The door opened at the back of the room and I jumped, turning to see Sean and Dana. Everyone turned to them while I threw a worried glance at Clark. Mrs. Markus, Mr. Markus, and Ms. Peterson gathered as Dana walked to them. I noticed the large security detail trailing behind Dana and Sean.
“I’m sorry, Danielle,” Dana sighed, walking up to Clark’s mother, his voice conveying his annoyance. “Leader Simon is having a conniption.”
“I understand.”
“If this had happened after the Europe trip had returned, he would not think anything of it, but now he’s sure that we’re going to be attacked,” Dana sighed. “I will not be back tonight. I’ll be holding his hand until he falls asleep at the rate he’s panicking.”
“We’ll hold down everything,” Ms. Peterson nodded with a chuckle.
“Thank you, Emilie.” Dana flashed a smile to her. “Then, I will expect to see a full transcript of the meeting on my desk before I get back.”
“It will be done,” Ms. Peterson assured.
“Excellent.” Dana nodded to Sean who, in turn, nodded to the security detail. Four of them bowed their heads and walked toward the elevators. Dana began following the four men as Sean fell into step behind him. The leader of the Commission reached for his lapel to pull out his sunglasses when his eyes fell on me and he halted.
“Oh, Little Lily,” he said, surprised. “You’re here early.”
My stomach fell when he addressed me. I was sure I was going to faint from anxiety when I saw him walk toward me, his hand dropping from the glasses in his pocket.
I did not stand when he finally stopped in front of me. I was overcome with a very strong urge and a thought ran through my mind that terrified me.
Look at the bruise…See what my mother did to me…See what you made my mother do…
As if reading my mind, his eyes locked on the light bruise across my cheekbone. His face hardened and he reached forward, his hand resting against my skin with incredible gentleness. He leaned closer and suddenly, all my anxiety transformed into something else. I was gloating, proud that I had been correct about the way he would react to the injury. He was furious, I could feel it rolling off his skin as he looked at the bruise, carefully running the pad of his thumb over the mark. I flinched more than I needed to.
“Who did this to you?” he whispered, his voice full of dark purpose that made the hair on my neck stand on end.
“No one,” I said, backing away from his hand half-heartedly.
“Don’t lie to me,” he growled. “Who?”
I looked away, wanting him to guess. Maybe that would ease whatever guilt I might have felt about turning my mother over to Dana.
Dana did something I did not expect. He waved Sean and the others of the security away and fell to his knees in front of me, meeting my eyes as I remained seated. With one hand on my right shoulder, his other hand raised back to my cheek, the pads of his fingers carefully pressing into the bruise, his eyes focused on the discoloring.
The act was so gentle and tender that I almost felt warmth tingling through my skin at the attention.
He sighed heavily, his eyes still powerful and frightening.
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
I managed to shake my head, even with his eyes boring into mine. He blinked once slowly and my eyes darted to his lips, watching them part over white teeth. This was that perfectly choreographed dance he had performed with my mother. Each muscle moved just as it needed to, not any more or less, captivating me.
“Are you worried what I’ll do to them?” he asked, his voice quiet, soothing, yet had a hint of danger around the edges.
I nodded.
He said nothing for a few moments, his hand resting at my jaw line, his thumb stroking just below the bruise, eyes shifting to my cheek.
“Whoever hurt you needs to pay for what they have done,” he said, his voice quiet. His eyes met with mine again. “You should tell me who it was…”
It took me everything I had to shake my head.
He pursed his lips.
“Dana,” Sean called, “we need to go.”
Dana held up his hand to silence his head of security and I was momentarily distracted from Dana’s flawless face. The leader of the Commission of the People held up one finger to me with the hand he had shown to Sean, his eyes locking with mine.
“This conversation is not over,” he whispered. The finger came to rest on my other cheek, trailing over my cheekbone and then down the side of my face to run along my jaw, his touch barely registering on my skin. “I am sorry that I have been neglecting you, Little Lily,” he breathed, his face coming closer. I felt it, that familiar intoxication that overcame me when he was close. I could feel his power radiating from his very being. “I will take better care of you…” he promised. He leaned even closer and his warm lips brushed over the bruise, not kissing it so much as feeling it with his breath.
“Friday…” he told me, though I felt his lips form the word more than I heard him speak it. He backed away and nodded once before rocking back on his toes to stand, his thumb brushing over my cheek one final time before his hand left my skin.
I wanted to kick myself for how much I yearned for his touch again.
He walked out of the meeting room, placing the glasses on his face as he moved with Sean and the rest of his security.
I did not register Clark had moved until he was already at my side.
“Are you alright?”
I turned quickly to him, startled.
“Yeah…” I whispered. I glanced back at the door. “Yeah, I’m fine…”
I was pretty far from fine.
I was terrified of myself. Why was I seeking attention from Dana? Why did I not flinch away from his touch? Why didn’t I fight him and tell him to go fuck himself? Why? Why?
