THE ELECTED (Fighting Freedom Book 2)

by Paige Clendenin

  The ELECTED

  The Fighting Freedom Trilogy II

  By: Paige Clendenin

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2019 by Paige Clendenin

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing, 2018

  Publishing and Cover Design by:

  https://www.hydraproductionsonline.com/

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Be sure to look for Fight Freedom 3 – THE DIVISION!

  Chapter One

  Feathers remind me of the peace… a freedom that seems so far away. I hold the feather necklace my mother had given me, thinking of the possibility of peace as the heat of the day warms the utility vehicle to an unimaginable temperature. The ten of us try to spread as far apart as possible to stifle the sticky feeling caused by each touch.

  Thoughts of the past few days go around and around in my already clouded mind. It all seems like it could have been a dream. But sitting here, watching my loved ones and my closest enemy suffer from near heat stroke, the reality hits me like a ton of bricks. The only one I wouldn’t mind dying from any kind of stroke would be Morimoto Chi, but I am told we need him alive, for now.

  I can’t say I agree.

  As the vehicle inches closer to our next destination and further away from The Force complex, our security in knowing what is coming is growing less sure and more unpredictable.

  Jake looks calm driving us into uncertainty in the hopes of saving our sisters. Syl and Shae were taken by The Elected in the Methrodine epidemic to make them soldiers for their sadistic cause. The Elected plans to use the children taken from The Force to fight the war that is to be called, The Division.

  Before leaving The Force, Samantha recovered a file sent to The Force from The Elected about the war in progress. She is not sure what it says exactly, because time was not on her side to look through it then, so she took it, however, she knows they are war plans that might come in handy.

  Sooner rather than later, most likely.

  The file is important to her, well to all of us, but Samantha appears a bit unpredictable from time to time and some of us aren’t quite sure to what extent we should fully trust her. After all, it hasn’t been long since she had been talking about every man for themselves. Just a day or two ago, to be exact.

  Getting her to give up the file to a more reliable person would be very unlikely, however, it may be something I should talk to Jake and Eli about if she were to go off her rocker again.

  As I glance around the vehicle, everyone is in various states of conversation, shock, sadness, calmness, and even anger. Morimoto, of course, is beyond angry, cursing in his native language every chance he gets. He knows that he could never outman or outrun any of us, at least in his current state, but nonetheless, he is furious.

  Mar and Eli are whispering back and forth while Zac is fast asleep across their laps. I know he has been through so much and is still recovering from his own drug induced illness. It hasn’t been that long since he himself woke up from a Methrodine induce coma. We found him at The Force Field when Gavin, the head guard, told us that an antidote called The Defender had been designed in minimal quantities, and it had been used on him to help him recover. We were given a few doses of it, but we may never see another ounce of the stuff… Who knows if there will ever be another way to erase the dependency? I can’t say that I won’t stop trying. We will need something to help Syl and Shae once we get to them.

  Magi, who was a nurse in the medical compound at The Force, tends to Zac as well as Leah and Shawn who has appeared to have teamed up due to sheer necessity. Shawn has not fully gotten his strength back but gets better by the hour. We had agreed to give Shawn a dose of The Defender in hopes that it would work for him, and it did. We were more than willing to take our chances, because he was going to die anyway. Now, as I look at Shawn comforting Leah, I smile inwardly knowing he is alive and appears to be back to himself for the most part.

  Leah has been through so much. She was too close to the explosion at the compound, and her burn marks will show for years to come, but she appears to be healing somewhat. She also cries from time to time for missing Derik. His death still rings in our hearts, especially since he died less than twenty-four hours ago. Being the first from our group to die, has caused the war to become even more personal than it ever was.

  “Did you see that?” Jake speaks up and breaks my trance.

  “See what?” I ask, looking around to gain my composure.

  “There was a man lying in the grass on the side of the road back there,” Eli remarks.

  “That’s the first person we have seen for hours,” Mar chimes in. “Was he alive?”

  “I think so,” Jake answers.

  “We must be getting closer to a check point,” Samantha says, while raising up high enough to see out of the window.

  The only windows in the utility vehicle are in the front and on the driver and passenger sides; there are no rear windows at all. Those of us that are stuck in the back have no way to see out unless you are sitting between the drivers and passengers’ seats like Mar, Eli, and Zac are.

  Jake has been the one who has driven the entire time. He, Samantha, and Magi are the only ones of us who know how to drive. Eli and I have been rotating the passenger seat, so that puts me up front for the moment.

  “No, I didn’t see anyone,” I say, ashamed that my daydreaming has gotten the best of me yet again.

