Bad News (Coprolalia Part Three)

Chapter Six

Six hours earlier

Senator Rose Holt walked into the meeting chambers with her head held high. She couldn't afford to not look confident today.

If she didn't win today then New America would be just like Old America, and she would never be able to marry Melody.

Rose quickly sat down next to one of the maybe five senators who didn't actively hate her guts. Senator Barnes of Texas.

Josephine glanced at her. "Hey, Rose." She waved with her one arm.

Josephine had lost one of her arms in the bombing, it had been blown off in the explosion.

"Good morning, Josephine." She replied.

"You certainly are perky today."

Rose smiled. "I'm hoping that if I stay positive my bill will get passed."

The speaker had only just begun to call her up, only getting to the L in Senator Holt, when the doors smashed open and a bullet burst the speaker's head into a burst of blood.

"Everybody in the middle of the room, hands on your head." An unfamiliar voice snapped. "We have you surrounded. Call for help and we shoot."

Slowly each of the hundred senators and the twelve press reps walked to the middle of the room and got down on their knees, hands on their heads.

Rose could hear her heart beating in her ears.

Next to her, one of the masked people shoved Josephine and pressed a gun to her forehead. "Hands on your head."

Josephine just stared at the man's feet.

"She can't." Rose snapped at the attacker when it was apparent that Josephine wasn't going to say anything.

"What?" The man growled.

"She only has one arm you fucking idiot!" Rose yelled.

The gun moved from Josephine's head, and Rose felt a burst of pain in her abdomen, and her shirt becoming warm and wet and sticky.

"Mags!" She faintly heard the man bark. "Bring this one out. We don't want this sentator to be the first registered death. This is one we want to dissappear, you hear me, Mags?"

Another figure came over. It was a girl, probably no older than sixteen or seventeen, tall. The girl picked her up and carried her out of the room and down the hallways of the capitol building, towards the parking lot.

That was when Rose Holt saw that this girl was wearing the same muzzle-like mask that the man had been wearing and like Mels used to. Most of the girl's hair was pulled back in a black beanie, but there were strands of curly dark brown hair falling into the girl's face. And while the man and the other masked people had all worn sun glasses, this girl's must have fallen off.

She knew those dark brown eyes. The ones that looked so much like hers. The ones that used to get them mistaken for sisters nearly five years ago.

Rose knew Mags.

"Abi?"

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Two hours ago

Rose woke up in the backseat of a fast moving car.

She sat up.

She was groggy. Her mind was too clouded, like she'd been drugged.

There was a tugging at her side as she moved. Rose pulled the side of her shirt up and saw a bloody bandage stuck to her side.

She looked up at the mirror and saw the driver's face.