The Broken Peace

by Martha Adele

  It’s pointless to sob now. It is pointless to think about it.

  Pointless to dwell.

  I feel weak. There is no reason to shed a tear. It is done.

  There is nothing I can do.

  I sniffle and apologize into Derek’s chest, wiping my tears before I show my face. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine. I understand.”

  I pull away and rise up. “There’s no reason to cry. It’s done with.”

  He follows me to a standing position and looks into my eyes, letting me know he sees through my lie. Derek takes the hint and heads back to the stew.

  “So what happened after I left?” I sniffle, holding back everything, pushing it as far down as I can. “After I was drafted?”

  Derek stirs the stew and tells me about how just after I left, the word of the revolt began spreading like wildfire. As I listen to Derek tell me about everything that happened, I continue pushing back the tears and the pain. I ignore how awful I feel and focus on the fact that I still have Derek.

  Just listening to him makes me feel better. His calming voice mixed with the crackling of the fire, the same color as his loosely curled hair, helps the tears stop forcing themselves down my cheeks.

  “We had been preparing for the revolt for weeks, so when the time came, almost everyone was more than willing to fight,” he tells me. “You know everything that has happened since. We went from Bloot, to Bergland, back to Bestellen.” He sighs and turns back to me. “What about you? What happened when you were drafted? Where did you go?”

  I give him a smile and a slight chuckle. “Where do I begin?”

  I tell Derek about everything that has happened since I was drafted. I tell him about the woods, the rats, the van, Bergland, the vials, Logan, Sam, and even about Eric. We go back and forth just like old times. He tells me that the moment the new government set up, they set up vial distribution stations at every hospital and ran everyone back through the system, diagnosing and prescribing the vials as needed.

  He turns his wrist over, and we compare our codes side by side. His code seems to have a few large dots while mine has twice the amount of small dots.

  As we continue to compare and count the marks, Ms. Page emerges from the hallway in warm clothes and her hair tied up in a towel. She comes over and takes a seat in the living room at the dining table.

  “So”—she turns to me and crosses her legs—“where are you going to be staying for the night?”

  “I actually don’t really have a place yet. My boss told me that—”

  “Oh,” she shouts with joy, “that’s perfect! You can stay with us! Isn’t that right, Derek?”

  I turn to see him with a goofy smirk rising on his face. “Sure? I guess so. I, I mean I don’t have a problem with that.”

  I smile back and chuckle. “I don’t want to be a bother.”

  “It’s no bother! No bother at all!” Ms. Page rises to her feet and scurries out of the room. “I will go find you some sheets.”

  We both chuckle as Derek rises to his feet and heads back into the kitchen to get the bowls and spoons for the stew. All the utensils and bowls clink against each other as he brings them over. His blue and purple eyes meet mine as he smiles down at me. Handing me my bowl and spoon, his smirk grows. “Welcome home, roomie.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Sam

  My head smacks the side of the door as my car hits a bump. I wake up immediately and wipe my eyes until I see a swirling of a million different-colored dots. I have changed cabs every two to three hours and have been riding for almost sixteen hours now. Lucky for me, two of the cabdrivers took me to get food when I told them what I am doing. I made a promise to myself after we arrived at Bergland, and that promise was to never skip another meal. Since I ate breakfast with Sarah and Mavis on the helicarrier on our way here, I have technically kept my promise and had three meals today.

  Well, yesterday.

  When we finally cross into State Five, I see newly renovated streets, buildings, sidewalks, and streetlamps. I never thought that any Bouw land would ever look like this. The old streets and sidewalks of my hometown always had tree roots growing under it, through it, and sometimes over it. I loved walking down the sidewalk and being able to see where exactly the tree roots are under the concrete. I loved seeing the grooves of the roots forcing their way to the top of the ground.

  My mom used to love that too.

  We keep driving for another half an hour before the driver drops me off at the base of a hospital I do not recognize. Immediately, I thank him and take off running into the building. I head to the front desk and notice that the hospital seems to be empty other than the man typing into the desk hologram.

  “I’m here to see my mom,” I tell him. “Bonnie Beckman.”

  The man nods to me and types something into his hologram. He picks up a box with a wire connecting it to the hologram and holds out his hand. “Can I see your code first?” I shoot him a confused look, and he chuckles at me. “Just to check and make sure.”

  I hold up my wrist, and the man presses a button on the box. A red line shoots out and scans the code by swiping up and down over the splattered dots, causing the man to smile at me. Typing something into his hologram, he points to a set of doors a few feet over from him. The man smiles at me and types back into his computer. “All right, Mr. Beckman, she is in room 206 on the second floor. If you can’t find her, just ask one of the nurses up there and they will tell you.”

  I nod and zip past him.

  “Mr. Beckman,” he calls out to me, stopping me in my tracks. “Please try to be as quiet as you can. It is very early and most of our residents are sleeping.”

  I nod again and take off up the stairwell and onto the second floor. I walk around the large loop of rooms and look for 206. I notice that some of the rooms are actual rooms with hardwood doors while other rooms are just walls with curtains blocking them off from the hallway.