  “Do you think he’s a guard or a lookout?” Shawn asks, pulling up onto his knees.

  “He didn’t look like it,” Jake replies, “but the only guards I have ever seen were dressed like the ones from The Force. It’s possible that he could be from The Elected, but I don’t know.”

  We all become more alert, pulling our guns and bags a bit closer. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Mar and Eli gently waking Zac up for good measure. Magi pulls her sack onto her back, the one that Gavin gave to us when we left The Force Field. I would say at the moment, hers is the most important to make sure we have with us.

  We all must be ready for the worst; however, we are hoping the sighting of another human only means
we are coming closer to a town, but we couldn’t be that lucky…

  Could we?

  With each turn of the tire, we search for civilization, but there is nothing. As far as the eye can see, there is nothing but trees, desolation, and wasteland. I remember how dismal my section of the Corridor looked, but out here, where there aren’t any humans, the Earth is almost unrecognizable.

  To our left is dense woodland full of odd-looking trees, and to our right is a huge crater in the earth. It may have been there for all of eternity, but some gut feeling causes me to think a bomb put it there. I shiver outwardly thinking about the people who caused this war. They are the same ones that plan to start a new one, the ones that have our family as prisoners, and have made the rest of us like zombies, dependent on a drug that we aren’t sure when we will run out.

  “I can’t believe my father is a part of them,” I say quietly.

  “Huh?” Jake asks sounding distracted.

  “I can’t believe my father is a part of The Elected,” I say, again. “A part of all this,” I gesture around me.

  “I know,” Jake whispers. “I can’t think about it, Liz, remember, my dad is a part of it now too.”

  “For some reason thinking your dad was dead one second, and a bad guy the next…” I trail off thinking about the betrayal and how my mom will feel when she finds out, if she doesn’t already know. If she and Lydia are still alive that is.

  “It does something to you,” he finishes my statement still looking ahead at the road. “I have seen it, Liz.”

  Simultaneously, an alarm sounds accompanied by a pecking sound, odd sweet odor, and a small jolt every few seconds. It’s coming from the utility vehicle! Our conversation cut short as usual. I can’t say that I mind this time, I have noticed the changes in me for a few days now, I had hoped Jake never would. He and I are too much in sync for him not to have caught on.

  Jake mumbles something under his breath that I can’t make out as he drives the vehicle off the road and into a cluster of trees.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask, but before I get the words out, Jake puts the thing in park, leaves the engine on, opens the door, and jumps out of the truck, grabbing his M-16 at the last second. Shawn and Eli are close behind him, climbing out of the same door Jake went out of just seconds earlier, closing it behind them. Zac tries to follow, but Mar pulls him back.

  I grab my AK-47 and open the passenger door, leaving my backpack in the seat.

  “I will see what is going on and let you know,” I say as I look at Magi, Mar, and Samantha.

  “Ok, I will have some fun with this guy,” Samantha says as she gives an evil look at Morimoto while rubbing her hands together mischievously. She looks like an anxious kid ready for it’s present.

  I close the door before I can find out what that means.

  “What’s going on?” I ask, as I round the front of the vehicle, but it is then that I notice the trail of orangish red liquid coming from under it. The boys have opened the hatch and are peering inside. Jake looks angry while Shawn and Eli look puzzled.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask again. This time I approach the hatch and look inside. Not that I know what I would find or what I should be looking for. I am sure I look just as clueless as Eli and Shawn do.

  “The transmission is shot,” Jake says with a grunt as he slams the hatch closed.

  Shawn, Eli, and I look at each other, not knowing what he is talking about. We hadn’t seen any vehicles to speak of other than the vans that took us on the day we were kidnapped and the vehicles we have used to escape The Force. “What’s a transmission?” Shawn asks.

  “It is one of the things that makes the vehicle run,” he answered, “and it’s not working, which means the van will not move from this spot another inch.”

  “That’s bad,” I say.

  Jake spins around to look me in the eye for the first time in forever.

  “Yes, it is bad, but it will be ok, Liz, we will figure this out together,” Jake whispers, low and soft, then he spins on his heels and opens the driver side door. “Hop out,” he shouts the commands to everyone left inside as he grabs his backpack and the keys, turning them to the off position.

  The vehicle’s engine stalls, but now we are beginning to realize that ours is not the only engine in ear shot.

  Chapter Two

  The remaining members of our party left inside do as Jake instructs and pile out with guns and packs in hand. As she comes out, Samantha drags Morimoto behind her, him trying to resist with no success. Since the second we apprehended him on the roof of The Force complex, we have kept a close rein on him. He has not been untied for even a second since the night Jake fought him. I think Samantha is enjoying making him suffer just a little bit too much. She always has been one for making a bad guy suffer.

