Page 21 of Longing for Liberty

THIRTEEN

STATE NEWS: COMMUNITY TWO COMPLETES WIND TURBINE AND SOLAR PANEL INSTALLATION!

My emotions went numb when I left. Shut down hard. I didn’t let myself think about what had happened or the game I found myself caught in. I sat in a hard plastic seat on the bus staring blankly at an old advertisement posted on the bus wall. It was faded with the edges curling.

If you witness or overhear criminal behavior, it’s your civic duty to report it!

Underneath was the phone number to call or text. Every time I looked at it, I resisted the urge to rip it down and shred it.

We stopped at a healthcare/wound center where two mothers got on with their kids.

A pregnant woman with six children, including the one on her hip, bunched up in front of me.

I stood to give her my seat, but she waved me off and said, “I prefer to stand.” Her ponytail drooped, and she paid no mind when the baby patted her cheek roughly.

She was very thin and probably wouldn’t appear pregnant from behind.

Her little girl with brown ringlets, no more than three or four, came boldly up to me and peered into my face with her chubby cheeks, at odds with her thin body.

“Hi,” I said.

She smiled and giggled, looking over at her mom, who was cutting her eyes to the girl in warning.

“It’s okay,” I promised the mom, and she relaxed, looking away, focusing on the baby in her arms. Next thing I knew the girl was climbing up into my lap, which made me laugh, and again I assured her mom I didn’t mind if she didn’t.

But having this small human’s attention did strange things to me, bringing up emotions I kept carefully buried.

As the child studied my face, touching each freckle on my chin, I thought about how she had never seen anyone with skin different from hers, not in color or wrinkles.

She’d never seen a woman with short hair or a man with long hair.

She would never encounter a little person or someone in a wheelchair.

This child wouldn't have the opportunity to develop an appreciation for other cultures. She wouldn’t know what culture was at all , considering we had none in the State.

Her world was gray. And soon, she’d be as unsmiling as the rest of us.

With that chipper thought, the girl was whisked from my lap at the next stop: large family housing.

Those with six to nine children were housed in a neighborhood of large homes of four or more bedrooms. This particular neighborhood was probably where upper-middle-class families had lived before.

Any families who hit the ten-children mark were given “mansion” homes, or so we were told.

As I neared home, I braced myself and schooled my face to avoid upsetting my husband again.

I greeted Jeremy with a kiss and a hug, smiling to help him feel at ease.

He studied my face for a long moment before letting out a little sigh that signaled he knew I wasn’t okay but wasn’t going to press it.

I wasn’t crying or having a panic attack, and I thanked the little girl for distracting me from that.

The ground chicken and wheat mash dinner left a lot to be desired, but I managed to eat my whole portion before we left to walk. I made sure I was far enough from other people before asking him one of the questions I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about.

“Have you ever heard of Community Five?”

His fingers squeezed mine painfully hard, and he grasped his neck, turning slowly to peer all around us. His reaction made my heart quicken.

“Where did you hear that?” he whispered.

More quickening.

I lowered my voice to a whisper as we passed the garden. “He had a work meeting on the computer today.”

Jeremy watched the dried grass at his feet as he walked slowly. “Were you listening from another room?”

“Partly,” I told him, “but I was also sweeping in the same room where he was.”

He gave a minute shake of his head. “He talked about stuff openly, right in front of you?”

“Yeah.” He made a hm sound, and I asked, “So, have you heard of it?”

Jeremy stopped to face me, taking my hands and giving me a fake smile as he moved stray strands of hair behind my ears. “You need to be careful.”

I fake-smiled in return, wondering how he’d heard of it. “What is Community Five?”

He pressed his lips together, his eyes slipping to the garden once more. “I don’t…” He shrugged and shook his head, and wow. Jeremy was a terrible liar. At least with me. And knowing he was hiding something had my insides twisting tightly.

“ Tell me ,” I hissed.

He uttered a curse and cleared his throat. “It’s where they took every surviving able-bodied person who wasn’t white. They’re in Florida, lower Georgia, lower Alabama.”

“I thought…” Oh, God, I wanted to burst into tears. His words sizzled over me as complete shock rocked my system, followed by the most immense sense of joy I’d had since the war. I closed my eyes and struggled to suck in air. I wanted to fall to the ground. “I thought…”

“I know. Stay calm, Lib.” He grasped both of my hands.

Breathe, breathe, breathe.

I really thought everyone had been killed.

Paola and Denari…could they be alive with their children in Community Five?

In the midst of my heightened emotions, my heart still beat erratically over one thought.

“How do you know this?” I watched his eyes carefully. I watched the two lines that formed between his eyebrows when he had to deliver bad news.

But again, he shrugged. “People talk. They shouldn’t, but they do.”

I shook my head. Literally nobody talked anymore. Why was he bullshitting me? His eyes held hope that I would believe him and let it go, but I didn’t and I couldn’t. Something was going on.

