Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
LARKE
I followed Jeremy to our usual meeting place behind the loudest, most obnoxious dryer in the empty laundromat.
Because he looked skittish, I made a mental note to suggest that we change the location of our future meetups.
Jeremy was too essential a cog in our plans for us to lose him for any reason.
At the moment, he and Ana were the “voice” of our burgeoning revolution.
I used my expertise to play a more behind-the-scenes role, organizing and coordinating communications.
We had a greater chance of success by allowing those in charge to think that they were unstoppable, all too ignorant to pay attention to the dangers that lay hidden in silence.
“Change of location for tomorrow’s meeting,” he said. “Old one is no longer safe.”
“Not safe for tomorrow or unsafe indefinitely?” I asked.
“Indefinitely. Some Class Threes were sent to the old location to do a security sweep, which isn’t what they usually do. And I think somebody’s watching me. So, we have to be even more careful than we’ve already been.”
“And our cover?”
He patted one of his uniform pockets. “That’s fine.
I mean, they take daily inventory, so there’s no way they don’t know some of the uniforms are taking extra rations, and that some of those extra rations are being used as payment for…
favors. At this point, I think it’s expected as long as we don’t cross any major lines. ”
We paused.
The first few minutes into our conversations, we always paused, watching each other and silently testing whether the trust we’d built in only a few weeks was growing stronger or becoming tenuous.
While rebellions would always be necessary to kill tyranny, they were stressful.
Each time a new face showed up, our antennae rose.
Someone with good intentions could turn on us in a heartbeat if offered the right privileges.
“Larke…” He sighed. “There’s something I have to tell you. Something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”
My heart sank. “You’re bowing out.”
“No, not at all. Look, I’ll be honest. I’m a straight, White guy from the Bible Belt who served in the U.S.
military and came from a relatively well-to-do family.
When the pandemic started, I only got worried when I realized it affected everybody equally.
This time, I didn’t have any social armor.
There was no group to scapegoat to remove the target from my skull.
I’m not proud of it, but that was how I was taught to see the world—that I was special.
Everyone else was an other. Then I got to Totten, and they gave me Class Four status.
They showed me where the ‘low-class folks’ live so I could see how good I have it.
In essence, I got my armor back, and I was fine with that for a while. ”
“So why help?” I questioned. “You do have it pretty good.”
“Yeah, but you don’t. Ana and everyone else I’ve met so far don’t either.
I’m still a product of my faith, and the things they’ve asked us to do?
I don’t want to get to the end of my life and be faced with the realization that I’m seeking entrance into heaven, and the only thing I have to show for my existence is a lifetime of being a coward. ”
I squinted at him, head shaking. “Mmm…no. Men don’t have moral epiphanies. Who is it, Tamra?”
He smiled. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Kendra? Sabine? Is it Leigh? I can see you having a thing for Leigh.”
“A guy can change without there being a woman involv—”
He fell backward.
At least, I’d assumed he fell backward until I noticed he was still on his feet, pressed against an adjacent dryer, Dez’s hand around his neck.
“What the fuck is this?” Dez spat.
I swallowed, my throat suddenly on fire. The room spun, but I blinked until I no longer felt like I was standing on a paddleboard in the middle of rocky waters.
“One of you better answer me. What the fuck is going on here?”
As upset as I was with the differences in our circumstances, Dez’s presence brought an overwhelming instant sense of calm. While I’d gotten to know the people here, and we’d bonded through our suffering, Dez and I had history.
We were friends once upon a time.
This man used to be my rock, my anchor.
He released Jeremy’s neck, his eyes following as Jeremy fell to his knees, coughing.
“You lying sack of shit,” he hissed. “You told me you didn’t know where Tapley was.
I talked to you today, and you still told me you didn’t know where she was.
Now, I won’t ask a third time, so one of you needs to start explaining why the hell the two of you were alone, back here, whispering.
And, just so you’re both aware, whatever the fuck you were meeting up about, this is the last time that’s gonna happen. ”
“Why were you looking for me?” I asked.
His head snapped around. His gaze sliced through mine. “Tapley, you can’t be serious.”
That uniform brought its own form of trauma. The soldiers in black were some of the most dangerous, the most insidious.
They weren’t evil.
They were empty.
