Dedication
For Kylie Eberle (nee Tarca)
RIP 1976 - 2017
This is for the dreams we dared to dream on the asphalt of Miles Avenue.
Copyright © 2018 by Kirsty Dallas
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be resold or given away to other people. You are more than welcome to make teasers though and use quotes from the book. Word of mouth is a valuable tool in spreading book love, and far more admirable than spreading that love via illegal file-sharing sites.
Cover Design Copyright © 2017 by Kirsty Dallas
© Photography Shutterstock and Deposit Photo
Editing by Kaylene Osborne at Swish Design and Editing
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Kaylene at Swish Editing who squeezed Liberty into her already hectic schedule while my usual editor was out of action. You truly made the terrifying ordeal of working with someone new a breeze. I highly recommend Swish Design & Editing to anyone looking for professional, affordable service.
Ang at PNR Booklovers, I hope Grace and Ink find a place in your heart right beside Nada and Shadow.
To all the booklovers in this crazy literary world I exist in, thank you for your ongoing support, friendship and trust. Let’s keep the world of words alive and vibrant without the hate and drama. #nodramalamahere
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Prologue
“You are not fucking going, and that’s final!” my father roared, his words slurring as spittle flew from his mouth.
I hated him, and it wasn’t your usual twelve-year-old spoiled angst which made me feel that way. Staring him down I watched as he squirmed to readjust to a more comfortable position in his reclined chair. He was overweight, his stomach currently free from the confines of his pants which were opened at the zipper. An off-white singlet hugged his bulging belly while his unbuttoned business shirt showed its age, not to mention the stains under his pits from sweat. He disgusted me, barely able to hold himself upright as he lounged in his chair with a beer about to topple out of his hand.
No, I hated him like a little girl who had been beat on by a man who was supposed to love and protect her. A backhanded slap here or a lashing with the metal end of his belt there, the violence my father bestowed upon me every time he drank, which was often, had ignited a fire in my belly which had strengthened with each passing day.
My mother tried her best to step in and take the brunt of his alcohol-fueled anger, but it was never enough. There was a small part of me that hated her too. She’d never leave my dad, she would never lash out at him to protect me, and I didn’t understand why. I couldn’t comprehend what I’d done to deserve this life.
The side of my face felt tight, my eye puffy and swollen. The back of my head throbbed from where it had hit the wall after my father’s casual backhand for whatever transgression he felt I had committed this evening. I was supposed to be on my way to my best friend’s house. It was Belle’s birthday, and we were having a sleepover. Just me, Belle, and Farrah, three girls who wanted an escape from our broken world, if only for one night. Much to my surprise, my parents had agreed to the sleepover. It would be the first time I’d spend a night away from them, and I couldn’t wait.
Problem was, my father was drunk, of course, which meant he couldn’t drive me over. And my quiet as a mouse mom refused to drive the car after dark for fear of being carjacked, or worse, murdered. Her worries were baseless, as America’s laws were defined by a strict zero tolerance on crime. Anyone who broke the law, regardless of how small or how large the offense, was sent to the underground prison known as the Underworld. So, the chances of us being carjacked, or murdered, were slim.
People feared the Underworld. It wasn’t like the criminal element of society had disappeared under fear of the harsh law, it was just they were more careful about committing a crime, less brazen, more devious.
Hurt, angry and determined, I waited until my mom gravitated toward her usual spot in our home, the kitchen, and I watched as my father’s eyes drooped closed before grabbing the keys to his car from the chipped, black bowl by the front door. Quietly, I slipped outside and jogged through the cool evening air toward my dad’s car. There was no way I was missing out on my one night’s escape from this hell. I was owed a night off. I’d never driven a car before, but I figured if I got it started and backed it down the drive, it would freak Mom out enough to take me.
Climbing into the big SUV, I started the engine just like I’d seen my dad do hundreds of times. The engine purred to life and I smiled, proud of myself. Glancing down at the large shift between the two front seats, I allowed my hand to settle on it, and as I began to nudge the car into gear the animalistic roar of my father cut through the night. My hand jammed the gear shift back more out of alarm than concentrated effort, and when I saw my father racing down the front porch steps, adrenaline surged through me as I stretched out my leg and pressed my foot heavily on the accelerator. I honestly thought he’d reached that point where alcohol would steal him away to a deep sleep, and he wouldn’t hear the car start.
For a moment the world was a mess of confusing momentum, the car lurching forward when I expected it to go backward, followed by a loud crunch that scared me spitless.
And then, all was still.
Even with my foot firmly pressed on the accelerator. The revving of the engine, accompanied by a soft hiss and pained groan interrupted the otherwise quiet night. Glancing out the windscreen, I realized straight away what had happened. I’d put the car in drive instead of reverse. Currently, I was jammed up against the side of the house, my father’s body trapped between the crumbling brick and the wrecked hood.
