“He seems to really care about you,” I said. “Like an older brother.”
“I’ve thought that, too…”
We saw the bus pulling into the bus stop in front of us, so we ran and flagged the bus down quickly, climbing on and heading into town, discussing what we were going to say to our parents.
When we got off the bus in the downtown area, Clark reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, turning it back on as I pulled my jacket closer around me to fight off the chill.
“Uh…Clark?” I said quietly, my eyes widening as I saw a familiar person walking toward us.
“What?” I saw him turn the same direction out of the corner of my eye. “Mark?” Clark hissed. I followed Clark toward Mark, surprised and a little suspicious. Mark stopped and looked Clark over quickly before turning to me and checking me over, assessing if we were hurt. “We’re alright, we’re okay,” Clark said. “I’m sorry.”
Mark took a deep breath and slowly let it out before bowing his head and motioning for us to follow.
As we walked a pace behind the silent man, I turned to Clark.
“How did he know where we were?” I whispered. “Can he track my phone?”
“No,” Clark shook his head. “I think he might have been walking around looking for us and it was coincidence. Look how far away he parked.”
I looked at the parking garage we were slowly approaching and sighed, guessing it was the most likely conclusion.
“Mark,” Clark said when we got in the elevator and started our ascent to the seventh floor of the parking garage. Mark turned. “You should not walk in public,” he said quietly, his voice filled with worry. I looked between the two, wondering if Mark understood at all. “Someone could have seen you.” Clark motioned with his hands what he meant, but even then, Mark was still. When the elevator slowed, he bowed his head deeply to Clark and then motioned us to leave the elevator before him.
The drive to Clark’s house was completely silent as the exhaustion of the day set in. After traveling around town and the adrenaline of the whole situation, I was finally starting to feel my fatigue. By the way Clark’s head kept dropping, I knew he was also fighting unconsciousness. I was nearly asleep when we finally pulled into the driveway.
I forced myself awake as I followed Clark to his front door.
“I’m home!” he called as he held the door open for me.
Mrs. Markus quickly appeared from the corridor under the staircase and hastened to her son as Mark closed the door behind us.
“Oh my God, don’t do that to us!”
“Mom, it was only six o’clock, why are you freaking out so much?” Clark groaned, rolling his eyes. “I go out once and you immediately flip out.”
“What do you expect? With the way the other kids in the Commission have been acting…”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Mrs. Markus took a deep breath and slowly let it out, shaking her head and hugging her son.
“Nothing, I’m sorry…” she whispered. “Just…when you’re going to turn your phone off, let us know. We worry about you…”
“Okay.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
“So, why do you think J.A.N.E. included the information about Thomas Ankell’s private struggles with Janice in the book?” Mr. McDermott asked. I looked around the classroom as hands rose. I did not talk in class anymore, particularly about An Angel Without Wings. I had jumped in surprise when Mr. McDermott mentioned Fort Daniels, so I had to keep my mouth shut to avoid saying something dangerous.
“Yes, Jessica?”
“Well, the entire book has been geared toward humanizing an American hero, so showing him fighting with his wife was a way to make him appear more human to the readers.”
“Very good, that’s true. Even the title of the book tries to make Ankell appear more down to earth and human so that the readers can relate to him,” Mr. McDermott elaborated. “Any other opinions?”
“Well, Janice was against the direction Ankell was taking the revolution and she said that his new ally was dangerous and should not be trusted, so it showed that there was a difference of opinion in the revolution that was already controversial.”
“And do you know what that aspect was?” Mr. McDermott smiled mysteriously. “I know the chapter breaks off before you find out who the new ally is and what was splitting the revolutionaries apart, but does anyone have any guesses?”
Everyone looked at one another but no one voiced an opinion. I had barely been paying attention to the book as I read. I was only reading what I had to for the assignments, too wrapped up in what was going on with my own rebellion.
Mr. McDermott closed the book and placed it on his desk, smiling.
“What was the most controversial aspect of the Second Revolution?” he asked. Again, there was silence before Becca cleared her throat.
“The cleansing of the population?” she said weakly. I felt my heart stop for a second.
“Exactly,” Mr. McDermott agreed. “So, any guesses on who the new ally is?”
“Bryant Morris…” I murmured. Mr. McDermott nodded.
“Bryant Morris.” He walked to the board. “There are a lot of things about Mr. Morris that remain a mystery, even today. So, let me briefly discuss what kind of man Mr. Morris was.” He picked up a pen and began writing points on the board.
“Mr. Morris was the youngest, and only, boy in a family with seven children,” our teacher started. “He had six older sisters. One of his sisters was raped and murdered by a gang of black men when he was eight years old, another one of his sisters proclaimed herself to be lesbian and fell in with a group that abused drugs and alcohol and ended up incarcerated for armed robbery. Bryant Morris was only eleven at the time. Because of the tragedies, his family fell apart and, at sixteen, he reached out to Thomas Ankell, who was only two years older, and agreed to help the revolution, but he knew that drastic changes had to be made to keep the new regime of America safe.”
