4522 {The Number Series}

17

"What did any of that mean?" I heard Archer asked. He was not speaking to me but to someone else in the room. "We're not in the city anymore! Or course we're free!"

"Quiet, Archer," Macallister's voice was soft, almost nonexistent in comparison. "You will wake her."

"Good. Maybe then she will answer my questions." His voice softer but not by much. "This is not the city. We have been here for several years and all of sudden she wants to go escape crazy like we did before?"

"I don't think she was trying to escape-"

"She went out the window and ran, Macallister. What do you think she was trying to do?"

"She's a bird," he said simply. "Sometimes they have to fly south for the winter but they always come back."

"So you're saying she has no real reason for this other than she has the need to be rebellious?"

"No," Macallister snapped. "You do not understand. She does not feel the need to be rebellious, she has the need to be free."

"We're free here," Archer began to raise his voice again. I opened my eyes to see them only a few feet apart, standing in a stance as if they were expecting the other to begin swinging.

"No, we're not." I sat up in bed, startling them both. I did not know how long I had been asleep for but it felt like it had not been long enough. They froze in place. Archer's hands did not move from their raised and open position while Macallister left his deep in his pant pockets. "Are we Macallister?"

"I do not know what you mean." I knew he was lying.

"Archer, did you choose to be who you are right now?" He said nothing. "Did you choose to loose one best friend only to gain another and then be told to go back? Or to be promoted so quickly into the life of violence?"

"Remi," Macallister tried to cut me off but I continued.

"Or what about me? Did I choose to be locked in the house day after day to be told what to say, how to act, and what I would do for the rest of my days? Because, as far as I knew, I was supposed to be making my own choices."

"There is a balance to these things," Macallister said as calmly as he could manage in the moment. "Everyone can not just be doing whatever they want all the time. Nothing would be done."

"I know that," I snapped. I shoved the covers off of me and stood up. My legs felt strange to me. "But, you all made it seem like we were choosing things but in reality we were being selected. I could never have imagined Archer being who he is today. Following all of his orders like a good little soldier!"

"What is that supposed to mean?" Archer shouted.

"It means you did exactly as you were told in the city and I was an idiot to think you would be any different outside of it," I spit. "And I managed to fall into this trap myself. How perfect I would be for leading, right? How willing I would be to do as I was told to get revenge on the people in the city who were doing us all wrong. But everyone out here is wrong too."

Macallister would not look at me.

"You know something," I accused. I knew him to well. "What is it?"

"I can't tell you," he sighed.

"I'm supposed to be the one in charge and you can't tell me?"

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I really wish you wouldn't have done this."

"Why? Are you going to murder me now like I should have been in the city?"

"Remi," Macallister scolded.