Children of the Underground

  “If anyone but you showed up here, we were supposed to shoot to kill,” Sam told Addy.

  Addy felt a mosquito biting her arm. She didn’t care. She ignored it. “Who told you to do that?” Addy asked.

  “Reggie’s orders,” Sam answered her. So much had changed in the weeks that Addy’d been gone. Addy had never known Reggie to give an order like that. Sometimes pickups didn’t go as planned and blood was shed, but it was never ordered. Addy wasn’t sure if she should be proud or disgusted. “It’s getting serious,” Sam assured her. Sam’s voice was tense and determined.

  “Everyone is joining forces, Addy,” George told her. “People would have found you and told you, but after we learned about the raids in Los Angeles, everybody but Reggie thought you were dead.”

  “What do you mean, ‘Everyone is joining forces’?” Addy asked George.

  “Everybody,” George echoed, sounding more serious than Addy had ever heard him sound before. “The Underground. The rebels. Everybody. All the factions. Everywhere. It’s global. People are coming out of the woodwork. It’s the final push. We’re finally going to try to end the War.” Addy’s heart began to beat so strongly that she could feel her pulse in the tips of her fingers.

  “You were right about fighting, Addy,” Sam said when George was done. “You were just a little off on the timing.”

  Addy kept looking back and forth between George and Sam, waiting for one of them to crack a smile or laugh so that she could be sure that this was all a twisted joke. Neither flinched. Neither even grinned. They were serious. “How is this all possible?” Addy asked. It was a pipe dream, getting everyone who was against the War to finally work together. It was impossible.

  “Christopher,” George said. “It’s all Christopher. He’s bringing everyone together.”

  “Christopher?” a voice broke in from outside the circle. It was Evan. He’d been listening in silence the whole time. “Do you know where Christopher is? Do you know if he’s okay?”

  The three of them—Addy, George, and Sam—looked up at Evan as he spoke, as if he’d suddenly materialized out of thin air. Addy felt guilty. She’d completely forgotten that Evan was even there. “Evan?” she said with surprise. Then she collected herself. “Evan, this is George and Sam,” Addy introduced the three of them. “I used to work with them here. They’re part of the Underground.”

  Evan reached his hand out, and George and Sam took turns shaking it. “You’re the kid from the news,” George said to Evan, recognizing his face from the pictures.

  “He’s with me,” Addy said to them, stepping closer to Evan, touching his elbow with her hand. “Don’t believe everything you see on the news.”

  “I never have,” George laughed. Addy wondered if she should tell them who Evan was. She wondered if she should tell them that Evan had grown up as Christopher’s closest friend. She decided not to. Evan was going to have a hard enough time adjusting without having to answer any more questions about Christopher.

  “So, do you know where Christopher is?” Evan asked again.

  “Yeah,” George answered him, staring straight into Evan’s eyes. “He’s with Reggie.” Addy’s shock slipped out in an audible gasp. George turned toward Addy. He nodded to confirm to her that he was speaking the truth. “Reggie is helping Christopher. They’re working together to make sure that everyone is ready for the uprising.”

  Forty-nine

  It’s over. For now, it’s over. Maybe I should have simply grabbed you and ran.

  I got to the house at a little after nine in the morning. I went to the same spot where I’d secretly been watching you for the past three days. It gave me a clear view into your house but kept me relatively hidden. I could see you, but no one in the house could see me. It was sunny. It would be hot later, even this close to the ocean. You’d go down for your morning nap in an hour. My plan was to get you out of the house shortly after you fell asleep so that you’d be too tired to understand what was happening. I hoped that you’d eventually wake up with me and think that the past eleven months had simply been a long nightmare.

  I sat down and reached into my backpack for my lucky pack of cigarettes. It was opened now, one cigarette short of a full pack. I took a cigarette out of the pack and placed it between my lips. I lit it. It was the first cigarette I’d had in, what, seven months? Eight? I smoked it until the cigarette had burned about a quarter of the way down. Then I felt stupid, ridiculous even, so I threw the barely smoked butt on the ground and stamped it out with my foot. The world is already full of enough silly rituals. I don’t need to create new ones.

