Marked

“Everyone is loyal to her. It’s going to be very hard to make them see the truth.”

Hands no longer bound, and with Abby and Michael restrained, the group didn’t have much time to come up with a plan before the rest of the guards came back to investigate.

“We have to make them see.” Rachel paced back and forth, eyeing Abby every once in a while to make sure she wasn’t up to anything suspicious.

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. The bunker people won’t listen to anyone other than Abby—they don’t trust anyone else.” Yalina explained.

“How ironic.” Juan grumbled while he rubbed the blood back into his sore wrists. Beside him, Simone stared off into space without uttering a single word.

“If they’ll only listen to Abby then we’ll have her tell them.” Rachel concurred. “Is there any way to broadcast a message to the entire bunker?”

Yalina nodded her head, moving towards the control panel on Abby’s desks. “Through the watches, I think. If I can just figure out how to send a universal call, like the one Hector made...then maybe...we can...” She typed furiously at the surface of the desk, eyebrows drawn in concentration. Their differences over Hector aside, Rachel had to admit that Yalina was pretty smart and resourceful. Maybe in another life, they might have been friends.

“Got it!” Yalina exclaimed. A smile split her face, quickly replaced by hatred when she turned to Abby. “You could have done so much good from here.”

Abby remained unfazed. Lips pursed, eyes stoic, she continued to sit as though she were a flesh and bone statue.

“Can you secure the doors so that no one can come in?” Rachel asked.

“Uh...I’m not sure, really. This is as far as my computer training goes.”

“Can you try?”

She nodded her head. A few minutes ticked by, the pressing nature of the situation breathing down heavily on their necks.

“I can’t...I don’t know how.”

Rachel was growing impatient. If the guards came back and restrained them again, Abby would not make the same mistake twice. She’d have them out of there and Marked before they could take a breath. They couldn’t afford that, not after they’d come this far.

“Come here, Juan.” Rachel said. “Abby’s going to do it. She’s going to broadcast the call for us.”

Abby scoffed, her bloody nose contorting with the motion. “Why in the world would I do that?”

Rachel was in her face in the next instant, rage fueled by all the lives that had been lost because of her. “Because we will do anything to ensure that no more people are Marked because of you. That’s means killing your son if we have to.”

Michael, who had also been silent after discovering what his mother had done, looked up at the sound of his name.

For the first time since she had met her, Abby laughed exuberantly. Her entire frame shook with amusement, her eyes glinting with a mixture of mock and glee.

“Oh, Rachel, we both know you won’t kill Michael. He is, after all, an innocent in all of this. You wouldn’t hurt someone who was innocent.” She said, calling out her bluff.

“No one is innocent.” Rachel replied through gritted teeth.

Simone, who hadn’t said much throughout the entire ordeal, sprung up from her perch like a jack-in-the-box and tackled Michael to the floor.

“How could you!” she sobbed, though it seemed to be directed at Abby rather than Michael. Her tiny fists collided with his face until blood erupted from the broken skin on his lips.

Juan and Rachel eyed each other, not entirely sure what had spurred Simone into action or why she was taking her anger out on Michael but for the benefit of making Abby squirm, they didn’t stop her.

On his side as he was, and tied to a chair, Michael couldn’t do much in the way of defending himself. When he began to groan in pain, Abby tried liked a trapped beast to weasel her way out of her bindings but it was useless.

“Perhaps I won’t kill him but maybe she will. I think you broke her, Abby and broken people can do crazy things.” Rachel jerked her chin towards Simone who had not yet relented in her merciless fit of rage.

“Tell us how to lock the doors.” Juan ordered.

Abby’s face turned to stone and an eerie calm washed over her. Somehow, that was more unsettling than when she’d laughed at them, prompting Rachel to check her bindings once more to ensure there was no way she could release herself.

“Get that wild beast off my son and I will lock the doors.”

