Life First: (Dystopian series, book 1)

by RJ Crayton

  Susan hugs me again. “It’s safe. Luke will jam the door.”

  “I love you, Susan.”

  “I love you, too, Kelsey.”

  The door opens, letting in more light. It is Luke, bringing the wheelchair back. He reaches in his pocket, pulls out a zip top bag squished full of something. He pulls open the bag and dumps the contents on the floor near the door.

  “What’s that?” I ask, though I think I know.

  “My hair,” Susan responds. “He thought it would be best if it looked like you shaved my head here, after you drugged me.”

  I sigh. They have thought of everything. This feels wrong, yet inevitable. “Susan, you don’t have to do this,” I plead.

  “I know,” she says. “I’m making a choice.”

  I hate when she uses my own words against me. Luke clears his throat, and when I turn to him, he points to Susan’s wheelchair. “Kelsey, please get in.”

  I hesitate a moment, then hug Susan. I stand and walk over to the wheelchair. She lies down. “You sure you’ll be okay?” I ask, one last time.

  “Positive,” she says reassuringly.

  “Blame me, please. Remember this was against your will. We forced you to stay, drugged you, cut your hair. I don’t want them to put you in here for helping. I don’t want you to spend one extra moment in here, Susan.”

  “All the blame goes to you, Kelsey, and your awful accomplice.”

  I wave good-bye.

  “Good luck in Peoria ,” she says as Luke opens the door and wheels me out. I look back, and she smiles at me. Then, he closes the door, and begins doing something with the key-lock system. I can only assume he is jamming it. He backs the wheelchair up, then angles it until I am pointing in the right direction. And we are off.

  Chapter 36: Escape Again

  Getting out of the holding facility is easier than I’d ever have imagined. I keep my wig on and my head tucked down. A blanket over my legs. No one asks anything. Luke signs us out, wheels me to the parking lot, then hoists me into Susan’s van.

  And that is it. We are out. After putting the wheelchair in the back, Luke comes to the driver’s seat, starts the van and begins to drive.

  It seems too simple. A perfectly executed plan. One person in and one person out. Unfortunately, Susan is still in there. I feel guilty about leaving her, even though she wanted to do it. “You locked the guard in the other cell?” I ask for the fourth time as I crane my neck to look out the rear window toward the holding facility, though it is long past us.

  “Yes, Kelsey,” he responds reassuringly. “He won’t hurt Susan.”

  We are silent for a minute, and then the panic hits after a thought occurs. “Luke, they’re going to find him and then Susan. It’s not going to work. His LMS, Luke? His LMS is going to bring someone calling.” As the words leave my mouth, I realize his LMS should have already brought someone calling. Pig Face’s vital signs from being pummeled should have sent authorities to assist him.

  “That’s kind of what took so long, Kelsey. His LMS is off. It is almost impossible to do, but I got the tech to turn it off.”

  “They can do that?”

  He nods, keeping his eyes on the road. “They’re only supposed to do it when a person is dead. So, we changed his status, and my guy could get in such trouble if someone figures out it was him, but we think we’ve covered our tracks enough. I actually was supposed to knock him out using chloroform, but I knew that would mess with his vitals enough to call for help, so we turned it off.”

  So, no one would come to help Pig Face with his injuries. He’d rot in his cell until someone found him. No help for him tonight. I know it is wrong to enjoy his misery, but I am glad no one will help him.

  Luke is driving down a main thoroughfare. We’ve gone at least three or four miles since leaving the holding facility. He pulls the van into a convenience store lot, and parks.

  “Why are we stopping?” I ask. But, he doesn’t answer me. Doesn’t look at me. He just takes a few deep breaths, as if preparing himself for something awful.

  Finally, he looks at me, a piercing, desperate stare that frightens me a little. “We got there in time?” he whispers, never taking his eyes off my face.

  I nod. “Yeah.”

  “You’re not just saying that to me?” he asks, his eyes softening slightly. His voice breaks just a little, but he is trying to look and sound reassuring. “If I didn’t get there in time, you can tell me.”

