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Authors: Ellen Emerson White

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BOOK: Long May She Reign
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He already knew the answer; why ask the question? “Just my classes,” Meg said stiffly.

He nodded, and Paula—who was tall and lithe, and had been headed for the WNBA before the Secret Service snagged her—nodded, too, glancing at her for a second in the rearview mirror, Meg quickly looking away.

The two primary agents who had been guarding her the day she was kidnapped had both been killed—a guy named Chet whom she'd really liked and felt very guilty about, and Dennis, who had sold the crucial information that had enabled the terrorists to get her in the first place. So now, she didn't
trust
her agent, but she also couldn't help worrying that they would get hurt, and it would be her fault.

She spent so much time in the family quarters of the White House, anyway, that she didn't see these new agents much, or know them very well. At this stage, she kind of wanted to keep it that way. They took her to class three times a week, they brought her home, and other than the occasional doctor's appointment or medical procedure which needed to be done in a hospital setting, that was about it. Once, in October, she had gone to the movies with Steven and Neal, and her father's chief of staff, Preston—who was easily one of her favorite people in the world—but that had pretty much been the extent of her social life.

They were at the university now, near the side entrance of the building where she had Astronomy. Classes were changing, so it was crowded, and she took a deep breath, hoping that no one would be able to tell that she was afraid to get out of the car.

Another agent, Martin, was holding her door open, and she slid out, awkward with the cane, keeping her head down. Okay. Fifty feet. She had to walk maybe fifty feet to get to the entrance. People were looking at her—they always did—and she felt very exposed, especially when a couple of them aimed cell phone cameras in her direction. She didn't really worry about being kidnapped again—how likely was
that
?—but it was too easy to imagine some nameless psycho lunging towards her, or one of those cell phones
actually
being a gun, or someone waiting avidly by a window in one of the other nearby buildings, like the man who had shot her mother early in her term, or—Jesus, no wonder her family was paranoid. They'd earned the right.

And no wonder the press sat around waiting to see who was going to be next.

Once she had made it up the steps and they were inside the building, she relaxed a little. At least now, if anything bad happened, it would be
off
-camera, and not replayed on television endlessly. Sometimes, she felt as though every single time she turned on the news, there was a story about gun control or crime rates or something, and they would show the same relentless clip of her mother crumpling to the sidewalk. She'd seen it so many times by now that it had—almost—lost its horror. Which was horrifying in and of itself.

Her agents all looked uneasy, and she realized that she'd stopped walking. They hated that, because she was
never
supposed to stop in transit, if at all possible. So, she continued down the crowded hallway towards the little amphitheater where her Astronomy class met, limped up a few more damn stairs, and sat, as always, off to the left, in the last row, where she had a good view of the entire auditorium—and both exits. A lot of people skipped on a regular basis—the class was considered a complete gut—and she never had to worry about having to sit next to anyone. Except during the midterm, and there had been a seat between every person. She had gotten an eighty-two—and was, privately, very ashamed of having done so badly.

People were still filing in aimlessly, but the professor started his lecture, anyway, and she reached for her notebook and pen. He seemed like a nice enough man, but he was very boring. If she were an ordinary student, she would blow off the class, too. He was talking about Kepler's Laws, and she took notes, her good hand shaking just enough to make it difficult.

Maybe thirty people had shown up, and she looked around for anyone who seemed out-of-place, or too old, or—during the first class session in September, she had noticed two students who didn't appear to be the right age, but she found out later that they were undercover security. Knowing that had yet to make her any less vigilant, since—theoretically—she was the one who had the strongest motivation to keep herself from getting killed.

Some days, more so than others.

There was one guy, earlier in the semester, who she had caught glancing at her one time too many, and she asked the Secret Service to run a check on him, in case he was some kind of plant from an angry militia group or whatever. He'd turned out to be a sophomore sociology major from Delaware. “I think he
likes
you,” one of her agents had said. “Oh,” she'd said. With near-total disinterest.

