Red America: Green Light

Part Six: Zero Hour

Half an hour after the KGB woman had left her apartment, Lorna was still sitting with Libby cradled in her arms. The television was on, but Lorna was barely watching it, her head still brimming over with conflicting emotions as she pondered whether or not she had really done the right thing by telling the Wyngarde woman everything she knew about Jim Logan and his resistance movement – on the one hand, she felt guilty about having betrayed the resistance to the Red Army after so many years of helping them to carry out what they called their “campaign of defiance against a brutal occupier”, but on the other, she felt terribly angry at them for what they had done to her, and more importantly what they had done to her daughter. It was that fury that had made her do what she did, and it was for that reason that any feelings of regret were getting smaller as time passed. For Jim Logan to have almost robbed her of the one person who gave her life any meaning was, Lorna thought, an unforgivable crime.

When her mother returned home wearily with an armful of groceries, Libby squeaked with excitement and then hopped off Lorna’s lap, dashing to the door to fling her arms around her legs. “Grandma!” she cried, excited. “You’re back!”

“Yes, I am,” her grandmother replied, ruffling Libby’s frizzy green hair after setting her bags down on the work surface in the kitchen. “Did you have a good day while I was gone?”

Libby stuck out her lower lip in a dismayed pout. “No,” she said, sounding deeply annoyed. “I was watching cartoons and then this nasty woman came to visit Mommy. I had to sit in my room and play with my dollies until she went away.” She scowled deeply. “They were here a long time.”

“Oh no,” Lorna’s mother said, one hand covering her mouth for a second or two. “Is that true, honey?”

“Yeah,” Lorna said, getting up and hugging her mother briefly while Libby ambled over to where her colouring books sat in a small pile, and started busily scrawling in them with some well-used crayons, apparently forgetting completely about what had happened to her earlier. “A KGB officer paid us a visit and wanted to know whatever I knew about Jim Logan and the resistance – so I told her everything I could.”

“After they gave you all that money?” Her mother looked dumbfounded. “Why?”

“Why do you think?” Lorna asked flatly. “Those idiots nearly got Libby killed. Just because they gave me a pile of money to try to say sorry, that doesn’t change the fact that they almost took away the one thing that matters to me. Everything I’ve done for the past three years, I’ve done for her – including this. All I want is for her to be safe.” She sighed, putting a hand to her brow in exasperation. “Come on, Mom, you must know what I’m talking about! Wouldn’t you have done the same thing if you were in my position?”

Her mother opened her mouth for a moment, as if to deny Lorna’s accusation, but then her shoulders slumped and she nodded. “You’re right, darling, I would have done the same thing. You were always the most important thing to your father and me when you were a little girl. I would have thrown myself in front of a bullet to save you, so I know exactly where you’re coming from – but do you really think it was wise to make an enemy of Jim Logan? He’s got eyes and ears all over this city, just like the Russians do – and even he has limits to how forgiving or generous he’s willing to be. Sooner or later he’ll find out about what you’ve done, and sooner or later he’ll come looking for answers. Are you ready for that, Lorna? I’m not sure I am.”

Lorna clenched the muscles in her jaw, feeling an involuntary shudder run down her spine. Then she closed her fists tightly, feeling her fingernails digging painfully into her palms. “I’m not afraid of Jim Logan, Mom. I’ve known him for years. I’m not scared of the KGB – so why should I be scared of him?”

Her mother glared at her. “You should be scared of him because of what I’m about to say,” she snapped. She paused guiltily then, taking a deep breath and composing herself. Then, when she was ready to speak again, she continued “You remember your father was a police officer? Well, when he was just starting out as a detective thirty years ago, he told me about something the police’s resistance informants told him while they were letting him know where the resistance was planning to attack next. They said that most of the time, Jim Logan was a really nice person – someone who could make friends with anybody, if he wanted to.”

“So why should I be scared of that?” Lorna asked, feeling a little puzzled. “If he’s such a good guy –”

“Because that’s not all they told him,” he mother said, ominously. “They told him that even though Logan was a good man, his temper could be really frightening. When he used to lead squads of resistance fighters himself, he’d lose control in really bad fights and just... tear the Russian soldiers to pieces with his bare hands. There was never much left of them afterwards. That’s the whole reason he stopped doing it himself, and started letting other people fill his shoes. He’s dangerous, Lorna – no matter how good he can be.”

“Why do the resistance still follow him, if he’s that much of a liability?” Lorna asked, feeling another unwelcome stab of apprehension in the back of her mind. “And how long has he been doing this? He only looks like he’s in his forties, but if he was already leading the resistance when Dad was young... just how old is he?”

