Oppression

by Jessica Therrien

  She didn’t argue, and as she closed her eyes, I was glad I was there to give her a little reprieve. After all, she was suffering while I took my time coming to terms with the situation. It was hard to see her in so much pain, and I would have done it right then and there if it weren’t for William. I owed it to him to say goodbye, and more than anything, I was scared.

  “Hi,” I said walking into the kitchen. Seeing Chloe was always a little jarring for me. She looked so much like the younger Anna I remembered. “Can I help?”

  She smiled. “Sure.”

  I grabbed a knife and began to peel potatoes, watching her from the corner of my eye. There was so much of her mother in every move she made. I had always felt love for her, but now something deeper compelled me to protect her as if she were my own.

  “So, what are you this year, a freshman?” I asked.

  “Sophomore,” she answered. “You know that.”

  “Yeah,” I admitted. “I still don’t believe it though.”

  “Three more years,” she said with a mischievous smile. She had to remind me every time I saw her, confronting me with how close we seemed in age. It was strange. She seemed so young, so impressionable.

  “Four more years,” I corrected, “and don’t think that means you don’t have to listen to me. I’m twice as old as your mom. Remember that.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she teased.

  I shoved her with my shoulder as she picked up a knife and started peeling beside me.

  “So, give me the latest gossip. How’s school going?”

  Her eyes stayed down. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Why?” I asked, picking up on her discomfort.

  She shook her head. “There are these girls.”

  “What girls? What are they doing?”

  “You know, locking me in the bathroom, sticking gum in my hair, pretty much making school my own personal hell.”

  I put down the knife, angry at the thought of such cruelty. Didn’t they know her mother was dying? “How long?”

  She still hadn’t looked at me, and I could tell she was embarrassed. “Since last year,” she mumbled.

  “Does your mom know?”

  “No. I haven’t told her.” Her eyes snapped up, intent and serious. “And I don’t want you to tell her either.”

  I sighed, struggling with the decision to keep this from Anna, but Chloe’s expression was desperate. “All right,” I agreed.

  “Is she feeling okay?” she asked nervously. “I know she acts better than she feels with me.”

  I turned to put the freshly peeled potatoes in the boiling water, trying to avoid eye contact. The question had sort of blindsided me, and I wasn’t sure how to answer.

  “Yeah, she’s fine,” I tried to say as casually as possible.

  “Do you think I should go check on her?”

  “No, let her rest,” I said with my back still turned. “Don’t wake her.”

  “All right.” I could hear the stress in her voice as she opened the oven to baste the turkey.

  I tried to compose myself, but hearing her worry and fret over her mother’s condition tore me apart. I knew what it was like to lose a mother. It wasn’t fair, not this young, and I wouldn’t let it happen to her. I had to give her some peace of mind, tell her that it would all be all right.

  “Chloe,” I said softly.

  “Yeah,” she turned to look at me, her eyes heavy with sorrow.

  “Your mom is going to be fine. She’ll make it through this.”

  The words were a promise solidifying my decision, but to her they were nothing but a false consolation. Tears fell silently down her cheeks, although she spoke with a smile.

  “No, she won’t.”

  “Trust me,” I said, trying to speak more with my eyes than with my words. “I won’t let it happen.”

  I could tell by her expression that she knew I was trying to say more than I was, but she didn’t understand. How could she? Over the years, Chloe had learned about my age, but Anna and I had kept the day we healed between us. Without discussing it anymore, we continued to prepare the food, grateful of each other’s company.

  24.

  WILLIAM NEVER SAID anything about my Thanksgiving with Anna. If he was still angry, he kept it to himself. I did catch him checking over his shoulder every so often, but Kara must have kept the visit a secret, because I hadn’t seen any sign of Ryder.

  “We should do something this weekend,” I thought out loud as I popped some frozen waffles in the toaster. In the past week, the two of us had taken to confining ourselves to each other’s company, unaffected by the world outside.

  William was sprawled out on the couch, head buried in the weekly Headquarters newsletter.

  “No can do,” he said without as much as a glance away from the article. He didn’t offer any more explanation than that. Did he taunt me with his ambiguity on purpose, or was it just in his nature to maintain a certain level of mystery?

  “Why not?” I finally asked.

  “We already have plans.”

  “What plans?” I asked predictably. Without a beat, he answered, as if he’d been waiting to tell me for days, but didn’t want me to know it.

  “We’re going somewhere.”

  “Well . . . where are we going?”

  “It’s a little out of the way, so we’ll be staying for the weekend,” he added without acknowledging my question.

  I grabbed the waffles as they popped up and made room for myself on the couch, shoving William’s feet aside with my hips.

  “So, you’re not going to tell me?”

  “Nope,” he answered simply.

  “Will you tell me if I guess?”

  “Sure,” he said with a smirk as he set down his newsletter. “You’ll never guess.”

  “Well, how will I know what to pack?”

  “You’re already packed.” His sinister expression only added to his already stunning good looks, making it hard to be annoyed.

  “How?”

  “I packed for you last night when you fell asleep. The bag is in your closet.”

  I nibbled one of the berries off of my waffle. “What if you forgot something?”

