“You could have been there. Did you ever think of that?” I said, unable to keep quiet any longer. “Maybe I didn’t want a father who saved the whole world—maybe I wanted a father who saved mine.”
“I wouldn’t watch them destroy you. I couldn’t,” he said, his voice edged with some deeply buried emotion. Raw. Wild. “So, I left, and I am so close to ending it all.” He took two giant steps toward me, grabbing onto my arms. “I need you to give me time. Listen to what I say. Follow my orders without question—”
“I’m your daughter, not one of your soldiers,” I spat out.
“Did you see those things that attacked us? Did you really look at them? The council doesn’t give a damn about us anymore. They want all of us naturals dead. Those things were created to search the woods for survivors. To eat us alive. If we sit back, we are asking for extinction, and I want you to survive, Tessie. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
My father took a deep breath and reached a trembling hand into his pocket. He pulled out a folded piece of paper. Tattered and worn, it looked close to falling apart. “I’m only asking for you to trust me for a little while. Just till the end,” he continued as he unfolded the paper. “And when the world is once again as it should be, you can go back to hating me. I knew it was a possibility the moment I left, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make.”
I opened my mouth and closed it. I had heard these sentiments before. I had heard them from Henry, a boy hell-bent on doing whatever he had to do to bring down the council. And hadn’t I given him a second chance? My father reached forward and took my hand, placing the piece of paper in it.
It was sheet music. It was our song. The very first song I ever learned to play. The song my father taught me. The song that led me to James. He had kept it this whole time. I couldn’t stop the tear that rolled down my cheek, and for once, I didn’t want to.
“There’s one more thing, child.”
I cleared my throat and handed the sheet music back to him, but he simply smiled, refusing to take it.
“About this boy you love…”
“James,” I breathed, my hand clutching onto the song that defined the most important moments of my life. His curly, wild black hair. His endlessly deep mismatched eyes. The scar on his chin that was the most perfect imperfection I had ever seen.
The boy I loved.
“Would you like to talk to him?”
Chapter 5
I pulled on Louisa’s hand so she stood right next to me. Lockwood moved to the other side of her. “Al will be pissed. He’s not just going to let us return, not without making us pay. This is the same man who put a boy on trial for saving your life,” he reminded me.
Put a chosen one on trial, I thought. When I had first entered the community, I expected life to be utterly different. But in a lot of ways, the most important ways, the people of the community and the members of the council weren’t so different at all. Many in the community distrusted Henry and me for simply being outsiders, and we’d had to work hard to gain their trust.
When I had fallen ill and James had come to rescue me, they treated us both with such unbelievable hatred. I sometimes found it hard not to wonder if hatred was the only thing all humans shared. I wasn’t entirely sure everyone was capable of love, but I had seen enough hate to last me a lifetime. The people of the community shunned and judged James and me. Not to mention they tried to kill him for simply being a chosen one. They hadn’t even bothered to see what kind of soul lived inside.
The community hardened itself in order to survive; they weren’t the most understanding species.
The community. The place I thought I would never see again was less than a mile from where we stood, shrouded in the protective cover of night and the camouflage of the trees. I could faintly see the wooden fence and lit torches that surrounded the safe haven.
“Somehow, I don’t think my father’s too worried about it,” I replied, tearing my eyes from the place I wanted so desperately to return to, trying to make my voice sound blasé. I could feel Louisa shake beside me. As I looked down at her, I saw her eyes widen, darting toward where the lights of the community crept into the woods. We stood hidden in the darkness of the tree line. Robert and Henry huddled near the edges of my father’s group. There, he stood, furiously whispering his orders to his standing army.
Appearing to sense my sister’s nervousness, Lockwood cleared his throat. “You’re right, Tess. I don’t know what I was worrying about. Charlie seems to have everything under control,” he said, nodding toward my father.
Henry and Robert joined our line. “So, what’s his brilliant plan?” Eric asked.
“You’re not going to like it,” Henry said.
“Charlie wants you and Lockwood to walk ahead of us and call out to the men on watch,” Robert said.
Eric laughed bitterly. “You mean he wants to put the most expendable people in front in case they shoot first and ask questions later?”
“He feels that if the guards first see people they know, people they trust, they will be more likely to listen to what they have to say.”
“Will they hurt you?”
Her voice was so small my ears barely registered it. I turned my head to find Louisa staring up at Lockwood. If there was any fear on Lockwood’s face at hearing my father’s plan, it disappeared before her words were fully out. A slow grin spread across his face. “Shoot me? I’m too important. Your sister must not have told you. I was in charge of the livestock.”
“He milked cows,” Eric added drily.
“Yes, I did. And I was damn good at it. Now, how about we go broker peace, shall we?” he said as he began to walk toward the camp. He held his head up and walked without an ounce of fear.
“If your father gets me killed, I’m going to haunt you,” Eric said before joining Lockwood on his trek.
