Breathe

Chapter 27 - For Katherine

September 1st, 20–. Wednesday. Nice day over all. Somewhat cloudy, but no rain: perfect weather. Sun rose around 7:00am—like usual—and the sun has yet to set. Right now, it's a cool 75ºF and the sun has yet to set despite it being five in the afternoon. Or at the very least, very close to it; I can't be sure.

It's dinner time in the Liberalists' abode. Esmae Adair is cooking dinner and Chris Castro is her assistant. On the other side of the table, Dani Damien and Luckas Vail are having a delightful conversation over whether cutting out carbs or protein would be worse for someone's diet. Next to me, we have Axel Brown making small talk with Newvy, who doesn't seem interested. On the other side of me, we have Phillip Kingsworth, talking his mouth off at me, not knowing that I'm not listening. It's not his fault, however—I simply have other things on my mind.

After all the plates were handed out and Esmae sat down—not before giving me a glance—I knew that it was finally time for the conversation to start.

Clearing my voice, I started the conversation.

"A few days ago, we were invited to the Cliffs of Katrine."

"For what, Adair?" Luckas mumbled, glancing at me before going back to his dinner.

"There's another Liberation Alliance."

Everything stopped.

I continued, "And they want us to join."

"There's another Alliance?" Axel asked, his eyebrows furrowing. "Who told you 'bout this?"

"Someone we know from school," Esmae replied. Luckas shot us a glare.

Dani rolled her eyes. "God, stop it with that look, Luckas! It's not like we just yelled out who we were." Pointing a finger at Phil, she said, "It's really all his fault. Apparently, he recognized him and just connected the dots, which is totally a Kirk thing to do."

"Kirk?" Luckas asked. "Last name?"

"Of course you had to ask that. Does that really matter?"

"Yes," he responded a-matter-of-factly, "whoever started the new Liberation Alliance is likely from the old one, meaning we know who started it. If we know who started it, then we will know whether or not this opportunity is a trap or not."

She rolled her eyes. "Man, you need to take it easy. You always think that people are out to get you when they're obviously not."

"Damien, do you expect us to be tricked by another spy?"

She kept quiet.

Looking back at Esmae, Phil, and me, he asked, "Well?"

Esmae shrugged. "I only know his first name. He's never told me his last name."

Phil also shrugged. "I've only known him for a few days."

Everyone looked at me. "Same as Phil."

Luckas rubbed his temples and sighed. "This makes this a little more problematic. How can you not know your friend's last name?"

"It's 'cause we don't call everyone by their last name, Luckas."

He shot her a glare. "Be quiet, Damien."

"You're just being too careful," she said with a huff, "everyone's pretty into the idea except you."

"And me..." Esmae murmured.

An uncommon voice chimed, "Me, too." Everyone looked at Newvy. Facing his soup, he stated, "You cannot be too careful when it comes to things like this." Looking up, he added, "Luckas is taking this in the right direction."

"This could be our only opportunity!" Dani exclaimed, bolting off of her chair. "We don't have enough manpower right now. By joining them, we'll definitely have more people on our side, meaning we can go on more missions and find the things that we need that are in that journal that Al and Phil found. If we don't join them, we might never have another opportunity like this!"

"Sit down, Damien—you're making this too dramatic."

"I'm not being dramatic!" she exclaimed. Crossing her arms, she added, "I'm just defending my point. If we don't go, we'll never be good enough. We won't make it in the long run. If we don't join them, then we might die from something stupid like starvation or dehydration." In a softer voice, she said, "We're already on our way there, anyway. Don't you remember our conversation from a few days ago?"

"We refilled our rations and our water supply—we'll be fine for another week."

She laughed. "Yeah, for another week. But then, we'll have to go back. And then, after another week, we'll have to go back again. We'll just be repeating that process over and over and over again just so that we have enough to survive. We won't be making progress at that point—it'll be just like it was a few months ago. Think about it: how much progress have we made towards finding a cure? Nada. Nothing except what we found this week and that was all found by chance. Give us another month, and we'll still be here with almost nothing or at least something, but something we can't get our hands on. Isn't that dumb? Don't you think we could spend more time just... you know...finding things for the cure?"

"Damien, do you believe that joining the new Liberation Alliance will give us that luxury? The ability to not worry about rations or water?"

She looked him straight in the eye and delivered her response: "Damn straight."

He sighed and looked away from her and back at the rest of us. "Does anyone else agree with her?" I rose my hand. Looking around, I saw plenty of other hands raised: Axel, Chris, and Phil. He let out another sigh. With his eyebrows still furrowed, he definitely knew what decision the group had decided to make. Though he wasn't pleased with the result, he murmured, "Then it's decided; we'll go to the Cliffs of Katrine on Saturday."

But before anyone could let out any cheers or remarks, he added, "But if we determine that it's not safe, we're immediately retreating. Also, we'll be bringing as much weaponry as possible—we don't want to get ambushed. Additionally, when we arrive, we will be as cautious as possible; trust no one and believe no one."

Standing up, he took his half-eaten bowl and walked to the kitchen. We all knew what that meant: end of discussion. It was his passive-aggressive way of putting it. Still, on the inside, I felt a burst of energy.

We were going. We were finally doing something! After all these months of nothing—plain nothing—we were finally taking drastic steps to finding that cure. Finally, there was a chance of ending this once and for all. For everyone. For the families in Libentina. For the Liberation Alliance.

For Katherine.