Evil had an inverted moral compass, but the empty were dead inside.
Their purpose was to follow orders in hopes that following orders would bring a semblance of meaning to their lives.
Evil gloated over a kill. Empty stepped over mounds of dead bodies and kept going, unfazed, under the command of an authority figure, no matter how morbid the figure’s perversions.
According to Ana, none of the Class One Elites had families, and they barely had friends. They were all former Special Operations Forces—SEALs, Green Berets, Pararescue, MARSOC. However, not every former SpecOps member was a Class One Elite. As it stood, Elite was synonymous with solitary.
A single woman was harder to control.
A single man, however, was usually the opposite.
“If you want the truth, Jeremy and I meet up regularly,” I said. “It’s not something I’m proud of, but as you can see,” I motioned to myself, “I drew the short straw with where I ended up. He has access to resources. So, I exchange…services for resources.”
“I’m sorry?” He walked closer until he was right up on me. “I don’t think I heard you correctly. What services for what resources?”
“Food, medicine.”
“What services, Tapley.”
Although I was now fighting back, I wasn’t the same Larke Tapley. Having my rights snatched away stripped me down to the studs. It took me back to the little girl I’d become after I learned what death was and how it applied to my older sister, who’d been my best friend.
Federal prosecutor Larke adored this man.
Loved him.
But I didn’t know where to find her, and a part of me was afraid to go searching only to be presented with a corpse.
“Tapley, you better start talking before I lose my shit. I spent the last three fucking weeks scouring every square inch of this piece of shit hellhole looking for you. Whether you’re safe or healthy or alive?
It’s the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last thing I think about the nights I manage to get a few hours of sleep.
So, if you’re trying to tell me that you spent all that time exchanging your precious body for…
” He frowned and angled his head. “What’s wrong? ”
“Finish what you were saying.”
He raised the back of his hand to my neck, moved it to my forehead, and thumbed sweat from the space between my eyebrows.
The bass left his voice, and the clipped, angry cadence disappeared. “Tapley? Sweetheart, are you…sick?”
These days, it was hard to tell the difference between illness and the grind of my new life.
During the day, my symptoms waned, but it was like my body was still on smartphone time.
Like clockwork, my aches and fevers returned as soon as evening fell.
Today, they seemed to be coming back a little early.
The radio at his hip crackled:
“Harding, this is Cerner. Go to 4.”
He cradled the side of my face and gently moved my head around as if he needed to see me from different angles to assess my state of wellness. At the same time, he retrieved the handheld radio and switched it to channel four.
“Go for Harding,” he said.
“I need you to head to the construction zone. We have a breach.”
“I—”
“Now.”
The radio went silent.
“You have to go,” I half-said, half-asked. “It’s fine. I understand.”
“Are you sick?” he asked again.
“Yeah. Going on about a week or so now.”
“Do you know what you have?”
“No.”
“Do you know if it’s…”
“I don’t.”
He swiped his thumb over my right brow. “I looked for you, Tapley. I didn’t abandon you. I never will. It doesn’t matter what you see me wearing. I’ll never abandon you. Being in here doesn’t mean the oath I took to protect you goes away. I take my duties seriously. You know that.”
I heard every word.
Yet, as he looked at me, I saw neither oath nor duty. For the first time since we met, his poker face completely failed. His expression betrayed him, along with the slight trembling I felt in the hand pressed against my face.
“I thought you were dead,” he said. “This feels worse.”
I had no response for that.
“LaSalle,” he turned to Jeremy, who’d yet to return to his feet, “help Tapley with whatever she’s got going on for the rest of her shift. Whatever orders you were assigned today, I’m effectively canceling them. After you’re done, take her to my place.”
I swallowed again, cringing. “You know I can’t go to your place, Dez. I can’t step foot inside Woodhaven unless I’m working.”
“How’d you know I was at Woodhaven?”
“The uniform.”
Even if Jeremy escorted me, we’d both be detained and more than likely killed. They kept their precious, ignorant citizens in the dark, but I’d scrubbed away the blood and human remains of those who’d defied the hierarchy.
“Open up for me,” Dez said.
I opened my mouth.
He swapped out the radio for a flashlight and aimed it at my throat.
“Harding to the construction zone, stat.”