by White, Megan
I did not fear what he was going to do to me; the worst thing he could do was kill me, and that act, in and of itself, would have been a blessed release from a life that was merely a prison ruled by vicious Keepers and the paramount control of the merciless Supremacy.
The Keeper fiercely tugged on my chains, the bite of cast iron dug into the soft flesh of my wrists. The pain was almost unbearable, but I refused to let a single sound slip from my lips. He craved my discomfort. I could see that in his cold blue eyes. He and Corina would have made a dangerous team. He was waiting for my screams of agony, my pleas to be gentle, but he was getting none.
He shifted once more in his seat, and from the last time he did that, I knew nothing good could come of it. His smile was sinister, a flicker of evil flashed through those crystal irises. He slid closer to me, until our legs were touching. My breath hitched in my lungs as I awaited his next move, the move that might end my life with over thirty others watching or listening, but not one with the power to stop him.
He placed his nose to my hair and drew in a long breath, the proximity alone turned my stomach, but I fought with all the willpower I had to stay calm. He wanted a show, but I refused to give that to him. He deserved nothing from me.
“If you weren’t such a delicacy,” He sighed as he leaned back, allowing his head to loll on the back of his seat, “I would kill you now for that little stunt.”
His words shocked me, but I had spent all my courage fighting the urge to bellow and plea; I had none left to ask him what he could possibly mean.
I watched his eyes lower and his lids become heavy, almost resembling pleasure. His lips parted as he drew in another deep breath, his chest rising and falling dramatically. At the end of his exhalation, his tongue flickered across his lips, as if he were tasting the air.
I had never been that close to a Keeper, never had I had the desire to be, but as I watched him, my spine began to stiffen at the thought of what could possibly be going through his mind. Nothing about him was normal. But then again what was my ‘normal’?
Those with power could act any way they pleased, and no one had the authority to tell them otherwise. A Keeper had the highest authority over the commoners, their actions were supreme. None questioned them. We had no other choice but to blindly follow.
“One more outburst and I will gag you for the duration of the trip.” He seethed once he regained the steely composure he had briefly lost. “And I assure you, Erin, you will not enjoy the manner in which I will choose to do so, do you understand me?”
I almost choked on my tongue once the magnitude of his words set into my mind. I knew the ways they chose to silence the defiant, we all did. A ‘gag’ was too soft of a word for what was done to people. If you were lucky, a simple binding of the mouth was used, but for the ones that were not so lucky, which were most, they would immobilize your lips by sewing them shut.
There were other methods they enjoyed using depending on how sadistic the Keeper was. A caught liar or traitor to the regime would have his tongue removed. It was symbolic; a traitor without a tongue could no longer spout his grievances against the regime.
I had only seen one instance where a tongue had been completely severed from someone’s mouth, but that was not from a commoners, no, that was from a Keeper’s. He was labeled a traitor to the regime for the love that found him. It was common knowledge that no Keeper could have a relationship with a commoner. Doing so could be an instant death sentence upon both parties involved. The high rulers do not frolic with the trash, and that was what we were. That’s not to say that none had ‘relations’ with us, that was permitted, often encouraged, and sometimes even rewarded, but no Keeper could make a life with a commoner, love one or even appear to love one. That was a sign of insubordination.
We were a subspecies to them, nothing more than a source of life.
Chapter Four
None of us knew where we were going or where the testing facilities were. The locations were kept secret from us. Maybe it was out of fear of those that wished to disrupt the procedures, the ones that would try to run, or even worse, the ones that would try to over-throw the process.
There were still revolutionists. None were dumb enough to show their faces around a closed Zone, but they still existed. We had heard stories of them, those few that took the opportunity to run, the ones that weren’t shot dead by the Keepers.
The stories of the few brave men and women were kept underground. We all envied them. Well, most of us envied them, those of us that were not blind to what was going on around us. There were some that lived only to spy on other commoners, but the ones that knew of the liberated never wanted to jeopardize the freedom they worked so hard to gain. We all knew that those lives, if found, would be cut short the minute a Scout caught wind of them.
A Scout’s only mission was to search for those that ran, but as of recently, their job broadened out to search for those that had the wish to run. The majority that were taken in were nothing more than peasants with nothing to offer to The Supremacy, the ones that were too poor or old to be of any use to the regime. They were labeled as potential threats, but they were just causalities of their ever-vicious rulers. They were useless, rubbish amongst the already deemed garbage, discarded for being less than applicable to the life The Supremacy was trying so hard to create.
***
I tried not to move, the more I moved the tighter my chains became. The iron was created to do just that, to tighten and dig the more a captive squirmed. If the prisoner moved enough, the shackles would begin to sever nerves, veins, and eventually, bone. Luckily, no one would be conscious when it came to that. Our brains are wired to shut down, to gift us with a temporary reprieve during excruciating pain. But that was only for a few short moments.
“Would you like me to remove the chains?” He crooned in my ear.
