by Lena August
Chapter 4
I try to pry myself out of the guard's grip, but he holds my arm tightly as the President inspects the damage that I have inflicted upon his son.
“What happened, Marco?” he demands.
“What do you think happened?” His son snaps vehemently, “When I tried to tell these three that this is a restricted area and they weren’t allowed, that one attacked when I had my back turned.”
“That’s not even close to the truth!” I say hotly, the guard restraining me tightens his grip on my upper arm.
The President fixes me with an icy stare, “Shut up, girl. I wasn’t talking to you!” I want desperately to argue back, but I know my situation is severe enough without making things worse for myself.
Luckily, Sera comes to my aid, “Please sir, I saw the whole thing, Brie was attacked first, she only fought to protect herself.”
“And what’s your name, girl?” The President asks, his voice condescending.
Sera seems to shrink under his glare, “Sera Morris, sir.”
“Tell me, Sera Morris, why am I to believe the word of a girl who has already been caught out of bounds over the word of my own son?”
Sera stares at her feet, this is the first time that I have seen her at a loss for words. Livi seems to be trying her hardest to fade into the background, her eyes darting fearfully back and forth from the President to me. The President seems to know he’s won this argument, “You two will be escorted back to your living compartments,” he tells Sera and Livi, “It shall be noted on your record that you were found trespassing on PSC land, be thankful that the punishment isn’t more severe.”
“Sir, what about Brie?” Sera asks hesitantly.
“Your friend must face the consequences of her actions. The disciplinary council will decide her punishment.”
I wince at this news. The disciplinary council is made up of a select number of guards instructors, and while they may be fair on most occasions, Marco’s father is their boss, and I have a feeling that they will rule in whatever way he tells them to. My only consolation is that Saffi Mehta is on the council, and while I doubt she will have any real power over their decision, it comforts me that at least I will have one person on my side.
Sera and Livi give me a remorseful look as they are led away by a severe looking woman.
“Follow me!” The President snaps at the guard holding my arm. I follow obediently along and the President leads us to the building that houses the PSC’s headquarters on Innocents. We go through a maze of doors and hallways until he stops at an unmarked, heavy brown door. He inserts his key into the lock and it swings open, revealing what appears to be some sort of conference room. “Wait outside,” the President commands the guard. “Sit down,” he orders me once we are alone. I tentatively sit down in one of the cold, plastic chairs, trying to ignore the stabbing pains coming from my side.
“Do you know who I am?” He demands, pacing back and forth in front of me.
“Yes—sir” I throw in as an attempt to sound more respectful, “You’re the president of the Public Safety Council.”
“That’s right,” he says arrogantly, “I am Garrett Rhodin, which means my job is to ensure that violent offenders are punished—sent away so as to keep them from harming others. You are now one of those people that I have devoted my life to prosecuting.”
“Your son is the violent offender here. My actions against him were purely in self-defense. But I believe my friend already told you that.” I try to keep my tone polite and even, but I doubt I was very successful.
Garrett Rhodin narrows his eyes, “That will be up to the council to decide, you will be given time to present your side. But for now, you are going to wait here, a guard will come to escort you to the council room when the time comes.”
My ribs ache, I have been sitting alone in the conference room for a little over two hours. I briefly wonder, for about the thousandth time, what is going on in the Disciplinary Hall. Unable to take the wait any longer, I stride over to the door and pound on it with my fist. “Hey, I’ve been waiting for hours, I want to know what’s going on…” To my surprise, the door opens and I find myself face to face with the guard. “How much longer do I have to stay in here?” I demand.
The guard looks down at me, his expression bored, “I suppose you’ll wait until they’re ready for you.”
“And will that be soon?” I ask, exasperated.
He shrugs, “Maybe, maybe not.”
I roll my eyes, and am about to retreat back into my room when I see another guard coming down the hall. “Council’s ready for her now,” he says.
“Finally,” I mutter, earning me a dirty look from both guards.
The Disciplinary Hall is a large circular room with rows of raised chairs forming a semicircle around a platform containing a tall podium. The guards show me to my seat in the front row and then sit down on either side of me, perhaps as a precaution in case I decide to make a scene.
Garrett Rhodin is waiting at the podium, and, once I am seated, begins to talk. “Ladies and Gentlemen of the council, you have heard one version of the events that transpired today. At this time, I shall allow Brie Vanguard to share her side before we come to a consensus.”
I walk up to the stage, assuming that the President will allow me to have the podium. However, once I get up there, I realize that he has no intention of moving, so I am forced to stand awkwardly sideways so that I don’t have my back towards him or the council.
