Enemy of Gideon (13 page)

One question suffocates me:
Where is Arkin?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“
M
y life draws near to death. I am counted among those who go down to the pit; I am like one without strength.”

Only the words of Psalm 88 speak to my soul. Arkin taught me about the soul, how it will carry on in either Heaven or Hell long after my body fades away. He explained Heaven and Hell, but grief surrounds me and buries me day and night. All I know for certain is I will never see Petra on Earth again.

I linger in my bed all weekend, nursing fears that Arkin may have been arrested or that he abandoned me and Gideon forever. My physical illness is replaced with a sickness of despair and paranoia I can’t shake.

As my eyes skim over Psalm 88 for what must have been the one hundredth time, a soft voice calls my name. The sound startles me because the voice doesn’t belong to Mom.

“Raissa,” the voice says, accompanied by a knock at my bedroom door.

I tuck the Bible under my pillow. “Come in.”

When Arkin enters the room, my heart jumps in my chest. I utter his name as I sit up in bed. I don’t have a drop of embarrassment for how disheveled I look, not even in front of such attractive company. I don’t care about anything anymore.

He closes the door behind him and rushes to hug me. The embrace brings me more comfort than all the embraces Mom attempted in the past three days.

“Where have you been?” I ask, holding him close.

“Home,” he whispers. “I went as soon as it all went wrong.”

I pull back. His eyes are red.

“My parents wanted me to stay with them all weekend. They were worried CE might be on high alert,” he says. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you. I should’ve been here.”

“No. It’s okay. I was afraid that you …”

“I’m fine, and I’m here.” He takes my hand in his.

“What went wrong?” I ask. I don’t know why I ask. The answer won’t change anything, but I want to find some comfort in knowing.

He leans close to my ear and whispers, “Josiah thinks they knew about the plan somehow. Petra made it out of the building, but it all fell apart. They arrested everyone involved, including our mole—Officer Guzman.”

“Guzman? Beatty’s father?”

He nods. “He was a believer.”

Shock sends a charge through me, like on the night Arkin handed me the box from Petra.
How could Guzman, a high-ranking officer and close friend of Penski, be one of them?

“Is his family from the outskirts?”

He shakes his head. “He’s only been a believer for the past two years.”

“What will they do to him?”

The answer is in his eyes. “He has three weeks,” he says. “Beatty and her mother are in safe keeping.”

“Beatty’s one of them?” I ask.

“Her mother is,” he whispers. “In time, we hope Beatty will be too.”

My last dinner with the Guzmans at the citizenship center—of course!
It all makes sense, how Mr. Guzman spoke up in favor of my last visit with Petra. Without that visit and the key, Mr. Guzman couldn’t help carry out the plan for Petra’s escape.

“There’s so much more I want to say, but I can’t,” he whispers. “My parents think it’s best if we keep our distance for now.”

My heart sinks like a boulder, and I shake my head in protest. “I want to leave Gideon. I don’t want any part of this place anymore.”

“You can’t leave Gideon.”

A surge of rage boils my blood. “I hate Code—”

He covers my mouth with his warm hand. “I know you’re angry, but you can’t take back your words around here. You know that.”

I pull from his grasp, eager to continue my rant at the top of my lungs, but he’s right. I’ll never be able to get revenge on Code Enforcement if they throw me into prison or simply do away with me like they did Petra.

“I pledge my allegiance to the believers,” I whisper into his ear. “I’m an enemy of Gideon now, and I’ll do whatever it takes to bring down the city-state.”

He pulls away from me with a pale face as if he’s looking at the walking dead. “Then I’ve taught you nothing.”

►▼◄

Three weeks pass, and a transformation sweeps across Gideon. March’s chilly days fade, ushering in the warm days of early April. The once invisible wisteria vines reveal their hiding places across fences and pines, blooming in pale purple clusters. Dust piles of pollen gather in the cracks on the cobblestone walkways and cover the vendor carts in yellow blankets of velvet.

Despite the return of the spring colors and the buzz of energy it brings to the students, I remain in a fog. I spend my school days sketching, and my evenings devouring the Bible. My report card is littered with failing grades, but Mom says nothing to me. She has said little to me at all since Petra’s death. We often eat dinner in silence, or Mom works overtime and drifts into the apartment close to midnight.

Arkin has taken his parents’ advice to heart and keeps a safe distance from me throughout the school day, but after school, we walk home together. He says it seems too unnatural and even suspicious for us not to walk to our same building together.

