The War Outside Read online

  “Daniel—” I say.

  “What is it?” he asks. “What do you want?”

  “My locket. The one my mother gave me.”

  “Let me go get it for you. Just in case.”

  Just in case, I think.

  With a nod, I watch him disappear up the stairs.

  A horrible truth hits me then and there.

  My Purpose has already been proven.

  I am now a target in this ever-divisive conflict.

  Eight

  I clench the locket tightly in my fist as we make our way from the Ceres Farmlands back to the city. Comforted by its cold metal, and reveling in the fact that it bears the only picture of my family I have, I lean back to close my eyes and take a deep breath as I consider everything that has transpired on this night.

  The long day—

  The late lunch—

  The retreat upstairs—

  The glimmering light—

  Then—boom! The gunshot as it tore through the window, shattering the glass and sending teardrops of it all over the desk.

  Had it not been for Daniel—and had he not noticed it…

  I swallow.

  I’d be dead.

  I turn my head to consider the man who is legally my husband but whom I can only consider a friend and watch as he considers the night sky outside the vehicle. Handsome as ever, but stricken with worry, he frowns as he gazes upon the full moon, as if it is the one who has robbed us and not the man with the gun.

  “Daniel,” I say.

  He turns his head to face me. “Yeah?” he asks.

  “What’re you thinking about?”

  “You. Me. Us.”

  “What about us?”

  “How close we—you—came to getting shot.” He laughs. “Two times in less than a week. That has to be a new record.”

  “Daniel—”

  “I mean, these Fanatical—or whoever they happened to be—sure have balls to try and take the two of us out.”

  I lower my head and offer a brief sigh.

  Daniel reaches out and presses a hand against my back. “I’m sorry. It’s just… laughing about it seems to make it seem a little better. A little less real.”

  “I know. I don’t blame you.”

  “You don’t?”

  I shake my head. “No.”

  Truth is: I feel the situation is ridiculous as well. Laughing about it does seem like the reasonable answer, considering everything we’ve gone through.

  The only problem?

  People have died.

  All because of me.

  I swallow the rising lump in my throat and tighten my hold on the locket to keep from reacting to my wandering thoughts. The heart-shaped locket cups my palm, the chain slips through my fingers. I feel, distantly, a sense of longing, and realize that it is for simpler times.

  For home.

  I long for the Sandstone Hills—for the desert dunes, the wild shrubs, the untamed grasses—and wonder, for one brief moment, what my mother would think of all of this.

  Then I realize she would want me to be safe, and for that reason, nod to the ghost that is her lifelong teachings.

  As Daniel comes to press his hand over mine, snaring his fingers through the gaps in my own and pressing his digits to the locket within, he leans forward to unwrap my hand and says, “Your mother gave it to you. Didn’t she?”

  I nod.

  “How big is the picture?”

  “Not too awfully big.”

  “May I see it?”

  “How would you? It’s dark.”

  He reaches up and presses a button on the ceiling. Light then floods from a transparent sector above us.

  “Hey!” one of the SADs says. “Turn that off!”

  “In a second,” Daniel says, brushing them off as if they are little more than bugs. “May I?” he then asks.

  I nod.

  He slides his fingernail within the clasp and pops it open. He stares for a few moments, obviously deciphering my parents’ features, before saying, “You look like your mother.”

  “I know.”

  “She’s beautiful.”

  “She is.”

  “And your father. He’s very handsome.”

  “I have good genetics,” I reply.

  “That you do.” Daniel taps the same button he used to turn the light on and nods as we are thrust back into darkness. “When did you have the picture taken?”

  “When one of the caravans rolled in. A young man was carrying a portable camera, and offered to take our picture in exchange for bread. My mother traded him and we… got this.”

  “What a nice memory,” Daniel says.

  “Yeah,” I reply, considering the picture in the dark. “It is.”

  I stare at their visages for several long moments—my mother on the left, my father the right—and then look at me between them: who, at only thirteen, knew nothing of the world and what it means. I’d longed to be a Beautiful One even then—to escape the existence I knew and journey into one I could only imagine.

  Now, sitting here, I envy that child.

  At least she didn’t have blood on her hands.

  As we travel through the night, cutting through the darkness like a glimmering knife, I wonder if this is the way it will always be—and if my life, as wonderful as it supposedly is, will always be wrought with fear and unease.

  Oh well, I think.

  Only time will tell.

  There is no way to determine where we will go now that we have left the presumed safety of the Ceres Farmlands. Nervous beyond compare, and feeling as though my gut has been speared upon a vicious blade, I keep silent as we pass into the Glittering City and try my hardest not to consider our precarious situation, but find myself doing just that.

  Where will we go, I wonder, now that we are here?

  We’ve already passed the towering heights of the Spire, so that is out of the question, and we are moving into the city rather than outside of it, so surely we won’t be housed in a safe zone. But if not in either of those places, where?

  The secrecy surrounding our destination, and the fact that the SADs usually won’t speak to us, leaves me in a state of panic that cannot be shaken no matter how much I try to reassure myself.

  You’re fine, I think. You weren’t followed. You’re safe.

