Chapter 24: Bray's Story
A/N: Lex never saw Taisan after defeating Ram. She was never a Techno.
There was nothing either Trudy or Amber could say. They stared at Bray, speechless with shock. "Don't get your hopes up," Bray said in a deadened tone. "Taisan is dead." Trudy gasped, her hands flying to her face as she began to sob. Amber stared at Bray, her face pale. "H . . . How?" she stammered, a tear rolling down her cheek. Bray leaned back in his chair, holding Skye to him tightly. "Shall I start from the beginning, or do you just want to know how she died?" he asked, glaring at Amber. Trudy's eyes emerged from behind her hands. "I want to know what happened to all of the Mallrats," she said, trying to stifle her sobs. Bray took a deep breath and nodded. "Maybe then Amber would understand why bringing . . ." He sighed.
"I don't remember much about how I ended up in a truck," Bray began. "I see men in black clothes and silver masks coming at me, and then I woke up in pain. I could barely move. The girl whose lap I was lying in told me I had been beaten up by the Technos. I passed out again, because when I woke up, I was in some sort of camp. I was lying in the dirt. There were about twenty other kids there at first, in a holding area surrounded by an eight foot chain link fence that had been reinforced with barbed wire. Technos were bringing in more and more kids every hour. I was there for three days before I was able to walk. Two days later, I was chained to ten others and we were put in a plane.
"We were on the plane for about two or three hours. When we got off . . ." Bray broke off, his face turning red with rage. "When we got off," he began again, "the Technos pulled the two female prisoners out of the chains and threw them on the ground. They raped them, right there in front of us." His jaw tightened. "We tried to help them, but we were forced to our knees and beaten." "Was Taisan . . . one of the girls?" Trudy ventured to ask. Bray shook his head. "No." He stared down at Skye for a few moments before continuing. "The eleven of us were taken into a compound. The girls were taken away, while the rest of us were placed in a holding cell. I am not sure how long we were there. There were no windows or lights. The room was small, dark, and damp. There were fourteen others in the room, many with bloody and festering wounds.
"Our only food was some sort of gruel, which we got once a day, if at all. The Technos placed a bucket filled with the gruel into the room and we were forced to eat with our hands. Many times, fights broke out over how much each of us got." Bray looked up at the ceiling as he remembered what had happened to him. "Our toilet was a ditch we had dug into the floor. I wasn't surprised when all of us got sick. We had diarrhea and vomited constantly. That only made us worse, since we could not wash ourselves or get rid of the waste and it accumulated. After a while, the waste covered the entire floor. Six of the men in the room died over time. Their bodies were not . . . were not immediately removed. It seemed like an eternity before the Technos took us out of that room.
"I was taken to a truck and thrown in. There were at least twenty others packed in, all unwashed and ill. I was so happy to find out that Taisan was there. She was as smelly and sick as I was, but I swear to God, I have never been so happy to see someone in my life. All we could do was huddle next to each other, we were too sick to talk. The Technos stopped at a river and allowed us all to wash, it wasn't until we did that Taisan and I were able to talk to each other. She and Alice had been taken on their way back to the mall. The Technos had surrounded them and tied them up before throwing them into a truck. They hadn't been subjected to a small cell, but had been in a holding camp the whole time. It was there they were separated. Alice was taken away after only two days. Taisan was there for three weeks.
"Taisan told me she was pregnant with Lex's baby when we were in the truck again. She said she hadn't yet told Lex, and was planning on telling him the day she was taken. It . . . it helped my own pain of losing you and the baby, Amber, to talk to her about her own loss. It was the first time I have ever seen Taisan cry. She considered aborting the baby so it would not be born a slave." Bray stared hard at Amber. "The Technos would not allow her to find the herbs she would need for the abortion. Instead, they raped her. Repeatedly. One Techno in particular, the head general of the compound we had been taken to, raped her daily until he was sent to another compound. Taisan never complained or cried once. Not once. The only thing she ever said about what was happening was that everything happens for a reason.
"At the compound, we were forced to work. We dug holes to bury the kids in who died from malnutrition or sickness or who were murdered by the Technos. We built new holding cells and repaired parts of the compound. When we weren't doing that, the Technos used us in their experiments." Bray grew silent and stared down at his hands. "What experiments?" Amber asked. "I don't want to talk about that," Bray answered, his eyes taking on an almost maniacal gleam. Trudy and Amber exchanged horrified glances. They both knew that of all the things that had happened to Bray, the experiments had to be the worst. If he could talk about all the other atrocities that had been committed, but not the experiments, they had to be worse than hell. Bray waited for several minutes to compose himself before beginning again.
"The Technos also thought it would be amusing to make us fight each other. Every night, two kids were chosen to fight for entertainment purposes. They had to fight to the death. And the winner would have to bury the loser. Another of their entertainments was to force some of the boys to rape the girls the Technos deemed too ugly to rape themselves. This went on for months. Thankfully, once Taisan began to show her pregnancy, the Technos lost interest in raping her. They didn't make others rape her, either. She still had to work as hard as the rest of us, though. I tried to do more of the work so she could rest, but the Technos would beat me if I did. I didn't care, but Taisan insisted on working so I would escape punishment."
"Did you ever see anyone we know?" Trudy asked. Bray nodded. "I saw KC. We never got to talk as he was only there for a day before he was transferred." Bray cleared his throat. "When Taisan was eight months pregnant, she got very sick. She was unable to work, so the Technos decided to give her to the slave traders. She begged them to let her stay with me. They ignored her and she was sold anyway. I felt like I was responsible for her. So . . . I faked sickness. I pretended to be almost dead. The Technos did exactly what I wanted them to. They had the others take me out to the site where we buried the dead and gave orders to bury me alive. Thankfully, the other prisoners didn't bury me too deeply. I think they knew what I was trying to do."
"You were buried alive?" Amber asked, horrified. Bray shrugged. "It was the only way I could get out. Anyway, I followed the trail of the slavers. It wasn't long before they caught me. My luck seemed to be changing because I was placed in the same cage as Taisan. I was there for one night when the delegation came from Genesis." His eyes took on a relieved look. "Alistair, the leader of the delegation, saw Taisan lying on the floor of that cage, with me holding her hand, and told the slavers he wanted to buy us. At first, I was afraid he would be as terrible as the Technos. You would never imagine my surprise when Alistair told me his Queen bought slaves to free them. He asked if I wanted to be let go there or if I wanted to be taken to Genesis. I insisted on being allowed to leave then, but Alistair told me there were healers on Genesis. For Taisan's sake, I came here to Genesis.
"The healers could do nothing for her. She was too sick. Taisan surprised all of us when she survived Skye's birth." Bray looked down at the child in his arms. "She asked me to care for Skye as if she were my very own. I promised her I would." His voice cracked with emotion. "She died two days before you landed." Trudy broke into fresh sobs as she got up to embrace Bray and the baby. She picked Taisan's daughter up gently in her arms and rocked the baby back and forth. "Poor little girl," she whispered. "Will you tell Lex?" Bray gave her a shocked look. "Of course I will," he told her. "I was . . . just waiting for the right time. I couldn't face everyone yet." His gaze landed on Amber. "Where is Taisan buried?" Trudy asked. "Out back," Bray said. "I buried her myself."