The Balance by Neal Wooten

Author:Neal Wooten [Wooten, Neal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781626391000
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2014-02-24T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

“Do you miss your old home at all?” Niko asks.

I am leaning back against him as we sit in the vacant home, the one where Niko wants to live. We have begun calling it “our home.” It is the one place where we are sure to be alone. Sitting on the hard floor isn’t too comfortable since there is no furniture, but as long as we’re together, I’m happy.

“Not really,” I say. “Life is much easier for sure, but after being here for nine months, it doesn’t even seem like a life at all up there. There is no connection between people, not even between my mama and papa, or between my sister and me. Everything is about following procedure, maintaining the normal routine. I’ve never seen my mama and papa kiss. I never even knew it was something people did.”

“Where did you come from if your mama didn’t get pregnant with you?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. I never thought about it before. That’s another thing I didn’t know people did.”

“Do you ever want to go back, just to visit?”

I shake my head. “My life is here now.”

He wraps his arms around me tighter. “Good.”

We sit in silence for a while, just enjoying being together. But I have something pressing on my mind. I don’t know if it’s safe to broach the subject with him, but I need to talk with someone, and he is, after all, my mate. “There’s something I want to talk about, but not if it will make you upset.”

“The Book?”

I am surprised and turn my head fully around to look at him. “Sí.”

“It’s okay. I know you don’t believe in it. I can see it in your eyes. You can talk to me about it. I won’t say anything to anyone, not even Papa.”

I turn around and cross my legs. He does the same, and we are staring at each other. I think of where to begin. “I just don’t believe that the Fathers, the people with whom I lived in the city, are capable of the punishments threatened in The Book. We have a much more advanced technology in the city, or technology at all,” I say as I look around at the stone walls, “but not the kind it would take to do things like making the oceans rise or making fire rain down. These are things I’ve never heard of before coming here. I truly believe they are empty threats.” I search his face, but I don’t see any reaction.

“Go on,” he says. “What about the Chosen? You don’t believe they go to live in the city, do you?”

“No, I don’t. The city is designed to hold an exact amount of people. If we were to take in four hundred new people each seventh day, that’s over twenty thousand in a year. And according to The Book, this has been going on for thousands of years.”

Niko sighs. “Is it not possible they go to the city just to be servants, maybe on a level you’ve never visited?”

“Sí, I guess it’s possible.

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