Table of Contents
Title Page
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A Synopsis & Table Of Contents...
Inspiring Words
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Copyright
The Bounty
Deceit
Book 4
Dystopian Romance
By: Kacey Lu & Third Cousins
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A SYNOPSIS & TABLE OF CONTENTS...
Sarah has done everything that the council has asked of her. She’s paid of her father’s debt and now it’s time that they hand him over. When she gets to the city and demands that he be released, she finds herself learning dark secrets about her father’s past which make her question everything she has done. When her father is taken away from her again, she realizes that the council have lied to her, and when she realizes that Nathan isn’t coming out to meet her, she knows there is only one person out there who will be able to help her.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DISCOVER MORE BOOKS BY THIRD COUSINS
A SYNOPSIS & TABLE OF CONTENTS...
INSPIRING WORDS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
DISCOVER MORE BOOKS BY THIRD COUSINS
COPYRIGHT
INSPIRING WORDS
“In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”
- Desiderius Erasmus
CHAPTER 1
Sarah
I could see Nathan in front of me. He was being pushed roughly forward by the two guards, who had handcuffed him. I wanted to hurry my steps so that I could walk beside him until the last possible moment, but I knew that would only lead to questions. I couldn’t let the guards suspect that I’d grown attached to Nathan. If they knew that, then they might question my loyalty to the government.
I turned my eyes to the paved road beneath my feet. The deep black color of it attracted the sun’s intense heat. I could feel the surface starting to soften, as my shoes stuck ever so slightly with each step that I took. The road was lined with buildings. It reminded me of a maze. There were turns you could take, but you could never fully see whether you were heading in the right direction.
The guards stopped when they reached the courtroom. The outside of the building was depressing. The rough gray bricks looked too uniform. The windows didn’t seem to shine in the way you’d expect with the sun so bright overhead. Everything about it looked and felt cold. One of the guards pulled on the glass door and opened it, so that Nathan could walk in.
I waited for him to turn around. I waited for him to look at back at me, so that our eyes could say goodbye, but he didn’t. He walked straight into the building and then the guards continued to shove him on his way.
I stayed outside the building until they went around a corner and I couldn’t see them any more. I tried to ignore the deep pull I felt towards Nathan. I tried to ignore the voice screaming in my head to go after him.
I forced my view away from where I’d last seen Nathan. My eyes had become adjusted to light inside the building and they burned as I turned them back to the otherwise bright street ahead of me. I turned my eyes up. The huge gold-colored skyscraper caught my eyes and I realized that there was no point in putting it off any longer.
I walked towards the skyscraper. It was a place that I’d been to many times before and my feet seemed to know the way without me having to direct them. It didn’t take me long to weave among the many streets that made up the city: it was a maze, but I knew this part of it pretty well. Occasionally I would notice someone giving me a strange look, as they tried to figure out my place in their society.
The people of the city were unlike all others. Most of them had never even set foot outside of the city walls. Their ancestors were all considered important when the great technology switch-off had happened, so they were given places of residence in the city. Their descendants inherited the right to live here. The people of the city were self-entitled and even less wise about the world than I was.
I stopped when I reached the golden skyscraper, which sat in the heart of the city. The double doors opened and closed automatically as people in fancy suits walked through them. I hated meeting with the council. I hated walking into the building, which looked so much like a pillar of hope but became soul-crushing as soon as you entered it.
I walked to the doors with a sigh and waited for them to open. The doors rubbed against the guides set into the pavement, as they pulled open and away from me. The sound was deep and grainy. I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck starting to stand on end, as the sound refused to stop ringing in my ears.
The reception desk was straight ahead of the doors, and I walked over quickly. There was a tall, dark-haired guy sitting behind the desk with a headset clipped to his ear. I opened my mouth to speak, but he held his finger up as a gesture for me to wait.
“Hello, you’ve reached the council reception desk,” he said cheerfully to his microphone. “Sure, I can help you with that. I’m just going to put you on hold while I patch you through.” He pressed a button on the phone in front of him and then rolled his eyes, before turning to me.
“How can I help?” he asked with his big brown eyes, making direct contact with mine.
“I wish to meet with the council. I don’t have an appointment, but I think they’ll want to see me. Tell them that Sarah is here and her debt it paid. They’ll know what that means.”
He frowned as if translating from a difficult foreign language. “The council won’t see anyone without an appointment.”
“Just make the call,” I told him dryly, because he had no idea what he was talking about.
He glared at me, but as I didn't crumple up and burst into flames under the power of his disapproval, he punched a button on the phone. I watched, as he relayed the message I’d given him, and watched as he nodded, still scowling, at the response.
“They’ll see you now,” he said tightly.
