Chapter 17

Can you hear the prayer of the children,
On bended knee, in the shadow of an unknown room?
Empty eyes with no more tears to cry,
Turning heavenward, toward the light.

- Kurt Bestor

00000

This time the guards were none too gentle as they dragged Dylan back to the cell. The door opened, and he was shoved in so roughly he landed on his knees. The door clanged shut before he could regain his footing.

"Dylan?" a very hesitant voice asked as soon as the door was shut.

Instantly, Dylan searched the dim room for Harper. To his surprise, he wasn't lying on the floor where he'd left him but had somehow managed to get himself to a corner and was sitting up, his back against one wall and his head resting sideways against the other. The engineer's feet were stretched out in front of him, and his battered hands rested limply in his lap, the pointless chains dull against his pale skin.

The sound of Dylan's less than graceful entry had drawn his attention, and he raised his head, his eyes open wide and his face showing a rare moment of fear and vulnerability.

"Yes, I'm back, Harper," Dylan said, scooting over to sit by his friend, concerned by his voice and apparent confusion.

"Did he hurt you?" Harper asked, his voice still very weak.

Dylan smiled sadly at the question, feeling a bit guilty. Every time Harper had been dragged away from this cell to "talk" with Felix he'd come back in agony, and yet Dylan returned after several hours without even a scratch.

"No, he didn't hurt me."

"Good," Harper said, and Dylan knew he meant it. The engineer shifted a little to try and find a position that hurt less than the rest, but it was a futile effort. Dylan watched him with worry, noting the pale, sweaty skin and still rather vacant eyes. Not caring what Harper thought, the captain reached forward and felt his forehead once again.

"Harper, your fever is still rising," Dylan said, alarmed.

Harper twisted his head away from Dylan's hand. "Yeah, so?"

"How did you get over here?" he asked. As he spoke, he glanced up and down the young man and noticed that the strips of grey T-shirt he'd carefully wrapped around the boy's feet were now soaked through with fresh blood.

"Harper!" he cried, gently touching one poor foot. "What have you been doing?"

"Walking," Harper snapped lightly. The captain's touch had startled him, and he'd tried to yank his foot away, forgetting the shackles until they jerked him painfully to a stop.

"You shouldn't have done that, Harper! You need to rest. You aggravated your cuts and probably kicked your temperature up a few degrees," Dylan scolded.

"And you're not my mother, Dylan. Look, I have no delusions that Felix is gonna let me sit in here and slowly recuperate. You saved me last time and I'm really grateful, but we both know it won't work again. I'm a freakin' slave, remember? Sooner, not later, someone will come back and drag me off again, and they aren't gonna care if I'm not feeling tip-top. I decided to exercise what little freewill I still have and try it out first, while it was still my idea and not an order from my master."

As much as he hated it, Dylan could understand Harper's reasoning, but that didn't mean he was going to tell the kid that.

"But you still need to rest."

"Boss, I'm being sent to the mines on Rellim! I don't think they're gonna wait for me to feel up to working!"

"We're being sent to the mines, Harper," Dylan told him, trying to give him a little comfort.

"Huh, what?"

"I'm going with you," Dylan said. "I pulled every trick I could think of but Felix wouldn't let us go. The only option I had left was to convince him to let me go with you. I'm a slave now, too. But at least I can help you, and once we're off this ship and actually on the ground, we'll find a way out of this mess."

Dylan expected Harper to be surprised and maybe a little stunned. Instead, Harper exploded with anger.

"You did what!" he snarled. "You're a freakin' idiot!"

"Harper…" Dylan started, but the young man didn't let him continue.

"You could have gotten yourself out of here, gone back to Andromeda, told the others where we are! But no, you had to play the hero and sell yourself into slavery! Dylan, the mines of Rellim are a death sentence! And now I not only have myself to worry about, but you, too!"

"Hey, I think I can take care of myself," Dylan bristled. "Besides, the alternative was rotting in an Uber prison where I wouldn't have done anyone any good."

Harper ignored the last part of Dylan's speech completely. "You don't know one freakin' thing about being a slave!" he spat.

Dylan was shocked by the depth of Harper's anger and worried about the toll it was taking on his already depleted stamina. Harper's skin was covered completely in a fine sheen of sweat, and he was shaking slightly as he fought to control his emotions, and yet, even as he cussed Dylan up and down, the boy's eyes never met his own. That was really starting to bother Dylan.

"You're gonna get yourself killed down there! And I'm in no condition to help you! Tell me, exactly what part of the High Guard anatomy is used for thinking?" Harper continued, but his voice was rapidly losing strength, and his breathing was labored.

