I didn’t see the knee that slammed into my plexus, since my vision was obscured by the hot blood dripping into my eyes. I wipe the blood away with the back of my hand and push myself off the floor and back into the fight. My forehead was throbbing from the gash there and I wanted to vomit.
I got myself together and forced my bruised body into a fighting stance just as my mother hit me in the face so hard I nearly blacked out. I was only vaguely aware that she was still beating the shit out of me minutes later. She was relentless and and out for blood. More blood, anyway. When the beating was over my ears were ringing and I wanted scream but I kept it all in.
“Get up”, she said.
Her voice was faint and drowned out by all the cheering and whooping. I felt dozens of thick grubby hands reach for me and force me up onto my feet. My vision cleared in time to see the backs of my fellow cadets in their red and black athletic gear.
They crowded around my mother as she made her way to the water station to sit down. Some of the more avid guys who would dare to touch her clapped a hand on her back or tried to high fiver her. She ignored most of them except for Ben. He gripped her hand and pulled her to stand. They made small talk as they walked over to a mat on the other side of the gym.
The holographic countdown clock started to countdown and Ben pulled on the bandages around his knuckles before throwing his fist into her pretty face, too bad it never made contact. It went that way with them. Blocking each other’s moves like they were reading each other’s mind. Ben had turned 18 last week so she’d probably started fucking him at 12:00 on the dot.
The other cadets had started to crowd around and take unofficial bets. The cadets fed off the adrenaline they were all glamoured by the fight. I sat alone on the mat I’d soiled with my blood and God knows what else. The other guys let out a holler as Ben lands a hit. I picked up one of my teeth off the mat and put it in my pocket. I pulled up my knees, bent my head and pretended I was somewhere else.
+2+
“What do you want?”
She didn’t even look up as I laid the triplicate form on her immaculate desk covered in dust. She squinted at the thin sleek InvisiblePC computer in front of her. She takes her hands off the keyboard and experiments with the touch screen. She turned so the chin length side of her straightened dark brown hair covered her right eye, while the left side was shaved to her scalp with a zig zag fade.
I gripped the standard issue NADF red duffel that was slung around my shoulder for emphasis and said
“Ummm, Major Grigori. . .I’d like to turn in my resignation.”
She kept tapping at the blank screen, I could see the lock icon was turned on.
“You can’t resign. This isn’t a job. This is the military. You’ve been punitively enlisted. You ass belongs to the NADF for the next 3 years.”
“But-“
“You should have thought of that before you stole or whatever crime you—“
“I accidentally committed arson”
She didn’t even look at me and just shook her head.
I had a plan B.
“I’d like to be discharged, then. Dishonorably is fine. I’ll take the jail time.”
She stood up and leaned over her desk, all 6’4 of her peering down at me. She was in dark denim, scuffed boots and light gray shirt. Her blue eyes roam over me quickly. Not a hint of recognition crossed the lightened scars on her face. Well, shit.
“I should march you back to your barracks and let the boys in your platoon know you tried to abandon them. Hazing is against the rules but I am more than willing to look the other way.”
“I don’t belong here. Look at what you did to my face.” I said not meeting her eyes
I don’t have to point to the bruise on my cheek or the gap in my teeth. I know she can see them
“That’s not my problem”
“Please”, I said through gritted teeth, “Please. I can’t do this anymore. “
“I don’t make the rules. Curfew is in 10 minutes, not that I wouldn’t love the chance to throw you in solitary for a week for wasting my time.”
My lip involuntary twitched and even she seemed to be giving her words a second thought. I reached over and swiped the lock icon on her screen.
+2+
I light a cigarette and unfolded the photo of my Father from my pocket. It was an old printable I’d folded and refolded too many times to count. It was the only one I had of my parents together. They were sitting back to back on some low wall somewhere in Somalia. Uncle Leo was in between them. She had on dark shades and her hair was in a high ponytail. He was smirking at the camera and flexing his right arm. They were both built, toned and strong and I’d gotten shit genetically speaking. The picture had been taken decades ago yet she only looked about 10 years younger.
