Chapter 7: Debate

It was safe to say that I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. Not a wink.

Not after Neil had made it a show to drag Audra into a corner, far away from me as humanly possible. Not after the flashlight was turned off and the accusations turned to silence. Not even after Hanz had positioned himself next to me, told me to rest without further explanations.

I mean, not that I was complaining, but how could anyone sleep at this time? At this chaos with no other people to help us? My heart wouldn’t allow it. My legs wouldn’t too. It was far too heavy. And my mind. . . It was bursting with thoughts. What had we been caught into?

But maybe. . . Maybe the others had just surrendered to exhaustion, wanted to shut themselves off for a while. And maybe after some time I did too. Because the tell-tale signs of sunshine from the window was there the next time I opened my eyes, coupled with an argument from two people. Guess who? Neil and Hanz, of course.

“I told you. I told you, we’re leaving.”

“No, you’re not.”

My gaze focused on them. Smacked dab in the middle of the office, Neil was all set to go, while Hanz was by the door to the back— not the one leading to the store, but the other one that would let them escape through the alley.

Neil whirled to Audra, whose back was turned to me. “Say something,” he urged. “Tell him we need to go.”

“Pax!” Hanz looked relieved to see me awake. Pointed to me as if proof. “How can the two of you think of leaving her?” he said. “What awful people are you?”

Neil wasn’t unperturbed. “We’ve had this conversation before, hadn’t we? We leave this place with or without her. How hard is that?”

Hanz was talking to Audra now, completely disregarding Neil. “Please,” he said. “Let’s sort this out for a while. I know you—“

“That’s enough.” Audra had finally spoken. She didn’t turn to me, though, yet I knew that she had one of those firm expressions on her face, something really close to when she’d stood up for me one year ago on the school stage. But this time, her answer was not about me. It was for a selfish reason altogether. “We’re staying here, Neil,” she said. “If not for anyone, then our safety too.”

“What?!”

“We need more time,” Audra said to her best friend. “And didn’t you see what happened last night? After the two of them fell asleep?”

What happened last night? My face was a huge question mark.

Glancing at Hanz, he simply shook his head, then turned to Audra, as if he knew something was up. “I wasn’t asleep yet too,” he admitted. “People were all over the place, searching for us.”

“Not just ordinary people. Men in black.”

At this, Neil ruffled his hair. “So what?” he said. “We just stay here?”

“That, or we get caught the moment we step out of that door,” Audra reasoned. “I think staying here is the only alternative for now.”

“Shit!” Neil turned to me, his expression saying it was all my fault. Again. I didn’t understand where this hostility was coming from though. What did I ever do to him except to tell him back in the school that we should help Audra from the man in the lab coat?

Hanz’s face was slowly displaying a winning smile. “There is strength in numbers,” he said. “Plus, we need to figure out what is going on outside. Only then, and after we’ve got more rest can we decide and get out of here.”

Neil gave a low groan when even Audra beside him nodded. It seemed that he had ran out of options, even with his best friend. “Fine,” he said, all bitter. “But I’m only doing this because of Audra. Remember, female, you owe me one.”

“Thanks.”

Hanz’s shoulders relaxed. “So. . . Can we get some food in here? I’m starving.”

I didn’t know how it ended up this way, but both boys went to the convenience store, leaving Audra and me in the room, Neil issuing some protest until Hanz had dragged him away.

It was suddenly awkward with just the two of us because I wanted to thank Audra again for staying here with me, yet I knew that her reasons were probably just to buy some time. Not entirely for my well-being.

That was why I was so surprised when she actually smiled at me, brightening the gloomy room immediately. “Quite a day, huh?” she whispered.

“Uhm. . .”

Audra’s smile was gone in a flash, replaced by an unreadable expression, as she walked onto the window, parting the blinds with her fingers. I wish I had said something catchier, like any normal girl in the world would. Instead, we were left with an uncomfortable silence. I was failing myself by the second.

“How’s your wound?” she said after a while, peeking out the blinds. “Are the painkillers we gave you still working?”

“Err. . .”

She took a deep breath at my reply. If I were her, I’d be thinking how to leave with Neil by now. To be stuck in any room with me was torture on its own. Yet she didn’t look unfazed when she turned around, was about to say something when Neil and Hanz had made it back to the room, opening the door, their hands overstuffed with canned goods.

