Evenfall (157 page)

"That makes you a traitor
and
a fucking coward," Dana said as anger overcame her features and voice. She moved right into his personal space and shoved him violently on the shoulder. "Why'd you run? Only traitors and cowards run when their comrades are burning to death behind them."

It was probably because he hadn't felt entirely ready for this mission and because he was suddenly being confronted with people from the time of the JKS mission, but for some reason the comment was enough to make him think of Jessica, of Sin stopping to help someone he knew, of the people he'd met in the center like Pat and the deaths they'd probably endured. He couldn't help a flash of guilt crossing his eyes and he looked away, his jaw setting. "I was scared," he mumbled uncomfortably.

"
Scared?"
Dana demanded incredulously. She shoved him again, her teeth gritted. "You're such a fucking pussy. You were
scared,
so you ran? Don't you have any pride? Any trust in Janus? Any fucking strength in your beliefs? I nearly lost my arm because I was in there, because I stopped to help my comrade. You just
ran.
" She looked at him in utter disgust. "You don't deserve Janus."

"Why are you here?" Rick demanded before Boyd could respond to her. His ever-present quiet, intense stare did not leave Boyd's face and he seemed intent on not letting a single stray comment or missing explanation pass without being addressed.

"I was..." Boyd looked between the two of them hesitantly, as if he was a little embarrassed to tell them the truth. He could tell they wouldn't let him get away with any half-assed explanations so he quickly thought of the story he could make seem most believable in this situation, trying to imagine in that bare fraction of a second all the questions that would result and how he'd be able to answer them. "I wanted to make it up to everyone."

"Make what up? To who?" Rick asked immediately.

"Everyone," Boyd said, looking uncomfortable. "My friends, the people I met, Janus... I felt bad and when I finally contacted home, they gave me such shit..."

"So you were going to relieve feelings of guilt by breaking in here?" Rick interpreted, giving him a flat look that made it obvious he didn't believe him. "Start from the beginning." His tone clearly implied that if he didn't believe the story, Boyd would regret it.

"Yeah," Dana said in a hard tone, "and while you're at it why don't you give us some bullshit reason about why you look like you're trying to be undercover and why you're sneaking around places you shouldn't even know about. I'm in the mood to be entertained."

Boyd glanced between the two again, then sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He could have just attacked them, attempted to take them both out and try to hide their bodies before he would have continued along his way. But that was too risky; Rick was quick and strong, Dana was wily. There was a very real chance that he wouldn't even be able to incapacitate them both. If that happened, they were intelligent enough to sound the alarm immediately and get out the details of what had happened, to know that he couldn't be who he'd claimed he was.

At the moment, although they both seemed extremely suspicious of him, he got the impression that they didn't doubt that he was Kadin Reed; rather, they were doubting Kadin Reed's motivations. That was something that could work in his favor; at least that way he had some sense of history with them, as brief as it had been, and he would have a better chance of manipulating the situation to a direction best for him.

He couldn't afford to lose even that tentative amount of trust they were putting in his presence. He was better off working with them and seeing how far he got by being Kadin; then, when that plan ran out of usefulness, he would change tactics to whatever made the most sense at that time. Quickly, he tried to remember everything he could about Kadin's history he'd been told and decided to embellish where necessary.

"Look," he said seriously, giving them a weary look. He hesitated again, as if he didn't feel like he needed to be telling them this, but then he spoke anyway. "I know you both probably think I'm an asshole but I swear I wasn't trying to be. We've all got shit we have to deal with and some of us are smart enough to deal with it early while others ignore it 'till they fuck themselves over, right? I'm one of those 'others.' In the second wave, my house got hit by part of one of the bombs and it all got fucked up... I was in my room so I heard it like this just... fucking concussion that flattened my clothes, made me feel like I was going deaf. My little sister was caught so I tried to get to her-- I really did, I fucking swear, but I couldn't get close enough. She... pretty much burned to death right in front of me. Screaming my name, for me to help. Wanting me to make it stop hurting."

