Chapter 17

I remembered the day when love departed from my wife's eyes. Glistening in tears, scowling into the man she swore her life too. The man she now saw betwixt the bars of a holding cell. Abridged to a caged animal, shackled to a bench, sitting on the cold winter ground. Husband accused of murdering eight little girls, including our daughter Halo.

Main eyewitness was none other than Darius. He captured me in the very handcuffs I trained him to use, whispering 'wrong side of the moon' into my ear. I'd been on the run for over a week, and I had Halo with me. Missing posters laid atop wanted posters. Sick love stories created through the media to amplify the manhunt. My poor wife. The medication didn't help, remember I told you she had the shakes? Well, it came from post-adoption depression. Seriously fucks up the mind, overwhelmed by unrealistic expectations. Looking into the eyes of a stranger's child who can't even say 'expectation.'

I wasn't any help, I take the blame for adding on to her problems. I fanned the flames under the false notion that it would add more passion in the bedroom. We became rocky, she started to sound like Jasmine. Facing the inevitable demise of what we built, right before I went on the run. I should warn you, I won't stay on this flashback long. My heart won't let me.

They allowed her just over ten minutes to visit, she remained silent for nine. An aroma of sage and honeysuckle lifted from her skin. Foreign to my nostrils. Either she was trying to clear out evil spirits or had a date scheduled after. It takes great effort to remove her name from my mind. Reduce her down to a role, my wife. Comprehending the loss of the only thing that's ever gone right in your life can be fatal. Her name will devour what little emotional sanity I have left.

She had auburn hair, chopped on the sides near the jaw-line, oval brown eyes, and sand-colored skin. Full lips, perfectly arched eyebrows, the curvature of her frame complimented best in the hue of jade. Let her tell it, she'd say aquamarine, though there's not much of a difference. A runt from a broken home who'd eventually lead the pack. Many sleepless nights she confessed her greatest fear was giving up on herself. Obsessed with lovemaking during rainstorms, and an affinity for Alestrandra music. An oddball truly, the baby girl who inhabited the mind of a woman by ten years old. My tiny genius, the nickname I forced upon her that she hated since its inception. How typical of all geniuses to be riddled with doubt and let the dominos fall square on stupid questions.

"I wasn't going to come at first. The pills...I flushed them, mother was there. We talked...well, she talked me out of it. I even prayed, as usual, God didn't talk back. I dreamt, suffered nightmares, the burning question putting stones in my heart. Tell me, Lex...did you do it? Did you...kill Halo?"

"According to them, she was one of eight," my reply was preplanned and broken, absent of empathy. This is what became of us.

"Y...you know how alone I am now? Do you? Truly?"

"You believe them?" anger strangled my sentence, I nearly choked on it.

"I saw the tape," she whispered.

"Then why even ask me! Sounds like you made up your fucking mind already. I'm being framed. You know what I look like."

"The whole world saw the tape. No one believes you're innocent. And...I don't know. I just want you to say it. I need to hear it. You...we had our problems, but...I didn't think you could do something...like this. Maybe those rose-colored glasses finally shattered. The war, the job. The way you clench your fist at me. You might just be this monster, this...serial killer. But...Halo."

"I loved her."

"YOU DON'T GET TO SAY THAT! SHE'S DEAD! OUR LITTLE GIRL!"

Fury from a scorned woman, amplified by betrayal, loss of a child. Compounded with the inability to bear one of her own. Needless to say, it was as if Saturn shook off its axis. The ground itself split open and swallowed me whole.

"Tell me the truth, Lex. For once."

"Won't change a thing. You only believe what your eyes see. I'm telling you clear cut, they're framing me, and all you care about is some doctored evidence. I'm dying in here!"

"I'm going to testify...against you. Tell them about the time you put your hands on me."

"You're too smart to believe this. Maybe you should go back on your meds. Listen to what I'm saying...they are setting me up. It's bigger than me than us," I responded, ignoring my own sins.

"I'm going to make sure they kill you."

Small bits of snow gathered into a breeze and snuck through the bars of my jail window. The fur wrapped on her body didn't send me clues of the season. Thin fabric covered the broken man I'm ashamed to say was me. And at the peak of February, I couldn't feel anything at all. Flames roared in her eyes, till tears turned them to steam, and out of that fog she disappeared. In the wake of her departure came Darius, my archenemy. His new tanager-colored enforcer uniform zipped to the top, cutting the skin under his chin. He got a promotion. Looking back on it, he was like a younger Grey Mason. Ballbuster extraordinaire.

"If you confess they'll spare your life."

"If they let me out, I won't spare yours."

"The eyes don't lie, Lex. Just like in the jungles of Xav. I know what you're capable of."

"You see what you want to see. I already told you. In secrecy, I might add."

"Not just me, me and twelve other jurors. Including your wife. I was there. You murdered that little girl."

"I told you, and you used it against me. And for what? A fucking promotion?"

"What you 'confessed' was a delusion created in your twisted head to justify your actions. I won't let you poison my judgment."

"It's the truth!"

"Let it go, Lex! There's no such thing as clones. And to suggest that the High Priestess...I'm gonna let you rot here just a little longer till your head screws on straight. Ever since the military, you always talked big, but deep down, you got a small soul."

The jarring sound of a heavy steel door was closing, covering me in darkness. Alone. My only light was the daytime snow drifting into my cell. A whirlwind of snowflakes, representing every year I'll spend incarcerated, or one for every lie I've ever told. 'You got a small soul' I repeated to myself. Darius had used that sentence before, not clever enough to come up with new insults. He said it the morning I killed my first person. Ironically, it was a little girl, no older than eight. But I swear on everything I love, I'm innocent.

We'd just completed basic training for the 110th Lunar Battalion, stationed at Phoenix Base. Our first mission in combat had been planned for months, and finally, they were ready to put boots on the ground. He outscored me in nearly everything except personality. Darius came from a perfect home, with perfect parents in District 2. His father actually admitted when he cheated, and his mother actually took him back.

Sexual freedom is the norm in District 2, brothels on every corner. Bright neon lights were hanging over shanties, blinking the word "Warm Open Bodies" nonstop. His hometown wasn't coined 'Funhouse Amsterdam' for no reason. Black Sword got his start there. Rumor on the base was that Darius' father was cheating with a man. Not just any man, but a sergeant once stationed at Phoenix Base, goes by the name Cotter Pery. Some believe that's how Darius ended up in the military in the first place. Repression and unchecked pompousness transformed Darius into a 'whip-your-own-back-for-sick-thoughts' person. Unable to have fun, allergic to liberty.

Inside the battleship, flying towards our destination in the West Ring, we were strapped to the sides in perfect formation. Fully uniformed, alloy hover boots strapped to our feet. Special camouflaged battle armor pockets galore for grenades, and a VR battle helmet adorned on my person. The visor was clear, waiting till radar activation was needed. Twenty of us, grunts, stuffed like cogs in a machine. Yearning for the taste of death, duty, and war.

Unfortunately, my stomach was doing backflips due to the heavy drinking I endured last night. Jasmine and I argued, then drank, argued some more naked, and nonetheless, I'm tired now. With the longest stick of pretentiousness up his ass, Darius decided to drop gems in my ear.