Awaken (The Awaken Series Book 1) (16 page)

Jenna had traded seats a few weeks ago, making it blatantly obvious that she wanted nothing to do with me anymore. I now sat next to a quiet, pale blonde with glasses. I could imagine how easy it was for Jenna to manipulate the poor girl to get the seat she wanted.

It was Thursday, and I had spent a lot of time at Aunt May’s house that week. She listened to me, and gave me valuable advice—something I needed at the moment. At school, I either received zero eye contact or intense stares from my classmates. Even those who didn’t witness the hallway fight heard multiple accounts of it over the weekend. I was the talk of the school, and no one was on my side.

Well, Jasper was on my side. He didn’t care who I rebelled against, or if I rebelled at all. My parents had been trying to convince me of his hidden agenda—of all the Outsiders’ hidden agendas—to revolt against the government and overthrow the Council. I just feigned shock and let her believe that I was hanging on every word she said.

Her paranoia had been at an all time high since she saw the school footage. She was convinced that all of the Outsiders had banned together, and they were now targeting gullible teenagers to recruit to their side. Because my parents had connections within the government, she claimed that it made perfect sense why they would target me.

~~~~~

“Do you think that Mother is right?” I asked Aunt May, seated in her elegant living room for the third time this week. “About the group of rebel Outsiders, I mean.”

“I honestly wouldn’t say the idea was that far-fetched,” May said. She noticed my raised eyebrow and continued. “I have met my fair share of immigrants from the Outside. They don’t come because they believe in the Council’s teachings. They come for protection.”
 

Now I was even more confused.
 

“The reason people have relied on government for so many years is because the ultimate purpose of any government is to protect its people. It keeps order by creating laws, or rules, that keep people from running wild on the streets. Rules protect citizens from other citizens.”
 

Like what happened to Jasper’s father. There were no rules to protect him from his killer. “I don’t understand. If Outsiders came here for order, then wouldn’t they be content with the way things are being run?”

“Not necessarily. Do you know how Oportet was formed so quickly after the fallout?” she asked. “Maybe Jasper told you?”
 

I shook my head, trying my hardest to understand what she was telling me.
 

“The Council was created by a handful of the most powerful politicians that held office at the time of the great fallout. They wanted to form the perfect society, with the perfect rules, and the perfect way to live—the perfect way to control the masses. That was how Oportet was formed.
 

“They used the very ideals that led to the American government’s own destruction, amplified them in a way they never could have with America’s protection of rights, and watched as concerned citizens flocked from all over to be a part of this ultimate utopia, the society with the most civil—and protected—citizens in this country. The only problem: this utopia leaves no power to the citizens.
 

“The Council controls everything to ensure there are minimal acts of rebellion and doubt. Limiting what we watch, what we read, what we listen to, and what we are allowed to say all serve to ensure the Council remains in power. It’s all a perfectly orchestrated scheme to keep, and even increase, the power the top politicians had when they ran the American government. Except now they have triple the power as leaders of Oportet because they don’t have to worry about pesky freedoms and rights to get in the way of their agenda.”
 

My mind was reeling. I was only absorbing a fraction of the information she was giving me. I felt like my head was about to explode.

“So Outsiders don’t like the Council because they are a heightened version of the flaws in the old American government? The government that collapsed on itself?”

“Exactly.”

“How do you know all of this?” It seemed like this kind of knowledge wouldn’t be open to the public. I wouldn’t put it past the Council to throw Aunt May to the Outside just for knowing their catastrophic secret. Members of Oportet’s Council were the very same leaders who ran America into the ground, and now they were the government officials who were lying, scheming and controlling the people of Oportet in order to stay in power.

She pursed her lips. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you that, dear. And I trust that you understand how imperative it is for you not to repeat this to anyone?”
 

I would never do anything to hurt Aunt May, and I was flattered that she trusted me enough to talk to me about such things. “Of course.” I had so many questions swirling around in my head. “Wait, why don’t Outsiders just tell everyone all of this? Wouldn’t that be the most effective way to turn Oportet’s citizens against the Council?”

“When Outsiders come to Oportet, they are given a strict set of rules to follow pertaining to what they can and can’t say. They are essentially forbidden to discuss anything about the Outside, or they would be sent straight back to where they came from.”
 

I thought about Christopher, the elementary school kid who was brutally paddled for talking about his hometown. It made sense that Outsiders would be forbidden from speaking of their old lives.

“And who would listen to them?” May continued. “You know what it’s like reasoning with your parents. Now imagine what it would be like for Jasper to reason with them.”
 

The thought of that scene alone was cringe-worthy.
 

“And I’m afraid there is a more pressing issue we must iron out,” May said.

I tapped my fingers erratically on the arm of the chair as she swallowed her tea. There was a tight feeling in my chest, like all of the newfound information was crushing against me.

“Your mother shouldn’t be so concerned with the Outsiders. They come for protection, remember? I’ll bet the Council and their ways are common knowledge on the Outside, so Outsiders would know what they were getting themselves into before they even arrived. The people who your mother should be concerned about are not those who have been awake to the truth this whole time, but those who were asleep and suddenly woke up. People like you and me.”
 

The way she was looking at me made me nervous. Maybe I was awake to the truth, but that didn’t mean I had the guts to do anything about it. What could even be done?

My entire world was literally falling apart. Everything I had ever been told was a lie, and every rule I had ever obeyed was for the sole purpose of keeping me in the dark. It was terrifying. I could never unlearn the truth, and I never wanted to, but it changed everything.
 

It was like taking off a pair off heavily tinted sunglasses. After the initial blinding sensation, I could see everything so much clearer, with colors hitting me with a kind of amazing vividness—but the brightness also hurt my eyes. I wanted to put my sunglasses back on to protect them, and at the same time I wanted to enjoy the clarity my true sight gave me.

“I know it’s a lot to take in. I wouldn’t be telling you this if I didn’t think you were ready to hear it, Luna.”
 

I nodded.

“I always knew that you were different,” May said quietly. “You’re the reason I stayed this long.”

“What do you mean? You were going to leave Oportet?” Choosing to go to the Outside was unheard of.
 

“I might have. I still had a lot of things to take care of…” May trailed off, lost in her own thoughts.

“How do you do it? How do you leave?”
 

May smiled sadly. “I’m afraid you can’t.”
 

I was surprised at how much May’s answer disappointed me.

“A few close friends of mine met with the Council and requested to be set free. You know what happened?” May shook her head, a pained laugh escaping her lips. “They came back from the meeting with their minds completely changed. It was a complete one-eighty. They told us,” May faltered, “told me, that it was a lot better to be confined in Oportet than to be in constant danger on the Outside. It was unreal.”

“What happened to them?” My stomach was filled with unease, and I could sense that the Council had everything to do with the feeling. It reminded me of what happened to Don.

“I couldn’t tell you. They stopped talking to me, telling me they were tired of my conspiracy theories and naivety. I’m not sure how, but the Council sure did shut them up.”

“So as long as the Council runs Oportet, there’s no way to get out of here,” I reasoned.

Something flickered in May’s eyes.
 

“That is correct.” I detected something strange in her voice, like she was not telling the whole truth, but what reason would she have to lie?

