Redeemer (21 page)

I nod. These are all things I know.

He watches me silently for a few minutes before he speaks. “Where did you go?”

It's not like him to ask. To pry. I can tell by the uncomfortable way he holds his shoulders and the stilted way he speaks—he doesn't like having to ask. Maybe he doesn't even like that he wonders in the first place.

“Isabel said some things about my mom. She claimed she knew her when they were both Greaters.”

Fischer's eyes widen, but he doesn't speak. He is the world's best listener.

“I wanted to ask my dad if it was true.”

“And did he give you answers?”

I wrap my arms around myself and settle against the window. “Yeah, more than I think I wanted to know.”

He watches me with those sad, sorrowful eyes. If anyone ever feels the sorrows of others, it is Fischer. He would give his last piece of bread to a starving man, even if it meant less time alive for himself.

I manage a smile of thanks for him, and he returns it.

Keegan groans, and mine and Fischer's eyes move in sync toward him, but I reach his bedside first. His eyes flutter open, and he looks around without actually seeing. Finally, his gaze lands and focuses on me. “Hana?”

I smile again, this time fighting tears. Keegan is alive, for now.

He tries to glance around but groans again. “Are we at the skyscraper?”

“Yes, Les came and we managed to get you back.”

Questions play across his eyes, but he doesn't ask them. “I can't believe we made it out of there alive.” Suddenly, panic fills his face. “Did they get you, too?”

“No,” I tell him quickly. “Even though I don't know how they missed, especially that flying machine of torture.” I shudder just thinking about it.

Fischer glances at me and frowns. “What happened out there?”

I close my eyes, not wanting to relive it. “There was a flying transporter, like the ones they used at the prison. Only this one had guns mounted on it, and they used them on us.”

Fischer's face twists into disgust and anger, and I'm reminded of the Fischer I found only a couple of weeks ago in Lesser City 3.

The look vanishes so fast it's like I imagined it, and he shakes his head. “It's madness. I can only imagine what's coming.”

None of us have talked about the future, at least not very much. Is true war coming? Between who?

A thought works its way into my brain, and I suddenly know Frost Moon is ready. If he's been preparing for a Lesser army for the last eighteen years, then he has a plan. He is prepared for war, and he knows how he'll fight it.

We will not have to fight that war. Instead, our war will be with him. How will we be able to fight the Greaters when they come?

Keegan rests throughout the day, and I stay close by his side. Sometime around midday, he looks at me and takes a deep, shaky breath. “You don't have to hover over me, you know. If you have something you want to do, go ahead and do it.”

I smile and shake my head. There isn't anything I'd rather do than make sure Keegan is OK.

“You know they're training in the streets,” he says. “You can't tell me you'd rather stay with me than be out there learning to fight.”

I try to keep from looking out the windows over my shoulders, but the pull is too strong. They started training just after breakfast, preparing for the day the Greaters attack. I've tried to ignore them, but Keegan must have caught me looking a few times.

He chuckles. “Hana, you're not doing anyone any good by staying in here.”

But the truth is, I don't care about doing anyone any good, at least not right now. I want to make sure Keegan is going to heal.

I keep this to myself. “Maybe later. Right now I think I'm going to nap.”

His eyebrows shoot up. “Nap?”

I smile and shrug. It is a strange excuse, but it keeps me in. And near him.

Fischer comes in a few minutes later and begins cleaning Keegan's shoulder. He doesn't question me for sitting with Keegan, and I settle into the window seat and close my eyes. It doesn't take long to hear their whispers.

“Is she really sleeping?” Keegan asks.

After a moment, which I assume is Fischer glancing at me, Fischer speaks. “I'm not sure. I think so.”

“She needs to get out of here. Be outside. She feels guilty for my getting hurt, but she's not doing anyone any good by staying in here.”