Uncle Leo said they didn’t get along because they were both so similar. He said my father had been determined and resilient and that my mother was strong and beautiful.
“Determination, resilience, strength and beauty? Isn’t bad things to have, kid”, Leo had said once.
I wasn’t any of those things, except maybe the last. I’d been told I was beautiful since I turned 12. Mostly from humans who’d never seen an Angel in person, or from my little cousins who liked to braid my hair. And sometimes by people I hadn’t want to hear anything from, people I didn’t want to ever think about again.
Uncle Leo told me lots of stories about the people who were my family. They were they only stories I knew. He also told me stories about his glory days in the resistance and the NADF. He told me legends about searching for The Tempest
Sometimes I imagined what would happen if I found the Tempest. I would go back in time and meet my Pops. Just once. Just to say “Hi”. Ask him questions . . . maybe tell him I exist. Maybe . . . just maybe I’d punch him in the face. And I’d kill Helios Thantos. Of course, that’s like rule #1.
I stamped out my cigarette on the ground.
It was time to party.
+++
Laughter rose up just as I entered The Jacksonville Tap. Ben had said something and the circle of female cadets around him broke out in a similar laugh. Others in the bar turned their heads to look at the group. They were envious of how comfortable Ben was with the girls.
There was a banner tacked up on the wall for the 23rd Platoon Weekly Social. I’d never seen the female squads . I don’t know what I expected but I was decidedly unmoved. The unremarkable tavern and cheap rail drinks somehow made it worse.
A few officers had driven down from the NADF military base in Columbia just to attend the mixer. They were the most as ease, most came for the free drinks and schmoozing. The officers really liked making jokes about the anti-fraternization rule which was a joke. With 30 men and 30 women under 20 in the best shapes of their fucking lives the odds just weren’t in your favor. Unless you are me and don’t know what you want, except to escape.
I situated myself at the end of the bar with a bourbon and soda. My dorm mate had gave me an obligatory “hello” but it didn’t lead too much else. Two of the human guys I’d gone to Boy’s School (i.e. Orphan University) with nodded at me.
I felt a shiver as my mother walks right past me and places her shot glass on the bar with a cash tip inside it. She had her black leather jacket over her arm and was balancing a cell phone, her shades and cigarettes in the other.
She’s probably been somewhere in the crowd with Ben. She was old by every standard, even though she looked like she was in her late 30’s. Still the cadets liked to hang with her. She was quiet mostly and good for at a very very short story about patriotism or the atrocities of The Regime. But mostly it was because she attracted pretty civilian girls.
Ben is suddenly nonchalantly saying his goodbyes too.
“Going to dinner?” I ask as she sets her phone down and pushes her hair out of her eyes. She raises an eyebrow because it’s none of my business.
We don’t even have the same shade of blue eyes. Mine are midnight blue, hers are clear bright Siberian blue. I barley had her cheekbones or tan skin. She was starting to break out and at least that made her seem normal. She was pretty. Were you allowed to think your mother was pretty and it not be weird?
“Excuse me, cadet.” She turned on her heels.
“I know you and Ben go to a bar off base for burgers and beer every other night. You must hate it because you’re a vegetarian but it’s far from boot camp and base so no one will see you. I know this because you leave the receipts on your desk and Ben has matches for the same place on his nightstand. The matchbook is usually half full when he sneaks back in. Why would Ben needs matches? Ben doesn’t smoke . . . but you do. Maybe tonight you can take me instead of Ben? “
She somehow managed to hold her phone, keys jacket and shades while lighting her cigarette. I’d been afraid of her my whole life. A woman who was so used to people carrying things for her that she couldn’t manage it herself.
I hold out one of my cheap cigarettes between my forefinger and middle finger, she cautiously lights it for me.
“I don’t fuck with virgins anymore.” She blows an impressive smoke ring at me.
“. . . You don’t know who I am do you?”
Her eyes flicked back to me, “I know exactly who you are. Do you think I’m stupid?”
I shook my head. I was surprised. We hadn’t talked in years. The Boy’s School I lived at was always involved in official new Aeterna events and I always had to go. After I turned 14, I got tired of it all, I stopped going to events. I hadn’t seen her in 5 years. My stepfather was always cordial. . . he always showed up to get me out of trouble with the law then gave some micro speech about my generation being ‘the future’.
