Ch 10 - The Nightmare

Jessica breathed out her tension and breathed in the warm, night air. It had been a full day since she had last seen the wolves. They had left their new friends at the edge of the forest, and after saying goodbye, followed Benji through the long, flat meadows of the region. The terrain had begun to grow smooth and grassy. It was easy traveling from here on out, or so Benji claimed.
Jessica stared at Benji, who was sleeping a few yards away. His tousled hair was damp with sweat, sticking to his face in a comical way. His limbs were sprawled out as if he had fallen and then instantly dozed off. Andrew also was happily snoring nearby, probably deep into some blissful dream. Jessica’s attention drifted, and she found her mind re-visiting the safe house in Tosh. Melody, Max, Jacob… how many more would die because of the insane king ruling them? The king that could never die? The tyrant with an endless rule? King Darfane. She shivered at the thought of his name.

Jessica thought of the tawny-furred wolf, and Moon Shadow, and how their voices were rusting inside their throats. How many other creatures were there, hidden, afraid to show their faces...cowering in silence? So the king had ordered the exile to explain the absence of magical creatures from the land, and then chased them, murdering them. Did faeries still exist? Or were they now extinct? Had any other creatures beside the Moon wolves escaped the bloodbath? She could almost picture the soldiers slaying down unicorns and centaurs in her mind’s eye as they ran for cover. It sickened her.

Jessica ran a hand through her long, golden hair. The night was hot, and her hair was annoying and stuck to the back of her clammy neck. She began to braid it, quickly, as she thought.
Benji suddenly sat up, rubbing his eyes. He glanced around him, a bewildered look on his face. He spotted Jessica sitting across from him and blinked several times, the information that he was in the woods with his kidnappers slowly trickling through his mind. Jessica chuckled on the inside as she rummaged through the supply bag and pulled out a canteen of water.

She scooted over to him and held out the container. He eyed it suspiciously. “Drink this,” she insisted. “It’s water. It’ll help cool you down.” He slowly took the canteen and managed to gulp down some of the liquid. Realizing it was indeed water and not some kind of unusual poison, he chugged about half of what was left.

“Save some for tomorrow,” Jessica said. He guiltily lowered the dripping container and wiped a sleeve across his lips.

“Thanks,” he said. There was an awkward silence, in which Jessica found she couldn’t look at anything for more than a few seconds. Her eyes jumped everywhere except to the boy beside her.

“Nightmares,” Benji said, suddenly. She looked at him, startled.
“What?”

“Nightmares. I’ve had them since I was little,” Benji explained.

“Oh.”

“I know it’s terrible…I’m almost a grown man and I still have nightmares. No one wants a king who can’t fearlessly face up to sleep.” Benji stared at the ground, his usual grin completely vacant from his face.

Jessica was puzzled. She didn’t understand at all. Nevertheless, she felt a twinge of sympathy for him. “When I was little, I used to have nightmares every night,” she said.

The young prince examined her skeptically. “You? The fearless killer and kidnapper-”

“I’m not a kidnapper.”

“No?” Benji’s eyebrows rose inquisitively. “Oh, that’s right; you just steal into people’s homes in the middle of the night, wake them up, hold a knife to their head, and march them away, never to return.”

Jessica didn’t know if she was supposed to laugh or become irritated at that statement. “We weren’t supposed to kidnap you…”

“Then why did you?” Benji asked. He was so curious. Andrew had never asked half as many questions as Benji had in the first two days she’d known him.

“Because… it occurred to me that we could sneak out the front door if we took you with us.”

“But that wasn’t why you were there; you were there to kill me, and you didn’t. If you had killed me then, you could’ve gone back the way you came, which would have been ideal because the way you left, all my guards and soldiers saw you. I’m guessing you didn’t particularly want a whole army of men on your tails…”

Jessica realized he was right. She also realized she didn’t know why she had reacted the way she did that night, however, she refused to let her confusion show. “It doesn’t matter; you can’t die anyway. You’d be very good in the resistance,” she told the prince. They said nothing for a few minutes. Jessica studied the stars, painfully aware of the nagging silence engulfing them.