Much to my surprise, Ogden joins us. He doesn’t hate me for my cold words spoken on the day Petra died. Instead, he carries on with our friendship as if the fight never happened. When I first returned to school, he greeted me like usual but with a hint of caution. I accepted his company. It would’ve been cruel to deny our friendship because of his father. In such an unfair situation, Ogden doesn’t deserve the blame.

So we walked home together every day for the past three weeks, talking about school events, teachers, and fellow students. No one wanted to talk about family or home.

Before parting at the elevator each day, Arkin slipped a cryptic note to me without Og being the wiser. For the first two days, I couldn’t decipher it at all, but the letters and numbers had to be connected to the Bible.

The first one read: NTL 23,34

By the third evening, holding three different notes like this in my hand, I cracked Arkin’s code. NT stood for New Testament, the part of the Bible located closer to the back. L stood for the only book in the New Testament which began with L, Luke. 23 represented the chapter number and 34 represented the verse.

When I found the verse, I stared at it, trying to imagine what hidden meaning Arkin intended I might glean from it.

“Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’”

The second slip read: NTMW 6,14. This translated into New Testament, Matthew 6:14.

“For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.”

The third slip of paper read: NTC 3,13, which was New Testament, Colossians 3:13.

“Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

By the end of three weeks, I read fifteen verses about forgiveness, and I knew what he meant. Through the Bible, he pleaded with me to forgive CE for what they did to Petra.

“We’re not perfect because of what happened with Adam and Eve,” I remember Arkin telling me, “but because our Perfect God sacrificed His Son, the only perfect Man, we can all be forgiven of our imperfections. We’ll be forgiven and accepted into God’s Kingdom because of our faith in His Son and His great sacrifice.”

I remember every word of every conversation we had in the dark corner of the Blind Spot. Much of what he said was logical, but I still stew in my contempt of Code Enforcement, the Code, and the long dead Ulysses Gideon.

How can Arkin expect me to forgive them?
They systematically destroyed my family—first by killing my father, then by killing Petra. Now I don’t even know my mother anymore. How can I let it go like a simple mistake, like a stranger stepping on my foot in a crowd? How can Arkin possibly understand what he’s asking me to do?

Mom’s laughter echoes from the other side of my bedroom door late Saturday morning. The smell of pancakes drifts into my nostrils.
Petra always makes her laugh
when she flips pancakes into the air and catches them with the spatula
. A strange male voice jars me back to reality. Mom laughs with Hunter.

I scurry out of bed and enter the living room, still in my pajamas. Hunter and Mom lounge on the living room sofa, sipping coffee together.

“Good morning,” Mom says in a sing-song voice. “Hunter surprised me and came over to cook breakfast for us. We saved you some.”

I say nothing. I won’t even look at him. The man’s beady eyes stare a hole through me as I cross into the kitchen.

The banana chocolate chip pancakes taste a thousand times better than anything I’ve digested since Holiday.
Bananas and chocolate?
A meal fit for Og’s household.
Hunter even brought syrup.

“How do you like it, sweetie?” Hunter asks, stepping into the kitchen.

Sweetie?
I nod, keeping my eyes on my plate.

“I’d like to take you and your mother out with me today across Gideon,” Hunter says.

“To where?” I ask, staring him down.

Mom steps next to Hunter. “To the aviary. I haven’t been there in years, and they’ve completely remodeled it.”

“I thought we could all spend some time together and get to know each other,” Hunter says.

I don’t know what to say. I open my mouth to ask when they will be leaving, but a knock comes at the front door. Mom disappears to answer it.

“Raissa,” she calls. “It’s Arkin.”

I jump to my feet and wipe the syrup from my mouth before rushing to the door.

“Can we hang out today?” Arkin asks.

My heart flutters. By the look in his eyes, I can tell he wants to take me back to the outskirts, and I can’t wait to return.

“I’m going out with Arkin today,” I say, peeking around the door.

Mom frowns. “Why don’t you bring him to the aviary with us?”

I freeze, thumbing through the files of excuses in my mind.

“Audrey, it’s okay,” Hunter says. “Let her go. She’s got better things to do.”

Hunter winks at me, making my skin crawl.

Mom sighs. “Be home for dinner.”

After changing out of my pajamas and into a fresh coverall, I meet Arkin outside on the steps.

“That was him? The one you told me about?” he asks, stepping into the crowd of pedestrians.

“Yes,” I say. “I didn’t know she was still talking to him. She hasn’t mentioned him in weeks.”

