CHAPTER NINETY-EIGHT
"Wait, where's Rose?” Ann asked, noticing her absence.
“Let's not panic yet, maybe she had to pee or something. I'll call her now.”
I took out my phone and saw five missed calls from Corbin. I didn't know how to feel about him yet so I ignored it and went straight to Roe’s number and dialed it.
It rang for an uncomfortable number of times before she picked it up.
“Roe, where are you?”
“They're here, we need to leave immediately!” She whispered even though she wasn't here.
“What is she saying?”
“Anna, go pack a bag of edibles from the kitchen, I think we're gonna be gone for a while,”
She nodded and ran off and I focused back on Rose.
“What do you mean they're here? Who's here?” I asked as I looked around for more cameras. I'd seen Anna smash the other one and I wanted to do the same. Whatever their reasons were for invading our lives this way, I was going to frustrate them as much as I could.
As I waited for Roe’s breathing to steady so she could answer me, I found another one on top of the window. It was a small thing and once I dropped it on the ground and stumped on it, it was destroyed.
“I saw them from a distance and ran. You know those special ones that don't even speak English?”
“Yea, they didn't listen to us when we were begging them to stop hurting Brendan,” I sniffled at the memory, alarm bells going off in my head.
“Exactly. I think they were asked to watch the house. Did you guys find anything? Whatever it is, please come out, we need to leave, okay?”
“Yea, sure. We'll be on our way now,” I answered as I pulled out another one from under the couch and destroyed it in a like manner.
“Anna!” I called out to her as I rummaged through the living room for anything else.
“Which direction did you go?” I asked Roe before she cut the phone
“My sister’s house,”
“Okay, we'll be with you soon. We'll run, okay?”
“Okay,” she replied, still trying to catch her breath.
I felt really terrible that this was happening to her while pregnant and there was nothing we could do. I would totally let her stay back with her parents and all but that was simply a recipe for disaster.
As I waited for Anna to show up, my eyes still rummaging through the whole place, I realized we had to find the resistance sooner than we'd planned.
They were our only choice.
Xavier really believes he'd had me deceived down to the last letter so he won't expect me to join the resistance. Also, the stuff was pretty dead anyways so it was probably a bunch of homeless people and all.
Perfect place to hide and forage for food until we got news about our parents
“Tessy?” Anna called as she stepped out of the kitchen, a paper in her hand. “I found this,”
“Great, whatever it is, we'll read it on the way. We need to leave here, immediately!”
She understood the sense of urgency and we ran out of the house into the cool evening after failing to lock the door.
***
We'd caught up with a struggling Roe a few minutes away from her sister's house and I contemplated leaving her there but what if they came for her? These aliens didn't understand the word empathy or that you should not hurt a pregnant woman. They'll do whatever they can to get information from you.
When we got to our destination, Roe was panting and I was so scared something was wrong.
I rushed to her side and helped her as we walked into the pathway that led to the house Lisbeth had moved into when she got married. Her husband, an abusive piece of shit died in the Middle East last year, leaving her this house and the grocery store down the street so although it's really sad, in a way, she got to finally experience freedom from terrible men and I was happy for her.
We knocked on the door and I guess she wasn't used to visitors because it took her a while before realizing the knock was coming from her door and not that of the neighbors.
When she opened the door, she was shocked, confused and borderline terrified.
“I know. I know. All of this is shocking to us too,” Roe said to her sister whose expression was still blank as she waddled into the house and we walked in as well, giving her wry smiles.
***
After settling down, I decided we'll have to sleep here tonight.
“It's already late and if they wanted to, they could have come for us since,” I explained to them.
“I was watching our back while we ran here, nobody followed us. I don't think we were their mission,” Anna added.
“Oh, those bullies? They've been over there, waiting for something. Our county chairman warned us not to go in there because they were looking for people without the ‘touch’ so they could kill them,” Lisbeth said, raising her fingers in the air
“What touch are you talking about?” Roe asked, echoing our confusion.
“It's that secret I was talking about,” Anna replied, her voice very low. “Everybody under that ship, which is like the whole world is under the influence of the touch of the gods and sometimes, a person is different but without reading certain types of books, the immunity is dormant and they'll only be a bit more stubborn than others but just as compliant. What they used for the earlier men was stronger and it's supply is a bit dwindled since they've not been to their planet in like, forever,”
We were stunned for a second, the information weighing heavily on our minds.
“So it's safe to say that the three of us have activated our immunity,” I stated, thousands of plans running around in my mind.
“Yes and we need to figure out a way to get these books across to people in whatever form we can do they'll be forced to open their eyes,” Anna gushed, the idea exciting.
“That's not really smart,” Lisbeth interrupted.
“What? How?” Anna was disappointed.
“Look at it this way, if you finally succeeded in controlling an entire species and three little girls are all over the place, showing off this new knowledge, what are you going to do?”
“Probably kill them,” Roe whispered.
“Yea, definitely kill them and these aliens do not have a problem with that,” I said, exhausted with everything.
“You know what?” We perked up, “I've made dinner for one but I can put a few things in the microwave, chicken, rice, popcorn even so we can have a little bit of a party, okay?”
“Yes!” Roe whisper yelled.
It's like, danger averted but danger isn't so far away so chill a little bit.
“Awesome. You guys go upstairs and wash up, I'll have everything set up soon. Tomorrow, we'll go all over this again, okay?” She added and we all nodded.
We helped Roe up the short flight of stairs and I remembered we hadn't gotten a chance to read the letter Dad left us.
But then, we deserved a break so I didn't mention it, the weight heavy in my pocket. To
morrow, we'll figure it out but for now, I turned off all our devices and focused on the present; warm water.
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