“Ethan.” He sticks his hand out and shakes with Henry before pointing us out. “That’s Rebecca and Eric.”
“Right nice to meet both of you. Just follow me, and I’ll show you the shortcut.”
Henry guides us along the fence for a few yards before making a sharp turn into the woods. There’s a thin path that I never would have seen. It’s only wide enough for one person, and Henry is probably the one person who wore it in.
“I’ve never been here, but the leader is John David,” Ethan whispers to me over his shoulder. “I’ve heard he’s a bit of a stickler for keeping things running sharp, but he’s fair.”
After only a few minutes, the path ends as the trees clear, and we come into the village from between two buildings that are almost falling down.
“Rider’s house is that way.” Henry points to the south end of town. “I can let Samantha know you’re here.”
“Actually, we’re here to see John David.”
Henry scratches at his chin but doesn’t question us. “In that case, you’d better follow me.” He leads us through town, and I’m beginning to realize just how similar all the Freemen villages look. The details vary from village to village, but the overall effect of abandoned buildings, renovated with sub-par materials and tools, is consistent. It’s nice that there’s some familiarity no matter where we are.
Several others are walking in the same direction as us. My stomach rumbles, and Eric raises an eyebrow at me. After several days of living on only what we could catch or find, my stomach is begging for a regular hot meal.
We follow Henry into a large building with tons of little round tables stationed around the room, most of them filled with villagers. Some groups eat in companionable silence while others are alive with conversation and laughter. The air is filled with happy chatter, probably directly linked to the amazing smell coming from the kitchen.
Henry stops at an empty table and pulls a chair out behind me. “Rebecca.” The boys pull out their chairs and sit as well. “If you’ll just sit tight, I’ll let John David know you’re here.”
His mop of bright red hair floats off into the crowd, leaving us behind to collect curious stares and whispers. I still don’t know what I’m supposed to do different this time in order to convince John David to join us.
I barely have time to think through my opening line when a man around Liam’s age with thick, black hair and tired eyes stops at our table.
“John David is…busy. I’m Michael, his second. What can I help you with?”
He doesn’t sit, and I hover on the edge of my seat, unsure if I’m supposed to get up or just sit here and ask him to join our non-existent army like I’m ordering a meal.
“I’m Rebecca. This is Ethan and Eric. I’ve got a few things to discuss if you’ve got some time to sit with us.”
“Honestly, I don’t.”
I stare back at him, my mouth open like a baby bird waiting on its next meal. Eric coughs next to me and lifts his eyebrows as if to say “get on with it.”
“Okay, well, first, we want to warn you that the Cardinal is attacking Freemen villages. There have been several attacks in the past few weeks.”
“We know.”
One more. Spit it out, let him say no, and get out of here. “Okay, well, we’re traveling around to the other villages. It’s only a matter of time before the Cardinal finds all of us.” I swallow against the stumbling words that I’m struggling to spit out. “Our only chance is to fight back. We want everyone to join together and stop the Cardinal from killing anyone else.”
Even I can hear the weakness in my words. It’s a miracle Michael hasn’t kicked us out yet.
He crosses his arms over his chest and stares down at each of us in turn. “How many villages have agreed to fight so far?”
All the moisture evaporates from my mouth and the word barely whispers out. “None.”
Michael nods, his face an unreadable mask. “I can’t imagine—” He shuts his mouth and closes his eyes for a long moment, as if he’s looking for the strength to send us away. “Only John David can make this kind of decision. I’ll have someone bring you a dinner plate. Just wait here.”
He marches away without another word, leaving the three of us to stare at his retreating back. I feel like I should say something, but words are failing me. What would I tell them? Sorry I failed, yet again.
After a few minutes, a young boy of maybe ten comes over with a tray of plates. He gives one to each of us and then scurries back off to the kitchen. I pick at a perfectly baked potato while Ethan and Eric dig in as if we haven’t eaten in days.
