Bound Part 9
The Secret
When Tobias stuck his head up into the loft and saw the two sleeping Gundam pilots, he reeled and almost fell down the ladder. He grabbed the splintered side of the loft, catching himself from a twenty-foot drop and hissing like a wildcat when splinters of wood jabbed at the soft part of his palms.
"Oh man, dude, dude Mary, those are-!!"
"Sh!! Shhh!! Quiet! You'll wake 'em up!"
Tobias backed down the ladder halfway, then jumped and landed on the hay- covered floor of the barn with a soft thump. The twelve year-old boy looked at his younger friend with incredulous gray eyes, as he wiped the welling blood from his hands onto his jeans.
His voice was quieter, but no less urgent. It was a jabbering, panicked mutter as he grabbed Mary's shoulder. He was as pale as if he had seen a ghost. "Man, man, Mary-B, what in the hell... who... how in the hell..."
"Shh..." Mary put a hand over his mouth. "They're the Gundam pilots. Two of 'em, anyway. I don't know where the other three are. Around here someplace. But I don't know how many they had at the base. Maybe these were the only ones that got loose."
When Tobias spoke again, his voice was a whisper. "Jesus, Mary, when you said you had a secret to show me, I thought you mean like... some puppies hidden in here or somethin'..."
"Yeah, well, I didn't. Give me that blanket."
Mary took the blanket back up the ladder. The Gundam pilots hadn't even moved from where they had first fallen asleep. Mary thought it wasn't very smart of them to both fall asleep like that, in case someone that wasn't her came into the barn, but she guessed they were both so tired they couldn't help it.
She put the blanket carefully over their sleeping forms. Neither of them even twitched. They looked half-dead, she reckoned.
Tobias had followed her up the ladder and was watching the pilots warily. Mary looked back at him. "They're hurt pretty bad," she said softly.
"Yeah, they look beat up all to hell," Tobias murmured. "You want to stay with them while I call the arsenal?"
Mary was silent for a moment, trying to figure out how she was going to present her case.
"I mean, if you're scared to stay with 'em by yourself, Mary-B, I'll stay here with 'em instead and you can call the cops." Tobias looked at them more closely, and when he spoke again, his voice was hoarse. "There's blood all over 'em, Mare. It ain't all theirs. C'mon. We gotta get someone. Zechs Marquise and His Excellency are leading up the search themselves."
"No, Tobias. Please?"
Tobias looked at her and finally realized what she was implying. "You... oh no. You can't be thinkin' what I think you're thinkin'. Are you fuckin' insane?!"
Mary flinched. Tobias had used the dreaded 'f' word. That was never a good sign. She didn't answer him.
Tobias shook his head. "No, no way, Mary, forget it. You're addled if you think you're gonna hide these guys. They'd just as soon shoot you as to look at you! They're stone-cold killers!!"
She looked back at him resolutely. He stared at her, not believing that she could even think of doing what she was purposing. "No way! If I had known what you were hidin' in here, I never woulda promised! Do you remember how much trouble you got into for keeping that fox kit hid up in here?!"
Mary scowled. "That was different."
"You're right, that was different, this is the same thing only a thousand times worse! Mare, you could get your brother kicked out of the army for this! Your family's gonna get in trouble for treason!"
"Shhh! Stop yellin'! Don't wake 'em up!"
"Give me a break, Mary-B, this isn't some little hurt fox or a lost dog. These are terrorists. These are real people, this is real life. It isn't a game now. You can't hide criminals in real life, Mare, it never goes like it goes in the movies. They're gonna get caught and you're gonna be in a world of hurt. Look, they're hurt bad, yeah? You think it's gonna help 'em to hide 'em up here? At least at the prison they could get a doc to look at 'em."
Mary shook her head, looking back at them. "I don't think so. How do you think they got beat up in the first place?"
Tobias didn't have any answer for that. Finally, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out the folded up magazine. When he opened it, he pulled out a piece of paper, shoving it in Mary's face. "Do you see what this is, Mare?!"
WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE PILOTS 01, 02, 03, 04, 05 COLONIAL TERRORISTS HEERO YUY, DUO MAXWELL, TROWA BARTON, QUATRE RABERBA WINNER, WUFEI CHANG REWARD FOR CAPTURE OR INFORMATION LEADING TO CAPTURE $50,000 PER PILOT
"Do you even know how much money that is? Huh?! Just for the two of 'em, it'd be a hundred thousand dollars! All five of 'em and you'd be richer than the governor!"
"If they're not out of here in a day or two, we could call them," Mary said, hopefully.
"And where are you gonna keep them?" Tobias demanded.
"Right here in the barn."
"If your daddy finds out you're keepin' colonials in his barn, he's gonna shoot them for a stranger. And you'll be lucky if you ain't next."
Mary smiled a little. "That's why he can't find out."
She noticed Tobias was no longer looking at her. He was looking past her.
The dark-headed pilot, the one who called himself Heero Yuy, was awake. He had opened his eyes. Mary heard Tobias swallow as if there was a football in his throat, and she turned to look at the pilot.
Heero Yuy did not move at first, his dark blue eyes blazing, searching their unfamiliar faces. Mary could see the cunning calculation in those eyes, and the terror. They were the eyes of a trapped animal that is cornered and means to bite. She hoped he was hurt bad enough that he wouldn't be able to hurt them.
Mary glanced at Tobias. He was pale in the shafts of sunlight coming through the opening in the loft, and his eyes seemed huge with his fear. But he stood his ground. He whispered between his teeth. "Do somethin', Mary-B, before he pushes us out of this damned hayloft."
Heero Yuy did not leap at them like a madman, or even get up. He just laid there weakly, eyes glazed, before they slid shut again wearily. His cheeks, pale before, were flushed with fever now.
Mary stepped forward hesitantly, ready to leap back if the wounded pilot made any kind of rush. Carefully, she laid a palm on his forehead. She couldn't tell what his temperature was. Much too hot, that's all she knew.
"You hear me, pilot?"
When Heero Yuy spoke again, it was a cracked whisper. "Hai."
"I'm gonna help you and your buddy, but you gotta stay up here and you gotta stay quiet. Hear?"
"...Hai."
"I don't know what that means, but I'm gonna take it as a yes. Please don't get me in trouble," she added, pleadingly.
Suddenly, she heard her mother calling from the house for supper.
Mary looked at Tobias. "You want to stay and eat? We can come back out here afterwards. We'll help them."
Tobias sighed and nodded. "Why the hell not? I'm a 'complice now anyway. May as well deserve the charges."
~*~
"Pa, why does Lonnie hate the colonists so much?"
Tobias sputtered and coughed on his potatoes. Mary's mother patted him on the back genially. She didn't catch the searing glance he gave Mary. Mary saw it, but ignored it.
"I reckon it's because they sent down rebels to attack the OZ forces."
"You think maybe they got a reason for doin' that?"
"It's the army's concern, Mary Beth, and not yours," her father answered, raising an eyebrow at her. "What's got you so interested in the army all of a sudden?"
Tobias pulled the piloting magazine out of his back pocket, showing it to Mary's father. "I was just showing her all the mobile suits in this magazine. She just got to thinking about it, that's all, Mr. Thompson. What with the pilots loose and all..."
"Well, Mary, you shouldn't be occupied in that military nonsense. Ain't right for a girl."
"What if the Gundam pilots showed up around here, Pa?" Mary winced as Tobias gave her a hard kick under the table.
"Well...we'd be obligated to give them over to Arsenal, I s'pose. Shoot them if we had to." "But what if they were fighting for somethin' that was right? What if they came to us for help?" Another hard kick until the table, right to the shin. Man, that was going to leave a shiner. Mary tried hard not to kick him back.
Mr. Thompson was finally getting impatient with her. "Now you look here, Mary Beth Thompson, you get those soldiers out of your head right now. If they're fightin' against the army, then it's OZ's problem, and it's no mind of ours why they're fightin'."