Once she'd finished her scan of the room—she recognized everyone, for whatever that was worth—she went back to taking shaky notes and waiting for class to be over. Then, her agents hustled her out to the car, and drove her to the building where her English class met. Not that it was much of a walk.

This class was much smaller, and it was a lot harder to hide. A couple of times, she'd even had to make comments about whatever book they were reading. The professor, Dr. Raleigh, almost always wore peasant blouses, long gathered skirts, and brown leather sandals. Very Bennington. She appeared to be good-natured, if overly fond of literary symbolism. Dr. T. J. Eckleberg as God, and all of that.

There were windows in this classroom, so she always sat in the middle of the back row, so that she could keep an eye on them
and
the door, without really having to turn her head.

Jesus, her hand hurt today. She should have taken some damned ibuprofen but she had left the Residence in such a hurry, that she had forgotten. But there might be some inside her knapsack, or one of her jacket pockets, and she could just swallow them dry, without—

“What do you think, Meg?” Dr. Raleigh asked.

Meg straightened up. “What?” Oh, Christ, they were all staring at her. She looked at her notes, trying to remember what they had been discussing. “I guess—I don't know, I—” Were they still staring at her? Yes. Great. They probably thought she was really dumb. Like her parents had paid off the school to have her admitted part-time.
Winesburg, Ohio
. Okay. Odds were, they were talking about small-town America. Her notes said something about “grotesques,” but she had absolutely no memory of anything else her professor had said.

They were all still looking at her.

“Well, I—” Oh, hell, she might as well go for it. “I was thinking about what a human comedy it was,” she said. Oh, yeah, right. All she thought about was comedy. Joy. Excitement. Laughter.
Fun
. “I mean, of course, their emotional shortcomings are tragic, but—” Yes, they were staring even harder now—“It's very—Balzacian, really.”

Damn, the room was quiet.

“I don't suppose that's what you were looking for,” Meg said, pleasantly, “but that's what I was thinking.”

“Well, no,” Dr. Raleigh said, after a pause, “but it's an interesting idea. You've obviously given this a great deal of thought.” She turned towards the guy with the goatee, who always slouched, half-asleep, by the windows. “Terence? How about you?”

Everyone's attention now focused on Terence—poor sucker—and Meg let out her breath.

There was some more discussion—a very pretentious girl from Chattanooga even started drawing parallels to
Père Goriot
, like the Balzac thing had been her idea in the first place—and then, class was over. Amid the zipping of jackets and knapsacks—and the ringing of suddenly liberated cell phones, their professor asked them to have the first twelve chapters of
Main Street
read by Wednesday, and to remember that their final papers were due a week from Friday.

Once she was back in the car, she felt very—sadly enough—tired. Drained, even. Other than a couple of “pretty warm for December” remarks, they rode home in silence. Her agents saw her inside to the First Family elevator; she thanked them and rode up to the second floor.

Quite an eventful day.
Morning.

It was quiet in the family quarters, although she thought she could hear a vacumn cleaner off in the distance. Generally, the White House staff seemed like a bunch of little magic fairies, who cleaned like crazy, but were rarely visible to the human eye.

A butler—Felix—came out of the kitchen. He was a very sweet older man, with nine grandchildren, whose latest pictures he always carried, and enjoyed showing, given even the slightest bit of encouragement.

He smiled at her. “May I get you some lunch, Miss Powers?”

“No, thank you,” she said. “I'm fine.”

Although he probably didn't want to look deeply concerned, he did, anyway. “We'll fix anything you want.”

Amazing how damned nice everyone was to her. “I know, I just had a really big breakfast,” she said. “But, thank you.” She smiled back at him, and turned to go down the hall.

“Would you like me to bring you a Coke?” he asked. “Or maybe—”

Usually, it was easier just to agree. “Sure,” Meg said. “Thank you.”