“Maybe I was wrong,” he says. “Maybe he’s a friend from work.”

I grimace. “Either way, I don’t like him.”

Without another word, we scurry down the street toward Hollis and Sons Farm, exchanging knowing glances with each other when we pass CE officers.

At the stable, I’m less apprehensive about mounting Piper the second time, and I do it with more ease.

“She’s a good gal, isn’t she?” Arkin asks me after we wave to Sted and head toward the back gate.

“What? No blindfold?” I ask.

“You deserve to see the journey,” he says.

“Great. I get to
watch
the last few moments of my life.”

He chuckles.

“Does the horse have to go so fast this time?” I ask, bracing myself.

“I love how fast she goes. It feels like flying,” he says. “I imagine Heaven feeling something like it.”

“Why are you so sure about Heaven?”

“Because Jesus said so much about it, and I believe what He said. If I don’t believe it, what other hope do I have?”

“How can I be sure Petra is there?” My eyes burn, and I shut them, grateful Arkin can’t see my face.

“Because she had faith, and so do I,” he says. “And so did my brother.”

“You have a brother?”

“Larson. He’s in Heaven too. That’s why we have to forgive, because we believe.”

“How can I forgive them for something so cruel?” I ask, trying to steady my tone.

“The same way I forgave CE three years ago when they executed Larson.”

Before I can respond, Piper takes off at full speed toward Philippi.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

T
he names on the concrete wall trail from floor to ceiling in three columns. They’re mostly first names but a few had last names, some familiar-sounding and others sounding foreign. The believers added Petra’s name to the list. Arkin points out his brother’s name a few names above Petra’s.

“This is how we remember our martyrs,” he says, tracing the letters of his brother’s name with his pointer finger under the beam from a flashlight.

“There’s so many,” I say, not restraining my amazement.

“Sixty-eight,” Elder Mark says, “and that’s only those who died from
our
village. There’s a wall like this at each village.”

“How many villages are there?” I ask.

Elder Mark cocks his head at me. “The fewer people that know, the safer we are.”

I frown and return my attention to the wall. “I don’t see my father’s name, Corbin Santos. Was he from another village?”

Arkin and his father exchange glances.

Elder Mark nods at me. “Corinth.”

“Did you know him?” I ask, hoping he can tell me more about my father.

“Not very well,” he says. “I’ve only been to Corinth a handful of times.”

I sigh, not hiding my disappointment.

“There’s another place I want to show you,” Arkin says. “Dad, can I take her to the library?”

I’ve never heard the word
library
before. Is it above ground or below? With it being only my second trip to Philippi, I have many other corners of the village to explore.
But should I be worried about what mysterious places Arkin wants to show me?
The people are strangers, still considered enemies by nearly everyone I know. I can trust Arkin, but I can’t be sure about the others.

Elder Mark nods. “I think she’ll like that.”

We part ways with his father, who heads above ground to gather crops.

“We have a garden up there, a full acre, with all types of fruits and vegetables,” Arkin says, heading through a dark corridor in the cement maze of the underground community. “I’d like to take you up there today.”

“I don’t understand,” I say. “You hide down here, but you manage to grow food up there. How is it that CE hasn’t noticed the gardens and found you?”

“They’ve never had enough officers to scout the whole area surrounding Gideon,” he says. “The leaders think it’s best to focus on securing the city limits. This has been a major blessing from God. I don’t know what would happen if they knew our village locations.”

The beam from his flashlight falls on a closed set of gray metal doors before us. I swallow hard as we approach it. He tugs at the rusty handle and it gives him a fit, but it finally opens toward us with a loud groan of protest. The inside is pitch black, so dark that his flashlight beam can’t reveal the mystery beyond the open door.

“I’ll go light the candles. Stay here,” he says, disappearing into the darkness.

I wait, rubbing my bare wrist at the spot where my ID usually remains. I can’t say I miss the device, but the absence of it makes me feel unlike myself and very unlike a citizen. I smirk. The farther I travel from Gideon, the lighter the weight on me becomes.

The room beyond the door lights up in sections as Arkin’s shadow passes like a storm cloud. Three lights reveal one corner, and then two more reveal another. Five candles become ten, and the candlelight unveils the room. With more candles lit, the room glows like the trees and grass within reach of a new sunrise. The room’s walls hide behind wooden shelves. Two other wooden shelves stand parallel in the center of the room, filled with stacks of books.

“You saved this many Bibles?” I ask.

