Questioning

It’s been weeks since I dropped them off at the ferry dock. “Don’t call me,” I told them, “Don’t call any number that goes back to the Punishment.” Blair had nodded in a way that made me sure she understood, and wonder if she’d already decided not to. She was only 15, barely 15. To the Fa’e that may be adult, but I wonder if she’s grown up enough to handle being away from home. Blair Jamison’s not just another soldier, in the end she is a pampered rich girl. She’s has the same bruises as everyone else in her class, the same ones we all get during combat training. She would have been a solid soldier, if she had stayed.

If she hadn’t let that little brothers of hers get in her way. If that older brother of hers hadn’t damn near destroyed the family’s entire reputation.

But he hadn’t. The Jamisons remain one of the most promonent family in the entire Punishment, a massive one that spans across the entire world. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if Jamisons popped up in other worlds too.

“You’re distracted today,” Tye says after managing to land a blow just below my ribcage. I’ll probably have a bruise there, but I’ve had worse. At least she didn’t knock the wind out of me this time. “Thinking of that bitch again?”

“You’re going to have to be more specific.” Tye calls almost every female over the age of 14 a bitch, including herself.

“The Jamison one.”

“You’re going to have to be more specific,” I repeat, but that time’s a joke and she knows it and flips me off. The only other Jamison bitch is Deliah, and she’s a distant cousin – in relation, at least, but she’s lived only a few houses down from Blair’s family their whole lives.

“Have they found anything yet?” she asks. She’s barely out of breath, we could both keep training for hours. But dinner’s coming up soon, so instead we go to the benches to grab our water bottles.

I shake my head. There’s been no word of Blair Jamison or the little brother the spirited away with in the middle of the night on her 15th birthday, even though it’s been almost a month.

“Those monsters probably found her and killed her by now,” Tye comments. “Both of them.”

There was a time, not that long ago, that I would have agreed. But I still dream about the car accident that almost killed five people – the one that those “monsters” pulled everyone out of. As far as the people around me know, four of those people died. I’m the only one on this side of the war that knows they’re all still alive.

“If they know, they won’t stop hunting,” she had told me. I’d known she was right. I think I’d known for a long time, but until that moment I had blinded myself to it.

I can’t do that anymore.

Tye smacks me again, with her water bottle this time, snapping me back to attention, to the present and to her. “What’s wrong with you today?”

“Sorry, I’m tired,” I tell her easily, the lie rolling off my tongue as smoothly as a truth.

She rolls her eyes, “God, please tell me it’s not about the crash again. That was over a year ago, Caspian, get over it. I’m going to go shower.” She kisses me before turning and walking away to the womens’ showers, leaving me to wonder when her kisses started feeling so empty.

I go to the mens’ locker room. It’s a weird time of day for training, but even though I have the place to myself, the camera in the corner eliminates the possibility of privacy. The showers is the only private place, so I grab my stuff and go in there. Showers, bathrooms and my own secured bedroom are the only places I can pull up the message. The day after I dropped Blair and Caden off at the ferry port, I’d gotten a message from a strange number – a photo of the two of them, Caden smiling brightly as he fed a goat and Blair looking so relieved some part of me always hurts every time I look at this photo. With the photo had come the text, “They’re safe.”

Normally, I would have traced the strange number back to see who it came from. I haven’t with this one though, and I’m not even exactly sure why. Every time I look at this picture, I become sure of less and less about my life. So I lock my phone and shove it into my bag, pushing all the doubts out of my head and going to shower and change into clean clothes instead.