He sighed, pulling me into the darkness of the hallway, away from the masses of people who were settling in for bed. “I think I did you a great wrong, Tessa. These belonged to your father. I…he…well, we had a deal. Before the council took us, well, we may have sensed it was coming to that. So we agreed to keep letters for each other’s families. This way if one of us made it back, we could offer the other’s loved ones some comfort.”
“Why didn’t you give them to my mother?” I managed. It was suddenly stifling in the hallway.
“Because they weren’t for your mother. Every single letter in here is addressed to you.”
My hands began to shake.
“I held onto them because I couldn’t convince myself to bring you any more pain. What good would his words do? I thought you were young enough to move past it and start a new life. Find some comfort in this place. Or maybe I just hoped that by protecting you, you wouldn’t be so angry about your life here.”
He was right. I could understand his reasoning. My father was a traitor, an outspoken citizen killed for his distrust and mutinous tendencies. If I had spent my childhood reading his letters, I wouldn’t have survived. I would have died because I would have been unable to strangle the emotions inside me. I was too young back then. Too weak. Too innocent.
“Why are you giving them to me now?” Why tempt me with my father’s legacy now?
“I thought you needed something of your family to hold onto. And I realized, maybe anger isn’t such a bad thing. Your sister and the other women—I know the council can stop this. It isn’t right,” he replied softly, staring past me. He moved his fist and pushed it against the wall, all without an ounce of bitterness crossing his face. His body was unsure how to handle the feelings that had lay dormant in him for so long.
I recognized this look—a need to fight back. Every so often I would see it cross the face of some natural, and every so often they would find a way to ask for their own death.
I shook my head, not wanting to touch the letters and desperately needing to clutch them to me at the same time. “How did you even get those in here? Weren’t you searched?”
“Considering the things your father and I were doing, it should be no surprise I could hold onto some letters. I have my ways.”
I laughed. “Right. If you two were so good at keeping secrets, then how come you got caught?”
Jacobson smiled. “Your dad always said you had one hell of a sense of humor.”
I wanted to smile back. I’d been called a lot of things, but funny usually didn’t make the list.
“Maybe I’m making a mistake here. I can’t be sure reading these will do you any good, but the truth is I don’t think I’ve got much time left in this body, and I can’t go knowing I made a decision that was not mine to make.”
It would be my choice to read the letters or not. My choice.
That night, I didn’t sleep, just lay on my cot, staring at the ceiling. I shared a room with Louisa and a girl named Grace who had lost her mother to suicide some time back. I guess the council figured that, since we had been through something similar, we could help her out. The thought of talking about our dead mothers didn’t seem helpful for anyone. Louisa liked Grace because she let her prattle on and on without interrupting.
It was only when I heard their snoring and off-key breathing that I found a moment for myself. I sat up, stretching my muscles. I held my body tight, tense from the day. It was hard keeping my emotions in check. I was a natural, after all. I curled my fingers under the rail of my cot and leaned forward, resting my head on my knees.
I could feel the weight of my father’s presence crushing down upon me. I had never been a big crier, but my first night in the compound I’d cried myself to sleep. The night they took my father I’d felt only anger. I hadn’t shed a tear. Somehow, almost two years after he was gone, surrounded by so many other people, I cried for my father. I whispered out his name, begging him to take me from this place. Eventually, I stopped calling for him.
What would happen now if I read one of his letters? Would I find it ridiculous? Pathetic, senseless ramblings from a man foolish enough to get himself killed? Would I find a clue as to why he chose some mission, some useless political statement, over me? Would I find a way to embrace the memories of the man without opening up the pain I knew could consume me?
Suddenly, the letters were in my hands. I couldn’t stop myself. I cursed Emma silently. This was her fault. If she were still here, I wouldn’t be like this. I would be strong. I would be invincible. But even I couldn’t convince myself of my own strength. In the darkness of the night, the hours where I was unable to sleep, I felt the pain hum inside of me.
With a shaky breath, I began to read.
Chapter 8
Tess,
I never really wanted to be a father. Maybe this isn’t something one should tell one’s daughter, but it’s never been my way to much worry about things you should and should not say. Guess you sort of take after me in that regard.
Do you remember when you were three and your mother asked you if you wanted to have a new baby brother or sister? You looked her dead in the face, stuck out your tongue, and proceeded to growl. Yes, you actually growled. And when your mother let you see Louisa for the first time, you told her she looked like a turtle.
I know you don’t remember Grandma and Grandpa, but I can’t say I was ever much like them. It’s a weird thing how children turn out. I can see so much of your mother when I look at Louisa, even in the way she covers her mouth with her hand as she eats. She’s three for Christ sakes, and yet she mimics your mother so well. With Emma, it’s like she got the best qualities of your mother and me. But there’s this strange strain of compassion that runs through her. Your mother and I aren’t even able to fake that amount of sympathy for others. Where does she get it?
