The Culling: Book 1 (The Culling Series)

by Tricia Wentworth

  “That was Henry radioing in. He went straight to the meeting since I’m here and you were out. Then he will be here as soon as he can. Or I can go get him now if you want, since you’re awake.” He pauses then when I don’t say anything adds, “Also. Due to the obvious dangerous nature of this Culling, the President and Culling Board have decided to send all but the final four couples home.”

  “What?” I snap my head up and sit straighter.

  Holy crap.

  “You and Henry, Knox and Attie, Mav and Elizabeth, and sadly Chris and Marisol,” he explains.

  The blood drains from my face. Did they send him home?

  “What about you?” I ask, trying to calm the horrified look I am sure is on my face.

  “I’m still here for now.” He gives me that signature half-smile.

  I let out a breath I was holding and close my eyes in relief. “I don’t want you to go.”

  “I don’t want to go either. Other than all this drifter crap, I’m kind of starting to like the Culling, which surprises you and me both.” He kisses me on the forehead and then changes the subject, “So the Hadenfelts must think they have this thing in the bag now. You realize you have to take them down, right?”

  I sigh. “I don’t even know if I want it anymore. Omaha sounds pretty nice and boring right about now.”

  Once it’s out of my mouth, I know it’s how I’ve been feeling since Oliver’s death and all the knowledge about the drifters and this ongoing war. And although I miss my family immensely and want to protect them, I know I can do more for them here than I can do in Omaha. I want to go home, but I know I would be miserable there knowing what I now know. I’m just like October described before leaving.

  “Reagan. We both know that’s out of the question. Attie is too tenderhearted. Elizabeth and Maverick are too idealized. It’s going to come down to you and Marisol. Are you really going to leave knowing that she’ll become Madam President?” he reasons. “You’re just going to hand it over to her like that?”

  “No.” I know he’s right, I just wish I had more of a choice in the matter.

  “Plus, now you can officially stay in Denver, even if you don’t win.” He winks.

  I just gulp. I don’t know how I feel about that right now. For the longest time I was so nervous I would be sent home, and one or both of them would still be here in the Culling moving on with someone else. Now, I finally don’t have to worry about that anymore. But with everything else going on, I have a hard time feeling relieved.

  “What’s the deal with Christopher anyway?” I ask Lyncoln, knowing that he knows him better. “He doesn’t even seem to like Marisol that much. He’s always been nice to me, but I don’t really know him that well.”

  “I don’t think he does like her that much though they do have a history. They used to date before she went all manipulative and mean. But, Chris is a very smart man, very calculated, and to be honest, he wouldn’t be a half-bad President. He just saw a way to get to the end and he took it. He doesn’t have to be in love with her to be the president. It’s as simple as that.”

  “But what about the whole family image thing the Presidential Couple is supposed to portray?”

  “Ha. I would wager that if they won, they would both have someone on the side shortly after. The kids might not even end up his.” He shrugs. “Not that they would check or anything.”

  “She can’t win,” I say disgusted. Her father pretty much sent me to my death earlier today and if she wins, he will have even more power. She could appoint him “how she deems necessary” and that right there is a disaster waiting to happen. I venture to say he would run the country more than she even would.

  “Then you will.” He stares me down affectionately.

  I blush at his confidence in me. “So now what?” I ask, needing something to do.

  “Now we wait to hear what they decided in the meeting to do about Hadenfelt and Williams. Williams is gone. There was a lockdown while we searched the entire building, but the surveillance footage showed him leaving DIA shortly after leaving you with Isabella. He knocked Jamie out cold with the butt of his gun as soon as you opened the door and ran for it. And though it sucks that he is a drifter, or compromised in the very least, it could’ve been far worse. He was fully armed and didn’t kill you himself.” He pauses a moment to clench his jaw angrily before continuing, “Meanwhile Hadenfelt, of course, is blaming this all on Williams, saying it was his idea to let you in there with Isabella. He acts as if Williams did all of this on his own. He says he had no idea.”