“Mr. McDermott, was it Thomas Ankell or Bryant Morris who felt that the population needed to be cleansed?” Jill asked.
“The decision was not made that simply,” Mr. McDermott shook his head. “Bryant and Thomas were both very young, and when the Second Revolution ended, they were only in their early twenties. They had to gain support from the people to cleanse the population before they could implement anything.” He wrote a date on the board. “We know the revolution ended in 20**, but the Commission of the People, which was responsible for the cleansing of America, was founded in 20**, two years before the end of the revolution. Does anyone know why? Any of the kids in the Commission? Do you know?”
Everyone looked around quietly, not sure. Greg finally cleared his throat.
“I’m not in the Commission, so I might be wrong, but…wasn’t it because of the attack on San Antonio?”
Mr. McDermott hesitated.
“That was part of it,” he said slowly. “As you all know, even today, the Commission of the People is a very controversial institution. The attack on San Antonio, or you probably know it as the July Seventeenth Massacre, was an attempt by the Mexican drug lords to scare the revolutionaries to back off from their cleansing decision. The Commission was actually formed because of the government’s silence in relation to the massacre.” Mr. McDermott laughed. “How many of you knew that the Commission of the People was started by the Washington government, and not the Central government?”
I blinked, feeling my jaw drop. My classmates were also surprised.
“The Commission of the People was not founded by Bryant Morris, but by Senator Tory Genevieve, who agreed that the July Seventeenth Massacre was unfortunate but it needed to happen to straighten everyone’s priorities. She founded the Commission of the People with the other Washington defectors, and when the revolution was over, control of the Commission turned to Bryant Morris, who ran the Commission of the People for thirty years before he died of a stroke at age fifty-three.”
“But the Commission of the People was not originally made for cleansing the population, was it?” Kevin asked. “The Washington government was all about interracial mingling and promoting diversity, so they would have never approved the Commission of the People.”
“Very true,” Mr. McDermott nodded. “Can anyone make a guess as to what the Commission of the People was originally meant to do? What it was approved to do by the Washington system?”
Again, we all stared at one another.
“It’s okay that you don’t know. The Commission is quite secretive,” Mr. McDermott laughed. “Corporate crime,” he said. “It was sort of started when an underground assassination ring was discovered. This assassination group went after white collar criminals that the police would not touch. In an attempt to appease the angry people of America in the revolution, the Washington government created the Commission of the People, which was powerful enough to go after corporate criminals. It was more or less based on that assassination ring.”
“And that went to cleaning out the population of America as a whole?” Karmen completed.
“Yes. The Central government could not keep any of the old systems, but they changed the Commission of the People to be the ultimate secret police. Things have calmed down now, but the thought of the Commission really used to strike fear into the hearts of most people, even if they did nothing wrong. Now that the population is cleansed, the Commission serves to keep the peace as best it can.”
“But…” I started quietly.
“What is it?” Mr. McDermott pressed.
“I was just wondering about the conspiracy theory about the Commission also taking in previous revolutionaries after the Central government was founded,” I caught myself quickly.
“Oh, yes, of course,” Mr. McDermott nodded. “There were theories about that, particularly when Thomas Ankell had a heart attack and Bryant Morris was said to have had a stroke only months afterward, but these had nothing to do with the Commission. Many suspected that the Commission had become too powerful, but Leader John VI, who was leader at the time of both their deaths, assured everyone that the Commission would pass into the hands of someone capable of keeping everyone under control. And as you know, with Dana Christenson as the head of the Commission, there have been no problems.”
* *** *
Monday night I was unable to distract myself after my paper was finished. I sat at dinner with my parents and we ate silently, as we had been doing for weeks. My father was always tired with his work—whatever that was, he never told me anymore—and my mother was too busy feeling sorry for herself to speak with me.
But I could not ignore that my mother was meeting with Dana the following day.
“Dad…” I started as we were finishing dinner. “What are you doing tomorrow? Do you have a lot of work?”
“I’m afraid so,” he sighed, leaning back in his chair. “I have that fundraiser tomorrow and the Europe trip is coming up. We only have a month to get everything ready.”
“I thought that no one had been chosen for that trip, yet,” I said.
“They will be announced at the meeting on Saturday, but that doesn’t mean that the people who aren’t going on the trip will not be doing any work.”
“What is the Europe trip for, again?”
“There’s been a lot of unrest in the New European Union and the leaders of those nations are requesting that the Commission of the People review the data and suggest a plan for stability and peace.”
“You mean the Commission is expanding across the ocean?” I blinked. “Doesn’t that mean that it’s getting too powerful?”
“Nonsense, Lily,” my mother chuckled. “Leader Simon is going and brining a small delegation of people from the Commission. It’s not the Commission acting on its own. Dana won’t even be joining them.”
I glanced at Mykail, who was sitting silently at the table, avoiding eye contact.
“Great…” I groaned. “I have to go to the Commission meetings on my own…”
“No, Clark will be with you,” my mother smiled. “You two seem to be close. Are you dating?”