"Harper, calm down!" Dylan told him firmly. "You're right, I don't know anything about being a slave. It's not exactly something I've ever aspired to. But I do know that you willingly put yourself in this position to help me; it's simply my turn to repay that favor, a favor I should never have asked of you in the first place. So we're gonna stick together and help each other through this, okay? Don't worry, we'll find a way out somehow. Escape and stow away on a ship or something…"

Harper sighed. "Boss, you don't escape from Rellim! Why do you think it's the most feared place to begin with? People who get sent there never come back. Besides, most ships don't even go there."

"We'll find a way, Harper, because I refuse to give up, and I intend to make sure you don't either."

Harper was too tired to argue anymore. "Boss, I'm not giving up. I'm just trying to adjust to my new situation and not get my hopes up too high, because it honestly wouldn't take much more for me to just forget to keep breathing."

Dylan didn't know what to say to that so he didn't speak at all. After a moment, Harper continued.

"Being a slave means surviving one day at a time, Dylan. One lousy, miserable, pain-filled day at a time. And yeah, you never give up hope that one day you might be free, but if you spend too much time thinking about that you can't survive the reality of your crappy day-to-day life, and you die and get thrown aside like a piece of trash before you even get a chance to act on your dreams."

"We're not gonna die, Harper. I promise you that! We're gonna get out of this and get back to Andromeda. I don't know how or when yet, but we are going to do it!"

"Don't make promises you can't keep, Dylan. Besides, some of us don't have a whole lot to go back to on Andromeda anymore…" Harper muttered, his head falling back against the wall and his eyes sliding closed. In the dim light, Dylan almost missed the single tear that leaked out and rolled down the boy's cheek, getting lost in the short beard that now covered his chin. There was just something about that single tear, and the way Harper had said those words, and all the times in the past two days when Harper hadn't…

"Harper, what's wrong with your eyes?" Dylan asked suddenly, a horrible thought striking him.

The engineer winced but otherwise didn't move or speak, and his eyes remained shut.

"Harper! What's wrong? What did they do to your eyes?"

"Nothing, Boss," Harper finally spoke, trying to sound like his old self. "They're just a little dry and tired is all. Nothing to worry about; I'm good."

The more he denied it, the more Dylan knew there was something terribly wrong. In the two days since Harper had been brought back to this cell more dead than alive, his eyes had yet to track Dylan's movements, and the captain was now sure it wasn't because of his high fever. He scooted closer to the boy, wishing he could lay a reassuring hand on his friend but not sure where to touch him that wouldn't cause him even more pain.

"Don't lie to me, Harper," he said in his best captain's voice. "Something's wrong, now tell me what it is. Did he hit you too many times near your eyes? Are things blurry and hard to see?"

"Things are not blurry…" Harper said quietly, his voice catching slightly and his eyes opening.

"Well, what is it then?" Dylan asked gently. On a sudden impulse, he waved his hand in front of Harper's face and sucked in a shocked breath when Harper didn't even notice. "You can't see at all, can you?" he whispered, his own voice almost breaking as he said the words.

"No, I can't see at all!" Harper blurted. "I'm freakin' blind! My kind and gracious master fried my eyes out with a couple of lasers! It's not blurry, it's not hard to see, it's freakin' pitch black, okay! That answer your questions, Boss? You happy now?"

Harper's yells dissolved into an anguished sob, and more tears streamed down his face. The anger and stubbornness that had been holding him together for the last week washed away now that Dylan knew, and he crumbled.

"I'm blind, Boss!" he sobbed like a child, unable to take it anymore. "I'm no good for anything other than a slave now. The Uber broke my hands and my eyes, the two things I need most! Why Boss? Why did he have to do that? It's not fair. What did I ever do to the universe to deserve this?"

Harper didn't know it but he had managed to stare right at Dylan as he asked those gut-wrenching questions, his clear blue, now-empty eyes tearing at Dylan's soul. Dylan thought of how much those eyes were used for, how much they said about the person behind them, and his heart broke as he realized how unfair it was that he could still see them but Harper couldn't see out of them. Dylan was almost grateful Harper couldn't see the tears that were now leaking down his own cheeks in sympathy for his friend's pain and loss. He moved over to sit right next to the young man.

"Oh, Harper, I'm so sorry." The words were lame, but they were all he had. As Harper tried to stifle his sobs, Dylan felt completely and utterly helpless. Touch and sound were the only connections Harper had now and because of an Uber with a penchant for pain, he couldn't even give his friend a hug for support and comfort without hurting him.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked after a moment as Harper's cries diminished to hiccupping gasps for air.

Harper didn't answer.

"Harper?" he said gently.

"I didn't want you to know…" Harper whispered. The answer made no sense, but Dylan let it go. He had more important things to think about right now.

Harper was blind, crippled, and a slave.

And he couldn't do anything about it.