"Jason…Jason!" Riley waved her hand in front of Jason's face. He started, sitting bolt upright on the cafeteria table bench. The babble of dinnertime conversation around him came rushing back into his ears, leaving them waterlogged for a few seconds.
"What? What is it?" Jason asked, his eyes darting to his friends' faces around him. Hidden worry was present in their sympathetic eyes, like they were concerned for him, but had given up trying to bring it up. As Jason's initial panic fizzled out, he rubbed a hand down his face, covering his mouth as he gave a wide yawn.
"Are you ever gonna tell us what's wrong?" His friend Xavier drew his carrot-orange eyebrows together.
Jason cocked his head at him, taking a moment to process the question. Xavier's eyes rested on his forehead and he self-consciously touched the healing bruises on his temple, masking the movement by pushing his bangs back. "Nothing's wrong, I'm just a little tired," Jason said, giving another yawn.
"A little? You've been sleeping through history every day this week. You never explained those bruises on your face, either," Riley reminded him, and Xavier frowned and nodded in agreement. His other friend Chloe sighed and shook her head at him, her straw-blonde ponytail swishing with the movement.
Jason bit his lip, casting his gaze downward at the watery mashed potatoes and wrinkled green beans that constituted his dinner. A faint, sweet odor, the same that came from moldy bread, wafted up with the steam, like the food had been in the fridge a couple days too long.
Jason hadn't slept a wink in the week since his encounter with the Cobra in the church, and his paranoia had been through the roof ever since. He half-expected something to jump out from the shadows and strangle him when he walked home after school. On top of that, his father was still laying low because the Cobras were still stringing up smugglers, and it was too dangerous to poke his head out. That meant staying at school later to eat dinner, which meant walking home when it was darker.
Jason felt someone shake his shoulder, and he picked his head up, meeting Chloe's anxious eyes on his right. "Not to mention you're zoning out every two minutes. Can't you tell us what's going on?" Chloe pleaded, and Jason felt a twinge of guilt for making her worry.
It's safer if you don't know, Jason wanted to say to her, but he couldn't. The less they knew, the less danger they would be in.
Jason shook his head, and Chloe's frown deepened. She gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze, and then hesitated before removing her hand, like she felt something she shouldn't have under his skin. Jason wouldn't lie if he said he didn't notice his shoulder blades stuck out a little more when he looked at himself in the mirror. Though the food at school was all he had, the anxiety and stress tying reef knots his gut left little room for anything else.
Jason caught Riley's eye from across the table, and his shoulders hunched in response to her intense expression. He shifted uncomfortably under her gaze, feeling more guilt bubble up in his stomach. She was using her favourite tactic to make him crack and confess again, boring holes into him with her eyes until he caved. So far it hadn't worked, but he didn't know how much more of it he could take. Jason focused on his food again, but every time he glanced up Riley was still staring at him, silently trying to get him to spill his secrets.
After dinner Jason, Chloe, and Riley headed to Chloe's dorm room so Jason could pick up his things. Jason trailed a few steps behind his friends, who were covertly whispering to each other. The exhaustion fogging his brain made him incapable of processing his own thoughts, let alone other people's words, and he didn't bother fighting it. Instead he focused his attention on the light drizzle of rain against the bay windows on his right.
Once in Chloe's room, Jason gathered his military uniform where he hung it in her closet to dry off the rain after morning drills, stuffing it in his backpack. He hadn't been so scatterbrained this morning as to forget a change of clothes, but he had forgotten his textbooks for history and math. The rain slapped against the window in sheets now, the dark, angry clouds above like giant bombers releasing their arsenal of wet bullets. A dull, ashen light pervaded the room, dappling the floor, the walls, and the furniture with fifty shades of gray.
As Jason stuffed the textbooks he didn't forget into his backpack, he picked his head up as Riley materialized in Chloe's doorway, silent like the silvery mist hovering above the wet asphalt of the streets below. Her shoulder-length dark blonde hair could pass for brunet in the minimal light, but her hazel eyes seemed brighter, as though embers simmered behind them.
"Hey, Riley," Chloe chirped happily, but Jason detected a hint of false enthusiasm in her voice. Riley didn't return the smile as she riveted her gaze on Jason, her glare the same one she used in the cafeteria. Chloe's grin faltered as Riley crossed her arms, the air between her and Jason becoming fraught with something that made Chloe shrink back.
"We need to talk," Riley finally said, her voice quiet, but with a razor-sharp edge.
Jason's eyes flicked to Chloe for help, but she avoided his gaze, pink tinging her cheeks. She wrapped her arms around her torso, as if trying to make herself look smaller. She reeked of guilt, and it left a foul taste in Jason's mouth.