“Ms. Vanguard, do you deny that you, along with fellow Innocents residents Sera Morris and Livi Coleman, trespassed on PSC territory, therefore entering a restricted area.”
“No,” I answer, trying to keep the disdain in my voice to a minimum. The council mutters amongst themselves and I cringe, knowing that I have not made a very good first impression.
“And while you were there, you violently attacked my son, Marco Rhodin, causing a broken nose among other things.”
“I was only acting in self-defense,” I say emphatically, “Marco was mocking my friend, Livi, and when I interfered, he became violent and attacked me.”
“So that’s what you say happened?” Rhodin asks skeptically.
“That’s what did happen,” I insist.
“Very well, ladies and gentlemen, it is time for you to make your decision. You have heard the testimony of my son, along with three of his friends who all witnessed the event and who insist that Ms. Vanguard attacked Marco without provocation, and while the power to decide her punishment rests with you, it is my belief that someone with such obvious violent tendencies such as Brie Vanguard does not belong on Innocents,” he turns to face me, a small smile playing on his lips, “She is a danger to everyone here. For the protection of all Innocents inhabitants, she must be sent away. And I personally believe she belongs on The Violents.”
The council murmurs uneasily, and I feel helpless. How could I be sent to TVs? Only one person has been exiled from Innocents, I would be number two. I suppose that I should be thankful that I’m actually getting a trial, it’s more than people back on Mainlands get. But I have a hard time feeling lucky with Garrett Rhodin lording over the council.
I look around, hoping for someone to speak in my defense. Someone does. Saffi stands up and turns to face the rest of the council. She gives me a quick glance before speaking. I admire how calm she looks, standing up to all these people who want to rip me apart, standing up to the president of the PSC.
“I believe that sending Brie to TVs would be a waste of a good trainee. Ms. Vanguard is one of our most promising students and was scheduled to take her Occupational Test tomorrow. I know she has an ambition to become a guard for Murderers and her aptitude tests support this,” she gives me a quick smile before continuing, “Currently, we have a shortage of trainees who are strong enough to go to Murderers. I do not think we can afford to exile Brie.”
Once again the council talks amongst themselves. Some of them actually seem co
nvinced, and I feel a flutter of hope. Maybe things will end up all right after all. When I catch a glimpse of the President’s sadistic smile, the hope is snuffed out as quickly as it came.
Once again, he addresses the council.
“I believe Councilwomen Mehta has made a valid point. We do have a shortage of recruits to send to Murderers. And it so happens that we are in need of a leader for the food expedition we are sending there tomorrow. It seems that Ms. Vanguard would be perfect to fill that spot.”
I feel like I have been punched hard in the stomach, all the air has left my lungs, leaving me gasping. An expedition to Murderers is worse than being exiled to TVs. Ever since the Prisoners’ Rights Association started calling for more humane treatment of the prisoners, Innocents have been sending out food expeditions once a month, only three people have ever come back. I’m still in shock when they vote to approve my death.
Saffi volunteers to walk me back to my room and a guard follows closely behind. We walk in silence most of the way. Only when we reach my hallway does she speak. “I know you are already counting yourself as dead, but you have a chance to survive. They will give you weapons so you will be able to defend yourself. You’ll meet with the Murderers guards before they leave you; make sure you listen to everything they say. They know best how to survive and any information will be helpful.” We reach my room, “You can’t give up before you try, do you understand?”
I don’t trust myself to talk so I just nod. Before I can disappear into my room she adds, “You are the most talented student I’ve ever had the opportunity to teach, if anyone can survive this, I know you can.”
Tears spring to my eyes and I quickly close the door. I collapse onto my bed and sob into my pillow. I let the sobs exhaust me into sleep.
At nine in the morning, the guard stationed outside my room pounds on my door to wake me up. I’m still in my clothes from yesterday. Marco’s blood has stained my shirt and still covers my arm. I’m a mess; hopefully they will allow me to shower before sending me to my doom. I try to sit up, but as soon as I do, my ribs explode with pain, causing me to cry out. I ease myself to a sitting position and lift up my shirt to observe the damage. The skin is a rainbow of colors ranging from deep blue to yellow. I touch it gingerly and wince. Forget about fighting, I will have difficulty just walking. The guard bangs on the door again impatiently. I limp over to my dresser and change out of my bloody clothes before opening my door. The guard glares at me. “Your team is waiting in the entrance hall. As leader of the expedition, it won’t look good if you are late.”
I do my best to maintain eye contact. “Can’t I at least have a shower first?” I plead.
The guard’s angry glare fades into a somewhat resigned look as he sees the blood smeared on my arm. “I’ll give you five minutes.”