These two were too keen for him to hope his pretend emotions would be enough to convince them. He knew his tone was believable but if his expression wasn't, he would just seem too fake. To get the right flash of anger, pain and regret, he forced himself to briefly think of Lou, of screaming desperately as he tried to reach him, as Lou was murdered right in front of him. But the memory was unexpectedly vivid, making him feel like he was suddenly drowning in it. For a moment he could practically feel the spray of blood across his face, the smell of cement beneath him, the sound of Lou's gurgling breath as he struggled to breathe through the hole in his throat.

Boyd's expression darkening considerably as he looked away, refusing to meet either of their eyes. He tried to push that and other memories away, including the ones that had become connected in his mind to Lou's death thanks to Shane's patient, relentless cruelty.

"We've been in some crazy shit in TDM but... I dunno, somehow I haven't been in a bombed building again. Not like the way it was when Kara died. So, yeah, maybe it's pathetic, yeah, maybe I was a coward, but... I seriously don't know what happened. I fucking freaked. Shit started going down around me and I just... ran." He paused, waiting for them to speak or ask further questions, but they both waited expectantly for him to continue.

Frowning, Boyd ran a tired hand across his face. "I don't remember leaving, to be honest. I guess some chick in a hi-rise saw someone matching my vague description bolting and everyone all jumped on that as the culprit." He glanced briefly up at them with a mixture of weariness and anger before he looked away, an edge making it into his voice. "Which is fucking bullshit, if you ask me. Maybe the dick head that did that shit looked like that, I dunno. But if all that chick saw was me, I wasn't doing nothing wrong but running for my fucking life.

"Anyway, next thing I know I'm hiding in some shit hole in Monterrey, the cops are going fucking nuts around me, I don't know where anyone is or what went down, and I'm scared shitless that whoever attacked JKS has some list of our names as attendees. What if they were lying in wait to snipe any of us stupid enough to stick our heads up for air?"

They still didn't speak, appearing to be waiting for him to continue so Boyd scowled as if in thought. "I wasn't about to risk that. I got all paranoid they'd have pictures of us or some shit so I changed my appearance, snuck around and shit, made it out of Monterrey, hid awhile. Eventually, I found a way to contact Warren and the others. But they were pretty pissed at me, y'know? They knew I'd been scared and shit but they said I should've contacted Janus when I had my shit together. Since I didn't and I contacted them first, they said it made it seem like TDM sucked, like they weren't trustworthy or brave. They thought I'd compromised their chances of joining Janus."

Dana gave him a look that seemed to say, 'At least your friends are intelligent,' but she didn't seem to be as intensely angry as she had been before; now she just seemed caught somewhere between unreadable and feeling distaste. Rick, meanwhile, continued to watch him with the same unwavering, indecipherable expression.

"So," Boyd continued after a pause in which he realized they weren't going to respond or ask questions, "I tried to figure shit out. I found out about this place and I came to try to find Hale Clemons. I didn't know who to trust so it wasn't like I wanted to just go talk to anyone in Janus I may be able to find. I figured the guy who was working the convention down here couldn't be untrustworthy or Janus would've already taken him out. So I thought if I found him here, it'd mean he'd... I dunno. Be able to help." He trailed off with a light shrug.

Silence met his explanation and for a long moment, the other two only watched him as he directly returned their stares. He didn't say or do anything else, waiting instead for them to come to a conclusion, waiting to see if he'd have to try something else. He kept his expression as believable and upfront as he could and didn't waver even for a second.

Despite this, he was starting to get frustrated with the amount of time this was taking. At this point it would have been faster if he'd gone with Sin's usual method and eliminated them both. "Look I know this all looks strange, but I'm gonna keep being paranoid as fuck 'till this all gets straightened out and I know who to trust and Janus says they're not pissed with me anymore."

"Still pissed with you?" Rick repeated, narrowing his eyes thoughtfully. "So you know about the list, then."

Boyd stared at the two, racking his brains for anything 'the list' could possibly mean in that context, but he had no idea. "What list?"

