Exalted

Three: Forsaken

Steve was released from the basement on a leaden afternoon with rain steadily pelting down and turning the fields into mud. He had used the handrail to pull himself up the stairs from the basement, and shuffled barefoot over the gravel path to his parent’s house, dimly hearing the men who had released him mutter that it’s going to go too far, sometime. He went in through the unlocked kitchen door and let it fall shut behind him, listening intently to the silent house. Empty, of course.

He felt a dull sense of surprise to see that there was a covered plate on the table, and he lifted the napkin to find a sandwich, some cheese and a handful of grapes. He filled a glass with tap water and slumped at the table, carefully chewing the sandwich and staring at the rain running down the window. The only sound in the house was the faint ticking of the clock on the wall and the crunch of the crackers as he mechanically finished the food on his plate. He cleaned his dishes and put them away, pausing to fold the towel and hang it over the handle of the oven precisely in the center.

Steve trudged upstairs to the bathroom, peeled off his filthy clothes, dropped them in the hamper, and stepped into the shower without even waiting for it to get hot. He rubbed shampoo into his hair, going carefully around a tender spot on the side of his head that felt swollen. He hadn’t been sick, so it couldn’t be that bad. His body bloomed with new bruises, like a garden planted with purple flowers that were already turning to rot around their browning edges, and the water stung the scrapes that also scattered over his skin. 

He wrapped a towel around his waist when he stepped out, looking at his face in the mirror dully and opening the medicine cabinet. He shook out three ibuprofen, thought a moment, and dumped two more into his hand. He tossed them into his mouth and swallowed with a gulp of water from the faucet, then took out a box of band-aids and used one to close up a cut over his eye that the water had re-opened, and another under his lip. 

Exhaustion dragged his limbs down as he left the bathroom for his room, and he barely managed to pull on his pajamas before collapsing into his bed. Sleep claimed him before he even had a chance to settle himself, leaving him in a tangle of blankets and limbs, like a child that had worn himself out playing. The door slipped open not long after he had fallen asleep, and a figure eased into the room, standing at the foot of the bed in silence for a moment before moving about the room and then back out, as quietly as it had come. 

Steve woke to a quiet beeping near his head, and he blinked blearily at the lighted rectangle of a phone he hadn’t seen since they had moved to the farm. He rubbed his eyes, biting back a groan as it tugged on his cut, and squinted to read the screen, groggy and confused. The alarm name woke him like a shower of icy water: Run. 

He silenced the alarm and sat frozen in the dark, listening for any sound in the house and hearing only his own hammering heartbeat. His eyes adjusted to the dark again now that the screen had shut off, and he could see clothes and an old backpack waiting on his desk. He slipped his journal out of its hiding place in the mattress and tiptoed to the desk, changing in the dark and carrying his shoes. The clothing didn’t fit him as well as it had when he’d last worn it, but he cinched the belt in another couple of notches and called it good. 

He was aware that he should probably be panicking, that this was the most risky thing he had ever done, but he just couldn’t find it in himself to care whether he made it out or never left the woods - either way, he wasn’t coming back here. He padded down the stairs, guided by the light coming in through the windows, and eased open the door in the kitchen. He stood on the tiny covered stoop to pull on his sneakers and sling the bag over his shoulders, then stepped off the porch and drifted between two houses like a shadow. The rain beat down, soaking the shoulders of his jacket and bleeding through, but it also drowned out any noise he might make, and the wind tossing the tree branches gave him dancing shadows to hide in as he moved through the farm. There were lights on in the chapel and the main house, but his path lay away from them and into the forest behind the houses. 

Steve darted between the trees, moving a few feet under their cover before he stopped to orient himself. He hadn’t been to the next town over very often, but he knew it was probably a mile through the woods to come to it, and then another mile past it to reach the highway. He needed to get through the town and to the highway before it got light. Nobody would expect him to show up for work in the morning, but there was no escaping study. 

In spite of his injuries, he set out at a challenging pace - years of sports followed by manual labor had left him strong in spite of what he’d endured, and his body moved over fallen logs and across the stream he’d swam in earlier - the start of this, I suppose - without hesitation. The town, silent and dark in the late hours of night, came into sight between the trees sooner than he’d expected, and he waited at the edge of the trees for a lone car to crawl past, the flickering streetlight exposing a tired man at the wheel and his wife sound asleep in the passenger seat. As soon as the car turned down a side street he flashed across the road and into more scrub brush on the other side. The rain had steadily increased when he was in the forest, and occasional streaks of lightning lit up the sky. There wouldn’t be many cars, he thought, but any there were might be more likely to take pity on him and offer a ride.