I remained seated as people entered the hall and began socializing. No one bothered me. Clark stayed by my side and I remained looking at the floor, caught up in a terrifying spiral of thoughts that made me wonder about my reactions to Dana.
“Lily,” Clark said, his voice tense. I saw him staring at the door. When I followed his gaze, my eyes fell on my parents as they walked into the meeting room. I took a deep breath and braced myself.
“Lily!” my father said, sounding relieved as he walked over and hugged me. “It feels like it’s been forever since I’ve seen you,” he smiled, kissing my cheek. My heart broke into pieces.
“Well, you’ve been busy,” I tried to say as casually as possible to hide the pain in my voice.
“Yes, I’m sorry about…what on earth happened to your face?” he asked, grabbing my chin and turning my head to look at the bruise. I swore that the next person to do that would get smacked.
“Oh…” I said, trying to decide the best course of action.
“Karen, look at this,” my father called. My anger rekindled. My mother leaned close to my father to look at my face.
“What is that? What happened?” she asked as though she did not already know. There was an intensity in her eyes and that told me exactly what would happen to me if I told the truth.
“I ran into a door,” I said, looking away from my father and pushing his hand away. “I’m alright.”
“We gave her some ice,” Clark nodded at my side. “Sorry, it happened while she was at my house.”
“You need to tell her to be more careful,” my mother chuckled, backing away and calling to someone else, socializing in order to avoid me.
“Thank you for taking care of her,” my father smiled, walking to Clark and putting an arm around his shoulders. “You have to be very kind to your girlfriend, particularly a one of a kind one like my daughter,” he said, smiling proudly at me.
“Thomas,” a man called, motioning him over.
“Excuse me,” my father said, moving to the other group. Clark looked at me apologetically as I rubbed my temples. When I saw Clark’s awkward, apologetic face, I closed my eyes and groaned.
“I’m getting a headache…”
I avoided looking at my mother through the evening. If it didn’t already seem to people that Clark and I were dating, I knew asking to go home with him would raise suspicions and spread rumors about both of us like wildfire, which would eventually get back to Dana.
I was still considering asking in order to stay away from my mother.
I also knew it was a possibility that I would just blurt out to my father what I knew about Dana’s affair with her. I tried to keep my mouth shut and my eyes away from my parents.
The meeting went quickly and no one questioned the whereabouts of the leader of the Commission of the People.
It took us a while to get out of the meeting once it was over because others from the Europe trip were talking to my mother and father about preparations and meetings. Eventually, we were able to get out of there and head home. I was tired and upset about a million different things. I did not want to speak because the thoughts in my head could not coordinate themselves.
I said goodnight to my parents and went to change, carefully slipping into Mykail’s room when I saw that the lights downstairs had been turned off.
“It bruised…” he noted, touching the mark on my cheek. I decided that Mykail didn’t need to be slapped for touching my face, even though I was still annoyed at how much attention the bruise was getting. I could not look at his gentle, worried face and be angry.
“I’m just all kinds of turned around right now,” I sighed, straddling his lap and leaning my forehead against his as he wrapped his arms around my waist. I wanted him to hold me forever. It made me feel safe, made me feel wanted and loved.
“You don’t need to be thinking about anything other than this moment,” he whispered, lifting his forehead away from mine before running one hand through my hair and smiling. “Just be here with me. Don’t be with Dana, don’t be in the revolution…just be here with me…”
“I wish I could just shut that part of my brain off,” I groaned. “It would be a nice break.”
“Do you want to give it a try?”
“You won’t do what I want to do,” I murmured, looking him over hungrily. He hesitated and I felt his apprehension, making my heart fall again.
“Lily…your parents…”
“First it’s Dana, now it’s my parents…” I growled. I was too tired to actually be angry, but I was annoyed.
“I’m sorry…” he whispered. “Really…I just…”
“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “Just…I just want to sleep.” I kissed him lightly and smiled against his mouth. “Hold me?”
The routine was the same—fall asleep in his arms, wake up alone. I absolutely hated it. I could not wait for my parents to leave for Europe so I could wake up with Mykail’s arms still around me.
I pulled my protesting body out of bed and showered, half-asleep and mentally absent. I had to leave early for two reasons. One reason was that I needed to meet with Clark and go to the fort to clean it up. The second reason was that I needed to avoid my mother.
The bus ride was not as long that day because we were going to start cleaning from the first entrance we wanted people to use when coming to the fort. As we opened the door in the rock wall of the old drainage pipe for the reservoir, Clark and I discussed how to keep the fort’s true location a secret.
The entire day was dirty work, fixing what we had found to be broken on our previous visit and cleaning out the bunk rooms, going through the preserved food to discard anything that was no longer edible, and overall cleaning the fort.
We were both completely filthy by the time we headed back to Clark’s house. We went to another part of town where Clark called for Mark to pick us up. When Mark looked us over from head to toe, confused about the dirt and grime on our clothes, I told Clark that we could not go to his parents’ home for dinner in that state.
