A Few Good Men Read Online Free PDF Page A

the sea, and the immensity of it still seemed unbelievable to my brain. After the tiny confines of my grey cell, with its safe walls, for so long, this seemed dangerous. I felt exposed, like a man does when he’s naked in a crowd, or standing alone and unarmored in front of guns.
    I kept feeling as though I would fall, not just down from the broom, but sideways too, and maybe upward. I mean, there was no stop there, nothing to hold me in place. I could float away like a balloon into the shining blue and—
    I think it was that image of me floating away like a balloon that brought me to myself. It was so ridiculous, and so completely unlikely. I took deep breaths and tried to relax the grip of my hands on the broom, because I was holding it so tightly that my knuckles not only shone white through the skin but hurt as if I were about to break them.
    Instead, I set about getting coordinates on where I was. Having broken the locator chip, I was left to figuring this out by memory. The landmass directly to my right, the landmass over Never-Never, which I’d never been able to identify the night they’d dragged me here—still in shock at Ben’s miserable death and beaten to near unconsciousness—was unmistakably Syracuse Seacity. That meant my home, the home of my childhood and the seat of my father’s cursed rule, Olympus Seacity, would be north-northeast and about three hours.
    Which was fine by me, because I wasn’t going there. There wasn’t enough money in the entire Earth to pay me to confront my father again. I remembered what he had said, as he pronounced verdict on my first conviction in the council of Good Men. I couldn’t believe he didn’t also know about what had happened to Ben and my transfer to Never-Never. If I met Father again, I’d have to kill him. If not for my false conviction, if not for the death of my lair mates, if not for Ben’s death, then for having forced me to stay damnably alive through each of my suicide attempts.
    The technology they’d employed, particularly to save me from the last one, five years ago, was expensive enough that the order to use it had to have come from my father, heartless bastard that he was. Oh, I missed Max and I’d like to see my mother again, at least once. But seeing Mother and finding out if Max even knew I existed anymore, since my little brother had been all of three when I was arrested, would wait. There were better ways to die than walking straight into the lion’s den and demanding he eat you. And Father would be looking for me right about now, or in a couple of hours, as soon as he realized I’d escaped. He’d be looking for me to slam me back in prison. Because he wouldn’t allow me to die, but he also wouldn’t allow me to escape. I suspected he kept me alive to keep Mother from getting too upset. But he wouldn’t ever again recognize me as his son or allow me freedom. And it wasn’t even because of the supposed murder or the real one. Father took having someone killed as his prerogative. That would not be enough for him to cast me away. I could never figure out why he had, unless he hated me like fire.
    So, no Olympus for me. What other seacity could I go to? There was always Liberte, only a few miles south from here. I thought I would go there and land somewhere in one of the lower-priced areas. I thought some of the fences I used to know would still be operational and I could get rid of my burners and brooms.
    But then an odd thing happened. Flying there was easy. It was early evening and I saw no more signs of life than the occasional shadow of a flyer overhead, or a boat in the water, far below. I became better used to the expanses of sea and sky and got misty-eyed at the sun, setting in a glory of gold and red to the west. I thought that even if I got captured tonight; even if they hauled me back to the cell again, I’d have the memory of this flight, the memory of sunset and sea, and the tang of salt in my nose to take with me to