The next stretch of forest was rougher to traverse, with more undergrowth and rockier terrain, and he had to pick his way more cautiously. The slower pace raised his anxiety, but he knew there was nothing he could do about it - breaking an ankle because he tried to go too fast wouldn’t help anything.

In the end, his patience and caution all came to nothing - he stopped at the edge of a steep embankment, seeing the highway stretching out below him, and looked for the place to pick his way down. Just as he turned to walk the edge he felt something start to slide, and the whole face of the bank gave way and he fell with it, feeling like it was in slow motion. The dirt and rocks bounced into the highway and so did he, rolling like a rag doll and coming to a stop in the middle of the lane. Before he could even assess what had just happened and figure out if he was hurt, there was a screech of tires and headlights spotlighted the debris he lay in.

Car doors creaked open, and he could hear excited chatter approaching, but he could barely force his eyes to open.

“Dad. Dad!” A girl’s voice rose over the sound of the rain. “There’s a person here!” 

He looked up dizzily to see a girl that looked to be near his age dropping to her knees in the mud, reaching her hand out to his shoulder. “Hey? Are you okay?”

Other people were coming over, and he could hear them debating calling an ambulance. “No ambulance,” he whispered, his eyes staring pleadingly into hers. “Please, no ambulance.”

“Don’t call them,” she said, holding his gaze with hers. “He doesn’t want you to.” 

A woman crouched down next to the girl, and her sympathetic face swam into view. “He’s just a kid,” she said kindly. “He looks awfully beat up,” she said over her shoulder. “Did someone hurt you, honey?” she asked, and tears welled up in Steve’s eyes for the first time in years. Her lips pursed angrily when he nodded. “We’ll bring you with us,” she said firmly. “Robin, you see if he can sit up.”

She stood up and walked back to have a quiet conversation with her husband, who looked at Steve a little more warily than his wife, but already had the face of a man who knew he had lost the argument. 

“Hey,” Robin said again, pulling his attention back to her. “I’m Robin. Do you think you can sit up?”

“I’m Steve,” he said, blinking slowly.

“Do you think you can sit up, Steve?” She asked, a smile pulling up one corner of her mouth. “Because you’re scrawny, but you’re still bigger than me or my dad, so getting you in the car is going to be a bitch if you can’t at least, like, help.”

He stared at her for another second before laughter bubbled up his throat and shot out of his mouth, and she joined him, both of them helplessly giggling on a muddy highway in the pouring rain. “I can sit up,” he managed at last, rolling to his side and pushing himself up. Everything swam for a minute and he swayed, but it cleared and he took a deep breath. “Might want to wait on the standing thing.”

“Anything broken?” Robin’s father came over, seeing Steve sitting. “Try moving your wrists and ankles slowly. What about your ribs?”

“All good, I think,” Steve tried out the motions cautiously. “I think I just knocked the wind out of myself, sir.” 

“Richard,” Robin and her father said at the same time, and then both rolled their eyes while Steve giggled again. “Let’s try getting you on your feet and into the car,” Richard continued. “We won’t call an ambulance, but we need to get you checked out.” He saw the way Steve shrank back, and nodded. “It doesn’t have to be anywhere around here. If you think you can manage the car ride, we’ll get you a little further away before we stop.”

Between Robin and her father’s help Steve found himself upright, and he moved to the car with Robin holding his arm for balance. He didn’t feel like he had a concussion, but everything was still swimmy and - oh. Maybe he was just tired. 

Robin’s mother - Melissa, she told him - fussed at him to at least take off his wet jacket, and tucked a blanket around him in the back of the car. Steve was drifting to sleep almost as soon as the car was rolling again, having carefully edged around the mudslide on the road, and he could hear the Buckley’s talking over the quiet radio and the sound of the rain. He fell asleep to Robin using a sweater to gently rub his hair dry, as his head canted toward her on the back of the seat.

The emergency room was a cacophony of flashing lights, beeping, and people swirling around - there had been a major car accident that brought people in just before they arrived, and Steve was overwhelmed with the chaos. He sat in one of the hard waiting room chairs and tried to answer the questions Robin was asking him for the admittance forms, while Mr. Buckley was trying to find a doctor and Mrs. Buckley was looking for coffee and snacks.

“What time is it?” He asked, looking around for a clock and not finding one.

Robin pulled out her phone. “It’s just past 4,” she said, dropping it back in her pocket. “Doctors don’t like clocks in waiting rooms, so you won’t know how long you’ve been waiting,” she informed him, and he nodded.

“That makes sense,” he said, yawning. “What town is this?”

She looked up from the paperwork. “It said Soper on the hospital sign,” she said. “We picked you up in North Dakota, and this is Indiana.”

“I used to live in Indiana,” he said in a detached voice. “Never heard of Soper, though.”