  I shake my head. “I’m not just saying that Luke,” I tell him, still a little shaky at the memory. “I don’t think I could have held it together this long if you hadn’t gotten there in time.”

  He nods, then lets out a long breath. “I’m sorry I left you in there with him tonight.”

  I reach out and touch his hand. It is trembling. “It’s not your fault I was in there with him, Luke.”

  He shakes his head no, but doesn’t say anything more. Then, he puts the van in gear and we leave the parking lot. We are driving again. In silence. I consider asking where we are going, but realize, ultimately, I don’t care. I know Luke won’t take me anyplace bad. That he will do everything in his power to keep me safe. I trust him with my life. Already tonight, he’s beaten a man senseless in his quest to protect me, and broken me out of a holding facility. Whatever else he has in store has to be alright.

  We’ve been driving for about 20 minutes by the time I recognize where we are headed: Susan’s and my apartment. We live downtown on the first floor of a high-rise building. The place is wheelchair accessible on all floors via an elevator, but Susan preferred not to be dependent on the rumblings of a machine to get her to and from her abode, so we live on the first floor.

  “Why are we going to the apartment?” I ask.

  “Well, that’s part of the plan, for one,” he says. “Though, that’s just part of it. I’d like Dr. Grant to check you out.”

  “Dr. Grant!” I spit. “He betrayed me.”

  Luke shakes his head, eyes me briefly, then watches the road. “No, we just wanted it to appear that way. We wanted it to look like he really had an axe to grind with you, that he wanted to bury you. He didn’t betray you, Kelsey.”

  “I don’t understand,” I say, totally confused. “He moved up the date. He changed the recommendation for the procedure.”

  Luke nods, but keeps his eyes on the road as he speaks. “He found out Nimmick wanted to do the procedure at the holding facility hospital, not his lab, if we waited until you were 16 weeks.”

  I let that sink in a minute. The holding facility is not what we wanted. Seeing that I’d processed this, Luke continues. “Dr. Grant was already on track for conditional approval to do the procedure in FoSS. He asked Nimmick if he could speed up that approval, and explained that if he could get the conditional approval to perform 6-week procedures in the lab, they could get you done in the next week — right before the election. Nimmick went for it. We thought we could break you out of the lab, but then, I realized if we let Nimmick think he’d won, his guard would be down and it would be possible to get you out tonight. I’d always thought we could get you out if there was someone to switch places with you. I just never wanted to ask that of anyone. But, when I was bouncing escape ideas off Susan, she said she wanted to do it. I called Dr. Grant and he agreed to suggest fast-tracking you. He thought that it would throw off any future suspicion he was on our side.”

  “Yeah,” I say. Dr. Grant had certainly done that well. It had been a believable act. I am glad, perhaps even ecstatic, that Dr. Grant has not betrayed me. A promise from him is a promise. He promised to help me and he has.

  I put my hand on my belly and let it sit there for a moment. Things are going to be OK. “I don’t think the guard hurt the baby,” I tell Luke.

  Luke doesn’t respond immediately, then says. “It’s better to be sure, especially before we get on a plane.”

  “A plane?”

  “Yeah, we’re flying out tonight.”

  “Supply plane?�
�

  “Nope, medical emergency for Susan Harper,” he says, eyes on the road. “We’d better go ahead and get there.”

  Chapter 37: Home

  We pull into the lot of the apartment building and park. Luke makes no move to get out. He glances my way, then back at the steering wheel. He seems to want to say something to me. I wonder if he still thinks I have not been honest with him about what happened in the cell.

  I would have told him if more had happened. At least I think I would have. Right now, I am trying to put those memories behind me. I might break down in Peoria and spend the next three weeks weeping, but tonight I need to keep moving, keep going, escape. And that means not looking back. Not at Susan, stuck in that damned cell, and not at what might have been if Luke had arrived even 30 seconds later.

  “So, Dr. Grant is here?” I ask, breaking the silence.

  He chews his lip a moment, then says. “And so is your father and Judge Harrell.” He pauses to see my reaction. “They wanted to say good-bye.”