  You went down for your nap a little bit late. She didn’t put you in your crib until almost half past ten. You cried at first, rocking yourself back and forth in your crib before falling asleep. I could see into your crib through the open window. I watched you as you stopped fussing and your breathing calmed, your tiny chest rising and falling at a slow, even pace. That’s when I decided it was finally time to go and get you.

  The front door of the house faced south, overlooking the rocks and, eventually, the ocean. The air was full of the constant smell of salt from the sea. I walked around the house and up to the front door. I knocked three firm, solid knocks. The irony wasn’t lost on me, remembering the sound of the knocks on the door the day they stole you from me. This was different though. I was taking back what was rightfully mine.

  I knocked. Then waited, listening. I heard a rustling sound on the other side of the door. The last I saw of the woman through the window, she had been in the kitchen, putting dishes away. She didn’t answer the knocks at first, but I knew that she’d heard me. I didn’t knock again. I didn’t want to appear too eager. Instead, I waited. Eventually, I heard the woman put some dishes down on a counter. I heard her footsteps as she started walking toward the door. Her steps were slow and apprehensive. I saw her pull back the curtains next to the door and peek out the window. When she looked out, she saw only me—tiny, innocent me. When They came to take you from me, They came with five heavily armed men. The curtain dropped back in place. Seconds later, the woman opened the door.

  “Can I help you?” she asked. She opened the door only a crack, barely wide enough for her to look out. She tried to block my view inside her house with her body. She was dressed in white linen pants and a breezy coral button-down blouse.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I was going for a walk out to the headlands and I was hoping that I could use your bathroom. I’ll only be a minute.”

  The woman glanced back into the house without opening the door any wider. She was looking toward your room. She shook her head. “My baby is asleep,” she said. “I really don’t want to wake him.” My baby, she’d said.

  “I’ll be really quiet,” I said. “I promise.” I bounced on my feet, trying to sell the lie.

  The woman took a long look at me as if she were peering into a dark hole. “Do I know you?” she asked. “You look familiar.”

  I swallowed, trying to think of what to say besides Of course you recognize me. You see me every day when you look at your son. “I’m on vacation here in town,” I told her. “Maybe you’ve seen me walking around.”

  She kept staring at my face. She knew that she recognized something else. She glanced again toward your room. I worried for a moment that she might be putting it all together. “I really need to use your bathroom,” I said, trying to interrupt her train of thought. “Then I’ll be out of your way.”

  She didn’t want to open the door. She was nervous. I made her nervous. She looked past me down the street, toward the other houses, looking to see if anyone else was outside, to see if anyone would be there to save her if she screamed. The street was empty, but I was small and looked innocent enough. “Okay,” she said, opening the door wider. “But please be quiet. The bathroom is at the end of that hallway,” she said, pointing toward her husband’s bathroom, the one at the other e
nd of the house, away from you.

  “Thank you,” I said, and jogged past her, moving lightly on my feet. I didn’t want you to wake up either. I may have wanted it less than she did. I ran inside the bathroom and closed the door behind me. Once inside the bathroom, I took off my backpack. I reached inside and took out what remained of the duct tape. My knife was strapped inside my waist. Before leaving the bathroom, I looked at myself in the mirror. A short-haired, tired-looking woman stared back at me with fierce eyes. I flushed the toilet. Then I turned on the faucet and splashed some cold water on my face. This was it. I steeled myself, taking deep breaths. Then I stepped back outside the door, holding the duct tape in my left hand.

  She was waiting for me right outside the door. She should have had a weapon. If she were a soldier, she would have had a weapon. She wasn’t a soldier, though. She was a tither. She and her husband paid for the War with a check every month. That’s why they didn’t have to fight. They paid their way out of it. She knew enough to be afraid, but not enough to do anything about it. When I stepped through the door, she glanced down at my hands. She saw the duct tape. Then she looked back up at my face. “What do you want?” she said, her voice quiet and shaky.

