The Moon Dwellers

“I was like a raging bull, full of anger, and I felt stronger than ten bulls. I was on him before he even knew I was there. Liza’s tunic was half-ripped and he was trying to pull it off of her. She was incredible, Adele, not giving an inch, kicking and clawing and fighting to the bitter end. Eventually he would’ve subdued her, but not before taking a bit of a beating. My sister was strong, like me.” Although his face remains mournful, I detect a hint of pride in his voice. But as much as I want to, I can’t ignore his use of the word was. It is there in the back of my mind, tormenting me.

“I pulled him off of her with two hands, threw him against the wall. He wasn’t prepared for a fight. His hands and voice were pleading, begging for me to let him go. I wonder if I should’ve.”

“No, Cole,” Tawni says. “If you’d let him go he would’ve just made up a story about you attacking him and the end result would’ve been the same.”

Cole hangs his head and bobs it up and down, like he wants to believe her but knows he never will. He says, “I was in a rage, not to be reasoned with—you know my temper. I grabbed him and slung him into the wall headfirst. I spun him around, cradled his head, and wrenched it hard to the side. I didn’t even know how to do it properly, but I guess brute strength was enough. I can still hear the bones in his neck cracking. I know I should be sickened by it, but I’m not; I relish the memory.”

I relish that part of his memory, too. The Enforcer was pure evil, inherently bad for sure. If anyone was deserving of death, it was him. I want Cole to stop his story there, but I know he can’t.

“The other two Enforcers were upstairs when it happened,” he says. “They were looting our few measly possessions of value. My mother’s gold wedding band. My father’s steel-toed boots. Taking our stuff while their buddy took my sister.” Cole’s face remains tearstained, but there are no new flows. His eyes are strong again, flashing anger. I would’ve pitied any Enforcer who walked into the room at that moment.

“I guess they heard the commotion, because they came down quietly, their guns out and ready to shoot. But I wasn’t ready to fight anymore. I was holding Liza, helping her cover herself with a blanket. She was bawling, kissing my face, begging me to take her far away from that place. Our home, the place where we’d had so many happy memories, grown up together, had become dirty to her, a prison of filthy nightmares. She would’ve cast it off forever, Adele.”

I am crying. I don’t know when I started, but once the taps are turned on I can’t seem to stop them. I feel ashamed, like I’ve let my friend down in his moment of need. But he doesn’t seem to notice, like it is simply the natural thing for me to do.

“They pointed their damn guns at us, screamed for us to ‘Stand up! Stand up!’” He wipes his face with his sleeve. “One of them checked the other Enforcer, realized he was dead. They separated us, moved us apart, kept screaming at us. I didn’t understand what was happening until they shot her, my Liza, oh, my poor sweet Liza!” Cole’s head is tucked in his hands, his entire body shaking with sobs. I am bawling. Tawni is crying, too, but more constrained. She moves to Cole’s side and rubs a hand on his back.

I think the story is over, but a few minutes later Cole looks up, dripping tears from his chin. “They waited for my parents to get home. I was in shock, sitting there numbly, waiting to wake up from the horrible nightmare. I almost charged them, daring them to shoot me—preferring if they would—but I didn’t because I knew I had to explain to my parents why their little girl was dead on the floor. They hadn’t even bothered to cover her body with the blanket.”

The only thing I can do for Cole now is to listen. Believe me, I don’t want to, don’t want to know the truth—not anymore. Desperately want to believe the comedic story about him juggling the loaves of bread.

“My parents walked through the door like they always did, holding hands, laughing, as happy as anyone in the Moon Realm ever was in those days. I screamed out, tried to tell them everything in a single breath, but I was denied even that. They shot them before they’d even registered what was happening.” No, no, no, no, no! I can’t take any more of the story. I bury my head in my shoulder, sob uncontrollably, like he is telling me the tale of my own parents’ deaths.

In a strange reversal of roles, he waits patiently for me to get control of my emotions. When I force my head back up, he continues. “I fought like a wild animal, trying to force them to kill me, too. I really thought they would, especially when I started throwing anything I could get my hands on at them. But no. They ran around, dodging the things and laughing, mocking me, enjoying themselves.”

“Cole, I’m…I’m…” I can’t get the right words out—there are no right words.

“I know,” Cole says. “So now maybe you can see why I just can’t trust that Tristan is good, not when he comes from up there.” He motions to the ceiling, like he is pointing to the heavens.

“I thought…I thought you were jealous or something,” I say, right away wishing I hadn’t.

Thankfully, Cole laughs it off. “Jealous? I mean, you’re not a bad-looking girl, Adele, very pretty actually, but I’m not really into…how do I put this delicately…you.”

Now I laugh, too; it sounds hollow and foreign to me, like it is something I haven’t experienced in a long time. “Sorry, I realize it was stupid now,” I say.

He waves me off. “So that’s my story. I’m the murderer in the group, I suppose.” His eyes are steely again, but I can still feel a weakness behind them, a vulnerability. I’ve only just met him, but he already feels like a lifelong friend, like I’ve known him forever. Instinctively, I move over and hug him, squeezing so tightly that if he isn’t as thick as a bear he might pop. It feels so good to be hugged by someone again, even under such awful circumstances. Earlier, I’d gotten a taste of it when Tawni held me close after my fight with the gang leader, and now I am suddenly addicted to human contact. It is like I need it to survive. I don’t want to let go, but after a few seconds I do, not wanting to make things awkward between us, or to give him the wrong impression.

He is smiling. I feel we’ve made a major breakthrough in our relationship, which has seemed somewhat strained at times. Tawni is smiling, too. She already feels like my sister, after all we’ve been through together in such a short time.

My real sister’s face pops into my mind once more. “It’s time to rescue Elsey,” I say.

“Where did you say she is?” Tawni asks.

“She’s in an orphanage not far from here. It’s just across the border into the slums.”

“We should be leaving soon anyway,” she says. “It’s not safe to linger here.”

Before leaving, we make sure that everything is put back to how we found it. We “borrow” a couple of old packs that Tawni says her parents will never miss, and fill them with nonperishable food from the storeroom. Unlike most residents of subchapter 14, Tawni’s family has enough supplies to last them for months, if not years. We only take items that are available in plenty, to ensure no one will notice they are missing. Although we expect to be able to find plenty of water along the way, we fill a couple of jugs from the servants quarters with fresh water from the well before tying our packs shut.

Lastly, Cole and I raid Tawni’s parents’ closets for things to wear. Tawni points out the items that her mom and dad never wear, so they’ll be less likely to realize they are gone. We stuff our gray prisoner uniforms under a mattress in the shed. Tawni grabs a few old tunics from her own closet and we head out the back door.

Daylight is more dangerous for us. We don’t necessarily expect that if someone spots us that they’ll call the hotline and report us to Rivet, but we also can’t count on silence amongst our people—Tawni’s parents proved that.