Corrupted: Book Three of the State Series
Page 26
Freya finished speaking and the crowd erupted into applause.
It only took five seconds, but to Chastity, it felt like an eternity. She raised her gun, took aim, and fired. Two seconds. The Security officer leapt forward and caught Freya as she fell, and jumped with her to the side. Two seconds. The technician activated the transport device as the man jumped, and sent them away to the colony world. One second. Chastity didn’t get to see them disappear as she was wrestled to the ground. A few people in the crowd stood, dumbfounded; the rest rushed the transport device. There had only been two soldiers on stage; one held Chastity while the other opened fire into the crowd. The people closest to the guard rushed him, overtaking him and his gun, and put a bullet in his head.
They grabbed the bodies of the wounded, and all fled through the transport device. The technician had locked it open, and he himself jumped through to the other side. It had taken under three minutes, and then the lights from the transport device went dark. The guard bound her hands behind her back and picked her up to bring her to the underground. She saw blood, lots of blood. Some of the people who stood idly by had been shot. Only two bodies of the men who rushed the guard remained. The guard hoisted her over his shoulder and carried her down the stairs, and into a holding cell. A man was sitting in the cell, waiting.
“Interesting broadcast,” he said.
Chastity had never seen his face, but recognized his voice instantly. “So it was,” she replied.
“I watched it down here, had a pretty good view,” he said. “Chastity, I couldn’t help but notice, it didn’t look like it was a bullet that hit her. There was no blood.”
Chastity remained silent, but her lips pulled into a smile, and then she started to laugh. She laughed deep and hard. It echoed throughout the cell, until he reached into his jacket, retrieving his gun. Without another word, he shot her in the head. Her body slumped over, blood and brain tissue sprayed in the surrounding area, yet even in her gruesome death, it still appeared at though she was smiling.
Chapter 25
Freya
She knew she had to wake up. Someone was calling her name, but she just didn’t want to open her eyes. She couldn’t. With this persistent voice nagging at her, she finally opened her eyes into tiny slits.
“There you are,” Colin said.
“Tell me your name,” said a female voice.
Colin shoved her off to the side. “She’s fine. We all were. Now back off and give us some privacy,” he commanded. The woman huffed, crossed her arms, and left.
“Colin?” she said in a whisper, her mind still in a haze. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh, you know, just thought I would pop by. I had something to tell you.”
“What?” she asked, still confused. There was an ache behind her eyes; she couldn’t keep them open.
“That you were wrong.” He reached out and touched her face gently. “I still love you.”
Freya took another attempt at opening her eyes. She was in a glass box of some kind. Panic coursed through her, and she tried to sit up. “Where am I?”
“You are home—your new home, that is,” he said, trying to calm her with his touch. “You are on the colony world, in a hibernation chamber on the old spacecraft.”
“I was shot,” she blurted, her mind piecing it together. “Chastity shot me.”
“It was just a tranquilizer gun.”
She looked around the room. She was, in fact, on the spacecraft. She turned to look at Colin, and she saw him, really saw him. He looked so different. “What happened to you?”
“Nothing. I just got older is all.”
She touched his face. His skin was so dark, and full of deep lines and creases. “I don’t understand,” she said.
“Well, here’s the thing. I got to thinking. You really weren’t going to let this whole age difference go. So I had to put you in the hibernation chamber so I could catch up. And you were wrong, did I mention that?”
“You put me in hibernation for twenty-two years?”
Colin scratched his chin a moment thoughtfully. “Well, technically, no. It was just sixteen.” He pointed a threatening finger at her. “But don’t you go making a stink about being six years older, or I’ll put you back in there.” He paused and scratched his chin. “Well, technically, I was two years older than you, so you are really only four years older, but still, I will have no attitude from you, missy.”
“How did I get here?” she asked.