Yalina nodded her head to Juan. He pried Simone away from Michael and wrapped his arms around her body to restrain her as her breathing became less and less labored. Rachel righted Michael’s chair, giving him a hasty once over to make sure he was okay.

“You monster!” Simone cried.

Abby reluctantly walked Yalina through a series of steps on how to lock the doors. As if to test if the mechanism had worked, a guard approached the glass doors, his eyes widening in surprise at the sight of Abby sitting strapped to a chair.

He placed his finger on the scanner and a reassuring voice message denied him access. The guard slammed his fists against the glass and shouted something into his watch-probably calling for reinforcements.

Rachel ignored him and turned back to Yalina.

“Whenever you’re ready.” She told her.

Yalina nodded her head, giving her a thumbs up.

Rachel focused the screen of her watch -which would serve as a camera for the interrogation process- on Abby.

“Start from the beginning.”

“You’re making a huge mistake.” Abby replied. Rachel glanced down at Juan’s watch next to her to ensure the broadcast was being transmitted properly. Abby’s blood-streaked face was mirrored in it like a live feed of a terrible horror movie. “Most of these people could have lived their entire lives here safely. They still can if you stop this nonsense now.”

“The key word here being ‘most’ because not all of them would have been able to die here of old age. Why don’t you tell them why, Abby?”

The older woman fixed Rachel with a look full of pure hatred.

“You promised everyone a safe haven...told them here would be safe, away from the poachers. But you lied.”

“Did you really think they would not find us?” She scoffed. “How foolish are you? The capital knows everything.”

“Then how is it that they spared you but not your husband?”

A roar escaped Abby’s lips as she tried to lunge out of her chair to attack Rachel. “I told you not to talk about him!” Rachel simply set the watch down, stood, plucked a pair of scissors that rested on Abby’s desk and went to Michael’s slumped form

“You’re going to tell us everything we want to know if you want your son to make it out of here alive. I’m done playing games. The sooner you talk, the sooner we can get a doctor in here to patch him up.”

“You won’t do it. You’re too scared—too weak.”

Too weak. How many times had she heard that before in her life? And how many times had she thought it was true, causing her to put those she loved in danger? But no more. She was no longer weak; instead, she was a type of strong that could only be forged by the flames of tragedy.

But where, she thought, was the strength that could make her whole again? Losing Hector and Jed and her mother weighed down heavily on her shoulders, making her desperate; perhaps even desperate enough to do whatever it took to get the truth out of Abby.

She felt that giving the bunker people the gift of truth would help her atone for her sins, in some twisted way.

“You’re wrong to underestimate me, Abby. My mistake was thinking that this was a safe haven—but here you taught me about survival. That was your mistake.” Michael groaned and Rachel avoided looking at his face head on. She took his hand and created a gash on his wrist where blood began to bloom immediately.

“No!” Abby shouted. “Leave him alone!”

No one is innocent, she repeated in her mind over and over. Needing more reassurance, she remembered his threat in the woods all that time ago when Michael had saved her from a poacher. Get out of here before they come back or else I won’t have any choice but to kill you.

Because of the twisted, sick mantra they had been taught, some of the bunker people had killed before in the name of a false cause. Michael wasn’t any different.

Still, she was no killer. She made sure that the cut was neither too deep nor too wide—just enough of a nick so that the blood was shocking. Plus, a shallow, horizontal gash wouldn’t kill him immediately—if she’d wanted to really kill him she’d have cut parallel to his veins. But Abby didn’t need to know that.

“Talk.” Rachel repeated. It was hard to concentrate through the banging and screaming coming from the closed doors. Her vision swam a little at the sight of Michael’s blood coating his pale skin but she fought back the nausea. Looking into Abby’s eyes, Rachel found that Abby now truly believed she’d do anything to get the truth out. Good.

Her grey eyes glinted with panic and anger flashed back and forth like a broken neon sign. Finally, she settled on an infuriated calm that pinched her bloody nose up grotesquely.

“Tell the truth.” Rachel ordered.

