I push myself to the max, my body attempting to reject my mind's desire to travel faster. It hurts to breathe and it hurts to continue running but I can't abandon my pursuit now for physical pain. I'm trained to resist pain. The Purge should help me as well but it's failing drastically, which leaves me to question if the drug is really all it's cracked up to be.
The traffic starts to thin as we approach the bridge. The Old Paradise Bridge extends over a wide area of the Utopia River but the bridge is no longer used because of its historical importance. The bridge was a part of an intense standoff between rebel forces and the Amber Army during the terroristic reign of the Wanderer. It serves as a reminder to the members of SAFE of the devastating defeat they faced there as well as in the Northern Ruins.
Thunder overhead suddenly but the sky is devoid of gray clouds. There's no lightning flashes either or threat of a deluge. The Zeppelins are coming. I'm running out of time to save Charlotte.
The bridge draws nearer, arching over the flowing river to connect to the other side of the island. I start slowing my pace automatically as I race up the sloping road. Charlotte is almost at the top and if she makes it to the edge of the bridge before I get there, then it's off into the river she jumps. I don't know if she'll survive the plunge but history proves that she can. Once she's in the river, she will surely escape because she's an excellent swimmer. The Zeppelins will have difficulty scanning the water as the vectors of fish and other critters will throw off the readings. I have to hand it to Charlotte. She knows what she's doing. She is definitely cleverer than her school reports give her credit for.
I scale the slope, my shoes pounding against the pavement. "The Zeppelins are en route, Agent Cato," Officer Raikes informs me as though I can't hear the rumbles in the sky. I ignore him and press on, struggling up the hill. At the top, I find Charlotte scrambling up the framework of the bridge. She slips for a moment, which is enough time for me to return to level ground and aim my pistol directly at her back.
"Freeze!"
Finally, Charlotte does as I request after climbing up onto one of the railings of the bridge. She stands there looking down, anticipating her leap. I have to talk her down.
"Listen Charlotte, my name is—"
"I don't care what your name is!" She shoots back before I can begin to finish addressing her. "You're a White Agent, my enemy, and that's good enough for me."
Okay then. Time for a different approach. I creep closer towards her, my hands shaking.
"I don't have to be your enemy," I tell her truthfully. "In fact, I'm not your enemy. I'm—"
She scoffs and glances back at me behind an unfamiliar face. But the eyes, the eyes I recognize, bore right into me so hard that I feel ensnared. Captivated even. No that's not right. Or is it? I don't know. Charlotte Tatum is the first person I have ever met who causes me to question everything I know. She's an enigma or perhaps my growing obsession with her is. No. I don't have obsessions. At least I'm not supposed to.
"You're pointing a gun at me," she tells me. "You took a shot at me earlier and now you claim you're not my enemy?"
I lower my weapon to prove what I said was true. She turns back around to face forward.
"There. I'm not pointing my pistol at you and I definitely won't shoot at you again." I inch closer slowly. "Now, how about you step down from there. You don't have to run anymore."
She scoffs a second time. "Do you think I'm stupid?" She demands. "If I step down, you'll arrest me for a crime I didn't commit."
"I won't," I correct her, even though I know I'm lying. Despite what I believe about her, she's still a fugitive and until her hearings are all said and done, I still have to arrest her. My position in the Amber Army depends heavily upon her capture. But I promise to myself that I won't let her go down for Emerson's murder. But if helping her jeopardizes my future then I don't know what I'll do.
"Yeah right," she says bitterly.
The Zeppelins are nearly here. I can see them now, growing larger with each passing second.
"I know you're innocent," I tell her hastily. "If you come with me right now, I can help you. But if you keep running then there's nothing I can do for you."
"Aww, I didn't know White Agents cared about helping criminals," she says sarcastically. "How cute."
"I'm going to find Emerson's true killer and I will get you off the hook if you'll come with me now."
Silence. Charlotte thinks for a moment, no doubt weighing her options. Maybe my words are finally starting to impact her. She needs to believe me.
"How did you know it was me?" She surprises me with an unexpected question.
I freeze this time. "What do you mean?"
"At the orphanage. How did you know it was me?"
I understand what she means and I'm almost afraid to admit how I recognized her. But I'm not afraid of anything except for perhaps losing her to prison.
"Your eyes are one of a kind. That's how I recognized you. I've seen you riding the monorail a few times."
She doesn't say anything. She stands there quietly. The rumble of the Zeppelins is deafening now. I can see their lights scanning the area for Charlotte.
When she doesn't speak for nearly a minute, I say, "Those Zeppelins are coming for you so why don't you—"
Without warning, she jumps. I rush towards the edge of the bridge, listening for a splash. It happens before I can peer over the side. I lean forward and stare at the water. She surfaces and for a moment I swear she looks up at me before she takes a deep breath and disappears beneath the water.
She's going to escape again and I allowed her to do so.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Charlotte
Currently Listening To: "Sweet Nothing" by Calvin Harris featuring Florence Welch
I'm stunned. He let me go. Why? I can't answer that. Because he thinks I'm innocent? That was a lie, a ploy to get me to step off that bridge. White Agents don't believe in innocence because they don't believe in anything. They view the world in black and white. To them, there are no gray areas.
