by Alyssa Cole
She stumbled up onto the floor and crawled toward Daniel, vision glazed over with tears. He didn’t move. A living man’s head wouldn’t be turned at that angle, either.
She gagged, once, twice, but kept crawling.
“No. No!”
Her hands gripped his charred shirt and rolled him over. He was dead, indeed, but he wasn’t Daniel.
Morbid relief flowed through her. What had the man’s name been?
“Jeremiah,” she said, flopping back onto her bottom. “Oh God, it’s Jeremiah.”
“Did you really think that was me, Sanchez? I have about a foot and fifty pounds on the unfortunate fellow.”
Daniel was alive, carrying Annabelle from the other side of the shack. Bloody, burnt, and annoyed, but very much alive.
She didn’t know how he had survived. She only knew that for one awful moment, she had known a world in which Daniel no longer existed, and that wasn’t a world she wanted to live in.
“Milagro. You truly are a miracle.” Her voice caught, and happiness filled her.
“I’d say I’m just stubborn.” He had the nerve to smile, though he winced and limped a bit.
“And thank goodness for that,” Annabelle said, gingerly rotating her wrists and wincing.
“What do we do now?” Janeta asked; then she saw motion through the smoke behind Daniel.
“Daniel, get down,” she said. “There’s someone behind you.”
Daniel dropped to his knees and Janeta grabbed and raised her gun.
“Daniel? Are you in there?” A voice called out from where the shadows moved. It was a woman’s voice, husky and low. Then she said, “It’s me. Elle. Show yourself.”
“Elle?” The surprise in Daniel’s voice was evident. “What are you doing here? How did you find me?”
The woman stepped into the room, a pistol in her hand and her gaze sliding over the room. She was smaller than Janeta had imagined, this woman who Daniel had loved and lost.
“I’m a detective,” she said, then looked over her shoulder as if searching for someone. “We were tracking Davis and got wind of a very familiar-sounding man claiming to be an envoy from Cuba. Malcolm is with me, so please no one shoot the next white man you see when you step out of the house.” She turned to face them. “He’s got a wagon that we really should all get onto right now. This explosion is going to attract attention, Daniel.”
“You should be proud,” Daniel said, still smiling. “I learned that from you.”
“I was always proud of you, friend. But let’s save the reunion for later.”
Janeta had already begun pulling the others up out of the space under the planks, feeling a bit embarrassed as she watched the scene. Soon everyone was assembled and they jogged out to the wagon, driven by a large man whose face was mostly obscured by a beard.
“Load them up please, Ellen. I’d rather not have to fight tonight if I can charm instead.”
“Fine, fine.” Her gaze darted from Daniel to the man. “Daniel, this is my husband Malcolm. Malcolm, Daniel.”
Daniel limped over and shook Malcolm’s hand. “I hear she’s been keeping you on your toes.”
“Every day,” Malcolm said. “And thank you by the way. For my brother.”
“Thank you,” Daniel said. “For me.”
Janeta didn’t know what they were talking about, really, but the two men nodded. She was about to climb in the back of the wagon when Daniel took her gently by the elbow. “By the way, this is our fellow Loyal League detective, Janeta Sanchez. My partner.”
He said the word partner awkwardly, but with emphasis.
“Actually, I resigned from the Loyal League, but I’m still your partner, I suppose. Maybe you should come over to the Daughters of the Tent.”
“Oh, I like you,” Elle said, greeting Janeta but also herding them all into the wagon and pulling the curtain closed. She knocked twice on the wood; then Malcolm pulled off, the amble turning into a brisk pace. She settled next to Janeta in the dark of the wagon. “Thank you,” she said quietly.
“For what?” Janeta asked.
“For taking care of my friend,” Elle said. “I’m happy to see a smile on his face. If we all survive the night, remind me to tell you embarrassing stories from our youth.”
“Ellen,” Daniel growled. But in the darkness his fingers slipped gently through Janeta’s, and she clasped her hands around his.
“That’s right,” Elle said. “I won’t need the reminder.” She turned to talk to Jim, who sat on the other side of her, giving Janeta and Daniel some privacy.
“Are you all right?” Janeta asked him, squeezing his hand back. There hadn’t been time before.
“Perhaps,” he said. “Let’s see what the night brings. And the morning. And the afternoon. Maybe we can see that together—what the future holds.”
He squeezed her hand. She squeezed his. They didn’t speak anymore because they shared their own language in the dark, and understood each other perfectly.
EPILOGUE
December 1863
Cairo, Illinois
Janeta watched Daniel as he slept. It was winter in truth now, winter in the North, but she was not cold. Daniel was beside her. Daniel who had risked everything for her and their friends. Daniel who loved her.
She tucked the moth-eaten woolen blanket under his chin as she slipped away from the cot they’d been allowed to use while visiting their friends, who were about to leave the camp for free life in the North.
She ran her fingertip over the smooth line in Daniel’s eyebrow, the artifact of one of several burns he’d received from the blast that had saved them. His body was a map of scars detailing what this country had put him through, but she hoped that he remembered that all of them were memories of his bravery too.
