Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
The Journey
Dazed is the right word. Inside this trailer, my days are a dazed mess. The reminiscing. The crying. The comforting. It is exhausting.
My neck aches from the twisted state I collapsed into after falling asleep on the couch.
Fumes of alcohol seep from my skin, making me nauseous as I strain to wake.
Leon is still sleeping, propped between the couch and the wall, cradling a bottle of the strongest hooch known to mankind.
It has been nearly a week, and he has yet to return to his room, as the memory of Zeke proves too much, and Atlas has been drinking himself to sleep.
Vigorous vapours fill the trailer, and the scent alone could be enough to inebriate me.
Between the aversion to the smells and the crippling fatigue, I stand repulsed by the shameful state we are in.
Not even a shower and a bucket of lotion could remedy my darkened, puffy face and reddened nose.
The edges of my eyes are raw from the salty trace of tears.
I’ve cried so much recently that I never want to cry again. I don’t want to do this anymore.
I prepare breakfast, opening the windows and inviting in fresh air for a fresh start.
A queasiness haunts me while concocting creamy oats with baked pears and a sprinkle of cinnamon.
My time in the kitchen fails to stir a still-sleeping Leon.
I snatch away his hooch and wave a warm bowl beneath his sleeping nostrils.
It’s a gentle attempt at rousing him, but his arm raises to cover his face, and he groans with disapproval.
“Come on. I can’t live like this anymore,” I tell him, leaving the bowl in his lap.
His hair has turned greasy, and his beard appears especially scraggly with its unkempt length. As I walk away, I threaten him with a hose if he doesn’t shower within the hour.
With a light knock on the bedroom door, I open it, expecting Atlas to still be sleeping, but he’s not. He sits brooding on the edge of his bed, and it has been a struggle to keep him with us, as he opts to be alone at every opportunity.
“Hey, I’m going to head out today. I don’t want to spend another second here unless I have to.
” I hand him the bowl, but his focus stays fixed on whatever he’s staring at.
I glance at the framed photos of Miko and Atina, well out of his eyeline.
“Hey, Atlas.” I snap my fingers to grab his attention. “Did you hear me?”
He repeats in a monotone, “You’re heading out today. You don’t want to spend another second here unless you have to.”
I cautiously sit beside him on the bed, trying to offload the porridge as I dance it beneath him. He offers me a disgusted side-eye before slowly retrieving it from me.
“Come on, Atlas.” I nudge him with my elbow. “We miss you.”
“Thank you,” he mutters.
“It’s okay. There’s more if you want seconds.”
“No. Well, yeah, thanks for breakfast, but thanks for trying … with me. I know I’m … not easy.”
“It must be tough trying to be so hardcore all the time. You know we’ll love you either way.”
“I’m not as mean as I’d like to be. I do try,” he says, and I snicker at the honest line.
“And I one hundred percent appreciate your efforts. If you tolerate a few hours of coming out with us today, I promise you can have the evening to yourself.”
He raises a single brow, intrigued by the offer. “Sounds too good to be true.” He shovels in a spoonful, mumbling with a mouthful, “I guess I can’t say no to an offer like that.”
When I reenter the world, I’m reminded that life has continued without us.
Guards continue to monitor the perimeter.
A group of men play basketball in an area between the trailers on my way to the church.
The grass is scuffed with a dust cloud of dirt while combat training resumes.
Their lives are unchanged, while I’m emotionally limping out of my rut.
A shiver runs down my spine as I step into the church’s shadow. The tragedy is still raw as I press my weight into the door, finding comfort with my fathers inside, but they’re with their council, gathered around the long table—their closest confidants.
“Sorry. I’ll come back later,” I say, turning to leave.
Rex waves me in, “No, stay. Come in. We’re finishing up.”
The other men stand from the table, taking their leave and offering smiles as I awkwardly interrupt.
“How you doing, baby girl?” Roscoe asks, removing his hat to rub his forehead.
I sit with them. “I’m good … I suppose. Have you got any work? I’m trying to get out of the trailer.”
“There’s always work. But let’s talk first,” Rex says, tidying up his papers. “So, what do you want to do moving forward, Everlee?”
“Well, if you’re happy with my performance, I’d like to be involved in the next mission?”
He laughs. “‘Performance’?”
