The crowd was silent while David spoke. He had touched a nerve in everyone. Several men came forward to stand beside him, nodding their approval. The only sound that could be heard in the room was the sobs of a very pregnant woman. I assumed she was his wife.
“What if it backfires? What if we can’t win?” someone from the crowd questioned.
“Then would we be any worse off than we already are?” someone else stood up and answered. “I don’t have much time left before I’m Culled, but I’d like to make my last months in this world count. I’m in.”
“If we make the bourge mad, they could cut off our ventilation system and kill us all!” a man shouted out.
“You would have to make them pretty mad before they went to that extreme,” Jack spoke up for the first time. He waited to see the reaction of the crowd before he continued. “I know the bourge put you down, call you urchins, tell you you’re less than them and that you’re lucky to be in the Dome safe from the nuclear fall-out. The truth is you are important to them. Without you, the Dome wouldn’t be able to function. You mine the coal for the gasifiers, you run the sewage treatment where precious water resources are recovered and you do their laundry, their cleaning, prepare their food. Don’t ever underestimate your value.”
“But they have all the power and we have none. Look around this room. There’s maybe fifty or sixty people here and you think we can take on the Dome?” someone pointed out.
“You’re right. We need more numbers. The more of us there are, the more powerful we become. But tonight is a start,” Jack replied.
“I know everyone is scared,” I spoke to them again. “And no one is suggesting the small group of people in this room rush upstairs and try to throw the President out. We need to convince more people to join us. We need to start training. We need to come up with a strategy,” I said.
“We can start training tonight,” Jack suggested. He motioned to Bron to come and stand beside him. “This is Bron. Those of you from the sixth level might recognize her since that’s the level she’s assigned to. She’s taking a big risk being here tonight. But she came to show her support for our cause and to help with the training.”
“I guess it won’t hurt to learn how to defend ourselves,” someone mumbled. More people stepped forward. Everyone seemed eager to learn how to fight.
I saw Reyes standing with Raine and Mica, staring at me as if I had gone mad. As I returned his stare, he gave me a disgusted look and stomped out of the room. I hopped down from the chair
“I need to talk to him,” I told Jack and ran after Reyes.
“Reyes,” I called out to him when I saw him in the hall, but he kept going. “Reyes please stop,” I pleaded. A Liberty guard was standing outside the door of the common room and he respectfully turned his head in the other direction.
“Later, Sunny,” Reyes said, throwing a hand up in the air to wave me off.
“I don’t think I have a later, Reyes. In fact, someone could be turning me in as we speak. Thank you for exposing us.” That stopped him.
“I wanted to expose Kenner, not you. I wanted him gone so I could have you back. But after watching you in there – standing up on a chair preaching to everyone – I don’t even know who you are anymore,” he ground out at me.
“I haven’t changed. I’m the same person I’ve always been. Why can’t you see that?” I asked in frustration.
“You know, after I said those things to you the other day I wanted to take them all back,” Reyes began, his eyes bright with unshed tears. “A part of me hoped that you would come and find me and try to make things right between us, but when you didn’t, I knew I had to be the one. I don’t know where you live, so I waited to see you in the common room the next day but you never showed up. I was so happy to see you this morning, but then you walked right by me and started kissing that bourge.” The tears fell from his eyes and I knew in that instant the depth of which I had hurt him.
“Please know that I didn’t do it to hurt you. One of Leisel’s guards was following Summer, so we pretended to kiss so we could hide our faces,” I told him. But even now, just remembering that kiss, I felt a warm sensation spread through me. None of Reyes’ kisses had ever affected me like that.
“So you’re not in love with him?” Reyes asked.
A stab of guilt went through me when I saw the hope in his eyes. He thought I was here to make amends. He thought we could still be together.
“All those things you said to me the other day – about me constantly making excuses and always choosing other people over you – were all true,” I admitted. A lump formed at the base of my throat, but I fought back the tears. “You always wanted me to be someone I wasn’t. You always wanted me to be with you, to let you protect me, to be the girl who hung on your every word. I’m not that girl, Reyes. I kept thinking that maybe I could be that girl once we were married, but whenever our wedding date crept closer, I realized I wasn’t ready to stop being myself yet.” I felt tears roll down my face. It was hard to say good-bye even though it was for the best. “The person you saw tonight in that room is me, Reyes. I haven’t changed. Why can’t you see that our relationship has been like trying to fit two pieces of a puzzle that don’t belong together; we can try as hard as we want, but we’ll never fit.”
“So you never loved me?” Reyes asked in shock as a tear escaped from the corner of his eye.
“Of course I loved you,” I said, wiping the tear from his cheek. “I just couldn’t be the person you wanted.”
He took my hand away from his face and dropped it.
“I can’t believe I wasted so much of my life on you,” he said, and turned around and walked away.
I let him go, knowing I deserved his hatred. I had led him to believe we would spend the rest of our lives together instead of being honest with him and myself. It was my fault he was hurting. I knew I should feel guilty, so I tried to ignore the feeling of elation bubbling up inside me at the realization I was finally free of him.
