Chosen Ones (20 page)

Chapter 33

I hadn’t gotten more than a few steps down the hallway when a noise rushed into my ears. I turned to see James sitting in a broken wood chair not five feet from the room where I had slept. His clothes were rumpled, his hair tossed about, his eyes heavy. I never imagined he could look this way.

“Robert?” It was all I could bring myself to say.

He quietly told me Robert was in the barn. Those were all the words we could share with each other.

The brightness of the sun stunned my eyes into submission; I held my hand in front of me to ensure I wasn’t going to run into anything. The ground was hilly, making my already weak legs impossible to coordinate. Finally, my eyes began to adjust and I noticed the abandoned barn. How long had it been since I had seen one of these? Had I ever actually seen a barn? Or was it something that I’d only glimpsed in the days of television and movies?

The doors moaned loudly as Robert pushed them open. Even inside the barn, I could feel how cold it had gotten. We must have been somewhere north. I suddenly felt embarrassed, like a child who got caught sneaking out. Except what I had done, what I had caused, was so much worse. And the results had affected not only me.

“I’m sure you need some answers,” he said, concern on his face.

“I don’t know what to ask,” I finally managed, my voice cracking. And it was true. Where would I possibly begin?

“Do you love him?” Robert asked.

His question took the breath right out of me. I felt my cheeks burn and my eyes once again found the floor. “I…I don’t know what I feel,” I stammered. “How bad is it?”

“It isn’t good. It’s complicated.”

“How complicated?”

“We’re not sure if we’re still being tracked. I took care of the snatchers but by now the compound will know you’re missing, and so the chosen ones will know you’re missing. A girl gone right before deportation doesn’t look so innocent. It looks planned. Not only that, it looks planned by someone on the inside.”

Too many questions were screaming to be answered inside my mind. But I could only focus on one, because it was about him, about James. Later I would ponder how Robert rid us of the snatchers. Later I would wonder how many girls went missing without anyone truly questioning our leaders. But first I needed to know about him.

“You mean they could suspect that James helped?”

“We’re not sure. Of course, he will be the first one questioned.
Your relationship, from what I understand, wasn’t exactly secret.”

No, it wasn’t, though no one really knew the truth behind it. The world thought I was merely a plaything to James. They didn’t know about dancing or reading
Jane Eyre
.

“But he seems to have figured out a decent cover story,” Robert said, breaking my train of thought.

I nodded for him to continue.

“James is supposed to be traveling to the compound he was assigned to in sector seven. They won’t expect him there for another few days. So Kendall and I got a few members of the council to vouch for him, saying they called him in for questioning regarding your disappearance. He will help us get you out, then return.”

“Wait. What? Hold on. Members of the council are on our side? And James—he isn’t running with us?” I asked as the panic began to take complete control.

“We have several members placed in the upper ranks of the council.”

“Members?
We
?”

Robert nodded, taking a seat in an old wooden chair. “The resistance. Did you think that everyone was just sitting back, content with what the chosen ones were doing? There has been a system in place for quite some time.”

“Like a resistance movement?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“And you’re a part of it?”

“Yes.”

“And the doctor, the one who saw me at my inspection, is he a part of it?”

Robert hesitated before answering. “Yes. Kendall is a part of it. I think he may have been one of the first members.”

His hesitation unnerved me—there was something he was holding back, but a more urgent question forced itself out. “How long have
you
been a part of the movement?”

Robert’s eyes narrowed as if he were seeing something I couldn’t.
“For a long time. Long before I came to your compound.”

“Did Emma know?”

“Yes.”

I inhaled deeply. How much had been kept from me and for how long? “And Henry is a part of it as well?”

“And Henry.”

“And Julia?” I asked, afraid of the answer.

“And Julia,” he repeated, a sad note lingering in his voice. “But don’t think that everyone in the resistance approved of her actions. She had help getting into Templeton from a rather extreme sect. Most of us would never condone her need to kill those younglings. I thought at first she did it on her own, but when she spoke the words…” He stopped.

“You mean the quote from
Frankenstein
?”

Robert nodded. “Yes, it’s a sign. Lets us know who’s part of the movement.”

James’s creator must have been the one to give him the book, to point him in the self-reflective direction he sought. Maybe Kendall wasn’t bad at all. Maybe he was a revolutionary. Maybe he even created James merely for helping him with his own war.

“We have pockets all over the sectors. Gathering Intel about the council and chosen ones.” Robert must have guessed my next question because he shortly followed with more. “There are whole populations of naturals who don’t live in compounds.”

“How is that possible? We had no choice. It was compulsory. A
re you talking about Isolationists?”

“Mostly,” he said. “But not everyone who escaped to the Middlelands is on our side. Some people don’t like to follow any rules. You of all people should know that,” he replied with a small smile.

I kicked at the floor. “Why would the chosen ones just allow this to happen?”

“They can’t stop them if they don’t know where to find them.”

“And
you
know where to find them? The Middlelands is a wasteland.”

He laughed. “Is it? Have you ever been? Well, I certainly hope not, since that’s where we’re going to spend the rest of our natural lives. We’re going outside the grid, Tess. In the places between the East and the West.”

“What sort of people would chose to live as fugitives?”

“The same people who long ago figured out that the balance of power had been destroyed. People who predicted that one day the protection promised by the chosen ones would no longer hold true. People who knew one day deportation wouldn’t mean a better life, it would mean—”

“Death,” I replied, finishing his sentence. It had meant my death.

“These people, Tess, most of them left their homes and hid before things became too serious. They raised what was left of their families in hiding because they sensed that something wasn’t right. Others have been brought there because, well, because it was where they belonged.” The way he spoke these words caused a chill to run up my spine.

“These groups, they will just let us come and live with them?”

Robert nodded.

