Champion

As we sit together in the office, waiting for paperwork, I watch Eden busily folding pieces of paper together into some kind of elaborate design. He has to hunch close to the papers to see what he’s doing, his broken eyes almost crossed with concentration, his fingers nimble and deliberate. I swear, this kid’s always making something or other.

“What is it?” I ask him after a while.

He’s concentrating too hard to answer me right away. Finally, when he tucks one last paper triangle into the design, he holds it up and gives me that cheeky grin. “Here,” he says, pointing to what looks like a paper leaf sticking out of the ball of paper. “Pull this.”

I do as he says. To my amazement, the design transforms into an elaborate 3-D paper rose. I smile back at him in my dream. “Pretty impressive.”

Eden takes his paper design back.

In that instant, an alarm blares throughout the hospital. Eden drops the paper flower and jumps to his feet. His blind eyes are wide open in terror. I glance to the hospital’s windows, where doctors and nurses have gathered. Out along the horizon of San Francisco, a row of Colonies airships sail closer and closer to us. The city below them burns from a dozen fires.

The alarm deafens me. I grab Eden’s hand and rush us out of the room. “We have to get out of here,” I shout. When he stumbles, unable to see where we’re going, I hoist him onto my back. People rush all around us.

I reach the stairwell—and there, a line of Republic soldiers stops us. One of them pulls Eden off my back. He screams, kicking out at people he can’t see. I struggle to free myself from the soldiers, but their grip is ironclad, and my limbs feel like they’re sinking into deep mud. We need him, some unrecognizable voice whispers into my ear. He can save us all.

I scream out loud, but no one can hear me. Off in the distance, the Colonies airships aim at the hospital. Glass shatters all around us. I feel the heat of fire. On the floor lies Eden’s paper flower, its edges crisping from flames. I can no longer see my brother.

He’s gone. He’s dead.

* * *

A pounding headache pulls me from my sleep. The soldiers vanish—the alarm silences—the chaos of the hospital disappears into the dark blue hue of our bedroom. I try to take a deep breath and look around for Eden, but the headache stabs into the back of my skull like an ice pick, and I bolt upright with a gasp of pain. Now I remember where I really am. I’m in a temporary apartment back in Denver, the morning after seeing June. On the bedroom dresser sits my usual transmission box, the station still tuned to one of the airwaves I thought the Patriots might’ve been using.

“Daniel?” In the bed next to mine, Eden stirs. Relief hits me, even in the midst of my agony. Just a nightmare. Like always. Just a nightmare. “Are you okay?” It takes me a second to realize that dawn hasn’t quite arrived—the room still looks dark, and all I can see is my brother’s silhouette against the bluish black of the night.

I don’t answer right away. Instead, I swing my legs over the side of the bed to face him and clutch my head in both hands. Another jolt of pain hits the base of my brain. “Get my medicine,” I mutter to Eden.

“Should I get Lucy?”

“No. Don’t wake her,” I reply. Lucy’s already had two sleepless nights because of me. “Medicine.”

The pain makes me ruder than usual, but Eden jumps out of bed before I can apologize. He immediately starts fumbling for the bottle of green pills that always sits on the dresser between our beds. He grabs it and holds out the bottle in my general direction.

“Thanks.” I take it from him, pour three pills into my palm with a shaking hand, and try to swallow them. Throat’s too dry. I push myself up from the bed and stagger toward the kitchen. Behind me, Eden utters another “Are you sure you’re okay?” but the pain in my head is so strong that I can hardly hear him. I can hardly even see.

I reach the kitchen sink and turn the faucet on, cup some water into my hands, and drink it down with the medicine. Then I slide down to the floor in the darkness, resting my back against the cold metal of the refrigerator door.

It’s okay, I console myself. My headaches had worsened over the past year, but the doctors assured me that these attacks should last no longer than a half hour each time. Of course, they also told me that if any of them felt unusually severe, I should be rushed to the emergency room right away. So every time I get one, I wonder if I’m experiencing a typical day—or the last day of my life.

A few minutes later, Eden stumbles into the kitchen with his walking meter on, the device beeping whenever he gets too close to a wall. “Maybe we should ask Lucy to call the doctors,” he whispers.

I don’t know why, but the sight of Eden feeling his way through the kitchen sends me into a fit of low, uncontrollable laughter. “Man, look at us,” I reply. My laughter turns into coughs. “What a team, yeah?”

Eden finds me by placing a tentative hand on my head. He sits beside me with his legs crossed and gives me a wry grin. “Hey—with your metal leg and half a brain, and my four leftover senses, we almost make a whole person.”

I laugh harder, but it makes the pain of my headache that much worse. “When did you turn so sarcastic, little boy?” I give him an affectionate shove.

