Sunset Rising (23 page)

I was starting to drift asleep when Jack knocked on the bedroom door. “Ready
,” he said.

I got up, put the offensive vest on and went out into the other room.
He was dressed in snug-fitting jeans and a black t-shirt. He looked good. Really good. I was suddenly conscious of how stupid I looked in my vest.

My stomach started making noises
, and I quickly put my hand across my abdomen to stifle it. It sounded so loud in the quiet of the apartment.

“Let me guess.
You weren’t allowed to eat today either,” Jack said wryly.

“It happens.”
I put my hat on and headed out the door before we got into another argument.

The common room
was already bustling with the dinner-hour rush, and the line-up was long. It was a lot more crowded than our room on the sixth level. The line moved quickly, though, and we didn’t have long before our turn came to receive rations. We went in search of a place to sit and saw Raine and Mica motioning for us to join them. At first I was surprised to see them on this level then guessed they must be there for Jack’s training session. I was surprised to see Raine’s wife with him. I rarely saw her anymore.

“Who is that woman with them?” Jack whispered as we made our way to their table.

“That’s Raine’s wife.”

“I didn’t k
now he was married.”

“It’s good to see you, Flo,” I said to Raine’s wife as I sat down.
Her real name was Flower, but like me she preferred the shortened form. She gave me a weak smile and went back to vacantly staring around the room. Jack secretly gave me a curious look, and I subtly gave him my best “tell you later” look.

“Every
thing is set?” Raine asked as we sat down.

“I’m told it is,” Jack said.
He looked up at the broken camera and scanned the faces of the guards in the room. All of them seemed to be looking back at him.

I felt a nervous flutter again, but ignored it and concentrated on my food.
I didn’t join the conversation until my container was empty. My thoughts were preoccupied with how I was going to appease Madi tomorrow to ensure I received at least water for lunch.

“How do we get started?
” I asked Jack. “Does everyone here know about it?”

“I put the word out in the mine today.
” Jack looked around the room. “I recognize some of the people I talked to.”

“Yeah, Jack’
s a legend down there already, and not just because he flattened eight guards but because he got away with it. I mean, we all expected he would be in a lot of trouble, but the guards are leaving him alone. I think they’re too embarrassed because they got their butt kicked by just one urchin!” Raine said, laughing.

I smirked when I heard the guard count was up to eight now.
But Raine did bring up a good point about the guards leaving Jack alone. I wondered if Liberty guards had taken over the mine already and that’s why he was safe.

“I thought a lot more would show,” Mica said
, looking around.

I noticed there was one person missing.
“Reyes didn’t come.” I knew why.

“I’d stay out of his way if I were you,” Mic
a said.

“No offence or anything, but what was that this morning?
You were all over him. It ripped the heart out of Reyes,” Raine said.

The weight of my guilt suddenly
seemed heavier than the bulletproof vest I was wearing. How could I have done that to Reyes? He deserved so much better.

“It wasn’t her fault,” Jack
said. “One of Leisel’s guards followed Summer into the room, and we did it to hide our faces.”

“Oh,” Mica said in mock understanding.
“Maybe next time you can just pull your hats down lower or something. It would be kinder.”

Mica had always been Reyes’
s most loyal friend. I knew it must be difficult for him to watch Reyes in pain because of me. He probably hated me, too.

Jack was studying the people in the room.
There was no more line-up for food and the servers behind the counter were packing up to leave. Many people who had finished eating, particularly those with a small child in tow, were leaving as well. The room was no longer as crowded as it had been at dinner. I could tell by the expression on Jack’s face that he wasn’t pleased.

Bron walk
ed in. I didn’t expect to see her here tonight. She was always on the sixth floor.

“I guess it’s now or never,” Jack said.

He nodded to Bron
, and she sent two of the guards to close the door. Jack got up and went to the front of the room. This was the time of the evening in the common room where people had a chance to sing or tell stories, so Jack’s presence at the front of the room wasn’t unusual. Everyone stopped talking and looked at him expectantly.