  Although, I am all for it.

  All at once, we hustle further into bank of odd-looking trees, heading into the start of yet another wooded area. The woods may have to become our home after all of this is over. The Force complex and the woods are about the only home any of us know anymore. Returning to the R9 may never be an option. It would never feel like we belong even if we did return. The people we were when we left that place are so far from the soldiers that we are now.

  It takes a minute to gauge from what direction the sound of the oncoming vehicle is coming from. We all hold our breath while trying to analyze the situation praying that for once we are all wrong.

  “It’s coming from the east,” Jake whispers while pointing towards the direction we had been traveling from.

  We all look to the east as if awaiting something huge to happen.

  “I wonder if it is someone looking for us?” Mar asks, almost so low you can’t hear her. “Or a stranger?”

  “I guess we will find out soon enough, we left a trail of transmission fluid for half a mile,” Samantha says in a snarky tone. Jake glares at her almost as a reminder that her tone is uncalled for. Her tone is almost always uncalled for, but she wouldn’t be Samantha then.

  I don’t know at what point he and I became the leaders of this group, but we are who everyone looks towards for orders now. Except for Morimoto, of course, Samantha is the only one that tests that theory from time to time, but Jake always seems to be able to shut her down.

  Samantha rolls her eyes in protest, but she maintains her silence knowing that not doing so would put her on Jake’s bad side, and no one wants that.

  “That’s what I thought,” Jake says as he turns back in the direction of the sound with a slight grin of satisfaction on his face.

  “They must be driving slow,” Magi says, “it is taking them forever to pass.”

  “Unless they have stopped,” Zac says, with a look of hope in his eyes.

  “They haven’t stopped, buddy. I don’t think so, anyway,” Eli replies. “I can still hear the turn of their tires; don’t you hear that thud sound?”

  Zac shakes his head in acknowledgment with a look of disappointment on his face.

  “If they are guards from The Force,” Mar pipes up, “they will be keeping formation like before, right?

  “If it is The Force, they will be traveling in a convoy of six vehicles with a large gap between them,” Magi answers. “That is protocol for all members of The Force who leave the complex.”

  “That is how we maintained the utility vehicle we are using now,” Samantha tells Magi.

  She had stayed back in the woods with Zac, Shawn, and Leah at that time. They were all too weak or sick to fight or be put through the trauma then. None of us may be strong enough to be doing this now, but we have no other choice.

  “We took the last one in the convoy after Samantha shot all the guards inside,” I finish.

  If I think of all the people who have died in the past few days at the hands of all of us, me included, my stomach aches with guilt. For the twentieth time in the last hour alone, I have had to remind myself that we are in a war and those who have died were bad people who would not have
thought twice to kill any number of us. I’m sure we haven’t broken the surface on the casualties that will pile up the closer we get to Syl and Shae.

  Magi nods her head in conformation.

  Suddenly, the source of the sound comes into view. It is a vehicle for sure, and by now, it is slowly creeping by. This one is nothing like the utility vehicles the guards use. It is a blue truck like the one that Jake had at the complex, only, it appears to be a bit bigger. On the door of the truck is a small label that is too small to read from the distance we are at, and none of us want to risk getting any closer to see what or who they are.

  The truck begins to slow down even more, the closer it gets to the bank of trees our vehicle is hidden in. I wouldn’t say it is well hidden. Samantha is correct, we left evidence of our whereabouts for a while down the road.

  “We need to get further into the woods,” Eli offers.

  He and Jake exchange a glance, looking deeper into the woods behind us. Nodding their heads, they both motion for us to begin running. We all take off into the tree line even further. Both of the men on either side of us run backwards with their guns trained on the woods. Samantha and Magi are dragging Morimoto behind them.

  He is refusing to run.

  “The truck has stopped,” Zac almost yells the words as he looks over his shoulder while running.

  “Be quiet, they could hear you,” Mar tells her brother. He shakes his head ever so slightly, confirming that he understands. The look in his eye would suggest something more than fear.

  Moments later, we have reached a clearing in the woods, but a ravine stands between us and our escape. The hole in the ground is about fifteen feet wide and twenty-five feet deep, so we could never jump it. It would be possible to climb, but not with Chi and that would only be if we had all the time in the world.

  The sounds coming from the truck have stopped now, and in the distance a figure begins its decent into the woods. Whoever they are is now out of their vehicle and headed in our direction. Panic fills my heart and the eyes of everyone with us. I try to think of something to do as everyone looks to Jake and me for guidance.