Secrets

DRUCE

Emi forced Druce awake the next morning by bouncing on the mattress until Druce groaned in anger. She was chanting, “Wake up, wake up, wake up,” like a kid who had only one friend in their life to play with.

No, don’t forget. That was Druce.

Druce groaned with something between annoyance and gentleness in her voice, “Whaddya want, Emi?!” Her crusted eyes tried blinking a few times and failed to stay open.

“I want you to get up, Dru!”

Dru?

If Druce had been a dog, her ears would have stood straight up at the sound of that. Still, her heart did a couple flips in her chest. She forced her eyes open, seeing that Emi was fully dressed in a white blouse and blue jeans, her long red hair half bound on top while the lower half of her hair hung downward, reaching the small of her back.

“Why? What time is it?” Druce rasped, her voice dry from sleep.

“It’s literally past one p.m. and time for you to get up. We’re wasting the day away and we’ll end up having no time to go shopping later!”

Druce wondered two things: Since when were we going shopping? and I slept into the afternoon…? The second thought she lingered on. It had been several years since Druce had slept so well throughout the night. In fact, since her parents died, she’d never once had a full night’s sleep, thrown awake at random from night terrors that followed her into the day. She was always reliving the moment she watched her parents take a bullet for her, always stuck at age nine wishing she could’ve lived with them forever.

Wishing she had been born normal and they didn’t have to choose her over the Family.

“Dru?” Emi called quietly when she received no reaction.

And Druce broke into tears. And couldn’t be bothered to try stopping herself, for she had a nickname.

She wondered if this was what it was like to be normal.

A knock at the door just after two in the afternoon sent Yumo hustling to the door, the end of the crutches under his arms clacking against the glass floor. He opened it to find Kian standing just beyond the doorframe, his ever-present frown flipping at the sight of Yumo.

“You’re getting tall, dude!” Kian expressed in greeting, a grin spreading across his face. He wrapped one arm around Yumo’s neck and right shoulder, pressing the boy into him. When he stepped back, Druce could see Yumo playing a wavering frown across his lips.

“I’m only three years younger than you! You and Emi treat me like a kid.”

“Three and three-quarters, thank you, almost four,” was Kian’s reply and Druce couldn’t help snickering from her seat at the kitchen table.

It drew Kian’s attention to her in a way that stopped the room’s momentum. For a moment, Druce wished she hadn’t done anything, sitting silently now as Kian stared at her from across the room. Yumo was looking back and forth between them as the seconds ticked by.

Yup, this confirms it, Druce thought sullenly, Kian Kona hates my guts.

Then Kian’s bored features scrunched themselves up a little; his left eyebrow pressing down, his right eyebrow going up, and his lips poking forward all to express a—Druce dared to think—playful look of confusion. She risked a smile as he ushered Yumo back inside and called, loudly, for Emi to get a move on so they could leave.

Maybe he’s… not so bad, after all? Druce thought, heart feeling lighter. She stood as Emi skipped into the living room at the mention of her name.

“It’s honestly about damn time you showed up, Kian.” She grumbled upon entering, and from that point on, Druce listened to the pair bicker with one another all the way to the mall twenty-five minutes north of the Chrome District.

If you could call it a mall.

To Druce, the medium-sized plaza with a large building stretching the length of three baseball fields, a glass fountain spewing water in four directions, and an archway declaring the “Shopping District” about one hundred yards from the main doors was miniature in comparison to any of the malls she had been to back home on Cerulean Plate. She watched people milling about from all sides, wearing nicer clothes than she had seen almost anywhere on Vermillion Plate.

Her eyes gobbled up scenes of people carrying large fabric tote bags, filled with what she assumed were weeks’ worth of clothing judging by some of the sizes. Why? She thought, watching one woman walk by with three bags slung from both arms, Why buy so much when Selection is just around the corner?

With what she’d seen of the Plate’s financial situation so far, she couldn’t imagine many Vermillion residents having enough money to go crazy buying more compression rings to pack their purchases for the big move. While Cerulean peoples could afford upwards of seven fully priced compression rings per family member, Vermillion residents were far less capable of such purchases. Perhaps two per person, if not two or three per household.

Druce continued having questions while the trio walked around the mall, the building on the inside crawling with people hopping from store to store.

