The Slave Series

by Laura Frances

  “Cash…”

  He stands, his back to me, and I stand too.

  “What happened to her?”

  “I don’t know,” he says, head shaking. He turns to me. He’s still being careful with his words. I can see it.

  My eyes narrow. “Tell me.”

  A hard breath leaves him. “I left before anyone knew with certainty. But last I heard, no one survived.”

  “She’s dead.” I say it empty, like a fact. My eyes close. We will all die from this. Who will be left to enjoy the freedom?

  A small rush of air touches me, then Cash’s arms are tight around my shoulders. We’ve been here before; just days ago when Edan died. Now the pain is too strong. I squeeze my eyes tighter, pressing the fist harder to my chest. It hurts everywhere, a gnawing pain eating its way through my body. Edan chose his death. He left for a purpose. Aspen was coerced. She didn’t know what she was doing.

  Cash doesn’t offer me words. Instead he offers me his strength until I’m ready to balance on my own feet again.

  I pull back, and we stand a foot apart. I stare unfocused at his shirt.

  “We can do this,” Cash says. He takes my hand, and I look up. His jaw is tight, his eyes hard. “We will end this.”

  I clench my teeth against the ache and nod.

  2

  We’re gathered in the living room. There are new faces this evening—men and women who were guarding the borders of this compound when I regained consciousness. All their eyes are on me. My first day, Drew told me I was the first Worker they’d ever seen. Now that title seems inappropriate. I am a rebel. A revolutionary…like my parents.

  Cash’s gaze finds mine from across the room. He stands with Ian, preparing to address us. I must still be wearing grief, because his eyes linger. I try to smile.

  “We’re out of time,” he says, drawing all attention. Conversations fade, and the room grows tense. “We’re leaving tonight.”

  Heads nod. Tight fists beat on bouncing legs, all the pent-up anticipation needing somewhere to go. I look around me at the narrowed eyes and tense muscles. They will die to see us free. I wonder if I will be ready to die too, if the moment comes. We can’t possibly all make it out alive. The thought drags at my stomach. In my mind, I can still see Titus leaning over me—smiling as the blood was drained from my body. My pulse quickens. I shake off the memory and fix on Cash before the panic can settle in.

  “We are outnumbered and outgunned,” he says. “But you all knew that going in. This fight isn’t about land or power. It’s about what’s right. We are fighting for people who cannot yet fight for themselves.”

  A man jumps to his feet, face red, eyes lit.

  “Our people!” he shouts, pounding his chest once.

  All around the room, soldiers rise. They bounce on their toes. Grip each other’s shoulders. I stand with them, and Meli crosses to me. Her dark eyes are wild, savage. I love the sight of it. It infuses my veins with purpose. She stands beside me, arms crossed.

  “Are you ready, Hannah?” She asks quietly. “Are you in this?”

  I didn’t know I needed to be asked…until she said it. Am I ready? My whole life I’ve been afraid of the very powers we are up against. All my life, I have hidden in obedience. But now that I’ve seen them, stood face to face with the worst of them, terror is beginning to fade.

  Every time you panic. Every time you act on fear—it’s the way you’ve been conditioned to behave.

  I remember when Cash said those words to me. But now the conditioning is gone. Now I’ve seen that the Council are no different than me. They are living, breathing humans. Somehow that changes everything.

  “I am,” I say, meeting her eyes. We turn back to Cash, and warmth rushes through me. I am in this. I’m ready.

  “Word has been sent to the South. Your troops are on standby.”

  My heart skips.

  “There are more coming?” I whisper.

  “A whole army,” Meli whispers back. “You didn’t think we could do this on our own, did you?”

  Seems ridiculous now, but I suppose that is what I thought.

  “We’re part of an elite group of soldiers,” she murmurs, gaze bouncing over the room. “It was our job to help secure the area and gain access to the valley.” She meets my eyes. “Our whole nation is behind this, Hannah.”

  She says our, and I know without question she’s including me.

  “How did you all get in?” I ask.

  “Slowly,” she says, a sly grin stretching the edge of her lips. “They never saw us coming.”