You, you’re all me. I used to sort of like that. Now, it makes me scared for you. Every day I wake up to a world that’s getting darker and darker, and it’s suffocating me, kid. I try to pretend, like the others, that it isn’t happening. But I just can’t.
Tonight, as we watched the council’s first demonstration of the chosen ones, I kept my eyes on you.
It’s pretty sick, really, the way the council arranged it all. Just in time for dinner. Come, collect your families around the television, watch our greatness. Ignore the fact there are countless families who can no longer afford roofs over their heads, let alone a television. But, of course, the council had that covered. They set up big screens in every shantytown in the Western sector. No doubt they will be taken down by tomorrow morning.
Were we supposed to cheer as that chosen one killed those men? I have no doubt that many fathers looked to their children and felt comforted, somehow convincing themselves they would be protected now. We would no longer have to worry about terrorists or wars. We could simply whip up an army in a lab, an army that no one could match. Forgetting that when one country shows their big guns, another country goes out and creates bigger ones.
I shudder to think where our genetic meddling will lead us in fifty years. Will they even look human then? Will there even be any of us naturals left to notice?
Louisa clapped her hands in delight. I could hear your mother’s words of encouragement as the chosen one performed his duty with ease. Emma, bless her soul, couldn’t bear to watch. But you, you just stared at the screen. You never flinched. Your little forehead scrunched up as if you were trying to commit every move to memory, and your little hand curled into a fist. Do you know that? Were you aware of your own movements? Who did you want to fight?
I feel it, too, the urge to fight this. I just don’t know whom to fight anymore. The council? They’re supposed to be the ones protecting us.
My mom and dad had it rough, but at least they knew who they were fighting. Dad always said it was impossible to sum up the causes for the war in simple, concise sentences. How can one define hatred? I asked him to try. He told me our country, or the
country that once bonded all parts of this land, lost itself. We had fallen onto hard times and entered into a depression. Something our people hadn’t seen in a hundred years. There’s not much left of the Midwest now. All of the survivors moved to the West coast.
We fought with other lands across the sea. Faraway lands that hated us for reasons that seemed ancient and ever pestering. But as we squandered away our money, we found it difficult to fight the enemy, and people became disillusioned. Why sign up to fight a war across the sea when one’s own family was starving? Why fight for a country that could not take care of its own people?
When I look to my neighbors who have lost everything, I can understand these feelings.
With one bomb dropped, the men from overseas killed millions and destroyed the majority of our military. The majority died from the bomb itself. Others from radiation poisoning. Others from starvation. Our government took too long to bring supplies and relief to those living in the heartland. Our country fell apart.
Fearing complete anarchy, people began to band together. Temporary, makeshift governments came into power. We were no longer a unified country, but rather a series of colonies fighting for a sense of safety. Some men thought it would be best to rebuild, form a newer, stronger government. There were countless meetings among the colonies, which never amounted to much. Some wanted to rebuild the government according to the doctrines that the United States was founded on. Others said the previous system was corrupted and we needed a new form of government. There was a lot of in-fighting and more violence.
I wonder sometimes why my parents decided to bring me into such a world of chaos. And yet, I did the same to you.
The only thing anyone could agree on was a need for stability. After years of talks and a few violent flare-ups between the warring factions of our country, a treaty was created. Our country would no longer pretend it could come together. Easterners. Westerners. The Middlelands were left to themselves. No one chose to settle there except those who wanted no government at all.
Westerners like my parents understood the need for some sort of government, an agency meant to serve the people’s interests and band us together behind a common belief system. Except our government refused to be called a government. Instead, we were a council. Somehow the term made it seem less intrusive.
Ironic, huh?
My parents held strongly onto their faith in this new system. I wasn’t allowed to question. When the council took control over the media I remember asking why, and my father slapped me hard across the face. He got all red and mumbled something about me not knowing a damn thing about freedom or what happens when someone tries to take it from you.
I can’t trust the council. Something inside won’t let me. Who am I supposed to despise more? The Easterners who attack our land? The Middlelanders who seek out the wild? Or my own government? I just feel a fight coming on. I think you feel it, too, Tess. And that scares the living hell out of me. Part of me wishes you were nothing like me.
I did something stupid today. I volunteered to work at one of the new training centers for the chosen ones. It’s decent money, and the best job I could hope to get. Also, I want to know more about them, and what better way than to work there?
Who knows if you will ever read this. I hope you never have a reason, but you probably will.
I never wanted to be a father. Mostly because I somehow knew I wouldn’t be around for you. I’ve been waiting my whole life for a fight.
~Dad
Chapter 9
I was shaking. Somehow I could hear my father’s voice as I read his letter. Ten years later, I could still hear him. It was yet another reminder of all the things I kept locked away. I knew my people’s history, but sometimes it was easier to let the council rewrite it all.
I couldn’t change the council or this life. My father was wrong—I wasn’t strong enough to be the kind of fighter he thought I was. The only thing I wanted to defeat was my own weak self. And I couldn’t even do that lately.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. And then I waited for whatever was going to come next.
