The Gambit

by Allen Longstreet

  Our country was stagnant. No one had been in their homes, went to work, driven in their cars. Bills weren’t sent out. People didn’t even know what to do when they were taken back home. They were lost. The government who imprisoned them, suddenly released them, and were things just going to go back to normal overnight?

  Not at all. Once Congress was back in session, bills were passed to jump start the economy. Prices on domestic goods were deflated to a twenty-year low. It was like going to the store back in the nineties. On imported goods, the same thing was implemented, but the government took the tab for the difference. Our dollar was worthless in the global economy, but we had to encourage spending here. Cheap gas, cheap food, and then finally people began to go back to work. The federal minimum wage was raised. All of these an effort to get things back to normal.

  That’s not what we wanted.

  Then, the Convergence Party blossomed out of nowhere. They had a candidate. All throughout D.C. there were flyers for meetings being held, billboards, and a headquarters was rented out in a building down the street from ours. Where was all of that money coming from? Cole Pavich, ex-congressman and lobbyist, funded all of it. He was the co-founder, along with a strikingly handsome young man. His name was Owen Marina.

  He had lived in D.C. for almost a decade and was as green as they come. The only information I could gather on him was that he was a field chemist for the EPA. What was he doing trying to be a politician? The answer was change. He and Cole were trying to change the system.

  The media caught wind of Owen, and once they did, the Convergence Party blew up overnight. Cole was smart. Owen had the looks, charm, and public speaking skills that every figurehead needed. I remembered watching interview after interview, and with each one the party’s popularity grew. Cole had enough money to get them on the fast-track to being on the ballot, and they were. They paid their dues.

  That was when we had to come up with another plan. Our analysts in the first quarter estimated that within six months, at the current rate, they would take the lead in the polls…and they did.

  In August, we had a meeting. We designed a way to shift the polls back in our favor. There had never been a final debate in D.C., so we decided to keep it here. Even more reason for Owen to attend. He was an alumni of Georgetown University, and we could make a connection to that. Soon, the plan was underway.

  That was all it took to take out our biggest threat, and it worked. He was one less worry on my mind. For the first time in a week, I didn’t have a migraine, and it was enough to make me smile. I leaned back in my office chair, staring out at the sunset. It was a cloudless sky, and a deep orange met the soft blue of twilight on the horizon. I felt at peace, but there was the tiniest thought that crept into the back of my mind, and it made me uneasy.

  Viktor Ivankov was still out there, somewhere…

  I shook my head and shrugged the thought off. He didn’t matter anymore. Owen was dead, and the battle was over. Now, the real fun began.

  - 19 -

  I stared at the stucco of the basement wall just inches away from my face. I had the blanket wrapped around my body, trying to keep myself warm. It didn’t help much. The coldness, the emptiness I felt inside was unbearable. It radiated outwards, as if there was an invisible, gaping hole in the center of my chest. Agony was the only sensation left I could feel. The icy sensation had taken its grip over my body, and I didn’t move. I had no motivation to do anything at all. Physically, I was numb, and growing weaker by the day.

  I hadn’t eaten in three days. Since…I couldn’t bring myself to replay it in my mind anymore. That was all I had done. The image of Owen’s body lying on the street flashed into my mind every time I closed my eyes. When I finally was able to sleep, I would dream of him. In my dreams, he was still alive. I could still hear his voice, savor his scent, and feel his firm embrace around me. He was just a memory now, nothing more. I remembered the night at the penthouse when I was watching him talk to Grey across the terrace. I felt like I was looking at a ghost, and that feeling only amplified every time his face popped in my head. Here today, gone tomorrow. Now that he was gone, I didn’t know what to do. I was completely alone and left with my thoughts. I wondered if I would have pushed him harder not to go through with Grey’s plan, would he have been lying next to me right now? Would I have been able to hear his masculine tone whisper in my ear?

  I would never know. He was gone, and so was my mother.

  A choking, hiccupped cry came out as I thought of that. I tried so hard not to imagine what they did to her, but in between the thoughts of Owen, it was hard not to picture what transpired. I could see the fear in my mother’s face, knowing her death was imminent. I just prayed she didn’t have to suffer.

  It was all because of me. My mother wouldn’t have died if it wasn’t for me meeting Owen. I saw a chance of a lifetime, and I took it. This was the end result. If I would have known this would be the outcome, would I still have approached him at that coffee shop? I didn’t have the answer to that question. Not now. My thoughts spiraled around my head uncontrollably, and I was in a dark abyss of misery. I couldn’t bear to face reality. Just shy of twenty-four years old, both of my parents were dead. I had no siblings. There was no one left but my aunt and uncle, and Ian. My stomach was in knots at the notion that they could have even gotten away with something like this. How was any sort of authority given to such diabolical people? How could the American People believe this just because it was on the news?

  I was appalled at how naïve they all were. Could they not see the connection between the two? The government had the money to control the media. It was that simple. Now, the last remaining founder of the Convergence Party was dead. The hype would fade away in a few weeks, and by that time, the elections would be lost to a traditional party. It was everything they wanted and more. There wouldn’t have to be a trial. You couldn’t give a trial to a dead man.

