Fall turns into winter very quickly, and snow comes soon after. Alec and I finally begin to really settle into our home. Alec has started his job, working every weekday from eight in the morning to four in the afternoon. We've finished unpacking everything, we've finally found a complete wardrobe for me—free of any trace of the Facility—and I've started to chill out about the cameras in our home. Of course, I'm still furious about it, but I'm not showing it as horribly as before.
"Grab your coat," Alec says to me. "It's freezing out there!"
Alec and I have finally been able to meet up with Riah and Chance again. They've been off the radar for a while, and I've been getting worried. So, we're planning on meeting on top of the Plaza, where we met before the Claiming.
It feels like it's been years since then.
Alec pulls me to my feet. All afternoon I sat reading on the sofa—one of the few entertaining things to do in Bayfell nowadays. Together, we put our coats on by the door. Alec grabs his keys and wallet, and then ushers me out the front door.
The snow tickles my nose when it drifts down to my face. I squint up at the grey sky, and then at the white wonderland around me. As ugly as this part of the neighborhood is, the snow makes it look gorgeous. I smile a little bit. "We should build a snowman. Tonight."
Alec kisses my cheek once we arrive at his car. "Sounds like a plan."
It takes me a struggling moment to pry open the door, stuck shut from the cold. "Alec," I say, drawing out his name in a whine.
He chuckles. "Get used to it, love. It's only going to get colder!"
I slump into the passenger seat and shut the door. "Are we going to tell them?" I ask.
Alec hesitates as he puts the car into drive and backs out of our driveway. Then he says, "They have a right to know."
"Do your parents know?"
Alec shrugs. "I haven't talked to them much since I moved out. It's weird, but I guess this is their way of letting me go."
"Well, we should go see them soon!"
Alec smiles at me. "We should."
***
We reach the Plaza and enter the quiet building. The building is mostly useless. Events are probably the only way a bulk of people would be seen here. Otherwise, official meetings take place here on an irregular basis. The doors are left unlocked for who-knows-what reason, so when we discovered this years ago, the four of us took our chance for a place to spend time together without anyone looking our way. Now, it feels like the only safe place in Bayfell, and I'm not even sure that's true.
When we reach the roof after climbing up the many staircases in the stairwell, we find the rooftop empty. We must be the first then.
"I'll give them ten minutes, and then I'll call," Alec says.
I nod slowly. I pull my jacket tighter around me and walk to the edge of the roof ledge lined with cement fencing. Alec stands beside me and pulls me under his arm to protect me from the brutal wind.
"I'm not so sure meeting here was the greatest idea," I say as I hide my face in Alec's coat.
"Where else would we go? This is the only place I can think of that isn't surveyed."
Suddenly, the door to the roof opens and Riah and Chance walk out hand-in-hand. "Hey, guys!"
I smile at our friends. It starts to feel like old times again... well, old meaning before the Claiming.
I hug Riah tightly, and then Chance. "You guys are not going to believe what we found in our home," I say darkly.
We sit down together in a circle below the ledge to block the wind from stabbing us like knives. I hold onto Alec's hand as he tells them the story of the one-way mirror. Riah's eyes round as the story continues, and then they grow cold and angry. Chance just looks mortified.
"I can't believe that—? How could the government just—? Why can't—? Agh!" Riah lays down on the ground in distress. Chance stares blankly at the ground now.
Alec nudges his foot. "You okay, man?"
Chance starts to shake his head. "Everything my grandmother rambled on about is true..."
"What?" Alec and I say at the same time.
Chance covers his head and pulls on his black hair. "Before my grandmother died, she was diagnosed with schizophrenia. She kept talking about our 'corrupted' government, and how she planned on escaping through some tunnel in her basement to get to the outside of the wall. We all thought she was crazy... She was always mentioning something about 'those blasted mirrors', followed by, 'they're always watching us'."
"Something tells me she wasn't schizophrenic," I say slowly.
Chance shakes his head. "Of course, she was driven mad eventually and they had to euthanize her like a dog because she actually started biting people when they got near her, but I'm starting to think now it's not a genetic thing... Bayfell must have really made her crazy."
Riah doesn't move from where she lays flat on the ground, limp. I can't tell what she's thinking, but something is definitely up with her.
"Riah," I say gently. "You okay?"
She sits up. "I'm not okay! How can we go on living here if we're just going to be bred under surveillance twenty-four-seven? I don't want people watching me when we want privacy!" She gestures to Chance. "I don't want our child growing up in a society where everything is chosen for him or her. We've already been forced to marry and get jobs we don't actually want. What's next? Oh, wait. I know. We have to have children we're not ready for."
I lean into Alec for support. Everything Riah says is everything I've already thought and said. How have we survived complying so far? Why didn't we see it before? I started to earlier—when I saw all those girls at the café married to men they don't love. Now they're going to be forced to have the children that they don't want.
What kind of government is running us here?
Riah gives a fake laugh and brushes her hand through her flaming red hair. "I'm pregnant, guys," she says.
Alec and I stare at her in shock.
Well, that was fast...
She holds back tears as Chance hugs her around the shoulders with one arm.
"What were we thinking?" she asks, mostly to herself and Chance, I'm sure. "We had a three year span to decide, and we screw up one time, and here we are! Sixteen and pregnant. Didn't that used to be a popular TV show? Sixteen and Pregnant. I wonder what the old America would think of the new. They'd probably be shocked to find it has been destroyed and replaced by whatever is running our lives right now."
I stare at the ground now.
My friend is pregnant, and I'm not. Part of me is jealous that she could just do it so quickly, that she was brave enough to sleep with her best friend as soon as she got married. And here I am, afraid to even take my clothes off in the bedroom because I know someone else is always watching.
"At least you won't be sent to the Lower District in three months," I say quietly.
I probably shouldn't have said that out loud. As soon as it's out, I regret it. What right do I have to pity myself when she's going through this right now?
"What?" Riah asks.
I sigh. "The government couldn't come up with a job for me because I apparently have no talents or skills. So, they made me a homemaker—meaning my literal job is to be a mother. Once I get pregnant, they actually pay me to take care of a minimum of six kids. I have to be pregnant within three months or Alec gets a new wife."
Riah doesn't say a word. She just stares at me with no expression whatsoever. This is how I know Riah is furious. Not at me, but at Bayfell.
"Our child is not growing up here," she says.
"How can we get out, though?" I ask. "No one is allowed outside of the wall unless he or she lives in the Royal District."
Alec sighs. "Then I guess we're stuck here."