Midale

Chapter Nineteen: Every Man's Family (Part 1)

I practically ran into Fiona's tent, my hands smoothly separating the flaps at the entrance.

"Did you send out search parties yet?" I shot the question as soon as I was in the place. Noticing how I was not facing Fiona, I looked around and found her packing her things in the corner. She looked up at my intrusion but didn't say anything.

"What are you doing?" I asked, genuinely perplexed.

"Leaving." Was all she said but those words said, meant so much. She was giving up, she was running away, she was leaving them behind. She was wrong.

"This isn't right and you know it." I said, walking up behind her. She didn't look up as she zipped her blue handbag. When she was done, she put a hand on it and stayed like that, thinking something. I didn't break the silence, it was her who did after a few seconds.

"You know what is right Madison?" She stood up to face me. Back in the Sanctuary in Midale she always wore her stilettos and so always looked about my own height, but over here, in her heel-less boots, she looked smaller but I would be damned if it affected the power radiating off her in the slightest.

She didn't wait for an answer and continued, "It is right to save the lives of these men, these kids that will fight and, no doubt, die in the process of getting our loved ones back. Madison I can't be selfish, these people are someone's family and there is no way I am breaking those families in an attempt to get mine back together. I lead these people, they trust me with their lives. And they trust me to do the right thing. I can't lead you Madison, if you don't have your faith in me." All the way, as she spoke, there was nothing but sadness in her eyes. There was, however, no regret.

With a start I realized something I should have so much sooner. She did want to help and fight, how could she not, Sam was her only daughter and after her husband, the only family she had left other than her adoptive daughter, Cassidy. But she just couldn't do anything about it because her hands were bound by the code and the law of the Elders. Mine, however, were not.

"I do have my faith in you. All I ask is that you trust me back." I said softly, desperation seeping into my tone.

A small smile played on her lips.

"I do, it's why I have already done what you're about to do."

I returned her smile.

"Then where is my rescue squad?"

"Cassidy is waiting with it in the rear. You know what to do?"

"Wouldn't be here if I didn't."

She bent to pick her bag and gave the tent a once-over.

"We never had this conversation." She said, walking her way out.

I knitted my eyebrows in confusion.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." I said, faking being clueless which I obviously did pretty well thanks to all my past experience.

She turned back one last time.

"Just bring them back."

The walk to the rear was surprisingly long. I hadn't noticed how many of us were here. I didn't know so many of us existed. The land occupying the tents of the soldiers was at least three miles long and around just as wide. The tents were almost all folded up, but the place still looked like it had once been lived on. I guess the air of being touched never goes away. What is there, is always there. What once happened can never be undone. Just like all the things that happened to me and all the things that I did to others.