’s neck. “Please...”
The man tightened his grip on the handle, but when he spoke he was completely calm. “This doesn’t have to be hard, Simon. You simply have to pick one. If you don’t, we’ll kill you both anyway and cut our losses.”
He had a feeling they were going to kill them either way. Simon’s hands started shaking. “I can’t...You can’t expect me to—”
The blade pressed in, leaving a small trail of crimson in its wake.
“Okay, okay!” he shouted, throwing up his hands in surrender as Tristan jerked once, then tentatively opened his eyes.
At first he simply stared around the room, unable to process what he was seeing. Then the pain set in, and he registered the knife. His breathing quickened as his eyes lifted slowly to his friend.
“...Simon?” he choked out.
“It’s okay, it’s going to be okay!” Simon yelled. A torrent of tears rushed down his face, but he was too frantic to care. Instead, he turned back to the man. “There is no brainwashing device. The study was only in the initial stages. He hadn’t got that far yet.”
The man’s eyes narrowed doubtfully, but he made no further movements with the knife.
Simon hurried on, anything to stop the progression. “I talked to the doctor myself. He said there were plans for a prototype, but nothing solid. I...I’m assuming they went up in the fire. We weren’t able to find anything in the lab.”
There was a beat of silence, then the man chuckled again. His laughter echoed around the room, and he yanked Tristan’s head back by the hair.
“Really? The Privy Council sends two agents out into the field, and you expect me to believe that they found nothing? That they walked away with nothing?” His grin sharpened into something slightly different. Something more dangerous. “Long story short, kid? I don’t.”
The knife pressed in, and Tristan made a strangled cry. His hands clawed uselessly on the back of the blade, but he was at the end of his strength and the man was just getting started.
“NO!” Simon screamed, throwing himself towards them. He was held firm by the people standing behind him, but that did nothing to stop him from trying. “I told you the truth! What else do you want me to say?! Please! Please let him go!”
The man kept pressing the knife in, incensed beyond reason.
“No—PLEASE!” Simon crumpled to the ground as Tristan’s eyes began to close. His movements turned clumsy. Simon had never seen him clumsy. Tristan’s head tilted gently to the side.
“It’s in the mattress,” Simon wept, lowering his face to the floor. “There’s a flash drive in the mattress. It’s the only thing we recovered. I swear.”
The room froze dead still.
“Please...please don’t kill him.”
There was a brief pause as the man motioned to another. The mattress was sliced open somewhere behind Simon’s back, and a second later the knife dropped from Tristan’s neck.
“Well done, Simon. For the record, I think you made the right choice.”
The man opened his arms and Tristan slumped to the floor, unconscious. A second later Simon was released, and started scrambling towards him.
“Tris?” he whispered, trying desperately to open his friend’s eyes. “Tris! Come on, wake up! Please wake up!”
A flashback of the hospital hit him with a shudder. Hadn’t they just played this game?
“Please, open your eyes. It’s over now. You’re okay. Tristan—please!”
The man watched the touching scene with a hint of compassion, before gesturing to a woman who had been standing in the background. A woman with tumbles of long red hair.
“Anita?”
With a solemn nod, she came forward and gently pried Tristan out of Simon’s arms. Simon held on with all his might, pushing her away with a vicious cry.
“Leave him be!” he demanded, lashing out for all he was worth. “You said we—”
“Anita is a doctor,” the man interrupted. Now that he’d gotten what he came for, all his pretenses and intimidating sneers vanished in the blink of an eye. They were replaced instead with a stern man. Angry, perhaps, but fair. A man who had simply seen and suffered too much. “We were never going to kill him, for bloody sake—he’s just a kid. Where I come from, we don’t kill kids.”
Simon’s mouth fell open as the woman started dabbing away at the blood on Tristan’s neck. To his extreme surprise the cut beneath it didn’t look at all deep, just enough to draw blood. At the same time, he realized that as strong as these people were, as much as they were clearly capable of doing...they hadn’t done either one of the boys any lasting harm. There were no breaks, no sprains. Just hits to the face and muscles. Enough to daze. Disorient.
Confuse enough to get information.
“You just...lied?” Simon couldn’t fathom the simplicity of it. “This whole time—”
“I didn’t lie,” the man interrupted. “Everything I said about that despicable Council of yours is true. I just didn’t really hurt you boys, is all.” He eyed them doubtfully. “Well...much.”