His eyes fluttered open and he tilted his head up and dropped a kiss onto her wrist.
“Good morning, Sanchez.”
“How do you do, Cumberland?”
“Better than I ever imagined,” he said, and she knew that he meant it. “And you?”
She turned her head away from him so he couldn’t see her eyes. He knew her too well. And he’d been there when Lake had provided her with the intelligence they’d received from Palatka—her father was alive, but his imprisonment was no mistake. He’d been partners with men illegally shipping slaves into the country from Cuba, despite the decades old ban.
Part of her had been relieved that she hadn’t doomed him to prison; part of her wished she had never known. But their wealth in America had come from somewhere that wasn’t a sugar plantation, and she’d never questioned it. The wealth that had kept her and her sisters in finery.
Her sisters refused to respond to her letters, which hurt, but there was nothing to be done but bear the pain and hope that it would diminish with time, or that they would grow with it.
“I am not all right,” she said to Daniel instead of lying. “But I will be.”
“We can help each other,” he said carefully. “I think we work together very well.”
He tugged at the back of her shawl and pulled her down onto his chest.
“I think we do, too,” she said. “I’m not sure if my fellow Daughters will approve of me courting a Loyal League man. They think you all are much too showy.”
“I hope you don’t have to get their approval. I hope this war ends, so there’s no need for detectives or Daughters. That it ends, and we’re all free.”
He’d told her he hoped to take up law again. Up North. And he wanted her to come with him, if she desired. If they made it through the war.
She tangled her fingers with his and dropped a kiss onto his jaw before settling against him. “Go back to sleep. We have a long journey ahead.”
The war wasn’t over yet, and the Sons of the Confederacy seemed determined to win it for the South, even as the North gained power and won more territory.
She would fight until the end for this new land of hers. For this new love of hers. For her people. And for
herself.
As she closed her eyes and drifted to sleep, she thought of her mother, laughing and beautiful before she was crushed by the world. Janeta wished Mami could see how perfect Janeta was, just being herself, and that she had been perfect, too.
She smiled as she slipped into a dream, one filled with hope and love.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank the Kensington Publishing staff from top to bottom, but particularly my editor, Esi Sogah, and art director, Kristine Mills-Noble, for helping this series and its covers to shine (and to Esi for putting up with my randomness). Thanks to publicist Lulu Martinez for being a great advocate of the series and pushing it hard. I’d also like to thank Norma Perez-Hernandez for being one of the first readers/cheerleaders, assisting with my rusty español, inducting me into the BTS Army (along with Michelle), and always making me feel like I can do anything. Special shout-out to Paula Reedy for dealing with my page-proof changes because I know being a production editor is a hard and often thankless job.
I’d like to thank Janet Eckford, Maya Frank-Levine, and Kit Rocha for advance reading and advice along the way, and all of my RAPTORS (rawr!!!) for reminding me that I would eventually finish, no matter how hard and unlikely it seemed.
Random thanks to Ryan Coogler for helping break my writer’s block with his amazing film. Obviously he is completely unaware of this, lol, but sometimes one form of media can help you put together the mess of final puzzle pieces for another.
And huge, huge thanks to you, the readers, who read and review and reach out to tell me what the series means to you. Thank you!
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Writing any book has some level of difficulty, but among the books I’ve written thus far, An Unconditional Freedom is lovingly called “the book that broke me.” That’s not exactly accurate—it was the world that existed as I tried to create Daniel and Janeta’s story that broke me.
When I first started this series, America was seemingly on an upward trajectory, despite still struggling with the whole “liberty and justice for all” thing. When An Extraordinary Union came out, it was alongside surging White supremacy, with neo-Nazis and Confederates being given glowing profiles in national newspapers, which led to them taking to the streets with torches. If you’ve read the book before reading this (I know some of you skip to the back of the book and I will not judge you [too much] for that), then you know this book was about a man who believed in America and was grievously wronged by it, a man who was unable to process his trauma in a country that was still hurting people like him while also expecting them to help right the wrongs baked into the foundational bricks of the country.
As I was writing this book, it seemed that every other day brought a new story about a Black man or woman being killed by police. As I was writing this book, opening social media meant seeing the casual cruelty of the current government’s policies. As I was writing this book, I couldn’t help but succumb to sadness and defeat because what promise could I make a character like Daniel about America, knowing that in 2018 it had reverted back to everything he feared? How could I give him a happy ending in a country that was so set against him having one?
I became depressed and despondent at several times during this book. I stopped and started, and couldn’t bring myself to push toward the end. There were several individual things that allowed me to finish the book—films, books, articles—but maybe foremost among them was one I watched with Betty Reid Soskin, a ninety-six-year-old park ranger and author of Sign My Name to Freedom: A Memoir of a Pioneering Life, and Luvvie Ajayi, author of I’m Judging You. Soskin said something that resonated with me deeply:
“There’s still much, much work to do. But every generation I know now has to re-create democracy in its time because democracy will never be fixed. It was not intended to. It’s a participatory form of governance that we all have the responsibility to form that more perfect union.”
