by Anne Tibbets
When it was all over, he returned to Central and moved in with Anj at her brownstone in an attempt to rebuild his life. He was working in the banking sector now and dating a woman from Flora.
Ric was cautiously optimistic they’d make some sort of peace.
It appeared Chairman Naumann had been right about sending Charle on the delegation, but the rest of us had played a part, as well. Cat, having been a part of Auberge security forces before switching sides and working with Sonya, helped restructure the police force and deconstructed martial law.
Ric proved instrumental in retooling Auberge’s health care system and the dismantling of all of Auberge’s trafficking rings and institutions, just like he’d always wanted.
And I took the lead in implementing campaigns to improve citizen life, which meant public schools in each sector, the cleaning out and restructuring of Central’s streets and sanitation department, and the organizing of construction crews to rebuild and revitalize the broken-down areas all over Auberge.
It turned out that Premier needn’t have worried about the expense of rebuilding Auberge. Chairman Naumann released trillions in Auberge’s stockpiled world trade credits and citizens lined up for hours at the opportunity for work. There was enough money and people, and jobs. The majority of the needs within Auberge were resources. Oil, building materials and natural resources like wool, cotton and synthetic fibers for a proper textile industry, they were all scarce. It was a massive undertaking, orchestrating lines of credit with other corporations and facilitating future trade. It kept all of us from the delegation busy for weeks on end, but it was also worth it.
Here we’d thought Auberge was broken beyond repair, when all it had needed was a bit of new blood. There was a long road ahead, but we were moving toward a better future.
Ric told me none of it would have happened if it hadn’t been for me, but I didn’t like looking at it that way. There were too many pieces of the puzzle to put so much stock in only one.
* * *
While sitting on the sofa in the library, I smiled as Shirel shooed Clea away from Adena’s tower of blocks.
We’d found them holed up in an abandoned apartment in East, surviving on canned goods and well water.
As long as I lived, I didn’t think I’d ever forget the feeling of knocking on that door—the millionth door in all of Auberge—looking for Shirel and the girls, and having Shirel’s eye peek out the crack.
“What the fuck do you want?”
I burst into tears right then.
The door creaked open another inch, and then Shirel’s face peered out at me. “Jesus Christ, girl!” she sobbed, breaking down on the spot. “What the fuck took you so long?”
And then we were in each other’s arms. I heard little voices behind her and nearly knocked her over as I bent to see.
Clea and Adena were on the floor of the apartment playing with a pile of broken kitchen utensils. Adena took one look at me and her face contorted into a cross of happiness and relief. “Mama!”
Bliss.
The other moment of pure happiness for me was when Ric and I married. We had Chairman Naumann perform the ceremony.
I didn’t have a dress, and Ric didn’t have a ring, but when we returned from Flora after the month-long negotiations, and before we set out in search of Shirel and the girls, we made it official.
It didn’t matter to me what my maiden name was anymore, because I had a last name now. One I’d earned.
Naya Bennett.
Now. Legally, I was Naya Ozu Bennett.
It turned out my father, Frank Ozu, my mother, Kiki Ozu, and my sister, Alair, who was now sixteen years old, lived in East. He was a worker at the electrical power plant, and my mother cleaned offices at one of the science laboratories. They’d never had any more children.
At first I wasn’t sure if I wanted to invite them back into my life, but Ric had convinced me I should.
After we’d found Shirel and the girls, we’d taken them down to Ric’s family estate in South and settled in. It was the perfect place for us.
Ric began the process of reshaping the gigantic house into a home, stripping away the memories of an old era and starting fresh. After a few more weeks of renovations, Ric hoped to start filling the place up with more kids. We’d talked about adopting a few of the youngest girls from the Line.
* * *
There was a knock on the library door.
Shirel’s gaze shot to mine and she tried to smile, showing off her missing front tooth. “You ready?” she asked.
I smiled nervously. I could have sworn my head was floating above my neck like a balloon. I didn’t know what to expect. How would I react at seeing them?
“Come in,” I said to the door.
The first to enter the room was Ric. The burn scars on his hands and face were invisible now, thanks to Flora’s modern medicine.
Clea caught one look at him, dropped her dolly on the floor and scooted on her butt toward him. “Dada!”
He scooped her up. “There’s my girl!” She and Adena both squealed with delight, and then Ric turned around, grasped the door with his other hand and swung it wide.
Three people entered behind him.
A man. A woman. A teenage girl.
The man’s eyes found mine and they filled with tears.
The woman, overcome, clasped her hands to her mouth and wept openly.
I reached out my hands to her and did the same.
“Mama,” I cried.
And she took me in her arms.
* * * * *
Author’s Note
Naya’s personal history of slavery and exploitation is inspired by true events, and I would like to personally thank The International Justice Mission for sharing their stories with me.
Modern-day slavery is an issue of today, and the IJM is working diligently to save women, men and children from bondage around the world.
If you would like to donate toward this cause, visit http://www.ijm.org/give.
Thank you!
—Anne
About the Author
Julie Moffett is a bestselling author and writes in the genres of historical romance, paranormal romance and mystery. She has won numerous awards, including the prestigious PRISM Award for Best Romantic Time-Travel and Best of the Best Paranormal Books of 2002. She has also garnered several nominations for the Daphne du Maurier Award and the Holt Medallion. Julie is a military brat (Air Force) and has traveled extensively. Her more exciting exploits include attending high school in Okinawa, Japan; backpacking around Europe and Scandinavia for several months; a year-long college graduate study in Warsaw, Poland; and a wonderful trip to Scotland and Ireland where she fell in love with castles, kilts and brogues. Julie has a B.A. in Political Science and Russian language from Colorado College and an M.A. in international affairs from The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. She has worked as a journalist, teacher, and researcher. Julie speaks Russian and Polish and has two sons.
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ISBN-13: 9781426899294
The Line Book Two: Walled
Copyright © 2014 by Anne Tibbets
Edited by Rhonda Nelson
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