Free Chosen Ones by Tiffany Truitt Page A

filled with compassion. What were those last moments like for her? Did she cry out? Did she ask for me at all? Or was it all about him? Did her eyes simply close or did her body lurch, fighting against the darkness that was attempting to claim it?
    My heart began to speed up, and I leaned against the wall of the shower. Breathing in and out. In and out. In and out. The letter made me weaker, not stronger like my father had hoped. It would be so easy to just cry, to give in. In frustration I slammed my head against the cement wall. The pain vibrated from my head down to my toes. And I liked it. My heart stopped beating so wildly. I could focus on this new pain. I threw my head back again into the wall. And again. And again. Again. Again. Again. My head was throbbing. I reached my fingers to the back of my scalp and found blood.
    Always blood.
    When I arrived at work, my head still throbbing from the morning, Gwen was waiting. She looked me up and down. Whatever she saw, she was not impressed. I knew she could find no fault with my appearance; I’d made a point of ensuring my uniform was perfect. No wrinkles. No dirt. No sign of the laziness that consumed the people of the compound.
    I was perfect.
    With a heavy sigh, my supervisor turned and began to walk down the hallway. When I didn’t follow, she snapped her fingers at me without stopping to make sure I understood her directions. She knew I would follow. She knew I would have to.
    We didn’t speak to each other as we climbed the marble staircase to the upper levels of the Templeton mansion—the servants’ quarters. Women, girls, who had received two slash marks were forced to live at Templeton. While I could go home to my family, or lack thereof, every night, the double-slash girls had to serve out their sentence twenty-four hours a day, six days a week. One day for rest, of course—that is what the Bible demanded.
    I was still unsure what happened when one received the third mark.
    When we stopped, my supervisor pulled a skeleton key from the pocket of her skirt. It struck me as odd that the doors of the servants’ quarters were locked from the outside, as if one of them would try to escape. No one would be that stupid. If a girl ran from her punishment and life at the compound, the next oldest female in her family would not only have to finish the remainder of her sentence, but would be punished for the new transgression as well.
    Besides, the minute someone left, the council’s promise of protection was null and void. In the early days of my life at the compound, back when my mother was still alive, a group of women and Henry ran off. It was before I knew him. The women were unhappy with the council’s system of punishment—why should the females be forced to serve for the sins of all? Why must we be responsible for the morality of a people who just didn’t give a damn anymore? At the time, I remember asking my mother why we didn’t leave with them. She asked me if I knew where to score some booze. She didn’t give a damn anymore, either.
    Three weeks later, the council found the bodies of these women. They had been attacked. Barely identifiable. The council was unclear if it was Easterners or the Isolationists—men and women who had run into the darkness of the forest before the construction of the compounds—were responsible for the deaths.
    Sure, it’s terrible. The whole system. But the funny thing about mankind is we have a natural need—a natural will to live. So many of us would rather have a life of nothingness than risk not living at all. And the council knows this.
    As the click of the door unlocking stirred me from my recollections, I noticed my supervisor staring at me. Something about the look on her face, the weariness of it, caused me to take a step back.
    What was waiting behind that door?
    “Now you listen to me, girl. When we go in there you are not to say a word. Nothing. You will not speak of this to anyone. If she says something to