“But you live in North Dakota now?” She asked, pointing at the form. “Or should I put Indiana?”

He thought for a minute. “Maybe put Indiana.” He gave her the address of a kid he’d grown up with. “Just in case.”

“In case of what, Steve?” She leaned closer to him and lowered her voice. “Are you okay? I mean - really? Because you haven’t even asked about calling anyone, and you’re all beaten up, and - “ she looked at him in the glaring fluorescent light. “You’re around my age, where are your parents?” She searched his eyes, and winced. “Wait, don’t answer that.’

“Yeah, I think maybe not today, okay?” He gave her a lop-sided smile as Mr. Buckley came back up to them and took the clipboard from Robin.

“The nurse will come get you in a minute, Steve,” he said quietly, starting to scribble on the form. “And, just for the time being, try and remember that your last name is Buckley, alright?” He looked up with a reassuring grin. “And call me Dad.”

“I asked for a sister for years, and you got me a brother?” Robin shook her head. “Mom’s right, you never listen.” 

“Better watch out or we’ll get you one of those, too,” her father shot back, and Robin pretended to gag. “Here we go,” he murmured as the nurse came up.

Steve was thoroughly examined, and he listened silently as his temporary father explained to the doctor that he had been hiking, there was a mudslide, they had found him and brought him straight in. Yes, just tourists, passing through, his son was the only adventurous one in the family, so he’d been exploring on his own. He’d managed to escape with only a couple of stitches in the cut above his eye, and walked out with Robin holding his hand.

Mrs. Buckley was waiting outside the room with a bag, and she hustled up to them. “Go and put these on, Steve,” she said, forcing the bag into his hands. “You’re soaked to the bone, and I’m afraid those clothes are past saving.”

He turned into the nearby bathroom and stripped out of his wet and muddy clothing. The bag revealed a soft yellow sweatshirt and a dark blue pair of sweatpants, and he quickly pulled them on, shivering in the cold, tiled space. He threw his old clothes away and rejoined the Buckleys, his feet squelching in his wet sneakers, but feeling much better. “Thank you,” he said politely, then caught sight of Mr. Buckley at the check out desk. “How am I going to pay for this?” He asked aloud, scrambling for his bag. “I don’t know if I even have a wallet, I don’t know if there’s any money, I - “

Robin put her hand over his and shook her head fiercely at him. “Nobody asked you for money, dingus.” She said quickly. 

“That’s right, you don’t worry about it,” her mother patted Steve on the shoulder. “You’re going to come with us for now, and we’ll get things straightened out for you.”

It wasn’t until the next day, when Robin bounced into the spare room he was sleeping in and dumped an armload of clothing on the bed, already chattering about what they were going to do for the day that the enormity of what had happened hit him. He had run away - from his parents, from the only thing he had for a home, from everything - and was now cut adrift in the world with absolutely nothing but these kind strangers that had taken him into their home. He was well on his way to the first panic attack of his life when Robin’s face popped up, waving her hand in front of his nose.

“Hey,” she said loudly. “Deep breaths, buddy. You want to talk about it now?” Her wide blue eyes were dark with concern, and her eyebrows pulled in with her worry.

He looked at her for a moment, the pressure to keep his mouth shut so real he could almost hear his father and One yelling in the back of his mind - and he told her. He told her all of it, the words poured out of him in no real order, with lots of detours and circling back to explain something that made what he was trying to say make sense, and somewhere in the middle of it he had started sobbing so hard that he gave himself the hiccups and the Buckleys had both come in, Mrs. Buckley with a box of tissues and Mr. Buckley with a cup of coffee. Steve finished his story, and sagged exhaustedly against Robin, who had sat next to him and slid her arm around him at some point, rubbing his back as he stumbled through his history.

“I’m sorry, Steve,” Mr. Buckley said at last. “That was terrible, and I’m so sorry you’ve lost years of your life to this.” He sat in the chair opposite the bed, and looked at Steve earnestly. “I need to ask if you want to call the police,” he began, then held up a hand when Steve started to speak. “I know it sounds like too much right now, and I won’t push you on it. But please think about it - it’s not right, what happened to you, and the people who did it should be punished.” Steve nodded silently. “I also think we should think about what happens next for you.”

Robin squeezed him protectively. “He can stay here, can’t he?” She said. “He can go to school with me.”

“Robin,” Mrs. Buckley said warningly. “It’s up to Steve - we can’t make those decisions for him.”

Robin turned to him, stricken. “Sorry,” she said contritely. “I’m not telling you what to do, but - you could stay here. I’m going to college at the end of August, and we could maybe get jobs and an apartment, and I’m doing it again.”

Steve smiled at her and wiped his eyes again. “I think I’d like to go to school,” he said quietly.