My hands slapped over my mouth, hoping to keep my cry trapped inside. It didn’t stop my mother’s cry though, her heart-torn wail coming from the top of the stairs to my right. My meek and mild mother who almost never raised her voice, her grief spilled in that moment and I realized I’d been the cause of that pain, it was my fault that agonized cry fell from her lips. That sound scared me more than what I’d done. It was raw, honest and painful.
My gaze moved sluggishly from the heart-wrenching sobs of mother to my father, who was slumped over the front of the car. He seemed so lifeless, so still, so deathly still. But there was no blood. Apart from the damaged car and building, it was so… clean.
Wasn’t death bloodier than this?
My father’s head suddenly lifted, and his lifeless gaze had me stilling in fright.
“You killed me, you bitch. They’ll send you to the Underworld for this.”
They wouldn’t send a child to the Underworld… would they? There were murderers, rapists, and pedophiles in the Underworld, not children.
My father’s words seemed so detached, spoken in a calm voice that belayed his usual volatile temper. Dark sunken eyes watched me with hate and spoke of revenge. He almost seemed pleased over what had transpired, sickeningly joyful with our fate.
Finally, I pulled my hands away from my mouth and screamed.
I lurched into an upright position, wrenched from sleep and back into the world of the living with such ferocity I thought I might be having a heart attack.
Just a nightmare, I reassured myself.
A dark memory that hadn’t leeched its way into my dreams in years. It took long moments to settle the lingering panic and several more minutes of looking around my room for reassurance I was safe. Well, as safe as I could be in this broken world.
I’ve read stories of how life used to be before the war for freedom destroyed everything. It hadn’t exactly been a ‘safe’ world, but America had been whole, rather than the crumbling beast it was still trying to resurrect from.
Over a hundred years ago, America had been crushed to its very foundations. It wasn’t a slow decline—it was instantaneous and powerful. Washington, New York, L.A., and Houston were the first to be attacked. The acts of violence brought buildings to the ground and powerful men to their knees. As America burned, the hopes and dreams of millions went up in ash. Desperation saw good people do bad things. Living sometimes meant killing, and mass hysteria ensued with an every-man-for-himself mentality. Food supplies ran low, and those who were once rich were now poor, and the poor were mostly decimated. For a time, America was in darkness, electricity gone, technology reduced to that of a more primitive era. One of the world’s most powerful countries had been decimated and was weak as a newborn babe. Other countries lent their support, but the destruction was on too large a scale for an immediate reprieve for the ravaged nation.
As time drew on, our enemies were forced from our borders and control was gradually found, evil was brought to heel, and a zero tolerance on crime was voted in. As America tried valiantly to rebuild broken infrastructure and demolished states, the Underworld was born. Subways, caverns, mines, and bunkers were transformed into formidable prisons buried under cement and rock. They were locked down tight, void of light, peace, and freedom.
Each underground prison housed anywhere from a hundred inmates to more than a thousand in the larger states. These prisons were cities unto themselves, with their own rules and leaders. In the bowels of these underground societies, babies were born, and a new legion of inmates was created—innocents. These pure and harmless children were forced to live in the worst of conditions, while the free world above ignored their existence.
When I was twelve years old, filled with more stubborn tenacity than good sense, I made a terrible mistake, and I paid for that mistake with my life. Just a child, I was cast into the Underworld, where every day was a fight to survive, and only the strongest and meanest prevailed. It was in this pit of hell that an angel found me, a knife-wielding, defiant and powerful angel by the name of Nada. She took me under her wing, protected me, housed me somewhere safe, and according to legend, she helped orchestrate the biggest prison heist of all time. All the innocents born into that world, and many unfairly imprisoned, including myself, were liberated in the darkest depths of the night. Rebel forces stole us away, whisking us right out the front door while keeping the worst of the worst trapped inside.
We were freed, driven away in trucks that drove for days into the unknown. Released from evil and delivered to heaven, or at least that’s what we were told. ‘Liberty,’ a compound filled with quaint cabins, and large brick storage facilities. We weren’t allowed to be truly freed into the world, most of the innocents rescued from the Underground had lived their whole lives in that prison. They had no real skills to be employable, no real family, and no real chance to make a life for themselves.
There was also the little matter of a government humiliated over such a large scale breakout in what was supposed to be a highly secure facility.
We were now considered escaped felons.
No, we would never truly be free.
Our new home was almost completely self-sufficient, and I couldn’t deny how peaceful the compound was compared to the Underworld. But the high fences and the enormous double steel door which separated us from the rest of the world told me we might have exchanged one prison for another.
Chapter 1 – Grace
With blankets pulled up tight around my chin, I enjoyed the warmth that soaked into my skin, the chill in the air outside the cocoon of my blankets daring me to get my ass moving. Winter was nearing, my least favorite time of the year. Soft, white lace curtains were parted and held back by yellow ribbon, giving me a clear and unobstructed view of the darkness outside. The sun wouldn’t be far away though, I could almost feel the forest coming to life around me as that big, burning inferno moved sluggishly to this corner of the world.
