“I didn’t want any.” And even if he did, he wouldn’t have made any. The other fighters kept their distance from Sparks. They didn’t like the fact he always won his fights. They were jealous, or afraid. Or both.
Sparks drank. The alcohol burnt his throat. He drank some more.
Tan smiled. “Well, you and I are drinking together, and, in my opinion, that makes us friends.” He raised his glass to Sparks, who begrudgingly clinked his own against it. “To teammates and friends.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I have some advice for you.”
Of course. Another person trying to tell me what to do. “What is it?”
“I want you to trust Roman. He’s a complicated person, and in the future he may make choices that you… won’t like. But I want you to believe that he has the best intentions at heart.”
“Trust him?” Sparks laughed. “He wouldn’t trust me even if I was giving him the cure to cancer.”
“I know. That’s why you need to be the better man.”
“And what do I gain from this?”
“Eventually, he’ll trust you back. Then you’ll have gained a friend. Simple.”
“And Roman’s friendship is really so important?” Sparks asked doubtfully.
“It is to me.”
“Are you sure that he’s even your friend? To me, it looks like the only person he gives a damn about is Ruby.”
“Of course he’s my friend.”
“But how do you know?”
Tan paused before replying, leaning back in his chair and looking up at the ceiling while he considered his words. “There are two types of people in this world. There are people who tell you they’ll always be there, but, if you ever actually need them, they’ll abandon you without a second thought.” He drunk a gulp of rum. “But then there are people like Roman. He would risk his life to save mine. He’ll never say that, of course, because for him it goes without saying.”
“He’ll risk his life for you, maybe. But never for me. He hates me.”
“He’s afraid of you — there’s a difference. But if you give him time, and keep proving yourself dependable, you’ll gain his trust. That’s all I’m asking.”
Sparks shook his head. “I’m not like you, Tan. I don’t want to be friends with anyone. I don’t need to be. I’m the best fighter in this city; all I want is to prove that.”
“You’re just as stubborn as he is.”
“I’m nothing like him.”
“If you believe that, then you’re lying to yourself. Just like he does. Which kinda proves my point.” Tan stood. “Now let’s get out of here before the owner comes home and starts asking awkward questions.”
Sparks followed him outside. “Awkward questions like: ‘who are you and why are you in my house?’”
“People are always so damn curious about such unimportant things.” Tan had taken the bottle of rum with him. He slipped it into his jacket. “Just remember what I said, okay? Whatever happens, Roman’s doing what he thinks is best.”
“Sure. Whatever.” Sparks didn’t care what Roman thought was best. All he cared was that Roman gave him his own needle. As long as he did that, there would be no problem.
“We’ve got a problem,” Caleb said.
Roman nodded. “We’ve got a dozen problems. You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“Sparks.”
Of course. That’s the only problem Caleb seems to care about anymore.
Caleb stood at one end of the dining room, leaning against the counter, his arms folded and expression sober. Roman sat on the other side. He grabbed a cloth and began to dismantle and clean his pistol – anything to keep his hands and mind distracted.
“I’m not comfortable with lying to the boy,” Caleb said.
“For a mercenary, you have a strange moral compass.”
Caleb shrugged. “Morals have nothing to do with it. It’s about respect. And Sparks deserves more then you’re giving him.”
“I don’t have to respect him; I have to do what best for everybody.” Roman removed the cylinder from his pistol, emptied the bullets into his palm, and wiped each one carefully. “And what’s best for everyone — Sparks included — is for us to capture Spencer, force him to complete his serum, and use it to cure Sparks of his… condition.”
“I’m not sure that’s what Sparks wants.”
“Does everybody get what they want?”
“No,” Caleb conceded. “But listen to me, Roman, because here’s how it is: I respect you, so I’m going to obey your orders. But I need you to respect me enough to share your reasons with me.”
“My reasons? Isn’t it obvious — I don’t trust a kid like Sparks not to kill us all.”
“You don’t trust him because he’s an Adrenalite. I want to know why you hate them so much.”
Roman looked down at his pistol, wishing there was more to clean. “You must have heard my story,” he said quietly.
“Not from you.”
Roman sighed. If this was what it took to keep Caleb’s loyalty, then there was no way around it. It was probably for the best — Ruby and Tan both knew everything about him, and Caleb was on the same team. He deserved to know. “My father was a butcher. My mother was a weaver. They were good people, as far as people go. Which, of course, isn’t saying much.” He paused. “This pistol was my fathers, and he loved it. He used to joke about how it was his second child.”
“What happened to them?”
“One day, when I was twelve, the three of us were in the wrong place at the wrong time. A rogue Adrenalite had just escaped and was making a break for the outskirts. We just happened to be in his path; that was enough of a reason for my parents to die, apparently. It all happened so quickly. I had never seen an activated Adrenalite before that day. Then, suddenly, I was watching one tear my father in half.”
“I’m sorry, Roman.” It was hard for a voice as low and gravely as Calebs to sound sympathetic. Somehow he managed it.
“For some reason, the monster left me alive. Maybe he didn’t want to kill a kid? I don’t know,” Roman said. “I didn’t even have to think about what to do next, though. I took my father’s gun and followed the Adrenalite. He wasn’t hard to track — I just had to follow the screams of the injured he left behind. And, in the end, I killed him.”
Caleb’s eyes narrowed. “You killed an Adrenalite when you were twelve years old?”
“It isn’t hard to kill a man when his back is turned. Especially when you have a gun. With a pistol, anyone can be a killer.” Roman went quiet for a moment as he remembered that scene. “Killing him didn’t make me feel any better, but it felt like I was doing the right thing.”
“What happened next?”
“Well, I was an orphan, so I lived on the streets. I stole food. And clothes. My only real possession was this gun, so I kept it well hidden. Eventually, I got caught: a young couple discovered me in their house, stealing their blankets.”
“Unlucky.”
“Actually, extremely lucky,” Roman said. “They must have felt sorry for me, because they took me and raised me alongside their own two kids: Ruby and Stevens. After that my life was relatively normal. My foster parents died when I was eighteen. Cancer, of course. After they passed, I wanted to join the Security Ministry and become a militia, like Ruby. I still remembered the feeling of justice I had when I killed that Adrenalite, and I wanted more of it. But Stevens convinced me to join the Ministry of Sciences. He said I should look to the future, not revenge. And I believed him.”
“He sounds like a good man.”
“He was. But he was also wrong. There is no future without revenge. Justice has to be served before we can move on,” Roman said firmly. “I learned that the day I saw Stevens’ corpse. Just like my parents, he just happened to be at the wrong place, at the wrong time.”