Walk a Lonesome Road Read online

  Ren rolls over slowly and glares at him out of two bruised and bloodied eyes. “I know you’re suffering from PTSD, Dek, and I know you can’t help yourself when I set off your triggers. I’m just mad because you won’t tell me what the fucking triggers are so I don’t have to discover the hard way what not to do around you. Do you have a brother called Tik?”

  The abrupt change of subject throws him completely. “What?”

  “A brother. Tikome hon Cerimwe. He’s yours?”

  “Yes, but....”

  Ren sighs. “Went to the academy with him. Is he all right? We used to be close.”

  Dek’s had his world view slapped upside the head so many times this morning he feels as dizzy as Ren probably does. “He’s fine. I think. We...uh...don’t have a lot of contact.” A call once or twice a year, and that’s it. Dek never has any news, and Tik knows Dek has little interest in his. But Tik probably knew about Ren going to prison. “He lives in Darsino now. Maybe we could ask him for help.”

  “Are you serious? You want this to land on him too?” Ren asks scornfully, waving his hand at his body. “Dek—I don’t know how far their reach extends. I’ve already endangered you—I sure as hell don’t want Tik involved.”

  “No.” He walks further into the room. “Uh...how do you feel?”

  “Like crap.”

  “I’ve got some pain killers....”

  “Already took what was safe for a pregnant man, thanks. That’s a scary medicine cabinet you’ve got in there, Dek.”

  Dek curls his hand, letting the hurt remind him of what is and is not acceptable behaviour towards this man. “You said you’d die if you didn’t get the baby out. What if you took something that killed it now?”

  “Then I’d have a lump of rotting meat inside me until we could find someone to cut it out. Not a great idea. I already thought about that—there are any number of natural abortifacients, but that assumes there’s somewhere for the foetus and placenta to be expelled from and I can assure you, this...whatever it is...isn’t coming out the normal way.” He covers his eyes with his arm.

  “Is it yours?”

  “I have no idea. Right now it’s nothing more than a parasite and as dangerous as a tumour. I already have a son, Dek. My wife took him away from me.” He uncovers his eyes and looks at Dek again. “You got kids?”

  Dek shakes his head, his throat tight. “That...woman. My wife. Dead.”

  “Fuck. I’m really sorry, Dek.” He struggles upright, wincing, and giving Dek a much better view of the injuries he’s caused. “Connected to your leg injury?” Dek shakes his head again. “This is one of the things you can’t talk about, right? Now I know not to piss you off by mentioning it. Anything else I shouldn’t do?”

  Dek hates the casual, snotty way Ren’s talking to him about the mess Dek’s made of his life, but he tamps the anger down because he owes the guy for the unprovoked attack, and really, it makes sense to get some of the ground rules established for however long Ren is going to be here. “Don’t...touch me. Don’t surprise me, don’t wake me up, especially from a nightmare, and leave my stuff alone. My...personal stuff.”

  “All the books?”

  “No. Just...I’ll put them away.”

  “I’m sorry about that—I wasn’t snooping, I just...I haven’t held a book since I was arrested. I wasn’t even really reading it, I was just...touching. Hoping this was real,” he adds with a crooked smile. “Then you came in and made sure I knew it was real.”

  “I...that picture...I....” He clenches his jaw.

  Ren slowly gets off the bed, favouring the injured ankle. “It’s all right,” he says quietly. “I’d probably be the same about a picture of Meram if I had one.”

  “Your wife set you up, didn’t she?”

  Ren hisses in a breath and looks at Dek as narrow-eyed as he can manage. “You worked that out?”

  “You said she divorced you as soon as you got charged—like she knew what the outcome would be. And who else would know about something that obscure in a kid’s medical files?”

  “Not many people. I...tried not to believe it for a long time. I wanted to believe it was just all bad luck, could have happened to anyone. But when they implanted the blastocyst that second time, something told me that this was what Geya had been working towards. That she probably knew what they were doing and maybe even helped plan it. That doesn’t hurt as much as knowing they’re probably impregnating my sister too. Maybe she’s already had a kid that way. Maybe my kid,” he said, his face twisting. “They didn’t scruple at much else, why should incest bother them?”