We stay hunched in silence for the next hour as the headache goes on and on. I’m now writhing in pain. Sweat soaks my white collar shirt and tears streak my face. Eden sits next to me and grips my hand in his small ones. “Try not to think about it,” he urges under his breath, squinting at me with his pale purple eyes. He pushes his black-rimmed glasses farther up his nose. Bits and pieces of my nightmare come back to me, images of his hand getting yanked out of mine. Sounds of his screams. I squeeze his hand so tightly that he winces. “Don’t forget to breathe. The doctor always says taking deep breaths is supposed to help, right? Breathe in, breathe out.”

I close my eyes and try to follow my little brother’s commands, but it’s hard to hear him at all through the pounding of my headache. The pain is excruciating, all-consuming, a white-hot knife stabbing repeatedly into the back of my brain. Breathe in, breathe out. Here’s the pattern—first there’s a dull, numbing ache, followed shortly by the absolute worst pain you can ever imagine going into your head, a spear shoved through your skull, and the impact of it is so hard that your entire body goes stiff; it lasts for a solid three seconds, followed by a split second of relief. And then it repeats itself all over again.

“How long has it been?” I gasp out to Eden. Dim blue light is slowly filtering in from the windows.

Eden pulls out a tiny square com and presses its lone knob. “Time?” he asks it. The device immediately responds, “Zero five thirty.” He puts it away, a concerned frown on his face. “It’s been almost an hour. Has it gone on this long before?”

I’m dying. I really am dying. It’s times like this when I’m glad that I don’t see much of June anymore. The thought of her seeing me sweating and dirty on my kitchen floor, clutching my baby brother’s hand for dear life like some weepy weakling, while she’s breathtaking in her scarlet gown and jewel-studded hair . . . You know, for that matter, in this moment I’m even relieved that Mom and John can’t see me.

When I moan from another excruciating stab of pain, Eden pulls out his com again and presses the knob. “That’s it. I’m calling the doctors.” When the com beeps, prompting him for his command, he says, “Day needs an ambulance.” Then, before I can protest, he raises his voice and calls out for Lucy.

Seconds later, I hear Lucy approach. She doesn’t turn the light on—she knows that it only makes my headaches that much worse. Instead, I see her stout silhouette in the darkness and hear her exclaim, “Day! How long have you been out here?” She rushes over to me and puts one plump hand against my cheek. Then she glances at Eden and touches his chin. “Did you call for the doctors?”

Eden nods. Lucy inspects my face again, then clucks her tongue in worried disapproval and bustles off to grab a cool towel.

The last place I want to be right now is lying in a Republic hospital—but Eden’s already placed the call, and I’d rather not be dead anyway. My vision has started to blur, and I realize it’s because I can’t stop my eyes from watering nonstop. I wipe a hand across my face and smile weakly at Eden. “Damn, I’m dripping water like a leaky faucet.”

Eden tries to smile back. “Yeah, you’ve had better days,” he replies.

“Hey, kid. Remember that time when John asked you to be in charge of watering the plants outside our door?”

Eden frowns for a second, digging through his memories, and then a grin lights up his face. “I did a pretty good job, didn’t I?”

“You built that little makeshift catapult in front of our door.” I close my eyes and indulge in the memory, a temporary distraction from all the pain. “Yeah, I remember that thing. You kept lobbing water balloons at those poor flowers. Did they even have any petals left after you were done? Oh man, John was so pissed.” He was even madder because Eden was only four at the time and, well, how do you punish your wide-eyed baby brother?

Eden giggles. I wince as another wave of agony hits me.

“What was it that Mom used to say about us?” he asks. Now I can tell that he’s trying to keep my mind on other things too.

I manage a smile. “Mom used to say that having three boys was kind of like having a pet tornado that talked back.” The two of us laugh for a moment, at least before I squint my eyes shut again.

Lucy comes back with the towel. She places it against my forehead, and I sigh in relief at its cool surface. She checks my pulse, then my temperature.

“Daniel,” Eden pipes up while she works. He scoots closer, his eyes still staring blankly off at a spot to the right of my head. “Hang in there, okay?”

Lucy shoots him a critical frown at what his tone implies. “Eden,” she scolds. “More optimism in this house, please.”

A lump rises in my throat, turning my breath shallower. John’s gone, Mom’s gone, Dad’s gone. I watch Eden with a heavy ache in my chest. I used to hope that since he was the youngest of us boys, he might be able to learn from John’s and my mistakes and be the luckiest out of us, maybe make it into a college or earn a good living as a mechanic, that we’d be around to guide him through the difficult times in life. What would happen to him if I were gone too? What happens if he has to stand alone against the Republic?

“Eden,” I suddenly whisper to him, pulling him close. His eyes widen at my urgent tone. “Listen close, yeah? If the Republic ever asks you to go with them, if I’m ever not home or I’m in the hospital and they come knocking on our door, don’t ever go with them. You understand me? You call me first, you scream for Lucy, you . . .” I hesitate. “You call for June Iparis.”

“Your Princeps-Elect?”

“She’s not my—” I grimace at another wave of pain. “Just do it. Call her. Tell her to stop them.”