Chapter One
Deeta
I truly believed that it had ended that day. I thought that in drawing together to fight a shared enemy we had overcome our fears, the segregation, and our loneliness.
I guess that makes me naive doesn’t it?
Maybe it was just that I wanted it all to be at an end, and so I convinced myself that our troubles were over. Now I see that I was stupid to think that people would be able to forget, that they could overcome the mistrust and hate that had governed their lives for so long, in such a short time.
The reality is not so cosy.
I pull the quilt closer around my shoulders, resting my head back against the armchair I’m curled up in. It’s late, after midnight, and the house is deathly quiet. The fire in the grate crackles merrily, chasing away the dark shadows that threaten to engulf the room, dark shadows that are mirrored in my thoughts.
“Deet?”
I jump, startled by Jan’s voice, and turn to see her on the threshold of the lounge, blond hair hanging loosely around her shoulders, and eyes drowsy.
“Are you okay?” she asks, moving further into the room, and curling up on the settee across from me. Her hand slides down to rest on the swell of her stomach, and firelight glints on the gold band on the third finger of her left hand.
“I was about to ask you the same question.”
My sister pats her stomach lightly.
“The baby was hungry, so I came down for a snack, but then I saw the light from the fire.”
The look she casts me is questioning.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
Jan nods, and I know I don’t have to explain.
My thoughts drift to Tom, out there somewhere in the City.
It happened again.
Fighting… I thought we were past bickering among ourselves, but apparently we’re not.. Tom knows most of the tribes, having traded with them for the Clark’s for years. So he’s always the one who has to go and try to sort things out. The tribes are more willing to listen to him than any of the other Andak council members.
I shake my head; I had thought that this part of our life was over, that Tom would never have to leave the safety of the Andak compound again, and risk his life out in the City. However, thanks to the continuing troubles, his journeys out have become more frequent.
This time the problem has been with two of the larger tribes in the east, the Dangras and the Johnsons. Tom says that they’ve been fighting since the breakdown, and that there’s a lot of bad blood between them, a lot of death and misery.
How will they get past their hate?
What if they can never make peace?
I push the thoughts aside, not wanting to think of such unhappiness. Jan’s stomach grumbles, and I look up at her with a smile, glad to be distracted.
“We’d better get that baby something to eat.”
Jan grins as well, but I know she has picked up on my mood. I see a frown creasing her brow, and feel bad that I’ve made her worry. She stands and rocks a little, unsteady with her newly acquired weight. I slip my arm around her waist, pulling her toward me in a quick hug. Jan laughs as her stomach comes between us, and squeezes me briefly.
It feels strange to see her like this, to know that soon she will be a mother. She is, after all, my little sister: I held her as a newborn, taught her to tie her shoelaces, read to her, comforted her and looked after her. Despite the fact that I have often seen her as the wisest of us three sisters, she is still the baby of the family. To think of her as a wife and mother is taking some getting used to.
I often find myself wondering over the changes that have occurred to us in these last months, just a year ago we had no idea that Tom was Andak. Our lives were contained in the Clark compound: sheltered, reclusive, ignorant of so much that was happening in the City. Is it wrong of me to nurse a secret wish that in some ways it was still like that?
Maybe it is wrong, perhaps even selfish.
It’s just that before I had a hazy knowledge of the dangers, but now I know those dangers well. More importantly, I know that Tom faces them almost every day, and that scares me so badly I can’t even put my dread into words.
Tom laughs when I tell him my worries; he pats my cheek, and smiles at my fears as though they are groundless.
But they aren’t groundless, and we both know it.
I settle into a chair up at the island in the middle of the kitchen, and watch as Jan examines the contents of the fridge. One hand is on her hip, pulling the fabric of her pajama top into the curve of her waist. Her other hand taps out a thoughtful rhythm on the door.
I don’t really know why she’s hesitating. I already know that she’ll have eggs: fried, scrambled, poached or made into an omelet. She’s had an insatiable craving for them ever since she became pregnant. She bends forward and, sure enough, emerges from the fridge with two eggs.
“Do you want some, Deet?”
I feel my stomach heave; I can never manage to force food down when Tom is ‘out’.
“I’m fine thanks.”
Jan shakes her head.
“You didn’t eat any dinner.”
“Yes I did!”
Jan raises an eyebrow sardonically, an infuriating habit she’s picked up from her husband.
“Pushing food around your plate for half an hour does not count, Deet.”
“Don’t you dare practice your mummy voice on me, Jan.”
“I was born with a mummy voice, Deeta, I don’t need to practice!”
I laugh, shaking my head. Folding my arms on the work surface, I watch as she puts butter into a pan and cracks the two eggs. For a while neither of us speaks, but watch silently as the egg white bubbles and starts to crisp.
“He’ll be okay Deet.” Jan’s voice is soft.
How many times has she said those words to me?
A hundred?
A thousand times?
I want to believe it, I want to let the fear go, to believe that I will never kiss him goodbye and have him disappear from my life forever.
Yet it won’t go away; I carry this horrible weight of terror that haunts me, giving me no peace when Tom is not by my side.
This isn’t how I expected being married would be.
In a way its better, the joy of being with Tom is beyond anything I’d ever imagined. The thrill of just being together is so new and strange to me. Tom and I have known each other for so long, he has been an integral part of my day to day life from my earliest memories, and yet this is different: sweeter, warmer and so wonderfully safe.