It was Hanz who’d made it to my side first, laid down some bandages next to me. “Last in stock,” he murmured. “Mr. Dante, my neighbor, and the owner of this store, didn’t go for another refill before leaving for a vacation. That’s why Audra had to make do with only a gauze while cleaning your wound yesterday, Pax. We need to be more careful with the rest we have.”

I glanced at Audra but already she was helping Neil out. I didn’t have time to ask her yesterday who took care of me while I had been sleeping. But apparently it was her. Everything was owed to her. But not once did I say thank you. What kind of awful human being was I?

Neil diverted the conversation, however, as he brought some of the food to the floor near the place I was sitting on. His eyes flickering to me. “Told you, you’re dead weight,” he said.

Hanz was already moving my head, his hands gently clutched under my chin before I could say anything. “Don’t listen to him,” he whispered. “Eat first, then after this we’ll talk. We’ll sort this whole thing out. I promise.”

Breakfast— or lunch for that matter, was such a sad affair when the people you were with kept giving each other snarky remarks, this time coming from Hanz. He had barely touched his food while the rest of us were eating out of the cans ourselves, but had instead grumbled about killing animals and using their meat for our own selfish gains, which I had to admit, had even surprised me.

“What are you going on for?” Neil said while the four of us were seated on the floor. “Those sausages are good. Why are you sticking to the corns?”

“I’m vegan,” Hanz replied, follow by another grumble. “And you’re a serial animal killer, aren’t you? The prick that you are?”

Despite everything that happened, I couldn’t help but be amused, let alone let out a snicker. But even my leg was against me. Like Neil, it refused to let me be in peace, giving me a doze of ache, equal to being hit by a bullet train.

Audra glanced at me when I whimpered under my breath. “You’re not eating,” she said.

“Y-yes I am.”

But she was already reaching out for something. Meds, as I could see through my half-squinted eyes. She was opening a small packet of them. “I don’t know how many you should drink, or when you should drink it,” she said. “But I think the ones we’d given you are already wearing off.”

Hanz decided to help by giving me a bottle of water, followed by a weak smile.

No, forget that. It wasn’t weak at all. It was guilt.

“I’m sorry,” he trailed as I took a swig of liquid, the water gliding down my parched throat. In front of me, Hanz scratched at his short hair. “I don’t know why my moms would act like that. Like at all. They’re normally very gentle. This—“ A frown etched on his face, making him look older than a high school student. “This is definitely not normal of them. I don’t know why one of them would even get you shot. And you weren’t. . . You weren’t getting it on with my other mom in their bedroom, were you, Pax?”

“No. . .”

“Yeah, I guess.”

And just like that, we were back to the topic that we weren’t even aiming for. Breakfast or not. Pretend bonding or not. But nobody looked hungry anymore. Even Hanz, who’d suggested that we eat in the first place.

Without making a word, the three of them went closer to me, to discuss what this mayhem that was happening.

Neil started the unofficial meeting. “What do we know so far?” he said. “Other than we can’t contact anyone. And there’s no phone in this effing store too. I checked.”

“Men chased us,” Audra said.

“My mothers were acting strange,” Hanz supplied.

“And. . . Those people in lab coats wanted to inject this liquid on us, and they would even try to hurt us to do so.” I muttered under my breath. Normally, I wouldn’t say something out loud like this, but it was needed. If we were to figure this out, I might as well chime in. Our lives were at stake.

Audra’s eyes flickered to me for a second, then went back to Neil. “Blackwell,” she said. “And the government, maybe. Do you think this is like the Middle East?”

“Middle East?” Hanz said, looking like this was the first to hear of this.

“So much for relying on everyone to have seen the news,” Neil remarked. “Weren’t they saying something about Steven Blackwell, the discoverer of the Gay Gene and the proponent of the so-called cure, and how he was in the Middle East, prior to getting back in our country? I heard out there, he was testing the cure on people.”

“By people, you mean?”

“Yes,” Neil replied darkly. “Everyone in the Middle East, according to the news, had apparently agreed to take it.”

“Without so much as a fight,” Audra supplied.

A sharp pain— this time in my stomach, threatened to make me barf out the styrofoam-tasting breakfast I’d eaten just a while ago. Yes, according to the news, people in the Middle East had agreed to the cure. They supported their government’s wishes too.