  “Well isn’t this just great. Hadenfelt has the perfect alibi in Williams being gone and seemingly our drifter mole. I know Hadenfelt was in on it somehow. He might not have known that she would try to kill me, but he wanted me in that room. He wanted me at the very least scared. He wanted me knocked down a peg or two. I just wish I knew how far he was in on it. He could be working with the drifters too since the mole was one of his trusted men.” I’m so angry as I finish speaking, I just want to punch something or scream out in frustration. The only reason I don’t is that Lyncoln is rubbing my palm trying to calm me down.

  “And we might not ever know. Hadenfelt may have just committed treason, but we’ll never have evidence enough to call him on it,” Lyncoln adds intelligently.

  “Except we have Samson.” I smile then stop smiling right away as I worry. “Wait, is he safe? Hadenfelt would take care of him just to save himself. And Samson was worried about the mole coming after him. If it was Williams, he was right about being in danger. The mole could hear his every word.”

  “Yeah. He’s fine. Taggert and I were on our way down the minute Attie and Knox’s guards called for backup. I met Knox at the elevators. I came to you and Taggert went to Samson and Hadenfelt. It’s a good thing your interrogation with Isabella didn’t last long, or we could’ve lost Samson too. Hadenfelt obviously underestimated you. He took Samson in a different room where Attie and Knox wouldn’t be able to see and had one of his men working his evil magic on him.” He shakes his head and I wonder what exactly went down. “Samson is a bit banged up and says he will deal with no one but you from here on out.”

  “What a mess.” I shake my head.

  “I know.” He rubs my shoulder trying to take away all the stress I feel.

  What a day. What. A. Day. I just sit there a moment taking it all in.

  “Wanna go cook something in the Presidential Kitchen while we wait for Henry?” he asks, standing and reaching for my hand.

  I nod my head in surprise. “You? Can cook?”

  “Oh please, gorgeous. You have yet to see all my talents,” he says playfully as I take his hand. “I called in the doctor that serves in my unit too. Please don’t fight me on this. Just let him take a quick look at your throat and then let me wine and dine you.”

  I still feel like a horrible person for what happened with Isabella, but the more I sit around doing nothing but thinking about it, the more I feel like a weight is pressing down on my body and going to either suffocate me or flatten me into a million tiny pieces. So I guess I will see this doctor and then see what Lyncoln is going to cook me.

  ****

  I sip on a glass of iced tea and stir some sort of white wine pasta sauce while Lyncoln slices, dices, and spices into the concoction I’m stirring. We talk back and forth and as the day drags on, I feel less and less guilty for what happened with Isabella. She attacked me, not the other way around. I just wish I would’ve been with it enough to shoot her in her stupid traitorous foot. Yes, it’s probably true that she may have died today whether it was by my hand or not, but I just wish I didn’t have to deal with the ramifications of taking a life. Then again, her grip on my throat was so good, would anything but a kill shot have stopped her from killing me?

  I guess now we’ll never know.

  Cooking dinner with Lyncoln is oddly soothing. That and the fact that though I have now killed a person, he has never once looked at or treated me differently. I love
him for that.

  “So, if you could do anything and there was no Culling, what would you do?” I ask Lyncoln, thinking of when I asked Henry that same question. I want to get my mind off of Isabella, who my train of thought always seems to be returning to.

  “Career-wise, I would still be in the military. It’s all I’ve ever known. It saved me from a dark time in my life.” He shrugs. “I have no idea what I wanted to do before my dad died, but I’m not even the same person as then. Otherwise, more than anything, I want to have my own family. In meeting you, I’ve realized how much I want that. I think it will be therapeutic for me in a way. A way to honor the memory of my dad, in being the best damn dad I can be.”

  This somewhat surprises me and breaks my heart. The aggressive and all-empowering Lyncoln Reed just wants to be a dad? Lord have mercy.

