“Here.” The man threw a bag of trail mix onto the bed. “You need to eat more than you have been. When I carried you up here, you weighed less than my equipment bag.”
He cared that The Boy ate enough? What was he supposed to do with that?
“It’s probably why you passed out.” The man motioned for him to eat.
The Boy tore open the bag with too much gusto, and it fell apart, showering the bed with food. “I deduced that for myself, Sherlock.” Apparently, he was going to be an asshole.
Instead of being offended, the man gave another tiny smile that melted away as soon as it appeared. “What’s your name, kid?”
With shaky hands, he did his best to herd all the trail mix into a single pile on the blanket. “Name?” He thought he had a name once. Not wanting the man to call him The Boy like everyone else he knew, he dug into the parts of his memory he’d rather not access in an attempt to remember something… anything.
After a moment he came up with, “Cym?”
It wasn’t quite right, but it sounded familiar.
“Are you telling me or asking me?” The man stood up slowly and came over to his side of the room. The way he walked reminded The Boy—no, he could call himself whatever he wanted now that he was free—Cym of a swimmer getting accustomed to the temperature of the water before diving in.
Cym didn’t respond to the question but instead began stuffing his mouth with food. His hands trembled, so he kept dropping bits of fruit and nuts in every direction.
The man kneeled beside him, and his deep voice was soft when he asked, “What did they do to you?”
It wasn’t a question Cym knew how to answer, so he kept eating as fast as he could. The more fuel he had in his body, the sooner he could get out of there.
He couldn’t seem to stop himself from stealing looks at the man in between bites. Now that he had the time to process the information, Cym was a little awestruck by his appearance.
The man’s mahogany-colored hair was trimmed neatly on the sides, but the top was longer and was an artful mess. It looked as soft and thick as fur, and Cym had to stop himself from reaching out to touch it. His eyes traveled over cheekbones and a jawline that would have made the models in the handful of fashion magazines he’d read green with envy. It was getting harder to summon the will to leave this stranger behind.
The man lifted his hand toward Cym’s face but stopped it inches away—hovering like it had been caught in a force field. “Do you want to be called Cym?”
It was as close as Cym was going to get to his name right now, so he nodded. “What about you? What’s your name?”
The man pulled his hand away and settled back on his heels. “You can call me Fourteen.”
“Fourteen? Like soldier number fourteen? How many of you are there?” It was just like that book he’d read a few years ago. Well, half of a book—he’d known he shouldn't have bothered to read something that was missing the last half, but he’d been bored. Maybe sometimes books were like real life after all. He’d had no idea soldiers actually got numbers instead of names.
Fourteen shook his head. “You’re better off not knowing how many of us there are, or anything about us. If you need to call me something, just use Fourteen.” His face could have been stone—there was no emotion there for Cym to read, and he found it reassuring. If Fourteen hadn’t exploded in rage yet, it was possible he wasn’t likely to.
Usually, people had an immediate reaction to Cym. The few times he hadn’t made a person blow up into a towering rage or be incredibly unpleasant to him, he’d found they tolerated having a conversation with him. They always seemed uncomfortable, though. Nothing like the nonreactive nature of Fourteen.
What was different about him?
Cym had to leave before he decided not to.
“I need to keep moving.” Cym scooted over to the side of the bed not blocked by Fourteen and hung his legs over the edge.
With the speed of an exhausted sloth, he stood up and found that—while his legs would hold him—putting weight on his feet was excruciating. Rest and food had allowed him to be vertical. He’d just have to deal with the pain.
“Your feet are going to need some attention before you go.” Fourteen said and reached over to take a small box down from a shelf. He opened it and began pulling out gauze, tweezers, and alcohol. Placing them on the bed three inches from Cym’s hand, he asked, “Do you want to take care of it yourself?”
Cym’s face drained of blood, and he sat back down on the bed, making an audible thump—his vision had gone gray and sparkly around the edges.
He couldn’t even force his mind to think about digging chunks of road out of his feet, let alone actually do it. He didn’t have much experience with injuries, mostly because he hadn’t had much opportunity to get any up until now.
“Maybe later.” Cym’s voice was pathetic and breathy.
“Later would be a bad idea in this situation. You were walking around in garbage. You need to clean your wounds before they go septic.”
“That doesn’t sound ideal.” After peering at his feet, Cym had to lie back on the pillow. This time, his vision had gone entirely gray and full of sparkles.
“Stay like that. I’ll do it.” Since meeting in the alley, Fourteen’s voice had remained calm and matter-of-fact—almost robotic—but now it sounded a little frayed at the edges. Cym was pretty sure the man didn’t want to fix his feet, but since he was insisting, Cym was going to let him do it.
“I’ll just lie back and think of King and country.” Cym’s joke fell flat even to his own ears. Running for his life, being forced to rely on the help of a complete stranger, and getting his feet thoroughly abused were not the items he’d had on his to-do list this evening—though by his guess it had to be early morning now.
When he entered his microscopic efficiency apartment earlier, he’d planned on lying down and sleeping off the past several days. Cym had been running nonstop for almost three weeks, and this had been the first time he’d gotten an actual bed to sleep in. What he’d thought to be a safe haven had become a nightmare.
Cym watched Fourteen, so he would know exactly when the man would begin torturing his feet.
Fourteen pulled a few more things off the shelf and sat at the foot of the bed. “You don’t have to be afraid.” Fourteen showed him an aerosol can. “This will numb most of the pain.”
Nodding, he tried to put on a brave face, but he knew his wide stretched, fear-filled eyes must have given him away.
“This might be easier on you if you don’t watch,” Fourteen advised. When Cym continued to focus on the can, he shrugged, as if to say, Suit yourself.
The mist from the can coated Cym’s feet with blissful numbness, and his nervousness ratcheted down to a more tolerable level. Before he could do more than sigh in relief, Fourteen pulled out the tweezers, causing the nervousness from before to blossom into full-blown panic. Desperate for a distraction, he asked, “What was your name before it was Fourteen?”
“I can’t tell you that.” Fourteen had yet to touch Cym’s feet in any way. In fact, he appeared to hesitate for some reason. “I don’t tell anyone my name.”
“Why not? Would you have to kill me if I knew?” Cym couldn’t imagine he was squeamish about blood, so it had to be another reason Fourteen didn’t want to touch him.