  “I’m not one of Them,” I said to her. It didn’t matter if Them was your father’s side or hers. I had gotten comfortable using the term Them interchangeably. To me, Them were the true believers, no matter what side they were on. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

  She started backing away from me, walking slowly backward toward the kitchen. “Then what are you here for?” she asked. She was going to run soon. I could tell. She was going to turn and run and I would have to chase her, catch her, subdue her, and silence her—all without waking you up.

  “You still don’t know why you recognize me?” I asked her, knowing full well that I was this woman’s worst nightmare. She would have been happier if I was one of Them. If I was one of Them, she’d be as good as dead but her baby would be safe.

  “No,” she said, staring at my face, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

  “I’m here for Christopher,” I said, trying to catch up to her, to walk toward her faster than she was backing away.

  “Who?” she asked. They never told her your real name.

  “My son,” I said, looking over her shoulder toward your room.

  Then she realized. The life seeped out of her face. “No.” She began shaking her head. “You can’t. You can’t.”

  “I’m not going to hurt him either,” I told her, feeling a sudden urge to console her. “I’m here to save him.”

  “Save him from what?” she asked, almost in a panic-induced falsetto.

  I thought about how to answer the question this time. She deserved the painful truth. “You,” I told her.

  Before she could turn and run, I raised my voice, hoping to stop her. “There’s no use running,” I told her. “I’ll catch you.” I looked at her. Her skin sagged around her muscles. She wasn’t prepared for this. “You’ve spent almost a year raising my son,” I said to her. “You want to know what I’ve been doing all that time?” I didn’t wait for her to answer. “I’ve been training.” Everything you do is practice for the next thing that you do.

  She ran anyway. She turned and sprinted toward the kitchen. They kept knives in the kitchen. Maybe there was a gun there too. I ran after her, pulling out my knife as I ran. When I got close enough to her, I kicked one of her feet out from under her. She fell to the floor. As she fell, I pulled out a large strip of duct tape and cut it with the knife. She hit the hard floor with a loud thud and immediately turned over to face me. I was on top of her before she had another moment to think, my knees jabbing into her chest. She saw the knife. I took the duct tape and pressed it across her face, covering her mouth before she had a chance to scream. She reached up with one hand to try to hit me, but I caught her hand in the air. Then I stood up and twisted her wrist, forcing her whole body to roll over. She began crying. She kept trying to scream through the duct tape. Her body was shuddering. Her screams came through the duct tape like low, quiet moans. Once she was on her stomach, I placed one knee into the small of her back and reached for her other hand. I was holding the knife and her wrist in the same hand, trying not to cut her. I pulled her hands together behind her back and taped them together, exactly like I’d taped up the security guard in the intelligence cell. Once her hands were taped together, I taped her feet. I couldn’t afford to have her get up and run, not in this town, not with her hands taped behind her back and her mouth taped shut. Tying her up took me only a few seconds. I was fast and efficient. Once I was sure she was immobilized, I listened. The house was quiet. You were still asleep.

  I rolled her over again and pushed her up against the wall. Her eyes were red. Tears were streaming down her face. I remembered what it felt like. I remembered lying on the ground and wishing that they’d shoot me and put me out of my misery so I wouldn’t have to watch them take you away. I looked into the woman’s eyes. “I know you love him,” I said to her. “I appreciate that you’ve treated him well. But you were going to turn him into a killer. You were going to make him hate.” She shook her head, trying to deny what she knew was the truth. “And he’s my son,” I said more forcefully. “You had no right to have him in the first place.”

