Altruist (The Altruist Series Book 1) (23 page)

“Do you want to be alone? Or would it be alright if I kept you company? I’d feel like I was slacking off if I didn’t keep an eye on you.” His remark is sincere, which makes me smile. I can understand why they’d place a guard at my door where I’m already protected with concrete barriers, but the to think that Ben thinks he could actually protect me out there, somewhere, where I’m out in the open, is sort of hilarious. Regardless, I’m smart enough to know that if I pass on his offer, I’ll have to spend the next few hours in here and that is something I’m not willing to do.

“Of course,” I say. “I’d love your company.”

He smiles and looks both ways down the hall, making sure that no one else is wandering about and picks up his assault rifle that was leaning up against the wall. “This way,” he says and I follow closely behind. That term again,
cattle shuffling
, runs through my mind. Ben’s frame makes me feel small and therefore invisible as I follow him back through the main corridor and past the map room to a small corner door. Its frame is the perfect width for my body but Ben has to angle himself sideways to fit. We walk up eleven flights of stairs and finally pause at a brown door fixed with a push bar. Ben turns his head back towards me. “You said you wanted fresh air, right?”

My brows pull together and a slight smile makes its way across my face. Ben pushes the door open and my gaze shifts past him, my body following. A breeze brushes against my face as I step onto a rooftop terrace overlooking the entire city. The streets are filled with a green glow, from the southern silo’s to the northern financial district’s skyscrapers to the city centre where the president’s residence sits, its cream marble pillars and dome pressing and molding itself into the star filled skies above.

Ben props the door open with a rock and walks past me, clasping my hand in his in one fluid motion. “Over here,” he says and nods toward a corner of the terrace that sits beneath a canopy of sorts. He sits down beneath it, motioning for me to join him. I look up at the canopy and it’s unlike any fabric I’ve seen before. Its dark waves shimmer in the breeze.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Ben pulls an apple from his backpack and chomps down. “It’s a blind spot. See all of those glittering squares? They’re actually computer chips designed to cloak whoever’s underneath from the security drones and satellites that man and observe this city.” My eyes dart towards him and he offers me a bite of his apple.

“No, thanks.” I wave it away and he shrugs. “So you’re saying that no one can see us right now?”

“Yeah, exactly. You’re as anonymous as you could possibly be in the city right now.” My head nods slowly in understanding.

“This can’t be legal, right?” I ask and Ben laughs, nearly choking on his late night snack.

“Oh God, no. But nothing in this compound is. I suppose that the blind spot would be the least of our worries if the Council stumbled upon this place.” He laughs. I never took Ben as a rule breaker until now.

“Why are you doing this, Ben?” I’m not sure that I even have a right to know why he does anything he does but the question escapes me before I have a chance to reel it in. He chews quietly, pondering my question, then swallows hard and I can see him contemplating how much he’s willing to confide in me.

“My father is the one who taught me what it meant to be free. That every man and woman has inherited a divine right to live a life of happiness, and that’s not what this world is, is it? Even those who have been tricked into believing they’re happy, they aren’t. They’re desensitized. They’re ignorant. Being monitored wherever we go, being told when to wake up and go to sleep. Being forced into professions simply because they match the level of worth we were given.” He looks down at his hands, rough from years of combat training. “I never wanted this, you know? I don’t want to carry a rifle. I don’t want to hurt people. But I’m told I have to because I was born a Class 2. Who gets to decide that? Who decided that I was meant to be a Class 2?”

He pauses and though normally I’d jump in, there’s something about the quiet streets surrounding us that persuades me to stay still, to listen.

“When I was little, I remember men and women were constantly shuffling in and out of the basement. I’d play down there sometimes with this little red train my dad made for me. As I got older I started to realize that people only hide and whisper when they’re doing something wrong. Except what they were doing wasn’t wrong. You know? They were just helping families re-ration food and supplies. Every now and then he’d work with Reuben to relocate some people. I know there were talks of bombings but my parents were never in on any of that stuff, they just helped people.” Through the darkness I can see his eyes get misty.

“Can I ask you something?” I ask and he looks up at me, his face tired and worn.

“Anything.”

“Why did Joseph turn your father into the Council?”

He breathes in deeply, trying to organize his words. “Dad knew that it would get us closer to the Council. That’s it. And it worked. Joseph is about as close as you can get to the inner workings and military planning of the city.”

The words spill into my heart and I realize that I’ve been wrong. Here I spent this entire time being disgusted by Joseph for turning on his family for personal gain and that wasn’t the reason for it at all. I realize that those evenings of family conversation over loyalty, whispers at forced school assemblies to acknowledge his bravery, that I was wrong. He is brave, but not the way people see him today. He is brave in a way that most will never know, in a way that I am not. Joseph is the type of leader that people need in order to evoke change, not some skinny girl with a temper.

“Sometimes I wonder if I should just leave.” The thought simultaneously enters my mind and leaves my mouth.

“Leave?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I sigh. “I feel like all I’ve managed to do since learning who I am is be less than expected. I wake up each morning with these intentions to do amazing things, to be the person that Abel thinks I am, that he wants me to be. But, honestly, I don’t know if I’m that girl, if I ever was, if I ever could be, and that terrifies me. I don’t know what to do and sometimes I feel as though who I am is completely disappearing and that the only answer that makes any sense is to run.”

