Total pages in book: 20
Estimated words: 18810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 94(@200wpm)___ 75(@250wpm)___ 63(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 18810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 94(@200wpm)___ 75(@250wpm)___ 63(@300wpm)
As I look into her eyes and brush the hair out of her face, one word flows through my mind. Love. Love always wins. The opposition has been saying this for decades. Our side laughed it off as bleeding heart nonsense, but here I am. This is powerful, and the Regime underestimates what love can do.
We lie around for hours making love. In the morning, I watch her sleep one last time before I leave to report to the office. Sylvia returned my guns to me and we agreed to make everything look legit. I would say I killed her and that her body was taken away by The Insurgence. After that, we came up with my escape plan.
All of that seemed clear last night, but as I watch her sleep I worry about what will happen when I’m not beside her.
After I get dressed, I scribble a note and place it next to her on the mattress.
Before I leave to report to The Leader, I whisper, “My Sylvia.”
Chapter Eleven
Sylvia
The next day is pure torture.
So is the day after that.
Brad and I have a connection, I know it deep in my soul. But I haven’t heard anything and I’m getting worried. I sit in my apartment, staring at the wall, reading books and listening to music. Bo and I sit, waiting.
The waiting causes paranoid scenarios to play out in my head. He could be dead. They could have followed him here and somehow recorded him fraternizing with the enemy, and shot him on sight. The thought makes me want to vomit and curl into a ball and cry.
He could have been shipped off to some remote assignment, unable to contact me. At least I know it’s not that the sex meant nothing to him or that he used me to get his weapons back and get a good lay in the process. The reassuring note he left me quelled any anxiety I might have had about that. Still, I’ve spent a good two days mulling and picking apart every other scenario until nothing makes sense.
I look at the note, now crumpled and sweaty in my hand.
Sylvia,
I love you.
I’m not good at talking about this out loud, but maybe you can help me figure that out.
Yours soon,
Brad
I left the building after checking my mailbox. I didn’t feel like eating or completing any assignments at that moment. I just wanted to walk with my dog and keep replaying over and over again in my mind the time I had with Brad.
I scan my fake pass and cross into the government district, where there are sure to be closed circuit cameras picking up my moves.
At one of the city’s busiest intersections, at an outdoor cafe, I look up and see Brad. Sitting across from him is a female. She’s tall, pale skinned, with long straight hair. She’s clean, styled, and dressed in an outfit by a designer I am sure I cannot pronounce. My stomach turns sour and I want to throw up.
She’s saying something and he’s laughing. Suddenly he drops something from the table. He reaches down to get it, and that’s when I notice he’s messing with her purse. She doesn’t see him do it because she’s too busy laughing like an idiot.
I take half a second to think, then I pounce.
Chapter Twelve
Brad
Naomi seems like a sweet girl. Tall, conservatively dressed, smart, loyal to the Regime’s cause.
The Leader had personally introduced the two of us in his office two days ago. When The Leader’s personal assistant announces your entry into the Oval, in front of some of the empire’s most powerful oligarchs, you had better play the part.
“Chalmers! I’d like to introduce you to Naomi, recent graduate of the Ladies University. She sings, she cleans, cooks, dances, has an excellent bill of health, has been checked over by a doctor who says her plumbing is all ready for babies, and, to boot, she has solid bone structure for natural births…”
The Leader prattled on and on as I scanned Naomi’s face. She had no reaction whatsoever to being described like a horse at an auction. In fact, she seemed flattered. Three days ago I might have found this whole scene totally benign. Normal even. But now, watching this powerless yet educated woman stand there and take this treatment made me sick. I wanted to shake her. Tell her to wake up.
“I can’t have my chief of staff skulking around without a wife any longer. It’s time you meet a girl and get serious. And Naomi is at the top of the list.”
That was only a few days ago, and today is Sunday. Naomi and I are having brunch together in the state museum district at the only outdoor cafe in the city.
I’m polite, a result of my impeccable upbringing. She’s perfectly suitable for me, on the outside. Naomi talks about her travels abroad with her well-to-do family, her studies of political science, and the names of all her animals. She’s wearing a modern skirt and jacket by a designer friend of hers, a name I’ve never heard of nor would ever care about. The same designer who had done her handbag, which rests under the table between our feet. And yet, if I were to marry this woman, which seems to be the trajectory, I would no doubt be hearing about fashion for the rest of my life. Knowing that people like Sylvia would never have access to such fine things makes anger burn deep inside me.