It reminded me of something that I had already known but had been buried under the relentlessly growing pile of awful news: Daniel’s happily ever after didn’t mean that America had to be that perfect Union as I was writing the story. It is in the possibility of perfection, in finding a community of like-minded people who share similar goals and work toward them, together. I wish that things were different. I wish the injustices chronicled in the Loyal League series were truly in the past. But wishing only gets us so far. I hope that by the time this is published, America is moving in a better direction. Whatever the situation is, I hope that you, dear reader, have found a way to exercise your rights, to participate in our democracy, and that you have found the community that will fight alongside you. We can’t all be daring detectives, but we can all do something, no matter how small, to make the future brighter for every American.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
The following is a selection of the books, theses, and articles used to research this novel:
Abbott, Karen. Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War. New York: HarperCollins, 2014.
Foreman, Amanda. A World on Fire: Britain’s Crucial Role in the American Civil War. New York: Random House, 2011.
Jordan, Robert Paul. National Geographic Society’s The Civil War. Washington, DC: National Geographic Society, 1969.
Lause, Mark A. A Secret Society History of the Civil War. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2011.
McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Pinkerton, Allan. The Spy of the Rebellion: Being a True History of the Spy System of the United States Army During the Late Rebellion, Revealing Many Secrets of the War Hitherto Not Made Public. New York: G.W. Carleton & Co., 1883.
Pratt, Fletcher. The Civil War in Pictures. Garden City, NY: Garden City Books, 1955.
Tucker, Phillip Thomas, editor. Cubans in the Confederacy. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2002.
Van Doren Stern, Philip. Secret Missions of the Civil War. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1959.
Ward, Andrew. The Slaves’ Civil War: The Civil War in the Words of Former Slaves. Boston: Mariner Books, 2008.
A READING GROUP GUIDE
AN UNCONDITIONAL FREEDOM
Alyssa Cole
ABOUT THIS GUIDE
The suggested questions are included
to enhance your group’s reading of
Alyssa Cole’s An Unconditional Freedom.
Discussion Questions
1. How did Daniel’s feelings toward Elle change over the course of the book (and over the course of the series, if you’ve read An Extraordinary Union and A Hope Divided)? How did he mature, and what role did his experiences play in that?
2. How did Janeta’s unique background prepare her for the detective work she was sent to do?
3. Daniel is clearly suffering from PTSD after his kidnapping and enslavement. Have you ever heard discussions of PTSD in enslaved people? How do you think this affected African-American communities after the war and to the present day?
4. Both Daniel and Janeta have been made to feel like outsiders in their communities. How does their relationship change their interactions with others? How are they integrating into their communities by the end of the book?
5. The role of Europe in the American Civil War is an important aspect of this story. Do you think current history courses make clear that the Civil War had a worldwide impact? Do you know of other ways the Civil War and slavery affected other countries?
Photo © Katana Photography
ALYSSA COLE is an award-winning author of historical, contemporary romance, and SFF romance. She’s contributed to publications including Bustle, Shondaland, The Toast, and Vulture, and her books have received critical acclaim from Library Journal, Kirkus, Booklist, Jezebel, Vulture, Book Riot, Entertainment Weekly, and various other outlets. When she’s not working, she can often be found watching anime with her husband or wrangling their menagerie of animals. Visit her at www.alyssacole.com.
As the Civil War rages between the states, a courageous pair of spies plunge fearlessly into a maelstrom of ignorance, deceit, and danger, combining their unique skills to alter the course of history and break the chains of the past . . .
Elle Burns is a former slave with a passion for justice and an eidetic memory. Trading in her life of freedom in Massachusetts, she returns to the indignity of slavery in the South—to spy for the Union Army.
Malcolm McCall is a detective for Pinkerton’s Secret Service. Subterfuge is his calling, but he’s facing his deadliest mission yet—risking his life to infiltrate a Rebel enclave in Virginia.
Two undercover agents who share a common cause—and an undeniable attraction—Malcolm and Elle join forces when they discover a plot that could turn the tide of the war in the Confederacy’s favor. Caught in a tightening web of wartime intrigue, and fighting a fiery and forbidden love, Malcolm and Elle must make their boldest move to preserve the Union at any cost—even if it means losing each other . . .
A HOPE DIVIDED
The Civil War has turned neighbor against neighbor—but for one scientist spy and her philosopher soldier, war could bind them together . . .
For all of the War Between the States, Marlie Lynch has helped the cause in peace: with coded letters about anti-Rebel uprisings in her Carolina woods, tisanes and poultices for Union prisoners, and silent aid to fleeing slave and Freeman alike. Her formerly enslaved mother’s traditions and the name of a white father she never knew have protected her—until the vicious Confederate Home Guard claims Marlie’s home for their new base of operations in the guerilla war against Southern resistors of the Rebel cause.