“Mom, you have to get me out of here. Maybe I can get permission to go to psych? I feel all jittery and just . . . freaked out.”
She blew smoke into my face again.
“Trying to use your traumatic past to get discharged?” she says looking at her phone, “Hmm? Your sob story is my sob story and if I can drag myself out of retirement for this shit then you can take three years of it for . . . what did you do again?”
“Arson. Accidentally. I’m not made for this. I’m not bad. I just made a few mistakes. That judge had it out for me when he made me enlist. This isn’t for me. I’m not made for this.”
She tilted her head and her phone buzzed again.
“Actually . . . I don’t. . . I don’t actually know you at all.”
She shouldered past me and out the door. I slid off the barstool and followed her. I caught the tail end of her phone conversation
“. . . maybe we should send everyone back to Ft. Chelsea Piers”, she said into her phone, “Just in case... I . . . okay . . . yes, Sir”
She hung up and slid on her jacket, I took my chance to beg my case again.
“Look, Mom if you just listen I’ll—“
“The New Legion are coming. Your people right?” she said bitterly.
The New Legion weren’t my people. Maybe they’d been my friends but I wasn’t one of them. The New Legion was a notorious gang where hate and membership was hereditary. The original Legion was started by a group of reformed Helion-era Angels who wanted to resurrect their old leader’s regime. The sons of the original Legion had given the organization a face lift.
The New Legion was young, they started shaving their heads and getting tatted up. They got rowdier. They bullied rich kids, burned down buildings, sold drugs for money. They wanted something more. They wanted to be kings like their fathers had been. The New Legion thought New Aeterna was their birthright. They wanted to return to the glory days.
I don’t remember how I met them. Brutus and I just started handing out when I’d go run errands with Uncle Leo. It was a different world hanging with Angels my age, seeing them with their father who’d been real life (“reformed”) Helion soldiers. They’d actually known Helios Thantos. They’d even known my dad.
I never officially joined The New Legion. I was never tatted up or anything. Never shaved my head but I was an errand boy for some older kids. I wasn’t in it for the cause, but it was better than being around humans. I wasn’t raised like other Angel kids. I had a Helion prison tattoo that meant one of my parents was a traitor, plus I’d mostly been “raised” outside of New Aeterna during Helios’ regime.
However my father’s reputation as Helios Thantos’ lieutenant gave me a very small in with The New Legion. My bloodline was good, despite my estranged mother I was a good errand boy. I never did anything violent. I helped do a little bit of shoplifting, I rolled cigarettes and I got really good at finding things and people.
I’d ran away from school, been arrested and gone off the grid 12 times before I was 17. If my mother wasn’t married to Paris Prince I’d be in prison, but like clockwork he always bailed me out.
Just before I aged out the orphan system, Brutus and a few other guys were going to draw dicks on the New Aeterna Public School buses. I was driving the getaway car. After a few minutes I heard police sirens, so I texted the guys to bail. When they didn’t show I booked it. I drove back to The New Legion HQ, an old loft six New Legion guys were renting . I was usually only allowed in if I was with a member but I was exhausted and scared so I broke in.
I was going to wait it out and figure out how to tell the house leader, Eos II, why I bolted. I lit a cigarette and considered going back to the school dorms. I feel asleep and well . . . I lit the whole fucking place up. They human police had it out for me, they said I did it on purpose and arrested me. I was looking at least 15 years.
My stepfather must have pleaded my case, because instead I was sentenced to 3 years punitive enlistment and 10 years’ probation. It was bad luck that got me in the queens’ boot camp they day after she’d been reinstated
“Is it serious ?” I ask my mother, “What’s the New Legion doing in South Carolina?”
She turned her steely gaze toward me and I realized I’d stepped way out of bounds asking about them.“Legion members were spotted in the woods a few miles back. It could be nothing. There are no signs of them now. It’s not illegal for them to be here but. . . I don’t like it.”
“I can help”, I said following her down the road, “If you promise to discharge me I can find out what they are doing here and you can arrest them before they commit a crime.
