The Secret Citizen (Freedom/Hate Series, Book 3)

by Kyle Andrews

  The man who Rose had saved from being killed was struck in the face by the HAND officer and fell to the ground. While the officer was distracted by him, Rose got to her feet and moved forward. She kicked the officer under the chin and the officer dropped the gun as she fell backward.

  Wasting no time, Rose picked up the gun. She'd never held one before. Guns were reserved for HAND officers and police emergencies. Citizens rarely got their hands on one, and those who did rarely shared them with others.

  She took aim, just as the HAND officer turned to face her again. Blood was pouring from the officer's mouth. She must have bitten her tongue when Rose kicked her.

  When the officer looked into Rose's eyes, Rose searched for some sign of emotion. Fear. Remorse. She would have settled for any hint of humanity, but she saw nothing. The officer was just staring at her, waiting.

  “Shoot!” the man yelled at Rose.

  The officer smiled and said, “Yeah. Shoot.”

  Rose swallowed hard. She could end the life of the HAND officer right then and there. That realization paralyzed her. She had never been trained for this moment. She'd thought about it for years, but only in daydreams. This was different. This was a human life, not some vague idea of a bad guy.

  She suddenly became aware of the area around her, where those people who had been watching the situation unfold were now struggling with each other. Loyalists were trying to help the HAND officer. Those who sympathized with Freedom's cause were holding them back, but there were too many people. The situation was too big. Once again, Rose had acted before the thought things through. This time, she might live to regret it.

  The officer saw all of the emotions that were surging through Rose. It was obvious that she knew that Rose couldn't pull the trigger. Rose wasn't like her. She was a smart-ass, and often reckless, but she could not take the life of another human being without a second thought.

  The HAND officer started to move. Slowly, she got to her feet. She cocked her head slightly to the right, still staring into Rose's eyes. Questioning her. Possibly daring her. When Rose didn't pull the trigger, the officer took a step forward.

  “We can end this,” the officer said.

  The man yelled something to Rose, but his voice sounded like nothing more than background noise. In that moment, Rose and the HAND officer were the only people who existed.

  An explosion went off behind the HAND officer. Rose instinctively ducked her head. Her focus was momentarily shifted and in that moment, the HAND officer moved toward her.

  Rose pulled the trigger. No thought. No question. The HAND officer fell backward, onto the ground and Rose gasped. She kept the gun where it was, now aimed at some poor woman whom Rose had no grudge against.

  The HAND officer was wearing body armor, but Rose must have hit her in a spot where she wasn't covered. Blood was pouring out, onto the street. There was a gurgling sound coming from the officer, who began spitting up blood.

  Rose took a deep breath and then lowered the gun. She thought that this would feel different. She thought that taking down a HAND officer would feel like justice being served, but it didn't. Deep down, Rose knew that HAND officers started out the same way as everyone else. They were neighbors and brothers. They were normal people who had been manipulated and corrupted even more than everyone else.

  But the HAND officer was the enemy. If Rose didn't kill her, that officer would have killed Rose, or someone else. Hell, Rose caught her in the process of trying to kill someone else. She was the bad guy, and looking around at where she was and why she went there in the first place, it was made abundantly clear to Rose that this was war. It wasn't pretty, but it was necessary. She understood that, but it didn't make her feel good about what she had done. She had killed a person and there was no way for her to take that back.

  3

  Collin had spent weeks in HAND custody. He'd been cut open and put on display for enemies whose faces he could never see and whose names he would never know. He had been tortured. He'd had his mind played with. He'd been starved. Then finally, he had been ordered to die in a public execution. He could use some time to breathe, but that would have to wait.

  He found himself in the back of a HAND van, which had been stolen by members of Freedom. One of them stayed behind in the chaos of the moment. Now there were just two there with him. A man was driving the van. He was muscular and bearded, with a large scar on the side of his face. The man kept his eyes focused on the road ahead, trying his best to avoid running over anyone.

  The woman behind Collin was familiar to him. He'd met her once before, on an empty highway. She was late, he had missed curfew and his life had been chaos ever since.

  “I'm Tracy, by the way,” the woman said, leaning forward and brushing her wavy red hair away from her face. She smiled, as though there weren't people beating on the windows as the van slowly made its way through the crowd. As though explosions weren't going off around them. As though blood wasn't sticking Collin's shirt to his chest.

  “No cross pollination,” he said to her. It was what she told him that night on the highway. It meant that members of one base weren't supposed to know where any of the others were, so they couldn't give anyone up if captured.

  Her smile faded somewhat, but she didn't respond.

  “It was the right call,” he told her. “I'm just saying, I remember you.”

  “The guy up front is Mek. He's the best driver we have, so don't worry about anything. Sit back. Rest up a bit,” she told him.

  “I think I'll wait until we're a little farther away before I try to sleep,” he replied, looking out the window.

  Though the van was heavily armored and secure, Collin couldn't shake the feeling that this wasn't over yet. Escape didn't seem possible. Any life outside of that place didn't seem possible anymore. As far as he was concerned, this was all some elaborate manipulation, trying to get him to reveal where his base was located.