“Thanks for the help,” I smiled. I walked away from the reception desk and over to the bank of elevators. I could see the guy's reflection in the shiny elevator doors, and I watched his eyes watching me until the doors finally opened and I could step in.
I felt my stomach turn, as the elevator launched me toward the top floor. I tried to control the jitters which were starting to make my body shake. This was it. This was what I’d been working towards my entire adult life. I was finally going to get my father back. He was finally going to be free.
The elevator stopped and the doors opened, revealing marble floors, high ceilings, busy important people, and other people who seemed to be doing nothing but watching me. They went on watching me as I moved toward the council chambers.
CHAPTER 2
Nathan
I was being cooperative; there was no need for the guards to keep shoving me along. I tried not to let my frustration show on my face. I knew that I needed to convince the city that I was ready to accept their regime.
I felt the front of my shirt rip into my neck, as I stepped forward and the guard behind me pulled me roughly back to a stop. “You’ll be seen in here,” he muttered to me, before he knocked on the door.
The door opened quickly. A small man with thick glasses looked out into the hallway timidly, as though he wasn’t sure who to
expect. “What is it?” he asked the guard.
“One of the bounty hunters brought in an old worlder. They need to be put before a court.”
The man nodded and his glasses slid down his nose. “Okay, well bring him in here and I’ll see what I can do,” he said, pushing his glasses back up and turning to look at me.
He gave me a wary once over, as though I was some kind of riff raff that he would rather keep out of the city. “Come on then,” he snapped, when I didn’t move.
I stepped forward and the guard who was standing behind me released his grip on my shirt. I walked into the room and past the man, who only came up to my chest.
The room was pretty simple. There was a long rectangular table which ran down the center and chairs lined up all around it, but other than that it was empty.
“You need to take a seat at the top of the table,” the man said to me, when he’d closed the door on the guards who were still standing outside. He reached down into his jacket and pulled out a small black box which had buttons running down the side. He pressed the biggest and lifted it to his mouth. “We have an old worlder about to stand trial. Can all free juries please come down to room B.”
I walked over to the seat he’d told me to take and sat down. It was hard beneath me, but I hadn’t really been expecting any comfort.
“What happens to me now?” I asked him, as we waited to see who would respond to his open air message.
He looked at me with a scowl. “You’re not to speak unless you’re spoken to, that’s for certain.”
He turned his attention away from me when a knock came at the door. “Oh, good,” he said, and stood aside so that the juries could enter. “We can get started when everyone’s sat down,” he said loudly, as the room started to fill.
It took a good ten minutes for everybody to sit down and for the room to grow quiet. The small man stood up; when he was sure that everybody was ready to start and cleared his throat.
“We have today an old worlder. We are to listen to his story. We are here to learn where his intentions lie. We are here today to decide whether he should become a part of society. Or not.” Everyone in the room looked at one another, like a team making sure all members were ready, and then everyone turned to me.
“Explain yourself,” the man with the glasses said and I realized that I was supposed to be using this time to win them around.
“My father was an old worlder. When I was nine years old he was killed during the resistance. Since that day I’ve been trying to keep a low profile. I haven’t continued with my father’s work. I realized the day that he died that fighting against the government was futile. I just didn’t know how else to live, so I stayed in the woods.” I couldn’t be sure whether any of them believed me. I could feel their eyes burning into my face, as I spoke. I could feel them, judging every noise I made and every pause I took.
“Is that your story?” the man with the glasses asked dubiously.
“It is.”
“Okay, well, we are going to discuss your sentence. But what would you like to come from this? Would you be willing to accept a chip implantation, if we decide that you can be trusted?”
“I would.”
The man nodded and then walked over and opened the door. “Can you take him down to lock up while the decision is being made?” he asked the guards who were still standing outside the door.
They walked in and I stood up, so that they wouldn’t manhandle me.
The walk to lock up wasn’t far. The guards said nothing to me, but they’d stopped shoving me, which felt like a small improvement.
The lock up was a long corridor, lined with barred cells. I didn’t have time to count them all, but I was sure that there were at least ten. The guard in front of me pulled out a set of keys from his jacket and unlocked a barred cell, which I assumed was for me. I felt the guard behind me push me roughly and I stepped forward.
I walked into the cell and noticed that it wasn’t empty. An old man with graying hair and a visible ribcage was curled up in a corner.
“You need to get up, old man. You’ve got a visitor,” the guard taunted him. The man looked up from the ball that he’d pulled himself into. His movements were slow and I could tell from the wincing in his eyes that he was in a lot of pain. “Can you hurry up, old man? We don’t have all day.”
The man somehow managed to push himself up. His clothes hung from his body in tatters and I wondered what he had done to get locked up. He stepped forward shakily and made his way out of the cell.