“That’s not my call, cadet and it’s certainly not yours.” She fine hser motorcycle in the parking lot and leans against it.
“Come on. I can record my conversation with them, find out what they are planning. Then you can discharge me. If I get honorably discharged then I get 15 year of probation instead of jail time. I can track them, I’m ten times smarter than them.”
“Aren’t you a cocky little—“
“Bastard?” I said, “Maybe you should have married my dad instead of killing him.”
This is how I find out the beating she gave me in class was a part of the lesson.
She uses the gun she’s not supposed to have. In two seconds she clicks the safety on and cold cocks me over the head with it. I feel a bolt of warm and dizziness. I try to get up and she hits me again.
“Don’t do that”, she warns, “Isobel got tired of you when you weren’t cute anymore and I never liked you. If I killed you right now. No one would miss you. Then you can spend all the time you want with the Daddy you want so much, screaming in each other’s faces while you burn in hell with him,”
“That’s not fair. I can’t pretend he doesn’t exist. He’s a part of me that you took from me.”
“For fucksake”, She hauls me up and my head throbs but there is no blood, “Fuck”
She considers her own sobriety and puts her keys in her pockets. She starts walking back to boot camp and I feel like I should follow her. Instead I reach for a cigarette, but the carton is empty. I toss it on the ground and head into town.
+++
The dark doesn’t scare me and I take my time walking up the rural road from the tavern up to where I saw a gas station. I smell smoke and coals, someone is cooking outside. If I close my eyes I bet I can hear the sound of a lazy late night picnic. It’s so normal.
The gas station has two pumps, a grimy mini mart and a pot-hole ridden parking lot. I go in to buy cigarettes but when I get out I see the lot is filled with old white trucks. I get caught in the headlights and I know they see me. Loud music is blasting from the car windows
Some locals are standing outside the BBQ joint across the street with their guns holstered, watching the rowdy Angels boys in the gas station parking lot.
House leader, Eos II is in the center of a group of boys. They are playing cards and betting with quarters. Trying to look like old-timers. They look like posers. I frown when I see the curly haired kid who running back and forth serving beers.
I put out my cigarette and walk up to them and some of them start to whistle. I forgot I was in NADF colors.
“Look at you in a traitor’s uniform”, Eos II says, “The humans made you their little bitch? Bet you couldn’t wait to get away from us and try and crawl back up your mama’s cunt.”
This isn’t about Eos II so I ignore him. He never knows what to do when you ignore him. He’s 22 and one of the eldest of our generations, but he still acts like a teenager. He just folds his arms and watches me. The glare of the headlights reflected on his bald head.
“Antony”, I say taking the beer cooler from the kid taking order from the older boys, “What are you doing? Your dad would kill you if he knew you were here.”
Antony glares at me. He’s still at least a foot shorter than me. His curly hair framing his face, marking him as a prospective recruit. They didn’t call it that . . . prospective is too big a word for them.
“He ain’t my father” Antony said.
“You need to get home. Unlike these fuckers your dad isn’t in prison. You’re only fucking thirteen”
“Shut up . . . traitor”, he says but his heart isn’t in it. He’s still the little kid Uncle Leo would make me play with while I was out running errands with him. Who used to follow me around and make me talk.
Eos II makes his way to us again. He’s in in all gray and I see he has a new tattoo that says “Helion” in stylish script. That’s bold. That’s fucking bold.
“Eos II”, I said, “The NADF knows you’re in town so just go ahead and turn back around. You know the NADF and the Major will throw you in jail.”
“We ain’t done anything. We’re just on a road trip.” Eos II says putting Antony in a brotherly chokehold. Antony practically beams at Eos II.
“Just go back home. “ I warn him.
Eos II pops the top on a beer and hands it to me.
“Maybe you’re the one that needs to come home.” he picks up a quarter but it’s not a quarter “Look at this. It’s a Helion 25 piece. I found it on the ground one day. On the fucking ground. Do you know what happen to all our money? The king melted it all down to make a statue. This is rare. This is what all Helions should hold on to. ”
I snatch the quarter of out Eso II’s hand and throw it across the dark street. He was as slow as he was dumb.
