Crux Year

Chapter Three - Royal

I'm torn.

Between staying and going.

This ongoing battle inside me was supposed to get easier, not harder. But, after stupidly talking to Shay Arden, things feel even more confusing than before.

I hate my life.

My father.

Shay's naivety.

This stupid system.

Everything.

Not Dad, though. My dad, Morgan, is being held for a crime that shouldn't exist. They're trying to brainwash him. Because he doesn't love my other dad, Vince.

Can anyone blame him?

Vince is a major prick.

My thoughts once again drift to a fantasy where I'm beyond Rock City. Whatever lies beyond our city walls has to be better than being variables in a social experiment that clearly doesn't work.

Are there other people like me? Ones who were banished or never moved to Rock City to begin with?

A niggle of fear teases down my spine, making me shiver slightly. It's warm out today, but the chill of the unknown seeps deep into my bones.

I want to leave—no, I need to leave—but in doing so, I'll abandon my father in that rehabilitation facility. Guilt consumes me anytime I make myself acknowledge the fact that by escaping this hell, I'm essentially saying goodbye to him forever.

Pain, deep and debilitating, sucks the breath out of me. I stumble to a stop, desperate to suck air into my lungs. My eyes prickle with tears—ones I'm never able to stop once they start. The sounds of crickets chirping and birds singing eventually make their way past the ringing in my ears. I'm able to calm my erratic heart after a few minutes.

With Dad Morgan gone and locked away "until he's healed," I'm so damn lonely. The house is empty without him and even emptier when Vince is there. Anything—even whatever lies beyond the walls of this screwed up city—has to be better than going home to a cold house, eating dinner with a cruel man, and wishing for just one ounce of happiness while I cry myself to sleep each night.

Don't think about it, Royal.

Think about escaping this place.

Lifting my chin, I breathe deeply and exhale all of the air before starting off on my trek again toward the wall. It's heavily monitored via a sophisticated camera system but having a father on the council has certain perks...like knowing which cameras are faulty or obscured. This one particular place in the woods not far behind the school has giant oaks growing on the other side of the wall. The heavy limbs hang over the wall in this spot. Every now and again, someone trims them back, but it hasn't been done recently.

The concrete is cool to my fingertips. From what I learned by curiously picking Vince's brain over the years is that the wall is two feet thick and eighteen feet high. The top isn't protected by barbed wire or electricity. Anyone trying to get into Rock City doesn't ever make it to the top, so it's not needed. Trained snipers who sit in towers along the perimeter are responsible for making sure no one gets inside. On rare occasions I've heard echoes of gunfire, but everyone always pretends that it doesn't exist. I'm not sure what or who those snipers shot, but regardless of what it was, they never breached our city. The outliers aren't ones we have to worry about much because without our technology and science that makes it possible for men to reproduce with one another, the human species beyond Rock City is doomed for failure.