  I am caught between stunned and overjoyed. I want to say good-bye to my father, but I thought I wouldn’t get the chance. The quick verdict and ruling by the judge followed by the thrown-together breakout plan that involved Susan staying in a holding facility overnight left me thinking I’d be doing nothing but escaping.

  “You’ve thought of everything,” I tell him, grinning from ear-to-ear. “Thank you.”

  He should be happier at my reaction, but he isn’t. Maybe I am reading too much into it, but he seems to still be holding back.

  “There’s one other thing, Kelsey,” he says, alternating glances between me and his hands tightly gripped on the wheel. “It seemed like a good idea this afternoon.... But now, after tonight, it’s probably not a good time for it.”

  “What?”

  “Well, I kind of asked Judge Harrell to marry us,” he says without looking up. I blink in surprise. Wow! “But, we don’t have to,” he adds when he sees my face. “I just suggested it because, the other night, it seemed like it would mean a lot to you to have your father at our wedding. And since we’re flying, time didn’t seem like it would be that much of an issue. But, you know, given what happened with Lawrence, if you don’t feel up to it, I understand.”

  Even now, he thinks about my needs first. It is why I love him so. And he’s right, too. There’s a part of me that doesn’t feel up to it. A part of me that feels like curling into a ball and climbing under the covers. But, that part of me can’t win out. Not tonight. Not when I only have an hour or two more with the people I love before leaving them behind forever.

  “You know what,” I say. “I once told this guy that it wasn’t the right time to do something. And he told me I was full of shit. That there was never a perfect time for anything.” I grin. “I think he was right, and I couldn’t think of anything that would make me happier than to marry you tonight.”

  He looks up, a huge, deep-dimpled smile on his face. He takes my hand. “Then, let’s do it.”

  * * *

  When we get to the apartment, my father is waiting. I am so excited, I hop from Susan’s wheelchair, bound forward and hug him. He feels so warm and so soft, just like he did when I was a child and would fling myself into his arms for a hug. “Daddy,” I say. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

  “Where else would I be?”

  Nowhere else, I suppose. I let go of him, and smile as I look him over. His suit is baggy on the sides, and it’s clear he’s lost too much weight recently. His face is more wrinkled. My failed flee attempt and trial have taken their toll on him. I thought he’d looked bad after my mother died, but that seems like a day at an amusement park compared to how he looks now.

  He takes my hand, and leads me across the room, past the sofa along the wall, and to the opposite corner, away from Luke and the others who had assembled there: Dr. Grant, Emmie, Haleema and Uncle Albert.

  “How are you?” he asks quietly.

  It is a good question. I want to say fine, but the truth is I am shell-shocked. The holding facility was a horrible ordeal, but I can’t let that color my view right now. My father wants to know how I am for his own peace of mind, so I tell him the truth, at least the part of the truth that is crucial for him. “I’m happy, Daddy,” I say. “Very happy to be out of there, and looking forward to being with Luke.”

  “You love him?”

  A grin breaks out on my face and I blush. “Yes, very much.”

  He hugs me again. “And you want to go to Peoria with him?”

  I don’t look up at him yet, just delighting in the feeling of the hug. I don’t want to speak the answer. Yes, I want to go to Peoria with Luke, but that also means leaving my father, and I don’t want to say yes to leaving him, not just yet. I’d finally come to terms with leaving my father behind before my failed escape attempt. Now that it looks like my escape is going to succeed, all the emotions I’d struggled with earlier have come back. And before this all happened, my father was fine. He looked good and healthy, and had Haleema there to help him and a fairly vigorous career. Now he looks weak and tired. His name is tarnished. He’s risked it all to save me, and I am going to leave him with nothing: not his daughter, not his grandchild, not his reputation.

  “I don’t want to abandon you, Daddy,” I say softly, still clinging to him like a child.

  He pulls away from me, a genuine smile appears on his lips. “Honey, don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. I just want to know you’re doing what you want here, what’s going to make you happiest. Does Luke make you happy?”

  That is an easy one. “Happier than I’ve ever been.”