Emi bought food from not one but three eateries within the first thirty minutes of shopping, asking Kian repeatedly to spot her some cash. Repeatedly, Kian argued no, giving in only once when the cash went toward ice cream which he ate ravenously. Druce ate her share with caution, trying to slow the happiness in her heart down before an artery burst or something.

She wondered why the people here appeared so jolly, looking at smiles on almost every face she passed by.

She wondered why strangers here were so helpful, appalled by how discounted the items Kian and Emi bought for her were.

She wondered why she felt a sense of hope in everyone, despite the dreaded November being so near.

And that’s when she got it.

“They’re not buyin’ stuff to take with them, are they?” She asked aloud, to herself more than to anyone else, but Kian hummed in reply before answering. Emi had her face stuffed with a corn dog.

“They’re leaving behind regrets. Emotions are the only thing you take with you when you die. You could either go in peace or not, and lots of people here don’t make it three more years to heal, pay off debts, or settle any scores. This might be it… So, they buy happiness and then wait. To go out with a bang.”

Emi had been nodding along to Kian’s words, peeking at the tall boy as he lowered his eyes and walked away. She avoided Druce’s eyes when she tried to meet them and followed after Kian. Druce stayed back a second and thought about to herself, What are their secrets?

Although she knew she had no real right to know, considering her own hidden truths, she felt a strong desire to extinguish the sadness in her friends’ eyes. Though, what could she do?

She had been friendless until just recently. She didn’t know what to say to comfort a friend.

Jogging to catch up, Druce exited the mall’s sliding front doors, pushing past a mass of people who, for some reason, had decided to stop right outside the entrance. Everyone had their back to Druce, facing some unknown spectacle before them, so she squeezed through them mumbling ‘Excuse me’ every couple of steps.

“What’s going on?” She asked Emi when she located her and Kian amongst the crowd.

Emi answered with one word that sent a shiver down Druce’s spine. It wasn’t the word itself but the disgust with which Emi pronounced it that made Druce’s knees almost weak with fear. “Hunters.”

The realization hit her like a ton of bricks. They’ll hate me. If they ever find out who I am, they’ll hate me forever.

Druce swallowed, she was reminded of last night and meeting Yumo. She felt sick. Reluctant to see, she turned her attention to the spectacle at the center of the circle.

Two hunters had approached a woman in a wheelchair and were blocking her passage with their bodies. She looked to be in her early forties and was being pushed by her husband who looked around the same age but was now aged several years by fear. The four were standing just beside the glass fountain, its rushing waters the loudest of the sounds in the plaza. At the moment, the growing circle of spectators was silent, tension spreading among everyone.

“You know, ma’am…” one of the hunters was saying. He was speaking loudly, putting on a show for all to hear. “You really should just cooperate. It’ll make this less of a headache for all of us.”

Druce could tell he and his partner were independent hunters, not affiliated with the Tabby Family. They weren’t wearing the customary fabric, high-top sneakers with the embroidered orange Tabby Family ‘T’s on the high outside corners. Druce was wearing her pair now, suddenly aware of them.

“You mean, for you.” The woman retorted. Druce could see her eyes narrow at the hunters before her.

The man nodded, “Yeah, I guess I do.” He laughed along with his companion.

Next to Druce, Kian was shaking his head. “Asswipes.” He mumbled, and the situation before them deteriorated quickly.

As if she’d heard Kian from afar, the lady in the wheelchair told the hunter, “You enjoy being an asshole, yeah?”

The laughter stopped. The audience collectively sucked in a breath, some audible.

“What did you call me?”

“Sh-She—She didn’t stutter.” The woman’s husband answered, scared to pieces but with his wife all the way.

“You heard him, I called you an asshole. All of you hunters who think you have the right to dictate what it means to be human; how people must think, feel, look, and speak; how “normal” we should all be and how “abnormal” we’re all allowed to be… You’re all assholes.”

The hunters’ retaliation was swift. Mumbling something about a death wish, the hunter closest to the couple brandished a baton from the confines of a snap-close fanny pack strapped around the waist. The mallet portion of the weapon snapped forward into full extension at the touch of a button in the man’s hand, and he whipped the sitting lady across the face before she could even react.

