Before long, she stopped her examination and laid back, gazing up at the stars. They were spectacular. The bright twinkling lights accompanied by the harmonic hum of crickets, the moon beaming a glowing light into the shadows. She closed her eyes, inhaling deeply the fragrant air. It contained a humidity comparable to the military underground, yet it smelled fresh and delicious.
This moment surrounded by the exotic environment was breathtaking, and she reveled in the sensations. It was almost worth it. The hardship, the pain. It was tempting to silence her mind and get lost in the intoxicating sensation as she knew that this moment of peace was all that fate would provide for her.
It was then that she knew that no matter what she did, no matter how hard she tried, her life would never give her peace. She wasn’t born for peace, to be happy, for simple enjoyment. All she really had was this one moment to enjoy the stars, the moon, and the breeze on her skin.
At least I got to be with Colin again, no matter how short our reunion may be.
A rustling sound pulled her from her blissful enjoyment of the space. Slowly, she sat up, hearing muffled voices in the distance. Her eyes narrowed as she focused on the two men standing near the riverbank.
It only took a moment to realize that one of them was Colin. Her heart seized.
What will I tell him? What will I tell anyone? They’ve worked so hard to build their home.
He wanted her to be proud of all they accomplished, and she was except their one major oversight: never underestimate the State.
Tears welled in her eyes as the gravity of their situation sunk in a little deeper. A man who shouldn’t have loved her enough to save her, put her to sleep so they could be together when he should have let her go. No one else on the colony had experience with greenery in its natural form.
She looked straight up at the treetops, marveling at their height. The image of the dome overhead crept into her mind’s eye, seeing where the trees would have been trimmed to contain them under the glass.
Slowly, she rose to her feet. Even though numbness spread through her limbs, she made her way to the riverbed.
“Don’t be pissed at me, Colin. I know this ruined your plans with your lady, but it couldn’t be helped.”
“I just wish you had stuck to the plan. I asked for 2 days. That’s all. Two days! I just wanted to give her a bit of time to adapt to everything before I broke the news.”
The other man laughed sarcastically. “Mate, it wouldn’t matter if you give her a year. There ain’t a good time to tell her that we’re all screwed! Everything we’ve done is for nothing and we might not live through this because the State has beat us again. Seriously, just get the balls and go tell her cuz there is nothing that’s going to soften that blow.”
It felt as though her heart stopped beating. The numbness in her extremities instantly melted away into fire. “You knew? You knew we were on Earth and you didn’t tell me.”
Colin and his colleague both spun.
“Freya?”
The fire completely engulfed her. She knew that no matter what happened, it wasn’t Colin’s fault they were in this mess. But she had nowhere else to direct her rage.
“How could you wake me up and fill my head with lies? Why bring me to a home and claim that it’s where we’ll share the rest of our lives together when you know we aren’t going to live long enough to have a future!”
His friend stepped forward. “We didn’t know! As soon as we found out, Colin came and woke you up.”
“As soon as he found out? So, he didn’t take the time to construct a lie to tell me first—one he apparently asked you to wait 2 days to tell me?”
They shared a guilty look, and she spun around. She had to leave. Being reunited with Colin was the only silver lining she had to discovering what they lost. Now, she wasn’t sure if they were united at all.
“It’s not that simple,” his friend called out to her back.
She kept placing one foot in front of another, not knowing what she would do or where she would go. All she knew was she had to do something, and she may have to do it alone.
The State had tricked her, again. War was on the horizon. But this time, there would be no middle ground. No longer was she fighting for the right to choose, but the right to live. There would be no justice, only revenge.
Even if it cost her life.
Chapter 38
Freya
Only one sound could penetrate past the thundering of her own heartbeat.
“Freya. Hey. Freya!”
Her body propelled forward.
“Just wait,” he said as he grabbed her arm.
She jerked her arm away from him as though his fingers contained embers. As she turned her body toward him, gearing up for a verbal assault, her shoulders fell as she realized the unwanted touch hadn’t been from Colin.
“Would you just give me a minute to explain? It’s not what you think.”
Freya’s head cocked to the side as she peered at the slight man in front of her. “Not what I think? I’m pretty sure the State faked colonization and we’re still on Earth, and Colin lied to me when he woke me up.”
He smashed his lips together while looking up. “Okay. Yes. That part’s true. But I guess my point is, it wasn’t Colin’s idea. He wanted to come running home the second we found out and tell you, but I convinced him that my plan was better. Clearly, it wasn’t.”
Her eyes narrowed. So many questions swam through her mind.
Come home from where? How would it help anything to wait? Why would Colin listen to someone who doesn’t even know me?