“Go fetch, Eos II.”
He doesn’t react because showing emotion is a big “NO” for New Legion members. I wait for him to make a move. He wants to beat me up . . . but he won’t. Not based on his own principles.
Blood ranked you in The New Legion and I had a good ranking since my father had been Helios Thantos second in command. There were also rumors that Helios and Titus might have been half siblings in another time. Even Uncle Leo said it was possible, there were a lot of secrets kept back in the day.
“I’m taking him with me”, I say and grab Antony.
Eos II snatches Antony back and pulls out a knife. Antony goes rigid and the tough kid persona he’s trying to adopt just drops.
“Eos—“
“How do we get into the boot camp?” Eos II demands.
“What?”
“We need to get into the NADF boot camp? Tell us how or I kill him.” He pushes the knife into Antony’s neck.
“What do you want to enlist?” I ask and
“We want weapons . . . and I heard there were some hot girls”
“You came all the way to South Carolina to steal guns?”
“Sure”
The guys start laughing and I look at Antony and he’s seconds away from collapsing. I take off my military ID cards and hand them to Eos II
“You can have my badges. They will get you in the camp. A trade? My badge for the kid. Deal?”
“Deal”, Eos II says,
Eos II doesn’t know I can call the admin office hotline and get my badge deactivated before they can reach camp. I’ll get in trouble for losing mine but whatever
“You should come with us”, Eos II says. He only offers because of my father’s blood.
“I’m good. I’m thinking about running away from the NADF. Canada or Mexico.”
“Well . . . If you need anything Arrow, you can call me.”
“Okay.”
Fucking psycho.
I grab Antony by the collar of his shirt and walk him back down the road. His clothes are dirty and I can see he looks hungry.
“You okay?” I asked taking out my phone.
“Yeah. It was cool at first. Eos II picked me up from school and let me ride in the front seat with him in his new car. The other guy joined us. . . I didn’t realize we were going on a trip.”
“They didn’t feed you kid?”
“I mean”, he said, “I was too young to go into the bars and stuff. . .”
He looks back down at his shoes. If my blood was golden Antony’s blood was sour. Sour all the way down. Not only was his dad a traitor but he’d publically allied with Paris Prince. He didn’t give a shit though, he still lived with the other Helions and they paid him no mind.
“Call your parents.” I hold out my phone but he doesn’t take it.
“They’ll be mad I was hanging out with Eos II. I didn’t know we were leaving. Honest.”
I sighed and call his house, the phone picks up halfway through the first ring.
“Who is this?” Antony’s Dad growls in my ear.
“It’s . . . it’s me, sir.” I hated my name. I hated saying it, “I’m with Antony. He was—“
“Put that boy on the phone . . . hold on…He’s with Prince’s
boy—put him on.”
“He won’t talk to you. He’s scared.” I said.
“The fuck are you?”
“Jacksonville”
“Fucking Florida. They’re in fucking—“
“South Carolina, actually.”
“Damnit it, I’m getting my keys— No Thea, You aren’t coming. Get the fuck back here with my keys. Fuck. Kids, get in the car--”
I turned the phone on speaker and Antony shrinks back listening to his father yelling at his mother. Antony’s dad was always ranting and raving about one thing or another. Antony was so fucking lucky to have him. Antony’s dad had broken up his fair share of New Legion parties. One day he stormed down to Eos II’s loft in pajamas and no shoes to drag Antony back to his mother’s house in the middle of a house party...
“How many fucking times do I have to tell you kid”, He shouts to Antony through the phone, “Those kids don’t know shit about the Helion Life. Think its all fun and games? Huh? Bullshit. You don’t know shit. We’re catching a flight so you better sit tight, kid.”
I hang up the phone because my battery is running out. Antony is trying not to cry, I walk him to the bus station I have just enough cash to pay for his fare to the airport. If he keeps to himself and stays quiet he should be good. His parents can’t afford to fly anywhere. It’d be a tough few months for his sister and brother.
“You’re lucky”, I said, “Your dad cares. Trust me The New Legion and Eos II just want to be treated special.”