Colin sighed. “I don’t have time to tell you everything, but here are the cliff notes. I planned a coup with Chastity. She had uncovered that the Council was about to have you killed—quite a clever manipulation on her part—and so she tranquilized you, had someone grab you and take you through the transport device. And then the rest of the people rushed the guards and came through. Then we destroyed the transport device over here before the State had time to react.”
“But what about the State? Don’t you think they will come for us?”
Colin shrugged. “They might, and if they do, we will be ready for them. We have more people, more resources, and weapons.”
“Weapons?”
“Yes. We have built an army, one that can protect us. I will explain more later; we have to go.”
“Go? Where?”
“I am not the only one who grew impatient. Your people need you.”
Freya shook her head. “No, not here. I am not the head of State anymore. I am just a gardener.”
“No, you aren’t,” he answered. “We all know that these two things don’t go together, but we all just went with it anyway. You were elected our queen by the people. As your partner—well, I guess staging the coup scored me some points too—I became your king, and have ruled in your stead.”
Freya just stared at him, her mind unable to accept this information.
“How could any of this happen? If I am still their leader, why would anyone let me sleep?”
“You ask me that as though you don’t believe in my leadership abilities.”
Freya didn’t respond, she simply raised one eyebrow at him.
“Okay, so I may not be the most responsible adult here, but the truth is, we hardly even need a government. Everyone is just so grateful to be free of the State, they all contribute, they work, they share. The need for leadership is just for the big decisions, and it’s a collaboration among the people, not decided by just one person. We have kept the concept of a council in place, but one out in the open. We live exactly as you promised we would.”
Freya mulled over his words carefully.
“So I’m not really needed then. I can step back from politics and focus on the agricultural needs of this land.”
“You can do both,” he interjected. “They may not need policing, but these people love you, and they need you as their guide. Many still fear the State will come for us, but they trust you will make the right decisions if they do. With you, they believe we could win against the State again, just as we did before.”
He put his arms around her, kissing her forehead gently while her mind took a much-needed moment to catch up with the current events.
“Come on, you just have to go and wave, shake a few hands. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can go home.”
“Do we have a home?”
“Yes, Freya, we do—I built it for us. I hope you like it.” He pulled her to her feet and helped her walk. She was dizzy and weak.
“What do we do when we get home?” she asked.
Colin stopped walking and pulled her in close.
“Oh, I can think of something.” He kissed her gently.
She stood. It felt strange to have him pressed against her, and then it didn’t. It could have been her disoriented state, or the release of the tension in her mind—in her soul. Her mind was silenced, a feeling of peace spreading rapidly through her body as she reached around his neck, and she deepened the kiss. This world, this time, this spot on the spacecraft, it was all fo
reign to her, yet she had never felt more at home.
After a moment, Colin pulled away from her, and looked around the room.
“On second thought, our people can wait.”
Freya laughed, let him kiss her again, and then pulled away from him.
“Colin, let’s go home.”
Books in The State Series
Compliant: Book One of the State Series
http://mybook.to/Compliant
Conflicted: Book Two of the State Series
http://mybook.to/Book-2-Conflicted
Corrupted: Book Three of the State Series
http://mybook.to/Book-3-Corrupted
Beyond: Book Four of the State Series http://viewbook.at/Beyond
Book Five of the State Series – Coming Soon!
Acknowledgements
There are so many people who support and contribute to my work. I would like to mention just a few.
A big thank you to my beta readers, Erin Lai and Mary Allred. I couldn’t do this without you!
To Grant SpottedBull for the custom illustrations.
My friends and family for their continual support.
Stacy at AuthorsMojo.com for book formatting and other tech help.
As always, to Ella Barnard and all the bosses at Author Boss Academy.
Author’s Note
Thank you, dear reader, for joining me on this journey. It has been my life-long dream to become an author, and I couldn’t do it without people like you! I love to hear from my readers. If you would like to contact me, or receive more information about new releases, giveaways, and more, please follow on the links below.
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