“Jeremy, tell me right now, I’m not kidding. I’m about to lose it.”

His jaw clenched, and he turned, tugging gently to get us walking side by side.

“Who told you all of that?” I whispered.

His pause was so long I didn’t think he was going to answer. And then, “Rebecca.”

I nearly tripped over my own feet as my steps halted and restarted. “Explain. Right now.”

He cursed quietly again, and his voice was shaky when he finally answered. “There’s a resistance, Lib.”

My heartbeat was strong enough to hear inside my ears and feel at every pulse point.

“And she’s in it?” I asked.

He gave a nod, and then I stopped abruptly, my eyes feeling too wide as we looked at each other. He rubbed up and down my arms. I thought back to the look they’d given one another when she found out I’d be working for Fitzhugh.

“And you’re in it,” I whispered.

Small smile. More gentle arm rubbing. Small nod.

“Stay calm, Libby, please. I didn’t want to burden you with this.”

Holy fucking shit.

I flushed with heat from head to toe, my scalp suddenly sweating. The panic was coming as I thought about the danger Jeremy was in. And then I heard the telltale buzz coming.

No, no, no.

“Jer,” I warned him. “Blow on my face.”

He immediately did as I asked, his cooling breath running along the edge of my hairline. “Stay calm,” he said softly in between breaths. More cool face blowing. “People are nearby, and the drone is coming.”

I nodded with my eyes closed, concentrating on the feel of his breath, focusing on slowing my galloping heart to a trot. With my hair down, I was able to fluff it over part of my face to hide the redness I knew was surely there in my cheeks.

“I’m glad you had a productive day at work,” Jeremy said robotically as the drone circled us. My cheeks worked a smile into existence, and I nodded like a fool.

“Tell me something you built today,” I said. The drone sped off, and we both relaxed, but not fully.

Part of me wanted to be offended that Jeremy hadn’t told me, but I knew how he thought.

What good would it have done to have me even more afraid than I already was?

I wanted him to be able to trust me with all things, but weren’t there things I wasn’t telling him?

It wasn’t out of distrust. It was to spare him, just as he’d tried to spare me.

We couldn’t stand here like this forever, so Jeremy put one arm around my waist, and I put one around his. We walked again along the tree line, my head leaning against his shoulder until I got myself under control. And when I finally did, my mix of emotions turned into a fiery curiosity.

I tried to remember everything they’d said about Community Five today. And Alaska! And Hawaii! I started speed-talking.

“They don’t have enough military to organize Community Five and force them to work. They only have enough to surround them. Fitzhugh needs a year, I think, for the next set of boys to become old enough to join the State Force before he can tackle Five.”

His hand flexed against my hip. “I can’t believe he talked about it in front of you. This might be some kind of test.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I could hear all three of them talking. Think about it. I’m just a dumb woman. A maid.”

Had six years been long enough to make them forget that all of the adults in the State could still remember?

That not all of us had been brainwashed?

That some of us had toppled police vehicles and lit streets on fire?

Well, not me. I’d been useless in the fight.

But I didn’t have to be useless anymore.

“No,” Jeremy said. “I don’t like this. When he’s in those meetings, you need to stay away.”

“Babe—”

“This isn’t some game?—”

“Stop it!” I hissed. “I know it’s not a game! But he’s using me. They’re using all of us. This is our chance to use them back.”

We stopped to admire a giant honeysuckle bush.

I glanced over to see Jeremy’s eyes glossed in thought as I picked a tiny white-fluted flower.

Breaking the tip off, I put it to my lips and tasted the minuscule drop of nectar.

Then our eyes met. He looked strained. Scared.

And when I thought of him caught up in a resistance, that sentiment filled me too.

I asked, “Do you guys know that the Big Island of Hawaii is basically free from State Force? Like, they’re not occupied, but they’re being watched and semi-controlled from the other islands?”

He gave a small nod. Wow.

“And why would they name the military base in Alaska Wright?”

He let out a breath of air and shook his head. “Because President Wright is one of them. One of the OM.”

President Wright? As in the former disgraced leader of the United States? He was one of them?

“OM?” I asked, though it scratched a part of my brain like something I’d heard at one time.

“Order of Mercy,” he whispered. “They’re all in it.” That’s right…the cult from Idaho that the reporter had tried to warn us about.

Jeremy let out a grunting sound and looked at the sky as if pained by the fact that I was getting involved in this.

I ran my hands from his elbows down to his hands and twined my fingers inside of his.

“Trust me,” I said. “If I sense anything strange, any intuition, no matter how small, I will distance myself. But if I’m forced to be there and they’re going to talk in front of me, why shouldn’t I tell you what they say?”

His rounded eyes turned toward the garden, and his jaw flexed again before he finally nodded. “Okay, Lib. Tell me everything you heard.”