I wait until Antony gets on the bus then I turn on my heels and head back to the camp. I feel a headache coming on. I think it’s what happens when you do too many good deeds in one day.
+3+
I whistle an old song on my way back to camp. The gates to the boot camp are wide open. Two soldiers are slumped over the watch tower. Their blood tricking down the watch post. I run into camp and see the streets are filled with white cars that reek of beer and barbeque.
I smell blood and gunpowder in the air... Officers are lying dead in the middle of walkways. I grab a gun from one of them and tuck it into my waistband. Up ahead I see The New Legion whooping and carrying rifles. They are all wearing ski masks like Unifers and chanting an old Helion war song that sends chills down my spine.
The New Legion starts parading around the camp. There is about 12 of them, they shoot guns into the air and keep singing. I sneak up behind one of the younger ones and using my “military training” I grab him from behind and drag him behind a building. He puts up a fight but I manage to knock him out cold. I steal his ski mask, take off my uniform and join the little parade.
I move to the front of the group and I see they have my ropes around my mother’s wrist. They are dragging her through the camp. Her palms are bleeding like the stigmata and her nose is bleeding. She trips over the bodies of her fellow officers in complete shock.
They lead her into the rec room and tie her to one of the post. I hide in the back of the group.
“Look how low the mighty Helion killer has fallen.” Eos II says, “You can’t fucking kill us, bitch. We’re fucking invincible."
The other guys start barking in agreement.
“I can’t”, she says and her voice is low and raspy, “Because . . . you’re . . . you’re family.”
Eos II spits in her face, then they head off to start looting. I pretend to follow them out but double back around to the rec room. When she sees me she bares he teeth at me. Her jacket was open, her shirt had been slashed and they wrote ‘Demonfucker’ on her chest in black marker
I whip off the mask and when she sees my face she get angrier, if that’s even possible.
“You”, she says softly then loudly, “YOU DID THIS.”
“It’s not what it looks like”, I explain, “They had Antony. I meant to. . . I should have . . . I was. I helping him get home. I forgot to deactivate my badge. I meant to. . . I didn’t think—“
“Why you? Out of all of them . . . why you?”
“Mom?”
“They are dead.” she said letting a single tear land on the hardwood floor, “Those monsters shot the cadets in their sleep like animals. How am I supposed to… fuck fuck fuck.”
“No one expected you to protect them”
“Everyone expected me to protect them.” she corrected me.
“Like how you protected me?”, I sit down next to where her hands are tied and I dig my fingers in to the ropes trying to untie them.
“Stop with that.”, she says
“Human kids you care about. But not me, huh?”
“You’re still alive aren’t you.” she says
“Barley.”
“If you were smart you’d stop trying to get close to me.” She tries to move her wrist but Eos II was good with knots. He’d put that Helion training to work.
“I don’t want to get close to you, mom.”
“Then what do you want?” She asks.
“I don’t know.” I say honestly, “I just want to understand you. Us. What we are.”
I see where I need to untie the ropes to free her, but I take my time.
“You’re so young”, she says, “Once you get as old as me you start realizing not everything is life has to be understood.”
“Will I get to be as old as you?”
She shrugs, “I don’t think so.”
“I can’t help how I came into this world”, I told her cause I’ve wanted to tell her for years, and “It’s not my fault.”
“I know. We don’t need to talk about it.”
“Do you think you could have ever loved me? Chosen to love me in that place. It was a prison, right?”
“An internment camp for terrorist and I did the best I could for you.” She hates saying the words. She hates it so much.
“No you—“
“You can walk can’t you? You barley got beaten or molested. I did the best I could but I was fucking unhinged, scared, tired and literally going insane and blowing fucking marines in front of a child so they would feed us. I want you to stop fucking asking so much from me. I barley have a heart and it’s not big enough for you—“
“We’re done.”
“What?”
I let the ropes fall from her wrists and ankles and she stands up on shaky legs. I followed her to the back of the rec room and out one of the side doors. I could still hear The New Legion howling like wolves
“Can you make it to the military base up the road?” I ask her, “We can ask for help there.”