  Owen was dead. My mother was dead. In what kind of sick world could this be reality?

  It made me sob even harder. My face had been perpetually wet since it happened. I couldn’t muster the strength to turn around. I knew they were all behind me. I could hear Natasha and Viktor mumble in their conversations. Briana wasn’t quite as bad as I was, but she was torn up over this too. Grey hadn’t said much since that day. I heard the basement door open every so often. I think it was because Grey didn’t want us to see him cry. He had lost someone very dear to him, just as I had, but Grey had known him since they were children. I had only known him for a week and a half.

  That was the roughest part of it all. I fell in love with a man who I knew from the beginning was temporary, but I didn’t know this was what that meant. I thought he would have been locked up at most. If only I could have gone back in time just to spend one more moment with him. Maybe then, I could have expressed my love a little stronger, or a little clearer. I hoped he would tell my mother how sorry I was for all of this, wherever they were now.

  I was raised Catholic, but my faith lessened as I got older.

  Still, though, I believed there was something after this life. There had to be. A piece of me wished I was with them, wished I would have pushed just a little harder against the cops. Maybe they would have shot me, too.

  The TV clicked on, and I began to sob harder. I did it on purpose. They would turn it off because of my reaction. When I fell asleep, they would turn it back on. They thought I didn’t know, but sometimes I just acted like I was asleep. I lay awake—prisoner to my misery. I knew they were just trying to stay current with the news, but I didn’t want to hear. I saw it with my own eyes, in the flesh. I didn’t need to see it again.

  It was not like it mattered. I would have to carry that memory for the rest of my life.

  I felt someone behind me, and then I smelled some kind of sandwich, maybe a sub, nearby. I heard a plate cling against the wooden coffee table.

  “You need to eat, Rachel,” Briana said softly.

  I didn’t respon
d. My body knew it was hungry, but the nausea I felt was unrelenting. Eventually, I would have no choice. I would either eat or slowly die. Now, my restless night I had was catching up to me, and I yawned. Drowsiness overtook me, and I felt the pit in my gut ease slightly because I knew where I would go when I slept. A tear rolled down my cheek, but the thought was enough to make me smile.

  I would be with him, back when he was still alive.

  “Rachel,” a familiar voice drew me from my sleep. “Rachel.”

  They gently shook my back.

  “Rachel, please wake up,” the voice a little firmer.

  I groaned, griping at whoever was trying to wake me.

  “I have to talk to you,” the man gingerly pulled my shoulder over.

  I opened my eyes. It was Grey. There were dark circles beneath his brown eyes. In the dim light, they almost looked black. He must have had trouble sleeping too. There was no light coming in from the two tiny openings in the basement walls. It was night, and I guess I had slept longer than it felt like I did. I wished he hadn’t woken me. I was having dinner with Owen, and we visited my mom’s house.

  I burst into tears and buried my face in the pillow. Grey rubbed my back gently for a few minutes until it ceased.

  “I know,” he consoled. “I’ve done a lot of crying, too.”

  I glanced up at him and saw tears pooling in his eyes. The basement was dead silent, and I swiveled my head around to see what was going on. There was no one but us.

  “Where is everyone?” I asked. The sound of my own voice took me by surprise. I hadn’t heard it in three days.

  “Out to get food. I told them I needed to talk to you alone.”

  I swallowed.

  “I hope they know I’m not hungry.”

  Grey pressed his lips together and glanced over my body as if I were an emaciated stray puppy.

  “You’re going to have to eat sometime,” he said.

  “I can’t.”

  He stood up and walked across the room. He returned with a mirror. I could see the reflection of the underside of his chin as he held it in his lap.

  “Take a look at yourself.” He handed me the mirror. I cautiously moved it in front of me, and I didn’t even recognize the person looking back. My glowing tan was gone. My skin was a pasty yellow. My face was soaked in tears, and there were bags under my eyes, just like Grey’s. I ran my hands down my neck and felt how cold I was. I could tell in the mirror that I had lost weight just from how much tighter the skin on my neck was, and I could see my cheekbones more predominantly. I looked sick, like I was on the road to death.

  Above all else, in my eyes I saw pain. A deep, burdensome pain.

  “Here,” I pushed the mirror towards him. “I can’t see that any longer.”

  He grabbed it and set it beside the bed.

  “So, will you eat something when they get back?”

  “I’ll try,” I said.

  He nodded, revealing the smallest beginnings of a smile, but it soon faded. He looked down at his feet and let out a long sigh. My arms began to shake from trying to hold myself upright. I was so weak. I scooted up against the basement wall to support myself.

  “Was that all you wanted to talk about?” I asked. My suspicions told me no.

  He turned to me and almost looked thankful that I brought it up first.

  “About that…” He mumbled. “Look, I know you are going through a lot right now.”

  He paused, and I just stared at him with a blank face. A lot didn’t even come close to what I was going through.

  “We all are going through a lot right now,” he reiterated, “and I know you’re weak, so you’ve got to get some food in you. Once you’ve got a little more energy again, we need you to call Ian.”