“But he...” Simon’s eyes shot to Tristan, “he blacked out. We both did—”
“That’s because you guys had already lost a hell of a lot of blood,” the man replied. “Must have been quite the warzone down there. This kid’s got a fox and he didn’t even hear us come in.”
As if on cue, Tristan slowly opened his eyes. He gazed for a minute at the long spirals of red hair tumbling down across his chest, before pulling back in sudden fright. “Let me go—”
She did as he asked, and he went stumbling back towards the center of the ring, landing on the floor near Simon. Simon helped him up gently, and together the two of them got to their feet.
“I’m sorry, Tris,” he apologized just loud enough for the men to hear. “I had to tell them.”
Tristan pulled back like he’d been stung. “You...you did what?!”
“I told them about the flash drive.” Simon’s eyes bore into Tristan’s as he silently begged his friend to see past the blood loss and figure it out. “I didn’t have a choice.”
The flash drive. Not the file. Just the flash drive.
Tristan stared at him for a second, before bowing his head. “That’s perfect, Kerrigan. You’ve managed to make our first mission a complete success.”
“This is your first ever mission?” The man was surprised. “In that case, congratulations!”
Both boys looked up in glaring disbelief. At the same time, a silent sentry by the window called over quietly, “Patrick.”
“I’m serious,” the man ignored him. “All that on your first ever mission, and you survived? That’s quite an impressive feat.”
“Fodder!” the sentry called again, a little louder this time. The man looked over, and he gestured to the parking lot. “We’ve got to go. One of the kids called in reinforcements.”
Simon blanked completely, but Tristan exhaled in relief.
“Who the hell did you call?” Simon asked quietly.
“Stein,” Tristan answered. Simon shot him a look of betrayal, which he shrugged off without a second thought. “Your head got melted by lava, Simon. Yeah, I called the doctor. So shoot me.” Then, remembering they were not alone, he raised his voice a little louder. “I called the doctor and about forty or fifty other people. They travel armed to the teeth.”
The man, Fodder, chuckled with amusement and Tristan shot him a chilling glare.
“Stick around, please.” Simon almost laughed. “If he called for the doctor, our Botcher’s not far behind.” This, at least, was true. His blue eyes flashed with dark promise. “I would love to watch him beat you to death.”
Fodder lifted his hands in light-hearted surrender. “We were just on our way out.”
Faster than Simon would have thought possible, the entire ring of people packed up what few accessories they’d brought with them and filed silently out the door. Fodder was the last one to leave, but before he did he glanced over his shoulder at the two boys. Tristan, he only stared at for a minute. He seemed to sense that his young mind was already made up. But his eyes rested for a while longer on Simon, before he flashed him the faintest of smiles.
“Remember what I said, Simon, about what your Council really is. There’s another side to all of this, you know. Another choice you can make.” He vanished out the door with a wink. “If you have the guts.”
Then the door closed behind him, leaving both boys still panting in the middle of the floor.
The second they were alone Tristan slowly turned to Simon, clearly weighing each word before he said it out loud. Stein had to be just seconds from arriving, and they were almost out of time, but there was something he had to get off his chest.
“You gave up the flash drive...for me.”
Simon gave him a long look.
“What flash drive?”
There was a pointed silence.
Then Tristan nodded at the floor. “What flash drive.”
* * *
SIMON HAD NO IDEA HOW it was that Dr. Stein didn’t see any of their departing attackers on his way inside. They were clearly as talented as they’d appeared, if the entire lot of them had managed to evade detection with such success. He and Tristan, on the other hand, had apparently reached the end of their rapidly fraying rope.
Bitter as he was that the Council would bear witness to their great failure, even Simon had to admit that the doctor had come just in time. All the physical brutality of the last twenty-four hours had caught up with them at last, and when the doctor pushed open the door they were both sitting on the floor—propped up against the wall by the window, completely unable to stand.
All around them, the floor was painted with smears of their blood. The bed itself looked like it had been part of a Tarantino film, and the discarded blade still lay where it had fallen to the floor. The only thing that looked remotely normal was the ceiling, and even that had a spattering of crimson drops to give it away.
Stein pulled up short, staring around in wide-eyed horror before his gaze came to rest upon the two boys. “What the hell happened here?!”
“Doc,” Tristan managed a crooked smile, “it’s good to see you.”
Simon chuckled painfully. “Yep, we’ve got a challenge for you today.”
Stein turned to both of them, his face displaying no other emotion than surprise.
“What did...?” He gathered himself together. “You burned down the laboratory.”
It wasn’t phrased as a question. Then again, thought Simon wryly, why would it be? Even from here, Simon could smell the smoke. The fire must still have been going strong.
