CHAPTER SEVEN - CAUGHT OUT
B slowly turned over in his bed for the hundredth time. He could not sleep, his throat hurt and there was no doctor around to give him any medicine to help him, seeing as his end of the medical centre was occupied with only three patients who had now been moved down to ‘low danger’.
He sat up in irritation and pushed his fringe back from his forehead. It wasn’t just his sore throat that would not allow him to pass into sweet, peaceful rest, but the guilt that was gnawing inside of him and slowly consuming every part of him.
Brian had come to see him yesterday… and the day before, twice the day before actually. Each time B had feigned sleep. He wasn’t ready to face him yet. He wouldn’t have known what to say… what to do or how to act.
He slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out the single photograph he had saved from the burning wreckage of their home: a picture of him, Sammy and Brian. He smiled at the three of them, wondering how they could have been so happy then and so miserable now.
What was wrong with Brian? B had been overjoyed to find him again. Overjoyed? No, that wasn’t the word. No words could possibly have described the aching emotions that had flowed through him and allowed him to feel such relief. He could still remember how he had trembled when he had peered into that room.
He loved Brian. Brian was his father. The daddy he had wanted so much, but now it was different. Brian had been alive and yet they had still been kept apart.
He buried his head in his pillows for a moment and clasped his blanket close to him. Brian hated him now and it could never be how it was. He could still remember that last heated argument. B had wanted to go out, but Brian wouldn’t let him because it was dark and they had been warned about rogue Gerai. B had been immature, the usual brat that he was. He hadn’t understood that Brian was worried about him. He had sworn at him, yelled at him and he didn’t even know why.
All he knew was that he hated Brian for being alive and yet for not being able to be there for B.
He wanted him now. He wanted his father. He had wanted to see Brian when he had woken up. He’d had a strange dream where he had been scared and yet Brian had been there to comfort him and take care of him. He had been wrong though because when he did wake up it had been Sammy who clasped his hand, not Brian.
“Hey,” a soft voice from behind him said suddenly.
At first he jumped at realising that he was not alone and then he froze slightly and screwed his eyes up. His heart was already beginning to quiver inside of him as hard as he tried to quell its excitement. He knew who this person was. He was pleased to hear their voice, but oddly enough he would have preferred Brian to be here. He turned to see her dark eyes upon him, a smile upon her pretty face. Weakly he tried to return the expression.
“Hey Tessa,” he replied softly as he sat up in bed to look at Howie’s daughter.
She smiled at him, her pretty face lighting up to see him. “How are you?”
“Better.”
“I’m glad. I was worried.”
“Why?”
She looked hurt at his question. “Because I care about you!” She stared at him and B turned his back on her. “You’re still angry aren’t you?”
B sighed slightly. She was beautiful and smart and funny. She was lovely. He loved it that she was here but he was still a little resentful after their last meeting where she had broken up their relationship. He’d never had a girlfriend before and he had been surprised at how much it had hurt him inside…
“Why are you doing this? I really care about you!”
“B, it’s not gonna work. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t break up with me, please don’t.”
“It’s better this way.”
He had been crying as she touched his face with her hand and walked away to leave him sat alone in the quiet grove near their village. She had left him alone to cry.
“You broke up with me. How am I supposed to feel?” he snapped. He gulped slightly and then turned back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap.” He wasn’t angry with her. It had not been working. How could B concentrate on being her boyfriend when he had so many problems with his own family? He had so many problems with Brian that he desperately wanted to fix.
She perched on the edge of his bed and looked at him intently. B prayed that the shining light in her eyes still had something to do with the way she felt about him. He still cared about her so much, even though he knew it would never work while he was still so confused over his family. He had too much with other loved ones to allow another person into his fragile heart. He couldn’t help but still feel something deep inside of him stir at the sight of her though. Maybe one day it would work…
Shyly he slid his hand across to hers and slowly his fingers entangled with hers.
“You still care about me?” he asked hopefully.
“Of course I do.” She clasped his hand with both of hers.
“So why did you break up with me?” He knew why…
“You have a lot going on in your life, B. You’re not happy and you should spend time with your family to sort that out before spending time with me. As for me, I have a lot on too. My gran has been sick and I’ve been visiting her a lot recently. I’m worried about her. I’m going to visit her again for a few days. I couldn’t cope with a boyfriend as well.”
“I need you to help me through this!” B said desperately. She had always been there to comfort him after an argument with Brian. When he needed to escape she had been willing to hold him and make him feel better.
“I’ll be here to help you through it,” she promised. “But for now, it’s better if we’re just friends. You don’t need the added pressure of a girlfriend. This way you can spend the time you need to spend to put things right in your family.”