She had barely made it to her room, when he appeared with a large, well-iced crystal glass and a small plate of assorted cookies on a silver tray, a linen napkin draped over his arm. She thanked him again, and then, as soon as he left, sank onto her bed. Now that she was home safely, she was completely worn out.

She had only been lying there for a few minutes, staring at CNN—just long enough for their dog, Kirby, to come galloping in to greet her, and Vanessa to hiss and flounce out of the room—when her phone rang. Ten to one, it would be her father. Make that, a thousand to one.

She picked it up. “Hello?”

“Hi,” her father said. “I thought I'd check in.”

Right. She knew he was just being thoughtful, but Christ, it was oppressive. Meg closed her eyes. “I just got back.”

“Classes any good?” he asked.

Engrossing. Unforgettable.
Glorious
. She shrugged. “They were all right, I guess.”

“Good,” he said, rather heartily. “Would you like to come to a luncheon?”

Her father, being the First Gentleman, got stuck going to a hell of a lot of luncheons. “Who've you got today?” she asked.

“It's an NAACP thing,” he said. “It should be nice.”

Since she couldn't even face the prospect of having lunch in the privacy of her bedroom, the odds of her going
out
again were pretty slim. “Thanks,” she said, “but I think I'll take it easy this afternoon.”

For a change.

“Okay,” he said, almost without pausing first. “Well, I should be back around two, two-thirty. We could play some chess, or—whatever you want.”

She was tired of chess. Tired of books. Tired of television. Tired of movies. Tired of the Internet. Just plain god-damned tired. “Yeah, maybe,” she said. “I'm pretty—tired.”

“Well, if you need anything—” he started.

“Yeah,” she said. “I mean, thanks.”

After hanging up, she slumped back down on the bed. Her leg hurt. Her hand hurt. Her
stomach
hurt. She was too exhausted to go over and close the curtains, so she covered her eyes with her left arm to make it seem dark. If she was lucky, she could fall asleep until dinner-time.

If she wasn't lucky, it was going to be one hell of a long afternoon.

*   *   *

THEY GOT HER
on her way home from school. On her way
out
of the school, to be precise. One minute, she was joking around with her friend Josh; the next, she was inside a van, reeling from having a gun butt slammed into her face, and being punched by a group of masked men until they managed to knock her out. Unknown hours later, she woke up missing a few teeth, dizzy and sick, handcuffed to a metal bed in a small dark room somewhere.

It was never clear exactly who they were, or what they wanted, except that they were Americans, hired to do the job by some damned Middle Eastern fundamentalists. One of the men kept coming into the room, and—well, he came in a lot.

Which was pretty much all she ever felt like remembering about that. He hadn't actually
physically
raped her, but—it was safe to say that he hadn't been kind.

On the fourth day, they panicked, and came in to kill her—except that, for reasons she still couldn't understand, she ended up in an abandoned mine-shaft. Alone, without food or water, her left knee destroyed, her right wrist chained to a rock wall. She liked to think that they were giving her a chance—hoping someone would find her, maybe—but the simple truth was, they had left her to die.

The only way out, she'd finally realized, after a few very long days—she was pretty foggy on time—was to shatter her right hand. She used a rock. Repeatedly. Her logic had been, better crippled than dead.

Sometimes, she still felt that way.

Once she got through the boards nailed across the entrance—only a really sadistic son-of-a-bitch would have added
that
touch—she was in the middle of the mountains. North Georgia, she found out later. She spent the next week—maybe?—staggering, falling, drinking from streams, crazed from hunger, and in so much pain that she could damn near
feel
herself losing her mind. And, as far as she could tell, most of it was still out there somewhere.

It was, historically speaking, a Tuesday afternoon in June, thirteen days after she'd disappeared, that she crawled into a backyard. Scaring the hell out of the teenaged boy who happened to be
standing
in it at the time.

And now, here she was, enjoying a life of physical therapy, isolation, and constant nightmares.

BOOK: Long May She Reign
8.36Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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