“Nobody seems to know,” her mother replied, raising her eyebrows briefly. “Your father said that even his contacts had no idea, and they’d been working with the man for years – decades, in some cases. It sounds as if he’s been around far longer than he should have been. How he managed that, I don’t know.” She paused. “As to why the resistance still follows him... your guess is as good as mine. From what your dad used to tell me, though, Logan’s soldiers all seem to have an amazing respect for the man, regardless of his faults. Perhaps they all think that the ends justify the means, I don’t know.”

Lorna walked over to the window, putting her hands on the sill and looking out on the street below her, its pavement littered with junk and several cars scarred with various shades of neon spray paint. She saw that her bike was unscathed, though, which she was grateful for. Then she turned and rested against the wall, running her hands through her hair. “So what am I going to do now?”

“Well, for now,” her mother began, glancing at her watch, “you ought to be getting to work. Don’t you have an early shift tonight?”

“Damn, you’re right,” Lorna cursed, briefly looking at her own watch. “We’ll have to talk about this some more when I get back.” She pushed herself off the wall and walked over to where Libby was busily scrawling red crayon all over the picture of a clown she had open in front of her. “Wow!” she said excitedly, kneeling down and examining the picture. “That looks great!”

“Do you like it, Mommy?” Libby asked.

“Do I like it?” Lorna repeated. “I love it!”

“So can you help me?” Libby asked, before holding out the crayon she was clutching in her right hand.

“I have to go to work now, honey,” Lorna told her gently, and felt her heart shatter as Libby’s face crumpled with disappointment. Then she pointed towards her mother, and said “But maybe you could ask Grandma? I’m sure she’d like to help – wouldn’t you, Grandma?”

“Of course I would,” her mother said, and then sat down in the chair closest to where Libby was sitting. Libby clambered up next to her and laid the colouring book out on her legs. “What colour would you like me to use?” Libby handed her a well-used blue crayon and the two of them set about giving the clown a little more colour.

Lorna smiled. “I’ll see you later, Mom.”

“Bye sweetie,” her mother replied absently, as Lorna fetched her kitbag and her usual supplies from her bedroom and then ran down the dirty, badly-maintained stairwell to reach her bike. When she reached it, she ran the strap of her bag around herself, used the bike’s kick-start to bring its engine to life, and then set off on her journey towards the bar. The trip was a little slower than usual, because it was still early enough for vehicles other than Russian armour to be out on the road, but Lorna still managed to get to where she needed to be with plenty of time to spare. When she pulled up across the street from the bar, she unhooked her bag’s strap from around her body and then slung it over her shoulder before making her way towards the back entrance. She opened the door and slipped quietly inside, intent on finding her dressing room as quickly as she could. As soon as she closed the door, though, one of the other dancers, a tall, dark-haired girl called Jessica, waved at her cheerfully. “Hey, honey,” she said in excitement, some of her freshly-washed hair leaving droplets of water on her shoulders. “Looks like a busy night out there – I just finished my dance and I ended up with at least two hundred roubles in tips. Do well and you might just earn enough to get Libby a little present.”

“She’s had enough treats this week to last her a little while,” Lorna replied, quietly. “I got her a couple of Vladimir and Sergei toys, so she’ll have to be happy with those.”

Jessica frowned at Lorna’s slightly downcast expression. “You okay, sweetie? You don’t look yourself.”

“I had a visit from a KGB officer today,” Lorna said, running a hand through her hair and taking a deep breath. “You can imagine what fun that was.”

“Oh God,” Jessica replied, putting her hands over her mouth in shock. “Why would the KGB want to talk to you?”

“They wanted to know what I know about Jim Logan,” Lorna said flatly. “They wouldn’t leave until I told them everything I knew about him.”

“And did you?” Jessica pressed, laying a hand on Lorna’s tightly clenched fist.

“Of course I did!” Lorna snapped, flushing with anger and drawing back her hand abruptly. “What other choice did I have? They might have hurt Libby or my mom if I hadn’t, and Libby needs me too much for me to let the Russkies kill me because I didn’t do as I’m told.” She paused, taking a deep breath to calm herself down a little. “Besides, one of them might have been one of those mind-readers I hear the Ivans like to use. Even if I’d lied, they’d probably still have taken what they wanted anyway – so I didn’t have many options any way you want to look at it.”

“I guess not,” Jessica replied, shrugging. “But you know I’ll be right there if you want to talk about it any more, right?” She hugged Lorna and then pointed towards the door. “I gotta get going, honey – my dinner’s not gonna make itself, you know?”

