Deliverance (26 page)

Glancing behind me, I see the prisoners have stopped following me. It was easy enough to see I was leading them straight toward the reinforcements.

I pause, my hands on my knees, gulping in fresh breaths of air. There has to be another way.

A truck engine rumbles to life and drives out of the courtyard, heading for the gate. A second one follows shortly. I squint through the fences. The driver of the second truck looks familiar, even with my exhausted eyes.

It's Guard Nev.

My legs kick into action and I dash for the gate. I have to get there in time for Guard Nev to see me. If he didn't get flagged yet, then I most likely haven't been either.

I reach the gate only moments before the second truck, waving my hands over my head. The truck slows and I race across the road to get in on the driver's side. Guard Nev opens the door and reaches his hand out to help me.

Another leap and I'll be on my way to getting out of here. I take a deep breath and lunge.

 

 

 

 

42

 

Guard Nev grabs my arm at the same time I leap onto the rumbling truck. “Move it!” he shouts.

I scramble over him and take the passenger seat, and he speeds across the bridge.

Screams and shouts carry on the wind, as does the sound of gun shots and explosions. I can't resist taking one last look at Lesser City 5—the prison. The scene behind me is chaos, and I almost feel like Lot's wife when I read the Old Testament story in the book of Genesis. She turned into a pillar of salt. Thankfully, I'm still me.

“They'll be coming for you. They'll probably be there when you reach home. You shouldn't go there.”

“I have to!” I say. “I have to get my things.” My Bible, but especially Mom's perfume. That is more important to me than ever. I shudder when I realize I almost left them behind.

Guard Nev shakes his head. “Nothing is worth getting caught over. Once we're across the bridge we have to go west.”

“I have to try.”

He doesn't like it, but he agrees to drop me off at the edge of the city so I can make my way home. “Don't forget about the scanners. If they pinpoint your location, they'll be on you in seconds. Once you get what you need, you have to run. Stay hidden and go west. I'll find you.”

I nod, my heart pounding out of control. What have I gotten myself into? “Goodbye, Guard Nev. Thank you for being my friend.”

He doesn't smile or nod. “I owe you much more than you owe me. Miriam taught me a lot in my time with her. Thank you.”

In spite of the hell around us, a smile moves over my face. Guard Nev believes in God. Maybe I'm not as worthless as I think.

I squeeze his hand, then jump from the truck. It speeds away from the city, headed who knows where.

People stand on the streets, staring. They're not looking at me, though—they stare across the water.

I use their distraction to run.

Kassy's help in learning the city streets is definitely coming in handy now. I race through alleyways, trying to keep my mind from wandering.

Fischer. My heart aches. How could we leave him behind? What will happen to him?

God, why? Why let me find him just to take him away again?

I put the thoughts away for later as I near home. I reach my apartment and sneak in the back door. Someone may have seen me by now, but I can be quick at this point.

My nerves calm as I take the steps two at a time, all the way to the seventh floor. I gasp for breath as I make it to my landing, but I stop cold when I see the doorman outside my door.

He takes in my appearance and frowns. “Are you alright, Miss?”

I wait for guards to storm the hallway, but none show up. The doorman doesn't seem to realize I'm in big trouble.

“This letter came for you,” he says, holding out an envelope. He watches me curiously.

I swallow hard, my breathing steadying. “Thank you.” I take the letter.

He backs away and I push into my apartment. Two things. All I need are two things. I stumble toward the bathroom.

“No.” The word escapes in a breathless whisper.

The hair dryer has been ripped from the wall, and the Bible is gone. I'm so thankful that I destroyed Keegan's letters. They would have found them all.

A letter! I rip open the envelope the doorman gave me and read the single line.

K said to tell you “he believes.” Whatever that means. ~L

Lilith. She agreed to help us one last time after all. And Keegan? He believes! It's one last tiny ray of light in this vastly bleak day.

Sobs choke me and I grip the wall as I walk to my night stand. I'm not sure if I cry happy tears over Keegan or simply tears of pure frustration. I reach the night stand and run my hand through the drawer. It's empty. I jerk it off the tracks and turn it upside down. It has to be here!

But it's not.

“No,” I say again, falling to my knees and crying. Mom's perfume is gone. They've taken everything from me.

Everything.

I curl into a ball and don't fight the tears that dampen the carpet. These are not happy tears after all. A few minutes pass and someone enters the apartment. Footsteps stomp across the floor, and strong arms pull me to a standing position. Someone slips cuffs onto my wrists and drags me into the hall. Amazingly, they take me down the stairs and quietly out the back, to a long transporter in the alley. Supreme Moon's transporter. They must want to keep the drama to a minimum.

Of course. They don't want everyone to know of the “dissention” taking place right in their own city.

The guard pushes me inside and the transporter drives away.

My mind screams at me to remove the cuffs, to fight, but I have nothing left to give.

I assume we're going to the Mansion, but we take a different turn. I recognize the medical center from my second day here, the day they ran the new tests.

At the center, the guard takes me inside, leading me by an arm. Supreme Moon paces the room, and once I'm in the auditorium he takes hold of me and shoves me toward the same table I lay on before. His eyes spew hatred and his face is an unhealthy shade of red. He says nothing as he straps me down.

The cloth cuts into my raw skin and I grunt, but he makes no notice.

“Put it in her vein,” Supreme Moon commands.

