Verde

Chapter 4: The Commons

Cassidy was back in the Neighborhoods.

There was screaming.

She and Elle were sleeping on sacks on the floor, but at least they were clean sacks.

"No! My girls! You can't take us away from them!" Elle's mother's voice seeped through the closed door.

It had barely been a month since they had left the United States and Cassidy and Elle had never had exposure to the Pulse victims on Quarantine. They were forbidden out of the house without adults, and they never ventured very deep into the neighborhood. Life in the outer-tenements was almost normal.

Normal, that is, except that they were living in wooden house on dirt streets while the rest of the world was running on electricity and clean resources. Normal, that is, except for nights like these, when people were dragged from their homes in the middle of the night, screaming for their families.

"Please - they're immune. My daughter! And Cassidy!" this time it was Elle's father. His voice was calmer. Defeated.

The door to the tenement flew open. "Jackman?" a man asked gruffly.

Their were fifteen other children in the tenement, but only three adults. Most of the adults were already held in the Pulse's grip.

"Is anyone here named Elle Jackman?" the mans voice was more comforting now, "or Cassidy?"

Elle had sat up by that point. She gripped Cassidy's hand, unsure. Tentatively, she raised her hand. "I'm Elle," she mumbled at the man, "where are my parents?"

"Hello, Elle. I'm Hunter, Hunter Lindstrom. Are you Cassidy?" he knelt in front of the girls, his voice gentler than ever.

Cassidy nodded. "I'm Cassi."

"Okay, Elle and Cassi. Your parents are sick. Do you know that?" the sound of dry sobbing came through the open door and Hunter Lindstrom - Agent Hunter Lindstrom - shifted in front of Cassidy, as if trying to block the noise with his body. "We need to take them somewhere else, so everyone can be as safe as possible," his eyes glinted green. "You two girls are immune. You need to stay here - you'll be okay. You can make it on your own, and, someday, you can come be a Verde. That's what I am. Sometimes we have to take people away - but what we really do is make things better. Where your parents are going, it's scary - that's why you have to stay. But we make it better, day by day. Verdes help make the world less scary."

Elle and Cassidy had been listening, dumbfounded. There was too much information.

"No!" Cassidy blurted.

Lindstrom seemed taken aback. "No... what?"

"We want to go with them," Cassidy clarified.

"We need to go with them!" Elle demanded.

Outside, the other agents got impatient. "Hudson!" one called, "get out here, we gotta go!"

"You girls be safe," Hudson got up to leave.

"No!" Elle tried to follow, but one of the other adults, one whose name the girls never learned, dragged her back, grabbing Cassidy too for good measure.

"You girls can't go now," she whispered. "Tomorrow."

Cassidy turned and looked into the woman's eyes, searching for insincerity. There was none.