Dana gave him a disbelieving look then suddenly let out a brief, harsh laugh. "Wow, you're a fucking idiot."

"Hmm." Rick considered Boyd, then looked at Dana. "I suppose there's no reason he'd know if he's been so thoroughly hiding like a rat. It's mildly impressive no one caught him yet, really."

"Yeah," Dana eyed Boyd in dark amusement as she replied to Rick, "and after all that work he walks right into a trap. Brilliant."

"It's not exactly a trap," Rick said dismissively with a shrug. Even so, his grip remained steady and heavy on Boyd's shoulder, leaving no doubt that he wouldn't let go no matter what. "It's more like a reward for some and justice for the targets."

Boyd looked between the two of them with a hint of nervousness. "What're you talking about? Trap?"

"You're on Janus' shit list, cupcake," Dana said sweetly. "And we can be rewarded for bringing you in."

Boyd stared at her blankly. "What? Me as in me personally? I'm on a shit list Janus made?" How the hell could that be? That made him wonder if they really were onto him, if Janus somehow knew who he was, or if Janus just knew that he had been one of the two people to set off those bombs. None of those were scenarios he wanted to be true.

"What happened at JKS was obviously an inside job," Rick said patiently, tightening his fingers on Boyd's shoulder even further as a silent warning. "Everyone who was MIA and in the following months didn't show up at the hospital, dead, or check in, was put on a wanted list. It has the name and face of everyone who's wanted for-- shall we say-- 'questioning,' and it offers an unspecified reward for anyone who brings in one of them alive for information."

"Look, I don't know," Boyd said, eying them. That list they mentioned explained how they'd recognized him so easily after such an absence. That could be a huge problem for him; he'd have to find out how widely distributed that list was. Otherwise, he'd run the risk of being recognized as Reed at every Janus place he went. This could also pose a problem for 53; it was a good thing they'd set some contingency plans in place when Boyd had originally received his assignment. He had also spoken to Kadin about the scenarios during the week he'd spent in Hawaii.

Rick looked at him completely unsympathetically. "That's the price you pay for betraying Janus."

"You're lucky it says we get more of a reward for you alive instead of dead," Dana taunted with a smirk.

Boyd's eyes narrowed. Something about her tone put him on edge. "Yeah? You're so bloodthirsty now you'll kill for no reason?"

"No," she said, her tone demeaning. "But if it hadn't I would've killed you right away for the coward you are. Would've been a shame, though; I wouldn't have been able to hear your tragic little sob story."

Boyd glared and for the first time he jerked against Rick's grip, as if he wanted to hit her. "Fuck you, Dana," he said heatedly, knowing Kadin would not have let her get away with that comment.

Dana and Rick stared at him for a very long moment, their twin gazes intense and hard, but finally Dana looked away, seeming mildly uncomfortable. She absently touched her left arm with her right hand and grimaced, looking pained on a level that was beyond merely physical. They were quiet for longer and then she sighed in irritation.

Her expression was absolutely unwavering and unreadable. She let the silence stretch until it was uncomfortable. Only then did she turn to Rick and jerk her head toward the door. "Come on. We'll take him to see his precious savior. Maybe Hale will feel kind enough to get him and his group back in Janus' good graces. After all," she looked Boyd over dismissively, "it's not entirely USNE7's fault they hired a coward for a rep. He seemed pretty cool to me when I first met him, too. Even beat me at a game of cards."

Rick nodded toward her, gave Boyd a serious look, then lessened his grip just enough for it to not be painful. He pushed Boyd ahead of him as they walked down the hallway; Dana in front with her left arm barely moving at her side, her stride quick and determined.

The fact that Rick and Dana didn't secure Boyd's hands, relying instead on Rick's ability to hold him still, told Boyd that despite the fact they were seriously suspicious of him, they didn't think he was a major threat. He knew they didn't believe his story and that was unsurprising; truthfully, it wasn't his story itself he was trying to convince them of indefinitely but rather that he was actually Kadin Reed.