Fif15teen Read online

  Chapter 17

  Law 66

  Jeg ønsker at gå hjem (I want to go home)

  An hour later, still smiling, Akeem emerged from the trees into absolute bedlam. The smile fell from his lips at the sight of fire and clouds of ominous smoke. He ran toward Doc’s shelter but did not find him. Cruz was coughing as smoke floated around his head.

  “What happened?” Akeem asked, pulling padding off a nearby bed and laying it on the ground near Cruz. He helped the injured boy down to where the air was clear and breathable.

  “Angels. Surprise attack. They were in and out so fast, they’re just figuring out what happened,” the boy said between gasps for breath. “They slipped by the watch, we had no warning. Thaniel’s gonna roll heads.”

  “Where’s Doc?”

  “I don’t know. When I woke up he was gone. They got a lot of us, Akeem; Doc could be dead,” the boy said sadly. “They bagged Gideon. Caught him up in a net and dragged him off.”

  Akeem stood there for a moment trying to sort out what Cruz had just said. Doc could be dead and Angels had taken Gideon. Impossible! Akeem shook his head, grabbed his backpack, and ran off into the smoke.

  Shelters were ablaze, boys ran everywhere, tossing water, smacking flames with damp blankets, and, in some instances, stamping out fires with blackened bare feet. Bodies of boys and the occasional girl were strewn throughout the campground.

  Thaniel stood on a huge rock barking orders as Akeem ran from body to body, turning them over and examining their faces with ever-increasing fear. His hands trembled as his mind tried to accept what his eyes were seeing. This isn’t real, his brain insisted. These things don’t happen in real life. Children don’t savage, maim, and ruthlessly kill each other. Murder was the kind of business usually left to adults. But death was here, screaming in his face, demanding his attention. Beckoning him toward revenge, calling him to rage with anger and demand Angel blood in exchange for the Dog blood that now ran freely through soil and ash.

  He looked around desperately for Doc, heart hammering a heavy staccato in his heaving chest. Had he gone insane? Perhaps that rock that Piper had clocked him with had knocked something loose because this couldn’t be real. Things like this are only supposed to happen in movies, but it was happening, right in front of his disbelieving eyes. The world around him became surreal and distant as if being in a dream that could end by simply opening his eyes. He was tempted to lie down, curl into a ball, and wait until this nightmare was over.

  He pushed his hands through his dreads and pulled hard, praying that the ache would somehow clear his mind. The pain brought instant clarity along with the concession that this was not a dream. He forced his feet forward as he wove his way around lifeless boys that were full of piss and vinegar a few short hours ago. He stumbled over a body and nearly went sprawling onto the gore-covered ground. He looked down to find an extremely thin, dark-skinned boy lying facedown in the dirt. Akeem’s breath came in ragged gasps. Please, don’t let this be Doc, his mind screamed. He was reaching to turn the boy over when a familiar voice drifted through the smoke and reached his troubled ears. His head turned toward the voice, listening, praying, hoping. He heard the voice again and a gasp of relief flew from his mouth as his emotions raged their own internal war. Doc was alive, he thought with joy but this boy at his feet was not. This boy had been senselessly murdered due to a list of deranged words carved into a long-dead tree. But Doc was alive. He shook his head and wiped sadness from his moist eyes, or perhaps it was joy, he did not know the difference. He followed Doc’s voice into the smoke.

  “Marlon, get me clean bandages. Terry, gather moss from the forest, as much as you can carry, hurry! And someone find Akeem!” Doc demanded.

  “I’m here,” he said, materializing through the smoke.

  “I need your help,” Doc said desperately. He was covered in blood and filth, none of it his own. Akeem looked down at the small white-haired boy that Doc was working on. It was Mouse, the timid, fidgety kid he had met his first night in Fifteen. The small boy twitched and spasmed as blood bubbled from his lips. Tears of pain poured down his dirty cheeks, washing away the blood in streaks.

  “Help me!” Doc shouted.

  “I…,” Akeem stammered as he kneeled across from Doc.

  “Press here. Hard. I’ll be right back.” Doc pulled Akeem’s hands down onto a long, jagged gash that crossed the small boy’s abdomen. Akeem looked down in horror.

