We Aimless Few by Robert J. Crane

Author:Robert J. Crane [Crane, Robert J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781790260669
Google: E6x_wQEACAAJ
Amazon: B07KQLT23G
Publisher: Ostiagard Press
Published: 2018-11-19T00:00:00+00:00

17

If I’d come face to face with my parents like this any time between January, when I ran away, and August, when I finally returned home, I cannot imagine the picture my face would’ve been. Utter horror, probably, followed very quickly by me bolting as fast as I could. In this situation, it probably would’ve meant lurching ahead into the queue, shoving Seekers aside, passing the service station with nary a look at the weary clerk inside, and then madly following someone through their Entanglement-granted access point.

But it had been hardly more than six or seven hours since I last saw my parents. Standing before them like this wasn’t the gravest shock I could’ve experienced.

Still, my eyebrows drew in. “How did you find …?”

“Never mind that,” Mum cried. “What in the world are you thinking? Running off like that!”

“Err,” said Heidi, looking both guilty and incredibly uncomfortable. “Borrick, do you want to help me with this food?”

“Absolutely,” he said, voice dripping relief. “Excuse me.” And he slipped out of the queue, angled sideways to bypass my flustered, fuming parents. He did a very good job of not looking at my mother. Smart man: never again would they engage in any conversation resembling polite (or rather simpering), at least not with him.

My mother did not spare him a glance. Borrick would draw her ire later, I guessed, him and Heidi. Well, good luck to the both of them enduring that laser fire.

They hurried away together, Heidi sparing me one last look that bordered on frightened before she disappeared.

“Don’t be too long,” I called after her. “Can’t hold your spot forever.”

Then I had no choice but to look back into the eyes of my parents, eyes that were filled with a disappointment like I had never known.

No, that wasn’t right. I’d seen them more disappointed than this, once—when I came home, and they heard it from me, the news that had already come to them—that Manny had indeed …

Died. Admit it, Mira. Stop tiptoeing around it.

Your brother is dead.

Mum wore disappointment in the way I’d known it much of my childhood: marred with a great anger, as if she could not only be let down alone but was also annoyed that someone had dared to make her feel that way. I’d hated it all my childhood, and faced with it once again, I still felt exactly the same.

Dad, on the other hand, looked somewhat like the version of him I’d spoken to in his study this morning. He had a weary look, more lines in his forehead and radiating away from his eyes than I realized were there to cast their damning shadows. He watched me, mouth hung open, a forlorn look of betrayal in his eyes.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. Unlike Mum, he wasn’t shouting—which had the wondrous effect of drawing every eye right to me, even those belonging to Seekers who didn’t know a celebrity stood within their midst. Instead, he sounded tired—tired and broken.

“I’m helping my …” Friends? Not the right word.

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