Chapter 142
Sophie pressed her trembling hands against her thighs. Tension held across her shoulders as she forced herself still.
“I watched two guards drag one of Voss’s council members from his office. He shouted about agricultural authority, harvest projections, and who controlled the food. They took him toward the security compound. Nobody stopped them,” Sophie said.
The description left Rachel cold. She’d seen similar removals in county offices when department conflicts turned physical because paperwork had failed to settle them.
County offices had higher authorities to appeal to.
Hawthorne had only the authority its residents still accepted, and that acceptance was breaking along lines Harlan had been drawing since spring.
“Where’s Jonah?” Rachel asked.
“Near the security compound when I left. He said it wasn’t an argument because arguments can end. This was something else.”
The distinction mattered. County work had taught Rachel that the worst crises weren’t always built from disagreement.
They began when someone decided disagreement had become unacceptable, then handed enforcement to men with rifles instead of ledgers.
Shouting reached the administrative building from the central ration yard.
Multiple voices overlapped and rose beyond discussion.
Rachel couldn’t make out individual words through the walls.
The accusation spread quickly. Rachel had heard that kind of language in county offices when supervisors needed a reason to isolate certain caseworkers from certain files.
It suggested hidden coordination, secret purpose, and threats that couldn’t be addressed through normal channels.
It also made harsh measures easier to justify.
Harlan’s people were shouting it across the settlement.
They claimed there was a conspiracy to release violent offenders, steal winter stores, and dismantle the patrol system that had kept raiders beyond the perimeter since spring.
Every version served the same purpose. It made frightened residents see the people asking questions as more dangerous than the answers those questions might reveal.
“They’re coming for the witnesses. Jonah’s sure of it. The man who spoke to Voss. The clinic worker. Anyone who stood in that office and described something the paperwork says didn’t happen,” Sophie said.
“Then we need more witnesses. Enough that security can’t come for all of them,” Rachel said.
Sophie gave one small nod and left through the partly open door. The shouting from the ration yard was louder and layered with several arguments at once, because authority itself had become the question.
Beyond the barred window, the settlement that had offered walls, food, and safety was coming apart along lines Harlan had drawn months earlier. He had decided that certain questions belonged in locked buildings rather than in public records. The scar ached, and she let the pain remain.
Morning arrived with shouting. Rachel had slept fitfully on the bolted desk with her back against the wall and her boots on the chair.
She woke whenever the bells changed or new voices carried through the timber.
The administrative building had grown quieter overnight, which meant the crisis had either settled or moved elsewhere. A guard brought water.
“They’re posting notices. Central ration yard, section boards, every public space with a cork surface. Handwritten. Accusing conspirators of trying to release violent offenders, steal winter stores, and dismantle the patrol system. Security’s reading them aloud to anyone who gathers,” he said.
“Who’s being accused?” she asked.
“No names. Just conspirators and people working against Hawthorne’s security. The notices say the settlement faces an organized threat from within its own walls. That usually means someone’s about to start naming people.”
The guard left. Rachel drank the water slowly and set the empty cup on the bolted desk.
Her work had taught her that accusations without names created a category first and targets afterward.
Once the category existed, almost anyone could be placed inside it for asking the wrong question or standing near the wrong person.
Conspiracy was useful because it didn’t require evidence.
It only required the claim that proof existed somewhere beyond public view, and frightened people often accepted it rather than demanding to see it. Walter visited midmorning.
“The settlement’s fracturing. Some families have barricaded themselves inside their quarters.
They won’t answer doors, and they won’t take rations from security-staffed distribution stations.
Others are gathering behind Harlan’s teams because they remember what happened before organized patrols existed.
Raiders. The winter after the pulse, when nobody had walls, and everyone paid for it,” Walter said.
He sat on the offered chair with his hands pressed against his thighs and the arthritis visible in the careful way he held himself.
“Voss tried to address residents near the central ration yard. Guards loyal to Harlan blocked access. They arrested two council members beside him. Workers who’ve seen altered records started arguing openly with security.
Several guards hesitated when ordered to arrest them.
That hesitation might be the only thing keeping this from getting worse. ”
Rachel studied her father’s face. The lines around his eyes had deepened since Ohio, and something in his posture suggested that the argument he’d been having with himself had concluded, something he still didn’t want to acknowledge.
“Where are Hannah and Sophie?” Rachel asked.
“With Jonah, near the administrative building. They’re part of whatever’s happening outside your door right now.”