  “Good,” he says, winking at me. “He asked me to do him a favor.”

  “Luke did?” I say, surprised. Clearly, they’ve gotten closer while plotting to free me.

  “Yes, he did. But, I told him that it was really up to you. So, if you say, yes, I’ll do him the favor.”

  I crinkle my brow. “What does he want you to do?”

  “He’d like me to walk you down the aisle. That is if you’re OK with marrying him tonight. Albert will do the ceremony, if that’s what you want, Kelsey.”

  I look over at Luke, who is standing near the door chatting with Emmie, Haleema, Dr. Grant and Uncle Albert. He catches my eye and grins, flashing those gorgeous dimples. Then I look at my father, whose smile threatens to spread beyond ear to ear.

  “I would love it if you would walk me down the aisle, Daddy.”

  He squeezes my hand gently, then adds softly, “I’m not sure how legal it will be,” he says. “You can sign the marriage certificate as if the two of you did a solo ceremony. It’s still legal to conduct your own ceremony, and send the certificate to the court, but I think it reminds people too much of how bad things were after the pandemics so it’s not very common.”

  I hadn’t really thought about the legality of the ceremony until he mentioned it. But now that he has, I’m glad there is a prospect of legality. “So, if we signed a form, and sent it in, it could be legal?”

  He shrugs. “Potentially,” he says. “But, technically this option is only open to citizens in good standing. Given that you’re a fugitive, they may not accept it. Either way, I think doing this tonight is a good omen.”

  “I think you’re right,” I tell him. “Legal or not, I’m glad to have everyone here for us.”

  He smiles, turns to Luke and offers a thumbs up. Luke bolts across the room to join us. Once at my side, Luke pulls me close to him, then looks earnestly at my father. “Thank you, Mr. Reed.”

  “I’m always happy to do anything for my little girl,” my father says, then he reaches out, shakes Luke’s hand and meets his eyes. “I know I’m leaving her in good hands.”

  I watch my father, wondering if he is sad to let me go, to leave me with Luke. Yet, there is no trace of sadness on his face, only happiness, happiness that Luke and I are so happy. I turn to Luke. “You ready to get hitched?” I ask.

  He scowls. “No way.”

&n
bsp; Huh? Now I am baffled. “What are you talking about? I thought you just said…”

  He cuts me off, with a finger to my lips. “Shh,” he says, then kisses my cheek. “Two things, very quick.”

  I nod, wait for him to continue.

  “First, Albert wants to know if you want the standard ceremony, or if you want to say something first.”

  I am a little taken aback. Things are moving so fast, I wasn’t quite expecting that.

  “You don’t have to say anything,” he says, gently squeezing me closer. “I think he just asks all couples that.”

  Despite my initial anxiety, I tell Luke, “I’d like to say something.” Ever since I’d accepted Luke’s proposal, my mind has wandered to what our wedding day would be like. And I always envisioned saying at least a few heartfelt words to Luke.

  He kisses my forehead. “OK, one down.”

  “What’s the other thing?”

  “You and I have to get dressed,” Luke says.

  I look down at the red shirt and brown baggy pants I am wearing. Not perfect wedding attire, but it seems fine. “What’s wrong with this?”

  “For a wedding?” He shakes his head. “Susan left you some stuff in your bedroom. Go on.”

  I can’t help grinning. “A dress?” I ask, inching away from him. He nods. I start off toward my bedroom. “I’ll be out in a minute,” I say. “Don’t go anywhere.” That request sounds ridiculous the minute it leaves my mouth. Why would he leave? Why, after all he’s been through to be with me, would he go? I’m not sure why I even said it.

  But, his answer reminds me why I love him. He simply smiles and says, “Never. Wouldn’t go anywhere without you.”

  * * *

  The bedroom is as I remembered it: wood floors, a blue spread on a full-size bed, a dresser and a few photos.

  On top of the bed tonight, though, is a flat, black garment bag, zipped up, with a hanger protruding from the top. On top of the bag is an envelope. I move closer to it, and can see Kelsey spelled clearly in Susan’s handwriting.