"But what if they were just kids?" Mary pressed on insistently. "What if they were just hurt boys like Lonnie, fighting like the men at Redstone are fighting 'cause they think they're right, you wouldn't feel no pull to help them out? Not even a little?"
Mr. Thompson sighed. "Mary, these ain't kids, they're killers. And they're not our problem. You quit going on about it. All this war talk turns my appetite, and I've been havin' to hear about those escaped prisoners and the people they killed at Redstone from your brother all day on the damned vidphone. So shut up about it. Hear?"
Mary shut up then. Tobias breathed a silent sigh of relief on the other side of the table.
~*~
As soon as they were out of earshot from the house, Tobias turned on her.
"What in the hell were you thinkin', Mary-B?! Are you tryin' to get us caught? Or are you just dumb as a damned brick?!" he hissed.
"I just wanted to see what they thought about it," Mary said, scowling a little.
They walked on through the dark; the fireflies were starting to come out, flickering in the twilight as they made their way through the pastures and the knee-high wild grass to the barn.Mary was carrying a plate of leftover fried chicken in her hands, and two canned sodas in her jacket pockets. The sodas were warm and the chicken was cold, but it would have to do.
She also had aspirin and gauze, trying not to take too much, so they wouldn't be noticed for missing. Tobias was carrying a bucket of cold water from the well and two pieces of plywood for a splint, since he said earlier that it looked as if the dark-haired pilot's arm was broken. He also had a pair of needle-nose pliers, fishing line, and a needle.
When the two of them snuck back up into the loft with their supplies, the two pilots were asleep again, curled up one right beside the other. The long-haired one was pressed against the others back, and they were huddled like puppies in a litter.
Tobias looked at the lighter-haired one suspiciously, raising an eyebrow. "You reckon they're queer?" Mary gave him a hard elbow to the ribs, and was glad to see that she hadn't been anticipated; Tobias let out a pained grunt, almost dropping the bucket. He'd have a bruise there tomorrow, she'd see to it. One to make up for the bruise she'd have on her shin from his kicks at dinner.
"Tobias Everend Cale, you should be ashamed to talk like that! And even if they were, it ain't none of your business, is it?"
He let out his reply in a wheeze. "I... reckon not."
Mary put the stuff down nearby in a pile of hay, then gently shook the one who had grabbed her awake. "Hey you... you, 02... get up."
The boy opened his eyes wearily, and Mary saw that they were a strange color, some wildflower lilac-lavender color. Violet. Weird.
Those eyes immediately fell on Tobias, and the boy tensed under her hand. "Who is that?"
Mary flicked her gaze to Tobias, then back to the boy. "A friend. Don't worry, he won't tell anyone."
The boy sat up, and he did it stiffly, like it hurt him to move. He put his hand on the dark-haired one's shoulder, and when he spoke again, his voice was hoarse, like he'd been doing a lot of hollering.
"Hey... Heero. Get up."
The Japanese pilot woke slowly, eyes fluttering, then he slipped back into unconsciousness. Duo didn't try to wake him again.
"Oh shit, Mary, your pa is calling you!" Tobias whispered. "I can hear him outside!!"
Mary looked towards the barn doors, then back at the pilots.
She whispered urgently. "We brought you food, and we'll be back later! You gotta stay up here, you can't go wandering around or you'll get caught! Just sleep here tonight and then we'll figure out what to do tomorrow!"
The two children climbed out of the hayloft.
"Hey, you guys, forgot this! Try not to use it if you don't have to!!"
A flashlight went flying up into the loft, barely missing Duo's face.
"Thanks," Duo whispered, looking over the side at them. The boy and the girl went out the barn doors, closing them in with a creak.
Even the smell of the cold food wasn't enough to make Duo get up. He laid back down beside Heero, resting his face against the Japanese pilot's back. They were sick. Bad sick. Too sick to think straight. He was thirsty, and hungry too. But sleep first.
So tired.
TBC...
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