  “Don’t look at me like that. Yeah, I’m dark and mysterious or whatever you call it, but losing what siblings I would have had in addition to my dad has always made me want a big family. I want…I don’t know? At least four kids? I want the craziness of a bunch of runny noses and dirty diapers and all that. I want...” he drifts off as if thinking.

  “Go on,” I urge and take a sip of my iced tea, trying to cool my hormones.

  “I want you. I want this.” As he says it he uses his knife to point to him and point back to me and sighs. “I want a wife I can respect and love like I do you. It scares the heck out of me to think that you are the only person on the planet that could ever be that to me. I respect you just as much as I love you.”

  I stir the sauce in front of me not knowing what to say to that. The image he paints of his future family makes me want to be the one there with him. He deserves a happy ending, that’s for dang sure. I try my hardest not to start tearing up as I continue to stir.

  Seeing my lack of response he adds, “I’m not meaning to be persuasive or add more pressure on you or anything. I was just being honest. Please don’t pity me. I hate it when people do that.” He reaches to add more stuff to the sauce then runs his hand down my arm as if reassuring me he’s fine. “How about you, what would you do?”

  As he goes to the fridge to get another ingredient, I repeat the same basic thing I said to Henry, “I don’t know, but I know I like helping people.”

  He stops at the open refrigerator door and turns to me with his signature half-smile, “That you do. You will go all psycho and enter an interrogation room to save even an enemy, even when we were given specific instructions to only sit there and watch.”

  “Hey, now.” I pretend to be offended and turn back to my sauce, like he isn’t there.

  Except he is. The air seems to spark as I feel him near me before I see or know for sure that he is. I feel his breath on my shoulder and neck. I know once we start, with the day I’ve had, my body will not want him to stop kissing me. But then again, after the day I’ve had, I need one of those mind-numbing make-out sessions pretty bad.

  “Did you kiss Isabella?” I blurt out so I don’t throw myself at him. “I don’t mean to ruin the mood, she just…uh…said something.”

  He sighs. “Yeah I did. I was young and dumb and girls were giving me attention. She isn’t the only one.”

  “Okay,” I respond with a shrug and continue stirring.

  “Reagan.” His velvety voice says my name softly as he puts down my spoon, turns the burner down, and turns me around so I’m facing him. He looks…shy? Sheepish? Something.

  “What?” I ask, wondering what he seems so weird about. I mean, his track record with girls isn’t really a secret here in Denver.

  “I slept with two of them and kissed more than I can even count or care to remember. I’m sorry if that affects your image of me, but you deserve to know. It was right around when I started the military. It was a long time ago. I realize I have less than a ten-percent chance with you. But on the very remote chance that you do choose me, I want you to know exactly what you’re getting yourself into. No surprises, no regrets.” He then switches his weight from one foot to the other as he awaits my response while searching my eyes for a glimmer of hope.

  I look at him and slowly blink a few times. “Okay,” I say with the same tone as before. Do I like what I am hearing? No. Does it surprise me? No. I know how much of a mess he was, so how can I judge him for a hard time in his life?

  “Okay?” he repeats, wanting me to elaborate.

  “Am I jealous that you have a past and I do not? Heck yeah, I am. But, I’m not going to change my opinion of you for something you did in the past. All of that,” I gesture, “made you the man you are today, and that man is pretty darn impressive. Besides, given my current situation, I’m trying my best not to judge.”

  He wraps his arms around me as he lets out a big breath and kisses my hair. “Thank you, Regs.”

  I don’t know what to say so we just stand there a while. We hear voices coming down the hallway and break apart back to our duties although he stands closer to me than necessary with our arms touching.

  “There you guys are.” I hear Henry’s worried voice and moments later am in his arms. He kisses me on the mouth quickly and soundly, and then holds me while looking at me with his worried emerald eyes. “I have never been more scared in my entire life as when they called me out of my sim.”