But he let me go.
The events of yesterday play over and over inside of my head. He recognized me because of my eyes. So . . . he paid attention to me on the monorail. I don't know how that makes me feel. I want to feel joy, happiness that a boy noticed me even when I didn't think he had. But I don't feel joy. I just feel strange, unsure about anything. Again, I'm reminded of the books I've read, particularly those involving romance. If we were characters in those stories, then the boy noticing me would mean the world to me and that he was interested in me. But we are not characters in a novel, so his interest in me doesn't mean anything. He's a White Agent. Observing people is what he do, what he's good at doing. I'm sure he would have recognized me if I was another person he has seen on the monorail before.
"Your eyes are one of a kind . . . "
His words are like a broken record in my mind. Over and over again those words repeat. They don't sound like something a White Agent would say. Maybe I should have trusted him.
No. I shouldn't have trusted him. He's a White Agent. He doesn't care about me. Everything he said were lies. He just wanted me down off of the bridge so that he could cuff me. He wanted to steal all of the glory of the arrest from the Zeppelins.
He knows who I am. Of course he does. He's a White Agent. He knows everything about me, all of my secrets except for my hidden place and my occupation as a Messenger. I don't know anything about him, not even his name.
I chide myself for not allowing him to give me his name when he tried to yesterday. Before he chased me, I had wanted to know his name so badly it hurt. But I ruined my one and only chance. I'll probably never know the name of the boy I could possibly love if the world was different.
If the world was different . . . .
After another escape involving the Utopia River, I hid out the rest of the day underground, not daring to show my face again on the surface until nightfall. Under the cover of darkness, I returned to L
illy's for some food, avoiding the Zeppelins that were patrolling everywhere. After a thirty minute argument, she convinced me to spend the night with her with some security in the form of a few SAFE members. I remained freaked out by my late-night attack.
Earlier this morning, Aidan called with some good news. He finally figured out how to break the cipher on the hippo thingie. I hope that whatever we find on it can help clear my name. I won't hold my breath though because the legal system of Paradise is unjust. Even if I can play detective and find out who had it in for Noah Emerson, it probably won't matter. I'll probably still join Scarlett in prison.
Despite my lack of faith in those sworn to protect me, those who are supposed to pursue justice, I will stop at nothing until I find Emerson's killer. For my own sake. I can't rest, even in a prison cell, if I don't at least learn the truth.
"Charlotte, are you okay?" Lilly asks me, snapping me out of my thoughts. She's guiding her sleek black car along an empty road, having volunteered to drop me off near the train yard entrance into my hidey hole before she heads to the studio for a couple of hours to finish filming her latest flick.
I was staring out the window at nothing in particular before she spoke. I glance at her now. "Yeah, I'm fine." I lied but at the moment I don't care. Being on the run is hard and right now it's starting to take its toll on me. And things would only get harder if . . . no when I sneak Abigail out of the orphanage and break my father out of BioLife.
Lilly removes one of her hands from the steering wheel and places it gently on my leg. I allow her to touch me. In fact, I don't care.
At once, I feel that strange sensation that occurs whenever she touches me. All of my problems seem to dissipate momentarily, like mist evaporating from a window.
"You're not okay," she tells me and she's right. After all, she knows me better than anyone except for my family. "You've been through a lot lately and that's why I'm willing to help you."
"Thanks," I tell her sincerely. "Even though I don't like you risking your freedom for me. What if we get pulled over right now? You would go down with me for harboring a fugitive."
"It's worth the risk," she says, "especially once we find out what's on the drive."
"Yeah," I agree. I want to believe that the drive will change everything but it's hard, even with Lilly comforting me.
We ride in silence for a while until Lilly squeezes my leg gently. I didn't even realize her hand was still there. "Are you sure you don't want me to escort you to retrieve the disk?" She asks me, trying to be a friend.
But I shake my head. "No, I'll be fine. You've already done enough for me." I didn't want to tell her that I didn't trust anyone right now, even though she's my best friend. Besides, the less she knows the better she'll be if I'm caught.
She releases her hold on my leg and at once the weight of the world is upon my shoulders again. "Right here," I tell her as we draw closer to my old neighborhood.
Lilly slows the car to a crawl and pulls up alongside the curb. The street stands deserted as far as my eyes can see. My eyes find the forest to my left that I plan to use as a shortcut to the train yard. The tall trees sway in the wind, inviting me to come and pay a visit. I welcome the cover they'll provide until I'm underground.
"Thanks for the ride, Lilly," I tell my best friend, unbuckling my safety belt and moving to open the door. "I'll see you at Aidan's later." Aidan planned to meet us in another abandoned parking lot, where his motor home will be cloaked, of course.
"Be careful," Lilly tells me as I push the button to open the door. I watch in amazement as it lifts up and outward. A Gull-wing door I think it's called. Those types of car doors were very popular with expensive cars like Lilly's about a half of a century ago. Somehow the style resurfaced as styles often do. Circular history, my old professor would say, as evident in the SDP projections.