B looked down at the floor as he thought about Brian and Sammy. They were so important to him. It didn’t matter if Brian hated him, B still felt something for him. He was his father. It was hard to hate him, as much as he tried to he couldn’t seem to manage it.
“You know you’re not happy with the way things are. I don’t want to pull you further away from Brian than you already are. He loves you.”
If only B could believe her.
She lightly kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll come back and see you soon,” she promised. “I’m always going to be here for you.”
“One day?” B asked, thinking about the way his heart kept bouncing about inside of him when she glanced his way.
“One day,” she replied, squeezing his hands before releasing them.
B smiled weakly, a little distressed that nothing else had come of her visit. They had only been together for a month before she tearfully broke up with him. She was right in a way. He had used her as an excuse to escape his family sometimes and that couldn’t be right.
He watched her go and she halted at the exit to the medical centre for a brief moment, smiling as she saw his eyes upon her. She raised her fingers in a sweet farewell and B held his own hand up in reply, at the same time promising himself that he would win her back somehow.
He thought back to what she had said. She was right. He needed to concentrate on his family before he lost Brian for good. Maybe there was some way B could redeem himself. Maybe he still could be the perfect son Brian wanted. Sammy was perfect. If only b could be brave and clever and sweet like his older brother.
He settled back down on the bed, vowing that somehow he would put things right.
But not today. Or tomorrow.
When he was ready and when he had thought about what he could do. He had to change. He had to become a son that Brian could be proud of.
He glanced up and gazed about him at the rocky, dusty walls. Maybe when they were out of this place he could say something to Brian.
Suddenly he spotted the blond head peering about the entrance to the medical centre and then Sammy grinned as he caught sight of B looking at him. B smiled, relieved to see his brother. Sammy was always a welcome visitor.
“B!” Sammy greeted as he wrapped his arms about B in a tight embrace before kissing him a kiss on the cheek. “Glad to see you sitting up and feeling better. I’ve been worried about you buddy.”
B smiled and returned the embrace. He was never embarrassed about having such a close relationship with his older brother. Sammy had done everything for him in life and B felt completely safe, secure, loved and comfortable with him.
“I’m feeling much better now,” B confessed.
“Still tired?”
“Not really. Sometimes, but I’m okay.”
“That’s odd. Every time dad’s come to see you, you’ve been asleep.”
Uh oh. Caught out.
He wasn’t ready to talk about this yet.
“What a coincidence,” B replied coldly.
“It is isn’t it?” Sammy said. He sighed and raised his eyes above him for a moment as if hoping for divine inspiration to help him through this somehow. “What have you got against him? I know you don’t always get on, but cutting him out like this isn’t fair. He’s been so worried about you. He hasn’t been able to sleep or eat and he’s so upset that you won’t let him see you. He almost died in that village when he went back for you! He almost died because he was so intent on saving your life! He didn’t care what danger he was putting himself in because he loves you so much!”
“He loves me?” B snapped. “So that’s why he shouts at me, why he won’t let me go out, why he questions me about where I’ve been all day? I can’t breathe without his permission!” B had clenched his hands into fists as he remembered every shouted word, every disappointed sigh. It wasn’t his fault that he wasn’t the perfect son. He’d tried, he really had… but trying wasn’t always good enough.
He remembered the days he had spent with Tessa. They would never go evry far but always when he returned home he would find a worried Brian who would quiz him about the day, begging him not to go out without telling him again in case there were rogue Gerai around.
He felt so trapped. Encaged. A prisoner even at times. He could see the beautiful colours of the world about him, but he was kept inside a glass box like a butterfly where all he could was gaze out at the world beyond. They never wanted him to go out.
Then there was Brian himself. He wasn’t the father B had known and had grown to love. This was some older, weaker shade of the one he loved.
“B, you’ve got to learn to get along with him! You love him, I know you do!”
B rolled his eyes and tried to turn away but Sammy suddenly gripped his arms and forced him to turn back. “Listen to me! Don’t you understand? He loves you! He’s your father, the one you always wanted to know!”
“No he’s not!” B screamed. “He’s not the same person he was!”
“There’s twenty years difference, B. How could he stay the same? One thing that is still there though is the love! That will never go.”
“He hates me! I’m not what he wanted! I’m not perfect like you! I’m a brat! A stupid kid with no life and no future! He doesn’t want me!” B’s face had turned red and he had begun to tremble as he yelled at Sammy. He tried to tear his arms away but Sammy’s fingers held him tightly. He lowered his head and sniffed as a few tears began to come from his eyes. “He hates me…” he repeated.
“B,” Sammy said soothingly.
