One Year Later, Mid-October:
Quig examined his new ID card before he started his station wagon. Broken Elite: Curie-Lock Hayworth cannot marry other elites or full royals scrawled across the top. He shoved a half-torn letter into his pocket.
*
Dear Quig,
I bought your publisher to punish your mother and you for getting in my way.
We only pay full elites. I don't care what the law says! We'll continue to publish you, but you shouldn't expect another check from Moth Kingdom Press. And good luck on the custody case, but you're going to become a reject if you don't marry soon, and unmarried rejects can't adopt. I wish I killed you.
Hatefully Yours,
Workhouse Leader Zoreon Kiffed
P.S. All of your legal problems go away if you give up custody of Betsy to her father and stay out of Grew-Ella's life. Your brothers became unsuitable to marry into the workhouse family due to their ugliness and publicly rude behavior. The prime minister chooses you and Grew-Ella is a distraction for us both, but I will win her in the end.
Quig drove down the road.
Neon signs flickered in pulsating bursts. Workhouse 30 for Ugly or Unacceptable Women, Reject Men, and Criminals.
Quig drove into the workhouse loading lot, waiting for a guard to let him through after flashing his broken elite identity badge.
Twisted barbed wire fences surrounded the seven-story cement and steel buildings.
Attractive guards surrounded prisoners with laser shotguns.
Chained women and men dressed in faded workhouse uniforms were loaded in and out of semi-trucks. The regular workhouse population wore muted green, except for a dozen chained prisoners dressed in orange.
A male prisoner bolted from the group, his green uniform snagged on the fencing before being pulled down.
"We have another orange!" A guard ran after him. "Place him in solitary and give him a new wardrobe."
Shipping trucks with muddied snow tires loaded manufactured goods in brown packaging.
Another guard walked over to examine Quig's station wagon, and she allowed him to slide his care packages into the wooden donation box.
*
A Week Later: Nightfall:
Quig started his station wagon. He drove away, cutting through an empty bookstore parking lot to pick up speed, and cut through three more.
A billboard wobbled in the wind. His vehicle idled at a stoplight, and he stared at a faded government advert mocking Grew-Ella when she first disappeared. Lightning bolts were drawn in for no reason.
He turned left at another billboard.
Glass Earth 10 will never stay away from real beauty. Sadly, Earth 23 and Earth 1 have moved away from cancel and beauty culture. Don't lose your identity.
The radio became louder, and partial sounds crackled. "This is a warning, an early storm is heading to..." The signal faded back into nothingness.
He sped faster.
Lights from the other cottages and the Kindness Rebel headquarters kept the neighborhood bright to spite the darkening clouds.
His cell phone rang. "Papa Quig, come and get me now. He's scary, and he's breaking down the door!"
YOU ARE READING
Conform or Suffer: A Romance: Long Chapter Edition.
Любовные романы(This book is a standalone and while the books contain Easter eggs, they can be read separately and out of order.) Never say I love you. If Grew-Ella tells her best friend, Quig, she loves him, they'll come for her, or worse, him. Quig and Grew-Ell...