  But how do you know that? my conscience then offers. You swore you weren’t followed to the farmhouse, and look what happened. A man tried to kill you, all to prove a point.

  But what is that point? That we are fragile? That we are weak? That we, for all our fame and fortune, are actually human? To kill me, or even Daniel, seems pointless, because what worth are our lives in the grand scheme of things?

  I shake my head.

  At my side, Daniel dozes—head against the window, eyes closed, breaths even. I envy him, but only because he’s escaped the terrible persecution of time that I am suffering through with each passing second.

  Finally, I am unable to take it no more. “Miss Winters?” I ask, leaning forward and tapping on the metal grate that separates the protected passengers from the driver and her companion. “Where are we going?”

  “The SAD headquarters. You’ll be safe there.”

  Safe?

  We were supposedly safe in the city, then in the farmlands. Surely the word has lost its merit at this point. Right?

  Defeated, I shake my head and lean back against my seat.

  There is little I can do but wait.

  So I do—for what seems like eternity. I watch the neon lights as they flash, cars as they pass, people as they walk to and fro, unaware of the dangers that are taking place both within and outside their walls. I both long for their existences and pity them at the same time, for if I were in their position, I would bask in my ignorance as if it were the sun’s rays, forever soaking up the presumed safety that encompassed my life.

  When finally we come to turn onto a short road with a gated entryway, I sigh, and look on at the blocky buildin
g in the near distance.

  “Is this it?” I ask.

  “Yes,” Diana Winters says. “It is.”

  It takes a moment for the woman standing sentinel within the booth beside the gate to let us through, but when we do—and as the gate slides shut behind us—I immediately feel safe.

  The SAD headquarters, looming ever close, is shaped like a square, and bordered by sandbags, snarls of barbwire. Most of all: it bears only windows on its second floor. It is the ultimate safe zone, I feel, within the city, and will offer Daniel and I the protection we need from whomever is out to get us.

  As we come to a stop, I turn my head to look at Daniel and gently shake his shoulder. “Wake up,” I say.

  He opens his eyes. “We’re here?” he asks.

  I nod.

  Our backseat doors open. We are ushered outside. We stand prone in the humid night air as Diana Winters confers with her companion before turning toward the headquarters and gesturing us to follow.

  Once we reach the doorway, Diana turns and says, “We will now go through security. Please advise us if you have anything metal on your person now.”

  Daniel lifts his hand to reveal a wrist-piece not unlike the one Mother Terra wears.

  Diana extends her hand.

  “You want me to give you my wrist piece?” Daniel asks with a laugh.

  “We don’t know how you were followed. For all we know, someone could’ve planted a bug in it to track your location.”

  “No one planted a bug inside my wrist piece,” Daniel counters.

  The SAD narrows her eyes.

  Daniel falters, then sighs and says, “Fine” as he removes the piece of technology from his wrist. “Take it. I don’t need it right now anyway.”

  “Thank you,” she replies, then turns her eyes on me. “I take it you only have the locket? Nothing more?”

  I nod.

  Diana Winters purses her lips and says, “Let’s go.”

  Her partner pushes the door opens and waits for Diana to enter before pressing a hand to my shoulder and guiding me inside.

  A large, metal contraption which resembles a threshold without a doorway awaits us at the end of the short threshold at the front of the building.

  “Enter slowly,” a SAD sitting behind a nearby desk says.

  Daniel walks through it without so much as a second thought.

  “Next,” the SAD says to me.

  I step through.

  A series of beeps goes off.

  “It’s her locket,” Diana Winters says, stepping forward and turning her attention to a woman that sits behind a desk. “I’ve made the visual already.”

  “Yes, Miss Winters,” the security SAD says.

  Diana and her partner flash badges in front of the contraption and pass through the metal detector without issue.

  “Now that we’ve finished that,” Diana Winters says, “we can take you to a holding cell.”

  “Holding cell?” Daniel asks. “Are you ridiculous?”

  “Daniel!” I say.

  “It’s the only place we have available for you to sleep. Besides,” the SAD then continues, “Mother Terra will want to speak with you.”

  “Is she here?” I ask.

  “Not yet. My partner alerted her through her wristlet the moment we arrived.”

  Nodding, I reach down to take Daniel’s clenched hand and say, “We’re ready to go. Right, Daniel?”

  “Right,” Daniel says, though begrudgingly at that.

  He loosens his hand and allows my fingers to slide through his, though I can tell, by the stiffness in his joints and the heat in his palm, that anger is brewing just beneath the surface.

  We follow Diana Winters through the many halls without so much as a word in response. Claustrophobic in that they are slim and tight, and well-guarded with the metal grates that can be deployed from the ceiling at any time, I try not to consider this another trap, but find myself doing just that.

  If someone really has bugged Daniel’s wrist piece, and we were followed here, who’s to say that we will be safe?

  With a shake of my head, I expel a breath and continue to follow the SADs throughout the building, all the while wondering when, and how, Mother Terra will arrive.

  Come time we reach the holding cells, I find myself trembling.