Roscoe says, “We underestimated how sceptical the women would be of an all-male rescue team. You were the MVP. The other team spent thirty minutes coaxing the women out of their rooms.”
“You and Leon will be on the infiltration teams of the next two missions,” Malcolm confirms.
“What about Atlas?”
Rex says, “He’s on the next mission, but we felt it would be best to exclude him on the third round. You can inform him that we’re planning on liberating Miko and Atina. With it being so personal, he may be a liability.”
I shrug with a smile, since it sounds like good news, but my heart can’t accept the happiness of such an announcement yet. “Yeah. I’ll talk to him about it.”
Malcolm lowers his voice, as if avoiding being heard beyond the church walls. “Everlee… There was mention of surrogacy and adoption of female offspring in some of the emails we retrieved at the R&R.”
My heart doesn’t immediately plummet. Like a bird with an injured wing, it’s a slow series of drops as I comprehend what that means. I swallow twice, trying to return moisture to my mouth. “This is in practice? Now?”
“We had long suspected it. It doesn’t appear to have been in practice at this compound, but it seems to be happening. We’re just trying to figure out where.”
I dare not say it aloud, so I whisper, “But Miko and Atina…?”
Rex says, “The system suggests they’re together, and safe, but you saw how many additional women were at this facility. The governments records aren’t accurate. We just thought you should know … to prepare for any outcome. Not just for Miko, but all the women we liberate going forward.”
“I, erm… I don’t think Atlas needs to know this… He’s barely holding up as it is.”
“Compartmentalisation,” Rex suggests with a subtle smirk, its tilt suggesting a smidgen of pride at my decision.
This is one of his favourite words when it comes to teaching strategy.
A lock and key on details to protect people and missions, whether you like it or not.
He had invited me into the fold as a teenager, and I trust my father with my life, but I have had to learn to trust his belief in this very word.
I can only imagine the weighted secrets he keeps from me and others in order to protect bigger issues.
I lift a tired smile in reply, and he knows I understand the ethical delicacy of the word and its use.
“Well, that’s your call, but I agree. We’re still combing through the data. It will be weeks before we have an accurate picture.”
I nod while tucking this information away, without considering the millions of different horrors we might encounter going forward.
The mood lightens as they shower me with some good news.
It’s a moment of normalcy, a few smiles and the crackle of Roscoe’s dirty laugh, which even encourages a lazy laugh from me.
But then the conversation shifts again. My fathers look at one another, brows fidgeting.
I recognise it, since it’s a common theme that appears when they’re broaching bad news.
I sigh impatiently. “What are you doing? What’s wrong?”
“What?” Roscoe says defensively, confirming my suspicions.
“Your faces. You think I don’t know you’re doing that thing? What’s wrong?”
They release a sigh, turning towards Rex, and he looks up from under his brow, hesitating before he speaks. “So, you’ve known what the endgame has been for some time. We have some details about what happens next … for you.”
This is a conversation I knew couldn’t have been too far away, but it has been the furthest thing from my mind recently. I rub my forehead with the arrival of a headache, as if reality is knocking on the door to my mind, urging it to get to work.
“Oh… Okay. Well, c’mon. Tell me. Get it over with.”
Malcolm stands from the table, fumbles through a box by the whiteboard, and pulls out a manila file. He slides it across the table, and I spot Roscoe trying to conceal a grin behind his hand as I pull the paper from within.
Like a spark amid the numbness in my chest, a single twinkling light emits from the darkness, followed by an extended shaky gasp.
Joey’s big brown eyes stare back at me, warming the numbed chamber of my chest. A heavy cut crosses his brow, and purple bruises swathe the right side of his face.
Somehow, he still managed a slight smile as they took the photo.
Joseph Finch, #2129136. I have never let myself believe he was anything other than alive, but the revelation reignites my hope.
My sight glazes over at the words, and with a flutter in my chest, I give up on reading, as I’m unable to break away from his image.
“When was this? Where is he?”
“Two months ago,” Malcolm says. “Thanks to the interceptor Ren placed, we’ve been able to access much more than we anticipated. He’s in the Morenci Mines. Copper mining. His sentence length is … unspecified.”
I exhale a jagged breath, knowing what that means: he will be there indefinitely.
I trace my fingers along his face, his hair desperate to be tucked behind his ears. “Can I keep this?”
“Yes, of course,” Malcolm says.