Awaken (The Awaken Series Book 1) (23 page)

I was expecting a lot of things from Tomlinson when I finally confronted him about what I knew—surprise, anger, and denial—but how he really reacted did not make the list.

Tomlinson laughed.
 

It was not the kind of sinister laugh of a man who was just caught in a crime and was powerful enough to get away with it; it was the laugh of a man who was just accused of a crime he was not responsible for.

This realization hit me hard.
Where had I gone wrong?

“Is that what you think happened?” he asked when he was done laughing at me. I remembered a similar reaction from Megan earlier that week.

“Then what
did
happen?” I asked, my voice not as strong as it once was.

“You seem to be very emotional right now. I’m not sure that it would be wise to unload that kind of information.” Tomlinson smiled, the same one he’d given at my OGS: a smile of
pity
. “Besides, it is not my place to say.”

“I need to know,” I said firmly. I had already uncovered most of the truth. There was no use hiding anything at that point.

“You should really ask your parents,” Tomlinson said, and my stomach began to recoil against his words. “You really think a troubled adolescent is important enough for the Head Councilman to concern himself with? How…egotistical. Don’t get me wrong, your particular case has proven to be beneficial for me in the long run, but the choice to better your mind last spring had nothing to do with me, let alone the Council.”

It felt like someone had knocked the air out of me. I couldn’t remember how to breathe, how to speak, how to function. The answer had been right in front of me this entire time.

They were my family. How could they?

Time seemed to stop.

Soon I was out of Tomlinson’s office, down the stairwell and through the connection hallway.
 

“Hey Luna!” Father called cheerfully, spotting me moving toward him in the hallway leading to the building’s exit. “Everyone has been asking me how Bring Your Daughter to Work Day has been.” He chuckled. “Imagine the look of envy your mother and I get when we explain that you’re here to meet with Tomlinson,” he gushed. As I came closer he began to scowl. “Is something wrong?”

“Don’t you dare call me your daughter ever again,” I said, moving past him toward the exit.

