Page 10 of The Sound of Him

I’ve tried to find comfort in the fact that I truly didn’t have a choice. It's not like I could have ever told them the truth. Kellan would have likely killed them just for having the knowledge. He was a strong believer in sacrificing others in the name of protecting us. In the name of protecting Keaton, most of all.

It’s not like Kellan ever consulted me on the decisions he made, either. I didn't always agree with them, but I wasn't in charge. Even Keaton couldn't always work his magic to change his brother's mind. Keaton might have been the heart behind the organization they built, but Kellan was the one in charge. There’s a clarity his psychopathic tendencies bring to the table. He doesn’t get emotional over things.

Sometimes I get jealous of that certainty. His view of the world must be so simple, like a high-definition black and white image. It’s saved thousands of lives and crumbled regimes and changed the world. There’s a great power to the capability of living without emotions and complications.

Whenever my mind goes in that direction, though, I think of the other side of things. Emotions and complications are what leads to all the colors in the world. The things that became my touchstones.

What must it be like, to not be able to see the beauty of the world? What does that make him?

A monster in the eyes of so many, if they ever knew the truth about him. A monster in the eyes of the operatives and survivors. A monster in the eyes of one of my best friends and his traumatized little brother.

Yet, he’s been my savior in all the ways he could be. He agreed to take me in, his hands gentle and platonic as he washed grime from my skin and tended to my wounds and fed me bowls of broth and oatmeal until my stomach stopped fighting against me. He gave me my very own room - a whole room, just for me, with toys and books and blankets - and when he noticed the way I’d stare at my closet in fear, he had showed up with a drill and removed the door right from its hinges, ensuring I would never be locked inside.

There had been gaps in my emotional care due to Kellan’s psychology, but Keaton stepped right in to fill those. He pulled me out of the deepest darkness every day, standing outside with me on sunny and rainy days alike without a single complaint. He taught me about music, playfully arguing with me about our different tastes the first time he brought me to a record store, but then sound proofing my room so I could listen to whatever I liked anyway. He cuddled me and sang to me and played with me.

I never thought I’d care about anyone the way I cared about Kellan and Keaton. Not until Maison.

There’s an inevitable bond that grows when you work alongside someone doing the kind of things we’ve done. When you stand shoulder to shoulder and face the worst that humanity has to offer. It’s like the bond soldiers find with each other, but twisted and darker, our souls on the line just as much as our lives. Jake and Travis were in the Roarke compound together, but Maison and I were the two on the outside. It was on usto keep each other afloat. To keep each other sane. We became brothers, in our own right.

A story of brothers, in so many ways - that’s what this has become.

It was the day Maison’s little brother was taken, and Kellan decided we couldn’t risk saving him, that I realized what position I had ended up in. I was right in the middle, torn between my loyalty to the brothers who saved and protected me, and the operatives - my brothers, in their own right- who I found all on my own.

I’ve slowly been splitting in two ever since, stuck living with a soul-deep feeling of betrayal in my chest now that I can never give one side all of me. I don't know if that feeling will ever fade.

Just like I don’t know how I’ll keep facing the survivors in this house without drowning in the feeling of loneliness, or how much longer I can fight to keep my mind from wandering into that closet of my past and getting stuck there alongside the little boy I’ve kept there all these years, safe and sound, but never truly free.

Touchstones. I need more touchstones.

I set my keyboard to rainbow backlights and put on my favorite music. I light a small candle that always makes my office smell like vanilla cupcakes. I take out a bag of my favorite candy - licorice.

I make sure the little boy still locked inside my mind can’t be swallowed up by the darkness, surrounding him with all the light I can.

Then I drown myself in work until the house goes quiet.

Once my cameras show most of the house’s occupants are tucked away in their rooms, I make myself leave my little haven of an office. I need to stretch and piss and eat something. I should check on the team and with the docs. Maybe I’ll even get a few minutes of fresh air outside. Only after I finally do the few tasks I’ve been putting off, though - the ones that required me to leave my office to complete.

Jake came by earlier to grab go-bags for some of the survivors who wanted to leave as soon as possible, the contents depending on if they chose to take a new identity or return to their old one. There are two survivors who were waiting until morning to leave, though, so I had extra time to put them together. I grab their bags and sling both over one shoulder. Then I grab the larger tote bag I filled a few days ago and the two miniature ones beside it.

I hesitate, then grab the pack of cigarettes I bought on a whim the other night too. Not that I’ll smoke them. I don’t even like them. The only reason I started was because Keaton did it and I thought it made me cool like him if I did it too.

A little bit of nicotine tonight wouldn’t hurt, though, and I’ve always liked that slight burn on the inhale.

Everything goes fine at first. I leave the go-bags and miniature totes outside of the corresponding doors for the survivors to find in the morning, the house quiet in a surprisingly comfortable way as I make my way around.

Then I go to put the last tote down, the big tote, and the door opens before I’ve even managed to place it on the floor.

The man who peeks at me through the half-open doorway is Matt, a survivor whose file created by Travis is nearly as sparse as the one I managed to put together myself. Whoever originally trafficked him let most of the details fall through cracks, and what remained might not even be accurate.

I’ll never tell poor Travis this, but it’s rare that a file is completely accurate when it comes across my desk. Even the ones I create are often marred with gaps and best guesses. Sometimes, Travis was able to see these for himself. There are plenty of files with extra notes added, sometimes just updates, but sometimes corrections. Bryce Jacobson’s is one of the most changed. He was sold off as a blonde haired, blue-eyed, white boy. The All-American image always gets more at an auction. It wasn’t until he’d been owned for a while, long enough for his hair to grow out and his colored contacts to go bad, that the reality of his appearance came to light.

Yet, for every mistake or gap Travis or I were able to address, there’s another we had no way of correcting.

Matt’s file, regardless of how hard I’ve looked, is one of those files. It’s one of the emptiest when it comes to background information, but the most frustrating thing for me is how empty the section of the file that covers his time at Travis’s compound is. Matt is the owner of one of the biggest mysteries out of the entire collection of files. The honor comes from the second pageof his file, where there’s only a small, vague paragraph trying its best to be an incident report.

There was a birthday celebration this past spring for one of the men in Travis’s inner circle - Mica. Calling Mica a monster would be too kind. Even Keaton had admitted that the man was one of the worst he’d ever come across in all of his years working ops. Keeping him around and alive was unavoidable for a number of reasons over the years, but Travis had hoped that his stricter rules when compared to others like him would keep Mica’s damage to a minimum. It worked, if one looks at the big picture.

Those rules didn’t save Matt, though. Not really. Not enough.