The Ravaged World (Book 2 of the Exiles Series)

Eighteen: Talia

As winter passed, the more excited the rebels became, especially when we found out how close the invasion really was.

At one of the meetings, we were informed that the date was moved up yet again, to January, because of a party that would provide a distraction for us to slip inside. The meetings after that one, of course, were soon a flurry of activity. Every other week, it was something new: in December, we got a bunch of hover vehicles donated to us.

Near Christmas, the weapons started coming in. Each of us were armed with a gun and knife, of course to only be used in life-or-death situations, or times when we absolutely needed control.

In early January, it was apparent how soon it was coming. We were living on cloud nine in our double life, whereas at school, Nicole and I were as quiet and sullen as could be. But the good times didn't last.

Invasion Day was a little more than a week out when we were awoken one night by a loud rapping on the front door and harsh beams of light shining through the window. I laid silently in bed, not daring to move, wishing the people that I could hear talking roughly outside to leave. A light in the house turned on, and Mom quietly got up to answer the door.

"What's going on?" I heard Mom murmur. "I have kids in here, they're going to be frightened." I could tell immediately what Mom was trying to do: making us seem as innocent as possible, when, in reality, we were nearly as far from innocent as two girls could be.

I peeked through the curtains separating me and Nicole's bedroom from the center room and watched the men march roughly into the living room, disregarding Mom. They were wearing heavy armor and carried loaded guns that gleamed menacingly in the faint yellowish light of the moon.

My breath caught in my throat. They're going to get us now. They know who we are, what we're doing, and they're here to send us all back to the island or shoot us up.

I gasped, and covered my mouth to stifle the sound. Nicole suddenly slipped from bed, making absolutely no noise as she climbed down from bed and squeezed my hand, her fingers warm and clammy, her skin smelling like sweat.

"Just tell me what you need. I'll help you, and then you all can be on your way," Mom pleaded, trying to keep her voice even as she snuck nervous glances toward our bedroom.

In the silence that followed, I could hear more government workers outside. There were the muffled sounds of fear, children crying, the distant ring of a gunshot. "Don't move!" Someone yelled nearby. A bang and an instantaneous scream of unbearable pain. I had just heard someone's death, and here I was, standing still, just standing here.

Blood coursing through me, I parted the curtain, surprising the soldiers, who all trained their guns on my chest. I shrank in on myself at the realization that they wanted me dead.

"Stop!" Mom was screaming now, her eyes wide and lip quivering. "It's just my daughter. Point your guns somewhere else, she's just a child!" I felt the radiating warmth of Nicole's body hovering just a few inches behind me, her nails clawing into my forearm.

The guns reluctantly moved away, but the cold eyes never strayed, poking and prodding me, daring me to mess with their superiority in my nightgown.

"What's going on?" I asked, groggily. My voice was much too high, considering I had just come from sleep.

Instead of acknowledging me, one of the guards turned to my mother. "We're looking for insurgents," the soldier that stood near Mom, who appeared to be the leader, explained. "If any of you are involved in the Rebellion, come quietly or risk death."

I wasn't coming, it was as simple as that. Nicole didn't move, either. Mom wouldn't give us away, would she? She couldn't, not when we were so close.

"None of us are involved in that sort of treason, I assure you," Mom assured the officer. "Do what you need to, but it's pointless for you to waste your time here."

The leader glanced dubiously from Mom to Nicole to me, and back again, contemplating what to do. I could read his expression. It was one that suggested he believed us--these three poor haggard women, in this small but tidy, ordinary little house. He didn't know our names, hadn't heard of us, or else we'd be gone by now, either taken away or brutally murdered in our own living room.

The officer glanced back and forth one last time, before turning around with his men and leaving quickly. I watched the flashlight beams dance away in the distance, looking like a predator that had lost the scent to its prey but was still on the hunt.

When we were sure they were gone, the three of us stared at one another in disbelief at having gotten away, before Mom turned off the light. We returned to bed and didn't speak again of the incident, even though the fading screams that I continued to hear for the rest of the night haunted me for a long time afterwards.

. . .

A few days later, I turned on the telescreen and was startled to see bodies flashing on the screen. It was the news--apparently some sort of protest had taken place outside the Capitol gates, and the guards nearby had fired into the unarmed crowd. Literally, hundreds were dead, some shot multiple times and laying where they had fallen, eyes and mouths wide open, frozen in their last expression of disbelief.

The screen flashed back to the anchors who, disturbingly, didn't even appear to be shaken. "Let this be a warning," one of them recited, "to those who defy our leadership." Most of the people who had died weren't in organized groups, but I did recognize a few names from school.

Both events were clearly meant to deter any rebels, but they didn't slow down the Rebellion one bit. As the weeks drew on, Nicole and I continued to attend the meetings in the warehouse, with attendance upwards of five hundred, practicing our fighting inside rather than risking discovery outside. We were used to this. On the island, Nicole and I had practiced fighting with an army, sometimes inside, a lot like this. That fact was almost disturbing, considering what had come from our preparations on the island.

When the day was a week out, six days, five days, despite the fact that it was only early January, the light dusting of snow on the ground melted away, and it started getting warmer again. With the warm weather returning and the Invasion three days out, the people at school that I knew were involved in the Rebellion seemed perkier than usual. Despite the hardships of our secret, we were surviving.