Finally, one question became the most pressing, bursting past her lips. “Who the hell are you?”
Aakil straightened his shoulders and extended his hand. “Aakil. Chief Scientific Advisor of the colo—well, of here.”
Freya peered past Aakil, seeing Colin sitting on the ground, his shoulders slumped, looking at the ground vacantly.
Nothing added up. Who was this scientist and why would he tell Colin to lie to her?
She took a deep breath, trying to contain her temper. “You are a scientist.”
“Yes.”
“And yet you’re trying to tell me that you just found out we’re still on Earth?”
Aakil’s face fell. She could see his exposed skin flush crimson through the reflected beam of moonlight.
Colin slowly rose to his feet. With downcast eyes, he said, “Aakil, I guess you’re no longer the smartest person in the colony.”
Aakil’s head snapped toward Colin. “Really? You’re gonna rub that one in, are you?”
Colin stayed a safe distance behind them. “Well, you are my Chief Scientific Advisor.”
“Well, I guess that makes me the smartest out of all the idiots then.”
Colin nodded slowly, keeping his eyes on the ground. “Freya, I know you hate me, again, but we really just found out.”
It was incomprehensible. Out of everyone here, no one could see such a blatantly obvious truth. It boggled her mind.
Maybe as the former Head of State, I’m the only one here who knows what the State is capable of.
“Are there no greenhouse workers here? I took one look at the vegetation and—” she hesitated.
Suddenly, it felt as though she couldn’t keep her feet beneath her any longer. Aakil rushed forward, catching her by the elbow before she went down.
He slipped an arm around her back to ensure a firm grip. “How about you take a seat? Maybe get something to eat, too.”
Freya shook her head and tried to push away from him. Despite her exhaustion, his touch made her skin crawl. She didn’t know him, yet he seemed able to easily sway Colin. “No. You’re not getting me something to eat so you can weasel out of this.”
Colin arrived at her side. “Freya, there is a nice patch of grass just a little over there. It is the safest—well, usually the safest place to talk without being overheard. You need to sit down. How about I start explaining while Aakil gets you a
snack.”
At the moment, she didn’t know if she could trust either of them, but with the dizzy sensation swirling in her head, she saw little alternative. “Fine.”
Without another word, Aakil shot off toward the buildings. Colin crammed his hand in his pocket but offered her his arm to hold on to. The gesture seemed intended to offer assistance while still holding back from any intimacy between them, but she just couldn’t stand the thought of touching him or him touching her.
She couldn’t tell where they were headed in the darkness, but Colin seemed to come to an abrupt stop. As she looked up, she could see light reflecting below.
“This is the river,” he said as he sat in the grass.
“Moving water?” She flopped down with her attention focused on the swirls and motion of the current.
“Yeah.”
It was so loud—peaceful in a way—yet nothing could numb the silence between them.
“How did you know?” he finally asked.
She clenched her jaw.
He should be the one explaining, not the other way around.
Just as the thought crossed her mind, she remembered how only hours ago, all she wanted was their second chance, her second chance to make things right between them.
“The trees. They’re Douglas Firs. They only grow in the western hemisphere…” She sighed. “And that means that we can’t be very far from the dome, either.”
“Aakil says we’re far enough. We won’t run into them, but we’re pretty vulnerable to an air-strike.” He shifted, relaxing his body slightly. “And that’s it? You just looked at a tree for a second and knew.”
His pain was evident. So much of her was still angry at him for lying, but she softened again, knowing that living here for so long and missing what it took her only moments to see couldn’t have been easy.
“You know, when we were first coupled, and you hated me, it hurt but I also knew deep down that you just needed to get to know me. But now…”
“Colin.”
He took in a deep breath, blinking moisture from his eyes. “You have every right. I messed up. Everything. It’s my fault. I should have never made you sleep. You would have taken one look around and come up with a plan and made everything okay. Now, it’s too late. Everyone’s worked too hard to build this place. They won’t leave.”
“Won’t leave? Did you tell them yet?”
“No. I woke you first.”
She pressed her eyes closed. He couldn’t be thinking clearly. “How could they possibly stay after you tell them? That’s crazy.”
“Yeah, and they think I’m nuts.”
“What?”
He barked a sarcastic laugh before responding. “Freya, people believe what they want to believe. I’ve been trying to convince the Advisors for over a decade—”
“The Advisors?”
He winced. “Yeah. Something else I messed up.”
Before he could respond, Aakil returned with a small sack. “It’s not much.” He placed it down beside her. “Just some jerky, fruit, and juice.”
“Thanks,” she mumbled and dug into the sack. First, she took a sip of the juice encased in a strange flexible bag with a spout. The sweetness instantly sent a jolt into her mind. The fog cleared, uplifting her energy levels.
