HERO

9 / Betrayal

The vacuum Thomas felt inside of him was familiar. I wasn't an absence of feeling; it was a numbness where emotion should be but didn't know how to be. He recognised the vehemence of his father's show of emotion. He'd seen it once before. Affection was given without prompting, but not to this extent. With this gravity.

His father had held him in this way when his mother died. Then, it was genuine, perhaps the contained love from all the times he'd held back erupting at once. This time, it was...

What was it? Guilt? A diversion? Normally, Thomas would have had a strip torn off of him. He didn't give his father many reasons to do so, but he had experienced it on occasion. But never, apart from that one time, like this.

Thomas felt cold. A child had entered him uninvited and he had to resist the urge to shiver. He wanted to push his father away, but couldn't. It would seem suspicious, more so than the embrace itself. Instead, he let it run its course. He let himself hold his father – even though he was shocked and angry, he could still be torn from his only surviving parent – and, when they separated, excused himself.

"It's been a long day and I have homework," he said." I'll be out once I'm finished."

"You're a good boy, son. Don't push yourself too hard."

Because my mind might cave in?

"I won't, Daddy."

Iain smiled. He liked it when his son called him 'Daddy'. For a second, he forgot his betrayal and was the boy's father. Then he remembered and the smile faded.

Thomas returned to his room and closed the door. There was a blind permanently pulled down at the window. It stopped prying eyes and kept the world outside outside. It wasn't one of the fancy, expensive new ones that stopped X-Ray eyes from seeing within, but it, at least, minimised temptation.

He laid on his bed, with his head on the pillow. He could feel the bumps beneath and wished he were a princess and they were merely a pea. He wasn't and they weren't. He was the problem and they were the solution.

He was tempted to just do it. There. Then. Show his father what his son really was, then leave. But, he was ten, not fifteen. Not eighteen or thirty. Ten. He wouldn't know the first thing about surviving out there.

Once upon a time, when Iain was young and Thomas was not even a thought, there were homeless shelters. Food banks. Ways for those cast out to survive. Since the Outbreak, things had changed dramatically. The homeless were capable of taking what they wanted, when they wanted it. There were plenty of people to stop them, but some of those became homeless themselves when they destroyed their homes or killed their families. Accidents were common when it came to an inexperienced and arrogant populace. The defeated or vulnerable were no longer that. This should have been a good thing, and in some ways was, but it tipped a balance that was already precarious at best.

Thomas knew he wouldn't be able to cope. He had no illusions about his talents, and they didn't include sleeping rough or starving. He couldn't help himself to a restaurant's menu or take himself up to a cosy penthouse, swiftly removing the customer or current occupier in the process. He would be cold. Hungry. At risk from the gangs. And insanity. He had to stay, at least for the night. In the morning, maybe he could reason with his father. Show him what had been bought and become the son his father wanted. If he left, they'd search for him and he didn't know if he was adept enough to stay hidden. He wasn't a Chameleon like Bren. He couldn't become anything he like to avoid detection.

Maybe Bren could help. She certainly seemed capable, and they had, as far as Thomas thought, a fledgling friendship. No. He couldn't imagine, whatever his father had done, leaving. It was his dad! He couldn't imagine, also, being dragged away by the people on the end of the phone. That was happening, whether he liked it or not. And it was because of his dad.