  He turned to Tracy. She was looking out the window, staring at the people outside as though they were fish in a bowl. She was only slightly older than he was. She couldn't have been used to this sort of action and excitement, but if she was stressed or scared by any of it, he couldn't see it in her eyes.

  “Where are we going?” he asked her.

  “Home,” she replied, before clarifying, “My home.”

  “What happened to the rules?”

  “I didn't see your people rescuing you. If they're here, I'd be happy to send you home with them.”

  Collin looked toward the window again. He couldn't wrap his mind around what he was seeing. In his entire life, he had never seen this type of violence among the citizens. He kept wondering what it was all about—Why were people so riled up? Then he remembered that they were all there for him. Well, him and that woman that the Mayor wanted dead.

  “Who is she?” he asked Tracy. “The woman that they wanted in my place?”

  “Libby Jacobs?” Tracy smiled. “She's the library. Well, that's what people are calling her anyway. I'm pretty sure that we could do better in the nickname department. At least call her the Librarian, so she doesn't sound like a building.”

  “Library?” Collin asked. As a book runner, he was familiar with most of the books and documents available to Freedom. He knew most of the supply lines and catalogs. His interest was piqued by the term library, but he had no idea what it meant in this context.

  “Did you ever hear of Uly Jacobs?” Tracy asked.

  “He was killed right before I was arrested.”

  “To put it mildly, yeah. Well, Libby is his sister. Or cousin... Or aunt. I'm not really sure about the relation. Anyway, the details are a little fuzzy since it's all whispers in the shadows around the city, but they have some sort of database inside of them. A data chip, or something, I guess.”

  Tracy reached into her pocket and pulled out three sheets of folded paper. When she handed them to Collin, he unfolded them and looked at what was printed on them.

  “The Bill o
f Rights?” he asked. “Is it real?”

  “It's all old-time English. Sounds real enough. And apparently the men in suits think it's real enough to trade you for her.”

  “But they didn't get her,” Collin said. It was somewhere between a statement and a question. He wasn't sure which he intended it to be.

  Tracy raised an eyebrow and looked out at the crowd as she replied, “She's out there somewhere. And she probably has a lot more than this to offer.”

  Collin stared at the documents in his hand. They were bootlegged copies, of course, but these words were real. Not half-remembered jottings or the gist of what had been on the original document. Just reading them, he could tell that they were legitimate. These were the original words, with the original purpose behind them. His heart was pounding in his chest, even harder than it had been when he was about to be killed.

  He wanted to meet Libby Jacobs. He wanted to read everything that she had to offer. He wanted to understand how nobody had ever known about any of this before. How many years of questioning and debating could have been avoided if only Freedom had access to these documents before? They wouldn't have to tell people the truth and hope they'd just take their word for it. They could show people the truth. Words written, and the provenance to back them up.

  His eyes moved to the window again and he saw the people outside. There were citizens fighting for freedom. Openly. It was something that he had only dreamed of in the past and now it was playing out right before his eyes.

  But there were also people who had seen these same words and knew their meaning, yet they stood behind the authorities who would deny them of their rights. Why? For the illusion of comfort and security?

  “It's not just about her,” Tracy said, looking at Collin as though she was gazing upon the stars for the first time in her life. “You did this too.”

  “Me?”

  “Your letter. 'The Idea Doctrine.'”

  Collin didn't know what to say. Was that really what they were calling the words that he'd scribbled down in a hurry, before allowing himself to be captured by HAND? If so, he felt as though he could have spent more time on editing.

  Tracy told him, “People saw you arrested. They heard what you said to them. It wasn't the same thing that the news reported that night. Those people told others. Questions were asked. Not by everyone, but by enough people. You planted the seed. It's just like you said about starting with an idea. Because of you, people were ready to look at these documents.”

  Collin felt something dripping down his chest. He couldn't tell if it was blood from one of his many wounds, or sweat from the pressure of suddenly being seen as relevant in this world that he lived in.

  The entire time that he was locked up and being tortured by HAND, Collin wondered if anyone he knew ever thought about him. He thought about his friends, but assumed that they'd already mourned and moved on with their lives. He never expected anyone to dwell on his loss. He never expected anyone to cry for him. He certainly never expected anyone to stand up and fight for him. Now he was being told that complete strangers knew his words. What was a person supposed to do with that information?

  “I'm totally freaking you out right now,” Tracy said, sitting back in her seat.

  “Don't worry about it.”

  The van stopped. Collin looked through the windshield and saw a burning police car in their path. As soon as the van came to a halt, people began to swarm around it, pounding on the windows and screaming. The loudest among them were young, with their faces painted and signs with slogans like 'DEATH TO TRADERS' and 'MAKE HIM SUFFER' on them.

