The Other Side Of Gravity (Oxygen, #1) (16 page)

Her face went blank. She knew this was it. My big, terrible secret. “Who?” she whispered.

I smiled and turned to the door knob, putting my hand on it, but knocked on the door first. It was our secret knock, so they’d always know if someone had found them, or if it was just me or Ivan. Knock, knock, knock…knock, knock, knock, knock…knock.

“He’s home!” I heard shouted in a child’s squeal on the other side of the door and couldn’t help but smile.

I looked back at Sophelia to see her face had gone ashen. Oh, great job, Maxton. It hit me what that look was for. The child squealing for me. She was thinking the obvious, that the child was mine and I had a wife on the other side I was hiding or something. I opened my mouth to explain, but the door was yanked open and Belle was there.

Damn it all to Earth and back.

She smiled so wide and jumped up, throwing her arms around my neck. Belle was a couple years younger than I was, however you couldn’t tell it by looking at her. But there was absolutely nothing between Belle and me. We were basically brother and sister. It was on both ends. We’d grown up together and when you’re stuck together all the time, in the same house, sometimes in the same room, all the time, day and night, with kids running around, doing dishes and babysitting and—No. We were nothing more than two people who loved each other very much.

When we weren’t trying to kill each other with sarcasm.

I held her at arm’s length and looked back at Sophelia once more, alerting Belle to her presence. Sophelia looked between us awkwardly just as Ambrose ran between our bodies and pointed at her.

“Who’s she?”

I grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him back. “Hey, little man. Where’re your manners?”

“I left them under my bed.” He cackled like he’d just been poked by the tickle monster.

I scoffed a laugh at him, shaking my head. “Well, you better find them, quick. This is Sophelia. My friend.”

Sophelia’s eyes darted to Belle when I said that and I really wished I’d had a second to talk to her before all this started. Now, we wouldn’t get a second alone until we left. She looked down at Ambrose instead and tried to smile. “Hi.” 

“Hey. Your hair is pretty. It’s
so red
, like the sun used to be.”

She gasped and touched it as if she were protecting it. “You know the sun wasn’t always white?”

He tilted his head. “I know lots of things, baby cakes.” He took off running back through the door before I could catch him to scold him or…give him a high five? I was his uncle. Not technically, but... I wasn’t sure what protocol required of me in this situation. Luckily, when I turned back, Sophelia was hiding a smile behind her hand.

“Ahem,” Belle practically barked at my side.

“Right,” I grumbled. “Soph, this is…” I looked at her. “Sorry. Sophelia, this is Belle. She’s—”

Belle jerked forward and snatched Sophelia through the door before she could even think about backing away. “I can’t believe there’s another female here to actually talk to about something other than—”

“Is that Maxton?” Mumma yelled from across the room in her old chair. We all turned to look at her because when Mumma spoke, we all listened. She didn’t speak that often and when she did, it was important. She was a people-watcher, an observer. She could read you like a computer screen and you’d better watch it if you were hiding something. Speak what you mean and mean what you speak, she always said.

Mum looked worried, her face even more worn than the last time I was there only a few short four months ago. I came closer into the room, hearing them follow me in and close the door.

“You’re early,” she exclaimed and looked at Sophelia, immediately taking offense, as if she was the cause. Mum was as sweet as pancake syrup…unless you put her family in danger. “Something’s wrong.”

“Something’s
right
, Mumma.”

Sophelia’s eyes had been scanning the room, as I knew they would be, but they swiftly looked over to me where she stood a few feet away. Yes. Yes, a grown man called his mother
Mumma
. It was kind of funny, really. It was all Marshall’s fault.

“You wouldn’t come early unless there was trouble. Unless—” Her eyes filled with hope. “You got it?” I nodded and she beamed. I hadn’t seen her really smile since I was a kid and it blinded me for a minute. “You’re here to stay then. You’re…home?” Her eyes glanced back over to Sophelia, confused.