I went back into the common room and was pleasantly surprised to see a training session in full swing. Raine and Mica had remained, despite Reyes’ angry exit. Jack saw me and raised his eyebrows in question. I guessed he was asking me if Reyes was coming back in, so I shook my head no. He turned his attention back to the people he was working with.
“If you can’t disarm your opponent, then use his weapon against him,” Jack said out loud to the room, “like this.” He motioned for a guard to join him. The guard stood with his rifle pointed at Jack. Jack flew into action, grabbing the barrel of the rifle and in one motion struck the guard in the face with the barrel. He didn’t hit the guard for real, but the force of the attack made the guard back up a few steps, which left him off balance. Jack grabbed the rifle and kicked the guard in the stomach knocking him flat on his back. In one quick movement, Jack had the rifle pointed at the guard. Everyone clapped. Jack offered his hand to the guard to help him up. He instructed the guards to work with the people standing at the front of the room and came over to stand by me.
“Everything okay?” he inquired.
“You mean besides the fact that everyone in this room knows who we are?” I countered.
“When he gets mad he makes it count, doesn’t he?” Jack said.
“He always had a temper,” I agreed. “So do I get to learn how to do this? I missed our session last night,” I changed the subject.
“Sure. Let me get a gun and you can try and take it,” he responded.
Jack went over to the guard by the door and asked to borrow his rifle. I studied the people currently engaged with trying to get the guns away from the three guards working with them. No one was having much success. I saw how clumsy their movements were.
“Ready,” Jack said.
He stood there with both hands on the gun. I replayed in my mind how he had taken the gun away from the guard a few minutes earlier. I attempted it, but Jack was too quick and I ended up on the floor. I got up quickly and came at
him again hoping to catch him off guard, but he easily pushed me away. I stepped back and thought about it. It occurred to me that as long as the barrel of the gun wasn’t pointed at me, he couldn’t shoot me. So I needed to get around the barrel and close enough to engage him in hand-to-hand combat. If I could do that, he would need to let go of the gun to fend me off.
I went at him as fast as I could and when I saw the nose of the gun come up, I pushed it down and used it to give me balance. I brought my leg up and kicked him in his side. His grip on the gun loosened for a second and I grabbed it with both hands while swinging my leg in a backward arc that brought me behind him. I brought the gun up under his throat and held it there. I heard people clapping and looked up to see them staring at me.
“You catch on pretty quick,” Jack said, his eyes wide in surprise. I loosened my grip on the rifle and he lowered it.
“Am I scaring you, Jack?” I asked smiling.
Suddenly Jack’s hands were on me and I felt myself being thrown over his hip. I hit the floor with an ungraceful flop.
“A little bit,” he agreed. He stepped away and left me to pick myself up. “It’s going to be lights out soon so we should wrap it up,” he announced to everyone.
“Can we try again tomorrow?” Raine asked.
Jack looked around the room to see if anyone else was interested. Most people wanted to come back. Jack asked the guards and they agreed as well.
“You were amazing tonight,” Jack said once were alone. “You blew me away.”
“I guess it went well,” I said once we were alone.
“You were great, but we only had maybe fifty people in that room, not nearly enough to take on the few hundred guards that patrol down here. I told you before, power comes with numbers and we don’t have numbers.”
“I don’t think we stand much of a chance anyway,” I said. “I expect someone in that room will gladly turn us in for the 400 credits Holt is offering.”
We arrived at our apartment and I scanned my hand across the lock and went in.
“I know. I think that too.” Jack shut the door behind him. Then he picked up one of the chairs and put it under the doorknob. I gave him an inquisitive look. “At least it will give us a little notice if someone comes for us,” he explained.
“I’ve always known we’ll be caught eventually, but now that it might be real I’m scared,” I admitted. I didn’t want to die now that I had found a reason to live. I wanted to see this rebellion through. I wanted to find a way to convince people to stand up for themselves. I wanted time to finish what we started.
“You’re scared?” he asked in surprise. “I can’t believe the girl who stood up on a chair and convinced an entire room to start a rebellion is scared.”
“And you’re not scared?” I asked.
“Terrified,” he admitted. “Hey, what was wrong with Raine’s wife? She seemed a little out of it.”
“Women get that way after they’re sterilized,” I shrugged.
“After they’re what?” he asked in surprise.
“Sterilized,” I repeated, but he had an odd look on his face. “You must know about the Sterilization Program - your government came up with it ten years ago. If a couple doesn’t qualify to have a child, the woman is sterilized and whatever they inject her with makes her go… blank. The injection changes a woman. She’s not as… full of life as she used to be,” I tried to explain.
Jack was staring at me with a horrified look on his face when the lights went out leaving us in darkness. I didn’t realize it was that late already.
“We should get some sleep,” I said.
“I’ll take the chair,” he offered.
“No. We shared last night, we can do it again tonight,” I heard myself say. Considering the way I responded to his kiss this morning, it probably wasn’t a good idea. But we both needed a decent sleep. Jack was exhausted from sleeping in the chair and I couldn’t afford to be tired and sloppy with Madi as my supervisor.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Yes. Just stay on your on side of the bed,” I told him, even though I didn’t mean it. I walked toward the bedroom.