“I’ve never been up here before so I guess I’ll start by introducing myself.
I’m Ben Jones,” he said.

A
murmur went through the room acknowledging him. Some said welcome.

“Some of you may know me, but for those of you who don’t
, I’m the guy who had a bit of scuffle with the guards in the mines yesterday.”

Some
one called out, “You kicked their butts, brother!”

Jack laughed.
“Yeah, I kicked a few butts. Some of you asked me how I was able to do that, so here I am. Anyone wanting to ask me questions or learn to throw a punch, now’s the time.”

I felt so nervous for Jack; he
wasn’t just risking exposure, he was risking rejection. I held my breath waiting for someone to volunteer to go up and be the first to learn from him. No one seemed to be coming forward, though. I shot Raine and Mica a pleading look, but they didn’t want to be the first to go up either. So I stood up and walked to the front of the room to stand beside him. He looked at me with relief in his eyes.

“I see my wife is volunteering to be my
first victim tonight!”

A laugh rippled through the crowd.

Just then the door burst open, and Reyes walked into the room. He regarded Jack and me with disgust and then looked around at the expectant crowd of people sitting in their seats watching us. “Don’t listen to anything this filthy bourge has to say,” he said loudly. “He’s Jack Kenner!”

“Reyes, what the hell are you doing?” I
yelled.

An
xious chatter filled the room and all eyes were on us.

“What I should’ve done a long
time ago. Bourge don’t belong in the Pit!”

I could almost feel his rage.
“Do you know what you’ve just done?”

“Sunny, your face.
Where did you get those bruises? Did
he
give them to you?” Reyes balled his hands into fists and set out after Jack.

“
Stop
!” I screamed.

Behind Reyes I saw two guards step forward, but Jack must have
motioned them off because they stepped back.

“Go,” Jack told me.

I stayed rooted to the spot.
I couldn’t just let this happen. I had to stop it. But Jack stepped in front of me, cutting me off from Reyes. He raised his arm and blocked the punch Reyes threw at him. Jack waited for his next move and blocked that too. Reyes came at him harder, and Jack had to back up a few steps. I finally moved out of the way. This was out of my control.

Reyes kept coming at Jack
, and Jack kept blocking his punches. At one point they ended up in the crowd, and people scattered to get out of their way. I noticed that Jack never once threw a punch at Reyes, only defended himself against the rage Reyes inflicted on him. Reyes was getting frustrated that his strikes were having no effect. I could tell he was tiring too. I felt so horrible, so guilty. What had I done to him? The fight came to an end when an exhausted Reyes desperately dove toward Jack to take him down, but Jack easily stepped out of his way and Reyes crashed into an empty chair, breaking it.

“Got it out of your system yet?” Jack asked.

“You’re an idiot, Kenner!” Reyes said, picking himself up from the floor. He stared at the guards. “Maybe you didn’t hear me when I said this is
Jack Kenner
!” He pointed to Jack. The guards looked blankly at Reyes.

“Sorry
, Reyes, they’re on my side,” Jack said.

The crowd became very nervous when they heard that. Everyone started talking at once.
Jack was still wearing his hat, and he took it off then. While the coal still darkened his light hair, there was no mistaking his blue eyes.

“That’s right.
I am Jack Kenner. And for the record, I didn’t give Sunny those bruises, although I’d like to have words with the person who did.” He gave me a fond look.

I smiled back at him.
My respect for him was growing. He could have really hurt Reyes if he had wanted to, but he hadn’t.

“Is that bourge down here with you
, O’Donnell?” someone from the crowd asked.

I stepped out
from the corner and walked over to Jack. “He is.”

“How come the guards are on his side?” someone else
asked.

Strong agreement rose up among the room.
They eyed the guards suspiciously.

“You may find this hard to believe, but there are people in the Dome who are on your side.
People who want to see things change down here,” Jack said.

“On
our
side?” someone shouted out at him in disgust. “I’m thirty-two years old, and not once in my life have I ever seen anyone from the Dome down here fighting for us!”