  The bars—stark in their portrayal of human indecency—should hold prisoners. But instead, not a soul lingers here—hopefully, I think, in anticipation for our arrival.

  “You’ll wait here,” Diana Winters says, pulling back a cell door that has been cracked and gesturing us inside.

  There are little more than bunk beds arranged on either side of the room.

  Daniel turns his head and regards the SAD with an incredulous look.

  I, imagining what he must be thinking, tighten my hold on his hand.

  He sighs and says, “All right.”

  “The Revered Mother should be here shortly. Until then.”

  The SAD turns and makes her way down the hall.

  “Aren’t you going to post a guard!” Daniel calls out. “How do we know we’re safe?”

  A grate comes slamming down from the ceiling, cutting off access to the hallway we’d just entered through.

  “Guess we’re not going anywhere,” I say.

  “Guess not,” Daniel growls, and enters the holding cell.

  I follow shortly thereafter, and seat myself on the bottom bunk with a sigh.

  “Is something wrong?” Daniel asks.

  “I just… wish you wouldn’t be so angry.”

  “Someone tried to kill you, Kel. Now we’re locked up like we’re being held prisoner. So why wouldn’t I be angry?”

  “I—”

  He’s got a point, my conscience offers.

  In a way, he does. But to be angry at other people—or, in effect, the world? Doesn’t that seem juvenile, in a way?

  I think about this for several long moments, during which time Daniel begins to pace, mumbling under his breath and shaking his head. His feverish pursuit of the cell distracts me, but not from my thinking.

  No.

  I realize, in the moments that follow, that he is distracting me from how numb I feel.

  A feeling of helplessness encompasses my being.

  First comes numbness, then comes anger.

  Then what? I wonder. Hate?

  The reality is that I do hate this conflict. I hate it more than anyone could possibly imagine. But given my position, and my current circumstance, what can I feel except trapped?

  Sighing, I lean back against the wall, then allow my body to shift vertically until I am lying on a barely-stuffed pillow.

  Daniel turns to look at me a moment later. “Kel?” he asks. “Are you—”

  “Okay? No,” I say. “I’m not.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  I shake my head—not because I don’t want to talk, but because there would be no point in talking.

  With one last nod, I close my eyes and begin to take slow, deep breaths.

  The drum of Daniel’s feet as he makes his way over to me, then his weight as he settles atop the mattress beside me brings relief to my fractured being.

  Soon, we are both settling down—and, hopefully, resting contentedly the night away.

  A sharp rap on the bars above me wakes me from my slumber.

  “Mrs. Cross,” Revered Mother Terra says. “Mr. Cross.”

  I open my eyes to find the woman standing outside the cell. Accompanied by two SADs, she waits expectantly for the two of us to rise.

  “What time is it?” I ask, blinking to clear the haze of sleep from my eyes.

  “Late enough to know that all of us should be asleep by now.” The Gentlewoman narrows her eyes at us as we push our legs over the side of the bed. “Are you well?”

  “Well?” Daniel laughs. “On this bed?”

  The woman doesn’t say anything.

  Sighing, Daniel runs a hand through his hair and says, “Someone trie
d to shoot Kel.”

  “As I was made aware.”

  “If the SADs hadn’t shown up… and if the man had tried to break into the house—”

  “It could’ve been disastrous.” Mother Terra steps into the cell and approaches me. Upon coming within touching distance, she reaches out, tilts my chin up, and says, “You were not injured?”

  “No.”

  “Good.” She tilts her head to look at Daniel. “And you? I was told that you tackled your wife to the ground just in time to avoid the gunshot.”

  “I did,” Daniel says.

  “Your quick thinking saved her life. You should be proud.”

  “I’m more angry than anything.”

  “As you should be.” Mother Terra relinquishes her hold on my chin and turns to face the SAD outside. “Now… I feel that I should relay some troubling information to the two of you.”

  I draw in a breath and prepare for the worst.

  Mother Terra closes her eyes, waits a moment as if to compose herself, then opens them before turning her teal gaze on the two of us. “Unfortunately, there is little we can do regarding the attempt on your life. Given the perpetrator was too dangerous to physically capture, the SADs were forced to open fire and then investigate what they could find on the corpse—and that is where we run into troubling news.

  “We were able to determine, based off the clothing that the individual was wearing and the grade of weapon that was in his possession, that the man who made the attempt on Kelendra’s life was not, in fact, one of the Fanatical.”

  “But who—” I start, then stop before I can continue.

  It hits me, hard, like a train bound straight for my heart.

  I swallow, reach up to press a hand against my chest, and attempt to fight the swell of panic that assaults me, but find that I cannot.

  “You mean,” Daniel starts as it seems to slowly dawn on him.

  “This attack was not carried out by the Fanatical,” the Revered Mother says, “but by the Terrible North.”

  It is a statement that chills me to the bone, and causes my blood to boil. Scared, relentlessly, of what could have happened, and knowing that this was not some random act of violence by a fringe group from within our country, but a trained soldier, I bow my head and take slow, deep breaths as the realization that I was completely, absolutely, one-hundred-percent lucky takes its hold on me.