Kristen Simmons - Article 5

“Right,” she agreed. “Obviously you’ve met Randolph.”

I clutched my knees involuntarily. My knuckles hurt. “He’s the one? Who did… that to Katelyn?”

It was dark, but I could still see her nod. “So you see, there’s really no point in trying to escape.”

“I have to try,” I said. “If they’re doing this kind of thing to us, what do you think they’re doing to my mother?”

She hesitated. “Probably the same.”

I stood up so quickly my head spun. “What has Sean told you? You have to tell me!” The weight of our deal hung in the air between us. There was no point in lying now that I knew her secret.

“He doesn’t hear much,” she said defensively.

The guards at the school were isolated; the rest of the soldiers had direct contact with their command, but a particular unit, the ones who had failed some aspect of their training like Sean, had been transferred under the authority of the Sisters of Salvation.

“Who are these Sisters, anyway?” I asked. “Is Ms. Brock in charge of all of them?”

“She wishes,” said Rebecca. “Brock was appointed by the Board of Education during the Reformation Act. She’s like, I don’t know, the school superintendent of this region. There are other Brocks, in other regions, running other reformatories with the same iron bra.” She giggled. “That’s what Sean calls it—an ‘iron bra.’ Instead of an iron fist, you know?”

“I get it,” I said flatly. More evil headmistresses. More reformatories. It was enough to make me weak all over again. Rebecca’s brief smile faded.

“Brock says that the Sisters are taking over,” she said. “Running charities and food lines and stuff. Of course, who knows if that’s true.”

My mom volunteered at our local soup kitchen. I could hardly picture her wearing a blue skirt and a stupid handkerchief around her neck.

“So Brock reports to the MM, but the soldiers here report to her?” I asked. Rebecca gave me a blank look, and I realized she’d never heard the nickname for the FBR. Having been here since she was fourteen, she was a little out of touch with mainstream culture.

“Moral Militia,” Rebecca said wistfully, after I explained. “That’s funny.”

Apparently, tending to the miscreants of society didn’t require the highest level of skill. The FBR was still technically in charge of the soldiers here, but Ms. Brock supervised their daily activities. Unfortunately, that meant that Sean had very little contact with the rest of the military.

“But there’s a courier,” Rebecca continued. “He comes weekly to deliver messages to Ms. Brock from the outside. Mandates from the head of education. Revisions to the Statutes. Things like that. Sean hears rumors sometimes. He knew that they were going to stop the trials for Article violators a while ago, and he was right. It’s been over a month since a soldier came out here to pick up a witness.”

“Stop the trials? What does that mean?” I asked, my voice rising.

“Shh!” She motioned for me to sit back down on the bed. “I don’t know what it means. Maybe they’re just letting your mom go. Or maybe they’re sending her to rehab. Sean did say they need to ‘complete’ something in place of a trial. It’s a new protocol, I guess. He gets training on it next month.”

In my mind I pictured my mother in my place. Her small, manicured hands on the table while Brock slammed the whip down upon them, like in my dream. I could see the obstinacy melt into fear. Her folding into the floor, just as she’d done with Roy.

I couldn’t let that happen. The thought of her suffering made me ill.

“My mom can’t do this. I have to find her. There’s got to be a way out somewhere. What was Katelyn doing? How did she get caught?” I asked.

“Sean said they got her out by the southern fence. She was trying to climb over.”

Katelyn was lanky but by no means athletic. I couldn’t picture her scaling a fence. But then again, people did all kinds of crazy things when they were desperate. I should know.

“There’s no other way? No holes in the fence? No other exits?”

She shrugged helplessly. “The guards walk the perimeter every hour. The only way out is through the front gates. And there’s a watch station there, and guards that search the vehicles.”

“ No one has ever escaped?” I asked in disbelief.

Rebecca curled in over her midsection. When she spoke again, her voice sounded small, as if she were years younger.

“One girl did, right after I got here. She made it over the fence and into the woods, but it was snowing so badly she died of hypothermia. Brock made the soldiers bring her body into the cafeteria to show us what would happen if we tried to run away. She was all black and blue and…” Rebecca shook her head as if to clear the memory. “That was when Brock okayed the orders for the guards to shoot anyone who got too close to the fence.”

I flinched, thinking of how crushing it would feel to gain freedom only to lose it.

“Only three people have made a decent run for it since then, and they’ve all been killed. No one tries for a long time after something like that happens. If you’re crazy enough, you’ll be the first since Katelyn.”

The realities of my intentions were rooting deep in my gut. If I ran, I had to face the possibility that I might not survive, and if I died, it would most likely be violently. But if I stayed, I wouldn’t know if my mother was being beaten or thrown in prison or shot.

Entrapment. I had two choices. And both were bad.

“You know, if you age out, they don’t legally have to look for you,” she told me.

I couldn’t wait until I turned eighteen, but something in her voice told me she wasn’t talking about me.

“Is that why you and Sean haven’t run?”

She nodded. “I’ll be safe in three months. But if he ever decides to leave, the FBR could kill him.”

So she was staying of her own choice. To protect a soldier.

I shook my head skeptically. “They wouldn’t kill one of their own.”

“You’re wrong. The Board would give him a trial. If he goes AWOL and they catch him, they’ll execute him. That’s the way things are now. If you don’t think they’d do it, remember why you’re here.”

As the air stilled between us, my thoughts branched into a dangerous place. If Sean could be executed, could my mother? It seemed improbable, but not impossible.

I needed to get out. Soon.

TWOnights passed before Sean figured out a plan.

We were in class, reading a handout entitled “A Lady’s Dress Code” when he caught my eye. A slight nod of his head, and without hesitation I raised my hand to request an escort to the restroom. Before the Sister could ask Randolph take me, Sean had stepped forward and was holding the door open to usher me down the hall.

Once we were away from the others, he quickly told me that the headmistress had given him orders to cover for another soldier preparing to take leave, which meant a double shift of his normal perimeter sweep. When this happened, he would lead me to the fence and look the other way as I climbed over.

It sounded simple but was far from problem-free. First, it was still eight days away. Second, I was on my own after I got past the fence, which meant roughly four hours and fifteen miles of walking through the Appalachian wilderness alone. And third, once I got to the nearest gas station, I would have to hitch a ride home, which meant I’d have to find a willing civilian with a car who didn’t care about gas money.

“You’d better book it,” Sean advised. “Once they figure out you’re gone, they’ll come looking. I won’t be able to do anything then.”