“Sure. See you later, Jess,” Lorna said, before she set her jaw tightly and then made her way to her dressing room. Setting her bag down on the floor near her dressing table, she hung her jacket up on the door’s hook and then set about changing into her costume for the evening. It was a tightly-cut Russian officer’s uniform and cap, which were both emblazoned with the hammer and sickle symbol of the Red Army. She opened the first few buttons of her shirt to expose just enough of her pushed-together bosom to make it look enticing, with all the bored precision that came from years of practice. With that done, she applied a careful amount of hairspray to give her hair a suitable amount of bounce, which she knew she’d need if she was to make her appearance that much more appealing to the off-duty soldiers that made up a large section of her clientele – anything to get them to throw more money at her, after all... and perhaps get them to divulge information while they were drunk and clawing clumsily at her naked body. She shuddered at the thought that she’d endured that for so long, just to help Jim Logan wage his petty little war.

Pushing those memories out of her mind, she took a deep breath and finished getting herself prepared before she pushed open her dressing room door and walked towards the backstage area, readying herself for her grand entrance. Time to put my game-face on, she thought, and flung the curtain aside with a flourish. The whoops of the crowd drowned out anything else she might have been thinking, forcing her to focus on the dance above everything else. It took her twenty minutes to complete her routine, and when she was finished, she swept up the handfuls of ten-rouble notes that lay scattered across the stage, thrown there by her rapturous audience. Jessica had been right, it seemed – judging from how many notes she was picking up, the crowd was in an unusually generous mood tonight. She supposed that almost made up for her foul mood earlier. Almost.

When she was backstage again, she pulled on the robe that was waiting for her and walked to her dressing room to freshen up, shower and get changed into some fresh clothes before she left for the evening. After running a comb through her wet hair a few times, she hoisted her kit-bag onto her shoulder and walked out to her bike, sitting astride it wearily. She revved the throttle a few times just to warm up the engine a little, and sent a few pungent, wispy clouds of grey exhaust fumes billowing away into the evening air. Then she pulled out of the bar’s parking lot and began her journey home. It was a little less busy than earlier, but the amount of Russian armour on the streets was beginning to increase, as it usually did when the evening’s curfew was approaching. Lorna made sure to give any passing armoured personnel carriers or tanks a wide berth, in case the soldiers inside them decided to flex their muscles a few hours earlier than usual. It wasn’t a high risk, but it was a risk she didn’t want to gamble on; not tonight, anyway. She much preferred the thought of getting home in time to read Libby a bedtime story, something she hadn’t been able to do for what seemed like an eternity. She decided that she would read Libby one of her favourite books, Vladimir Goes To Town, which she remembered had delighted both of them the first time they’d read it together. She hoped it would do the same again.

That hope curdled into fear when she arrived at her apartment block and discovered that the door to her apartment was ajar, with no sound coming from inside. The lights were all still on, and she could smell the distinctive scent of overcooked meat, and hear the sizzle of a frying pan, but other than that she couldn’t hear a thing – and given how noisy Libby could be, that was terrifying. “Mom? You here?” she called. “Libby, honey? Can you tell Mommy where you are?” Then she rounded the counter of the kitchen and saw her mother slumped on the floor, a small corona of blood pooling around her head. “Mom!” she cried, dropping to her knees next to her mother and touching her fingers to her throat. She let out a relieved breath as she felt a pulse – a weak one, but a pulse nonetheless. Then, examining the blood surrounding her mother’s head with a fingertip, she was surprised to find that it hadn’t dried quite yet, and was still sticky in places. That meant that whoever had caused this had only been here recently... but that fact was irrelevant as long as she didn’t know where Libby was. “Libby? Where are you?” she called again as she got to her feet, feeling her stomach lurching more and more with each passing moment. “Libby!” Almost running towards the door of her daughter’s room, she flung it open to discover Libby lying in her bed, fast asleep, clutching Flossie-Bell to her tiny chest and murmuring incomprehensible words to herself. Relief flooded through Lorna’s body like a torrent of icy water as she let out the breath she’d been holding in since pushing open the door. She closed it quietly, turned and made her way back to the kitchen area to see what she could do for her unconscious mother. Rinsing a cloth, she started to soak up the gluey, half-dried blood from around her mother’s head, taking care to be as gentle as possible. The cloth soon became sodden and red, so she stood up to squeeze it out into the sink – only to find Jim Logan leaning against her front door, his arms crossed and his eyes burning with barely-controlled anger.

“We need to talk, you an’ me,” he said coldly, pushing himself off the door and curling his hands into fists as he started to advance towards her.

“I have nothing to say to you,” Lorna snarled, hoping that her bravado would help disguise the sickening, nauseating fear which was suddenly churning in her guts. “Get out.”

