“But you’ve helped so many people since then,” Aerin says. “Doesn’t that count for something?”
“I don’t know. For all I know, he was helping people somewhere, too. I can’t justify what I’ve done.”
“Tell me the rest,” she says, placing her hand on my thigh.
“I think there were two others behind us, but I’m not sure. Maybe there were more. Byron was behind me, screaming at me to run, but when I did, he got hit again. He dropped to the ground but kept yelling at me to run, so I took off. I ran all the way to the wall by the river, scaled it, and dropped into the water. I let the current take me until I saw a cove and swam over to the side. Once I was out of the water, I kept running. I ran until I couldn’t run anymore. When I finally stopped, I threw up. I kept heaving for an hour after my stomach was empty.
“I passed out for a while. When I woke up, I was still in a daze. I kept waiting for them to find me, but they never did. I walked through the woods all the way to the base of the mountains, and then I went up. I stole what I needed from whatever Thaves town I came across and kept going. It took days until I finally reached a settlement filled with Naughts.”
“Plastictown?”
“No, it’s called Hunt Hill. It’s on the other side of the gap, way across the river from Plastictown. I spent a few months there.”
“I know the place,” Aerin says. “They actually do a lot of hunting there.”
“Goat herding, too.”
“Yeah, I saw goats up in the mountains. I think we took a similar path from the capital to here.”
“Did you kill anyone along the way?” My tone sounds harsher than I intend.
“No.” Aerin tilts her head in my direction but doesn’t look at me. “I’m not sure I could.”
“But I can. I can and I have. More times than you know.”
Chapter 17
As I sit on the hard ground, my whole body is tense, and I can barely breathe. I’ve admitted far more than I intended, and now Aerin knows the truth about me. I clench my hands into fists and wait for her reaction.
“Is that what you thought would scare me away?” Aerin asks. “Because you killed someone?”
“He wasn’t the only one.”
“Talen, I just watched you kill two guards. You were defending yourself. You were defending me.”
“Each kill is easier than the last. That’s what that serial killer said. Each one is easier, and eventually you start to like it.”
“Did you enjoy killing those guards?”
“No.” My stomach tightens up, and I have to swallow back bile.
“Then why are you even thinking that way?”
“Because he was right about the first part,” I say. “It is easier. I didn’t even think about it with those guards. The first time, all I could think about was that the guard might have had a family, maybe even kids. I might have just orphaned some kid who would then end up on the outside of the wall because the orphanages have a waitlist.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No, I don’t. That’s kind of the point. I don’t know what kind of impact I had by killing them. Maybe it was even worse than what I can imagine. I’ve seen a lot of horrible shit. At least Mack didn’t have a family.”
“Who’s Mack?”
“The guy I killed right before you found me in the woods. He beat up a friend of mine, so I killed him by the river. It wasn’t self-defense.”
Aerin goes silent for a minute, and I stand up and move away from her, waiting for her to tell me to leave her alone. I can hear the words in my head: “Get out of here! I never want to see you again!”
“Talen, come back here.”
I look back and see her reaching out her hand. I take it and sit back down.