“Mum, you know I can’t do that. Especially now.” I looked at Belle and Ambrose. “We’ll talk, okay? Where’s Marshall?”

              I heard his squeal from the other room and felt my grin, but my back straightened as well. I looked at Mum and could tell she was angry with me for bringing someone there. I didn’t blame her. She didn’t know Sophelia yet. And the girl I knew—there was no way she’d disappoint me with Marshall. At least, I hoped and prayed not.

              I went to the curtain of the small room where he slept and opened it slowly. He squealed again when he saw me.

              “Hey, buddy. You sleeping the day away?” He reached for me and I went, kneeling at the side of the bed. “Miss me?” He laughed and beat his fists gently against my hands, his main source of communication. He kept his eyes on yours though. He was so good about that. He knew who you were and he knew you were there, he just couldn’t get the words out to tell you what he wanted to say.

              He was five years older than me and he was born this way. The second he was born my father knew that he had to do something or the government would
process
him. They’d been able to cure cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, hell, even alzheimer’s, but they never could figure out why people were born this way, or what to do about it, rather. The Elites went in and messed with the DNA and altered things to their choosing, picking everything down to the hair color and teeth size, giving them the perfect little bundle they always imagined for their future babies to be born, but the rest of us fared the way God intended. And sometimes that meant that some of us came out a little different. It wasn’t a bad thing to be different, like the government made it seem, just
different
.

People in the stacks and the business district didn’t get to pick and choose their embryos in utero, so if your baby was born special and different and you didn’t have the silver to pay double
taxes for them for the rest of their life—and no one did in the stacks or anywhere else that wasn’t Elite—then the child went for processing. And they never came back. We all knew what it meant. They said everything
but
the words. If you aren’t contributing to society and someone can’t contribute on your behalf, then you can’t stay here. End of discussion. They said it made us strong, to preserve ourselves, to keep our planet from harm and going back to the ‘old ways’, which was Earth’s downfall.

Euthanizing children didn’t ever come up in Earth’s history except for that one guy. And they didn’t remember him fondly.

              But somehow, it was all portrayed as the greater good here and people just did as they were told. When the whole government is against you and offering you bribes if you help them, I guess it’s really easy to see why so many people fall for it.

              But with the money I got from the reward, they’d be able to come out of hiding now, be normal, have Marshall out in the house, and not have to worry about taxes. They would be fine for a long time. Then we’d worry about what was to come later. For now…I just wanted them to
live
.

              I brushed Marshall’s hair back playfully. “You look good, brother. Almost as good looking as me now.” He laughed so loud and hard. I looked back through the open curtain and saw Sophelia being accosted by Belle in the way most females are when they get together. She seemed to be taking it like a champ, though Mum’s eyes on her couldn’t have been helping anything. I decided I needed to go save her.

“Wanna get up for a while, buddy?”

              He made one of his usual noises of agreement and I hoisted him up into my arms. He was light and that worried me. I’d been sending them silver through a trusted messenger, almost everything I had left over, after every full moon’s turn, that way they knew when to expect it. But it just wasn’t enough to save up for taxes and feed them. When I came through the curtain and turned around, Sophelia’s gaze slammed into me with so much force I faltered a bit, making Marshall peal with laughter and hit my chest with his fist. I could imagine him telling me to “Go faster!” if he could only speak the words.

I smirked down at him and shook my head. “You’re getting heavy, buddy.” I placed him down on the small chair next to Mum and pulled the blanket over his legs. “You need to cut back on the pancakes.”

              He laughed, covering his face and hitting his leg with his curled fingers. Everyone else laughed, too, because they knew I was flat-out lying.

              Except Soph. She looked sick. I didn’t know what that meant. Had I really misjudged her so badly?

              “Guys, this is Sophelia.” I looked at Marshall so he’d know I was talking to him, too. “Sophelia, this is my family.”

              My dirty little secret.

Chapter Nine

con·tra·band - goods that have been imported or exported, or purchased illegally, either in defiance of a total ban or without payment of duty or rights to them by some law.

