Trapped by Alex Wheeler Read Free Book Online Page B

warned me that Luke wasn’t ready ?
    â€œOh, I see,” Lune spat out. “If the Empire knew the truth, you’d be a target. And if the Rebels knew the truth, they might expect you to do something. But you’ve become a coward. So you stay hidden.”
    â€œYou think that little of me?” Ferus asked.
    â€œI don’t think of you at all,” Lune said. “Not since I was a child, and you abandoned us all to die.”
    â€œI never abandoned you,” Ferus said. “You had your mother and Clive, and—”
    â€œAnd I was supposed to protect him, isn’t that right?” Lune said sourly. “That’s what you told me, before you left, that I should take care of Trever. I was a child. A child ! You were a Jedi, and who were you protecting? Only yourself.”
    Ferus shook his head. “I thought you would be safe,” he said desperately. “All of you. I had a mission—”
    â€œSo did they, that day,” Lune said bitterly. “They all had missions. My mother. My father. Trever. ”
    Ferus flinched at the name.
    â€œYou think you know what happened to them,” Lune said. “I can see it on your face.”
    â€œAnd I’m so sorry for your loss,” Ferus began.
    â€œBut you can’t know. Not unless you were there. Like I was. But I was only fifteen, and they wouldn’t let me go with them. Even though I could have helped. So I watched them from a hill overlooking the factory. Like lizard-ants, swarming across the grounds, shooting, running, dying.”
    Ferus wanted to stop listening. As Lune went on, relating their deaths in horrifying detail, Ferus wanted to summon the Force around his ears like a thick blanket, drowning out the noise. But he made himself hear it all. A Rebel mission betrayed from the inside. An ambush. His old friend Clive cut down where he stood, ripped through by blasterfire. Lune’s mother, Astri, fierce and proud, blown to bits by an Imperial grenade. And Trever. Trever, who had survived as an orphan on the streets of Bellassa when he was only a teenager, until Ferus had turned him into a soldier and a fugitive. Trever, who had died a prisoner, trapped inside the munitions factory when the concussion missiles rained down and the building imploded.
    â€œEnough!” Ferus finally cried. He laid Luke’s body out on a narrow cot, then lowered himself to the edge, resting a hand on the boy’s shoulder. Only then did he notice that his hand was trembling. “Please, Lune,” he said quietly. “Enough.”
    â€œIt’s Div.”
    And Ferus nodded, acknowledging that it was true. “I’m sorry for what happened to them,” he said. “And for what’s happened to you.”
    â€œNothing happened to me.”
    Ferus sighed.
    â€œDon’t,” Div said harshly. “Don’t you dare judge me. So I’m different from the kid you remember? Look at you. Those people we used to be? They’re gone. Erased. Whatever it takes to survive, right? That’s what makes you and me special. Not the lightsaber, not the Force. We’re survivors. Whatever it takes.”
    The words were proud, but the tone was ashamed. Ferus lowered his head. Lune was just trying to wound him, Ferus knew. He was lashing out, angry about the past, angry about having a reminder of all the things he’d worked hard to forget. Angry that Ferus had left in the first place, then had had the temerity to come back. They were just words.
    But shame flooded him nonetheless. The truth hurt.

    Luke opened his eyes. The world was blurry. “What happened?” Gradually, the blurs of color before him resolved themselves into faces. Ferus and Div peered down at him, wearing curiously similar expressions.
    â€œYou passed out,” Div said, then hesitated. He locked eyes with Ferus, and for several moments, a heavy silence settled between them. “You must have hit your head