I pushed through the glass doors, the sunlight blinding me as I stepped outside.

~~~~~

It took me a little under an hour to walk home from the government building. I did not plan on staying there long, just long enough to force the truth out of my little sister and pack up my things.

The middle school let out at two-thirty, and it was around three now. Megan should’ve been home.

“Luna?” I heard Megan call from her room. “Is that you?”

I shut the front door behind me and made my way up the stairs. Megan’s door was wide open, and she was sitting at her desk with an Algebra textbook open. She turned her head as I entered, looking at me with concern.

“Why are you home early? Did something happen?” Megan looked scared now, and I could only imagine the look on my face.
 

I wanted to cry out for the betrayal, lying, and scheming committed against me by my own family, but somehow I contained myself.

“It wasn’t Tomlinson who erased my memories. It was Mother and Father,” I said.
 

Megan’s face paled. “Luna, they only wanted the best for you. They thought they were doing the right thing. I know now that it was wrong and terrible, and I hate myself for not speaking up, but they
really believe
in all of this. They wanted to fix you.”

“I wasn’t broken!” The urge to break something once again presented itself. “Tell me exactly what happened.
Now
.”

“First you got into a fight, and you were sympathizing with the
Outsiders
. Next you were spending far too much time out of the house. It made them feel so powerless. They were losing control of you. They suspected you were still seeing him—Jasper.” Megan’s big green eyes let out a single tear, and she quickly wiped it with her sleeve.

“One night, you came home an absolute wreck. Right after that we found out Aunt May had died in a car wreck. You were talking all crazy, and Mother began to suspect you had been meeting with May, too.” Megan paused, contemplating something. She shook her head like she had decided against it. “It was crazy talk,” she repeated.

“It wasn’t too long before Mother called in a favor at her office and had a device installed to tap into your phone calls. One night, she used it. I remember her completely losing it. She was screaming at Father about how they had to act quickly, or they would lose you forever.”

“Because I wanted to leave,” I whispered. It was all coming together now. The pieces were connecting. The puzzle was almost complete.

Megan nodded. “The next day a couple of guards showed up on our doorstep. You fought them, and that’s when you fell and hit your head.”

“Wait, I thought there was a medical procedure?” I asked, interrupting her.

She shot me a glare, letting me know that she was getting to that. “You hitting your head was truly an accident, and you didn’t hit it hard enough to have amnesia. They took you away in a black van.”
 

My head was spinning. I thought I wanted the truth, but the truth was too painful.
 

“Dr. Gary Reynolds was the neurosurgeon who carried out the procedure. I remember Mother inviting him over for dinner while you were resting in the hospital.” Megan shook her head again, as if realizing how twisted that was. “You woke up, and everything was back to normal.”

“Normal,” I echoed quietly. The name of the neurosurgeon—Dr. Gary Reynolds—earned a nudge from within my mind. He was an important puzzle piece, I was sure, but where did he fit?

“What are you going to do, Luna?” Megan asked, fear lacing every word. “Please don’t go.”

“I can’t stay in this house anymore.”

“Please don’t
go
.”

 
I locked eyes with her, and a look of understanding passed between us. She was pleading with me to stay for the same reason I clung to Aunt May in my memories. I held the key to her freedom. Megan wanted me to free her mind. She was telling me that she was ready, just as I had been when I showed up on May’s doorstep.

It was at that moment—the split second in which Aunt May crossed my mind—that my grip on the present moment began to diminish.

“Luna? Are you remembering something?”

I was furious at Jasper for arranging a meeting with the Council later that night, but I felt even guiltier for letting him walk into a trap. Aunt May warned me that the Council could manipulate people that wanted to leave Oportet into wanting to stay.

I told my parents that I was going for a bike ride. In reality, I was keeping my promise to visit my uncharacteristically emotional aunt.

I left my bike leaning against the garage door before climbing the front porch steps. I knocked three times and waited. Aunt May was on the phone when she swung the door open, and she didn’t greet me before she stalked off in the other direction, furiously waving about the arm not holding the phone.

“It has to be right now. I just spoke to him, and he says we only have an hour before the window closes,” May said. “Yes, I know, but it’s not like medical paperwork is really going to matter after all of this is over.” May paused again. “Look, Gary, I have to go. My niece is here.”

I was waiting by the door, trying to decipher the meaning of May’s peculiar conversation. May hung up the phone and turned to face me.

“I apologize for my rudeness,” May said in an even, flat tone.

“Is everything okay?” I asked.
 

May paced back and forth. “Um, how about you stay here while I run an errand for a friend,” she said finally.

“Okay,” I mumbled.
 

May brushed past me in a hurry, swinging a black backpack over her shoulder. She placed a hand on the doorknob, only to hesitate and look back at me. Her eyes glowed, and her lips trembled.

“Luna?”

“Yes?”

May twisted the doorknob.

“Follow your gut instincts,” she said. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” I said as she stepped through the door.

When the door fell shut, it was time to move. I peered through the curtains in the living room, watching as May got into her car and pulled out of the driveway. As soon as she started moving down the street, I flung open the front door and raced toward my bike.

The speed limit, as written in the rules, was twenty miles per hour in all residential areas. I pedaled furiously to keep May in sight. The periodic stop signs kept me in the chase, allowing me time to put myself close enough to see her car, but far back enough to stay undetected.

May turned left, moving further and further away from the main part of town. She was heading to the outskirts, to the city’s border. In fact, she was heading straight for the main gate—the electronic entrance to Oportet manned by designated guards. It only opened a few times a year, to transport new citizens from the Outside.

I had little time to think as I trailed May’s sleek, red vehicle through the winding neighborhood roads. Oportet was organized so that the government building was in the very center, and it was surrounded by the scientific and medical centers. The next layer was the schools and occupational training centers, and then the business and commercial sectors followed. The final layer was the residential area that surrounded the rest of the society. Beyond the rows of houses lay Oportet’s walls.

The layout of the city revealed the Council’s priorities and rankings of importance. If the wall was ever breached, the people would be the first to go, and the Council would be the last.

My muscles ached. I had already lost sight of May on multiple occasions. A series of lucky guesses kept me on her trail. My suspicion was proving to be accurate: May was heading for the exit.

I had never been so close to the walls before. They seemed to be made of a kind of metal, and they stood at least fifty feet tall. May slowed her car to a stop, parking it where the road ended and cutting the engine. There were no more houses beyond this road, just dirt and nothingness—then the wall. The houses lining this road looked completely abandoned, yards filled with weeds and overgrown grass, and broken or shattered windows.

Suddenly aware of the lack of cover, I spotted a crumbling brick mailbox. I pedaled over to the mailbox and dumped the bike. My legs, worn out from the frantic ride through town, screamed in protest as I crouched behind my brick hiding spot.
 

Aunt May exited the parked car. She turned right and disappeared behind the row of houses. I jogged to the end of the street, peering in the direction May had gone. She was moving along the dirt stretch of land next to the wall, getting closer and closer to the wall’s lone opening.

I had to know where May was going. I had to know the reason behind all of the mysterious phone calls and cryptic goodbyes. I had to know why May was leaving me, and how she was planning on doing it. If she really was planning to walk through Oportet’s gates, I needed to see her do it with my own eyes.

Aunt May reached the gate. She stood on the road that led to the huge metal doors—doors capable of opening with the single command from the guard stationed in front of her. It was a single guard seated within the operating station next to the gate, and he was staring right at May.
 

Afraid of being seen, I ducked behind the last rundown house before the main road. I peered around the side of the house so that only my head was visible, ready to run if trouble arose.
 

“Tim,” Aunt May said, moving to stand directly in front of the glass box. “Thank you for doing this.” The guard just looked at her, unresponsive. “Tim?” she repeated.

My ears registered the sound of wheels against pavement—multiple vehicles from the loudness of it, moving toward May from the road behind her. May spun around, her face lit up with fear.

“What did you do?” she screamed at the guard. “We trusted you!”

Three black vans came to a stop facing Aunt May, and guards poured out to surround her. I held my breath, as if any sound I made would alert the guards to my presence.

They were dressed in all black, infamous silent pistols tucked in each belt. These guns were the only weapons permitted in Oportet, and only the guards and the Council could possess them. They were said to be a special kind of gun that emitted no noise when fired. A black helmet covered the entirety of the guards’ faces, the tinting so heavy that even up close their eyes were not visible.

Aunt May stood, in her beautiful red dress, her hair flying all around her as she faced a considerable display of Oportet’s law enforcement. Even then, she was absolutely stunning.
 

The guards all took position, and I watched in horror as they pointed the silent pistols directly at my aunt’s forehead, the red lasers coming together as one.

You can’t kill her! I screamed in my head. It went against the central tenets of Oportet: life had meaning and it should be protected.

My feet were cemented in place, and I couldn’t pull my eyes away for even a second. A final van pulled up behind the others, and I recognized Councilman Tomlinson stepping out along with two more uniformed guards.

“May Ashford,” Tomlinson said, standing behind the line of guards. They parted before him, creating a gap between him and May. “I can not in good conscious call this a surprise. Your friend here made certain of that.” Tomlinson gestured to the petrified guard inside the gate’s command center. “I need you to come out here, Mr. Garfield.”

The guard came out of the center, and Tomlinson motioned for him to stand next to May.