Sophelia

I
looked around the room at all the contraband trinkets and gadgets, most of which I had no idea what they were or what they did. Some I could guess. There were a few pictures there, too, but when I touched it, it wasn’t a computer screen, but a still picture behind glass. But I knew they were priceless and apparently precious, otherwise, why would these people risk their lives to keep them there when they knew it was against the law, and just having the items would get you taken to confinement? The walls were completely covered with them, in every room that I could see. Even on the ceiling they had things hanging from it. On one wall, they had an old cutting tool that people used to hold in their hands and clamp their fingers together over and over to cut things. I couldn’t imagine such tedious work. And then there was a small stick object with a lightbulb on the end of it, a cup with a handle and no cover over the top, a small device with balls on it that looked like actual wood that seemed as if it were some sort of children school device or plaything, a gun, but it was unlike any gun I’d ever seen. It was fascinating to look at it all. I bet it was even more fascinating to live there and be amongst these things when they were in use and not have so much technology rule you.

Even our government says that technology was partly to blame for the fall of Earth, but they didn’t plan to let it go. If anything, they got more tech every turn of the planet.

This was why he needed the money so badly. This was why he needed his job so badly. Oh, God… As I looked around at them, at his family, his brother, his mother—who obviously hated me—and his…wife? Girlfriend? I didn’t know and didn’t want to know. Oh, God, I just wished he had let me go to confinement, taken the money, and kept his job and his name clean. Now what? He’d ruined all that for me? Because of…guilt? All because I wanted to sneak onto a ship and hitch a ride.

It was all coming too fast. It rushed up from my feet, hit me square in the heart, and I could barely breathe. I got up from my perch near Belle and made a beeline for the door. My arm was grabbed just as my fingers hit the cold metal. I didn’t turn.

              “Where are you going?”

              I was surprised by the gruffness I could hear in his voice.

I thought he’d be happy to see me go, happy to be rid of me now that he had his payment and his family was safe.

              “Away.”

              He sighed and chuckled a little bit. It sounded bitter. He should be. “I can’t believe you’re being this way,” he hissed. “I thought you, of all people, would understand.”

I barely heard him. All I could see were the faces of his family. His family that needed him, counted on him. If I left, maybe they would be safe. It was really me the Militia wanted, not Maxton.

How was his family not scratching my eyes out right now? Oh, right, they didn’t know yet that I’d ruined their lives. That would come later. But not if I got out of there. I tried to yank from his grasp, my gaze still on the door, but he tightened his grip.

“You’re not leaving. Number one, you can’t just leave. Don’t you remember that secret door we came through? Number two, I’m not letting you leave like this. You know where my family is.”

I gasped and turned my head just slightly. “You think I’d—”

              “It would be fair, wouldn’t it? I turned you in so you turn me in? Only, this isn’t just me,” he hissed, yanking me around to face him, but seemed stunned at what he found. He took a second before he spoke, his eyes searching my face in the dim room. “Why…why are you crying?” he growled softly, as if he was truly baffled, but still upset enough for it to manifest in his tone.

Though I didn’t know Maxton all that well, in the days since I met him, I had learned that he didn’t stay angry for long. I could see the anger melting off his face like snow on a hot roof.

Even still, I yanked my arm free. His mood swings were very whiplashy. He went from guilty to angry to concerned in seconds and none of it made sense.

“You can’t keep me here.”

              “Oh, yes, I can.” He got closer, one of his palms coming to the door by my head. “And I will until it’s time to go. And then if you’re in such a hurry to get away from me, you can leave, but not until I have time to move my family out of here. They’d be put in confinement for this. We all would.”

“I’m not going to turn you in!” I yelled and saw Belle under his arm watching us with great interest. I closed my eyes tightly and took one deep breath. It was all I could afford if I was going to be on my own now. I opened them to find him searching my face for something. What, I just didn’t know. I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Why do you all of a sudden think I would?” I asked, despising how my voice shook.