I gave my sister’s hand a squeeze. “Don’t worry. Lockwood can talk anyone into anything.”
“More like talk you to death so you just give him what he wants,” Henry joked. “Your sister’s right, though. He’ll be fine.”
I could feel the weight of my father’s presence behind me without seeing him. It was like a sixth sense that I couldn’t shake ever since we started heading toward the community. His eyes were burning holes in the back of my head; I wondered if it was like this for all fathers and daughters. I turned around, offering him a small smile. He merely nodded in response. He was back in commander mode. It had been years since he had to be a father, and it was clear it was difficult for him to negotiate between the two roles. He wanted his family safe, and he was going to get me in contact with James. If that wasn’t reason enough to follow him, I didn’t know what was.
James. I was going to talk to James somehow. My father had promised. He told me that he had men on the inside of the council’s headquarters. Once his man decided if James was trustworthy, which I assured my father he was, he would help us pass letters across the lines.
I don’t know how he knew about James. Maybe his spies. Maybe Robert. But he knew what James meant to me, and he had promised to do anything in his power to get my words to him. I had to trust my father. I simply had to.
I untangled myself from Louisa, trusting she would be safe with Henry for the time being. I walked to where my dad, our leader, stood, nestled amongst his people. “You sure about this?” I asked, glancing back toward the hazy lights of the community.
“I’m not worried if that’s what you’re wondering,” he replied casually. Too casually for my taste.
“Al’s not the most reasonable of men,” I said.
“You think I don’t know that? You think I’m not fully aware that he threw you in a jail cell and put you on trial?” I could have sworn that his hand tightened around his rifle as he spoke. I remembered the way he had killed the chosen one without flinching, and I hoped for Al’s sake that he would hear my father out. “I know exactly how unreasonable Al is, but I also know that if I need to, I’ll take this
place by force.”
I shook my head and bit the inside of my cheek. History was written, compiled from stories of men trying to take something that didn’t belong to them in the first place.
“You don’t approve of my methods?” my father asked.
“Does it matter?” I countered, raising an eyebrow.
“Trust me,” he implored, his voice taking the gentler tone that I’d rarely heard since his mysterious return into my life—a tone that had filled my childhood with comfort and hope. Staring at him, a mixture of desperation and determination etched across his face, I reminded myself this was the man who promised to try and keep me in contact with James. The man who saved my life.
I reminded myself this man was my father.
I opened my mouth to reply when the sound of the safeties clicking off ten guns stopped me. The woods that separated us from the community rustled and warned us of the men who approached. I scrambled over to where Henry and Louisa stood. Working together, we pulled Louisa behind the line of my father’s army. Her limbs froze and locked, protesting both fight and flight. She was simply ready to give up.
This was exactly the natural the council wanted her to be.
Eric and Lockwood were the first to appear, their hands held up in the air. Both of their faces were tight with worry. A group of ten men, rifles in hand, followed them. Several men lagged behind the community’s row of guns with makeshift lit torches in tow.
And behind them came Al.
I tightened my grip on my sister’s hand.
“It’s been a long time, Charlie,” Al said, lazily leaning against his rifle. His smugness had always driven me crazy.
“That it has,” my father replied, shifting his gun so it was pointed directly at the man who stood between us and safety—even if that safety was temporary. For the briefest of seconds, I was glad my father was pointing his gun at Al; I’d do just about anything to get Louisa inside the community.
“I think we can lower the gun. There’s no need for it. Not when we both know you won’t use it,” Al sneered. His slimy, slippery grin refused to leave his face.
“What makes you so sure?” my father asked. Despite his age, his aim was steady, firm. It never wavered.
“’Cause I know you. Don’t think I don’t remember those early days. Back then…I heard you. When we traveled from community to community, passing intel, gathering men for the great rebellion that never came, you cried in the night when you thought no one could hear you. You cried for your children. Sometimes even your wife.”
“I suggest you shut your mouth. You have no idea what you’re talking about,” my father warned. He was attempting stoicism, but it was crumbling quickly. He squinted and leaned forward slightly, his gun still aimed directly at the man who McNair once told me would never be happy. Not because it wasn’t possible, but because he never wanted it.
“Nothing is going to get solved while you all have those damn guns pointed at each other,” Lockwood said. “Why don’t we just go back to the community, get Sharon to check in on Louisa, and talk this over.”
The man holding his gun trained on Lockwood jutted the butt of it into Lockwood’s stomach. He lurched forward onto his knees and coughed so violently I worried he was going to burst a blood vessel in his forehead. Louisa hid her head against my shoulder and began to whimper.
Henry grabbed my wrist to hold me in place. If it wasn’t for Louisa, nothing would have stopped me from running to Lockwood. I breathed in and out through my nose and could hear Henry doing the same next to me.
“I remember telling you to keep your mouth shut! You lost the right to speak the minute you left,” Al snapped at Lockwood. All the while he kept his eyes on my father.