“Just out of curiosity,” Benji began, “What would you have done once you had killed me?”

“The resistance would take over. We already had the next leader picked out.”

“That’s tyranny.”

“We’d turn it into a democracy.” Jessica stood up. “You don’t understand how the world works. We are the people. We roam the streets. We go hungry. We suffer. We fight. We know what it is to be a subject to a king who is distant – who doesn’t care. With one of us in charge, the kingdom would change for good.” Jessica crossed her arms over her chest. Her voice had remained level and she was quite calm, although she had to admit she was a tad bit frustrated.

Benji stood up, too, but his arms were spread out as if to portray his innocence. “How do you know I wouldn’t have changed things for good? I’m not my father.”

Jessica rolled her eyes. “People on the streets are dying, Benji. We’re not going to sit around and wait for the king to die and you to take over.”

Andrew let out a small shout and sat up. “The leaf monster is licking my toe!” he said loudly. Jessica and Benji sharply turned to give him amused looks. He slumped back over, fast asleep.

Jessica grinned. “He has always talked in his sleep,” she explained, gazing at his snoring form. Benji tilted his head to the side.

“Are you siblings?”

“What?”

“You and Andy.”

Jessica let out a chuckle. “No, but just about. We grew up together. In the resistance. There wasn’t anyone else our age in our league to play with, so we entertained each other.”

“In your league?” Benji repeated. “How many leagues of the resistance are there?”

“A lot. They’re all over the kingdom. Almost every city has their own.”

“That is a lot,” Benji said. He sat back down abruptly, rocking slightly to absorb the impact.

“That might be enough for a small army.”

Jessica said nothing. It was enough for a small army. The Dane had sometimes talked of uniting all their forces and openly retaliating against the king’s army. For some reason or another, they never had. Jessica sighed and sat down.

Benji’s blue eyes roamed over her face. Her mind was like a new book, and he was eager to peek inside her pages and read her. “What exactly is the resistance?” he asked.

“We’re an organization…a group of people. We help others. The citizens. Those who can’t help themselves.” Jessica searched for words to describe what she had come to know and accept as her way of living. “You know how your father, King Darfane, believes that those who can’t pay their taxes should be executed? Or those who speak against him? Or those who have been associated with magic-users?”

Jessica pulled her knees up to her chest. Her face was turned toward the trees in front of her, her eyes glazed over. “Have you ever seen one of them die?”

Benji didn’t reply. She looked at him, for now it was her turn to study his face. After a moment, she continued, “Your father would sentence men and women to death as easily as he would dispose of an old garment, but he’d never show up to watch them hang to death.” She turned to stare at the trees again. “He’s never seen them twitching and gurgling while they dangle from the noose. Because they couldn’t make enough money. Because they stole to feed their families. Because they didn’t agree with your father.”

Benji didn’t say anything; he only listened silently to what Jessica had to say. “The agents of the resistance are trying to put a stop to all this,” she continued. “If a spy gets word of a prisoner being held at a location near us, we break them out. We take in the families whose fathers have been killed. Do you remember when one of your stables caught on fire and the king’s men couldn’t travel the country for at least a week?”

Benji stared at her. “That was us,” she said, proudly. He rubbed a hand over his cheek and rested it underneath his chin, contemplatively.

“And you’ve killed before?”

The question seemed out of place in their conversation. “Yes,” Jessica replied, “I’ve fought in raids and battles. Every time the soldiers come to take taxes, riots break out.”

“How many?”

“What?”

“How many men have you killed?” he asked in all seriousness. Who was this boy who could laugh about death one moment and then keep a straight face the next?

“Benji, I’ve fought in many battles…I’ve been fighting since I was eight. You don’t expect me to remember how many men I’ve killed, do you?” Jessica replied.

“You don’t remember any of them?” Benji asked. She tried to read his expression. Innocent. Naïve. Curious. Sincere. He wouldn’t understand.

