A week after I had left Meara at Luke's grave, I opened the door to find her standing outside alone.
"Before I do anything else," she said before punching me in the stomach, "I've been wanting to do that for a while."
I bent over, wheezing, as I struggled to both breathe and not hurtle my guts on her shoes. Somehow I didn't think that would endear me in her eyes.
"Is there anyone else home?" Meara asked, shoving past me and kicking the door shut. "I've decided that I'll talk to you, but I don't really want anyone else to know what we're discussing."
Managing to straighten, I pointed towards the kitchen. "My father's not home, so we should be good for a while."
Even that short sentence had my body rebelling, and a coughing fit wracked my body as it struggled to regain its composure.
She had the decency to look slightly ashamed at the sight of me curled around my stinging middle. "I didn't mean to punch you that hard. In fact, I wasn't going to punch you at first, but I figured that slapping you across the face would be worse."
"How kind of you," I muttered sarcastically, pulling myself upright and starting down the hall with only the slightest of winces.
Meara refused to speak anymore as I puttered about the kitchen, even after I had offered a cup of tea. She had only shook her head and remained firmly planted at the table.
I deliberately took my time after that, figuring that if she had waited a week to come talk to me, she could wait a little longer. In true Enforcer style, she had blank-slated her face, though I caught a hint of annoyance as I took a seat across from her.
Wrapping my fingers around the ceramic mug, I let it anchor me to the ground, and I waited for Meara to tell me why she had come.
"I knew that Luke was involved in something illegal," she finally said, leaning back and focusing her eyes on a spot beyond me. "He thought he was so clever, sneaking out without his little sister knowing. There were moments when I considered turning him in like they had been pounding in my head."
Staring down into the murky depths of my cup, I only asked, "Why didn't you?"
She sighed. "Despite everything that they teach Enforcers, Luke was still my brother, and I had been keeping Uncle Luther's activities a secret for years anyway. I knew that if I turned him in, I wouldn't just lose my brother. I would lose all of my family.
"Then there was you. The secret that took me longer to figure out. I had no idea what had put a silly grin on Luke's face or why he was sneaking out more and more frequently. When I finally found out who it was, what it was, I felt so stupid for not realizing that my brother had a girlfriend."
To keep myself from correcting her, I raised my tea to my lips, only to cringe away at the taste of the oversteeped liquid.
"I know you are involved in the same thing that Luke was," Meara remarked, tucking her hands behind her head. "I understand that those among your ranks won't believe that I'm sincere about my commitment, but I want to finish the work my brother started. Even if it gets me killed just like him, I want to understand why he risked so much for this group, for you."
I set the cup down a little harder than I meant. "That's it then. You yell at me, we have a little heart-to-heart in a graveyard, I give you a picture, you show up at my door to punch me in the stomach, and suddenly you're ready to throw everything to the wind. What's wrong with Enforcement's training program? Are you not getting enough downtime? Enough benefits?"
She leaned forward, something sparked within those amber eyes. "I loved my brother, and I know that he would never rush into anything that he didn't feel passionately about. For days, I have been wondering why he chose the way he did, and then you wandered into the picture, handing me the ticket to unlocking the mystery.
"I don't care about the intelligence I could gain for Enforcement that could get me promoted. I don't care about shutting down the very thing that got Luke, that will get the rest of my family killed. I don't even care that it gives me a chance to interact more with you and see why my brother fell in love with such a boring little Archivist girl."
Fury boiling in my blood, I dug my nails into the wood of the table to stop myself from doing something stupid. "How dare you!"
"No one has ever turned my brother's head, and suddenly he falls in love with a girl my age, who is five years younger. I have seen nothing in your records, in you, that tells why you attracted Luke's attention, his passion."
"You went through my records?" I said, fury raising my voice to a screech. "It doesn't matter if you think that I wasn't good enough for Luke or not. He's dead, and he's never coming back, and all I'm left with is memories and the things that belonged to him!"
Hot tears ran down my face again, and I swiped angrily at them, hating how I kept being reduced to a weeping mess.
"No one thought I was good enough for Luke except for the two of us and a few other people! The Law didn't even think I was good enough for Luke, and look where it got me! I'm alone without being able to even admit that I loved him more than anything else because it will destroy everything that your brother was hoping for!"
I shoved back my chair and turned my back towards her, trying to suppress the flood of memories and emotions that had risen up to clog my throat.
"That's what everyone else has missed," Meara whispered to the near-silent room. "Luke saw the fire that you hide from everyone else and somehow awoke it within you. A fire that perhaps even you didn't know about."
Her chair scraped back, and I felt her hand settle onto my shoulder. "I know that you may never trust me, but I think that I would have enjoyed having a sister like you. If you kept Luke on his toes half as much as I think you'll keep me, my brother was likely never bored."
"Why did you really come?" I managed to say in a somewhat normal voice, forcing the steel back into my spine.
"Uncle Luther aims to make you a full-fledged Archivist within the next week. After that, he will give you access to the records that are hidden from everyone else."
"That'll get him in trouble," I said, only to want to smack myself for stating the obvious.
Meara sighed. "My parents and he are in enough trouble as it is. He figures that it doesn't matter anymore if Enforcement thinks he saw something he wasn't supposed to. I want you to look up the Cicada Experiment.
"If you and your group of friends still don't trust me after that, it will at least give you an idea of how much time you have before your fight becomes even more difficult."
I turned to face her and was somewhat surprised to see tears swimming in her eyes.
"My brother gave everything for this cause that he believed in, and I'm going to help however I can, whether it's from the inside or the sidelines," she told me. "Trust me on this, Ilania. Look at the Cicada Experiment, and perhaps we can help each other understand what's going on."
With that statement, she dropped her hand and walked out of the kitchen. Moments later, the front door opened and closed.
It wasn't until she was gone that I realized that she had extended more than just an offer of trust. By speaking my name for the first time, she had offered up a truce, based on the fact that we had both loved Luke and that we were starting to understand each other more.
Now, if only I understood what she had meant by the Cicada Experiment.
YOU ARE READING
First Love, First War, First Step |√|
أدب المراهقينIn the name of making everyone equal and to prevent what happened with our ancestors, we have created what will be known as the Founding Laws. 1. No markings or piercings are permitted. Every citizen will be issued the same clothing with the allowa...