  “I didn’t.” Confidence was never something he had to dig very deep to find.

  “Swimsuit?” I questioned, hoping for a hint.

  He shrugged. “Might need it.”

  “What shoes did you pack, flip flops or tennies?”

  “Both,” he grinned widely.

  “What about underwear?” I blurted out.

  “Yep.”

  “You seriously dug around in my underwear drawer?” I asked completely mortified. What did he see? I wasn’t exactly the lingerie wearing type of girl. Horrifying images of pink Tuesday cotton briefs and old Hanes that had been washed too many times made me groan with embarrassment.

  He laughed. “Don’t worry. I just grabbed and stuffed. I didn’t see anything.”

  “Good,” I shot out, not really believing him.

  As the day crept on, lingering in suspense of what was to come and when, none of my guesses got me any closer to our mystery destination. Between loads of laundry, I found out that we weren’t going out of state, but he wouldn’t tell me where in California. I had eliminated Los Angeles, San Diego, and Orange County, but I wasn’t exactly certain he would tell me if I had stumbled across the right answer.

  Overly antsy, I’d finished all the dishes, vacuumed, mopped, dusted, and William even helped me scrub the bathroom from top to bottom, making the place officially immaculate. Finally, after showers and dinner, he opened my closet and grabbed my bag.

  “So, are you ready to go?” he asked.

  “Well, how am I supposed to know if I’m ready if I don’t know where we’re going?”

  “Nice try,” he said, beaming with excitement. “We’ve just got to stop downstairs before we leave. Nics and Sam are meeting us at Cearno’s.”

  Without letting me look in my duffle, William t
ook off to get the car with it in hand.

  Nics and Sam were waiting on the sidewalk as I locked up my door, and I wondered why they weren’t inside enjoying a mocha blast or a strawberry sun tea. It wasn’t until I walked over to meet them that I saw the red and white CLOSED sign hanging from inside.

  “Hey.” Sam spoke through the car window as William drove up. “Cearno said we could park in his spot. You wanna drive around back so we don’t have to lug our gear out here?”

  “Gear?” I asked, picking up on the terminology.

  “Yeah, it’s heavy,” Nics said as she slid into the back. Sam followed right behind leaving the front seat for me.

  “So why is Cearno’s closed?” I asked a little worried for the future of the place. “It’s not closed for good, right?”

  “What? No,” Sam laughed. “He always closes down for Lenaia.”

  “Sam, come on,” William groaned.

  “Lenaia?” I asked completely lost. “What is that?”

  “What?” Sam hiked his shoulders up defensively. “You haven’t told her? How was I supposed to know?”

  “Whatever. Just help me load the stuff into the trunk.”

  I could hear the two of them bickering quietly from the back about what had just happened, but all I really had was a name. I realized that I hadn’t even seen what William had packed in the trunk. I had no idea what was being shifted and shoved around back there as they tried to fit everything in.

  “So, you’ve never even heard of Lenaia?” Nics asked from behind me.

  “No,” I admitted, turning to face her. “Should I have? It’s not some initiation thing is it?”

  “No, it’s just a holiday festival. It’s really fun actually.”

  “Oh come on, Nics, you too?” William complained as he re-entered the car. “Are you both completely incapable of keeping things to yourselves?”

  “I just told her it was a festival, jeez. She was all worried you were dragging her off to some initiation ceremony or something.”

  “Really?” he laughed. “Well, in a way it is. You’ll never forget your first Lenaia.”

  As we continued down the seemingly infinite straightaway into the nothingness of the I-5 freeway, the evidence of the ever-present city began to taper off. I couldn’t imagine where we were going, but I realized this might be a very long drive. The blackness deepened as we left the city’s lights behind, and the mountains silently tucked themselves away effortlessly into the night, so well that I couldn’t tell where they ended and the sky began.

  After several hours of driving through small town after small town, William exited unexpectedly. It was an exit that most would overlook. There was no street name or promise of distant civilization, just an anonymous cutaway that wound into the abyss of open space. Despite the apparent lack of any sort of gas station or pit stop, William showed no signs of stopping or re-entering the freeway. He simply kept on while the lights of our car were swallowed up in the natural folds of the terrain. Only after a few sharply bending curves did I catch sight of several other sets of taillights blinking in the distance like an airline runway outlining our path.

  I looked around in all directions at the black emptiness surrounding us. “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “You’ll see,” William answered quickly, before the others could give anything away.

  I raised my eyebrows, unsatisfied with his answer.

  “Don’t worry,” he added. “Those are other Descendants ahead of us. We’re not the only ones headed this way.”

  “Hardly,” Sam said.

  “So I take it this is no back road to LA then?”

  “Not so much,” Nics answered with a grin.

  “Seriously, guys,” I urged. “What, is there some secret city out here in the middle of nowhere? I mean this isn’t even a paved road.”

  Sam laughed at my paranoia. “I don’t know, William. I don’t think she likes surprises.”

  “No, I do, I just . . . How do you know other people won’t follow us out here?” I asked, moving the conversation away from the topic of me.

  Nobody answered.

  “I guess we don’t,” Sam said from the back seat. “Nobody’s ever followed us before.”

