Sarah
I walked behind Natasha. She knew the woodland better than I did. We’d set off from the open land of the desert pretty quickly. She had explained that the deactivator for the chips wasn’t ready to use yet and I had told her that the council would be tracking me down before too very long. We had settled on the woodland being the solution. It had enough coverage for us to be able to lay low, but enough open ground for us to be able to make a quick exit if we needed to.
“We’ll probably be good here,” Natasha told me, as she stopped and looked around a small break in the trees. “I’m pretty sure that we’ll be able to hear if anybody gets close.”
I nodded. We hadn’t travelled far into the woods. It wouldn’t take the council long to track us down, but we couldn’t travel too far away. We had maybe three days before I was sure that Nathan would be put to death. We couldn’t waste time walking away from the city. We couldn’t waste time doing anything at all.
But she was right about the coverage. We were surrounded by thick bushes that we’d struggled to walk through ourselves. It would be impossible for any guards to sneak up on us. That didn’t mean that they wouldn’t come looking though. That didn’t mean that they wouldn’t find us. It just meant that we had a small advantage over them, an advantage, so small that it felt like an uncomfortable gamble more than anything else.
“How much longer do you think we’ll need?” I asked anxiously.
“I’m hoping not long,” she said, as she pulled out the small device from her pocket. It looked like a radio. It had dulled silver metal that had been worn over the years. The front had a sheet over it that looked like it was made out of some kind of mesh.
“You hope?” I couldn’t hide the alarm from my voice.
She looked up at me with firm eyes. “This is something that has been worked on, by different smart people, for years. What makes you think it’s going to happen any quicker just because you’ve jumped on the support wagon?”
I opened my mouth and then I closed it again. I wanted to tell her that everything had changed. I wanted to tell her that her best friend was being held prisoner. I wanted to remind her of everything that we both stood to lose if she wasn’t fast enough, but I knew it was pointless. She had been living under the threat of the council her entire life. She was used to the pressure. I wasn’t.
“Exactly,” she said, when she realized that I’d thought better of whatever it was I was going to say. “If you want to be helpful, then you should make a fire or something. It’s going to get cold when the sun goes down.”
“Do you think we’ll be here that long?” I was hoping we’d only be stopping for an hour or so.
“We’ll be at least that long.”
I sighed and started to collect kindling for the fire. The longer we stayed in one place, the easier it would be for the guards to find us. The ground was covered in good kindling and it didn’t take me long to have embers burning in a small pit.
The smoke stung my eyes, as I bent over so that I could breathe life into the flickering flames that were starting to emerge. I stood up and started to collect thicker branches, so the fire would have fuel to burn through.
“Can I ask you what happened in the city?”
I turned and looked at Natasha with surprise. She hadn’t spoken since I’d started building the fire. I thought about what she was asking. I wasn’t sure how she would take the truth. I wasn’t sure how she would be with me, if she learned that my father was the reason her parents were dead. “A lot happened,” I said evasively.
“You can cut the crap,” she said. “I know that things didn’t go to plan. So, what happened?”
I knew I had to tell her the truth. I knew that she deserved the truth. “I got to speak with my father. I learned why he had been locked up and then he was taken from me again. I’d arranged with Nathan to meet me outside of the court house. We were both meant to go looking for you after he’d been chipped, but he never showed up.”
“You just let them take your father?” Natasha asked with surprise and judgement. “Why would you just let them take him away? Why wouldn’t you kick up a fuss?”
“I was in shock.”
“You were in shock? What did you have to be shocked about?”
“The reason my father was locked up. He was the traitor who revealed the old worlders' plan to the council. He was the reason that your parents died. He was the reason why hundreds of people died.”
Natasha dropped her eyes to the device in her hands. I wanted to know what she was thinking, because I could sense a storm of difficult thoughts behind her concentration. I waited for her to say something. She didn’t. The sound of the fire crackling against the wood was the only break from the silence which surrounded us.
“Does this change us working together?” I had to ask. I had to know whether Natasha was going to judge me for my father’s crimes.
“It changes a lot of things, but not us working together,” Natasha said thoughtfully. “We have a common ally being held in the city. We have to help Nathan. What you chose to do about your father is up to you, but my help will not extend that far. I hope you can understand that.”
I nodded. I understood completely. I would never have asked her to help. I would never have expected her to help the person who brought her parents to their deaths.