Playlist for the Apocalypse

Chapter 15: Another Brick in the Wall

JONATHAN

Jonathan had to hand it to the River District security team. He'd barely had time to blink before his father had them slap him in irons and dragged back to their residential unit. It wasn't a kindness that they'd brought him back here rather than the infirmary, no matter what they said when they coordinated for a medic to make a special house call to fix him up yet again. He knew why, it was the same reason he and his father had been sent to the River District colony in the first place. Good old-fashioned damage control.

"How are you feeling?" Captain Singh asked from the doorway and Jonathan had to bite his tongue to avoid making a passive-aggressive comment about the fact that they'd clearly sent in the damage control squad.

"Incredible, never been better." He deadpanned. It always seemed like such a joke to him when they asked him this question. No one actually wanted to know how anyone was feeling, not really. Wasn't the whole point that feelings were too dangerous now?

Singh sighed in the way she did when he was working her final nerve.

"That's no way to speak to your commanding officer, Johnson." She replied evenly.

She was good at concealing her emotions, but Jonathan was better at reading people. The vein in her neck was already twitching which was not a great sign.

"Do you want to tell me, or do I have to tell you why you're in this mess?" Her voice was soft yet there was no sympathy in it.

There were about a hundred things he could have said. There were about a thousand things he wanted to say, but for once he made the smart decision and kept his mouth shut.

"You know why those are there don't you?" Singh said as she came around to perch on the edge of his bed and Jonathan glanced down at his wrists strapped to the bedrails with a pair of silver handcuffs.

"You don't trust me."

"And you don't trust me... or any of us," Captain Singh countered, "You know what I can't understand? In a world of monsters, we, your fellow soldiers, your fellow River District colonists are it. We are it for humanity, the last—"

She must have noticed his eye-roll because she simply squared her shoulders and switched the subject, "You know what the Colonel wants to know."

"Right," Jonathan said, "so why couldn't he ask me himself? He was right here, but oh wait, dear old dad couldn't hang around, could he?"

"Don't test me Johnson, you know the rules as well as I do." Singh said, her irises blazing like tiny embers, "Personal matters are strictly private."

"Emotional matters are private." Jonathan corrected, "And when it comes to him, you don't have to worry. What you really meant to say is that personal matters are avoided, you know, just to keep things nice and comfy for everyone."

Singh sighed and pressed her fingers against her temples as if fighting a headache, "Jonathan, I'm really trying to be patient with you. I know how hard it's been for you since you lost your mom. Everyone copes with loss in their own way, but I understand—"

"No, you don't." Jonathan didn't mean for it to sound so cold, but he couldn't stand the way Singh paraded around pretending to care about him. The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. "Don't act like we all don't see the way you act when he's around. He's not going to give you a medal or some promotion just because you're nice to me."

Jonathan didn't know for a fact if all of that was true, but by the way the vein in the captain's neck twitched again, it was obvious he'd hit somewhere close to the nerve.