Surprisingly, I was not even aware that he was watching me. The rebel inside of me wanted to endure the pain caused by the chains, to prove to him that I could endure the tortures that he had set into motion but I knew that it was just a matter of time before I begged for them to be removed. I had no idea how long the ride would be and with every bump and turn the bus made, the chains tightened. If I said no to him now, I would just be begging him later, and that would pleasure him more than my need to hold on to the little bit of pride I had left.
I held up my shaking hands to him, “Please.” I managed the seemingly polite gesture through a tight throat.
He lowered my wrists to his lap and he smiled up at me, “Now that is more like it,” He breathed, “A compliant demeanor will get you further in this life than the mutinous one you have seemingly adopted.”
‘Mutinous’, ‘defiant’, ‘rebellious’, they were all words that were drilled into our vocabulary from the moment The Supremacy gained their steely control over us. All those words, simple in their classification, but deadly in their denotation. All could get you killed.
One by one, he unclasped the iron restraints that had bound me to the seat.
I rubbed at my wrists, noting that the shackles had already begun to chafe the sensitive tissue. Blisters were beginning to form and hardly any time had passed at all. It brought to mind all the times I had seen prisoners being lead through the Zone like an animal on a leash, blood trickling from their restraints like water from a faucet. It was a slow way to go, the ideal way to go in the eyes of a Keeper.
I was unsure of where to go next, what to say next. Should I try to ignore the seemingly ruthless Keeper that electrocuted my best friend and stole me away, or speak to him. It seemed every time I opened my mouth it landed me in deeper suffering.
It was a way of life to me at that point. If I kept my mouth shut, it would spare me in the short term, but what fun would that be?
My stepmother was forever telling me that I should keep my mouth shut, that nothing I said would change her, change our situation, and that one day my mouth would get me killed. That was probably the only truthful t
hing she had ever said to me, and she was right. My mouth was a liability, but when you were facing death or a life without light, what did you really have to lose?
My father was a revolutionary, dead or alive his words still rang in my ears, “Never bow your head to them, Rin. It might save your life, but what kind of life would you live with no free will?” Not a life at all, at least not a life I would ever want to live.
Before I knew it, I was engaging the cold Keeper. My voice was tight and hollow, emotion stricken and shaky, “What is your name?” No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t steady my trembles.
He turned to me, pinning me back with his icy blue stare. To us, a Keeper did not have a given name; to use such would have been seen as a blatant disregard for who was in charge. They used our names, but we dared not use theirs.
His jaw twitched as his eyes bored into mine, searching for something, but not saying what. Whatever he found in my eyes, aside from fear, caused his jaw to relax and his eyes to release me. “Declan.” His voice was hard and unyielding in its power as he answered my simple question.
I tried to relax my rigid body into the seatback, an unsuccessful attempt to calm my nerves, “That’s a nice name.” I found myself declaring, “Not what I expected.”
“And what was it that you expected, Erin?”
My body was racked with tension, only allowing a lone chuckle to leave my lips. “I’m not sure, really, something more…”
“Sinister?” He added, finishing my fragmentary thought.
Clearing my throat, I sputtered out a shaky, “Yes.” I tried to shrink away from him, fearing how he would react to my agreement, but he was not having that. He tugged me to him with a force that sent my neck flying backwards.
“Did I say that you could move?” He bit out; his jaw gritting tight once more.
His vehemence surprised me from the beginning. It was almost as if he singled me out. His fervor was tangible in the limited space between us. I could feel the tension rolling off him, to say that added to my anxiety would have been an understatement.
Every move I made, no matter how minute, he noticed. His eyes never left me, even when he wasn’t looking directly at me. Every muscle in my body became tense. For every movement I made, he countered it.
There was no escaping Declan. He had me in his inexorable grasp from the first day he saw me.
I wished there were windows on the bus. The darkness that veiled us was almost as terrifying as the man sitting next to me. The only light that shone was that used to illuminate the aisles. Windows would have given me something to do, something to concentrate on as I tried to ignore the powerful force to my left, but there was nothing.
I let out a racking sigh and turned to him, “Why me?” I asked him with the little conviction I could muster.
“There are some things that you will learn quickly, Erin, two of which are when to keep your mouth shut, and how to blend in.”
“Why would I need to learn either of those two things?” Why I continued to speak to him, I did not know. Why I had this unrelenting urge to goad him was another facet I was unsure of. There was just something about him that caught my attention. I hardly knew him, but he was already under my skin, and I had apparently found my way under his too.
He grasped my arms in a hold that was just this side of painful, and pinned my back against the steel wall of the bus, “Because without them you will not survive.”
A lone awkward giggle left my lips as I watched him in all his ferocity, I should have been terrified, and a part of me was, but the emotion that stole my focus was wonder.
He bewildered me. “Metaphorically, Declan, I am already dead. But I appreciate your concern.”
“There are much, much worse things than death, Erin” He leaned in closely. With his nose at the nape of my neck, he drew in a long and shuttering breath that jolted my body to attention, every nerve ending came to life, every hair follicle stood on end. A wicked smile crossed his lips and he slowly pulled away from me, releasing my arms, he settled back into his seat, “But you will soon find that out.”
