Dead Space: Catalyst Read Online Free PDF Page B

a good new life and it’d be a shame to ruin it.
    Jensi stopped him. “I’m not going to ruin it,” he said. “I’m not planning to leave my foster family. But that doesn’t mean I can’t help my real brother out a little.”
    When he started walking, Henry continued following. “But it’s not as easy as that,” he said. “It won’t stop there.”
    *   *   *
    At first it was easy. He stole a little food for his brother, not enough to be noticed, at least not at first. But then he saw that his foster mother was buying less, and keeping a closer eye on what was in the pantry, so he told Istvan he’d have to find his own food.
    “But how do I do that?” asked Istvan.
    “How were you doing it before?” asked Jensi, and Istvan pointed to the cabinets in the old apartment. Istvan had simply gone through them one after another, as it turned out, eating everything, including the sauces, before carefully returning each bottle to what he felt was its proper place.
    So what could Jensi do but keep sneaking food out, even if now he did it less than before? After a while, though, his brother kept insisting he was hungry, still hungry, and so Jensi started saving half of his own food and hiding it, smuggling it out whenever he could. He was hungry all the time. But he was helping his brother.
    Henry kept his distance for a while, then started hanging around him again. When he realized Jensi was eating less so as to smuggle food to his brother, he started passing food along himself. “Not for your brother,” he said at first. “For you.” But even when he must have realized Jensi was giving most of the food away, he still kept bringing it.
    *   *   *
    A few weeks later, Henry even started going along with Jensi to see Istvan. The first few times he was nervous, ready to bolt if Istvan did anything odd. But when the first incident wasn’t repeated he started to calm down, began to get used to the idea of Istvan. He helped Jensi, became his collaborator in the support of his brother.
    The three of them might have gone on together like that for a long time. True, it hurt Jensi’s schoolwork to spend so much time looking after Istvan, but Henry was willing to help there, too, slipping him the answers during a quiz or writing all or most of his papers for him. No, they could have gone on like that forever if it hadn’t been for Istvan. One day, sitting on the couch, staring in front of him, he said:
    “I want to come live with you.”
    “You do?” asked Jensi.
    Istvan nodded. “It’s what I’m supposed to do.” He traced a figure in the air. “See?” he said.
    Suddenly he stood up and left the room.
    Henry and Jensi exchanged glances. “What was that about?” asked Henry. “He can’t come live with you.”
    “Maybe he should.”
    “Even if he wanted to, they would never allow it. They never put two siblings together in foster care. Particularly if one of them is troubled.”
    Jensi opened his mouth to retort and then realized that Henry was right. He closed his mouth again.
    “You have to tell him no,” said Henry.
    Jensi shook his head. “He’ll probably just forget about it. He probably already has. He didn’t even wait for a response—he just left.”
    But when he came back into the room, he had filled a small box with his few possessions. His blankets were over his shoulders, and he was wearing both pairs of his pants and all three shirts all at once, looking like a child that had tried, and failed, to dress himself.
    “I’m ready,” he said. “Let’s go.”
    The two boys just stared. Henry looked at Jensi expectantly a moment and then, when Jensi had still said nothing, shook his head and left the apartment.
    “What are we waiting for?” asked Istvan.
    “Istvan…” said Jensi, and sighed. “You can’t go.”
    “Why not?”
    “They won’t let you,” said Jensi.
    Istvan furrowed his brow. He traced another figure with his finger, stared at the empty air. “Then you come