together money to buy spray to make our blankets in the car more fire-resistant. And Dad saying, in his Dad way, “At least we won’t have to learn how to start a campfire by hand!”
“Did your brother have a temper?” he asks. “Sorry, I mean, does he have a temper? Does he feel at odds with himself?”
“He might now,” I say, “I’m not sure. We didn’t have that much time together after he went through the change. But no…he really didn’t have a temper. He’s—he was a big softie. I think he was scared of what he could do, though, just a little bit. Was your brother like that?”
“I think he pretty much hated himself,” Liam says, voice flat. “He hid it in plain sight and used it to his advantage when he had to, but I’m still not really sure he was ready to admit he was one of us. I guess I shouldn’t expect all of the Reds to be the same. Lord knows I’m not like every other Blue on the planet. But I do think there’s another layer that comes with being Red—being Orange, too.”
“Like the fear that you’re not just wrong, but you’re extra wrong?”
He nods. “Which isn’t true, but it doesn’t invalidate the way they feel.”
I wonder if Lucas thought—thinks—about himself like that?
“Well, if you’re wrong, then I’m wrong, too. I’ve never admitted this, but…sometimes I blame Lucas for not fighting harder. When I’m really angry about it, I even wish he had killed the PSFs that took us.”
It feels weirdly good to admit this to someone, like draining an infected wound.
“That’s nothing to be ashamed of,” he says.
“It is if you know Lucas,” I explain. “He’s not a fighter or a killer. He doesn’t have it in his heart. I’m mad at my parents, too. I’m mad they made us leave this house. Sometimes I’m even mad that I survived. Do you ever feel that way?”
“I used to,” Liam says slowly. “At the beginning. Before I was ever in a camp, I was living rough outside—cold, miserable, alone. But you have to weigh that against what you’ve done with your time, and and what you can do now. Make it count.”
“What if you have no idea what you’re supposed to do?” I ask. “I want to be useful, I don’t want to sit around and wait for things to change. I’m not exactly great at surviving out here, or fighting, but I want to help other kids.”
“Well, let’s think about this, because there are ways to help beyond what you’re saying. And I think the time for fighting—the kind of fighting we were doing, at least—is over for now, and we need to get creative in the way we go after what we want,” he says. “Is there something you really love? Something that speaks to you?”
Were we really allowed to think about this now? “I like…stories. Words.”
“Well, good news, buddy, there are plenty of us terrible at those exact things.” Liam lets out a faint laugh. “And if there’s one thing these months have taught me, it’s how crucial it is to be able to tell our story in our own words, and not let anyone else warp the truth around us. You definitely have a skill for drawing it out of people. Look at how much I’ve managed to unload on you already—sorry about that, by the way.”
It startles me how much I love this idea—how it does feel like striking back against a world that’s quickly trying to erase the evidence of what we’ve been through.
“Are you serious? Do you think kids would want to tell me their stories, and I could help them record it in some way?”
“Definitely,” Liam says. “Sometimes people need help putting what they’ve been through into words. They can’t articulate how they feel.”
I feel so bright hearing this, like a star has just formed in the center of my ribs and is blasting out for all the world to see; this small idea spirals into a thousand little ones about how I could make this work. My monster will eat the pain of others. It will devour their hurt as it pours out of them.
“Thank you for trying to help my brother,” I say. “I’m really sorry about what happened to Cole….I can’t…” I don’t finish my thought, because I can imagine how it would feel to lose Lucas. I am right on the edge of that gulf of pain.