~~~~~

We had one more school week until fall break, and Jasper and I were already planning for an epic week. We had to stay under the radar at school because of how my parents felt about our relationship. Mother probably had at least a dozen of my teachers employed as her personal spies, so we basically ignored each other until our usual walk home.

Today we walked to Jasper’s house after school. Jasper, Lilly and I were all gathered in the living room in front of a small flat-screen television.

“This movie is going to make me kill myself with this fork,” Jasper said, waving the utensil he had found wedged between couch cushions. Jasper claimed Alex had to have been the culprit considering how much of a slob he was.

I burst out laughing as the serious romantic vampire scene unfolded in the background.
 

“Shut up, Jasper,” Lilly said from the chair next to us. “We’re watching them all, and I don’t even care if Luna has to be back home before we finish. I’m going to make you watch the whole saga with me regardless.” She smiled, and I watched as Jasper held the fork between his closed eyes.

“Goodbye cruel world,” he said, opening one eye to glance at me. “Are you just going to let me stab myself?”
 

I rolled my eyes and swatted the fork out of his hands.

“Seriously shut up or I will stab you with the fork myself,” Lilly said. I couldn’t help but giggle at the seriousness in her voice. There was no joking when it came to her favorite vampire movies.

Jasper crossed his arms and stayed relatively quiet throughout the remainder of the first movie. Every once in a while he turned to me and repeated whatever the actors had just said, dramatically making fun at each of their cheesy mannerisms. At one point Lilly threw a pillow at him.
 

I found his impressions quite amusing, but I didn’t dare laugh. Jasper had told me how much Lilly liked me, and I did not want to ruin that blossoming relationship. I shot him half-hearted glares instead, catching Lilly smile in my peripheral on more than one occasion.

I thought that Lilly and May would make great friends. They were close to the same age, and they both had a way of making the best out of horrid situations. They were eternal optimists.

Lilly was the youngest mother I had ever encountered, having had Jasper in her late teens. Jasper told me that his father never left, even though a lot of men would have in that situation. They raised him against all odds, and they never stopped loving each other—staying together until his father’s death.

I could still see the love Jasper spoke of in Lilly’s eyes. It was there every time she looked at him, every time she listened to him speak, and every time she watched Jasper and me together when she thought we didn’t notice. Many people would crumble under the weight of such a loss, but Lilly was strong. The love she had for her son made her strong.

“I should be getting home soon,” I said after the second movie was over. My parents thought I was at the library studying. I was expected to be home in an hour, and as much as I loved spending time with Lilly, I also wanted to leave room for time alone with Jasper.
 

I had never experienced the feeling of being connected to someone on such a profound level. I felt like I could talk to Jasper about anything, and even the longest conversations with him were not enough. The fact that Jasper came from the Outside, that my parents despised him, and that every force in the universe was against us seemed to fade into the background when I was with him. I was starting to finally understand what love was.

I always thought of love as just something I would have with the person I was destined to marry, or what everyone felt automatically towards family members. I did believe I loved my family, but it was a different kind of love.

I knew that my parents loved me, but that love was tainted by all of the expectations placed upon me as a citizen of Oportet. My obedience and loyalty to the rules and to the Council was put first, and everything else a distant second. If my happiness interfered with the Council’s agenda, then my parents were not capable of siding with me over their leaders. It was how they were raised, how their parents were raised, and how they had set out to raise me.

I did not want to have that kind of conditional love. I did not want to have relationships that could be completely destroyed because I thought differently, or lived differently.

The love I knew I felt for Jasper was something that was both instantaneous and gradual. I was drawn to him from the start, but the feeling only grew as time went on. It was not something that I could have stopped, that kind of effort would have been hopeless. It was an irretrievable and unconditional feeling; it made me want to learn every detail of his heart, and to hear about every thought his mind had ever conceived.