  “You snuck across the border?”

  “We trickled in slow, in various ways. We’ve been gaining ground for the last several months.

  Months. For months this revolution has been building, but I’m only just learning of it.

  “We’d hoped to be finished by now to be honest,” she says, lifting a pack from the ground and putting an arm through the strap. “But these things don’t always go how you plan.”

  The soldiers disperse, and I follow the hallway toward Norma’s bedroom. When I knock, her quiet voice invites me in. A pang of something hits me. It might be sadness, but that wouldn’t make sense. When I used to knock on Norma’s door, it was because I was lonely in my unit, and the memories of my parents were haunting me. But that life is not something to long for. Maybe the pang was relief.

  Norma is lying on her bed, head propped on a pillow, reading. She pats the mattress.

  “Come sit by me,” she says. Another pang. Another familiar invitation. Maybe what I’m feeling is gratitude, because for weeks I thought she was dead.

  When I settle on the mattress, Norma sets her book on a table and takes my hand.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” she says to me. “I was hoping to have some time with you before the journey.”

  I smile and lift her hand to kiss it.

  “Thank you for agreeing to go to the cabin,” I say.

  “I’m not sure it was a matter of agreeing,” she says, grinning. “But that young man out there knows what he’s doing. If he says I should go, I’ll not argue.”

  “Thank you,” I say again, quieter. If I know she’s safe, I’ll be less distracted in the valley. That’s why Cash wanted me to go. But it’s different.

  “He wanted me to go too,” I say. Norma scoots until she’s sitting, her back against a pillow. She nods, a knowing look on her face.

  “I don’t blame him,” she says softly. “You’ve become something to him, Hannah. He didn’t have a safe place before you. I see that when you’re together. You make him feel safe.”

  “How could I?”

  She runs a hand down my hair. “Not safe from danger,” she says. “Safe from judgment. Safe to be known.”

  I don’t answer. I’d never thought of it that way before. But I do want him to feel safe with me.

  A comfortable silence follows. I breathe in the scent of this place. Her room smells like vanilla. I feel the same longing I did with Cash; I wish I could stay in this. I know I’m right to return to the valley, but this moment could drag on…and I wouldn’t mind.

  Norma shifts, scooting her body closer to the wall.

  “Lie back and rest,” she says. “Your body is still mending.”

  “I shouldn’t be disturbing you—”

  Norma throws me a disapproving look. “I think we’re past all of that,” she says. “Don’t you?”

  When she smiles, I can’t help smiling back. I stretch my body over the soft mattress and rest my head on a pillow. My eyes close, and before long I’m drifting.

  “Not so fast,” Drew says, laughing. “Being shot by you is not how I see this whole thing ending.”

  I draw my hand back. We’re in a garage attached to the side of the house. The wall-sized exterior door is raised, letting in the wind. On a table before us lies a handgun. It is meant for me.

  “Is it…are there bullets in it?”

  Drew grins. “Not a chance.”

 
I roll my eyes and reach for the gun again. I stop when his hand hovers over its grip, fingers splayed, blocking me. His expression darkens.

  “It’s not loaded. But you treat it like it is. Get me? It isn’t…but it is. Understand?”

  Ian grunts. He stands to my left, arms crossed, watching with a smug expression. Something has shifted in him today. Yesterday he was grinning. Today stress pulls at his features. I shouldn’t be taken off guard by it. I’ve only known Ian a matter of days.

  “We don’t have time for this,” he says, snatching the gun from the table. He shoves a rectangular case into the base of the grip and slides a bullet into place.

  “Dude!” Drew takes a wide step back, grabbing my arm and dragging me with him.

  “There’s no time to train her like a rookie,” Ian says. “Follow me, Hannah.” He doesn’t wait for me to agree. A few seconds later, he’s standing outside. I look at Drew.

  “Just watch where you point it,” he mutters. He nods his head toward Ian, telling me to go ahead, and he follows close behind.