  Dek has nothing he can say to this, because for all he knows, Ren’s right. The evidence of their callousness is written in the scars on his body, just as Dek’s insanity is marked out on Ren’s face. “You...uh...want lunch?” he finally says, inanely.

  Ren seems to accept it as the peace offering it is. “Sure. If you’re making more of those bread rolls, that’d be good. I’m starving again.”

  “Eating for two.”

  Ren rolls his eyes. “I knew you’d say that.”

  Walk A Lonesome Road: 5

  Finding food that Ren can eat is a challenge, but at least Dek knows what he’s dealing with now, and since Ren’s now being honest about the situation, they can work on the problem together. Bland or salty works, as does sweet without any other flavours. Ren says ‘morning sickness’ can come at any time. “Stress,” he explains, “makes it worse.” Dek’s surprised there’s a time when he’s not upchucking, considering.

  Fortunately, Dek’s bread and the meat stock sits easily on Ren’s stomach, and he makes himself eat some soaked dried fruit for the fibre and the vitamins. “Don’t you need drugs to keep this going?” Dek asks, wishing he’d paid more attention in biological science at school, though he doubts the curriculum would have covered this particular situation.

  “They’re inside me—an implant,” Ren says, gesturing vaguely at his stomach. “Slow release of hormones. One of the new techs they employed was chatty—seemed to think I’d find it fascinating,” he says, grimacing. “Mostly the foetus produces what it needs. Towards the end, I’ll need more hormonal support—they assumed I’d still be there to receive it. Not entirely sure what will happen if I don’t get it—babies are amazingly tough, but this is about the most dangerous pregnancy type there is. Not to mention the most implausible,” he adds, his bruised lips twisting wryly.

  “Why do it? Why risk you if you’re so valuable?” Dek asks, ladling out more stock and offering Ren another roll. Even without the pregnancy, the man’s got a deficit and this is no place for someone so low in body fat. Fortunately, Dek’s stores are healthy—for now, at least.

  “I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” Ren says slowly. “I think...maybe they were running out of time. Being pressured for results. That kind of facility costs a lot of money to run, with all the guards and researchers and supplies. Most of what Jiffir was doing was sadism dressed up as science—probably not interesting or useful to anyone but him, though I suppose he spun some yarn about manipulating paranormals or something. The fertility stuff is more widely applicable, but I guess they weren’t getting anywhere much using our sperm. I think this might have been their last gasp, to come up with something that would really make an impact and justify the cost. I think we were getting close to being expendable—for all I know, we were going to be put down soon anyway.” Dek winces. “If that’s the case, then it was a win-win situation. If we died, they were no worse off. If they succeeded, they could present male pregnancy as a real alternative for infertile or same sex couples. In other circumstances, this might have been something I actually wanted.”

  Hell no, Dek thinks, instantly revolted. He and Lomare had wanted children very much, but no way would he have considered this as an option. But then he is—or was—very fertile, and so was she, so maybe he’d feel different if he was paranormal like Ren or Tik. “I’ve got kids,” he blurts out. “Technically,” he amends at R
en’s puzzled frown. “My wife...donated eggs. I gave...you know. To Tik and his wife. We...uh...were waiting. Until I got promoted. So we...they have twins.”

  Ren smiles sadly. “Yes, I know—Tik sent me pictures of them. I didn’t realise they were yours. That’s nice. A generous thing to do. Tik’s a great Da.”

  Better than I would be, Dek thinks bitterly. “We waited too long.”

  “Still time, Dek. You’re what, forty-five?”

  “Thirty-eight,” Dek corrects him, irrationally stung at being thought to be older. “Too late for me.”

  “Yeah well, I thought that, and look at me,” Ren says dryly, pointing at his gut.

  “Stop...doing that.”

  Ren tilts his head. “You don’t like to be reminded?”

  “No.”

  “All right. I don’t have a lot of choice but to think about it, but I’ll try not to shove it in your face. Speaking of faces...I should maybe put some ice on this.”

  Guilty again, Dek hurries to find some icepacks, and Ren lies down with them on his face. The guy’s lucky Dek didn’t fracture his cheek or his jaw—maybe there was something in the back of Dek’s damaged mind that held him back. He doesn’t know, but he could have easily killed Ren with his bare hands, and didn’t. Come to think of it, Ren has enough training that he could have fought back better than that—but he didn’t. “Why did you let me?” he asks, watching Ren wince and shift under the cold packs.

