Legacy (Alliance Book 3) (8 page)

“Hassinger, the woman in those texts, I think Brandon is her son. The two replenisher girls in the other room ran away with me and the other Zoriner guy from the compound she was in charge of, along with the Zoriner girl, who happens to be my sister your people took from us when I was six. That would be Ella, the giant guy is Drake. They were both slaves at Hassinger’s compound. The one you call Ellis, his name is Brody, but you already know that. We grew up together, in Waller, Zoriner territory. He had a girl there, Trina, he was madly in love with. Our people handed her over to your people, and Brody spent years looking for her, and ended up a soldier, mostly hoping to get himself killed, I think. I’m skipping a bunch of stuff here, but that’s the background. Brody had his crew with him that he trained for years. That’s who the other two soldiers are, part of that crew, listed as dead now, so nobody’s looking for them. Hassinger was hunting for these two replenishers and she didn’t want the Alliance to know she’d lost them, so she found the Brody and Trina connection and reached out to him. He thought he could get Trina back using one of our girls as bait. We staged the whole thing in this clearing Brody scouted earlier, and he had most of his crew there to make sure we didn’t lose anybody and got Trina back safely, because he knew Hassinger could only bring a few guards at best.”

He needed a break, so he paced silently for a bit, not wanting to remember the rest of that day, but he knew he had to, and after a while he told him what happened at the clearing. How Hassinger took control of Brody’s crew and what she did to Trina, not holding anything back, not hiding anything, even telling him how she laughed when she did it. This man needed to know how Brody would see this Brandon kid, this kid who helped his mother murder the girl he loved, and that it wouldn’t matter to him that he is young, or if he knew what he was doing or not. And finally, he told him that Hassinger for Brody was the worst of the worst, and not just because she killed Trina, but because she enjoyed it, and Brody never got a chance to put a bullet in her head.

Maxton’s head was down when he was done, hiding.

“I don’t think Brandon knows she’s dead, Riley. That’s why he is protecting her. You should tell him, or I’ll tell him, and try to get him to talk to you, but if he doesn’t, please just shoot him. Find a way to just shoot him,” he said finally, looking up at him, face full of lines.

Brody was in the room with the kid when they got back, looking pissed off. “If I needed a bloody medic, I’d send for Ella. She is better at this. Or I’d stitch him up myself. Leave, Riley,” he faced him, staring at him, eyes angry.

“I know who the kid is, Brody. You need to let Maxton talk to him.... That is if you still want information and not just revenge. He is Hassinger’s son, Brody. And I’m not going anywhere. Not until this is over,” he said evenly, and nodded to Maxton, and then slid down the wall and closed his eyes.

Brody, May 31, 2236, Reston.

H
e lost it with the kid, couldn’t help it. He knew he was the one who helped her do it and he couldn’t get the image of her laughing face out of his head when he looked at him. Riley was right to stop him, but he was angry at him too. Angry for the way he was with them, Maxton and the kid, old-Riley-like, stitching their wounds, talking to Maxton as if he liked the guy. He wondered if he’d be able to pull the trigger on him when the time came. It would be right for Riley to do it, get his revenge for what they did to all the people here, and Maxton seemed to want him to be the one anyway, and as much as he hated the man, he was a soldier, and he’d have to give him that much, if asked.

What Riley just said finally registered. The kid was Hassinger’s. No wonder he saw that woman in him the way he did. Maxton was trying to get the kid to look at him now, to listen to him; was talking to him softly, as if he really cared for him. “Brandon. I have to tell you something that’s really going to hurt, and I’d rather I could see you when I did. Please, just look at me.” He did finally.

“I think you are protecting someone you love, only you don’t have to do that any more. She is gone, Brandon. She’s been for weeks now. Please just talk to him,” the man said quietly, and there was a tenderness in his voice that surprised him. The kid was staring at Riley as if he wanted to kill him.

“You killed her, didn’t you, Zoriner? You bloody animals,” and he put his head down again, not looking at anybody.

He walked over to him. “I killed her, Brandon. I had to. But it doesn’t really matter now who killed anybody, because the dead are bloody dead.”

He called Riley over to him then, making sure the kid’s eyes were on them.