“It seems dangerous, letting new people in. I mean, if I had a place that was secret, safe, I wouldn’t be so quick just to let anyone in. I would worry if I could trust them.” The words were tumbling out of my mouth quickly. I only briefly cringed at how easy it was for me to dismiss the world as liars and cheats.

“They don’t let just anyone in. They only let people in when they have good reason.”

“Good reason? What possible reason could they have for wanting us in their community?” I was no one. I had no parents. My once best friend was connected to a murderer. My sister hated me. And I was quite sure that whatever I had with James was near destroyed.

“I don’t know if I should be the one to tell you that,” Robert said softly.

“Please, Robert. I certainly can’t talk to that man, doctor or no doctor, not after my inspection. I don’t even want to be in the same room with him.”

“And James?”

My heart fluttered at his name but something inside of me silenced its call. “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I can’t talk to him. Not yet. There are too many things I need to figure out.”

“Very well,” he replied, and I saw something change in his eyes, a look I had never seen. It was a mixture of rage and desperation only being held together by the thinnest string of control. “They will let us in, Tess, because you are different. You’re important to them. You’re important to them for the same reason you are a threat to the chosen ones. The same reason the resistance craves your company is the very reason your name was on that deportation list.”

I swallowed. It was all becoming clearer—it had something to do with my inspection. It was only after it that things became so chaotic, that my name was put on the deportation list. “Tell me,” I begged.

He took a deep breath. “When you went in for your inspection they discovered something.” Robert seemed to be struggling. I wasn’t sure which emotion was causing the difficulty, the anger or the desperation—I could hear both in his voice. He closed his eyes for the briefest of seconds as if he were trying to shut some unnatural image out of his mind. When he opened his eyes, they were soft, almost kind.

“Tess,” he continued, “you’re not like the other girls, women, at the compound. When you decide to settle down and have children, you will not die. Your children will see the world and get to live in it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What happened to Emma will never happen to you,” he replied, his voice cracking.

My hands were shaking. How could I believe what he was saying?

“There has to be some mistake. That’s impossible.”

“No, Tess. It’s true. Kendall says it is very rare, but sometimes when a girl comes in for an inspection they discover that her body has somehow changed, evolved. It has learned to protect itself from what’s killing the mothers. He and his kind are instructed to report any cases to the council.”

I could feel my lungs shutting down, the air trapping itself in my throat. “No. If that were true then how come we haven’t heard of anyone else finding this out?”

“Well, of course you wouldn’t. Don’t you see? When they report a girl’s name, the council takes care of it. That was why you were on the deportation list.”

“But other women were on that list!”

“They picked people at random to make your death look less planned. What does the council care if a bunch of naturals die? They can just make new humans and train them to be whatever they want them to be.”

“So you’re saying those women and children are going to be killed because of
me
? Because I’m some sort of freak?” I could hear how wild my voice had become but had no desire to control it.

Robert slowly stood up and took a step closer to me. “Tess, you have done many things wrong.
Many
. I won’t sugarcoat it for you, but this, what the council is doing, that is not your fault.”

“And yet here I am,” I said, throwing my hands in the air and taking a step away from him. “In a barn, sitting here talking to you. And where are the others on that list? Are they dead yet?
Why do I get saved and they don’t?”

“We can’t save the world just yet,” he said with a small smile.

“Then why bother saving me?”

“Because those people in the Middlelands, those people who are risking their lives by joining the resistance, need hope. You’re that hope, Tess. Hope that it isn’t the end of a people. You’re one in a thousand. Hell, maybe one in a million.”

“Don’t! Don’t you label me with some damn ideology for a people I don’t even know!”

“Tess.”

“What about you, Robert? Why are you here? James could have done this with the help of Kendall. Why would you just leave? Didn’t the resistance need you at the compound? And what about Louisa?” I was yelling now and didn’t care who heard me.

Robert ran a hand through his well-kept hair. He was slow to answer me. I slammed my hand against the wall of the barn. He jumped.

“And don’t give me some crap about because it was what Emma wanted. Emma would have wanted you to stay and protect Louisa.”

“We’re in a war. The sooner you figure that out the better. The council has to use science and test tubes to create life, but for you it comes naturally. What we need now more than anything in the world is hope.

“I have people watching over Louisa. When the time is right, we’ll go get her—I swear it. Everything sort of happened very quickly. When we get to where we’re going, we’ll have to convince them she is worth allowing in, too.”

I began to tremble; shaking so hard I felt like everything inside of me would fall onto the floor for the world to see, for the world to judge. “I didn’t ask for this,” I whispered, more to myself than to him.

Robert took my hands in his, and the shaking of my body ceased as if his very touch controlled it. He stared at me for a long, quiet moment before speaking. “I know none of this makes much sense, but I promise it will one day. I can’t even quite explain it all myself just yet. But we’re both here, for better or worse. This is our life now. Together. I’m your family.”

The word
together
caused my eyes to find his. How much had he given up in the name of this alliance? How hard must it have been to watch over the disgruntled sister of his lost love? How difficult must it have been for him to know that I, a girl he probably found to be both selfish and silly, got to live while the woman he loved laid dead in a grave he would never again visit. For the first time in my life I felt sorry for Robert.

I gave his hand a small squeeze.

“Please, tell me more. I’m ready. I promise no more outbursts.” It was time I was the one willing to sacrifice, even if it meant my sanity. For once I would comfort someone else.

I barely heard the words that came out of his mouth. I was able to acknowledge them, nod when I was supposed to, frown when it was called for, but I never truly mingled with them. There was too much inside of me to truly accept what he was saying. I was feeling too much emotion all at once, and it made me feel antsy and useless. It took every ounce of willpower to sit still in the chair as he told me the story. My story. Our story.