The guard with the keys fastened the lock and I listened, as their footsteps faded off, until I was quite sure that the only company I had left were the prisoners in the other cells.
CHAPTER 3
Sarah
“I’ve done everything you have asked,” I said without waiting for permission to speak. “I have collected the traitors. I have paid off my father’s debt. You must keep to your word now. You must let me see him.” I tried to sound confident. I tried to sound, as though I wasn’t giving them any alternatives, although we all knew that the power was with them.
“I’ve been told that the traitor you have brought in today has already stood trial. We’re awaiting news on the verdict as I speak,” a blond-haired, sharp-eyed councillor said without rising from his seat.
“Oh, I do hope that he’s a fighter. I always love it when we get to have traitor sent to death. It’s always such a morale booster,” a dainty little woman with a wicked smile chimed in. “Don’t you think so dear?” she asked, as she turned her devil eyes to me.
I wanted to punch her stupid face. I wanted to take my fist and knock out every single one of her pearly white teeth, until she had none left to smile with.
I could feel my hand curling into a fist and I forced it back open, as I held my anger back and smiled at her tightly. “I’m sure it does.” I held my voice steady and kept my eyes on her, until she nodded with somewhat approval and turned away from me.
“So, you’ve come for your father?” she asked me, but she kept her attention focused on the reflection of herself in the mirrored wall behind me. “You must be very excited to see him after all this time.”
“I don’t mean to sound rude, but I’d just like to see him,” I said shortly.
She glanced back at me and away from her reflection. “If you don’t wish to sound rude, then perhaps you shouldn’t be rude,” she said with small wrinkles forming on the bridge of her nose. “I’ve arranged for your father to be brought over from the lock up. If you go down to the third floor, then you’ll find a meeting room has been set aside for you.”
“Thank you,” I said with a small dip of my head. It was meant to be a sign of respect, although I was unsure about how much respect I actually felt towards the woman who had been getting excited over the idea of putting the person I loved to death.
An elevator was waiting for me, doors open. I stepped in and hit the button for the third floor and my father.
It didn’t take me long to find the meeting room. It wasn’t anything special. There was a small window that allowed the bright sun to pour in. There was a small leather couch pushed against one of the walls and a large potted plant in the opposite corner.
I sat down on the couch and waited for my father. It had been so long since I’d seen him that I couldn’t even remember what he looked like. I was sure, though, that age would have changed his appearance anyway, even if I could have remembered.
Footsteps outside the door sent my heart into a frenzy. I stood up and then sat down at least twice, and then the door handle started to push down. The door opened.
My eyes fell on a nearly crippled man with graying hair and his skin tight across his bones. “Dad?” I asked him, because I couldn’t be sure.
“Sarah,” he said and even though his voice was croaky and quiet, I could hear the loving tone behind my name. I walked forward quickly and helped him, so that he could get to the couch.
“You’ve grown into such a beauty.
I can hardly believe how big you’ve gotten,” he said, as his old eyes searched my face for the little girl that he’d been forced to leave.
“Thank you, daddy,” I said, as I held back tears and put my arms around him. I pulled him close and rested my head against his shoulder for a while. There was so much I wanted to say. There was so much that I wanted him to tell me, but that could all wait. At that moment, the only thing I really needed was my father’s love and I was finally able to have it.
“Sarah, I need to tell you something,” my father said, as he pulled away from my embrace with a concerned look on his face. “I don’t know what the council has told you about me,” he started.
“They haven’t told me anything about you.”
He nodded. “I figured that might be the case. The thing is, Sarah. I’m the reason that the old worlders failed in the last resistance. I grew too scared of how close we were to frying the chips. I started to worry about what the world would be like without any form of order at all and what kind of world that I would be forcing you to grow up in. I’m the traitor. I’m the man who turned over the old worlders' plan to the council.”
I wanted to laugh. I wanted him to tell me that he was joking, so that I could laugh. He didn’t. I gave him some extra time just in case he was trying to be dramatic, but he was just waiting for me to say something. “You’re the reason that they all died? You’re the reason that resistance failed?”
“I did it for you, Sarah.” His voice was desperate. His eyes were full of shame and burden.
I wanted to tell him that everything would be okay, but I wasn’t prepared to lie. He’d been a traitor to his people. He’d been the reason that so many of them had died. And when he’d been imprisoned, the council had turned me into his carbon copy.
CHAPTER 4
Nathan
The cells were pretty cold considering the weather outside was so warm. I could feel goose bumps rising up on my uncovered skin, as I waited for somebody to come back for me. I had no idea how long I would be waiting. I had no clue as to whether it would be an hour or a week.
Deceit Page 1