  “Doc?” Akeem moaned as Mouse’s blood pooled between his fingers. He retched and gagged as he tried desperately to keep the boy’s guts from spilling onto the ground. “Oh God.” He closed his eyes and turned his head skyward. He couldn’t bear to look down. He didn’t want to see the fear of death looking back at him. Would Mouse’s eyes be filled with worry over what evils might await him on the other side of life? He couldn’t look. He didn’t have the nerve to stare death in the eye.

  The boy gurgled. “Keem.” His voice was soft and high-pitched, instantly reminding Akeem of Aly. Akeem swallowed a whimper. Against his will, his head turned. There it was, that look he didn’t want to see. With just his eyes, Mouse begged for life and questioned the finality of his own impending death. In one glance, his eyes said what his mouth couldn’t; they cursed the absurdity of the hateful Laws of Fifteen.

  “It’s okay, Mouse. It’s okay...it’s okay!” Akeem chanted over and over again, but it wasn’t and he knew it. The boy’s spasms came less often and his breathing was less frantic. “Mouse? Stay with me, kid. Come on, man!”

  Mouse’s voice shook uncontrollably when he spoke again. “Keem, I want…to…go…home.” His body convulsed a final time. The boy’s cobalt-blue eyes, though still open, swam out of focus. His breathing came in gurgling hiccups, seconds stretched between each ragged breath.

  “Mouse!” Akeem shouted. “Doc! Where are you? Mouse, hang in there, buddy! Doc!” Akeem released a gust of pent-up air when Doc finally came running. He had a large handmade pouch slung over his shoulder and a thick book clasped in his bloody hands. He skidded to a stop, tossed the book to the ground, and began pouring through the pages.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I do not know. I have never fixed anything like this,” Doc stuttered frantically. Not only did the thin boy’s hands shake, but his entire body was racked with tremors. Akeem was startled. Doc had always been coolheaded. Doc always knew what to do, how to fix any ailment, cure any stomachache, cool any burn. He could stitch up a boy so perfectly he would rarely leave a scar behind. And here he was, fumbling through a book in search of a way to save Mouse’s life. The enormity of it weighed heavily on Akeem’s soul. Doc was only fifteen. He was only a skinny boy with no medical training, thrust into a role that most adults would balk at. Akeem looked down at Mouse and half-sobbed. He removed his hands and looked at his palms, now covered in slick, crimson red.

  “Doc, forget the book,” Akeem said solemnly.

  “Something within these pages can help. I just need to find it.” Doc flipped through the pages, leaving bloody fingerprints on the starched white pages.

  “Put the book down, Doc. Put it down!” Akeem grasped the thin boy’s shoulders.

  Doc shrugged him off angrily. “I will not give up. I can fix him,” he said through quivering lips.

  “It’s too late,” Akeem said, but Doc didn’t seem to understand. He looked at Akeem pleadingly as if willing him to take his words back. “He’s gone, Doc. Mouse is dead.” The pain in Doc’s eyes was bottomless, and it surged up from deep in his core. It spilled down his face in the form of fat bitter tears.

  “Not this one, Brahma, please not this one.” Doc moaned in anguish. Akeem looked around, terrified that someone would see Doc crying. Tears were a sign of weakness in Fifteen, a cause for ridicule. Doc would lose respect. They would torment him, break him if they could.

  Akeem flew to his feet and yanked Doc up with him. He scooped up Doc’s things and dragged him away from Mouse, refusing to let him look b
ack. Doc fought weakly, pounding Akeem’s arms with his fists. His painful wail cut off abruptly when Akeem turned him around and growled in his face.

  “Mouse is gone; he’s free. I know you would trade places with him if you could; I would too, but we can’t. We’re stuck here, Doc. Other boys are hurt and they need you!” Finally, the thin boy exhaled sharply, threw his shoulders back, and picked his chin up. “Wipe your face!” Akeem snapped as he looked nervously around the camp, thanking God there were no watching eyes. Doc obeyed mechanically. Finally, he looked up at Akeem. “Ready?” Akeem asked.

  “Ready,” Doc said. Together they ran off into the smoke.