  “Like you’d notice,” Nics teased him.

  “I’d notice,” he said defensively.

  “Yeah.” She sounded unconvinced. “Like you noticed when Gino Piloske tracked you for three whole days for a class project.”

  “Okay,” Sam countered. “First of all, Gino’s bloodline is Artemis. His ability is tracking.”

  He paused for a while, satisfied with his response.

  “And second?” Nics asked, egging him on.

  “Do I even need a second?”

  I smiled to myself, resisting the urge to turn around and watch them banter.

  “Well, you said ‘first,’ which implies you have a second.”

  “Fine. Second. I did know he was tracking me. I just didn’t want him to fail his project.”

  “Yeah right,” she exclaimed.

  “Shut up, Nics.”

  “Oh, I’m just kidding around, jeez.”

  I let the sound of their bickering fade to background noise as I mulled over my unanswered question. It was nice to know that I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know every little detail about how they lived.

  “I’m sure they have security,” William said, glancing away from the road with a reassuring smile. He’d still been hanging onto my last words. “They have a major committee set this thing up every year. They would never let it go unprotected.”

  “How long have you had Lenaia? I mean how long have you been celebrating it?”

  “As long as anyone can remember.”

  “Hey,” Nics interrupted belligerently from the back.

  “Wow,” William reacted.

  “Well, he’s reing bediculous.”

  “What?” I asked aloud.

  “Being ridiculous,” William interpreted.

  “Sstopet, Sam,” Nics slurred. “I know what you’re tryindo.”

  “Sam,” I said mildly scolding. This time I did turn around. “Is she drunk?”

  “She was annoying me,” he returned with a shrug.

  “You think just because I’m a little tipsy, I can’t fight you?”

  Suddenly my vision blacked out, like the deep night sky had swallowed up the world around me. Everything was gone, but somehow still there. I clung to my seat, registering the fact that I could still feel.

  “Hey,” I shouted. “What’s happening?” But my words were drowned out by the sound of everyone reacting at once. I wasn’t the only one who was blindly hurling through the black space that surrounded us.

  “Nics, stop. We can’t see,” I heard William yell, but by then it was too late. She lifted her shield just in time for us to watch the car plow nose first into a ditch.

  “Shoot,” Nics muttered as we looked around at each other.

  “Is everyone okay?” I asked. Nobody seemed hurt.

  “Yeah,” Sam answered, rubbing his head which had bumped against the window.

  “Dammit, you guys,” William snapped after seeing no one was injured.

  Nobody spoke. The silence seemed to deepen as he put the car in reverse, only to find that accelerating dug us further into the soft billowing dirt.

  “Now what?” I dared to ask with harmless interest.

  “I don’t know,” he answered. “I haven’t seen a car in the rearview this whole time.”

  “I told you we should have left earlier,” Sam said.

  “That has nothing to do with it. If you wouldn’t have gotten so aggressive,” Nics spat.

  “So this is my fault now?”

  “Well, it’s not all my fault.”

  “Hey,” William interrupted. “Didn’t Rachel and Paul leave after us?”

  “Yeah,” Nics answered.

  “So call them,” Sam barked.

  “Why don’t you call them,” she shot back.

/>   “I’ll call,” William said, letting me in on a subtle eye roll. “Or maybe I won’t. Does anyone get a signal out here?”

  After three noes, it was decided that we would just wait for the next car. After all, it was sure to be someone going in the same direction.

  William shut off the lights to save the battery, and we all got out to wait in the dark, Nics and Sam making a point to put as much room between each other as possible. With her sulking on the hood of the car and Sam propped up against the slightly raised rear bumper, William and I settled down on the ground mid-distance between the two, trying not to take sides. Without the hope of headlights in the distance and not much conversation to partake in, it was easy to listen intently to the sound of the night. I didn’t dare break the tension between the three of them. Crickets chirped their hypnotic songs and the wind carried a steady hum in and out of the dry grass and rustling sagebrush. In the distance, something set off the balance, a foreign resonance that cut through the rest. I focused in on it, trying to pick it out. Its uneven pattern seemed too controlled for nature, unnaturally deliberate. The broken pieces of murmured sound could only be one thing—voices.

  “What?” William spoke through the stillness, noticing I was suddenly alert.

  “Shhh,” I hushed him. “Do you hear that?”

  I had caught Sam and Nics’s attention, who played only mildly interested. The voices were getting clearer, coming closer, but I was still reluctant to give us up. What kind of people wandered around out here at night? People who didn’t want to be seen.

  “I think I can hear something,” William whispered.

  “What?” Nics asked, moving in to make sense of the commotion.

  This time William shushed her, and Sam was soon to join in. We all listed intently as the voices became distinct. There were two of them, a man and a woman. It was obvious he was older and tougher, with a thick rough voice like a television mobster. Hers was just as angry, but younger and with the hint of a dramatic tone that had yet to be stripped away by age.

  “Oh don’t give me that, Sal. How many jobs have we done together?” The words were clear, but distant. I could just barely make them out. “I can see right through you, and you don’t like it any better than I do. You may look tough, but no one likes killing people, not unless they’ve gone nutzo.”