“Let’s go”, she says and we head into the woods we used as a training ground that rested between the boot camp and base. I kind of want to talk more but I figured we’ve said more than enough.
“What happened at the camp isn’t your fault, Mom” I
said as we get closer to the base.
“I know . . . it’s yours”, She slips a hand to her belt and slaps a pair of handcuffs over one of my wrist and one of hers.
“The fuck—“
“You left a military function unsupervised, you fraternized with a known hate group, you never reported back to superior officers and you showed misconduct with military issue items.”
“Whoa—what? I—“
“Citizens were murdered in their sleep because of your misconduct. You thought you could talk The New Legion into leaving all by yourself. You should have reported to me—“
“But Antony needed my help—“
“He’s made his choice.”
I tugged against the cuffs but I just ended up going nowhere since she was heavier than me.
“Come on...” she drags me to the military base.
I prayed to a god I wasn’t sure I believed in and did something stupid. I took the gun I’d stolen from the dead guard out of my waistband and shot my fucking mother in the leg. She fell hard on the ground, but she didn’t scream. It’d giveaway our location.
“What the hell?” She seethed through gritted teeth
“I can’t go to prison. I started awkwardly patting her down until I found the key. I unctuffed myself then I slung the cuff around a young tree.
“What the hell are you doing?” She closes her eyes keeping the pain in.
“Making sure you don’t run after me. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“You just fucking shot me.”
“I’m really sorry. . . I got to go Mom. Canada is a long way from here.”
“No. Don’t you dare leave me here to bleed out—“
“There are drills at the military base in the morning, they’ll find you.”
“Arrow—“
“I’m sorry, mom. I can’t go back to prison. Imagine if you were me. Would want to go back to being locked up? “
“I could fucking die out here, then they’d fucking hang you for killing the damn queen.”
“You won’t die.“You’re to mean to die.”
“Arrow, I’m sorry life wasn’t even decent to you but you can’t—“
“I’m sorry. Nothing personal. Good-bye, Mom.”
“Wait, don’t--”
I run as fast I can in the opposite direction until I drown out her voice.
+4+
When there is no breaking news about the Indestructible Queen of New Aeterna being found dead in the woods outside a military base, I peacefully go to sleep knowing I didn’t kill my mother. Instead the Jacksonville Cadet Massacre plays over and over again. Twelve dead and countless injured.
I recognize my roommates face when I see it among the dead, but I realize I hadn’t memorized his name. The funeral service is streamed live but the interment is a quieter affair.
I know because I sneak in.
It rains at the Eternal Light National Cemetery. I watch the ceremony from a hiding spot behind a large ornate headstone. Security was easy to get through because I knew how Uncle Leo would set it up. My mother is completely unadorned in all black. She and my stepfather sit in between the parents. Even though it’s raining neither of them even bothered with an umbrella. She’s bent over in her chair and has her face in her hands and I can hear her crying from here. My stepfather has a hand on her back and his gloved hand laced with an older woman next to him, he’s probably never met her but you’d never guess by how he whispers to her.
My mother only looks up when my stepfather gets up and places the Bronze Hearts on the polished white gravestones. When the ceremony is over I take a drink from the mini vodka bottle in my coat and watch the perfect way the people line up in the cars and drive away.
My mother and stepfather stay for a while in the cemetery. They hold hands and visit the graves of all those who have passed since their glorious revolution. I finish my bottle and get ready to move. I had a long road in front of me. When I stand up she’s there.
Right in front of me
“Don’t move”, Her dark hair is plastered to her face
I hold my hands up. She studied my face and pushed back her wet hair.
“I’m ready”, I said holding out my wrist.
“No. you’re not”, she says, “But if I find you. You’re going to pay for shooting me.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She turned and walked through the mud back to her husband.
I turned the other way and ran.
+++
So for some reason I wrote this while working on Noctis. This was the event that caused Arrow to go on the run and the reason Sera hits him is because last time they talked he.... shot her.
So. I guess in my head this all can totally be cannon.
Except maybe Noctis. So we get a little bit of background on The Legion but we don't know everything and by we I mean Muse and I.