Safe that is, until the world outside encroaches and takes him away from me. Then I experience the flip side of those heady emotions: the worry, the fear, the ache of hoping that he will be alright. That is when the painfully clear understanding that the safety I bask in is little more than an illusion, breaks upon me. That is when I truly understand that my happiness is a fragile web that hinges on Tom.
I could lose him.
I can’t lose him.
I don’t think I’m strong enough to survive anything happening to him, and it’s worse now than it was before. I came so close to finding out how my life would be if I ever lost him, the day the Lewis army attacked Andak city. I can still remember Ryder telling me that Tom was going behind enemy lines alone, the weakness and nausea that flooded my whole body, and the horror that filled my mind. Suddenly everything was clear and calm, and the knowledge that he could die, had pierced my heart.
I realised suddenly then that it was possible he might never come back, that I might never again have him wrap me in the warm and comforting embrace that makes me feel so protected and loved. Every time I stand on the doorstep kissing him goodbye, these are the thoughts that fill my head, making me weak when I want so much to be strong for him.
Yet despite everything I know that being with Tom is worth anything life throws at me.
Mari is right.
I asked her once how she could stand the loss of her husband Dax, how she could bear the pain of knowing she would never see him again. Her answer had been simple: she could have had none of the pain, but she could not have had Dax either. I didn’t really know what she meant at the time, but now I understand a little better.
I love Tom.
I love everything about him, the person he is. I love his sense of responsibility, the way he sees it as his duty to look after everyone. I love his strength, his fearlessness, his ability to courageously face those who seek to hurt the vulnerable.
Yet all of those things that make me love him so much, are the very things that put me in this state of dread. So Mari is right: I can’t have one without the other.
If Tom were to retire within the walls of Andak city, and ignore the plight of those less fortunate outside, he would not be the man I love. If I try to change him, convince him to stay with me in safety, he would no longer be Tom, and I would have lost him just as surely as if he had died out in the City.
Jan clears her throat, and I realize that the silence has become overlong.
“How are the improvements to the Marshall compound going?”
Jan shrugs delicately, and begins to butter the toast on her plate.
“Rye said something about running in to trouble, apparently the stone is different and it’s slowing down the drills.” She shakes her head. “He was too tired to explain it properly but I think they’re trying to decide if it would be quicker to go around.”
“How much longer will it take than scheduled?”
“I don’t know. Rye’s worried because this particular phase of the project puts a lot of strain on the Marshall defenses. He’s already supplemented their guard with a detail of Andak soldiers, but with tensions between the Andak and the Marshall’s being what they are…” her voice trails off. “After what the Andak did to the Marshall compound things are bound to be a little… difficult.” She finishes softly.
I nod thinking back to that night, the screaming, the panic, and the sound of fighting that could be heard so clearly above everything else. The night the Andak attacked the Marshall compound in search of Tom.
Jan scoops eggs on to her toast, and sits down next to me up to the island. As she picks up her knife and fork, her stomach growls loudly again and we both chuckle, trying to ease the tension.
The memories of that night of the attack will stay with me forever I think. It was the beginning, and the end, of so much. It was from that moment that I truly began to understand Tom. I had been friends with him for sixteen years, but before that day there was so much about him that I didn’t know. I knew who he was but not why he had become that person. It was only after coming to Andak city that I found explanations for the quirks of his nature.
Tom has always protected people and tried to keep them safe. After learning about his life here I realized why that compulsion is so fierce in him. Tom knows what it’s like to be helpless, defenseless and in great danger. He has an unbreakable bond of compassion toward all who find themselves in a position of vulnerability, and feels a duty to help them.
His strength has always fascinated me, perhaps because I could never detect the same strength in anyone else. Power can sometimes be brutal, harsh or even suffocating. Yet Tom’s toughness is somehow comforting. Often I think that it is the same comfort and protection I feel from my father.
My thoughts wander and coldness covers me, as my mind again begins to dwell on the peace talks that Tom is even now overseeing between the Dangras and the Johnsons.
Peace.
I wonder if that is the right word?
I don’t really think peace is possible in this broken city of ours. It seems as though every alliance that has been made between the tribes since the Lewis attack, are based more on mutual mistrust and prejudice than anything else. If it wasn’t for the continued threat from the Lewis army, the unity of the first few months after the attack would have crumbled completely.
There is, as Tom so aptly put it, too much bad blood between the tribes, and the memory of all that has gone before is a gulf that no one seems to be able to bridge. Sometimes it feels like no one really wants to, as if they need to hold on to their hurt because they are too afraid of the unknown in their future to move forward.
I understand that.
For so long that is how I felt when I lived with the Clark tribe, long before any of this had happened. I wanted to see the outside world, but at the same time I was too scared of the unknown, of the darkness in the City, to do anything to realise my dream.
Now I know the truth; that our future is what we make it, that if we chase the shadows and darkness, they flee from before us.
It was Tom who taught me that, and because of his strength, I don’t fear the darkness anymore.
---------------------
Hello everyone!
So here it is, the first chapter of Broken Truce! I really hope you like it!
Please remember to coment and vote!
Thanks!
DeeDee.
D.D. Chant