Don't Be Afraid

[Natalie Grey]

Trust.

He'd trusted his brother until the hammer had come down, and even then he'd still taken the kitchen knife to school. That was fear, though, fear that still ached dull and insistent beneath the bandages. Natalie said to trust the legionnaires, but Ekene was sceptical. The man who's name sounded like Jack had been kind, and Ekene wanted to be safe, but men could say kind things then do the opposite. They could make promises, then smash your hand to pieces when you were too afraid to do what they asked. Men hated. It's what they did. Things wouldn't change if they didn't. Jack didn't hate. Didn't seem to. But he also talked about things Ekene didn't fully understand.

What Ekene did know is that he missed his family, missed them in a desperate keening way because he knew things wouldn't go back to the way they were. Natalie said the school was safe. She didn't say about his brother, and Ekene didn't ask, but he wished he'd asked about his mother. Probably she didn't know. The Temne had lost. Ekene wasn't hopeful, and if he thought about it for too long tears pricked his eyes and he didn't want to cry where people could see. They would laugh, which would be bad, but worse would be if they asked questions. The legionnaires hated him for hurting the man with the sunglasses. What would they do if they knew he had killed his own best friend?

Jack seemed to want him to be strong, that's what it had sounded like anyway. A man. And men didn't cry. If he was caught, what then? It didn't bear thinking about, and he was afraid of the consequences. Natalie had promised she'd let nothing bad happen to him, but she was still just a woman. So no tears where others could see. That was his first rule, often at the forefront of thought, but it was difficult not to grieve. Difficult not to be scared. It hollowed out his face, sucked the vitality from it. Ekene barely spoke, but he did as he was told. The menial didn't bother him. It was better than letters and book-learning.

They'd given him clean clothes, and he was glad to be free of the blood-stained ones, even if it didn't do much to dull the memories. He fetched, he carried; he helped in every way he was asked, and didn't complain about the pain in his hand even when it really hurt. But he didn't smile. Picked it up quick, though, and for most of the day had been fine. They kept an eye on him, he was aware of that, but they didn't treat him like a criminal.

Only then, for no reason, it hit him all over again. He needed a moment, only one, away from Natalie and the limping legionnaire, away from Jack and that important look, away from all the people who were kind only he wasn't sure if it was real. Things were never going to be the same again, and it was finally finally sinking in, and the tears were welling up in his eyes, which made him all the more afraid of being seen. Fearful of the consequences, and just as worried about stepping out of line, he slipped through a door, down some stairs into a basement.

Ekene scraped his sleeve over his face, and felt a little better for the momentary solitude. Until he realised there was someone else down here, his legs began to buckle and he tried to scramble back up the stairs.