“Well, did you two sort this all out while I was gone?”
Colin huffed. “You wish.”
Aakil nodded. “I suppose I hoped we could smooth things out quickly.” He turned his attention to Freya. “I think the biggest takeaway you need from this is I’m the one who messed up. It was my idea for Colin to come home first and give you the whole song and dance before I—”
“Came home from where?”
Aakil grimaced. “Oh God. You haven’t even gotten that far.”
“No. We haven’t really gotten anywhere because I have no idea where to start.” He ran his hand through his hair, tugging at the ends. “We messed up. We messed everything up. Everything we can tell you is about how we made one mistake after another consecutively for 16 years. And with each mistake, I knew I should have woken you up and didn’t because I just kept telling myself I still had time to fix it.”
“Until one day, boom,” Aakil theatrically threw his hands out to his sides. “We find out the State screwed with us yet again, and suddenly all of our mistakes don’t mean shit because we never stood a chance anyway.”
Freya looked down at the untouched items Aakil brought her. The juice had done wonders to clear her mind, yet she knew there was nothing to help her find clarity in this.
“So, you messed up. Both of you. Where are we at right now? What’s the plan?”
Aakil leaned forward and snatched a small piece of a dark substance laid out on the cloth before her. “Our plan was to wake you and hope you can convince everyone to pull their heads out of their asses.”
Freya sighed, then rubbed at her eyes.
“She doesn’t know,” Colin replied to Aakil, then turned to head to speak to her. “If I had woken you sooner, things would be different. But even though you were the Head of State and everyone loves you and wanted you to be Queen, we’ve been pushed aside.”
“What?”
Aakil grabbed a handful of berries from her cloth and crammed them in his mouth before responding. “Colin has been telling everyone from the start that we need to leave this place. Nobody wants to hear it. Nobody. They think he’s nuts, and we have nothing to fear from the State.”
She closed her eyes, trying to comprehend how something so ridiculous could be true. “That’s obscene. I don’t care if they believe we are on a colony world. Even then, it’s stupid to stay where the State put us. That only makes us an easy target for when they return.”
Aakil dramatically rolled his eyes and threw his arms open wide. “Thank you! Finally, someone agrees with us.”
It was mind-boggling. She didn’t know if her time in gestation made her mind foggy, or if the situation was simply incomprehensible. Regardless, she needed to move. She pushed to her feet. “Okay, so we agree we need to go somewhere else. Do we have options?”
“Yes, we do have somewhere to go, sort of,” Colin began. “Since we couldn’t convince anyone to leave, we’ve worked on building forts every summer through the mountains.”
“What does that mean?”
“We’ve built an escape route,” Aakil answered. “That’s actually how we figured out that we’re on Earth. We found an old shelter with books and a map and such.”
Colin slowly rose to his feet. “Forts are small shelters. They contain supplies so that when a group of people want to travel through the mountains, they have food and water and such.”
Her breath hitched. “That’s great!” She hesitated. “Isn’t it?”
Aakil’s head teetered back and forth. “It’s something. The only problem is, we don’t really have anywhere to go once we cross the mountains. I mean, we have a theory, but as the community long ago labeled a certain someone we know as an alarmist, we don’t feel we’ll have much sway.”
She wasn’t sure she understood what Aakil was getting at but knew there was nothing more she could currently gain from his remarks. “I want to go home. We can’t sort this all out in one night.”
Aakil nodded slowly before gathering the items he’d brought her. He stood upright and peered at her for a moment. “Freya, I know we got off on the wrong foot, but it’s really nice to meet you. You’re all I’ve heard about since we woke up.”
She pursed her lips, fighting back a pang of guilt. Her anger at their betrayal may have been justified, but she could already tell this situation was complex. Maybe they could have done better, but maybe they’d simply done what they could.
Aakil turned and left them alone. She hadn’t responded because she didn’t know what to say. They had spent almost half a lifetime together without her, a concept she was all too familiar with.
Her heart suddenly ached for Chastity, but she couldn’t focus on that now. She knew firs
t-hand how tricky politics could be. So often she’d been completely overwhelmed, and that was with Chastity at her side.
She wished she could talk to her, to glean her advice, or at least have her sympathy. Then a memory flashed through her mind. For Freya, it was only yesterday she was going to take on the High Council with Chastity there at her side.
You don’t need me, my dear. You never really did. You have never seen it in yourself, but you were born to lead.
Already, there was a new challenge ahead of her, one which felt equally impossible to the last. It appeared Colin and his strange scientist friend were her only allies.
Conspired: A Young Adult Dystopian Romance (The State Series Book 6) Page 27