The President's Daughter

P r o l o g u e

P r o l o g u e

     They took her in the evening.

     She was sitting outside the house, in only a thin dress and cardigan, writing in her notepad. It was hard; the light had long faded, and she could see nothing, but she enjoyed the feeling of the warm summer breeze, and hum of the electric fence. She felt safe, no one could touch her. The fence kept them out, stopped anyone getting at her, at least that’s what she thought then.

     She wasn’t really a people person, she hated going to all the gatherings of her fathers, and talking to all his colleagues, and their daughters, but she had to. It was expected. And although she would so much rather be sitting in the alcove in the library, with a book in hand, she obliged, because it was her Duty. She understood that.

     She didn’t have many friends, in fact, she had none. It wasn’t that she was a disagreeable person, that she hated everyone, and everyone hated her. Indeed, she was rather meek, which was why no one really paid attention to her.

      She had lost her leg at the age of three, in the same blast that had killed her mother and uncle, and because of the trauma at this young age, she also had a stammer. She often felt her father was ashamed of her, that she was not perfect, that she couldn’t talk properly, without stammering, or that sometimes after being on her feet a few hours her limp would become more pronounced, as her prothsetic dug in, and she would have to sit down. She knew he would have much rathered her be a boy, but he couldn’t do anything to change that, so instead, he treated her as much like one as he could. He expected her to have the strength of a man, and feel the same determination as he expected his ideal son would have. It was stupid, really, that she had to compete against a sibling that was nonexistent. But it was better than one that was real.

      She thought of all this as she sat there, among other things, such as her modern histories tutor, and the up and coming dance, which she was being made to go to in a few days’ time.

But she was taken from her thoughts by the sound of the door opening. She looked up to see the silhouette of a servant.

‘H-Hello? Who i-is that?’

There was no reply but she heard a clatter as something was dropped. She got up.

‘W-Would y-you like some h-help there?’ She looked at the object on the floor. ‘Y-You look like y-your    h-hands are full…’ And then she realized the object was a gun. She was about to run from the figure when she heard the person speak.

    ‘Don’t move.’ It was a male voice, cracked, and slightly husky. It scared her and she jumped back slightly.

     ‘I-I’m s-sorry…’ She said rather shocked anyone would dare talk to her like that. She may be shy, but she was important. ‘W-who i-is that?’

     But no answer came, instead, she felt a prick in her arm and felt the rough texture of sack as it was pulled over her head. And then everything went black.

When she was woken up, the ground beneath her was moving, and she could hear an engine. She was in a vehicle, a van probably.

She didn’t know how long we drove for, the bumps made her sick after a while, but she had nothing in her stomach to throw up, and the driver ignored her retching completely. She  wasn’t strapped in, she suspected she was in the boot, which was why she was rolling around so much, but there was nothing she could do to halt her movements, so she let herself flop around like a rag doll. A few times the car stopped and I heard the driver and another person converse, most likely a soldier checking their papers.

     Sometimes she even tried to scream for help, but found she couldn’t, the drugs, cobined with the gag making her unable to use her voice. And so she lay there, let the salt tears fall, and the ties around her wrists dig in. She lay there and thought. About everything, anything she had ever done, and she wondered whether she’d still be in the same position now, than if she’d done it some other way.

     It felt like days, and the journey seemed to be going on forever. She wondered how The Opposition could pass through the borders like this, when father always said she was one of the safest people out there, partly because even if she was  kidnaped, they would be stopped at the borders, the soldiers would know that their papers were fake. But they didn't. And they weren’t stopped. Instead, the hours and days passed, and the warmth and the cold came and went, and she just lay there, limp, scared.

She knew why she was there.

Her name was May Kingsley.

And she was The Presidents’ Daughter.

 But if only she wasn’t…