Fischer doesn't respond, and I mull over Keegan's words. Do I feel guilty? I don't think so. It isn't my fault the guards caught us. I know that. Of course, if I hadn't asked him to go with me, we wouldn't have been spotted at all. So maybe it is my fault? My thoughts pause when they resume talking.

“Thank you for taking care of me,” Keegan's voice is rough. The words are hard for him to say.

“You're welcome.” It's a simple statement, but heartfelt. Fischer really wants to help.

“You don't owe me anything, but you continue to help. What makes you do it?”

“It's what I was made to do,” Fischer says. “I always knew I wanted to be a medic.”

“But you don't have to help me,” Keegan insists. “It has to bother you on some level.”

Fischer sighs.

The urge to peel open an eye is strong. I want to see their faces. Understand why Keegan is pushing this issue. My self-discipline wins out, though, and I keep silent and still.

“You're wrong,” Fischer says. “It truly doesn't bother me at all.”

“OK, so what about Hana?” Now Keegan's voice is strong and unwavering. “I want to know your intentions toward her.”

I swallow hard, wishing now I had gone outside like Keegan suggested.

“Shouldn't you be asking her these things?” Fischer says.

“Hana is confused right now. Her whole world has been turned upside down, and she doesn't know what she wants. I want to make sure whatever she chooses is good for her.”

Whatever I choose? What if I don't want to choose? What if I can't? Hearing this conversation is torture.

“Did you ever learn about diamonds in school?” Fischer's question is so off topic I nearly glance at him. I catch myself just in time.

“Yeah, I guess.” Keegan's voice is definitely irritated. We didn't learn much about diamonds, because we never had many of them in the Middle Cities. Still, he's got to be confused by Fischer's question.

“Diamonds start off as rough coal in the earth. With heat and pressure, they turn into diamonds. Hana's a lot like that.”

“What are you saying, Fischer? You're going to have to just come right out with it.”

I smile to myself at Keegan's words. He can write a poetic song, but he was never one to mince words.

“Hana is under a lot of pressure, but when she's done with all this, she's going to be so strong. So beautiful. She's going to know what she wants, and she's going to be able to choose who she wants. She won't need any help from either of us.”

Silence.

What is Keegan doing with that assessment? What am I going to do with it?

“I plan to marry her,” Fischer finally says. My throat squeezes and my heart skips a beat. He wants to marry me? He hasn't ever said it, at least not like that.

“Yeah, well, it's what I've wanted since I was a kid. I'm not letting her go without a fight.”

A long pause, then, “I consider myself warned.” My mind spins with the stolen conversation, but I push the thoughts away. When everything is said and done, we will be able to make our choices. I'll be able to make mine. I have to believe that.

Neither of them speaks again, and at some point I risk a peek. Fischer is gone and Keegan sleeps. I slip outside to train with the others, but my thoughts stay inside, with a medic and a boy who's been shot.

Over the next day, Keegan improves. More volunteers come, until we don't fit on just one floor anymore. Most of the newcomers choose the lower floors. Less of a walk, which is pretty smart. Still, I prefer being higher up.

Word is spreading fast, and people come from everywhere—Lesser Cities, Middle Cities, and even Greater City itself.

Fischer doesn't let any of them leave without telling them the true reason for our fight. Several of the volunteers help him clear the fourth floor, so they can start a daily service to learn more about God.

Not everyone is interested in learning, though. Guard Rok, Les, and his men spend their days drawing up attack plans. No one knows when the actual war will start, but they're ready to fight as soon as it begins.

I leave the fourth floor and head down to floor one where Guard Rok has set up a headquarters. Keegan sits near the window, and Fischer stands with Guard Rok. His eyes flash and he leans close to the guard.

Curiosity gets the best of me, and I step toward them.

“If we keep spreading Christ's message we will change the people's hearts without a war,” Fischer says. “We can teach them the truth. It worked for us, it will work for them too.”

“Frost Moon isn't interested in change.” Guard Rok's face is solemn. “He is interested in defeating this mother country and having the country to rule for himself.”