She screamed bloody murder at the touch of the baton against her skin as its rounded end was electric blue and searing hot. Her flesh was immediately scorched, a violent red mess from the far-left cheekbone to the leftmost corner of her lips.

Her husband fared no better. The second hunter targeted the man’s lower half, moving around his partner to strike both the husband’s kneecaps with the butt of his own baton. The man crashed against the ground, his cries mellowing out into whimpers as the hunter who struck him shoved his foot into the man’s chest, holding it there.

“That’ll teach you to mind your damned manners, dead weight lover.”

The hunters had moved so quickly, their movements efficient and professional. Most spectators in the crowd had most likely missed the majority of what had happened, but Druce had seen everything. She was boiling inside, angry and ashamed of her upbringing.

She had always been angry and ashamed, but she had never had the backbone to do a thing about it.

She felt the urge to change that right now.

“Hey!” She called, her voice deeper than her already throaty voice, emotional.

Emi, though, was the first to rush forward by a hair, dashing out into the square and up to the hunters in a matter of seconds. Druce was charmed and propelled forward by Emi’s action, right behind her as the girl shoved the hunter standing over the older man aside with powerful arms.

“You brutes!” Emi screamed, and fully engaged her opponent with a low crouching kick to the shins, her attempt unsuccessful as the hunter leapt over her sweeping foot. A blow to Emi’s ear had Druce rushing to help, but she was stopped by the more vulgar of the hunters who had maimed the lady in the wheelchair.

She ducked a swing directed at her head and jabbed her fists twice into the ribcage of the much larger man before her. He grunted against the pain and sent another fist sailing through the air closer to Druce’s neck. A quick step back put her out of reach of her opponent’s punch, and she spun her body to the right heavy on her left leg, sending the heel of her right foot shooting backward into the hunter’s right cheekbone, drawing blood. The Tabby Family insignia at the top of her white high-top sneaker swept past her vision in a blur, reminding her mid-fight of her status and of what she was doing despite it.

The man stumbled hard to the left side, tripping over the wheel of the tortured woman’s wheelchair, and tumbled to the ground. Druce took this moment to turn her attention back to Emi, hoping to help her friend in case she needed the assistance. But she was surprised to find Kian staring back at her, the hunter’s blazing baton in his right hand, the frontmost strands of the hunter’s hair in his left.

Kian had the less aggressive hunter’s back pressed against his chest. The baton hovered centimeters from the hunter’s neck, likely burning him a little without touching. After a moment longer of looking at Druce with something curious in his eyes that had Druce sweating, Kian gave his full attention to his prey, his mouth close to the man’s ear.

“I know for a fact that turning this thing up to full strength,” Kian said, using his right thumb to draw a circle on the baton’s surface to activate the heat adjustment feature, then pushing his thumb up until the blue electricity of the baton blazed vigorously, “will turn it into something like a blade.”

The hunter-turned-captive squirmed against Kian’s hold, murmuring loud, unintelligible words that might have been pleas as his wide, frightened eyes stuck like glue on the baton in Kian’s hand. “Stop. Moving!” Kian demanded between gritted teeth and pressed the searing hot baton against the man’s neck. He screamed as loud as the wounded woman had before and writhed in pain beneath the continued heat. Kian never stopped applying pressure to the fresh wound, even as the now blade-like baton began cutting into the man’s liquefying skin and the screams grew much louder.

From where she stood on Kian’s right, Druce looked across to Emi who stood on Kian’s left, her eyes wide, fearful, and disbelieving. “Kian…” she started, her voice hesitant before becoming more urgent, “Stop already! You’ll kill him, he’s had enough!”

Kian released the man at once, but kept the baton gripped tight in his fist. “Let’s go, you two.” He said and stepped over the hunter who had collapsed and was now lying unmoving on the red glass of Vermillion Plate.

Instead of following, Emi hurried to help the couple who had been attacked, ushering them away from the scene. Druce followed Kian with her eyes, all the way back to their shopping bags that laid abandoned amongst the throng of spectators who shuffled slightly away from Kian as he walked nearer.

She wondered, briefly, what that look from earlier had meant when she’d finished fighting and his eyes had been on her. It panicked her because the look hadn’t felt normal. It was like he’d been analyzing her every move, like he’d seen right through her and her secrets.