Chapter 11

Yay for blog posts that take absolutely no time on my part at present. Hehe. I have up to Chapter 14 written right now... I just gotta pace myself with the posting. But as I have nothing else to post today, here ya go. :)
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“That’s impossible,” she said, looking up at the Sergeant with wide, unbelieving eyes.
“I wish it were,” he replied. “I truly wish it were.” He sat down once again, folding his hands in front of him. He didn’t appear nearly so threatening as he had before.
“Your grandmother was discovered. National agents knew she had the Journal, and they’d go to any lengths to either confiscate it or destroy it completely. Even bomb their own city.”
“The Diviner would never—“
“Your Diviner is a sad, psychotic man who likes nothing better than complete power,” he said. Before she could reply, he held up a hand, motioning for her to let him finish. “But we’re not here to talk about the Diviner, Miss Conrad.”
She wanted to reply with everything she knew about the Diviner, to defend his honor and therefore her country’s, but she was too curious. She wanted to know what had really happened to Nana.
“Sadie knew her time was running short three days ago, when you came to her house. She knew the book had no chance of remaining safe if it stayed with her, so she gave it to you, if my records are correct.”
“No, she…” Piper trailed off. But she realized in an instant that she had. She hadn’t even offered it outright… Piper had seen it in the attic, taken it back to the house with her. The journal. Piper had fallen asleep reading an Apocalypse Journal.
He looked at her in a cross between sadness and disappointment. “And as you don’t seem to have it with you, it doesn’t appear that the Journal made it out of the fires.”
She shook her head slowly, still ingesting the wonder of it all. An Apocalypse journal had been in her hands, and she’d left it on the bedside table as she rushed out of her burning house.
“Why didn’t they just take Nana?” she asked after a few minutes. “If it really was the Nationals, if they were just going for Nana, why…”
“Your grandmother was an eccentric person in the eyes of the community, to say the least, but she was also well liked, a prominent member of society. Her arrest or execution might have caused a public outrage, especially considering her age. It was easier on the government to simply sacrifice the whole city. After all, there are millions of others just like it. They saw Iretum as expendable, and they knew your grandmother couldn’t leave because of the forcefields. And, what with the war going on, it was an effective way to incite the people against us even more. They, of course, publicized the bombing as a Memorist attack.”
Piper hated how much sense it made. It couldn’t be, it just couldn’t. Somehow he had to be lying…
But she knew deep down that he wasn’t.
“Why didn’t she tell us? We could have tried to get out.”
“You’d have been killed instantly by the forcefield if you’d attempted an escape. There was no way out. She knew if anyone would survive to carry the Journal, it would be you. Your brother wasn’t old enough, and your mother was too loyal to the Nation to try to flee.”
There was a long pause.
“So she is gone?” she finally said. The Sergeant nodded speechlessly. She wiped tears out of her eyes with two of her fingers. “I knew she was, I knew as soon as I left that she’d be gone, but part of me hoped…”
He shook his head again. “We lost all contact with her about an hour before the attack. We sent scouts to look through the rubble for any sign of her, but none was found. As far as we know there were no survivors at all, except for you.”
“Even in the station?”
“The unfortunate thing about copper is that it melts,” he said. He didn’t need to say anymore. She remembered the dripping metal of the building and the thoughts she’d had… she’d just hoped they’d been wrong.
“So,” she said after a long pause, “what does this mean for me?”
“It means we’re not going to kill you.”
She had a sneaking suspicion that Patrick had known about Nana all along.
“Does that mean you can trust me?”
“That means we don’t distrust you. Patrick obviously trusts you, but he’s a young man. And you’re a very pretty girl.”
She blushed, too embarrassed to form a reply. Luckily for her, the Sergeant continued, sparing her the trouble of responding.
“Your grandmother trusted you as well, but you are her granddaughter. It’s natural. However, the fact that you never tried to harm Patrick in any way and haven’t made any effort to escape tells us you could be on our side.”
“I’m on nobody’s side,” she mused.
He sighed. “We’re going to have to incarcerate you, Miss Conrad.”
“What?” She stood up. “No, you can’t do that, I have to try to find Branson and make sure—“
“I went over this with you, Miss Conrad. We have as many reasons not to trust you as we do to trust you. I don’t think you can fully realize what an unusual case you are, what a strange predicament you’ve put us in. We can’t allow you to leave, Miss Conrad. We have to keep an eye on you at all times.”
“No!” She ran to the closed door and wrenched her wrist around the handle. It didn’t move. The door was locked.
“We don’t mistreat our prisoners. You’ll be given three full meals a day and even a change of clothes, if you so desire.”
She could feel tears welling in her eyes, but she shoved them back into her tear ducts and swallowed deeply. “I have to go. You don’t understand. I swear, if you just let me go I won’t tell anybody anything about you or your base or even that I met Patrick. I’ll pretend none of it ever happened if you just let me go.”
“I can’t do that, Miss Conrad. You have to consider your own safety as well. If you’ve even been seen with Private Blue, the Nation has your face in its databases. You are likely in far more danger out in the world than you are here. Here you are perfectly safe, and perhaps a little bored. That is all.”
“My dad’s a general, they wouldn’t hurt me!” She tugged on the door handle again, as if she thought it would do any good.
“Sadie’s son was the same general, if you’ll remember. Your government seemed to have no qualms about killing her for treason, did they?” His voice grew bitter and even a little annoyed.
“Stop, just stop it!” She clamped her hands over her ears in a panic. She had to get out, she just had to…
The Sergeant pressed a blue button on his desk and held it down as he spoke. “Guards, please show Miss Conrad her room.”
The once locked door swung open as two burly men rushed in to grab her arms.
“Hey!” she heard Patrick’s deep voice exclaim. “Hey, what d’you think you’re doing?”
“Step aside, Blue,” the Sergeant said calmly. Patrick, however, was in a panic, and didn’t show any intention of following orders.
“You said she’d be fine! You said you weren’t going to hurt her!”
Piper tugged against the grip of the guards, but to no avail. She didn’t move an inch beneath their stony grasp.
“She’s going to be fine, Blue. Step aside.” The Sergeant gave him a harsh, piercing look that would have terrified Piper had it been directed straight at her.
“Where are you taking her? What’re you going to do to her? What—“
“Private Blue, if you don’t step aside, so help me—“
“Just leave it, Patrick.” She looked him straight in the eye and tried to give him the reassurance she couldn’t give herself. She could feel her voice quieting and softening as she spoke, until it almost felt like cotton in her throat. “It’s going to be fine. It’s not worth this, okay?”
He met her gaze and softened, slowly backing up and stepping out of the guards’ way. She rolled her eyes in a mixture between relief and exasperation. The boy was ridiculous. She began to wonder if she had anything to do with his behavior at all; perhaps he just harbored a penchant for putting himself in life-threatening situations. She watched him walk stiffly over to the Sergeant and give him their odd salute. The commander nodded and directed the boy toward his office. He looked back at her in caution, and she merely gave him a nod, trying to be braver than she had in the past. He walked into the office and the door closed with a clang. She wondered if it had locked behind him.