“I wish. About a quarter of the books are Bibles. The rest are what’s left of our nation, what our ancestors saved after the war.”

I step into the room and take in the scent, one identical to the Bible I possess. The smell, heavy with dust, whispers of days long ago.

I walk to the nearest shelf and touch the first book within arm’s reach. The spine reads
Pilgrim’s Progress
in gold letters on rough, red fabric. My fingertips glide from spine to spine, feeling the foreign materials the books are made of. Rough and smooth. Rough and smooth. I scan title after title and strange names like Shakespeare and Dante.

“You have to see the art,” he says, slipping past me to the nearest corner of the room. “You won’t believe how incredible it is.”

He brings a tall, thin book, grinning like a child with a bag of oranges. He sits on the cold, cement floor, pulling me down with him. I settle beside him as he lays the book open on the floor.

I lose my breath. In the center of the painting, a bearded man dressed in white steps out of a cave. Glowing humans with wings bow at either side of him. The colors are brilliant, even in the low light.

“Is that Jesus?” I ask, tracing my fingers along the smooth paper where the man in white stands. “Is that what He looked like?”

“No one knows exactly what He looked like,” he says, “but many artists have drawn him like that. Those are angels on each side of Him.”

“I’ve never seen a painting like this,” I say. “In Gideon, all of the portraits are of city-state leaders or Ulysses Gideon.”

“There are thousands of paintings of Jesus. He’s the most famous person who ever lived. You should hear the music people made for Him. It’s like nothing you’ve ever heard in your life.”

“Like the music you play?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “That was nothing.”

“It was beautiful. I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since I heard it.”

He lowers his eyes, his cheeks glowing. “We have a music player and some of the songs they used to listen to. There are so many instruments playing all at once in this amazing flow. Every time I hear it, I can imagine walking along with Jesus in a garden.”

I turn the pages in the book and marvel at each painting. They all depict Jesus somehow. When I finish examining the last painting, he brings a stack of books to the floor. We spend nearly two hours browsing them and talking. With each new book, my eyes open more and more to what used to be the world before Gideon, a place of freedom and peace, a place without gray coveralls and career placement tests.

“Thank you for bringing me here,” I say.

He blows out the candles surrounding us. “We’ll come back again. There’s so much more in here to read, but I want you to keep reading your Bible.”

“Can we meet at the Blind Spot again?” I ask.

He frowns, closing the library door behind us. “With Hunter around, that doesn’t seem like such a good idea.”

“I know you want me to forgive them, but I don’t know how,” I say.

He turns on the flashlight. “You first have to be forgiven yourself.”

I huff. “Forgiven for what? I haven’t killed anybody.”

“We’re all sinners. You can’t be forgiven if you don’t accept that.”

My pride swells. “I don’t need forgiveness. I need an apology from CE.”

His expression drops. “You’ll never get that.”

“Then forgiveness is out of the question.”

►▼◄

Throughout each worship service at Philippi, my spirit totters between incomparable joy and unbearable guilt from one minute to the next. The songs make me smile easily, but Elder Mark’s words cause an invisible spotlight to glow over my head. Every w
ord burrows inside of me, but I resist the urge to give up my hatred. Even during my fourth worship service, I cling to my bitterness like a soft blanket and refuse to let it go.

“It’s time we bring Ogden in,” Arkin says, walking through the underground tunnel from Philippi.

“Og? Why?” I ask, shuddering at the thought.

“Why not? He’s our friend,” he says.

“I told you, Og is too loyal to the Code.”

“I don’t believe that. Once he finds out who I really am and meets the other believers, he’ll—”

I reach ahead and grab his wrist, forcing him to stop. “No! It’s too dangerous.”

“I don’t care,” he says, yanking out of my grasp. “Every time a believer shares the truth with a Gideonite, it’s a risk, but we do it because that’s what God calls us to do. We have to let as many people know about Jesus as we can, no matter what.”

“Why?”

“So they can go to Heaven!” His voice carries through the tunnel and echoes behind me. We both freeze, startled. He blinks, relaxes, and lowers his voice. “Don’t you see? Jesus wasn’t about overthrowing the Romans, and we aren’t about overthrowing the Code. We just want to see souls saved.”

I shake his words from my mind. “If you tell Og, I won’t have any part of it.”

“He won’t trust me without your backing. You’re his best friend,” he says. “Please.”

I avoid his pleading glance but returned to it.
He’s still adorable, intelligent Arkin, no matter how crazy his ideas are.

“Fine,” I say, “but we do this my way.”