Orion and the Clockwork (The Carmsborough Vigilantes #2)

Chapter 11

Orion didn't know where the Clockwork was taking him, but he didn't care. He had nowhere he wanted to go anymore.

Home was unsafe. That was likely the first place they'd check. He didn't even know if his sister and dad were still safe, let alone at the apartment, seeing as Syndra was evacuating certain areas.

The farm was clearly unsafe. In fact, he was likely to get killed if he ever came back, per Rami's words. There was nowhere else in Carmsborough for him. Especially not without Rami.

He could feel tears welling up in his eyes, separate from the misting from the clouds and the rain below them. Before he knew it, he was taking a fist and hitting the Clockwork's back, no longer concerned about falling off.

"Stupid machine. I hate you. Why can't you protect everyone? Why couldn't you protect him? Why did you leave him there?"

Naturally, the machine didn't respond. Not even with a whir. It only made him more upset, but he was losing all motivation. His frustration was too widespread.

Frustrated with Syndra. The man who caused all of this in the first place. He wanted to hunt him down and kill him. He wanted to hunt all of them down and kill them.

Frustrated with the Gearmaster. Why couldn't he design this machine to help the entire country, not just some random teenager? Instead of totally ruining his life, it could have stopped Syndra right then and there in the town square.

Frustrated with Rami's parents. Backwards, uncaring, and apparently dangerous. Willing to destroy their son's life to get back at the one that they thought "turned him gay."

Frustrated with Rami. Willing to risk his own life to help get him out of there. Willing to risk everything by getting too comfortable and kissing him out in the open on the farm. He shouldn't have just said "screw it" and gone with it. They should have actively tried harder to protect what they had. What they were creating.

Frustrated with himself. Why couldn't he do what it took to protect Rami? What could he even have done to do it? Should he have left earlier? Should he have left as soon as possible, when they'd crashed down in the first place? Was he selfish in trying to stay with them? Putting them in danger? Getting Rami shot?

It was all too much. He needed to get out of the thin air near the clouds and back down to solid ground, if only to cry or sleep. The Clockwork must have recognized this, because it began to descend and slow. As far as he could tell, they were in the Industrial District, judging by the number of smog columns below, meaning they'd already flown over the entire Biomed District.

They set down outside of what seemed to be an abandoned mattress warehouse. It didn't look like the place had been touched in the last ten years, except by the weather and potential looters or squatters. Orion approached the building cautiously, with the Clockwork stomping behind him on the opposite end of the cautious spectrum.

He opened the front door, and unsurprisingly, the place was empty. There were a few mattresses left, none in very good condition, and nobody else was inside. He ran his hand across one of the mattresses and gave it a bit of a smell. There was a terrible stench of mildew and mold. He had to decide if it was better than the concrete floor.

Ultimately, he figured it wasn't and curled up on the floor. The Clockwork stood ominously over him, which only made him more mad than he was already, but it wasn't that that kept him awake.

The last scene with Rami played in his head over and over again. One final kiss before being shot. He couldn't bear to think about it, but he was given no choice. In the end, he succumbed to the exhaustion, and suffered a restless night against the concrete, his subconscious as haunted as his awake self.