People started
agreeing, their voices growing louder.

“And since when are guards here to
help
us?” someone else shouted out. “More likely they’re here to shoot us in case we do something they don’t like!”

I could feel the crowd starting to turn on us.
The more questions they asked, the more nervous they became. They were talking themselves right into a riot. Everyone had been through too many years of abuse from the bourge to suddenly start trusting one that had almost been president himself.

“If you don’t trust
him, trust me,” I said loudly. Not many people looked in my direction because they were too caught up in their own fears. Jack gave me a defeated look, but if we gave up now I knew the only thing we would have achieved tonight was exposing our identities. In a desperate attempt to get their attention, I stood up on a chair and whistled as loud as I could. Most people stopped talking and looked at me. “
Trust me
!” I shouted as loud as I could. The room finally became quiet. I stood on the chair looking at their expectant faces, knowing that whatever I said could change the course of life in the Pit forever.

“The bruises on
my face came from my supervisor.” I pulled back my hair to show everyone. “And last month a different supervisor ordered a guard to beat me when I was too slow at my job. I got a few cracked ribs from that one. You might wonder why I was slow at my job, knowing that I would probably be beaten for it. The answer is that I was sad. Sad because my mother had to join the Cull last spring.” Even now my tears were quick to spring up when I talked of her. “How many people here have lost someone to the Cull?” Everyone in the room raised their hand. “How many people here have been beaten?” Every hand remained in the air. “And how many of you are fed up?” At this, even the people sitting down stood up to raise their hands higher.

“I
am one of you. I have the scars to prove it. I’ve suffered the beatings, I’ve lost my mother, my best friend is a plaything for the bourge, and now they have my father. I didn’t marry a bourge to escape the Pit. I married Jack Kenner because he said he wanted to change things for the better down here. He told me about Liberty, an organization with a few thousand members who all want the same thing—to see President Holt replaced with a government that will give us all equal rights. A government we can be a part of.”

I looked at the crowd as I said this and saw their shocked expressions.
Although there had been uprisings in the Pit before, no one had ever suggested getting rid of the president. It was a new idea. It was a dangerous idea.

“You want us to join some bourge organization to get rid of
the bourge?” someone asked. “Something doesn’t make sense here.”

“It makes sense if you stop thinking of Jack and these guards as bourge.
They’re members of Liberty, and they’re here to join with us.”

“I’m not joining some bourge organization!” someone called out and was met with a round of approval.

“Then let’s make our own organization. Liberty and the Pit will join and become the Alliance,” I said. “They have skills they can teach us, and we have power in numbers.”

“I know about his skills,” a man said, looking at Jack.
“I’m David Chavez, and I work with you in the mine. I saw what you did for that kid. The guards were going to beat him, and you stopped them… and I didn’t lift a damn finger to help.” His eyes were bright with tears. A few other men in the crowd hung their heads in shame. “My wife’s about to have a baby, and all I’ve been able to think about is what if it was my kid? When the guards want to beat my child, will I stand there and do nothing again? If I have a daughter, will I stand by and watch her taken upstairs to be used by the men in the Dome?” He shook his head in disgust, and the tears rolled freely down his cheeks. “I want better for my kid. I’ll join you.”

The crowd was silent while David spoke.
He had touched a nerve in everyone. Several men came forward to stand beside him, nodding their approval. The only sound that could be heard in the room was the sobs of a very pregnant woman. I assumed she was his wife.

“What if it backfires?
What if we can’t win?” asked a faceless voice from the crowd.

Someone else stood up and answered,
“Then would we be any worse off than we already are? I don’t have much time left before I’m Culled, but I’d like to make my last months in this world count. I’m in.”

One man voiced everyone’s worst fear:
“If we make the bourge mad, they could cut off our ventilation system and kill us all!”