“Take your shirt off, Riley. I want this kid to learn something about his mother.”

Riley shook his head at him. “No. He had nothing to do with that, and she is gone. I am not doing it, Brody,” and he turned to walk away from him, but he was far too angry to let him walk away, far too pissed off at him for not doing what he needed him to do all day. He grabbed him by the shirt and ripped it right down the middle, gripping him by the arms, not letting him move.

“Your mother did this, Brandon. She ever do that to you? Whip you with a bloody razor?”

Riley broke away from him and ran out of the room. He knew he would. He was okay with it. He didn’t want him here in the first place.

Brandon wasn’t staring at him anymore, his eyes down. He almost wished the kid would lash out at him, defend that horrid woman, but he sat still, ignoring him, and it unnerved him.

“Ellis, Riley told me as much as he could, I think. I am pretty sure we both already know what she had him do, only I don’t think Brandon had any idea what she would use the neuros for or what would happen. I don’t think he meant to kill anybody, and I know you know that. You got all the intel from him that you are going to get. I’ll tell you about how these things work if you want me to. I know it better than he does anyway. Let him go. We don’t have external comms or implants. We don’t talk to anybody. We don’t get to call for backup when things go wrong. It would be suicide for him to say anything to anybody. They’ll nuke the lab with him in it if he does. Let him go.”

He was right, he knew. Level S-5s didn’t get any protection, they just got nuked. That meant they could cook normal meals again and turn the damn lights on. Nobody was going to be looking for them. And he just found leverage over Maxton, it seemed. He could get Maxton to do anything he needed, so long as he had this kid here, and was willing to hurt him, and he was pretty sure he’d have no problem with that part.

“He stays until we are done with you, Maxton. I do have somebody to hold over you after all,” he spat at him and left the room.

Riley wasn’t in the big room when he got there. He told Trelix to keep an eye on the prisoners, and for the first time today walked over to Laurel and wrapped her in a hug. When he looked up again, everybody was looking at him strangely. He knew they must have heard the scream from the other room, but they also knew who these people were and what they did to this whole city. Yet they were looking at him as if he did something wrong.

“Where is Riley?” he asked.

Ams’ voice reached him from a distance after a long moment, “He went for a walk on a roof, Brody. I don’t think he wants to talk to you now.”

She was still lying on the couch, but her eyes were glaring at him, angry. He didn’t care, he smiled at her, “Welcome back, Ams. Welcome back.”

He told them they could have the lights and cook again, and went to find his friend. Riley he could at least explain this to.

He didn’t look down between the metal steps, going by touch with his feet. He was shaky when he got to the roof, but better than the first time, and it only took him a few seconds to stop panting. Riley was sitting on the very edge of the roof, feet dangling into the darkness below. It made his heart drop into his stomach, just seeing him there. He took a few shaky steps towards him and stopped, his legs refusing to carry him to the edge. Riley knew he was afraid of heights already, so he wasn’t hiding anything any more. He just needed to get closer to him than he was, so he could talk to him. He got down on his hands and knees and crawled the rest of the way, closing his eyes when he got close enough to see the street down below.

“Riley, can you please back up like a meter or two before I fall off, because I think I might.”

“No.”

“Okay. Spit it out. What did I do now?”

“You reminded me of somebody I didn’t want to be reminded of, that’s all. I’m not angry at you for it. I just can’t be around you when you’re like that. Can’t take it.”

“Who, Riley? Hassinger?”

“No, you bloody idiot,” and he turned his head to look at him for the first time, “My father... only then you tried to save me from him. I never thought I’d see you do that to someone else.”

He felt heat on his face, and stood up, made himself do it, hating himself for the fear he felt from just standing, but Riley wasn’t even looking at him. He made himself take the few steps to the edge, and very slowly got down, forcing his legs to go over, his fingers digging into the concrete of the roof, and suddenly he wasn’t sure he could move a centimeter in any direction without falling. Riley was staring at him, he felt it, but he didn’t trust himself to turn his head enough to make sure.

“I think I just did something remarkably stupid, and I’m not sure I can get myself out of it, but I know you’ll probably try something, and I’d rather you didn’t. I don’t trust myself not to grab on to you.” He felt sweat running down his face. He heard Riley move and knew he wasn’t sitting next to him anymore. He heard his voice, sounding far too calm, from somewhere behind him.