So this is what they were whispering about, Jason mentally growled. "You asked her to lecture me again, didn't you?" he snapped at Chloe, the question more an accusation. Chloe flinched, minutely nodding.
If there was one thing that was fiercer about Riley than her glares, it was her lectures. They were more like interrogations, and Jason had borne the brunt of most of them during the past week. It was more an ordeal now than a help.
Jason shot Chloe a look of utmost betrayal as he followed Riley to her room next door, shutting the door behind him. Riley drifted over to the window, resting her elbows on the sill as she let out a long breath, fogging the glass as she watched the rivulets of rain race each other down its grimy surface. The usual calm before the storm. Jason watched her warily as he sat on her vacant bed, waiting for her to start snapping at him. For a moment, the only sound in the entire world seemed to be the splash of the rain on the window.
Riley pinched the bridge of her ski slope nose, letting out a soft sigh, and turned away from the window to face Jason. The air around Riley seemed to electrify, like before a lightning bolt hit. Jason felt tension creeping up his shoulders, an automatic response to the onslaught he knew was coming.
"What's going on, Jason?" Riley asked quietly, her voice tired, a record player with its stylus about to crack. Jason sat still, momentarily surprised at the absence of anger in her voice. He hated not being able to tell his friends about his problems, but it was for their own safety. And his, if they ever blabbed to his parents and unleashed their wrath, especially his mother's. He shivered at the prospect.
The tension in Jason's shoulders steadily ebbed, now that he realized Riley wouldn't blow up in his face. He sensed a different undercurrent to her demeanor now; instead of worry and anger bubbling under the surface, all he could detect was exhaustion and sadness.
"I've told you a million times, nothing is wrong," Jason grumbled, tired of sounding like an overused record player, too.
Riley bristled, and he sensed another lecture about to burst from her mouth. "That's bull, and you know it! Normal people can keep themselves awake during the day. You can't! Normal people don't constantly jump at the tiniest sound, like they're waiting for something to attack them. Normal people don't—" she ranted, but suddenly Jason was on his feet, crossing the room in a single, long stride.
"Maybe I'm not normal? Did that ever cross your mind?" Jason snarled at her. He towered over Riley as all his frustration, stress, and anxiety roiled within him like the clouds in the sky. The turbulent emotions clenched his stomach to the point where he felt nauseous, the sour bitterness on his tongue like milk left out of the fridge for too long.
"I'm fed up with you, Chloe, and everyone else constantly asking after me, day in and day out! I can't even think because someone's always asking me what's wrong! Why can't you and everyone else just leave me the fuck alone?" Jason scathingly yelled at her, advancing on her. With every step he took, Riley stepped back. Fury licked at his insides, and he couldn't control his shaking hands.
Jason heard Riley give a small gasp as her back brushed the wall. He only had enough time to register her eyes go wide with fear before her fist connected with his jaw, sending him reeling into the desk. Jason's midsection hit the wooden edge first before the rest of him collapsed on its wide surface, leaving him gasping for air himself. Winded, he rubbed his aching jaw as he used the desk chair for support, sucking in air and coughing it out.
"Sorry…I-I'm sorry…" Riley shook like a leaf in the wind, massaging her bruised knuckles. "I—I thought you were my drunk dad there for a second…"
Jason coughed, getting his breathing under control. The shock of the impact snapped him back to reality. He mentally kicked himself. Riley had enough on her plate with her dad's drunken rages, she didn't need him taking his anxiety out on her, too. "No…I'm the one who should be sorry. You don't need to deal with my shit, too," he croaked, easing himself away from the chair. Pain shot down his torso as he straightened, and he suppressed a wince.
"If I didn't help you deal with your shit, what kind of a friend would I be?" Riley planted a hand on her hip.
Jason suddenly let out an unpermitted chuckle, and Riley looked at him like he had insulted her. "What's so funny?" she asked, her regular attitude colouring her tone again.
"I'm not laughing at you, it's just…damn, you punch hard!" Jason smirked as he guided Riley over to the bed, slinging an arm around her narrow shoulders as she tried to hide a giggle.
"You know my dad's a brawler down at the fighting pits." Riley nonchalantly lifted a shoulder as they sat side-by-side on the mattress. Jason nodded; it was the only notable thing about Mr. Marshall besides his drinking. He never understood how Riley's father could afford all his booze, unless he cheated or bribed his way to winning.
A quiet settled between them, but this time it was different than their other companionable silences. This one was fraught with an unfamiliar tension, one that made Jason's muscles taught and his throat inexplicably dry. He cleared his throat, resting his elbows against the inside of his knees. The urge to tell Riley what was going on weighed like a slab of concrete on his shoulders, and his lungs ached as if he was being pressed into the pavement again. The drumming of the rain filled the silence, impatient fingers tapping the window pane, and his newest bruise throbbed in time with his quick heartbeat.