“Have you ever killed anyone?” she asked.

“No. I mean, not if you don’t count me,” Benji said, allowing a small smile to slip onto his face.

“I’ve tried to kill myself…just to test it out. See how good the fairies’ magic works. They mean what they say.”

Jessica shook her head. “So there’s really no way to kill you?”

Benji’s lips rolled over his teeth. “Not that I know of…” His eyes turned to examine the sky

Jessica seemed so captivated with. “Once we get to Darwol… you’re not going to let me go, are you?”

Jessica swallowed and wondered how she should answer. It was an issue she and Andrew had talked about before, when they had switched guard and Benji was sleeping. It wasn’t like they could just let him go…he already knew too much about the resistance. If he went back to his father, they would be ruined. On the other hand, it wasn’t as if they could kill him either… they still hadn’t decided what to do. There was no easy way to answer his question.

She didn’t have to. “What would you say if I told you I wanted to join the resistance?” Benji asked.

Jessica looked at him sharply. A hopeful smile decorated his face. She bit her bottom lip and her eyes narrowed. “Hm…I’d say that’s a difficult subject to discuss,” Jessica replied.

“Really?” Benji asked.

“Yes,” she responded.

“I have something to tell you.”

“What?”

Benji’s face was almost completely serious. “I think I want to join the resistance.”

“That’s a difficult subject to discuss.”

“I had a feeling you would say that.”

“Really? What brought this on?” Jessica asked, trying to act surprised.

“Well, there’s this boy and this girl that I met—”

“Relatives?”

“Possibly cousins once removed. Or long-lost twins that look nothing alike.”

“I see.”

“Anyway, they have grown on me in the past few days--”

“Grown on you? What do you mean?” she asked, curious as well as eager to poke fun at him.

“Well, they are the first people I’ve met that seem to have an actual purpose to their lives. And they stand for everything I seem to stand for…and, frankly, I don’t want to go back to my father. It’s like they took me out of a prison I couldn’t seem to escape from and now I have the chance to fight against it.”

“You want to fight against a prison?”

“And free the people I have hurt…” he sighed. “It seems my father has done a lot of damage in this kingdom…maybe I can help to fix it.”

Jessica considered the suggestion he made. “Hm…” she said out loud. “You do realize if you become an agent of the resistance, you’ll be a no-name commoner and not the king’s son?”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he insisted.

“And you’ll have to learn to fight.”

He smirked. “Don’t worry. I once pinned an agent who was sent to kill me against the wall.”

Jessica felt her face get red. She stood suddenly, defensive. “Maybe the agent wasn’t expecting her target to be awake while she was trying to assassinate him.”

“Then obviously that agent has never tried to assassinate a target with nightmares.” He rose, too. Smugness shone on his face.

“Maybe that’s because the agent was used to killing battle-hardened men, not boys afraid of sleep,” she spat back.

“Ouch,” Benji said, placing a hand over his heart as if wounded. She would have regretted it, if he was genuinely hurt, but the trace of a smirk lingered about his lips.

Jessica crossed her arms, her smarting pride solaced a bit by the fact that he had no reply to her retort. “Go to sleep, nightmare prince.”

Benji smiled slightly. He didn’t act as if she had just outdone him. “You’d better wake your twin to switch turns watching. You’re both going to need energy if we’re to reach Darwol by morning.”

“Goodnight, Benji,” she hissed. It was more of a command for him to sit down and sleep than a cordial farewell.

He did as she implied with a cheerful, “Goodnight, Jess,” and then rolled over in the grass.

Jessica’s eyes upturned to the stars. They stared down at her, twinkling and winking as if nothing in the world had ever gone wrong. She woke Andrew shortly and then lay down to try to get some sleep. It was almost impossible. Her mind couldn’t settle down. Her thoughts jumped from her dead friends to her live ones waiting for her at Darwol; the story of the wolves, to Benji and Andrew … It was like trying to bottle the fury of a hurricane.