I hurry down the hall to the communal bathroom. I am secretly hoping to see Sera, Livi, or any one of my friends. But the hallway is empty. I shower as quickly as I can and then make my way down to the entrance hall. Four people are already waiting, their expressions a mixture of impatience and anxiety. I observe each one. There are two girls and two boys, none of them I recognize. The oldest looks like he could be in his twenties; the youngest couldn’t be older than fourteen. She is short and slender with blonde hair and reminds me strongly of Livi. They are so alike in appearance; she could be Livi’s sister. Her expression is absolutely terrified. I take my place among them and we head outside.
The boat that brings us to Murderers’ southwestern guard island is a run-down pontoon boat; one guard will be accompanying us there. The trip will take us about an hour. We sit in silence the entire way, trying to avoid eye contact with one another. As leader of the expedition, I try and appear calm and composed, but my heart is racing, and last night’s tears are threatening to return. I refuse to show weakness in front of the others so I feign interest in a loose thread on my seat and struggle to keep my emotions under control. I coil the thread tightly around my finger, cutting of the circulation. The pain helps me stay grounded.
The boat shudders to a stop and I look up. We’ve arrived at the guard island where we will stay the night before being set loose. Two guards come up to meet us. Both look worn down, one has a scar from his right brow to the opposite cheek. Our guard laughs when he sees him.
“Thomas!” he shouts, clapping the guard on the shoulder, “You look worse and worse every time I see you. What, you didn’t think your face was ugly enough already so you had to add the scar?”
The guard, Thomas, chuckles and runs his fingers across the jagged cut, “Yeah, you like it? Courtesy of one of the Volis. The little shit managed to get over the fence. I got him in the end, but not before he gave me this.”
The guards turn their attention to the five of us. “I don’t envy you guys, especially after what happened to the last group they sent in.” He exchanges a dark look with his partner which leaves me wondering about their demise.
“Yeah, we prefer to stay on this side of the fence, you survive longer that way. But I don’t suppose you were given much of a choice.” He gives a short bark of laughter, “Better follow us, you have a lot to learn if you want any chance of survival.”
Thomas addresses our guard again, “You sticking around, Palmer? Or are you running off to the safety of Innocents, as I remember, you never were up for a risk.”
“I’m expected back at Innocents, the President’s going to want to know that the drop off went all right”
“Ah yes,” Thomas says, shooting my companions and I a quick glance, “I heard about that…incident… Well, you don’t want to keep him waiting then. If I remember correctly, the President is not a patient man.”
Palmer waves to the guards, gives us a sarcastic smile, and then heads back toward Innocents. I watch the boat until I realize the others are already walking away. I jog to catch up. The guards lead us to a large brick house; it reminds me of something I would see in the suburbs back on Mainlands, like the type I used to walk past every day on my way to school. Cool air hits me when I enter and I can hear the faint hum of an air conditioning unit, a luxury we never had on Innocents. We follow Thomas and the other guard into another room. It contains a long table and at least twenty chairs.
The guards motion for us to sit down and I take a seat next to a tall dark haired girl. Kyla, I think I heard someone call her. Thomas sits at the head of the table, but the other guard remains standing and speaks to us.
“I think you all know why you were chosen for this mission. Somehow in the last few weeks you’ve screwed up pretty badly and are now considered expendable to the PSC. They don’t expect you to come out alive, and frankly, neither do I.”
He stares around the table, making eye contact with each one of us, his gaze is emotionless. “But if you want to have any chance at all of getting out of there, you better make sure you listen up now. First of all, you have to know that you are not just facing a bunch of weak, underfed savages, struggling to survive. Many of them have banded together, forming clans. And they have grown strong. Let me tell you this, they will not hesitate to kill you, and if you get attacked, then God help you. Our sources tell us that there are currently seven clans out there.”
“What sources?” one of the boys sitting across from me interrupts.
The guard gives him a sardonic smile, “I’ll just say that not everyone who comes up to the fence is bent on killing us, and some do have valuable information to offer for the right…price…”
I wonder what he is implying, but before I can ponder it too much, he continues.
“Anyway, you should be grateful that we have this information, because with it, you have a better chance of surviving. Tomorrow we will drop you off at the northwestern shore of the island. It will be a bit of a longer walk to the drop off area but…”
It’s Kyla who interrupts this time, “What do you mean “drop off area” why can’t we just set the food down on the other side of the fence and get out as
quickly as we can?”
The guard stares at her as if she is stupid, “Because,” he continues, “we don’t want all that food in the wrong hands. Do you have any idea how bad it would be if all the supplies ended up in the hands of one of the more powerful clans?” The idea clearly scares him, “but as I was saying, you will have a little bit farther to walk, but hopefully it will mean you can avoid traveling through any Domus territory.”