Fischer doesn't argue, but his flared nostrils hint at his anger.

“I see both sides,” I say, trying to get rid of the tension in the air. “A fight is coming, whether with just the mother country, or with Frost Moon's army itself. We're going to have to go to battle either way. But maybe it doesn't have to be as severe. Send volunteers back to where they came from. Let them spread the message in their homes and cities. The more people who are on our side, the easier our fight will be. Haven't we all worried what we'll do when the Greaters come? If there are less people fighting against us, we might have a chance at winning.”

Guard Rok frowns, but finally he shrugs. “I can see your point. Fischer, since this is your pet project, you need to make that happen. Les, we need to discuss how to barricade this place. Can we get more weapons?”

“A few scouts have found old canons. We think we can make them work.”

Canons? Make them work?

There is no way our location has remained unknown all this time. With so many people coming and going, we're as large as one of the smaller cities. Canon shots, even for test fire, are sure to draw the guards out.

And I'm not too crazy about living in a barricaded building.

The longer we talk of war, the more my head aches, and I slip out of the conversation and head for the back staircase. In spite of the broken stairs in the front stairwell, everyone continues to use it. The back case is deserted, and I easily jog up the remaining flights to the roof. It's a place I've learned to visit often over the past several days. A place where I can be alone. Where I can think. Where I can figure out who I am and exactly what I believe—without input from anyone else's ideologies.

The truth of my life hasn't gotten easier as the days pass. I've begun to realize the full meaning of the word anger. I am so angry.

At Mom. At Dad. At Frost Moon.

At God.

This isn't the life I always planned to live. I was supposed to move to Middle City 1—which, in a sense has happened, I suppose, since I can see it in all its splendor from my rooftop—train for government work, and marry Keegan.

Then again, I did train for government work, and a life with Keegan is still within reach.

My feelings for him have changed and yet not changed at all. I don't want to lose him. I know this for sure. When he lay bleeding, and I knelt praying for him, I knew he had to live. I couldn't go on if he died and things between us were left unresolved.

Whatever this war brings, I must fix my relationships.

Soft wind blows across my face. It carries a chill and I suck in a deep breath. Fall is here. It has been for weeks. Will war come, even in the winter?

Because that sounds terrible.

The door to the roof squeals open behind me, and Fischer strides from the stairwell. “I wondered where you went.”

I manage a smile through my anger. Maybe, if I'm being honest, I'm angry at Fischer too. He introduced me to the rebellion, albeit at my own insistence. He didn't manage to get chemo drugs for Mom, and he didn't save her.

Though he gave me what I needed to help save her soul. That had to count for something.

It does count, I decide, as he slides into a seated position beside me. And since God did the saving, I guess I need to forgive Him too.

“I don't like all this talk of war.”

“Me neither.” My words drift away on the breeze as a wisp hair blows in my eyes. Fischer moves the hair aside and smiles softly.

There's no awkwardness between us now. Nothing like when we first met and I wasn't sure if I should be attracted to his kindness. Nothing like when we were reunited a little over a month ago now, and he carried around a load of anger.

No, this is more like the prison outside of Greater City, when we were both just so happy to see each other alive.

“What if I send people away—people to spread the word to their friends and family—and the attack comes while they're gone? I'll be taking away our forces.”

I turn to him and shake my head. “We have to trust we're doing the right thing.”

He nods and gazes out at the city. It's not very often I have to give Fischer a pick-me-up. The stress of the situation must be getting to him.

I nudge his shoulder with mine and smile. “It's going to be OK.”

A small smile spreads across his face. “Isn't that my line?” He takes my hand and weaves his fingers through mine, and while the warmth feels like sunshine, my shoulders tense. He told Keegan he wanted to marry me, and his intentions are obvious.

His nearness tears at my heart. It brings on reactions in my blood that end with guilt pumping through my veins. How can I love Keegan so much and still have room left for Fischer? But if I choose Fischer, how would I ever be able to let go of Keegan? Especially now.