“Is it any wonder you’ve never been able to inspire loyalty? And I’m not talking about using fear to get a bunch of weak-minded folks to stand behind you with guns,” my father replied.
Al laughed slowly, moving his head back and forth. As the sound of his chuckle weaved throughout the woods, mocking the brightness of the stars that covered our heads, it became louder. Sarcastic. Taunting. “Says the man who travels with a pack of wild things, half-crazed morons propelled by dreams of a war that will never come.”
“Let me shoot this son of a—”
“Hold your ground, Stephanie,” my father commanded. I glanced back and see her grit her teeth, her eyes holding nothing but contempt for the man who insulted my father, his army, and everything they stood for.
“Just leave, Charlie. There ain’t nothing for you here. Go back to wherever you came. No rebellion to chase after in these parts. The most we got is a bunch of boys who call themselves resistance fighters, but all they do is go out and collect supplies. Chase your pipe dream somewhere else. We’re just trying to survive.”
“That’s always been your problem, Al—you’re too concerned with just surviving,” my father countered. “Don’t you want something better than hiding in the woods like a convict?”
“Better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven. You really think you can take me down? How? With a few malnourished lunatics and a pregnant slut?” Al spat, pointing his gun toward my little sister.
That was all it took. My father’s resolve was gone before the smoke from his rifle drifted toward the sky. Al screamed in agony, grabbing onto his leg as he crumpled to the ground. As Al’s men moved to shoot my father, Stephanie took two of them down, matching my father’s shot to Al’s leg.
Louisa yelped. My mouth dropped open and my eyes went wide as a wave of nausea washed over me. The three men from the community cursed and moaned, rolling around. I would never get used to this violence. I didn’t want to.
“Anyone else?” Stephanie screamed.
The rest of Al’s men dropped their guns and held their shaking hands into the air. My father lifted his gun and rested it on his shoulder, sauntering over with half his mouth turned up into a grin.
“I let you say your words, but I’m done now. The next time you open your mouth and say anything against me, I’ll jam this rifle down your throat.”
“Go to hell,” Al spat.
“Look around.” Without another word, my father stepped over Al and headed toward the community. “We’re already there.”
Chapter 6
“I need more bandages, sheets, anything to help soak up this blood,” Sharon yelled, nearly knocking me over as she ran toward the community’s makeshift infirmary. Despite being ready to give birth at any moment, she moved with a quickness that defied logic. But, then again, she had always put others before herself.
My father’s soldiers ungraciously dragged Al and his wounded men into the gates of the community by their arms. When the other members saw us enter, their guards following behind us with bowed heads, our men holding their guns, they scurried back into their rooms, rushing what children they had left far away from us.
The community had always feared invasion by the council’s chosen ones; they never thought they would have to fear their fellow naturals.
My father had told me that this was the way it needed to be done—the way he could protect us all. I knew the community would have a hard time accepting that. Especially considering he had shot one of their leaders…but they really didn’t have a choice.
While my father went to work setting up a perimeter, replacing the community’s watchmen with his own trusted guards, I ran as quickly as I could behind Sharon, dragging my little sister with me.
“Please, Tess, I’m tired. I can’t run so fast,” Louisa said.
I shut out her pleas. There would be time for her to complain and moan later, but now we needed to search for the truth. That was all that mattered in the end. Inside the walls of the community, I could almost understand my father’s frenzy, his willingness to do whatever it took to protect his own. I would do just about anything to find the answers I needed for my sister. Was she going to die? The only person who could even possibly tell me was off tending to the wounds of three men my father was
responsible for shooting.
When I busted into the small infirmary, my hair sticking to my forehead with sweat, the sight of blood nearly made me throw up. Towel after towel lay abandoned on the floor as Al and his men cried out, cursing my father. Sharon and two others, a man and woman I vaguely recognized from my time in the community, were exchanging a lightning-quick series of medical terms I didn’t understand.
“You won’t take my leg, Sharon. I’d rather die. You hear me?” Al screamed, his face beet red from exertion.
“The wounds aren’t too deep with these two, but I’m afraid…” The woman’s voice trailed off, her face grim as she stared down at Al.
Sharon gave the woman a curt nod, hustling to a drawer and yanking it open. I recognized the needle and thread from my own experience getting stitched up. Sharon threw it to the woman.
“Lazarus? I need you to go find Eric and Lockwood. We’re going to need help holding Al down.” Sharon panted, running a trembling hand through her hair.
I swallowed, forcing down whatever food was left in my stomach. I had seen a lot of blood and death in my life, but something about watching Al pray and beg not to have his leg cut off caused my very being to shake. Under the monster was a man, and for some reason, that made this all the more frightening.
My sister urgently tugged on my hand, but I wouldn’t leave. If I had learned one thing in the past couple months it was that life was unpredictable, wild—the bitch of fate itself. This was where my sister needed to be, and I wouldn’t move from this space until I attempted to make sense of a world that seemed increasingly senseless.
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