ROGER (Read Until 7/31)

N I N E

"Clara!" I heard Roger's voice, but I didn't move to respond.

Sleep had come so easily after our talk. The second I made it back home, I crashed down on my pillows and drifted into dreams. There was an array of images, both realistic and not. I dreamed of my mother's smile, my grandmother's hugs. I dreamed of Xerses' embrace as we walked in the park. Then, within it all, I dreamed of Roger, but couldn't see his face.

I only heard him. He called my name over and over: Clara. Clara.

How long was it until I realized he wasn't a part of my dream?

"Clara!"

Finally opening my eyes, I stared into the darkness of my apartment and searched the shadows. What time was it?

"Clara, I need you to get up," Roger hissed in my ear as I rolled on my back and looked up at the ceiling. "I need you to move. Now." He barked the last word, so loud I sat up straight and knocked blankets on the floor. Something wasn't right. This wasn't normal Roger.

Reaching over for the sweater I'd thrown on top of my nightstand, I pulled it over my head. "What's going on?" I asked, hastily crawling to the edge of my bed to slip on my shoes. "Why are you yelling?"

He wasn't anywhere I could see. Powering on my smartwatch brought up his face, but he wouldn't look at me. He seemed distracted, eyes looking everywhere but mine. I tapped the corner of the screen to get his attention. "Roger?"

When he finally looked at me, his face was pale, and his eyes blue with static and numbers. His lips pulled up as he growled in frustration, and then, he said, "Someone's coming."

My eyes went wide.

What? Who? How?

I rushed over to my window, pulled aside the curtains and looked outside. The streets below were empty. "Is it the Hosts? The Province?" I looked back down at my wrist. "Did they find me?"

Roger's image vanished from my watch, appearing on my TV with a bright flash. His back was to me as he held his digital tablet in his hands, frantically scrolling through tiny images I couldn't see. "It isn't the Hosts or the Province," he said, still looking down at his tablet. "It's someone else. I don't know who they are. I can't detect them."

Someone he couldn't detect? That meant there was someone else not under the Province's control? Panic gripped my chest as I stood in front of the screen. "Where are they?" I whispered.

"Here." He turned around, giving me his full attention. With a flick of his wrist, he brought up a smaller image beside him. "They're in the building."

I stared up at the image he created and recognized it immediately—the stairwell outside my apartment door. There was a group of men, dressed in black and masked, standing in the video. They were huddled in at the building's entrance. There wasn't any audio, but I knew they spoke to each other; it was in the way they moved their hands, their heads.

I had no spit to swallow as one of them touched the lower apartment doors. "This... this is live, isn't it?" I whispered to Roger.

He nodded.

My hands formed nervous fists. "Can they find me in here?"

"They've already gone through two apartments. Approximately ten minutes in each one."

"Okay?" I wanted to vomit.

"They're not Hosts, Clara. They've got guns and old police gear."

"G-guns?" My eyes shot over to my front door. "How? Guns... guns are outlawed. Not even Enforcement Officers carry weapons..."