Page 6 of Longing for Liberty
“Oh?” I asked. “Is she…okay?”
“Oh, yes,” she responded breezily. “She was set to get married in September, but they moved it up to yesterday. Just too excited to wait, I guess. Who can blame them?” Again, her smile was freakish when paired with that look in her eyes. She rubbed her belly and looked down at the bump, thumping it with meaning before looking at me again. “I’ve got to go. God bless, Libby.”
My head was reeling. “God bless, Macey.” But she was already walking away. I forced my feet to follow as her words and their unspoken meaning crashed over me.
The maid before me, who’d been let go, had been pregnant out of wedlock and forced to marry early.
Oh, shit.
TWO
STATE NEWS: FRANCE NUCLEAR FACILITY ON FIRE!
I feltmy heartbeatwhooshinginside my ears as I stood outside the entrance to Eagle Tower, thinking about Kathy’s questions about my fertility, and how she’d said I needed to be “mature” about this job.
Had Secretary Fitzhugh gotten his last maid pregnant? Would he expect me to have sex with him? None of the men I’d worked for had ever been inappropriate with me, or alone with me for that matter. Was I allowed to say no? What would happen to me? And Jeremy? The tumble of my stomach almost made me trip over my feet as I started forward to the doors.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. I shouldn’t say fuck, even in my thoughts, because that was an outlawed word and I lived in fear of slipping up. But I didn’t feel in control of my brain at the moment. I knew I needed to head straight to the penthouse elevator and get to work, but the thought of being expected to have sex with him caused my body to go into fight-or-flight mode, and I felt the urge to run. A panic attack was coming.
I plastered a smile on my face and forced myself to walk, not run, through the door and to the lobby restroom, where I held up my badge and was granted entrance. I set the basket on the sink and walked into a stall. One quick peek under the stalls showed me I was alone, so I allowed my knees to give out as I sat on the toilet lid and dropped my head into my hands. I gave myself permission to let it all out as quickly as possible.
My body convulsed with tremors.
Fiery heat spread across my skin—sweat beading from my scalp down to my calves.
Inside my chest, my heart pumped too hard, causing my lungs to greedily suck air in faster than I should. I knew all of these symptoms yet was powerless to stop them. It took all of my mental and physical effort not to slide to the cool floor and lie down until this passed.
Since I was thirteen, my body hadn’t been good at telling real danger from normal, everyday stressors, not that this situation was normal. But my body considered all stressors dire. I would have an unregulated physical reaction to stimuli, despite knowing I was fine. Meds had stabilized me for many years until the State declared mental illness a fake misnomer for laziness, sinfulness, and faithlessness. Only faith could fix people with broken brains like me. And if that didn’t do it, well, those people possessed by darkness were sent away for lifetime treatment.
I’d had many panic attacks in the early days of the round-ups, but Jeremy and I worked together to train my mind and body how to shut it down and go numb. I wished Jeremy was here right now with one of his big hugs and his calming voice. But he was working just like I needed to be. I sat up straight and dragged air as deeply into my lungs as I could. I did this several times until I was able to breathe fully. The heat subsided. My lungs calmed. My heart slowed. The sweat began to evaporate from my skin. I evaluated my emotions for what they were and gave myself two minutes to feel them before I went numb.
I was scared. And I was angry.
In a penthouse suite above me was one of the three men I trusted least in this world. Amos Fitzhugh was part of the machine that annihilated the United States of America and then sifted through its ashes to create The State. He was part of the team that had separated me from my children. And now I was supposed to…serve him.
Did I have a choice? Yes. Death was always a choice. Or a prison work camp, though from what I’d heard, I would prefer death. But I wasn’t ready to leave Jeremy by himself, where he’d be forced to take a new wife and swiftly knock her up. So, instead, I bolted on my emotional armor of numbness.
I tucked away my anger and fear.
Fitzhugh might have thought he was a god among men, but at the end of the day, he was only muscle and bone like the rest of us. I could survive whatever this ended up being. I had to be strong.
With my emotions tucked firmly away, I splashed my face, reapplied my lipstick along with more mascara, and took up the basket. I numbly walked out over the polished marble floors, past the gunmen as I held up my new employee ID, through the sliding doors, and onto the chrome elevator designated for the higher floors. With a trembling hand, I keyed the code into the device and pressed the button for Penthouse Two.
My reflection in the shiny, silver doors showed me to be calm and professional, despite my roiling insides. Good. My mask was working. The dark lipstick was jarring to see though. It was strange how such a simple change could transform a face into something edgier. Sexier.
Would he be home right now? It was improper in these times for a woman and a man to be alone together if they weren’t married to one another. My discomfort level was so high that my skin prickled again, and I flushed with heat in the cool elevator.
Calm down, Libby. I needed to remind my body to stay numb. I packed down the fear furiously in my mind with an imaginary mallet.Down. Feel nothing. You are fine.
By the time the elevatordinged, my breathing was normal again. The only thing I couldn’t control was the tightening of my stomach. That physical reaction was always there when I was nervous. So tight. Tighter than ever as I stepped off the elevator and keyed the code into the door. I knocked and croaked out, “Cleaning Service,” before pushing the door open.Girl, calm the fuck down right now!
One more deep breath in. Slowly out.
I walked into the massive high-ceiling living room with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the green park of downtown State Capital’s city center. My eyes darted around, but nobody was in sight. A ragged sigh escaped me. For one moment, I allowed myself to be awestruck by the gleaming modern luxury of it all. This was way bigger and fancier than the regular apartments of the lower-rated officials over in Justice Tower. My eyes scanned the space. To the left was a gorgeous, open kitchen with a long island and a shining dining table.
My eyes stopped on a vase filled with at least two dozen blood red roses, still in tight buds. I couldn’t help but stare. I hadn’t seen florist-level flowers since before the war. Well, State News called it a war, but it was literally one day of massive bombing across North America, followed by weeks of round-ups. Since then, I’d only seen wild flowers. Seeing the roses now, they looked like a gaudy and arrogant cluster trying, but failing, to be modest in their bud forms, especially in the minimalist space. I looked away.
To the right was a wide hall to the bedrooms. The floors throughout appeared to be polished tile. In the middle was the living room with a massive fluffy white area rug, two navy blue couches facing one another, and an oversized red chair at the end.