The minutes tick by, and no one makes any approach to our table. Several tables nearby finish their meal and head out, slowing down as they pass us to get a good look. More tables get up to leave, and I’m beginning to wonder if Michael and John David are in a back room somewhere having a good laugh at the crazy girl trying to start an army. By the time the boys finish their lunch, there are only a handful of tables left. Time to go figure out what happened. I stand to leave, but I’ve barely pushed back my chair when a giant of a man with shoulders twice as wide as my own arrives at our table in a tornado of movement.
“I am so sorry. It’s been one of those days today where there just aren’t enough minutes in each hour. Of course, it doesn’t help that I move twice as slow these days.” He waves a cane up in the air and plops into one of the empty chairs. “I’m John David, and I understand you’ve come all this way to see me.”
I sit staring open mouthed for a beat too long. The leader of Blue River could give Ethan a run for his money in a fast talker competition, and his gruff voice comes out like he’s shouting every word he says. I’m not sure how to handle this mountain of a man. Whitney was straight-forward, no nonsense. But John David is like an unpredictable storm.
“Did Michal explain why we’re here?”
John David waves his hands in the air as if to bat away an annoying fly. “Michael knows I like to get my news from the source.”
I shrug at Ethan’s raised eyebrows. “We’re from Allmore.”
“Good people there.” John David seems incapable of going longer than five seconds without speaking.
“They were until the Cardinal’s guards attacked, killing several of our villagers and forcing everyone into hiding or begging for shelter at another village.”
“We don’t have much room here, but we can always make a little more.”
“Thank you, that’s generous, but we’re not here about finding housing. The Cardinal is focusing his energy on attacking Freemen villages, and I want to talk to you about fighting back.”
“Stop right there; I don’t need to hear anymore.”
My heart sinks. I didn’t expect to convince him, but I thought I’d have a chance to try. “But—”
“We’re in.”
I’m too stunned to make actual words, and my chin is glued to my chest.
“Well that’s, that’s fantastic. I mean, um, wow. I just. I wasn’t expecting it to be that easy.”
“The writing’s on the wall, chickadee. It’s like you said, the Cardinal has decided to show attention to the Freemen, and he’s not going to drop it. He’s like a dog with a bone.”
I shake John David’s hand and offer him my best I’m-not-crazy smile. “I guess I just expected to have to convince you a bit.”
“Turns out someone already beat you to the job.” John David stands and motions for someone behind him to join us. “Course we’ve got a bit of an unfair head start. Don’t we, Phillip?”
Another man with skin as dark as wet ashes walks up to the table. “More like an inside man.” He turns his attention to me and holds out his hand. “Hello, Rebecca.”
“I’m sorry, do we know each other?”
He chuckles. “In a round-about way, I guess. My name is Phillip Whedon. I’m Daniel’s father.”
Twelve
John David stands and offers his chair to Daniel’s dad. “I hate to run o
ut on what I’m sure is about to be a fascinating conversation, but apparently I need to make some plans. I’ll see you in a bit.”
Phillip sits down and smiles at us. Now that I know the relation, it’s easy to see the similarities. Daniel has the same eyes as his father with the little flecks of gold resting in the center. Their ears are the same as well, but the nose is all Patrice. Patrice. I push the thought away. Eventually I’ll have to tell him what happened, but it can wait.
I rack my brain for a soft entrance to the conversation, but there really isn’t one. “We thought you were dead?”
“Really?” Mr. Whedon rubs his chin in thought. “I guess I can see that since I’ve been reported as missing. In the Cardinal’s world, that’s as good as dead.”
“But how did you escape the capital?”
“As a member of the Cardinal’s council, I had certain privileges. Like access to my own transporter. The Cardinal wanted us to be available at any time of night or day, and that meant we couldn’t rely on the Airtrain schedule. I was able to take the transporter deep into no man’s land before the Cardinal even realized I was missing.”