  “This? You didn’t give me a lot of choice.”

  “You didn’t even try to fight back.”

  Ren shifts one of the packs so he can glare at Dek. “You try imprisonment for four years where every real or imagined infraction means getting hit with an electroreed or worse, and see how much fight’s left in you. You think I’m a coward?”

  Dek doesn’t know what to think. He shakes his head and pushes the pack back onto Ren’s face. “Be back later,” he says, and lets Ren get the rest he needs.

  The harwe pelt needs preparation, and he has other small tasks to attend to—he’s never without something to keep his hands busy up here, when he has to depend on himself. He thinks of Ren’s situation, and can’t imagine much that’d be worse—to know that no matter how brave, resourceful or tough he was, he wouldn’t be able to survive without someone else’s help. Even in the army, Dek was never that badly off, though plenty of times he’d been the last hope of one or more of his men. Dek’s always been determined not to be beholden to anyone. Last time he’d made the mistake of relying on someone else, they’d fucking died on him. After Lomare, he swore he’d never let someone be his anchor point again.

  But Ren doesn’t have that luxury, and doesn’t even have the wherewithal to make a choice about what to do. Except to kill himself, and even in Dek’s darkest hour, he’s never seriously considered that an option. Not because it’s cowardly but because it’s his duty, somehow, to see it through to the bitter end. After Lomare died, he believed that even more. But it’s Ren’s decision ultimately. Dek won’t stop him if that’s his choice.

  Ren’s clothes are dry—thanks to two well-positioned windmills and a solar array further up the hill, heat and electricity are two things Dek’s house has in luxurious abundance, and he could have it a lot harder than he does, living up here—so he collects them and takes them back into Ren’s room. Ren’s pushed all but one of the cold packs off his face—they’re probably pretty unpleasant to a man who’s recently been hypothermic—and is lying on his side, good arm across his belly, staring into space. He doesn’t react when Dek walks in and lays the clothes on the chair. “How are you feeling?” It’s strange to hear the words coming out of his own mouth—he was never good with sick or injured people. Ren would have a much kinder bedside demeanour.

  “Pathetic. Don’t mind me. The hormones screw with my moods. Geya used to joke about what men would be like if they could get pregnant. Guess she got her revenge.”

  There’s nothing Dek can say to that. If Ren’s ex-wife is behind the betrayal, it’s monstrous, but it’s also ancient history. “When do you think you’ll be fit to travel?”

  Ren’s blank expression changes, becomes more animated. “Depends on how I travel and who with.” Dek doesn’t give him a clue and he sighs quietly. “My arm will take at least another three weeks to heal, and be weak for longer than that. But the longer I wait, the larger the foetus gets and the more potential difficulties it can cause. Humans aren’t designed to carry babies attached to their bowels. There’s the risk of foetal death, and that’ll mean I’ll need surgery sooner rather than later. I guess what I’m saying is that if I don’t go soon, I won’t go anywhere. But go where, Dek?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Will you help me?”

  Dek sits on the end of the bed. “The defence post in Osiwen has a decent guy in charge. If we told him what happened to you....”

  “Yeah, right, because I have had so much experience of good faith from the Defence Force.”

  “I’d talk to him.”

  “Dek—please don’t start swinging your fists again, but a stressed out former army officer isn’t exactly the best advocate I could have. I assume you were discharged? You didn’t resign your commission?”

  Dek narrows his eyes, but Ren is being carefully non-judgemental in his expression. “Honourable discharge,” he says. “Pensioned off.”

  “All right, but people can be funny about mental illness and you’re...not exactly....”

  “Sane?” Ren moves back a little, wary of him. “I know I’m crazy.”

  Ren lets out a breathy laugh. “You’re not crazy. You’re...tense.”

  Dek points at Ren’s battered face. “Crazy. Bugfuck crazy. Lock ‘em up and throw away the key crazy. I heard it all. You don’t need to be nice.”

  “Crazy’s not a medical diagnosis, Dek. PTSD’s an illness like any other, and treatable. Didn’t they try?”

  “This is me after they tried.”