  Outside, the wind smells like smoke. I look toward the mountains, and worry creeps into my chest. Something in the valley is burning, and if I can smell it this far, it is big.

  “Watch me,” Ian says. He plants his feet, one slightly forward. Extending his firing arm and supporting with the other hand, he shouts, “Goin’ hot!” before firing three shots at a narrow, wooden post twenty yards ahead of us. My hands try to jerk upward to cover my ears, but I resist it. This is my life now. Shrinking is no longer an option.

  I wait for Ian to talk, expecting him to make me try it too. But he’s still staring off toward the post.

  “Well aren’t you somethin’,” Drew says. “You’ve killed a hunk of wood. How about we let Hannah give it a try now?”

  “I can’t shoot that post,” I say quickly. “It’s too narrow.”

  Ian lowers his eyes. It looks like he’s folding away his thoughts, putting them back in their place. He’s struggling to return to the moment. He looks at me, and I’m taken back a few days to when he rescued me from death.

  Lockwood. Kind eyes. Dark and trustworthy.

  He attempts a smile. “That post is your target now. Can’t has no place in that valley. You know that.”

  I want to argue, to say that it’s impossible for me to shoot that post. I’ll kill somebody. But he’s right. I’ve made it my target, because now I have to prove to myself that I can.

  “Clear out!” Drew shouts. A few soldiers nearby turn on their heels, clearing the area. I raise an eyebrow at him. He winks. “Not how they wanna die either.”

  This makes me laugh. When the skin on my face stretches with a grin, I feel the tight places where the Council burned me. There’s tenderness in my jaw, where the guard beat me. Even smiling has a cost.

  “Stand here,” Ian says, carefully holding my arm and positioning me. He sets the gun in my hands. “Get used to the feeling.”

  It’s heavier than I imagined. I hold it out as far as my arms will stretch. I’ve never been on this side of a weapon, and I’m not sure I like it. It feels like too much power. One squeeze of my finger, and a life is gone. How does anyone make that kind of decision?

  “Bend your knees a little,” Ian says. “Set the foot on your shooting side back just slightly.” I try to do what he’s saying, but it’s hard when all my attention is focused on not dropping the gun.

  “Now lean from your waist. Not too much. There. You want a strong foundation to absorb the recoil.”

  He’s still going, still positioning me and telling me how to do this, but I don’t want to anymore. I can’t have this kind of control over another life. I can’t be the one to decide if they live or die. Guns are such small things. Alone they’re harmless. But it’s my hands that frighten me. It’s my reflexes. I shake my head. This was a bad idea.

  “You okay?” Drew murmurs. But Ian doesn’t stop.

  “Bring your head lower. These are your sites,” he says, touching small ridges on the front and back of the barrel. “Use them as guides when you’re aiming.”

  “Ian, I don’t think I’m ready,” I say. My hands tremble, and my throat is too tight.

  “Listen, buddy—” Drew says, but Ian interrupts.

  “Ready isn’t an option anymore. You’re gonna have to learn to defend yourself in that valley, Hannah. Look at that post. Imagine Titus. Did he ask if you were ready when he tried to kill you?”

  Cold washes over me. “I can’t-”

  “You can. You just don’t know because you’ve never tried. Come on,” Ian urges. “Imagine that post is Titus.”

  What he doesn’t understand, what none of them understand, is that Titus looks like Cash. I can’t imagine Titus without remembering that he is Cash’s father. My heart beats too fast. Is this what the Watcher saw when my father was shot? Did he stare down the barrel of his gun this way? Did he tremble? Was the choice easy? I close my eyes, and my breaths come heavy.

  “Hey,” a low voice murmurs by my ear. A warm hand touches my waist, and the other hand gently extracts the gun from my panicked grip.

  “Take a deep breath,” Cash says. “You’re okay, Hannah.”

  I lower my hands, leaving my eyes closed. Balling my fists, I breathe even until the panic is gone. Heat creeps up my face. I told Meli I was ready, but maybe I was wrong.

  “Sorry,” Ian says quietly. I could tell him that he didn’t know, that he couldn’t have predicted that I would react this way, but that isn’t true. He was a Watcher. Maybe he should have known. His footsteps retreat.