“No! Mother!” I snapped, feeling my cheeks heat up in embarrassment as I tried not to look at Mykail.
“What? There’s nothing wrong with that,” she laughed. “I would be happy if you were dating someone. You need to start acting more like a teenager. Besides, Clark is a very sweet young man.”
“Oh my God, Mom. We are not dating. We’re just friends!”
“Alright,” she said in a tone that told me she didn’t believe me. I groaned and rolled my eyes.
“May I be excused?”
I waited anxiously for my parents to go to bed so I could go to Mykail’s room. I did not want to talk that night, realizing that tomorrow would bring nothing but pain. Even though I already knew I had lost my mother to Dana, the reality of it would be very different tomorrow.
When my parents finally did go to bed, I silently curled up in Mykail’s arms and fell into an uneasy sleep.
However, sleeping made Tuesday come all too soon.
Throughout the school day, everyone was asking if I was alright. I told them yes, but I could not put up an act. I felt pain deep inside my stomach at the thought of my mother with Dana. I did not know when they were going to meet, they might have already done so…but my mind was spinning with the realization that my mother was going to be unfaithful. Dana had turned her against the family. I wanted to disown her as my mother, to pretend that I did not know what was about to happen.
In that situation, ignorance would have been bliss.
When I greeted Mark after school, he knew something was wrong. I tried to smile for him, but I could not even lift my head to look at him. I handed my bag to him when he outstretched his hand and he put it in the trunk before standing beside me as we waited for Clark.
I jumped when Mark placed his hand on my shoulder and squeezed once before letting go and dropping his hand back to his side. He was not looking at me, his head bent down as if embarrassed by trying to comfort me.
Clark walked up as I was about to thank Mark. When Clark saw my face he slowed down.
“What is it?”
“Nothing…”
“No, seriously, what’s wrong?” he asked as Mark took his backpack. I sighed and rubbed my forehead before finally telling him.
“My mother is meeting with Dana today…” I said, barely managing to keep my voice from breaking. “…alone.”
Clark was still for a long moment before he shook his head and stepped forward, hugging me.
“I’m sorry…” he said gently, rubbing my shoulder. “Really…I am…”
“Please…” I said, sniffing. “Don’t make me cry.” I laughed brokenly, the breath straining out of me. I turned to blink the tears away and saw a very worried Mark staring at us through his glasses. “It’s alright,” I said. “I’m alright.” I scratched my neck twice with my right hand to assure him that I was okay, but he was clearly not convinced.
After a brief hesitation, he opened the car door for us.
We were silent during the drive, but as we pulled into the gates of the Commission, Clark turned to me.
“Hey…maybe it would be a really good idea for you to just sit in the conference room and not wander around today,” he said slowly.
I did not respond. My thoughts were somewhere else…down in the Commission…where my mother was most likely with Dana.
As we were checked in, the woman at the front desk told Clark that his mother wanted to see him, so he had to go upstairs. He asked me if I would be okay going downstairs on my own, which I assured him I was, even though it was an automatic response and I didn’t think about what he was asking before I answered.
We went into separate elevators and as he went up to his mother’s office, I went into the basement with Mark. As the elevator descended, I fell further into a dark cloud where all I could think of was Dana with my mother.
When the doors opened and I ste
pped out, I felt my stomach tighten sickeningly. Mark followed as I moved through the now-familiar hallways to the conference rooms. I was about to walk into the nearest one when Mark stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. I turned quickly and he shook his head pointing at the schedule by the door. Realizing I had forgotten to check, I glanced at the screen, seeing the scheduled meeting.
I walked to another conference room, being sure to check the schedule before going in.
I was looking at the room in tunnel vision. I knew my mother was going to cheat on my father, but speculating about it was almost worse than actually knowing. I ran my hands through my hair in frustration before shaking my head and turning to leave the conference room.
As I started to walk away from the door, Mark caught my arm and looked at me seriously. He had taken off his glasses in the elevator, so I could see the imploring look in his eyes.
“I’m alright,” I assured half-heartedly, shaking my head and trying to move out of his grip. His fingers tightened just enough to be painful and I cringed, which made him release me. I stared at him for a moment and then forced a shaky smile.
“I’m okay,” I repeated. He started to step forward but I held my hand up to him. “Stay here,” I told him clearly.
He hesitated, but then bowed his head and backed away.
I should have put more thought to how attentive Mark was being but I could not see anything through my tunnel vision.
I followed the curves and twists through the quiet office area, walking toward Dana’s office as if my feet had a mind of their own. Everything inside of me screamed to turn around and go back, to forget my concern about finding out the truth. I walking toward something that was only going to give me pain.
But morbid curiosity got the better of me.
I reached up and, slower than I thought physically possible, I lowered the silver handle of the door and felt the latch slowly slip free of the confines of the door jamb.
“…appreciate all this,” my mother’s voice said.
“Of course,” Dana’s voice was quiet, soft, flowing over his lips like water. “I want to be sure that all members of the Commission are well. I saw that you were struggling…”
Inside, Pt. 2 Page 4