“Don’t those come equipped with tracking devices?” Eric tenses next to me.
“I took care of it.”
With the Cardinal practically banging on our front door, we can’t afford any mistakes. “Are you sure?”
“Who do you think taught Daniel everything he knows about electronics? My tracker was removed and routing along with a delivery truck within a few minutes of the Acceptance ceremony. Trust me, if the Cardinal had a way to track me down, I’d be dead by now.”
“So you just found Blue River?”
“More like it found me. I was riding through the woods, going faster than I should have, when I almost ran into Henry. I’ve been here ever since, hoping that someday I’d figure out where my kids are. Do you know where they are?”
My brain switches to autopilot while I search for the words to tell him his daughter is dead. “We were all together in Allmore, but the Cardinal attacked there a few days ago. The village split up to find new places for everyone to stay while the three of us came out here to warn the other villages.”
“So they’re with one of the other groups?”
Stall. Keep stalling. “Daniel is traveling with a group, heading south, trying to stay out of the Cardinal’s reach.”
“And Patrice?” Phillip’s fingers tighten around the edge of the table.
I swallow the knot tied around my vocal cords, suck in a breath, and release it to the count of ten. The exercise calms my racing pulse, but does nothing for the nausea building in my stomach and prickly heat on the back of my neck. Pressure builds in my sinuses as I open my mouth to deliver news no father should ever have to hear.
Eric’s leg bounces out an erratic beat under the table. I place a gentle hand on his knee and finally say the words. “Patrice didn’t make it.”
Phillip deflates in front of me. His face loses tension first, then his shoulders sag and his spine gives out, sinking his body down into the chair. Limp arms hang at his side and unseeing eyes stare right past us. “How?”
“Another village by us was attacked. We rode out to help. One of the Cardinal’s guards hid in the woods until we were ready to leave.” My words echo through the empty room, dragging out the pain of the retelling. “He fired into the crowd. It could have been any of us.”
“Was Daniel there?” His voice is hollow.
I nod and place a hesitant hand on his arm, but he doesn’t notice. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Whedon. I know it doesn’t change anything, but you should know that Patrice died surrounded by the people she loved and who loved her.”
Eric wipes away a quick tear. Under the table, I squeeze his hand.
Phillip lifts his head and wipes his hands over his face in a movement that reminds me so strongly of Daniel it opens a gash in my chest. “Knowing Patrice, she didn’t make it easy for any of you to love her.”
I snort-laugh and a little bit of life returns to Phillip’s face. “She was determined to hate me, actually, not that I blamed her, considering Daniel and I are the reason she was put in the PIT. But I came to love her like a sister.”
“Like a sister?” Phillip raises a single eyebrow at me and glances at the simple band on my ring finger. “What is your last name, Rebecca?”
“Whedon.”
“I had my suspicions seeing you together when you hacked the Acceptance feed.” He grabs my hand and squeezes so tight the tips of my fingers turn white. “I’m glad Daniel has you.”
The four of us sit in comfortable silence. I wish Patrice and Daniel were here right now. Or better yet, that we could go back to the day Daniel and I got married and Phillip could have been there. Maybe if he had been, Patrice wouldn’t have followed us to Arbor Glen, and she would still be alive, and Daniel wouldn’t have a death wish intent on single-handedly taking out the Cardinal. I wish for a million things, but wishes are as fleeting as the fluff of a dandelion.
“You look a lot like Daniel.” I shift in my chair, suddenly uncomfortable at having broken the silence. “Or, rather, he looks like you.”
Phillip smiles with a far away look in his eye. “Daniel was my best friend. We used to spend every weekend in the workshop, tinkering with a new gadget or programming something only a person with unlimited imagination could think of. He’s always been so curious.”
Ethan leans back with his arms behind his head. “Do you have any good stories?”
“Dozens.” Phillip laughs and his smile is so like Daniel’s it almost hurts to see it. “Let’s see.”