Clark gave Mark instructions by leaning forward in the car and pointing where he wanted to go. We stopped in front of a mini-mall, where Clark and I found the nearest store and bought a few items on the sale rack. We went to the bathrooms to change before going back to the very-confused Mark waiting in the car.
At dinner, Mr. and Mrs. Markus paid little attention to us, talking about other preparations that needed to be made for the Europe trip, discussing what they had talked over with the others.
Clark and I remained silent, eating ravenously.
Mark drove me home and even walked me to the door, holding the bag with my dirty clothes and the printout Clark had given me of prisoners in the holding cells. I said a tired goodnight to my mother and father, who were going over some papers on the table, and made my way to my room, where I forced myself to take a shower even though every bone in my body screamed at me to collapse into deep slumber. However, considering all the dirty work Clark and I had done that day, I knew I had to wash before surrendering to unconsciousness.
I thought I fell asleep in the shower because there was a knock at my bathroom door that frightened me and pulled me out of a half-conscious state as I sat lazily on the shower seat in the direct path of the hot water.
I irritably turned the water off and stepped out of the shower, not awake enough to deal with my parents. I looked at myself in the mirror as I toweled dry and realized I had a few scrapes along my arm and a bruise that was forming on my knee. Coupled with the bruise on my cheek, I looked like I had been in a fight.
I opened the door once I had wrapped a towel around myself and was startled to find Mykail.
“I thought you had fallen asleep in there,” he grinned.
“I think I did…” I droned, turning the lights off in the bathroom and stumbling to my dresser, not even thinking about the fact that I was only clad in a towel in Mykail’s presence.
“How did everything go today at the fort?”
“Really well,” I nodded, angrily attacking the tangles in my hair with the brush as I fought to stay standing. “Clark and I are going to bring some of the others there on Sunday.”
“I wish I could be one of them…”
“You still have your tracers…” I looked at him seriously.
“I know,” he said. “When your parents leave on the trip, though, I want to take them out.”
“Oh, God, can we not talk about that now?” I asked. I still felt nauseous when I saw the miniscule scar on my hand that reminded me of the tracers.
“Sorry,” he chuckled.
I replaced the brush and sighed, ignoring the fact that I was still in only my towel, and climbed from the foot of my bed up to the pillows, lazily pushing Dexter to make him move before collapsing in the bed.
Mykail chuckled again and walked to the side of the bed, pulling the covers out from under me.
“Come on,” he urged gently. “Under the covers.”
I groaned but obeyed, crawling under the blankets and feeling Mykail tuck me in. I put my head against my pillow and took a deep breath, feeling sleep envelop me quickly as Mykail took his spot over the covers next to me and tucked a few wet tendrils of hair behind my ear.
* *** *
I had never really felt fond toward school, but I never hated it as I did now.
Monday was chaotic. Clark, Melody, and Cody were running around finding Commish Kids to go on the tour of the Censor Board and I was doing the same. Only my job was to find the Commish Kids who were not in my classes, which was twice as difficult.
By the end of the school day, I was sure we had found fifteen people for the tour and a few more just in case some could not make it. Clark and I discussed who was probably going as we were driving to the Commission, and when we found our conference room, we quietly brainstormed how we were going to bring people to the fort that Sunday, using the underlining method in our books to communicate.
Tuesday was filled with nothing but nervous thoughts and anxiety. I continued to think about how things could go wrong with our risky plan. I felt that I was completely out of control of the situation. I had
not programmed the message, did not know how it worked, and had to completely rely on Clark and Melody to pull this off without putting the entire revolution at risk.
Wednesday rolled around and I could not focus on anything, not even my two exams. I continued to stare into space, feeling frightened and worried about what would happen after school.
Getting a message out to the people was not something we could take back, particularly on the large scale we were planning. If we managed to succeed, that was it. There were many times while planning the rebellion that I had thought it was the final step and there was no looking back from my commitment, but today was the day that people outside the Commission would start to learn the truth about the institution they trusted to keep them safe.
Twenty people were enough to be a nuisance. But two hundred million would be enough to bring much-needed change.
Mark had been informed of our tour at the Censor Board and drove us to the building instead of the Commission of the People, even though the Censor Board was in close proximity to the small building for the Commission.
When Mark pulled up, Dean, Melody, Cody, and Sarah were already outside.
Mark drove into the parking lot and parked, remaining in the car, waiting to take us to the Commission when the tour was finished. I walked up to the other Commish Kids, commanding the nerves in my stomach to settle.
“Are you ready?” Melody asked Clark, her voice also tight with apprehension. We were all nervous. This was an enormous risk and we were going up against an enemy we, unfortunately, knew all too well.
“Yes,” Clark nodded, clearing his throat and putting his hands in his uniform pockets. He had briefly flashed the USB drive to me in the car, so I knew he was holding on to it tightly.
“How are you going to get that inside?” Sarah asked.
Melody did not say anything and Clark took a deep breath, bringing my attention to him. He put his arm around me, dropping the USB into my pocket before his hand rested at my waist.
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