Kyla speaks again, “Domus? Why, who are they and what is so bad about them?”
The guard just laughs, “Have any of you heard of Marek Holden?”
We shake our heads.
“Yeah, well, I don’t suppose they like talking about him much on Innocents. See, he lived on Innocents for quite some time. He was a very talented student. Then, when he was eighteen, he stabbed his guards instructor, got sent to Murderers. No one expected him to last very long.”
He gives another short laugh, “Well, that was about twenty five years ago. Now he leads the most powerful clan there is. And our sources tell us he’s raised himself a vicious little guard dog to fight his fights for him.” The guard shrugs, “Apparently he’s just as dangerous as Marek, if not more so. I’ve never seen him, but if what they say is true, you don’t want to cross him. Not that you want to meet anyone on Murderers of course.”
“So how will we know where to drop off the food?” One of the boys asks.
“You won’t know the exact location,” the guard explains, “but if you walk at a decent pace, it should be safe to drop it off in about a day and a half.”
I feel shocked and utterly defeated. That means we will have to spend three days on Murderers, best case scenario. I try not to think about the odds of surviving that long. I look around at the faces of my teammates, their expressions reflect the fear that I feel.
The guard’s voice brings my attention back to him.
“If you don’t have any more questions, I suggest you take this time to rest up as much as you can. I doubt you will have much time for that during the next couple of days.”
For a second his voice sounds almost sympathetic. He leads us to where we will be spending the night. It’s a relatively small room, compared to the rest of the house at least. But it is still about twice the size of my living compartment back on Innocents. Five sleeping bags are already spread out. I guess last night was the last time I would ever sleep in a real bed.
Since it is only early afternoon, I can’t bring myself to waste one of my last days inside sleeping, no matter how much I need the rest. I leave the room and quietly slip out of the house, hoping no one will notice me. I am not one hundred percent sure I am allowed to wander the island alone, but the temptation is too much to resist. Outside is beautiful. The thick smoke that polluted the sky back at Innocents isn’t as bad here and I can actually smell the ocean. The island is green and full of trees, and to my surprise, small animals. I wonder how they got here, back on Innocents, the only animals we had were domestic, or sometimes an occasional wild bird that flew over from Mainlands. For a second, I allow myself to imagine what it would be like living here, something that I had not been allowing myself to think about.
If yesterday had not happened, all this could be mine; the fresh air, trees, big houses with air conditioning. The thought is too painful so I push it from my mind and continue on my route. Within a few minutes I arrive at the coast. This is when I get my first look at Murderers. Even from this distance, the island looks huge. It is densely forested and has a tall barbed wire topped fence separating the beach from the trees. I can just make out a guard pacing back a forth, patrolling the fence. The sight of the island brings back the memory of a different time that I sat staring at an island from a distance; the first time I saw Innocents. It feels like I’ve been suddenly transported back in time to the day I came to live on Innocents, the day my life changed forever. I remember sitting on the hard wooden seat of the boat that brought me from Mainlands, I was alone on deck the first time it came into view. All the rest of the new Innocents arrivals, along with our escorts were on the lower level, however, I couldn’t stand the claustrophobic feeling that I got in the boat’s small, confined quarters so I had escaped to the deck in order to have some breathing room. The day was perfect, sunny and cloudless, a rarity for the Pacific Northwest, and which allowed for miles of visibility. I was staring off into distance when the massive island came into view, the sight of it took my breath away. All I could do was stare at the place that was going to be my new home. I was so entranced by the island that I didn’t even notice one of the escorts coming up behind me.
“It sure is something the first time you see it, isn’t it?” she had said.
“It’s huge,” I replied, “But it’s nothing like home. I don’t want to live there, can’t you send me back? Please?”
The escort looked at me understandingly, “And where was your home before this?”
“Portland. And it still is my home,” I replied defiantly, “I promise that I’ll do better than my parents if you just let me go back.”
The escort had knelt down at my level, so her eyes met mine, “Brie, you have to remember that your parent’s decisions were not your fault, and being sent to Innocents isn’t a punishment. It’s a chance to start over, free from their negative influence. The Public Safety Council has given you a new start at life, and I think that you’ll come to realize that this is one of the best things that could happen to you, I promise.”
The memory fades and I feel a dull pang of anger as I remember her words. I wonder what she would think if she knew that the PSC had given me a death sentence, not a new start. I attempt to push my anger aside as I take a seat on the sand, listening to the waves roll in and back out again. A faint breeze plays on my face, it smells like salt water. I allow myself to relax and lose myself in the beauty of the day.