The older looking gentleman driving the bus turned to Declan, motioning to the radio that rested near his feet. “Tarant is requesting your attention.”
Declan gave him a curt nod before picking up the receiver. His voice was clipped as he spoke into the small head set, “Declan.”
The brash voice on the other end boomed to life, sounding over every hushed whisper on the bus. “Anything of promise?”
His lips twitched, his eyes slowly raking over my body, “Very promising.”
“Excellent, we will convene at sixteen-hundred”
And the conversation was over just as quickly as it began, leaving me with more questions than my brain could sort through, and I was sure that not one he would be willing to answer.
“We will be at the site shortly.” The driver quietly addressed Declan without tearing his focus away from the road ahead of him.
His hand rested possessively on my thigh as he responded to the driver, “Good, I am in need of some fresh air.”
My stomach heaved at the thought about where those next few steps might take me.
Soon I would be tested and placed in my house, forever a product of The Supremacy. My life would be planned out, my career chosen. Nothing would ever be the same. Freedom did not exist anymore.
Even worse was the thought of those that would be deemed worthless to The Supremacy. Those that were of no use became liabilities to their reign, and liabilities were disposed of.
The Keeper beside me leaned in once more, “Keep your head down and your mouth shut, and maybe you’ll survive.”
But did I want to? I was not sure that I did.
The only thing that kept me hanging onto a life that was anything but, was my baby brother. I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving him with his only family being that awful woman that was his mother. Just the thought of that precious little boy being brainwashed into loving the Keepers as much as she did ripped a hole through my chest. I did not have much to offer him, but what I did would be invaluable. The teachings of my father would get him further in this non-life than anything that dreadful woman could spout.
He needed to know how life could be, how life had once been. He needed to know what The Supremacy had done to us, and if nothing else, I wanted to be the one that showed him.
I could feel the bus edging off the main road, the tires squealing their protest as they left the smooth pavement and hit the uneven terrain that could have only been the testing facility. Declan held me steady as the bus jostled and jerked about. My eyes met with his once more and I could see the torment swimming across his icy blue irises as if they matched my own.
“Head down.” He repeated, watching me closely
I felt the bus make one last sweeping turn before it jerked to a stop, sending my body forward in Declan’s iron tight grasp. Before he settled me back into my seat, he grabbed the receiving end of the radio once more, “Unloading the Testers in two.”
The first and only thing that passed through my mind at that point was John. I wanted to see him; I had to see him one last time before we were sorted. If nothing else, I wanted to tell him that I was sorry for not following him, for not running, and that I would forever regret getting him into this mess.
He deserved so much better than a life of servitude. If anyone could have survived the life of a rebel, it would have been him.
I could feel Declan’s powerful glower, “What are you thinking, Erin?”
Shifting in my seat so I could face him head on, I squared my shoulders and smiled. “Every thought in my head would get me killed, probably by your own hands. Believe me when I say that neither you nor I want me to say them aloud.”
“Do we have a problem here, Declan?” I was startled when I heard a harsh voice come from behind him.
He smiled wickedly at me before he turned to face the cloaked stranger, “Nothing that I cannot handle.”
H
e gave a curt nod before grasping the chains that closed off the other Testers from the front of the bus, “It’s time to unload this batch.”
Declan’s hand grasped my thigh, and before he stood he brought his lips to my ear, “Remember what I’ve said.”
Chapter Five
Declan motioned for the driver to exit the bus in front of him, leaving me with the cloaked man that was slowly unlatching the lock to the gate. I stood once he pulled the metal ends apart, waiting for my instruction to leave the bus, but he surprised me when he pushed me back into my seat, “I have explicit instructions for you to stay put.” He ordered brusquely.
It was shocking, as a Keeper, he had no reason to clarify his actions to me. He could have easily just subdued me with a shock or shackled me back to my seat.
One by one, the bus was unloaded and my breath caught when I saw John. It took everything in my power to stay in my seat. The Keeper watched me intently, noting how my eyes scanned over John’s body, checking for any lingering wound that Declan might have inflicted upon him.
“I’ll be fine, Rin.” He whispered as he passed. “It’s you that I am worried about.”
“Keep moving!” The Keeper ordered before slamming the heel of his boot into John’s back, causing him to jolt forward.
“I am so sorry, John.” I whispered to him as he shuffled away from me and out the door.
The Keeper dragged me from my seat once everyone else exited.
The midafternoon sunlight was blinding when I stepped out of the dark bus. Once the brilliant glare of the blaring sun waned, the sight that faced me nearly doubled me over in shock. I was so frightened, it was nearly numbing. The buzzing that began in my ears was deafening, and soon my head began to swim.
Hundreds if not thousands of others were gathered in what could only be described as a corral.
We were all packed in like animals, surrounded and detained in a small lot by towering cement walls and razor wire. This was not a school.
With an unyielding fist to the small of my back, the Keeper pushed me forward, effectively waking me from my stupor.