"My parents can't afford to put food on the table. My dad's out of work and my mom doesn't earn enough ration cards for all three of us," Jason suddenly confessed, breaking the too-long silence between them. As he sighed his shoulders slumped, finally relieved of their heavy burden.
"Jason…" Riley placed a comforting hand on his back, "why didn't you tell anyone? Is that why you're staying later at school?"
The edge of Jason's lips twitched upward in a half-hearted smile. "Yeah, that and I absolutely love poring over my math textbook," he drawled, running a hand through his hair. "Anyway, it doesn't matter. I can't stomach the food here without throwing it up later," he dropped his hand, voice fading to a mumble.
"Yes, it does matter," Riley protested. "Everyone's noticing how pale you look. I mean, I know you're skinny, but now you're really starting to look like a twig," she giggled as Jason playfully ribbed her.
He rolled his eyes, "Thanks, Riley."
Riley flashed him a small smile, but it quickly faded. "That doesn't explain your sleep deprivation, though," she pointed out.
Jason chewed his lip, hunching his shoulders as he studied his bitten-down nails. He kept silent, even with Riley adopting her signature piercing gaze again. On top of his semi-starvation, he had gone out on runs for gangs every night that past week. It seemed news of Picasso's fate had spread quickly through Newport's underground, and the gangs relied on messengers as their primary form of communication. Jason hadn't run into the blond-haired Cobra again, but that never stopped him from glancing twice over his shoulder and avoiding shadowy alleys when he could.
"I can't," Jason finally answered, after lots of fidgeting and avoiding Riley's eyes.
"You…can't? Why not?" Riley tilted her head, more concerned than intimidating now.
Jason shook his head, only inciting further concern and confusion from his friend. "I just…can't tell you, okay?" he gave her a pleading look, begging her not to ask any more questions.
Riley's hand fell away from his back, and the temporary cold spot it left behind made him wonder just how long she had kept it there. Riley slowly nodded, drawing her eyebrows together as she replied in a soft, sombre voice, "Okay."
Jason gave her a tired smile, rising to his feet as he shuffled back to Chloe's room to finish packing his things.
(Line Break)
The rain splattered against Jason's skin and stung his eyes as he kept to the shadows of doorways and alleys, zipping his thin, navy windbreaker higher up his neck. The rain mercilessly chilled him to the bone, sapping away what little strength he reserved for nightly runs. Jason thanked his bosses for giving him a relatively easier job tonight: a pick-up at an old salon on Varick and Wayne, and then lobbing whatever it was over the fence for the waiting costumer on the other side of Christopher Columbus. His bosses never told him what he would be picking up, not that he cared.
Jason kept shooting glances over his shoulder, the sopping wet hair on the back of his neck pricking at the tinny ringing of water pouring off the various levels of the corroded fire escapes and eavestroughs of Varick Street's apartment buildings. Hunger gnawed at his empty stomach, heightening his alertness all the more. He had gotten used to the feeling of tasting nothing but his own saliva on his tongue for hours on end.
Jason whipped around at the sound of something soft scraping asphalt, like the boot of someone breaking into a run. He froze, listening, but he didn't hear the noise again. Not wanting to hang around and find out if it belonged to friend or foe, Jason hastily resumed his half-jog towards his destination.
Avoiding a soldier's scope light by hunkering down in the shadow of someone's porch steps, Jason heard the scraping sound again, along with a familiar soprano voice's exclamation of "Ow!"
Jason turned, making out a figure attempting to free their jacket from where it was caught on a twisted piece of someone's wrought iron porch railing. "Riley?" Jason asked in disbelief, squinting to make out her face in the sheeting rain and darkness.
"Give me a hand, will you?" Riley urgently whispered back, eyeing the soldier's wandering scope light from the rooftop across the street.
"What the hell are you doing out here?" Jason hissed, jerking Riley's gray raincoat free.
Riley pushed away the wet, dirty blonde strands of hair pasted to her face, flashing him a bright smile as they ducked out of sight of the white beam of death again. "I figured if you couldn't tell me what you were up to, you might as well show me," she whispered proudly, like tailing Jason in the middle of the night was some sort of achievement.
Well, maybe it was, if she managed to dodge soldiers and still follow him without his knowing.
"Riley, go back to the dorm. Now," Jason ordered, pointedly tipping his head in the direction of the school.
"Not until you tell me what you're up to," Riley returned stubbornly.