Minutes ticked by with only the sound of the guards trying to break down the doors on the other side. Abby looked around the room, taking in the empire she’d built that was in danger of collapsing. Her eyes darted furiously towards Michael, worry etched into every line of her face.

“He died trying to protect us. When they found us, he still thought he could win.” She shook her head without humor. “It was his kind heart that got him killed, really. We owed nothing to these people. My husband didn’t need to die for them if he’d just agreed to head for the mountains like I’d told him to in the first place. But he had to be the hero.”

“So you blame the bunker people for the death of your husband. Is that why you decided to work for the capital?”

“You don’t know anything about this world. You think you do but you’re wrong. You know nothing.” Abby replied. Her eyes were cast on Michael as she drew in a deep breath. “But no, that’s not why I did it. I did it for my sons. They’d already killed my husband and my eldest boy, I couldn’t let them have the rest. So I struck a bargain with them.”

“What kind of bargain?”

“Whatever it took to save my sons. Any mother in my position would have done the same and if they tell you they wouldn’t have, they’re lying.”

“What deal did you make with the devil, then?” Juan growled.

Abby spared him an uninterested glance and then returned her gaze to Rachel’s watch, looking deeply into it as if she were meeting the eyes of the hundreds of spectator’s head on. The banging on the door had grown quiet now. Though she couldn’t see around the entire bunker, Rachel felt an eerie stillness settle into the atmosphere as if everyone had stopped to hold their breath for Abby’s confession.

Abby’s shoulder twitched delicately, unapologetically, unashamed. “The country was in dire need of soldiers; I knew this much thanks to my husband’s status in the military. I convinced them that they couldn’t let this place go to waste. Our people didn’t know yet that we had been discovered—and we could keep it that way, if they let me.”

“I’d train soldiers for them if only they would spare my sons in return. Hundreds of people were already within the walls of this bunker and they would not go willingly. So I told them, why not give these fools a cause to fight for? That way I could train them to be soldiers, deliver them complacently and spare the capital the gory task of having to gather them up and risk killing a few of them in the process. That was something they could not afford.” Abby paused, taking in everyone’s horrified expressions.

“They loved the idea, of course. Ate it up like cake. But I’d bargained to send the people out in shipments, not all at once, so at least some of them would be safe. Some of them got to live, thanks to me.”

“You’re a despicable human being if you really think what you did was for the better.” Rachel spat.

Abby’s eyes bore into Rachel’s, refusing to back down. “I did what ever it took for my family to survive and I will never apologize for that.”

“She’s right.” Michael interrupted. His head lolled to the side slightly and his arm drained drops of blood into a puddle on the floor. “You are despicable, mom. How could you?”

The first flash of remorse flitted across Abby’s eyes, intermingled with a hint of panic.

“I did this for you, Michael. For you and your brothers! Or you would have been Marked or dead a long time ago!”

“I hope,” He drew in a deep breath. “That you’re not expecting a thank you in return.”

At a loss for words, Abby’s mouth floundered like a fish without water. Rachel decided it was her que to interrupt before guilt overwhelmed her for hurting Michael as it was clear he had not deserved it. What had she done? Michael shouldn’t be the one paying for his mother’s sins. Eager to wrap things up and get him to doctor Everest, she went on to the next question.

“Why the simulations?”

Abby didn’t seem to hear her.

“Why the simulations?” She repeated.

Abby focused back on Rachel. “To weed out those that would not be complacent. The ones like you. Why have them poisoning the minds of the soldiers we needed to train?”

“You keep mentioning soldiers.” Yalina interrupted. “What did the capital need an army for?”

“Like I said. Everything you think you know about our world is wrong. It’s amusing really, how childish and pathetic you all are. You think you are doing the right thing here but you are sorely mistaken. One day you’ll see that what I did here was for the greater good.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, Abby.” Rachel stood and turned the watch to face her so that the entire bunker could hear her next words.

“Now that you know the truth, will you stand with us or will you stand with the capital?”