"I always am," I tell her softly, sliding out of the car. Lilly doesn't drive off until I disappear into the first row of trees lining the woods.
The moment she's gone, I rush through the forest in a different direction than the train yard. A sudden urge, a peculiar desire, has suddenly flared up inside of me and I don't know where it came from. Maybe I'm feeling nostalgic but I head home. It's a dumb move on my part. What if the cops are watching the house? But I don't care. A sudden recklessness has taken hold of me and it won't let go until I visit my old house, however brief.
The coast appears clear as I emerge from the safety of the trees. I pause to listen but I don't hear the telltale signs of approaching Zeppelins. Projected police tape, which is not a SDP, encloses the entire house and front and back yards. A lot of common people don't know this but walking through police tape not only registers a person's vector but triggers a silent alarm inside of city hall. Within two minutes, cops will be all over my fanny if I pass through the border. So, I just have to duck under it. Easy enough.
When I'm positive that there's no one around to see me, I break into a run, darting straight for the backyard, passing through several neighbors' yards to get there. I drop under the police tape, careful to not even let a single strand of hair pass through the projection. After a quick game of limbo, I rush to the back door and glance over it quickly, making sure the White Agency hasn't rigged it with some kind of alarm. There appears to be nothing out of the ordinary so I unlock the door and use the sleeve of my hoodie to cover my hand as I twist the doorknob. I blitz inside and quickly shut the door behind me. Then, I take a look around the kitchen.
The house looks the same as when I last left it, except things are out of place now. Investigators have combed the place well. The floorboards concealing my father's secret stash of liquor have been ripped away, the former contents emptied. The dining table has been moved and so has the refrigerator. I walk through the kitchen and into the sitting room beyond. Memories flood my mind, breaking the levee of which I tried to contain them.
I remember mostly good memories—family game nights, dinner on the days that my father felt his best, and Abigail helping me with my homework and not the other way around. I remember memories concerning Scarlett as well, such as the late nights we spent talking about what we do if the Purge didn't exist or about our adventures as a Messenger and a White Agent trainee. We were so different as far twins go, but also alike in many ways.
I also recall bad memories, although I don't want to. The night I yelled at and pushed Abigail plays several times in my mind, as well as seeing the cops escort Abigail and my father out of the house that night they came to arrest me. Scarlett's arrest stands out vividly. I tried to help her go on the run like I am currently but she wouldn't listen to me. She had bravely accepted her punishment for believing wholehearted in something few people did. And I admire her for it.
I ascend the stairs and waste a few minutes in the rooms of my father and Abigail. All of the medical equipment that kept my father alive has disappeared. His room is empty, like the way I suddenly feel inside. Abigail's room remains full of furniture but all of her clothes are gone, having traveled with her to the orphanage.
It's when I walk into my room that I start to break down. Everything is a mess in here, a wreck like me. Furniture turned upside down. What little clothes I have left are thrown everywhere. It's like a tornado swept through here in my absence. I collapse onto the floor by the door and I can't prevent myself from crying with trembling lips.
It really hits home right now that everything I know is gone. This is a place I will never be able to return. The memories I have here are all that's left but they will fade over time. Why does everything have to be taken from me? First, it was my mom and Scarlett and now Abigail, my father, my home, and my life. Why did all of this have to happen when all I ever wanted was to live? To be free. A free spirit, like the group named rightly so.
Suddenly, my resolve to fight returns. Yeah, all of this bad stuff happened to me but there are still people in my life worth fighting for—my father, Abigail, Lilly, Aidan, little Elijah, Emma, the Free Spirits, an
d perhaps even the agent boy. When I can no longer cry, I rise to my feet, my spirit renewed. And I start cleaning up my room. I don't know why but I do.
I clean and clean and clean some more until I know it's time for me to go, to say goodbye. As I'm folding up the last pair of pants—Lilly's skinny jeans I borrowed on that day I officially met Emma—something happens.
A crumpled piece of paper tumbles out of one of the pockets. I place the jeans on top of the pile I'm taking back to Lilly's place and bend over to scoop up the paper. I unfold it and remember suddenly when Emma handed it to me in the library at school.
I read the words scrawled on the wrinkled page:
If you're ever interested in studying biology, you can find us here:
5310 Libria Drive
The words confuse me for a moment. But then I picture the conversation I had with Emma what seems like a million years ago. "We would meet occasionally as a study group," Emma had said. Study group? The Free Spirits. This is the address of the location that the Free Spirits meet.
Emma told me that if I ever needed their help, they would be willing to provide assistance. I plan to hang on to the slip of paper in case I need help one day. I have few allies and I can always use a few more. The only problem is that I don't like jeopardizing anyone else's life for the sake of mine, especially not a group of kids who shouldn't idolize me. I'm a criminal and not the next Chancellor.
I leave the house soon thereafter. It's difficult to walk out the door, knowing that I won't ever come back, that I'm leaving for good this time.
But I make myself leave and I reach the train yard before I know it and without incident.
I cross the familiar train tracks, weaving almost aimlessly between and around broken train cars. My shoes crunch down on gravel. Off in the distance, I can see a trace of pink in the air—the Purge is currently being dispensed.
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