  “I tried to stop him, man,” Drew says.

  “It’s all right,” Cash replies.

  After a pause, Drew says, “I’ll see you guys back inside.” He leaves, and I am left standing with Cash, my teeth clenched, my eyes refusing to open.

  “What happened?” he asks quietly behind me.

  I press my lips tight and breathe out hard through the nose. Now I’m angry, because fear always wins with me.

  “I can’t do it,” I say. “I can’t…I don’t want to kill anyone.”

  “I know you don’t,” he says. “But Lockwood is right. You don’t have a choice.”

  I pull free and turn to face him. I want to be mad, but his expression is heavy. The sight of it drains me.

  “You’re choosing to go back into the valley,” he says. “You want to protect Ben. But you can’t do that if you don’t know how to defend yourself in a real battle situation.”

  “It’s not just me,” I say, louder than I meant. “None of us know how to defend ourselves!”

  “But you can,” he says, careful with his tone. “And you will.” He studies me. I look away when the tension is too thick.

  “What else happened?”

  It takes me a few seconds to say it. I’m not sure how he’ll react.

  “Titus,” I say.

  Cash looks away and nods.

  “Ian told me to imagine that the post was Titus. But then I thought about my father…I don’t trust myself to decide when a person should die.”

  “In there,” Cash says, pointing to the mountains. “It will be you or them. If you don’t shoot, you will die.” He says it hard. This is why he wanted me to go to the cabin.

  I hold his gaze. I need him to believe that I am willing to do what it takes, even if I’m not sure of it myself.

  Cash steps closer. “I may not want you to go, but that doesn’t mean I think you’re incapable. You can do this.”

  You can do this. It’s what he said to me under the fire escape when we stole the medicine. Edan’s face flashes in my thoughts, and I feel a rush of sadness.

  We’re quiet for a minute. The wind whips through our clothes, unsettling our hair. The sun is high now, the day half spent. I can feel the seconds ticking, reminding me that tonight I will sleep somewhere on the mountain pass.

  Cash looks to the gun he’s holding at his side. That gun is meant to be strapped to my body, an extension of me, my pro
tection.

  “Show me,” I say. “Teach me how to shoot it.”

  “That’s all you’re taking?”

  Meli stands in the bedroom doorway, leaning against the frame. She hugs a pack of supplies to her stomach, and her eyes laugh at me.

  “I don’t need anything else,” I say. The clothes I’m wearing belonged to Cash’s mother: a pair of dark green pants and a black sweatshirt with a hood. Drew told me to choose clothes that match the natural things outside. On the bed is a backpack with one extra outfit. Cash said to take anything I need, but I can’t get myself to do it. It feels wrong to go through her things. Meli shakes her head.

  “Not even one dress? Come on.” She crosses to the rocking chair. The green dress is draped over the back—the one I wore my first day here. “You can’t tell me you don’t need this.”

  I shrug. “The effects of slavery, I guess. I don’t need anything.”

  Meli gives me a pointed look. “But you aren’t a slave, Hannah. Remember? Maybe you don’t need the dress. But you’re allowed to want it.”

  I shake my head, avoiding her eyes. “I don’t want it. And I can’t see why I’d need it in the valley.”

  “Well, you’ve got me there,” she mutters, walking back to the door. In this dim lighting, with a lamp glowing from the corner table, the shadows accentuate the high bones in her cheeks. Before exiting, she throws me a soft smile. “Just try to find something that isn’t practical. Just one thing. Trust me on this.”

  I don’t respond, and when she leaves, I try to focus on finishing my tasks. But my eyes keep drifting back to the dress. It makes no sense to bring it. I’ll have no reason to wear it. I stare at it for a minute, trying to decide if Meli is right. Should I allow myself to want it? It seems ridiculous—a dress. The valley isn’t a place for pretty clothes. I turn away and finish packing. Before I zip the backpack, I grab the dress and shove it in the bottom. If nothing else, it will make a warm blanket for Ben.