  I continue roaming around until I finally have a run-in with a nurse. In a frenzy, I try to explain to her the situation, but only manage to get out “Mom” and “206.”

  “Yes. Hey, it’s okay.” She puts one of her hands on my back and leads me in the opposite direction I was heading. “The man at the desk called me and told me that you may need help finding your mom.”

  She ushers me through the loop and down a hall I missed the first time around. She gives me a smile and places her hand on the curtain. “Now, she may be asleep and she needs her rest, so do me a favor and be as quiet as you can, okay?”

  I nod. The woman pulls the curtain back to reveal my mother sleeping peacefully in her bed, cocooned in multiple white blankets. I step in and approach her slowly, not knowing exactly how to approach. The curtain behind me falls back to its resting position as the nurse leaves me alone with my mom.

  Her breathing is slow and steady, like it normally is in her sleep. Other than being in a hospital bed, swaddled to the point of no movement, she seems fairly unrestricted. I see nothing wrong with her.

  The curtain rises once again as the nurse brings in a small chair and sets it beside Mom’s bed.

  “Here,” she tells me.

  I sit down and thank her. Just as she turns around to leave the room, I blurt, “Can I spend the night here?” Quickly realizing how loud I am, my shoulders seize up and I clench my teeth, hoping I haven’t woken her.

  The nurse pulls me out of Mom’s room as quietly as she can. When we exit the curtained area, I find myself being glared at by one of the patients as he walks by in his gown.

  The nurse whispers to me, “Do you have somewhere else you need to be?”

  “No, ma’am. My boss gave me a few days off to be with her.”

  She nods to me. “Then you can stay with her as long as you want.”

  “Thank you,” I tell her.

  “I’ll
go get you a pillow and a blanket.” The woman quickly turns and heads down the hallway, leaving me to go back to my seat. The moment I shift the curtain to go back in, Mom’s eyes meet mine.

  With tears welling up in her eyes, her lip quivers as she tries to form words. I take a step forward and feel the tears rise in my eyes as well.

  “Sam?” she whimpers. “I thought you were dead.” She fixes her bed into an upright position and frees herself from the cocoon.

  Rushing over to her, I fall into her open embrace, just as she does mine. I pull back after a moment and realize her right arm is being held in a white wrap, along with a blue sling.

  “What happened to you?” I ask her. “Are you okay?”

  She continues to sob. The tears don’t stop pouring as she sniffles, “I thought you were dead. I thought I’d—” She coughs, choking on her emotions and the overwhelming amount of tears and mucus coming from her. “I thought I wasn’t ever going to see you again!”

  I pull her back into me and hold her close. “I know,” I whisper to her. “I know.” Mom slides over in her bed and pulls me onto it. She sits me beside her and holds me by my side until she calms down.

  “So what happened to your arm?” I finally ask her after she regains her normal breathing pattern.

  She sniffles, “I’m fine. I got shot in the arm, but I’m fine.”

  “What?” I shout, quickly regretting my volume. I correct myself and whisper back to her, “What happened?”

  “It’s nothing. I’m fine. What happened to you? They said that you were thrown into the woods? For a disorder?” She squeezes me tighter and presses her head against my chest. “I had no idea any of this was happening. I promise you. I would not have let them take you if I knew.”

  “Hey.” I rub her back, trying to calm her back down. “I know. No one knew. No one could’ve known.”

  She sniffles back all of her sobs and sits back up straight, still resting in my arms. “So what happened to you? How long were you in the woods before they came and found you?”

  “Not long,” I tell her, “just a day or two.” I don’t want to make her feel any more guilty than she already does. There’s no reason for her to feel guilty, but knowing her, she will feel guilty no matter what. As my mind does cartwheels, trying to figure out what to say next, it lands on a new question. “How did you know I wasn’t actually drafted?”

  “What?” she asks me.

  “You just said ‘they’ told you that I was thrown into the woods for a disorder. Who told you that?”

  “No, no. No one actually told me that. When we were being prepped and having everything explained to us, we were told that some of those who were drafted for our military were thrown out into the woods to use as bait rather than actually being drafted.”

  “Yeah? And how did you know that I was one of the ones thrown out?”

  “Well, I thought back to what little training you received. You would always come home and tell me that everyone else who was assigned to be in the military had to do a lot more than you, so I connected the dots.” She pulls me into another awkward hug. “I couldn’t figure out what was worse. The idea of you fighting for Bestellen, most likely being killed during the war, or you being thrown into the woods to fend for yourself.”

  Chuckling, I pull away. “I guess we have our answer.”

  Mom sniffles again and wipes the edges of her eyes. “I guess you’re right. So …” She takes one long and large deep breath and wipes her eyes. “Tell me. What has happened since the draft? How was it in Bergland? Do you have a job? Do you—”

  “Mom,” I interrupt her, “how did you get shot?”

  She pauses and clears her throat. The pause she takes is so long, it is almost as if she is trying to ignore the question.

  “Mom,” I repeat.

  She clears her throat again and looks at the ceiling, trying to keep the tears in.

  I don’t want to make her cry. She never cries, but once she starts, she can’t stop.