“You would have to make them pretty mad before they went to that extreme,” J
ack said. He waited to see the crowd’s reaction before he continued. “I know the bourge put you down, call you urchins, tell you you’re less than them and that you’re lucky to be in the Dome safe from the nuclear fallout. The truth is that you are important to them. Without you, the Dome wouldn’t be able to function. You mine the coal, you run the sewage treatment, you do their laundry, their cleaning, prepare their food. Don’t ever underestimate your value to them.”

“But they have all the power
, and we have none. Look around this room. There’s maybe fifty or sixty people here and you think we can take on the Dome?” someone said.

“You’re right.
We need more numbers. The more of us there are, the more powerful we become. But tonight is a start.”

“I know everyone is scared,” I
said. “And no one is suggesting the small group of people in this room rush upstairs and try to throw the president out. We need to convince more people to join us. We need to start training. We need to come up with a strategy.”

“We can start training tonight,” Jack
said. He motioned to Bron to come and stand beside him. “This is Bron. Those of you from the sixth level might recognize her. She’s taking a big risk being here tonight, but she came to show her support and to help with the training.”

“I guess it won’t hurt to learn how to defend ourselves,” someone mumbled.

More people stepped forward.
Everyone seemed eager to learn how to fight.

I saw Reyes standing with Raine and Mica, staring at me as if I had gone mad.
As I returned his stare, he gave me a disgusted look and stomped out of the room. I hopped down from the chair

“I need to talk to him,” I told Jack and ran after Reyes.

“Reyes,” I called out, but he kept going. “Reyes, please stop.” A Liberty guard was standing outside the door of the common room, and he respectfully turned his head in the other direction.

“Later
, Sunny,” Reyes said, throwing a hand up in the air to wave me off.

“I don’t think I have a later
, Reyes. In fact, someone could be turning me in as we speak. Thank you for exposing us.” That stopped him.

“I wanted to e
xpose Kenner, not you. I want him gone so I can have you back. But after watching you in there—standing up on a chair preaching to everyone—I don’t even know who you are anymore.”

“I haven’t changed.
I’m the same person I’ve always been. Why can’t you see that?”

A fa
miliar frustration came boiling to the surface, and I wondered how many times and how many different ways we could have this same conversation. He was always trying to change me and I was always unwilling to change.

“You know, after I said those things to you the other day I wanted to take them all back,” Reyes
said, his eyes bright with unshed tears. “A part of me hoped that you would come and find me and try to make things right between us, but when you didn’t, I knew I had to be the one. I don’t know where you live, so I waited to see you in the common room the next day but you never showed up. I was so happy to see you this morning, but then you walked right by me and started kissing that bourge.” A tear fell from his eye, and I knew in that instant how deeply I had hurt him.

“Please know that I didn’t do it to hurt you.
One of Leisel’s guards was following Summer, so we pretended to kiss to hide our faces.” But even now, just remembering that kiss, I felt a warm sensation spread through me. None of Reyes’s kisses had ever affected me like that.

“So you’re not
in love with him?”

A stab of guilt went through me when I saw the hope in his eyes.
He thought I was here to make amends. He thought we could still be together.

“All those things you said to me the other day
—about me constantly making excuses and always choosing other people over you—were all true.” A lump formed at the base of my throat, but I fought back the tears. “You always wanted me to be someone I wasn’t. You always wanted me to be with you, to let you protect me, to be the girl who hung on your every word. I’m not that girl, Reyes. I kept thinking that maybe I could be that girl once we were married, but whenever our wedding date crept closer, I realized I wasn’t ready to stop being myself yet.” I felt tears roll down my face. Saying goodbye was hard even though it was for the best. “The person you saw tonight in that room is me, Reyes. I haven’t changed. Why can’t you see that our relationship has been like trying to fit together two pieces of a puzzle that don’t belong; we can try as hard as we want, but we’ll never fit.”

“So you
never
loved me?”

“Of cours
e I loved you,” I said, wiping the tear from his cheek. “I just couldn’t be the person you wanted.”

He took my hand away from his face and dropped it.

“I can’t believe I wasted so much of my life on you.” He turned around and walked away.