Page 65 of Darkness I Become
His smile turned into more of a grimace. “Murder.”
“Did you do it?” Asha knew that people sometimes were blamed for crimes in the compound for reasons other than their guilt. Anyone who asked too many questions had a habit of being charged with crimes or simply disappearing without explanation.
“Yep,” Cade replied, with a glibness that she didn’t buy for a second. “Murdered my old man in cold blood.”
She frowned. “Why?”
He looked away, uncomfortable for the first time. “He killed my mother.”
Asha stayed silent, watching him and offering him the same quiet witness to his pain he’d given to her.
Cade swallowed hard, then continued: “He was always a dickhead, even when I was a kid. Liked to smack her around. He was a soldier too, in the Old World and at the Delta…and he didn’t keep his shit together very well.”
“Did he hit you?” Asha asked.
“Not often,” Cade answered, with a shake of his head. “Mom always protected me, and he was a coward. As soon as I was big enough to hit back, he rarely wanted anything to do with me anymore. But he started treating her even worse when I got drafted and left home.”
He paused again, letting out a breath filled with tension. Asha found herself holding him tighter, stroking his chest in soothing circles.
“Anyway, I was trying to get her out,” Cade said after a moment. “Trying to get her to report him. But she wouldn’t. She really lovedthat asshole, God only knows why. Had every excuse in the book for him.”
“How did you find out what he did?”
“Went over to their house before my patrol shift. I always said bye to my mom before I went, because you never know. I get there, he’s standing over her in the kitchen, and she’s bleeding out on the floor with her head busted open.”
Asha winced. “Oh my God.”
Cade ground his teeth. “Myfather—” he spit the word out like it was poison, “claimed that she fell and hit her head on the counter.”
“But he pushed her?”
He shook his head in disgust. “No. He always thought I was an idiot, see—that’s why he lied. But even an idiot can see blood on a heavy marble rolling pin and put two and two together.”
Asha grimaced. “He got what he deserved, then.”
“I’d say so,” Cade said with a mirthless smile. “Beat him to death with his own weapon. Never lost my temper quite like that before…or since. But then I had a problem, obviously.”
“So, how did you get out?” she asked, intrigued. She didn’t know how one would escape a functioning compound; they were heavily fortified. If the Cave hadn’t been destroyed, she’d never have been able to leave, even if she wanted to.
“Figured that it’d take at least a day for them to even notice my parents were missing, and that gave me time to plan. Told Leo and Dom what happened, and that I planned to desert. I gave them the option to stay home, but they didn’t. Like I told you, there’d been an uprising recently, and they had their own reasons to leave…plus they’re just the best fucking friends a guy could ask for.”
Asha couldn’t help smiling a little at his tone.
“When we went on patrol the next day, we all deserted together.”
“And then you went to Ashburn?”
“Not right away. Our main concern initially was getting out of range of our tracking beacons.”
Asha frowned. “Tracking beacons?”
“Oh, right,” Cade said, as though remembering something important. “I guess you wouldn’t know, as a civilian. Your implant—and mine—has a tracking beacon on it. Allows them to track you up to 300 kilometres from the compound. All soldiers carry a PID—that’sa Personal Identification Device—that we use to sign in and off shift. Among other things, it also allowed us to track people. Didn’t happen often, but sometimes people would try to escape, so…”
“Wait,what?” She asked in alarm.
“Yeah. They billed the tracking as a safety feature, because it also enabled protection from the guns on top of the Walls. If the AI can track you, it can identify you, so the guns won’t accidentally fire on soldiers and other personnel. But realistically…it was surveillance, like most of what they did.”
Asha tried to swallow her panic. “If they can track me, I’m not safe here. The compound isn’t that far away.”
