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Amber sat across from William in a white, padded room. Well--his white, padded room. Mark had given her and her mother their own. Graciously.
A poor, crinkled Burger Mart bag lay between them. William set his triple bacon burger next to him. Amber had spent the last few minutes sipping from a cup of lukewarm soda, and so the silence was filled with the obnoxious sound that came when you tried to sip up the dregs.
“So he just… said nothing?” William asked.
Amber stopped sipping, and the silence lay thick between them until she said, “Yeah. He just… flew us over.”
“And he hasn’t visited you?” William asked, picking a limp piece of bacon out from his burger.
“No,” Amber said.
“He’s visited me,” William said dully. “He hasn’t grabbed me again.”
“That’s good,” Amber said.
“Yeah,” William scowled. “So good that my best friend hasn’t tried to strangle me.”
Amber reached for his hand. “I’m sorry, William, I didn’t mean—”
“No, no, it’s okay,” William sighed. He looked at his lap. He said, quietly, “it’s okay. We’re both here.”
William blinked several times, but that didn’t stop his eyes from watering. Amber got up and sat next to him, putting her arm around his shoulder.
“We are,” she nodded. “We’re right here. We’re… here.”
She wanted to say safe, but she wasn’t kidding herself.
Mark still had rescued her. Some group of soldiers had kidnapped her and her parents, for how long she didn’t know. Long enough to lose a few pounds. Food had stopped coming by the time the ceiling shattered and Mark was there. As she nearly choked on the dust, Mark just stood there as soldiers fired at him. After they stopped, and the only sound in the room was a chorus of hollow clicks, he moved, so fast he was a blur. Amber rubbed the dust out of her eyes as the soldiers screamed, and by the time she was done, the whole group was gone. Well, they were… they were still there, technically, but… oh, God, the smell…
He didn’t even look at them as he flew, only at the sunset. There was a moment, when she and her mother hugged each other, that their family was completely saved—until Mark came back carrying her father’s broken body.
“Some of the debris,” he explained tonelessly. “I’ll have them dig him a grave and make a coffin. You can bury him tomorrow.”
His hair was matted with dust. Blood dripped from his hands, and Amber realized that he’d gotten blood on her, too. She trembled as he laid her father on the ground. Soldiers surrounded her and her family, and Mark turned away from her.
“They both need physicals,” he said, “and anything they ask for, give it to them—unless it’s needed for someone essential. Dig a grave, too.”
The soldiers saluted as Amber broke down into tears.
But that was a week ago. They had been given everything they asked for—new clothes, showers, food (although the food only came twice a day). Two days after her rescue, Amber had joined the serving line for the refugees. The smiles that broke the faces of the refugees sometimes made her smile, too.
She was in the middle of serving pea soup to pair of twins, couldn’t’ve been older than eight, when a teenager shoved through the line. She couldn’t have been older than 15, and nearly knocked over the twins before a pair of soldiers tackled her. She tried to say something, but they shot her. Amber had dropped her bowl of soup, and it made a soft, sickly sound as it spilled onto her feet. Amber didn’t notice it. All she could do was stare as they dragged teenager’s body away. She didn’t end up feeding the twins, instead fleeing to the bathroom to vomit.
She would’ve asked Mark about it, how he could ever let that happen, but obviously, he had decided she wasn’t worth his time. William would ask for her the next time Mark visited him, but Mark would only his head.
He would say, “It’s martial law, man, and it’s temporary. My dad and I are onto the Resistance now. We’ll stop them by this weekend and then things can go back to normal. And you can be stupid and cry about it, I don’t really care anymore.”
William would ask him more questions, almost desperately, but the viltrumite stalked out of the room without another word.
“Can you join me on the line?” Amber asked William.
William shifted. “I… I don’t know.”
"My mom and I could really use the company,” Amber said, “and I know what—what happens, but it’s better than nothing. And it’s something to do, that helps people.” She looked down at her lap and added, quietly, “I guess.”
There was a silence, then William said, “Yeah. I’ll ask my mom, but it should be fine. And I’m gonna ask if we can get Clash Crash.”
Amber looked at him. “Seriously?”
“Okay, mostly for me,” William said. “But it would be something else to do while we’re locked up in here. Take our mind off things—maybe.”
Amber found herself comforted by having William next to her on the line, and a few days later, a pair of soldiers came into William’s room and disdainfully delivered a console and TV. That night, they tried to play, but neither could bring themselves to turn anything on, so until lights out, they stared into the black, empty screen.