When I sensed it was near morning, I crept out of the room and headed toward the showers. I hoped the rest of the compound would still be asleep. I needed just a little more time to myself.
I turned the water as hot as I could get it. It burned, and I found comfort in the pain. It was strange that sitting in the shower, the blazing heat causing my naked skin to erupt in blotches of red, I thought of Emma. My sister. The girl my father said was filled with compassion. What were those last moments like for her? Did she cry out? Did she ask for me at all? Or was it all about him? Did her eyes simply close or did her body lurch, fighting against the darkness that was attempting to claim it?
My heart began to speed up, and I leaned against the wall of the shower. Breathing in and out. In and out. In and out. The letter made me weaker, not stronger like my father had hoped. It would be so easy to just cry, to give in. In frustration I slammed my head against the cement wall. The pain vibrated from my head down to my toes. And I liked it. My heart stopped beating so wildly. I could focus on this new pain. I threw my head back again into the wall. And again. And again. Again. Again. Again. My head was throbbing. I reached my fingers to the back of my scalp and found blood.
Always blood.
When I arrived at work, my head still throbbing from the morning, Gwen was waiting. She looked me up and down. Whatever she saw, she was not impressed. I knew she could find no fault with my appearance; I’d made a point of ensuring my uniform was perfect. No wrinkles. No dirt. No sign of the laziness that consumed the people of the compound.
I was perfect.
With a heavy sigh, my supervisor turned and began to walk down the hallway. When I didn’t follow, she snapped her fingers at me without stopping to make sure I understood her directions. She knew I would follow. She knew I would have to.
We didn’t speak to each other as we climbed the marble staircase to the upper levels of the Templeton mansion—the servants’ quarters. Women, girls, who had received two slash marks were forced to live at Templeton. While I could go home to my family, or lack thereof, every night, the double-slash girls had to serve out their sentence twenty-four hours a day, six days a week. One day for rest, of course—that is what the Bible demanded.
I was still unsure what happened when one received the third mark.
When we stopped, my supervisor pulled a skeleton key from the pocket of her skirt. It struck me as odd that the doors of the servants’ quarters were locked from the outside, as if one of them would try to escape. No one would be that stupid. If a girl ran from her punishment and life at the compound, the next oldest female in her family would not only have to finish the remainder of her sentence, but would be punished for the new transgression as well.
Besides, the minute someone left, the council’s promise of protection was null and void. In the early days of my life at the compound, back when my mother was still alive, a group of women and Henry ran off. It was before I knew him. The women were unhappy with the council’s system of punishment—why should the females be forced to serve for the sins of all? Why must we be responsible for the morality of a people who just didn’t give a damn anymore? At the time, I remember asking my mother why we didn’t leave with them. She asked me if I knew where to score some booze. She didn’t give a damn anymore, either.
Three weeks later, the council found the bodies of these women. They had been attacked. Barely identifiable. The council was unclear if it was Easterners or the Isolationists—men and women who had run into the darkness of the forest before the construction of the compounds—were responsible for the deaths.
Sure, it’s terrible. The whole system. But the funny thing about mankind is we have a natural need—a natural will to live. So many of us would rather have a life of nothingness than risk not living at all. And the council knows this.
As the click of the door unlocking stirred me from my recollections
, I noticed my supervisor staring at me. Something about the look on her face, the weariness of it, caused me to take a step back.
What was waiting behind that door?
“Now you listen to me, girl. When we go in there you are not to say a word. Nothing. You will not speak of this to anyone. If she says something to you, you will ignore her. Do you understand?”
I nodded. Somehow I couldn’t find the courage to speak to this woman as we entered the room.
Lying on the bed was a young girl with her back toward me—the two glaring red slash marks standing out against the pale skin of her neck. She was curled into a ball, her hands pressed against her heart. Spots of blood covered the sheets. As I stepped farther into the room, I began to see how wild this girl looked. Her nightgown barely clothed her body, and she made no attempt to cover herself as we approached.
“Help me get her up,” Gwen commanded.
As my hands made contact with her arm, the girl shrieked. She began to blindly lash out, hitting me in the arms.
“Calm down, child,” I heard Gwen say from somewhere in the darkness. “Damn it, girl! Make yourself useful and help me hold her down!”
I applied as much pressure to the girl’s body as I could muster. I was barely able to hold her in place as she continued to squirm with a force that seemed unnatural coming from someone so small. How old was this girl? She couldn’t be sixteen. And yet one was not allowed to take on someone’s punishment until she was of age.
My supervisor pulled a syringe from her pocket and without hesitation stuck it into the girl’s arm. I felt her body begin to convulse. Tears ran down her face and she attempted to yell out, but all she could do was grunt.
Slowly, the girl became still. I could hear her breathing return to normal. She was mumbling something as the contents of the syringe lulled her to sleep, but it was difficult to make much sense of it.
“Stay with her. Don’t let her move. I will be right back,” my supervisor said coldly. She was beginning to be a mystery I knew I would never want to understand.
Chosen Ones (The Lost Souls, #1) Page 6