  “Taggert, Mr. President.” Lyncoln steps away to greet the other two men as he gives Henry a moment with me. It breaks my heart to know that they are both the jealous type, but both give each other time with me. Reason number five million and forty-three that this situation is messed up and has gone on for far too long. This needs to end. They deserve better than this.

  “Ms. Scott, again, I am truly sorry for what you had to go through,” the President says as he plops himself on a stool on the other side of the counter. It’s weird to see the most powerful man in the world sitting somewhere as casual as a kitchen bar stool.

  “Thank you.” I shrug and turn back to the sauce to keep stirring. Does he realize this is the second time in the last week he has had to apologize to me? I’m not going to tell him it’s okay because it isn’t. I shouldn’t have had to kill Isabella today. I shouldn’t have had to save Samson. Both of those things should have never gotten to that point.

  Henry refills my tea, gets some bottles of water for everyone else, and then joins his dad and Taggert on the bar stools while Lyncoln and I continue cooking.

  “So?” Lyncoln asks and switches to work mode although he stays close to me, even giving my hand a random squeeze at moments when the others aren’t looking.

  “So Hadenfelt is getting demoted and suspended for 30 days. Without a confession from Williams, we don’t know how guilty or how deep Hadenfelt was in this,” Taggert begins and Lyncoln clenches his jaw. Taggert holds up a finger to stop whatever argument he’s about to make and continues, “But since he was dumb enough to be waterboarding Samson when we found them and stormed in there, he still disobeyed direct orders. So we are demoting him and watching him. Unfortunately, that is all we can do for now. One more false move though, and he’s gone.”

  “Gone?” I ask. Gone as in killed, or gone from DIA?

  “As the Head of Interrogations, and completely gone from DIA,” the President chips in. “Trust me, stripping him of all power and watching him live like an ordinary civilian will be the cruelest form of punishment for him.”

  There seems to be no lost love between those two. So why does Hadenfelt still have his job again?

  “When?” Lyncoln asks.

  “Already happened. He threw quite the fit, made all sorts of threats, and was escorted home. He’s being watched round the clock.” Taggert rolls his eyes in disgust.

  “And what about the obvious?” Lyncoln asks. “If Williams is the other drifter, he was in contact with Hadenfelt every day. We all know Hadenfelt is a sick bastard. He was torturing the drifters worse than we thought, so it’s highly unlikely he is one, but who’s to say he wouldn’t make a deal with the drifters? Especially in regards to t
his Culling? This isn’t good enough. His plan could already be in place.” He reaches down to squeeze my hand again. “How do we know he isn’t compromised?”

  “We won’t know, all we can do is watch him, and that we will. When he makes a move, we’ll know,” the President promises and adds, “And your point is exactly why we sent the other candidates home. We already knew our final four and we didn’t want the others in danger any longer than necessary.”

  “Marisol should have been sent home too,” Henry says angrily. “A while ago. Remove all chances for Hadenfelt to gain more power. Before the vote.”

  “You know it and I know it, son. Hadenfelt has influence on the board. None of them want her to win, but they are too scared to send her home,” the President explains. “They just hope she doesn’t have the votes to actually make a run at it.”

  “Can’t you just make it a vote of the cabinet instead of waiting for the voting?” I offer, agreeing with Henry. I send him an affectionate smile trying to communicate so.

  “Same story, different version.” Taggert gestures with his hands and shakes his head.

  “So how exactly do we make sure the Hadenfelts get stripped of their power then?” I ask confused.

  “You or your friends win the Culling, dear,” Taggert says looking at me dead on. “You have thirty days.”

  “Fantastic. More deadlines,” I mumble. And even more pressure now too. This Culling could have a very disastrous ending, in more than one way.

  “One more thing,” Taggert says, looking at Henry and then to me.

  “What?” I ask as everyone ends up looking in my direction.

  “Henry wants you relieved of your interrogating duties. And I agree.” He nods and pauses. “This is on me and not at all your responsibility. However, I tried speaking with Samson this afternoon to confirm that Williams is the drifter, and he will not budge. He is asking for you and only you.”