A medic moves forward and sticks a long needle into my arm. I bite back a gasp of pain.

“What are you doing?” I ask, finally unable to sit by and watch my own torture.

Supreme Moon snarls at me but doesn't answer my question.

The medic places small, metal probes on either side of my head. The screens on the wall flash to life.

It only takes a moment for the medicine pumping into my body to take effect. My mind begins drifting just as I realize what's happening. Supreme Moon wants answers, and he's going after them right now.

I want to cry...and then I want nothing.

 



 

I wake up in a transporter outside of the mansion. A different guard is there to pull me out and march me inside. This one is a woman, and she's not nearly as gentle as the guard at the apartment. She shoves me up the steps and I fall, scratching my knee. I haven't fully gotten my bearings from being drugged, and my balance is still off.

“Get up,” she growls.

I scramble to my feet and hurry inside.

Supreme Moon waits in his study. I've never seen this part of his home before. It is dark, almost completely black.

“Sit,” he commands.

I obey.

“I am demoting you today. You will leave Greater City immediately. You will never see your friends or family again, and you will die a Lesser—with none of the help you wanted to offer them. And you know what else? I'm glad your mother is dead. She was a fool and I shouldn't have ever trusted her to begin with.”

My resolve returns like a flash of angry lightning. “You can never kill the message I spread. People want freedom, and they deserve to have it.”

He sneers. “You and your silly beliefs. You know nothing—you think you do, but you don't. You know about the prison, that the people were being shipped away, but do you know where?”

No.

He stomps over to me and slaps me hard across the face.

My head whips back and my thoughts swirl.

“Of course you don't know. You told me so only an hour ago in your dreams. It turns out you know almost nothing—but the things you do know? I will take care of that soon.”

Hot oil ripples down my back and I cringe. Miriam and her people are no longer safe, because of me. I must have told Supreme Moon everything he wanted to know—about Fischer, about Guard Nev, about the Free. What else does he know?

It can't really matter. Not now.

His eyes blaze with a madness I've never seen before. He paces the floor like a crazed man, his words tumbling out in a barely discernible ramble.

“They found it easy to take over after everything had been destroyed. At first they didn't ask for much—only our men as soldiers. But after a while, they wanted more.”

Who? I have no idea what he's talking about.

“By then the people had become so used to violence and harsh living conditions that it was easy to make the transition. The enemy moved in and took control of the people. They had a few requirements for allowing us to live, though. We would provide goods for trade, and we wouldn't promote anything that could cause dissention.”

I realize he's talking about the past—about the beginning of our society.

So that's why we have outlying cities and religion is outlawed. This must have been the event Miriam talked about.

“We are not our own, Hana Norfolk.” His words pull me back to the here and now. “We have a mother country, and we must follow her rules only.”

Supreme Moon scowls at me and I wince, afraid he'll hit me again, but he doesn't. “You have allowed religion to spread, and you have taken away their soldiers. You have obliterated two of their three rules.”

“There will be retribution,” he goes on. I catch it then, the slight catch in his voice. A warble. A fear.

Whoever this mother country is, this enemy, they are powerful.

He stands nose to nose with me now, his cold eyes boring into mine. “I hope that when it comes, you are the first to die.”

I had no idea. None of us had any idea, did we?

But Guard Nev knew. This is why he always tried to stop me. But something else Supreme Moon said sticks out to me: He was a fool to trust my mother.

Tears burn in my eyes and throat, and a million questions race through my mind.

How does he know my mother? How many died in the riots? Where will the people go now? Was Fischer caught? What will they do to Keegan?

But I keep quiet. Supreme Moon will only use the answers to torment me.

“You may have noble ideas about becoming Lesser. You may think you will be allowed to train them now, to teach them how to live, but you won't. You won't be able to do anything with them, because where I'm sending you? You won't last a week.”

He motions for someone to take me away, and a guard materializes from behind a doorway. The guard takes me by the arms and drags me from the room, down another dark hallway and down a dim flight of stairs. We must be in the basement of the mansion, but as my eyes adjust to the light, I realize it's no ordinary basement. It's a dungeon; the kind I thought only existed in story books.

I'm shoved into a cell and the metal doors clang shut behind me. How long will they keep me here? Will I be fed? Given water? Allowed to use the restroom?

Be still and know that I am God.

The words are familiar, but how can I believe? I sit in a prison cell, and I'm about to be demoted. They are sending me to Lesser City 4. I am sure of it.

What kind of people are the people of Lesser 4? What will they do to me?

I remember God's whispers to me, and I close my eyes. I can do this. With God's help I can do anything, even face an angry mother country. God is here, even in the darkness.

I pray. I don't know how long I sit alone, but I pray.

Finally, I take a deep, shaky breath and open my eyes. The dimness doesn't bother me now.

It is time to wait. My new life will begin, but my old life will not end. I will tell others God's message. I will do all I can to find anyone who made it out of the prison riot alive. I will get out of Lesser 4.

I will find deliverance, and then I will spread it.

 

 

 

Don't miss the rest of the ENSLAVED series

How do You Find Freedom When all Hope is Lost?

 

VANQUISHED,

Book One

 

When Hana's mom is diagnosed with the mutation, she confesses to Hana she doesn't know what will happen if she dies. Fischer, a medic at the hospital, implies there is Someone who can help–but religion's been outlawed.