  “Ah. But you stopped going to therapy?”

  “Wasn’t doing any good. I don’t like to talk about that stuff.”

  Ren raises an eyebrow. “No, really?” and a reluctant grin creeps across Dek’s face. “The point remains though. You’re not the best witness I could hope for. So no defs, and no military.”

  Dek didn’t really expect him to agree. “Tik would help. He’d do it for you. He’d do it for anyone—him and Janil both. He helped me.”

  “You’re his brother.”

  “You’re his friend.”

  Ren sighs. “I haven’t seen him in over ten years, and he knows I’m a convicted traitor.”

  “Tik doesn’t care about crap like that, and he’ll listen to me, if I explain. Ren, he’s rich, got connections all over. He could do it.” Ren smiles. “What?”

  “You said my name. I wondered if you’d even remembered me telling you.”

  “Fuck off.”

  Ren grins at that briefly, before his expression changes. “I can’t, Dek. He’s got kids. The Darsinis are Pindoni allies. If he got caught helping me, it’d destroy his life. It’s not worth it. Not risking him and his family for me.”

  “Then you need to ask this Wechel hon Gezi for help. He’s Pindoni? Does he live here or the Weadenal?”

  “Not in Pindone,” Ren says, an odd, unreadable expression on his face. “If I could get to the Weadenal, I might have a chance. But I don’t know how I’d do that.” Dek doesn’t answer, so Ren pushes. “Dek—you’re going to have to tell me where I am, if I’m to have any chance of walking out of here.”

  “You don’t have a chance of that anyway—not this time of year. Not in your state.”

  “If you’re not going to help me, and I don’t have any other choice, I’d rather die trying than lie here and wait for this fucking thing to come bursting out through my stomach,” Ren snaps. “I just want to know where the hell I am. Damn it, I’ve been kept in the dark and fed shit for four years. Let me have some control back over my life!”

 
Dek turns on his heel and walks out, goes to his bedroom and fetches what he needs from his desk. He returns to Ren’s room before the other man has even had a chance to stop blinking in surprise, and throws the map down on the bed. “There,” he says, touching the paper carefully, because temper or no temper, maps are valuable. “We’re four hundred pardecs from the Febkeinze border, and twelve hundred from there to the nearest port. You’d never make it on foot before you...pop.”

  “But by pack animal? Or trail veecle?”

  “Roads are pretty bad between here and the border, and there’s a civil war going on over there. Urtibes are the only option, if you’re going in covert. A flyer or airship would work, but I’m fresh out of them.”

  Ren looks up, and through the bruised, puffy flesh, his eyes plead with him. “Dek—you’re my only hope here. Will you let me take one of your animals? I can’t pay, I’ve got no money, but maybe I could send....”

  Dek cuts him off with a gesture. “I need all of them. No.”

  “But...does anyone else have one spare?”

  Lomare’s uncle, Kaisei, runs urtibes, and is where Dek got his animals, but they can’t involve him in this. “No. Can’t ask without causing suspicion.”

  Ren closes his eyes. “Then I’m a dead man,” he murmurs.

  “If you steal one of my animals, I’ll find you and shoot you.”

  “I won’t. I’ve hardly ridden at all. I’d probably fall off a cliff. I give up, Dek. Take it away,” he says tiredly, shoving the map back at him, then rolls over with a pained grunt, dismissing Dek.

  Dek picks up the map and carefully folds it. “The defs are the best option.”

  “I’m sure you believe that. Would you mind going away? I don’t feel so wonderful and I’d rather not burst into girlish tears in front of you.”

  Dek walks out and returns the map to his bedroom. He sits at his desk, trying to see if there’s some way Ren can get out of this mess without Dek having to ruin his own life. But there just isn’t one.

  Ren stays in his room until mid-afternoon, and when he comes out, he’s silent, moving slow like he aches. Dek doesn’t get the impression he’s sulking as such, but it’s no surprise that Dek’s attitude is a blow. He leaves the man alone, except to say, as he collects a few precious and private books from the shelves in the living room and leaving the rest of the collection in plain view, “All yours.” Ren looks up, seems grateful, but the bruising on his face is a reminder of how badly wrong things have gone and can go between them. Dek doesn’t stay to hear his thanks, if he has any to give.