“We did,” he admitted, wishing the doctor would hurry up already with those magic hands of his. “It was just the first part of our not-so-great night. On that note, do you think you could—”
“Where’s the device?”
Tristan and Simon exchanged a silent look, both sure they had heard wrong. The doctor wasn’t concerned with mission outcomes; his job was as a physician, a healer. Nothing more.
Finally, Simon cleared his throat enough to speak. “I’m sorry?”
“The device,” Stein snapped. “The brainwashing device you idiots were sent to recover. Where the hell is it?”
Simon fell silent as his face tightened with the slightest hint of a frown. How did Stein even know about the device? Weren’t the specifics of the mission kept secret between Masters, Wainwright, Jason, and Keene?
More importantly...why wasn’t the doctor fixing Tristan?
“Dr. Stein?” Tristan cried out softly, trying to summon his attention.
The doctor remained immune, but Simon turned to him at once. His mind was vaguely aware that something was going wrong, but the rest of his body wasn’t able to handle it. Instead, he shifted around to where Tristan was leaning shakily against the wall. All the color had long since run out of his cheeks, and his eyes were in constant danger of closing.
“Please, Doc,” Simon asked again. “Could you take a look at him? He’s not doing so well.”
“The device, Simon.”
Simon stared up at him in utter shock. Unable to wrap his head around what could possibly be going on. In the end, he simply answered the question.
“There was no device. And McAllister shot himself. It’s all over.”
So now maybe you can start doing your damn job.
The doctor sucked in a quick breath.
“There’s no device,” he repeated quietly. He slowly shook his head like he was trying to convince himself it was true. His brow furrowed. “It’s all...”
Then all at once everything changed.
It was like flipping a switch.
Like Stein had just seen them both lying there for the first time.
His white coat came off. Followed quickly by his glasses. His eyes, which seemed much sharper now that they weren’t magnified by the frames, swept over them with unmistakable loathing. They flashed angrily as Tristan tried to speak again, and his fingers fluttered in the air. The next second there was a soft gasp, and Tristan slumped lower to the floor.
“You know what, Simon?” the doctor hissed as he suddenly moved forward. “You’re right. This entire mess, this entire damn agenda... is all over.”
Before Simon could make sense of what was going on, there was a searing pain in the side of his face. Like he had been kicked in the temple, the air in front of him burst with stars.
Except, no one had touched him...had they?
“Feel familiar?” Stein whispered menacingly.
Simon lifted his eyes in horror as the doctor knelt down so they were both at the same level.
“That was just a few months ago. When Tristan here attacked you in the Oratory. As I recall, he gave you several minor concussions that day.”
Simon was trying desperately to clear his head, when the doctor turned to Tristan.
“And you.”
There was a terrifying rip, and the next second Tristan screamed in pain. Stein watched impassively, making mental notes with a clinical stare.
“Simon literally almost tore your arm right out of its socket. I couldn’t believe when just a week or so later, the two of you were best friends. But who am I to fathom the adolescent mind?”
Simon was scrambling to his feet now. At least he was trying to scramble. But the strangest feeling was sneaking its way through his body. A cloying numbness. One he was sure he had felt somewhere before. It took him a minute before he realized what it was.
The paralyzing agent. The one Bullseye shot me with. It’s come back.
“You see,” Stein continued softly, “that’s the funny thing about my gift. The thing nobody knows. Healing is only the half of it. Every hurt I mend, I remember. And every hurt I remember, I can return at a whim. Every single one.”
It was a pain unlike Simon had ever imagined. More than his body could stand.
Every cut. Every break. Every one of the hundreds of burns he’d received over the last few months with Beth...they all came back to him at once. Like someone was painting his skin.
In less than a second, he was screaming louder than he’d ever shrieked before. Crying out for a death that seemed perpetually imminent, while remaining forever out of reach. Only a solitary sound could reach him at this point. The cries of the boy lying beside him.
Tristan was lying on the floor in front of Stein. His shirt, which had been hanging on by just a thread since the tunnels, had finally torn away, and Simon watched as one by one each of the jagged scars on his back ripped open anew.
A torrent of blood poured out of him, pooling on the cheap studio room floor. His hands clenched, then relaxed ominously on the floor beside him. There was a sudden rush of air, but it wasn’t until Simon felt a sudden hand upon his own face that he realized he had actually thrown his broken body upon Stein.