Phillip leans against the table as if he’s about to divulge government secrets. “He couldn’t have been more than eight. It was summer and everyone else was at the pool, but Daniel wanted to stay home to watch some program.
“We were only gone a few hours, but by the time we got back he’d completely dismantled the projector and had all the parts sorted by color. He said the picture was fuzzy so he wanted to fix it. I asked him if he knew how to put it back together again and he looked at me with a perfectly straight face and said, ‘How hard can it be?’”
Ethan, Eric, and I burst into laughter. That sounds exactly like Daniel. I guess some things don’t change.
“It took us three weeks to get the projector back together, but Daniel loved every minute. That’s when I knew he was going to be a gadget junky, just like his old man.”
My heart warms imagining Daniel and his dad together, before the Cardinal ruined everything.
“Tell us another one about Patrice.” Eric leans against the table, eating up every word Phillip says.
Daniel’s dad raises an eyebrow at Eric. “Patrice used to follow her big brother around everywhere, which of course, irritated Daniel to no end. There was one time when Daniel was about fifteen, so Patrice had to have been ten or eleven. He was working on some new chip modification for his Noteboard and had ordered a special tool for the circuit work.” He takes a quick drink and swallows before laughing at his own memory.
“Patrice was so mad that Daniel was spending all of his time working on the chip, so she stole his tool and hid it. Of course, Daniel knew exactly what happened, but when he got ahold of Patrice she had forgotten where she hid it.” Now Phillip is laughing so hard, he can barely get the words out.
“They spent the whole weekend together tearing the house apart to find where she hid it. Daniel was furious, but Patrice was as chipper as a blue bird with all the time they got to spend together.”
Eric wipes at the corner of his eye, and I gently squeeze his hand under the table. One of these days he’ll need to tell Phillip about how much he loved Patrice, though I think Phillip is beginning to get the idea.
Phillip stands suddenly with both hands on the table. “We need to have a conversation with John David. We could sit and share stories all day, but the way I understand it, we’ve got a revolution to plan.”
Phillip motions for all of us to fo
llow him back out into the village. With lunch finished, there aren’t many people outside. Like Allmore, they’re probably off working on their various jobs throughout the village. My mind pretty much blocks out everything else. I’m laser focused on Daniel’s dad. He leads us down a few streets and into another building, this one is divided up with several doors leading off the entrance.
Phillip knocks on the door straight ahead. A tired voice calls out to come in, and the four of us file into an office that looks like it’s never been used. Whitney’s office was organized, but you knew she was working. There isn’t so much as a push pin out of place in here. One wall is nothing but bookshelves filled with neatly lined up books, organized with precision by size so they almost look fake. There’s nothing on the desk, not even a pen or child’s artwork. The burn of bleach tingles in my nose, blocking out any other smells in the office. The whole room looks more like stage scenery for a play than a working office.
“Good, you’re here.” John David turns to Michael, standing sour faced off to the side. “Do you have what you need to get started?”
Michael nods and leaves, shutting the door behind him without so much as a nod in our direction.
“You’ll have to excuse Michael. He’s done wonders to help me around here, but he doesn’t always agree with my methods.” John David gestures with his cane to several utilitarian chairs in front of his desk. “Take a seat, and let’s get started.”
I grab the back of a chair to move it closer to Ethan and Eric, but leave it where it is with one withering glare from John David. This guy takes control freak to a whole new level. He could give my mother a run for her money.
“I swear, you kids showed up just in time.” John David settles down behind the empty desk and rests his arms on a padded chair that has to be more comfortable than the metal ones we were offered. “Phillip and I have been scheming for a while now to figure out a way to take down the Cardinal. So let’s hear your plan.”
All eyes turn to me, and I swallow a mouthful of sand. “Well, the plan is pretty loose at the moment. I’m more of a convincing messenger than a leader.”
Rite of Redemption (Acceptance Book 3) Page 8