“I know you feel like you can’t move, so don’t. I am right behind you. All you have to do is exactly what you are doing now, and don’t jump when I grab you, okay? It’s all I can do, Brody. I am grabbing you on three. One. Two. Three,” and his head hit the roof. He felt himself being dragged, and then Riley’s hands on him, shaking him, slapping his face for some reason.

“What the hell, Riley, stop....” And then Riley was pulling him up, staring at him like he was nuts. He needed to get off this bloody roof. It’s all he could think of. He got his breathing back to as normal as he could, and hoped he could make it down those steps without embarrassing himself more than he did already.

Riley wanted him to go last, so he could try to catch him or something, but he couldn’t take any more humiliation from him today. He raced down the steps as fast as he could, not looking down, going by touch, and it helped some; enough that he made it without having to cling to the metal the way he did with Drake.

Riley smiled at him when he landed next to him after a beat. “You are an idiot, Brody, you know that? That roof hates you. Stay off of it for a while, or at least be smart enough to tie a rope around yourself first. Now that we are both not dead,” his face serious all of a sudden, “we need to talk, and you’re not going to like it one bit, but I figure since I just saved your life up there, you owe me,” and he walked him into the hallway by the elevators, not pushing the button, and sat down against the wall. He got down facing his friend, waiting.

“I think whatever Maxton knows about this neuro stuff, we could use that; could use knowing how it works. Maybe we could even use it against them somehow. I haven’t thought it all through yet... I want him to help us, Brody. I don’t think he would go back to that lab now if we let him go, or any place Alliance for that matter, and I don’t want to kill him. He wants me to, so it’s not him talking, it’s me. I don’t think he knew what any of the things they did in that lab were used for, until now. I think Reston was the first time they saw these neuros used like that, and I know he can’t live with himself because of it; I can see it all over him. So I need you to let me talk to him and maybe we can have him come with us. We can use more soldiers anyway, and you can’t get any more of your crew out without it raising alarms all over the place. Just let me talk to him.”

Of course. Riley didn’t know he had leverage now. “I can get Maxton to do whatever we need him to do for us without having to keep him alive or taking him with us. He cares about that kid, and as long as I have him, Maxton will make himself useful. So no, I won’t let him walk out of here, not with us, not in any manner. I can’t trust him.”

Riley shook his head at him. “You will, Brody. You will. Because I won’t let you use that kid against him like that. You should know what that feels like, Brody. You’ve done it before, with me, remember? I won’t let you do that to him,” he said, angry again, and he got up and pushed the button for the elevator, not looking at him anymore.

“He is Alliance through and through. He referred to you as bloody apes a few hours ago, never mind what he did to this whole city, and you’re fighting me over him? What am I missing?”

Riley faced him, getting into the elevator. “Trelix did too, in his own way. Darky, ape, it’s the same thing, Brody. I don’t care about that any more; only with Maxton, I don’t think he ever meant any of it. I think he took one look around that room when he woke up, and spat out things he thought would piss you off the most, so you’d just shoot him. I think he played you at the lab, too, looking fearful so if things went badly, you’d go after him and not any of his men. He is decent. Drake-decent. You can’t not see that. Let the damn kid go. You know he can’t go anywhere but the lab, and they can’t call this in, no place for them to call it in to. Loren explained it to me earlier, the whole S-5 thing. These guys are on their own. They’re ghosts, and I know you know that.”

Maybe he was right about this Maxton. He was as good as they got as soldiers go, he knew that much by now. And they had enough manpower to guard him. The kid was useless to them. And he couldn’t stand looking at him. Too much of that woman in his face. At worst, he owed Riley a conversation.

Trelix met them at the door to the comm room. “Not a word, from either of them, not even to each other. I’ll bring you some coffee, Riley, now that we can make it hot again,” and he was gone. Maxton had his eyes closed, and he couldn’t see the kid’s face from the door. He got his knife out, snipped the ties at the kid’s hands, and walked around him. The kid was staring at him like he wanted to kill him, not even trying to hide it.