There was a moment before the sun rose where the birds would wake, their song filling the pre-dawn air. The short chirp of a hummingbird was nearby, and the more unusual rattling sound of a brambling in the distance. This was my favorite time of the day as if the birds all welcomed the radiant light with song. I loved everything about birds, their beauty, their innocence, their individual melody, but most of all I loved the freedom they embraced. When a blissfully unaware feathered creature of the sky dropped into the compound trees or perched atop one of the buildings, they could simply take to the air and fly over the wall which kept me trapped. It wasn’t that I hated my life here, I was grateful for everything the rebel soldiers had given us. Essentially, it was freedom. But it wasn’t. The wall we lived within meant we weren’t really free.
Brooding about what was and what I wished it could be was a rotten start to the day that I wanted desperately to shake off. With a deep sigh, I made a concerted effort to bury my gloomy thoughts and think of all the good things that came from living in Liberty—safety, friends, Ink.
Now I was sighing again, damn it. Ink, a man who embodied brooding and took it to the next level. Don’t get me wrong, I’d seen him smile—flirty smiles, seductive smiles, smirky smiles—all saved for the other women in Liberty. For me, he offered the very rare and elusive smile which came right from his soul and reached his eyes, but it had been a long time since I’d seen that smile.
These days Ink didn’t offer me much more than decisive grunts, furrowed brows or deep frowns filled with irritation. Ink was, my… friend? I wasn’t sure what to make of my relationship with Ink. I’d known him since I was twelve, and he was a much older twenty-one-year-old rebel soldier. He protected me, provided for me, taught me skills for survival in this unforgiving world we lived in. And I loved him for everything he’d given me.
And therein lies the problem, I love him. But he doesn’t love me. Not in the way I wished he would. Unrequited love, how cliché.
Over the last year, things between us had significantly shifted. He’d become less patient with me, his visits less frequent, his rare smile gone. Ever since I’d thrown myself at him like a love-sick teenager and pressed my warm lips to his non-responsive cold ones, he’d grown more and more detached. Now, my heart ached because I’d lost one of my best friends and the true smile he’d always saved for me had ceased to exist.
Ignoring my heavy thoughts, I glanced around my quiet and shadowed cabin. I adored my cabin, my home. The log structure wasn’t large, but it was dry and warm, and it was mine. One large room made up the living, kitchen, dining, and bedroom. The furniture was rustic timber, made by people in Liberty from the felled trees of the forest. A tiny couch sat before an iron stove heater in the corner. A long bench with a sink made up the kitchen, and shelves above it housing my few cups, mugs, and plates. My bed was a double with a twisted wrought iron headboard and footboard, and a thick knitted rug cushioned my feet when I stepped out of its warmth and onto the cool timber floor. A doorway to the side of my bed led into a tiny bathroom space.
My favorite place was just outside of my cabin, under a thick trunked, ancient pine that reached high into the sky with a canopy of lace-like leaves. From one of its high, bulky branches, hung a swing with a plank of wood for a seat. Ink had hung it for me when I was a child, but the enjoyment of sitting and swinging with the calm forest around me never faded. I sat out there every chance I could soaking up the peace and quiet.
That was it, my home. Small, but cozy and most importantly, safe. I didn’t have many possessions, a few knickknacks, clothes, and a small pile of linens.
While by some standards my home and meager possessions might make me poor, I had lived for a short time with much less.
Liberty offered me life, perhaps not the life I would have chosen for myself, but life, never-the-less.
A noise that wouldn’t usually accompany the quiet stirrings of dawn caught my attention and my brow creased in confusion. A thunderous crash, something akin to metal being twisted and beaten into submission made my legs feel weak and body tremble. Muted and intermittent shouts could be heard somewhere in the vastness of the Liberty compound. Keeping perfectly still, I held my breath straining to hear the faraway cries. The crack of gunfire broke my frozen state, and I threw my blankets to the floor as I lurched from the bed, my heart suddenly hammering. For a moment I wondered if I had imagined it. Coming to a stop in the middle of my room I realized the world outside my door was deathly silent. Then, more gunfire.
Clumsily, I reached for a pair of jeans sitting neatly folded on a shelf and tugged them on, my breath coming hard and fast as I pulled a long-sleeved shirt from a chest of drawers, dragging it on over my singlet, followed by a sweater and boots. From another drawer, I hauled out a leather harness and began trying to strap it around my upper thigh. Panic had me struggling with the buckle and frustration forced me to stop, take a deep, calming breath before returning to the task with somewhat steadier hands.
The sounds of shouting and gunshots cut through the morning air and I could tell they were getting closer. Reaching for the sharp blade Ink had gifted me all those years ago, I slid it into the holster around my thigh, then flew to the corner of my room and dragged aside the small bookcase that hid the hole in my wall where my gun was concealed. Trembling fingers wrapped around cool metal, and I quickly loaded it with what little ammunition I had.
Ink had taught me how to defend myself and having the gun in my hand added a layer of confidence to the terror attacking my heart. I’d only ever fired at targets, but I wouldn’t hesitate to aim at a living, breathing being to protect myself and my friends, Ink had made sure of that.
Liberty Page 1