He released B’s wrists and B pulled away like a wounded animal as he begun to cry. He turned away from his brother, ashamed at this display of weakness at the age of seventeen. He’d come so far recently, but now he was turning back into a frightened, insecure little boy…
“Hey, hey, come on now,” Sammy’s tone had changed from blunt confrontation to the warm caring nature that had nurtured B throughout his life. He gently pulled B into his arms and held him close. “I don’t mean to upset you. I just wish you and dad could get along. I hate to see you both like this.”
“He doesn’t like me. He shouts at me and - ”
“He’s worried about you, that’s all. He worries about you,” Sammy whispered. He rubbed B’s back soothingly. “You’re just confused.”
“I’m always confused,” B mumbled. “My life is cursed.”
“It’ll get better.”
“I’m sick of people telling me that,” B said as he pushed Sammy away. “I was told that when I was seven and now I’m seventeen, I’m still trapped.” He closed his eyes. “At least I won’t have to stay here anymore. I guess that is a step up.” He glanced towards Sammy and then suddenly noticed the miserable look that had appeared within the bond’s eyes.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked suspiciously.
Sammy sighed and then held his hands out in surrender. “I - ”
“We’re going to stay here aren’t we?” B said coldly. “I’m gonna be stuck in this underground prison again aren’t I?” He felt tears of frustration building up. He pressed a hand to his face as everything came crashing down upon him. Tessa, his new ‘home’ and… Brian…
He didn’t have any of those. He didn’t even have his own father.
“It won’t be so bad. It’s just while dad and I help Darren out a little. We’ll be out soon.”
B shrugged off his brother’s hands that sought to soothe him and folded his arms across his chest. “Don’t lie. Darren and Brian are worried about my computer chip, that’s all. They really don’t care about what I want.”
“It won’t be for long, BB. You’ll see.”
“The Gerai are back aren’t they? Why did they attack our village?”
“There’s a base nearby, a small base that we missed in the final attack. There’s not many Gerai and they just decided to test their power and attack our village. Brian and I want to help Darren. After this, no more Gerai.”
B fell back onto the bed and buried his head in the pillows, tears falling from his eyes to the softness below. History was repeating itself and B was stuck in the centre of the nightmare again. The Gerai were always going to be here. They were always going to destroy his life. Always.
He couldn’t have anything without them tracking him down.
“They’re after me,” he whispered as he raised his head.
“No, they’re not. There’s not many. They’re probably not even organised. Don’t worry. You need to concentrate on making things up with Brian. Give him a chance.”
“He won’t give me a chance.”
Sammy kissed him on the head. “He loves you, just like I do. He’s hurting so much because he thinks you hate him.”
“Maybe I do.”
“Why? B, there’s something else that you have against him. What is it?”
B turned over onto his back and lay staring up at the rocky ceiling that towered above him. He had gotten used to seeing the light roof of their home above him and now he was back to dusty, cold caverns. He closed his eyes slightly.
“B?” Sammy pressed.
“You say he loves us,” B said, not opening his eyes. “Why wasn’t he there when mom died though? Why wasn’t he there when I was a baby? Why didn’t I have a father?”
“He was in the mines, as a slave,” Sammy said, his brow furrowing as he tried to think about where B was going with this.
“We thought he was dead. I grew up being told that I would never meet him because he was dead, but he was alive.”
“What’s your point?”
B slowly sat up and looked B in the eye. “So why didn’t he come back to us? He’d met me before, he knew what I was going to have to go through in life. Why didn’t he come back to help me and to be my father?”
“He was kept a prisoner by the Gerai,” Sammy whispered.
“Why didn’t he escape?” B snapped, anger taking hold of him. “Why didn’t he escape and look for us? I needed him! I needed my parents and I didn’t even have one of them! He was alive and yet I still grew up without him!”
Sammy took his arms. “Shush, you’re getting upset. He did try to escape, he told us remember?”
“Then he should have tried harder,” B said softly as he pulled his arms away from Sammy. “He should have been there when we needed him.”
All those times B had sat around as a child and imagined what his father was alike and Brian had been alive the entire time.
“He would have been if he could have, you know that. You’re just confused about the whole incident. None of us knew that he was alive. If we had have done, then we would have gone back for him.”
B said nothing as he tucked his legs up against his stomach.
Sammy slipped an arm about his shoulder. “He loved you to death and he would do anything you asked him to. Just take the time to get to known him again. It’s difficult for him as well. In his eyes he’s been gone for twenty years.”
“He’s not the same.”
“He still loves you and at the heart he is still exactly the same.” Sammy cuddled him reassuringly.
B lowered his head, wishing that the whole story could be as easy as it had first seemed. It had been a happy ending, B and Sammy reunited with their father. If only they could have their mother back then it would have been complete, but that was impossible. Even happiness with Brian seemed impossible at this moment with the way things were between them. Life was always so much more difficult than a fairy tale.