  I think he expected me to respond, but I had no urge to. My mother and Owen got ripped out of my life, and he wanted me to revert back to how I was before they died? It was not that easy. I didn’t even think I would be able to go to my own mother’s funeral because I was wanted by the feds.

  My chest heaved up and down, and I felt a rock in my throat. I began to sob again. The shuddering cries were violent. Grey scooted closer to me and rubbed my shoulder. It didn’t help ease the despair that crept through my veins. I could see my whole family now, blaming her death on me. They would curse my name for helping a ‘terrorist’. If only they knew the truth.

  “Rachel,” he said as he rubbed the top of my back in a circular motion. “You and I both know what he would have wanted…”

  I wiped my eyes and stared back at him, dumbfounded he would bring that up so soon. I knew exactly what he was talking about.

  “Oh yea?” I coughed. “Did he tell you too?”

  “Yes, he did,” Grey began. “He asked me to make sure that no matter what happened to him, that you would still write your story.”

  I only cried harder, and I heard his voice in the back of my mind.

  “Write. You’re supposed to write.”

  “I know, and I will. I’m just not ready yet. How can I write about something so personal to me? I have to write it as an article, not a memoir. Journalists aren’t supposed to help their subjects, and I broke that golden rule when I approached Owen.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” Grey admitted. “I’m good with computers…and not so much people.”

  A smile tugged at my lips, but I didn’t feel like adding anything.

  “But,” he continued, “I do know a few things for certain. Tomorrow will come, and it will probably feel just as awful as today. There is nothing we can do now to change what happened, the only way we can look is forward, to the future. The election is two weeks from today.”

  I could hardly believe it was so soon. I counted the days in my head, and he was right.

  “That might be something we can still change, Rachel.”

  “With my story…” I mumbled.

  He nodded. “You are going to eat something when they come back. You are going to rest some more, and then you are going to do what Owen would have wanted.”

  I dried the tears on my face with the cuff of my sleeve.

  “Okay.”

  “Good,” Grey sighed with relief, scratching the scruff of his chin. “I was worried you might not have ever willed yourself to get out of this bed.”

  “Part of me still doesn’t want to,” I admitted, “but that’s not what Owen would have wanted. He made me promise I would write the story.”

  Grey took his hand off of my back. His eyes grew wider as if he had just remembered something important.

  “Anyway, Viktor needs to talk to you before you call Ian. He said something about an idea he wanted to run by you, but he wouldn’t tell me what it is. I’ve tried to get it out of Natasha, but she swears she doesn’t know.”

  “An idea?”

  - 20 -

  I grabbed the cold metal rung and placed one foot securely on the first step. Vapor trailed from my mouth—the morning was unusually cold for October. I pulled myself up and put my other foot on the second step. My muscles quivered slightly. They were still weak, but they were much better than when Grey and I had our talk. I had been eating at every meal and slowly regaining my energy. I still have cried…a lot. Then again, I would probably cry for the next year, and there wasn’t a thing I could do to change that. Much of what Grey said resonated with me. I knew it was true, but in that kind of despair, it helped to have someone remind me again.

  This was what Owen wanted.

  I climbed higher and higher until I was almost at the ledge. Viktor wanted to talk to me alone, and this was about the only place that was suitable. The basement was far from private—even the bathroom didn’t have a door. A breeze blew by, and it tousled the ends of my black hair past my face. I was still getting used to the color, and part of me wanted to keep it that way. It reminded me of mine and Owen’s final morning together.

  I threw my leg over the ledge and stepped onto the rooftop. Viktor was standing on the far side, facing
the Atlanta skyline. It was the exact place I was standing when Owen came to talk to me that last night. I couldn’t believe in two days it would be a week since he had been gone. I knew it was real, but it just didn’t feel that way. I approached the ledge and rested my arms against it as I stood next to Viktor silently. To my surprise, when he saw me, he didn’t say anything.

  “So you wanted to talk?” I asked meekly.

  He snorted and drew in a long inhalation.

  “I did,” he replied. I was surprised he was being so short with me. I had waited two days to call Ian for this?

  “About?”

  He paused, and the muscle along his jaw twitched from clenching his teeth. He had very strong features, and his skin was pale white. It stood out against his hair the same shade as mine.

  “You know, my parents came to this country a few months before I was born. My mother got pregnant unexpectedly, and she and my father found a way to get here. They wanted their children to have a better life, a better opportunity to thrive…and we did. We came to New York, and my father worked in a factory. My mother worked as a teller. They had a hard time learning English, and my dad still struggles with it. My sister and I both spoke well because we learned it in school.”

  “My parents were immigrants, too,” I added. Hearing myself use were instead of are made the aching pit in my stomach return.

  “From where?”

  “Puerto Rico. They came to New York just like yours did. I think it’s something common among immigrants. They see the New York skyline on TV and in films and want to go there. The United States embodies opportunity to them.”

  He chuckled. “You’re right. My parents did exactly that. I’m sure our parents had similar difficulties adjusting to life in the States.”