Jason pinched the bridge of his nose, resisting the urge to snap at her. I don't have time for this, he groaned. He met Riley's expectant eyes, which reflected the soldier's sweeping scope beam. They seemed to shimmer like amber gems in the dark, almost hypnotizing, and Jason found himself staring a moment too long.
Collecting himself, Jason exhaled heavily, a deep frown etching itself into his face. He couldn't hide anything from her now, not when she had followed him this far, not when her eyes studied the bulge of the packet hidden inside his coat. "Fine, I'm a gang messenger," Jason snapped. "There. Happy? Can you go home now?"
Riley's lips parted, about to reply, but she jerked around at the sudden sound of the fire escape across the street clanging as something large and heavy hit it. A second later, there was a splash and a dull thud, like a sack of sand toppling from the fire escape and smacking into the muddy pond formed by what looked like a former garden.
Only, Jason didn't remember sand bags ever possessing the ability to moan in pain.
The scope light snapped in the direction of the noise, rippling across the fire escape as its owner shouted in an authoritative baritone, "Who's there? By order of the Newport QZ military, show yourself!"
Whoever had fallen from the fire escape remained silent.
A crack ripped across the sky, interrupting the steady drum of the rain as the soldier fired a warning shot, making Jason and Riley jump. Sparks flew up from the fire escape with a sharp ping, but the bullet glanced harmlessly off and careened somewhere into the darkness. Jason and Riley retreated as far as humanly possible into the shadows of the porch steps, praying the rain and darkness would hide them.
Jason held his breath, his eyes riveted on the soldier, his muscles tensed in preparation to flee at any moment. Riley was pressed between him and the side of the porch, shivering with fear or cold or both. There wasn't a hair's breadth of space between them. Despite the tension and cold seizing every inch of Jason's body, Riley's warm breath on his neck made the hairs on his neck stand, as though they yearned to feel more than just her warm exhales.
The scope light winked out suddenly, evidently the soldier had flicked it off, and a second later, the groan and whine of metal echoed across the silent street as if the soldier were climbing down a metal ladder. The white beam reappeared a couple minutes later on ground level as the officer fixed his rifle on the alley again, disappearing between the two brick apartment buildings. The two-beat sloshing of mud and water came from the alley, and then the soldier's footsteps ceased.
"Well, well," Jason and Riley heard the soldier announce smugly, "looks like a fearsome Cobra came out of his pit!"
Judging from his tone, Jason presumed this particular Cobra wasn't very fearsome at all.
A sharp yelp of pain sounded from the alley as Jason heard the tell-tale thud of the butt of a rifle connecting with someone's ribs. "C'mon, Cobra, ain't you gonna slit my throat? Ain't you gonna run me through with that fancy sword, you pathetic piece of shit?" the soldier taunted, and Jason winced as the same gut-wrenching crack of rifle stock against bone echoed through the alley. It came again and again and again, sometimes a sharp crack, sometimes a dull thud, always answered by the anguished cries of the soldier's victim. Jason felt bile rise in his throat when the awful noises didn't stop for what felt like hours, and Riley covered her ears to keep the Cobra's excruciating, tortured cries of pain out.
After a few unbearable minutes the cries of agony from the Cobra faded to weak moans, then to whimpers begging for mercy, and then finally to silence. All the while the soldier hurled scathing slur after slur in tandem with his relentless strikes.
Finally the sounds of the beatings stopped, and the only thing Jason and Riley could hear was the soldier's laboured pants and the slosh of his boots in the mud. He reappeared a moment later, strutting through the muddy, empty flower bed that bordered the alley, chest proudly puffed out like a drenched, filthy, blood-splattered rooster. Jason let out the breath he had been holding once the soldier's scope light faded into nothing more than a dot of light far down the street.
"Oh my God…" Riley breathed, and she glanced at Jason with the same shock he was sure was written all over his face. She stood, hesitantly stepping towards the alley where the soldier had bludgeoned the Cobra, curious but cautious. Jason sharply tugged on her sleeve, silently urging her to keep moving towards their destination with a pointed glance down the dark street.
Riley bit her lip, torn between following Jason and her curiosity. "He might not be dead. We could help him," she said in an uncertain voice, like she wasn't quite sure why those words had come out of her mouth. Nobody in their right mind went anywhere near a Cobra, much less wanted to help one.
"Riley, are you insane?" Jason's eyes widened, incredulous. "He's a Cobra!" he hissed, as if that singular name settled the matter. "We gotta get moving before more of them show up and gut us, come on."
Riley stood where she was, gazing at the alley with conflicted eyes.
"This isn't time to play humanitarian, Riley, it's not—"
A weak wheeze and a string of coughs from the alley interrupted Jason. Riley wrenched her wrist out of his grip, darting into the muddy, dark backyard before he could stop her.