  I stood up. I found a chair in the kitchen and dragged it next to her. Then I picked her up and sat her down on the chair. She tried to say something to me through the tape, but I ignored her. I wrapped more tape around her body, securing her to the chair. Then I went outside. I’d hidden a large duffel bag behind some shrubs outside the front door. I grabbed the duffel bag and came back inside. The woman was struggling against the tape but wasn’t making any progress. Her chest kept heaving as she cried. I was worried she might hyperventilate, but there was little I could do. I wasn’t going to undo the tape, and she didn’t know enough to control her breathing. With the duffel bag in my hand, I began collecting things, things that they weren’t going to need anymore. I knew where they kept your diapers, your clothes, your bottles, your pacifiers. I began taking everything that I’d seen them use with you over the past three days and throwing it in the duffel bag. I wanted to take enough to last me for two days. Then I could start to replenish the supplies on my own. To get your diapers, I had to walk into your room, right past your crib. You were sound asleep. You were the most peaceful thing I’d ever seen. The last thing that I grabbed was the car keys off the hook on the wall near the front door.

  I ran out to the car. I opened the trunk and threw the duffel bag inside. Then I went back in the house for you. If I’d only been seconds faster. I made two steps toward your room. Then I heard a sound coming from outside. Screeching tires. I looked outside. A car fishtailed in front the house, pulling to a loud stop. He’d come back. The husband had come back. He was supposed to be at work. She must have called him while I was in the bathroom. She must have assumed that I was one of Them. But then why did she stay? She stayed to protect you. Even knowing the rules, even knowing that They weren’t supposed to hurt you, even knowing that she didn’t know how to fight, she stayed to protect you.

  Through the white curtains on the front window, I saw him step out of the car. He had a gun in his hand. He slammed the car door behind him and started running toward the house. He didn’t stop to think or to plan. He was running headlong into danger. I can only imagine what she’d said, speaking in a whisper in the seconds she had while I was in the bathroom. One of Them is here. I’m going to protect our baby. I love you. Time wouldn’t have allowed for much more than that. He was running toward the door, hoping he’d made it in time to save his child and, only if he were lucky, his wife. It all would have been fine if it weren’t for the goddamn gun. I wasn’t afraid of him, but I was afraid of the gun. I still had the duct tape in one hand and the knife in the other. I hid behind a corner that he’d have to pass before he saw his wife tied to the
chair. I could get a jump on him from there.

  The front door swung open. The man shouted, “Maggie!” as he crossed over the threshold into the house. I could hear the panic in his voice. He should have been more careful, but how can you expect someone to be careful when they think that everything they care about in the world is already gone? I’m telling you now, Christopher, that in those moments when you fear the worst, you have to close your eyes to everything that you know is true and simply believe—believe that everything is going to work out for you, believe that your enemies deserve whatever comes to them, believe that you are unstoppable, believe that you are righteous. If you can’t believe those things in those moments, you’ll be torn to pieces.

  From where she was taped to the chair, the woman could see me. She could see me standing with my back pressed against the wall and my knife in my hand. Her eyes flitted between me and the hallway. I would know when her husband came into view by the look in her eyes. She was trying to loosen the tape around her mouth. I could see her working her tongue furiously against the back of the tape. She wanted to warn her husband, but she was making no progress. I heard the footsteps coming toward us. Then I heard the man yell, “Maggie!” again. This time I could hear both the panic and the relief in his voice. As he yelled her name, the woman’s eyes widened into giant orbs of fear. He didn’t notice. He was too happy that she was alive. He stumbled toward her, falling to his knees in front of her. I took a silent step toward his back, readying the knife. He reached up for the tape covering his wife’s mouth. I couldn’t let him undo it. She would scream. I had to decide what to do. The man’s hand caught the corner of the tape and, as it did, I kicked him hard in the kidney.

  He fell forward and to the side, rolling onto his back as he fell. He didn’t lose his grip on the gun. He staggered backward on his hands and feet, doing a type of crab walk toward the wall while trying to piece together what was happening. Finally, his eyes fell on me as I stepped toward him with my knife. I had a knife. He had a gun. It shouldn’t have been a fight. He stood up and pointed the gun at me, and I still wasn’t afraid. He was a tither. He killed people with his money, not his hands. I stepped closer to him. He stepped back. “Put the gun away,” I ordered him.