The Rule of Many by Ashley Saunders & Leslie Saunders

Author:Ashley Saunders & Leslie Saunders [Saunders, Ashley & Saunders, Leslie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-05-07T04:00:00+00:00

OWEN

We must’ve sped through four states by now. It’s pathetic, but I couldn’t even tell you which—I’ve never thought much about them before. They all start with the letter I . . . I think.

My butt’s numb, and my brain is mush. We haven’t stopped in over six hours, and Rayla the Leadfoot hasn’t said a word. The woman’s a driving machine. It’s like she’s storing up all her energy and focus for Denver. Or her bullet wound is slowly sapping all her strength . . . but this conclusion makes me uncomfortable, and I shift my thoughts elsewhere.

There’s nothing to look at. It’s the same monotonous view mile after never-ending mile, so I dust the cobwebs off my memories from school before my parents and the government pulled me out to work. There was this one teacher I actually liked who tried to teach us punk kids a catchy, cheesy song to memorize all fifty-one states in alphabetical order. I was the only student who could do it, and naturally I thought I was a genius. Let’s see if I still am. The tune comes back to me no problem; it’s the words that are a bit fuzzy.

It takes fifty-one states

to make a country great.

Fifty-one, we are one,

the United States of America . . .

I skip over the hand-holding kid lyrics that are complete bullshit and hum my way to the main event.

Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut . . .

Son of a Glut. I know there’s a D in there somewhere. I rack my brain for five minutes, then give up. Who cares about the state that starts with a D that no one ever remembers?

“Delaware,” Rayla says.

I jump in my seat. I guess I was singing out loud—I’m not what you would call a songster, but I’m not completely mortified. Blaise didn’t hear; he’s still passed out in the back seat. That guy sleeps like the dead. Which I hope we all aren’t soon.

“Delaware.” I sit with the word for a bit, thinking on where exactly the state is on the map. “Listen, I’m just a fledgling, but from what I can tell, with Operation Flip the Freakin’ Senators . . . the Common wants to unite the states.” Rayla doesn’t contradict me, so I keep going. “That all sounds well and good, but how will they . . . we . . . get people from the South or the West Coast to give two shits about people in Delaware?”

Rayla smiles. “It’s written in our people’s DNA,” she explains patiently. “We are still the United States. We just have to remind the people of that.”

When Rayla says it, it seems so simple. Wake the people up.

Sleep starts to pull me under, and I try to fight it. I’m not sure why, but it’s always felt like a point of weakness to get caught sleeping in public—a baby who needs his nap. Blaise doesn’t have a problem with it—he’s snoring like one of those bulldogs people used to own.

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