Ben furrows his brow and scoots closer so that our thighs are touching. He bites down on the center of his bottom lip, “They killed him, Cate. He spent his entire life making sure that kids didn’t go to bed hungry, and for that, they murdered my father. This world, it’s dark. It’s so dark and that darkness shrouds everything and everyone. And without a light, I don’t know what will become of us.” He takes my hand in his and holds it in the space between us. “I don’t know what the right answer is, Cate, if you should leave or not, and if you stay, I’m not sure what will happen. All I know is that this world could sure use a hero.” He smiles and it fills me with warm, glowing hope. I rest my head on his shoulder and we sit there, in the quietness of the city.

Chapter 26

As Ben and I make our way back into the underground fortress, I look up and see Abel coming towards us. “Cate, I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he says. His hair is disheveled and sleep is still hanging onto his muscular frame.

“Sorry, Al. I needed to stretch my legs and didn’t want to leave her unaccompanied,” Ben says.

I stare at Abel. I don’t feel the need to explain myself and the fact that he requires an explanation of my whereabouts makes me feel even more trapped and seems reminiscent of the very people we’re trying to free ourselves from. But then I look at him, at his tired ocean blue eyes and raised brows, at his normally immaculate posture that over the course of the last day has become slumped, and I remember that he’s not them. He is Abel. He is mine, and at that thought my heart races again and I need to be close to him. I crave the sensation of his fingers interlocked with mine. I smile and grab his hand.

He looks at me so intensely, taking in each subtle detail of my expressions and though I expected his wonder for me to fade during the months, I realize now, it hasn't. His gaze is still so brightly lit that I feel as though he can see straight through me. That he can see everything I've ever thought about him and everything I’ve ever wanted from him. The concept makes me so nervous I have to battle every instinct not to look away and kick at the linoleum floor, awkwardly. Instead I force myself to meet his gaze, every time, I force myself. I hold my focus until I see the slight creep of a smile in the corner of his mouth. I want to hold onto the moment for a second longer, and then another. I want to make the world stop and plead with it to give us a shot, one chance at happiness. I swallow hard and the push the thought away until all that’s left is the realization that I need to love him now, and hard. Because we have been given more chances than any two people deserve and I am scared to death that this could be our last.

“Sorry, old man,” I say, pressing my knuckles into his ribs and he squirms and laughs. That smile of his has the uncanny ability to make the entire world feel at peace. Regardless of anything I will do in this life, I will not lose him, not again. Life is hard and complicated but he his not. In the never-ending sequence of breaths, he remains the same, and I am thankful for that.

As he holds onto my hand tighter and kisses my jaw I know that we are okay again and the thought makes my stomach drop. I’ve never had an issue holding a grudge but when I know we are not okay, I am not okay, nothing feels okay. I’m not sure if that’s considered needy and if it is I’m not sure I care. Sometimes two people need one another, and that’s okay. Whoever said that needing someone or that being dependent on someone was a bad thing never loved a good person. 
He is mine and I am his.
 

“Good morning, I’m glad you’re okay.” He smiles and as I lean into him a flash of strawberry blonde hair zooms between us.

“Get a room!” I hear and then the blur continues running into the map room. I look up at Abel, stunned by the interference.

“Is that…” I mumble and a laugh escapes me. “Is that the boy from the black market?”

Abel laughs. “Yeah, Reuben’s son, Fitz.”

Thoughts click into place and I remember the flippant boy from the vendors’ row, the one that Judah made a point of keeping information from so that his father wouldn’t have it.

Abel runs after the boy and drags him back through the doorframe and into the hall. “Say you’re sorry for knocking into my girlfriend, Fitz!” The boy laughs and twists as Abel tickles his sides.

“No! I’m not sorry and I don’t believe in lying!” Fitz yells and Abel picks him up and spins him through the air. Whatever pause Judah gave to being comfortable around these people, Abel shows absolute trust and comfort and I’m not sure which way to lean.

Shoshanna calls for us from another room and Abel releases Fitz from his grip. “Oh! I nearly forgot,” Ben says, and walks past us away from the war room. “Back through here.” He motions for us to follow him into an adjoining room, the door draped by thick pieces of plastic. Fans set to high whirlwind against our bodies and the area beyond is brightly lit.
It must take a massive generator to produce this much energy
, I think. The room is clean, cleaner than just clean—it’s sanitized. Shoshanna and Eliath stand in the middle of the room looking toward a medical bed that lies in a corner with an operating table nearby. A man sits hunched over on the table as a medic works quietly over him.

“Dad!” I yell and run over to him.

“Wait!” the medic holds out his hand and I stop in my tracks.

“It’s okay sweetheart, do what he says.” Dad looks up and smiles at me. Whatever the medic is doing seems precautionary rather than reactive so I abide my father’s instruction and lean up against the wall, waiting for the medic to finish. As he does, he stands and pulls a blue and white paper sheet off of my dad’s arm to reveal fresh sutures. Shoshanna walks over to my father and places her hands over the incision; in moments the stitches fall to the ground and all that remains are small traces of blood. The medic glances at Shoshanna, in what I imagine is jealousy.