“Get off of me, Kerrigan!” the doctor cried, reeling from the fact that Simon had somehow been able to move so quickly. He raised his hand to hit him again, but instead it hovered in the air right in front of him. Instead, Simon felt Jason, and Isaac, and Tristan, and Jen hit him.
A hundred times over.
Finally defeated, Simon collapsed onto the floor. Tristan was no longer moving, and with most of his blood soaking into the carpet Simon didn’t see him ever moving again. His own eyes were flickering open and shut as his mind began drifting away. As the room around him began to dim, he was only vaguely aware of the fact that Stein was still talking.
“Don’t worry about him,” he said with disdain. He glanced down and Simon realized that, just like in the hospital, he had reached over to take Tristan’s hand. “I’m not going to let him die quite like that. For him, I saved the best for last.”
The coma.
A weak shudder ran through Simon’s body as he tried his best to shield his friend from view.
“Please,” he whimpered, “please don’t.”
Stein looked down in disgust. “You know... I don’t know why he thinks you’re so special. You’re just a stupid, worthless kid.”
Simon pulled in a ragged breath, but he knew it was too late. A creeping blackness had settled into the corners of his eyes, making it look like he was seeing the entire room through something narrow, like a tunnel.
He was barely able to make out the pair of old-fashioned riding boots that walked silently into the room behind the doctor. He was barely able to hear Stein’s gasp of surprise, the murmur of low conversation, and the crack of the gun as a bullet was fired into the air. He was barely able to feel the impact as the doctor dropped to the floor in front of him.
Dead.
Simon tried to lift his head to see what was going on, but it was no use. A warm hand pressed gently against his back. Or maybe it didn’t. Maybe he was only imagining it.
Then, the blurry face of a man drifted slowly into view.
Simon couldn’t make out the details, just vague colors and shapes. The only thing he could make out, something that stood out quite clearly, was the man’s smile.
“You’ve had a rough night, Simon Kerrigan.”
A feeling of that same warmth rushed through Simon’s back as the man spoke, bringing with it a soft sense of relief. At the same time, the room sharpened into better clarity, the dark clouds chasing each other through Simon’s mind began to clear.
“But no matter the circumstances, I’m happy to finally meet you in the flesh.”
The man had his hand on Tristan now, pressing it softly against his back. Simon was about to struggle to protect his friend, when, before his very eyes, the bleeding suddenly stopped. The cuts lacing themselves across Tristan’s back vanished as if something had merely washed them away.
Not even the scars remained.
“Who...” Simon tried to sit up. “Who are you?”
The man clicked his tongue disapprovingly and pressed him back down. “No, not so fast, young man. Healing isn’t one of my strong suits. I’d hate to have you undo everything I just did.”
“Everything you just...” Simon’s hand drifted up to the back of his head. In shock he realized that the giant gash, burned there by the girl’s lava, had suddenly disappeared. “How did you—”
“Yes,” the man’s eyes twinkled as he stared down at him, “you’ve had a very busy night indeed. First there was the alarm in the tunnel. Then there was the scientist...”
The air between them seemed to suddenly heavy.
“...the scientist you stuffed into the trunk of your car.”
Simon froze dead still, staring up at him in shock.
How did he know? How could he possibly...?
“Who are you?” he asked again, a little stronger this time.
The man chuckled, re-buttoning his coat as he prepared to take his leave. “I’m afraid you don’t get to know that at this time, Simon. Rest assured, all will be explained later. But for now, you may know me simply as ‘C.’”
As Simon blinked in confusion, trying to gather his wits, the man reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a permanent marker. Then, with the utmost delicacy, he took one of Simon’s hands and smoothed open the palm.
In a wide looping script, he wrote down the letter.
“So you’ll remember me.” He smiled as Simon stared at his hand. “So you’ll know that this really happened. That you weren’t imagining it.”
Tristan began to stir beside them, and the stranger moved suddenly to the door.
“In the meantime, I’ll be taking that scientist with me, Simon.” He paused in the frame. “But don’t worry, if you decide you’d like to continue your work with him you need only say the word.”
“How?” Simon blurted. He didn’t know who this man was, or what exactly he was offering, but before he walked out of the door forever Simon had to know the truth. “How will I find you?”
The man smiled again, eyes twinkling fondly as he stared across the room.
“Try going for a walk,” he suggested lightly. “That’s a beautiful park you live by. You should visit it more often.”
With that, he was gone. Leaving Tristan struggling beside him and Simon lying there on the floor, staring wide-eyed down at his hand.
C
THE END
ALONE IN THE DARKNESS