  “There was a kid,” she whispers. “A kid in the field. He went out to go look for his mother, but there was no one else out there.” She takes another deep breath and chuckles as a few tears escape her eyes. She wipes them away and turns away from me. “I’m sorry.”

  “Hey no.” I rub her shoulders as she composes herself. “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

  “No.” She sniffles again and clears her throat once more. “It’s fine. The kid was in the field alone. I went in after him, and there was an official. Next thing you know, the kid’s blood has splattered over me, and my arm feels like it had been blown off.” Her free hand finds its way onto her shoulder and down her arm slowly. “I lay down, I played dead, and the official ran past me and onto others.” She glances over to me then back down to her lap. “The kid didn’t make it.”

  I pull her close and kiss her on the head as she adjusts her position. She whispers into my chest as I feel the tears soak through my shirt. “He wasn’t even five years old. He was just a baby.”

  I watch as she holds her wrapped-up wound with her free hand. When my hand falls on hers, she winces.

  “Does it hurt?” I ask her, already knowing the answer.

  “I’m fine.”

  “That’s not what I asked. I know you can handle it, but I asked if it hurts.”

  She clears her throat and coughs a bit, trying to play it off. “It is sore and it throbs, but it isn’t nearly as bad as a lot of the other injuries in this hospital.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  “It’s fine. I’m fine. What about you?” She looks up to me from my chest. “What happened to you? You know, after the draft? Tell me everything.”

  I sigh and rub her arm up and down, the same way Dad used to do for her to get her to go to sleep. “After I was forced into the officials’ van, everything went dark. Next thing I know, I woke up in the woods.”

  “Wow, really?”

  “Yes. And you know what, when the officials dropped me off, they laid me on a rock. I woke up barely able to walk because of that stupid stone. After I managed to stand, I was stalked by this giant catlike beast. It was almost as large as one of the official’s vehicles.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, and guess what, I only managed to get away after some guards on the wall shot at me.”

  “Oh my! That’s horrible!”

  “That doesn’t even cover all of day one …”

  Logan

  I move my horse up and around, capturing a pawn of Eric’s. “Aha,” I say, happy to finally have captured one of Eric’s pieces.

  He stays silent, just like he always does when we play chess.

  Mavis has come in to visit me every day since she arrived, and every day we play chess. I hoped that by playing chess as often as I do, I would be getting better, but it seems my hopes are just that—just hopes.

  As Eric and I continue our game, I catch a small grumble coming from Eric. His face winces as he adjusts his position in his seat.

  “Hey.” I move one of my pieces forward. “Are you okay?”

  Eric takes his piece that looks like a castle and slides it forward, capturing my last little horse in the process. He doesn’t respond to me verbally, but he nods.

  After a while of playing back and forth and listening to the surrounding card players whoop and holler, I finally speak up. “So do you know what kind of job you want to get? You know, once we get out of here?”

  Eric moves one of his pieces forward. Keeping his eyes on the board, he sighs. “I don’t know of any jobs I can qualify for without a leg.”

  I hesitate for a moment, not wanting to make him any more upset, but the words come out of my mouth in a chuckle. “Cabdriver?” Eric glances up to me then back down to the board as I continue. “Or any desk job, really.”

 
I move one of my pointy pieces that moves diagonally and capture Eric’s castle. I can’t help but smile as I feel the sense of victory nearing. As the smile finds its way onto my face, I ask Eric, “Do you have any ideas on what you would like to do?”

  After Eric steals my pointy piece with one of his pawns, I hear him grumble, “Grow my leg back.”

  My stomach is immediately shot with an immense feeling of guilt. I feel the blood drain from my head, and the pounding find its way back into my brain.

  It’s my fault that Eric lost his leg. If I wasn’t there, Eric wouldn’t have used himself as a human shield. He would have kept running and probably got far enough to escape from any serious wounds.

  I want to tell Eric how sorry I am, but I don’t want to tell him I feel guilty. I don’t want to make his pain about me.

  “So,” I continue, trying to shift his focus, “what about me? What do you think I should get a job as?”

  I move my last castle across the board, not really paying attention to the rest of the pieces. Eric immediately uses one of his pointy pieces and takes my castle. “You can do anything,” he tells me as he slides my piece off the board.

  I shake my head. I can’t to “anything” anymore. I know there are limitations. The doctors told me that I need to take it as easy as I can until they tell me otherwise. And last time I asked them, they told me it would be a year or two before I regain normality, but I’m not going to say that around Eric. Eric has more limitations than I do.

  And I caused them.

  We sit here, playing chess in silence for another moment, listening to the hologram screen in the back of the room talk about the new capitol building and how it “will be finished in just a few weeks.”

  Everyone in the room quietly chatters about whatever they are doing, ranging from card games, board games, supervising, to listening to the news.

  Eric, never looking up from the board, asks me, “Did you get an invitation to the inauguration ball?”

  “Ball?” I ask him. “What ball?”

  “You know”—Eric moves one of his pieces and yawns—“the ball. The large gathering of ‘important people’ for the new chancellor’s inauguration.”