But here, where we were, people were confident that we wouldn’t have to go through that because we had our laws to protect us. That’s why there were rallies on the streets. It was both a call, and a mourning for everyone who had to undergo the cure, no matter how much they agreed to it.

Hanz, whose face was masked with the fury I felt myself, pounded his fist against his palm. “That’s just weird. My mothers wouldn’t agree to such cures.” His tone was pure conviction. “Olivia and Emily— you hadn’t seen them while I was growing up. They loved each other. I based my whole belief of relationships on theirs, even when I’m not gay myself.”

There was silence in the room. Not from fighting or bickering, but a heartfelt one that everyone understood.

Neil, who took a sharp breath to my right, for once nodded his head. “The one in the Middle East must had been a sham then. I bet the LGBT didn’t agree to be injected with the cure there. There must had been a manhunt.”

“Like the one they’re doing to us,” Audra said. “And the scary thing is the victims were acting normal, like they had decided for it themselves.”

“However they did it, it must be so anyone who would ask would be told that they agreed to it.” Hanz pounded his fist again, disgust on his face. “We must put a stop to this,” he said. “I need to turn this around, or my mom’s will divorce.”

Neil gave a snort. “That’s your problem?” he mocked. “What about us? Me and Audra— we don’t want to turn straight. That’s against our way living, unlike other people here.”

Was he talking about me? But Hanz was already shutting him up. “Shush!” he whispered. “I hear something!”

By something, he meant the footsteps and calls getting closer to our window. People were out there in the middle of the day, making us freeze.

“This area?” someone said.

Audra, face set, immediately stood up. Then crept to the window— I wanted to call her back.

But she was already parting the blinds a little when the call from outside sounded again. “We’d check here the last time, boss. The alley is vacant and the store is closed for vacation. Said so on the sign on the front. Maybe we should look elsewhere.”

“Copy.”

The footsteps from there slowly disappeared. Then vanished entirely. The breath I didn’t know I’d been holding was suddenly released.

“I can’t believe they’re still looking for us here,” Audra whispered, crouched and headed back to us, a steady look on her face.

Hanz shook his head, gave me a meaningful look. “That’s why we need to rest for one more day,” he said. “Just until the smoke clears.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Neil refused, knowing that it was all for me and not for them as Hanz was trying to convince them. “One more day and we’re out. And then we’re going somewhere far, where Audra and I could hide until this subsides.”

“What about us?” Hanz said.

“What about you?” Neil frowned. “Come or don’t come. That’s all on you.”

“But—“

“Any objections?”

Hanz thought about it for a second, then after a while, resigned to his fate. “I might need to go with the two of you,” he said. “Audra, and you, I mean.”

“Why?”

“There must be counter cure, isn’t there? An antidote? Let’s pretend that we’re right and my mom’s were really victims of this Blackwell guy. I need to find out how to undo it. I can’t live with myself knowing what happened to them and not doing anything. That’s injustice. What about you, Pax?”

Me? What about me?

There was something crucial about this conversation that I was forgetting. Aside from the fact that this was happening way too fast and out of my control, shouldn’t we be seeking help from other people too? Preferably our parents? Not Hanz’s, but Audra’s and Neil’s. Especially mine. They didn’t know what was going on.

“I need to go home,” I said. “My parents—“

“It’s too late.”

“Too late for what?” I glared at Neil, who looked like he had set his mind on this. Like he had all but given up on the world, was just resolute to escape. But what about me? My parents were waiting home. My dad, who would always joke that I was too serious. My mom, who cared about nothing else but helping me get out of my shell. And— I shook my head, fiddled with my bracelet. “Wouldn’t your parents get worried?”

“They’re dead,” Neil said, as if it was nothing. “Mine and Audra’s. And if you want to go home, then suit yourself. Nobody’s forcing you to stay with the three of us.”

But. . . But. . .

Hanz looked imploringly at Neil. But once again, the other guy was unwavering, decided on his journey. Standing up, Neil had the last to say. “After we prepare, I’ll go on my way to find a safe place for myself. Audra, I’m assuming you’ll come with me?”

Audra didn’t say anything.

“Good. It’s decided then. We’ll let a couple of hours pass us, so even Leighton can be rested. After that, we’ll go on our own separate ways, or you may come with us, Leighton and Peterson, your choice.”