Fallen

Chapter Five

Shit.

That wasn't the part of the plan. Scanning the area, there were no boxes of weapons or supplies. A barrel of fire like the ones in the streets cast flickering shadows over the poor soul tied to the chair and the five hungry vultures who circled him.

"Come now Thomas," the man said with his arms crossed. There was no doubt he was the leader with his shoulders thrown back, chin high, his eyes narrow, and lips curved in a feline grin. "It would be easier if you talked."

The man tied to the chair shook his head. From where Alec and I crouched on the metal catwalk in the shadows, I could only see one side of Thomas' face. Blood dripped down from a high cut on his cheek. The rest of his face had to be the same.

"It would not be easier to talk to Roger," Thomas said, he spat on the ground. Not aiming for Roger, but to spit blood out of his mouth.

Roger observed the blood, his face grimaced at the sight. "You can't be serious," Roger said, his eyes back on Thomas. "You believe them?"

"I believe," Thomas' chin lifted, his voice strong, "in a free world."

A rumble of laughter circled him. Roger's laughter the loudest, he ran fingers through his short greying hair. "So you have become one of those Liberty Brats, haven't you?"

Roger stepped toward the chair, his arms braced each armrest, his face close to Thomas. "They won't let you in. You know that." His head tilted to the side, one side of his face illuminated with firelight as the other was in shadows. The eerie sight sent a shiver down my spine. The man looked like a true predator. A large cat messing with its meal before devouring it.

He chuckled, stepped away from the chair and paced. "We need to reunite our forces, Thomas. Not pulled apart. Once in the past, before this dreadful treaty and the destruction of the Wall, we were friends, no like brothers. All rebels, outcast, and unwanted are brothers. Do you think those Elites in their high towers will let you in once the Wall tumbles down? No. Those who enter from the Wasteland will not go to the Elites to live, but to us. To eat our food, drink our water, to take our already extremely limited space. They won't go to the skyscrapers, but to the slums."

It felt as if the last missing piece to a jigsaw puzzle fell into place. That was why there was rebel activity going on around the city. Why rebels were seen with legal weapons and stealing. They didn't want the Wall to go down because they didn't want to share their space, but that made little sense. The rebels fought to take down the wall, now Roger didn't want the Wall to be taken down.

"That is the case for you," Thomas said, "but some of us, like me, have families over there. We fought for this, fought to take down the Wall so we can reunite on clean land. So we could –"

Thomas' head swung to the side and Roger shook out his fist he used to punch him. "You are idiots, all of you," Roger muttered.

My mind hurt as I thought over what I heard. Rebels had split. One group came across the Wall to take it down, but they had established new comfortable lives. The other group had family across the Wall and wanted their families to join them. I wondered if my mother's husband, Chris, knew about the split. He was the leader of the rebels in the Wasteland, he had to have some idea.

"Yo, guys." Blair's voice in my ear made me jump. I had forgotten about the earpiece in the light of what was going on. "There are old cameras in the building, I got them online. You got incoming."

"You got two men going straight towards you. It looks like they are patrolling the building," Ben said. There was no panic in his voice, he spoke soft and calm. "Go across the catwalk, there are people on that side too but you can slip down a hallway."