Sammy nudged him slightly. “I know something that will cheer you up.”
“What?” B murmured miserably.
“I spoke with Robert and Nick and they’ve agreed that you can leave here and have your own room as long as you take the medicine that they’ve prescribed you for your throat and lungs.”
B looked up at him. “Really?” he asked hopefully. He might feel better when he was released from this prison. A room in the underground base may not be the same as his sunny room back in the village, but it was better than staying cooped p in this medical centre which he currently shared with two other sick patients.
“Smile then,” Sammy said.
B smiled weakly to make his brother happy and Sammy patted him on the back and gave him another hug. “We’ll be out soon.”
“It won’t be so bad I guess,” B said reluctantly. “Will I be able to go outside sometimes?”
“We’ll work something out for you. Darren’s keeping tight security and a close eye on nearby villages but I’m sure we can work around it.” Sammy slowly stood up and then looked at B expectantly.
“I can leave now?” B suddenly realised.
Sammy smiled at him and raised his eyebrows. “Unless you wanna stay here so you can perve on that female doctor Grace!”
B pulled a face as he jumped down from the bed. “She’s a little old for me. Closer to your age I believe.”
“Hey, you trying to say I’m old?”
“Well, yeah!” B said as he turned to tidy his bed to a more suitable condition and to retrieve the comic book Nick had given to him to keep him occupied.
Sammy playfully smacked his arm. “Cheeky. Watch it or I’ll blab your secret to everyone.”
“What secret?” B asked as he began to follow Sammy across to the exit.
Sammy stopped and turned to him, a grin upon his face. “Don’t play innocent with me you little Romeo! I know exactly what’s been happening between you and Tessa Dorough!”
B folded his arms and refused to let anything show on his face. Sammy was not going to wrangle this out of him so easily. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Sammy rolled his eyes. “Yes you do! I know because Lori seen you both kissing!”
Uh oh… evidence increasing.
“I think she saw wrong then.”
“I don’t think she did.”
“You’re so nosy, Sammy! Look, nothing is going on!” ‘Well, not anymore anyway,’ he thought dismally, but he was going to get her back. She still liked him.
“Come on, B! I’m dying here! I wanna know!”
“Nothing is going on!”
“I do not believe you! B, she’s gorgeous!”
“She’s a little young for you to be eyeing her up.”
“Stop twisting everything! You know what I mean!”
B looked around and suddenly realised that the other two patients within the medical centre were now looking at him and Sammy with interest as eager ears listened out for gossip that would distract form the monotonous routine of being injured. This would be gossip as well. Everybody knew B and Tessa.
Sammy laughed slightly and ushered B out of the medical centre. “Now tell me!” he hissed. “Does Howie know about this?”
“No because there’s nothing to tell!”
“He doesn’t does he? B, you are such a little sneak! I never had you down as a seducer! Hey, I must have been a good influence on you after all!”
B laughed slightly., thinking of the number of girls Sammy’d had chasing him in the past. He was usually to shy to make a move, even if he did like the girl but that ahd never stopped b teasing him. “Male whore!”
“Hey! I’ve not had that many girlfriends!”
“Let me see, there was that pretty Indian girl Rupal, then there was Paulien and then-”
“We’re not talking about my love life, we’re talking about yours!”
“No we’re not because we’re ending the conversation now!” B said as he started off down the corridor. Thinking about Tessa was beginning to make him unhappy.
“I wanna know!”
“Well I don’t wanna talk about it!”
He carried on walking, ignoring the way his heart had sped up slightly and the lonely feeling that had taken over his chest. He heard Sammy’s footsteps behind him and he felt his eyes burrowing into his back in curiosity.
‘Drop it,’ he begged silently.
Sammy took his arm. “This way,” he said gently as he pointed to the left. “You’re in your old room.”
B nodded, glad that his brother had the mastery of not telling when a person was upset and to be able to tell when a person needed leaving alone. It was the many reasons why B loved his brother so much.
“Where are you and Lori going to be?” B asked, knowing that his brother would want to spend time with Lori.
Sammy smiled. “We’ll be a few rooms away. Lori’s not too happy about staying underground but she’ll put up with it.” He chuckled slightly. “Even if I wanted to, she wouldn’t let me leave you just so that I could take her away from this place.”
B smiled slightly, knowing that he would never be able to cope with being locked up underground without Sammy by his side. Hell, he needed Sammy to get him through all this trouble with Brian.
Sammy took a deep breath. “I’ve found you a room mate… After a few days if you really don’t like it then he’ll move out. Please just make an effort.”
B froze slightly as they came to the door of his old room. He stared hard at Sammy and then peered into the room, knowing already who would be there.
“Hey B,” Brian said softly.