“That bed isn’t big enough to have sides,” he pointed out. He stumbled after me, knocking a chair over.
“You really can’t see, can you?” I said in wonder.
“And you’re surprised? Its pitch black in here,” he complained.
I grabbed his hand and guided him toward to the room. He took off his t-shirt and flopped down on the bed. Since he was blind in the dark, I stripped off my vest and put my t-shirt back on before I climbed in.
“It’s not pitch black in here. The guards use nightlights and it leaks into the apartment,” I explained.
I saw him open his eyes as wide as he could and look around the room.
“I guess you have to born in the Pit to find light where there isn’t any,” he observed.
I rolled that thought over in my mind and realized just how true it was.
Chapter Twenty-Three
It felt like I had just drifted to sleep when the sound of the bong bongs invaded my dreams. I had barely slept all night because I kept imagining that guards were going to come crashing through the door at any moment and take us into custody. I tried to close my mind off to the annoying sound. I didn’t want to wake up. For some reason, I felt warm and safe and it was a feeling I wasn’t ready to let go of. I wrapped my arms around my pillow to pull it tight under my head, but my pillow was hard and wouldn’t scrunch up. Then I realized that the sound of a beating heart was playing under my ear. The shock of what I was doing brought me fully awake. I was snuggling Jack.
“Oh my god, I am so sorry!” I flew into a sitting position. Jack was wide awake and smiling at me… or maybe he was laughing. It was hard to tell.
“I didn’t mind,” he said still smiling.
“I was asleep. I didn’t know what I was doing,” I attempted to explain and rolled off the bed and stood up. “I am so embarrassed.”
“There’s no reason to be embarrassed,” Jack said getting out of bed too. He stood close to me and brushed a lock of hair away from my face. “It’s not your fault. I’m just a hard guy to resist,” he said, laughter lighting up his face.
I rolled my eyes at him and left the bedroom. I went to the faucet and splashed cold water on my blushing face. Jack’s habits really were rubbing off on me. Just a few weeks ago it would never have occurred to me to waste water like this. I went and got a towel.
“Well, we made it through the night,” Jack announced. Of course, our imminent capture was probably weighing heavily on his mind too.
“I barely slept at all,” I admitted.
“Oh, I think you got a few good hours,” Jack gave me a wicked smile before he ducked his head toward the sink and splashed water on his face.
I dropped the dry towel next to him and went into the bedroom to put the vest back on. It was beginning to feel heavier every time I wore it.
“You can’t wear that again today. It almost killed you yesterday,” Jack said when he saw the vest.
“I can’t show up to work ten pounds lighter either,” I snapped. “I’ll just have to stay on Madi’s good side today so I can get my water ration,” I said, even though I knew it was easier said than done. She was cruising for a fight.
“You’re not in a very good mood today,” Jack commented as we put our hats on and left the apartment.
“I can’t imagine why. I mean it’s not as if I’m hiding from people who want to kill me, or working for a psychopathic supervisor who wants to beat me,” I said sarcastically.
He was right though. My mood was particularly bad today. Not only was I feeling vulnerable with my identity exposed, but I wasn’t altogether happy that not many people showed up last night. It was all beginning to feel hopeless. And the only thing I had to look forward to was going to work in a room that was hotter than hades under the glare of a sadistic supervisor. I was just tired of it all.
J
ack put his arm around me and pulled me closer to him as we walked toward the common room. I stiffened at his touch at first, but decided to let him to do it. We looked like any other married couple on their way to breakfast. I put my arm around his waist.
“Try to remember we have people down here on our side now,” he said in a low voice for my ears only. “Even if someone turns us in for the credits, it will probably be Liberty guards who come looking for us.”
“You mean Alliance guards?” I cocked an eyebrow at him. He gave me a wry smile. “I wish I could feel as confident as you do,” I said. Maybe it was the lack of sleep last night, but I really couldn’t shake this feeling of doom.
It was still early and there wasn’t a big line-up to get into the common room. A guard stood by the door as usual.
“Good morning, sir. Ma’am,” he greeted us as we walked through the door.
Jack bid him a good morning but I was too shocked to speak. No one had ever called me ma’am before, let alone a guard.
“Why is he calling me ma’am?” I whispered.
“He’s trained to show respect to his leaders,” Jack shrugged.
“Good morning,” the woman serving the food greeted us with a huge smile. She grabbed one of my hands with both of hers and held it warmly for a moment. “You’re doing a good thing,” she said to me. She gave Jack a smile too before she passed us our containers of food, water and cups of hot tea. “A treat this morning,” she smiled.
“Hot tea? What’s going on?” I whispered to Jack once we were seated.
“You’re a hero to your people, Sunny. They want to do nice things for you,” Jack said.
“But I haven’t done anything to deserve the title,” I said glumly.
I wasn’t a hero. I had been a naïve girl who had fallen for Leisel’s lies and now I was on the run from her father. I suddenly felt bad for keeping that truth to myself so they would think I was someone I was not.
“Sure you have. Stop being so hard on yourself,” Jack chastised me.
Sunset Rising Page 24