  Setting aside what Collin assumed was a spelling error and not a legitimate play on words, he was struck by the realization that those who were behaving the most savagely were not necessarily those who sympathized with Freedom, but the loyalists who supported the actions of the government. They were beating on a van that belonged to their own side, with windows tinted in a way that prevented those outside from seeing who was in the vehicle. As far as they knew, it was packed with HAND officers.

  “Hold on,” Mek said, in an annoyed growl. He twisted the wheel and cut around the police car, nearly plowing down a number of people in the process.

  When the people realized that the van was coming through whether they were in the way or not, they cleared a path. But even as they drove past those people, signs continued to be slammed against the side of the van. Bottles shattered against the windows. Fists pounded. People yelled and chanted, and Collin couldn't understand what was happening.

  Those who supported Freedom had a reason to fight. They had a reason to stand up and make themselves known. But those who stood with the authorities had no cause to act this way, except that they seemed to enjoy it. Even as loyalists, their voices had been repressed for so long that this was what their venting looked like.

  This was not what Collin had hoped for. When he wrote that letter, he was thinking about a controlled rebellion. A calculated stand against the people who had maneuvered and deceived the public for decades in order to accomplish what they had. This chaos was sloppy, and made sloppier because it held no meaning. The loyalists were making more noise than Freedom. Their voices were louder. Their actions would stand out when the press reported on this night.

  Though thankful to be away from that place, Collin was starting to wonder if his rescue had done more harm than good for the people of Freedom.

  4

  Rose had put distance between herself and the HAND officer that she had taken down—A term that she was using in her own mind for the moment because 'the HAND officer that she had killed' required much more thought and reflection than she was willing to give it at that moment.

  The crowd around her was beginning to thin out. People had moved away from the HAND building and through the city's streets. Car alarms and police sirens could be heard in the distance. Windows were shattering. Buildings were burning. For as far as she could see or hear, there was no end to the chaos. It was as though the gates of Hell had been opened and every evil had been set loose upon the city.

  Part of her wanted to see it burn to the ground. She hated the world that she had been born into. She hated the people that allowed that world to exist in the first place. She hated those who followed the authorities blindly, giving them whatever they wanted until the people no longer had anything left to give.

  But then there was the part of her that wanted to fight for what was rightfully hers. To simply burn the city to the ground would not be justice. It would not make things better. The only thing that could make things right at this point was to look the authorities squarely in their arrogant little eyes and rip the power away from them. To put that power back in the hands of the people. To force those politicians who stood high in their ivory towers to come down to street level and see how it felt to be a normal person.

  She didn't want to see the city burn—not really. What she wanted was to see the system burn to the ground. She wanted to see HAND crumble. She wanted to see the Mayor, the Governor, the Senators and everyone else, right up to the President, forced to answer for their crimes. How realistic that dream was, she didn't know. There was no one battle to wage in order to win this fight. There was no one person to take down. Cut off one limb and another would grow in its place.

  Rose had to stop thinking. If she allowed herself to go down those roads in her mind, she would fall apart. She would see the enormity of their situation and how endless it truly seemed. If she allowed herself to look past that one moment and that one place, she would drown.

  The city was in chaos. There would be no way to make this look good on the news. There would be no way for the Mayor to declare victory, if he was still alive at all. So for that moment, in that place, Rose chose to feel good about their situation.

  As she turned to her left, she saw the statue of Lady Justice in the center of a fountain. She stood with her back to the HAND building, keeping a watchful eye on the city. If statues could change their expressi
on, Rose wondered what old Lady Justice would look like now, watching as the city was torn apart.

  She turned away from the statue and saw Justin, standing in the distance. Smoke was still lingering in the air, with the occasional swirl wrapping itself around him. If the crowd hadn't thinned as much as it had, she never would have noticed him.

  Walking toward him, Rose couldn't see Justin's face. His back was turned to her. His head was tilted upward, as though he were looking at the stars. She wondered why he would be standing there like that. She wondered if he was hurt, or if he was watching something specific in the sky, but the closer she got, the less she wanted to know. Justin wasn't moving, and something in Rose's gut was telling her that this wasn't right. Something was very wrong.

  She stopped walking before she reached him. A man ran between them, with a burning torch made out of a broomstick and the shirt off of the man's own back. The lingering smoke in the area caught the glow of that torch, and for just a moment it looked as though the air were on fire.

  “Justin,” Rose said, but she wasn't sure what to say next.

  Justin turned around and looked at her. He looked past her. He looked around her. He took in everything that he could see, with no emotion reading on his face at all.

  He started to walk toward her. Once he was close, he turned his head away and said, “We don't know each other out here.”

  “Is everything okay?” she asked, but Justin just kept walking.

  She might have been offended if he wasn't right. They weren't supposed to know each other. They weren't supposed to speak to each other. They were ordered to spread out for a reason and she had gone against orders just by talking to him. But something was wrong. The way he spoke to her was wrong. The look in his eyes was wrong.

  There was no time to linger. Rose had a long way to go if she wanted to get back to the Garden. If something was wrong with Justin, he could tell her once they were safe and sound. Until then, she needed to stop taking in the sights and start moving.