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He storms off, and the guards follow suit. I tag along not too far behind, making sure I don’t get caught in his crosshairs. The scene outside has me stopping to catch my breath for a second.
Women and men are throwing themselves at each other, punching, kicking, biting. There’s fighting going on all around the Holy Land, and I am just amazed.
This is what Marsha and Natalie came up with?
An uprising?
The president continues his path toward the huts, so I follow him while looking around for Natalie. I have to get her out of here before he finds her and discovers she’s the cause.
The president grabs a random passerby who’s running and shakes him. “Where’s Natalie? My wife? Have you seen them?”
The passerby seems befuddled at both the question and the fact that the president himself is touching him. He’s never gone out when he wasn’t supposed to, when it wasn’t for official business, and he’s never been to the huts either, so it’s no wonder the guy is shocked. I am too.
“Where are they?!” he growls.
“I don’t know,” the guy says, raising his trembling hands. “I swear.”
The president shoves him away, and the guy drops onto the muddy ground.
“Keep searching,” the president barks at his guards. “Find them. Now!”
The guards nod and instantly disperse, searching every hut in their vicinity, tearing it all apart. I can’t do anything but watch as the whole community seems to be turned on its head. I’ve never seen something like this, a violence so visceral it brings chills to my bones.
Suddenly, I spot her, digging a hole in the ground next to a hut not too far from here.
My eyes widen when I spot the body.
Fuck.
I glance at the president, and when he isn’t looking, I dash to Natalie. I grab her shoulder and pull her with me. “Come. Now.”
“Noah? What are you doing here? Let go of me!” she squeals. “This has to be done!”
“I don’t care what you’re doing, hide!” I bark, shoving her into the hut right next to where she was digging.
Emmy’s there too, but she’s covered in blood, and the sight catches me off guard.
She’s washing her hands, and the moment she looks up and spots me, the terror makes her tremble.
“It’s okay. I won’t get you in trouble,” I say, holding up my hand. “But we need to go. Now.”
Emmy’s jaw still drops, and tears fill her eyes.
But she’s not looking at me.
“Go where?”
The moment his voice booms behind me, my whole body feels as though it’s turned into ashes. And when Natalie turns around, her face turns bleak too.
He followed me here.
He saw.
“Think you could hide this from me?” the president says. “That I wouldn’t discover all the things you’ve been planning behind my back?”
I close my eyes and let it all sink in.
He knows.
She’s here for only one reason, and he knows exactly why.
She caused the uprising … and now he knows I was involved too.
We’re doomed.
“Take them. Lock them up,” the president barks right before I’m shoved to my knees by two guards, muzzled, and put into chains.
Ready for the slaughter.
Natalie
“Let me out!” I yell, banging on my bedroom door again and again.
It’s no use. No one’s going to let me out.
The guards have a job to do. If they don’t listen, the president will punish them.
The women won’t let me out because if they did, he’d know they were helping … and then he’d punish them too.
The other patriarchs? They want to keep their power so they’d never help me.
And Agatha? She’d lose her head if she tried.
No one can help me.
Not because they don’t want to, but because of their own safety. There is no happiness in this place, only power and those who have it. That’s what it’s all about … my father, the president, has it all.
Someone has to take it from him.
I just wish I knew how.
I’m stuck in my room with nothing I can use as a weapon to tear this door down. It’s the only thing that’s standing between me and the people out there, the people who were ready. Damn, I was so close. Those women were ready to fight.
And then the guards came and dragged them all away, one by one, until no one was left to fight.
I don’t know what happened to all of those women. Did they put them all in suffering huts? Did they make them wash the floors? Clean the grounds? Did they hurt them? Punish them for their insolence?
A chill runs along my spine. God, this is all my fault.
It was my idea to make them stand up to their oppressors.
I thought we could do it, that we could finally beat them. We had them outnumbered.
Yet … it’s still not enough.
They have weapons. What do we have?
Our bodies.
We’re no match. We never were. It was only a matter of time until the guards came to beat down the crowd and the fighting ended.