Logan’s lip curled in contempt. “Maybe you ain’t got somethin’ to say to me,” he said, “but I sure as hell got somethin’ to say to you. You betrayed me. You betrayed the resistance.” He held up his right hand, and his bone claws punched out from between the knuckles with a wet tearing of flesh and a few small trickles of blood. Lorna swallowed nervously. She had always known about Logan’s claws, but she had never seen them this close up – and she had certainly never expected to be on the wrong end of them. “I ain’t gonna let you get away with that.”

“How did you –” Lorna began, confused as to how Logan could have found out about her talk with the KGB officer so quickly.

“You should be careful who you talk to,” Logan said simply, snorting in contempt. “See, your friend Jessie... is also my friend Jessie. She told me about it before you’d even finished dancin’.”

Lorna felt her guts churn as she realised she had effectively damned herself, and that she should have trusted her mother’s advice. “So, what, this is the part where you kill me?” she said, still desperately trying to keep a note of defiance in her voice. “My daughter –”

“– is the only reason why I ain’t gonna kill you,” Logan finished. “But just ‘cause I ain’t gonna kill you, don’t mean I ain’t gonna cut you.” He smirked, dark inspiration crossing his hairy features for a moment, and he glanced at the extended claws on his right hand. “These things can slice you open right down to the bone. How much do you think your new Russkie pals are gonna want to see a stripper with those kinds of scars?”

“Jim, you wouldn’t – you couldn’t –” Lorna stammered, icy terror beginning to build in the pit of her stomach as she started to back away from Logan. He matched her movement step-for-step. “Libby –”

“Don’t think your kid’s goin’ to save you again,” Logan snapped, and extended the claws on his left hand. “I only got so much mercy in me. Time to pay the piper, toots.” As he doubled his pace, Lorna began scrambling backwards into the kitchen area, trying desperately to keep as much distance between him and herself as she could, until she realised she had nowhere else to go. She backed up right against the oven, the handle of the frying pan still on the hob jabbing into her spine, and saw Logan coming ever closer. He stepped over her mother’s prone body and then clenched his fists even tighter. “Bad choice, darlin’,” he said as he finally cornered her. “First rule of bein’ a resistance fighter: always plan your escape route. Looks like you never woulda made the grade.” Then he lunged at her with one set of claws, aimed low at her belly – and got a faceful of boiling fat and burnt meat. Lorna had managed to grasp the handle of the frying pan behind her and had waited until the last possible moment to swing its contents right into Logan’s eyes. She could hear them sizzling, and saw steaming trickles of blood weeping down his cheeks as he bellowed with rage. Knowing she only had a few moments before his eyes healed, she ran towards the front door and then hefted the heavy wooden baseball bat that her mother kept beside it in both hands. Then she sprinted towards Logan, using her momentum to smash the bat fiercely into the side of his head, screaming wordlessly as she did so. The only sound it made was a dull thud, the thick wood momentarily scoring a coarse, gruesome bruise across the surface of Logan’s left temple. He swayed a little, his expression going blank. Then his legs gave way and he dropped to the floor without a sound. Breathing hoarsely, Lorna managed to aim one hard kick directly into Logan’s groin before she realised just exactly what she’d done. Panic replaced her anger, and she couldn’t think straight for a moment. Then she realised exactly what she had to do, and ran over to the phone that was screwed to the wall next to the kitchen counter. Grabbing the handset and running her other hand over the buttons in a well-practiced sequence, she tried to keep her breathing steady and her hands from shaking. The phone rang five times before somebody picked up at the other end, and when they did Lorna wasted no time in spilling out just exactly what had happened, almost without stopping to take a breath.

“You have to get here quickly, Frank,” she said to her boss, trying to stop her voice from dissolving into sobs. “I need help moving him out of my apartment, and I need help now. Please, Frank – I don’t know when he’ll wake up, but I know he’ll be pretty pissed off when he does. I can’t risk him hurting Libby or my mom.”

“Okay, Lorna,” Frank said calmly. “Stay calm, honey – I’ll be right over. We’ll get you out of this, I promise.”

“Thanks, Frank,” Lorna replied. “Get here as soon as you can.” She hung the phone up almost absently as she turned back to where Logan was sprawled on the floor, his arms and legs splayed out awkwardly. She knew that she had to get him secured so that he couldn’t get up when he inevitably came round, so she started to rummage in her closets to see if there was anything useful that she could use to tie him up. After ten minutes of searching, she finally found a length of curtain cord that her mother had been saving for some new lounge curtains. She knelt down behind Logan’s prone form, pulled his arms behind his back and then wrapped the cord around his wrists, knotting it as tightly as she could, and then knotting it again just for good measure. Hooking both arms under his armpits, she heaved him up on a chair with difficulty, and then bound him to it with two thick leather belts she had found in her closet. It was pretty makeshift, she knew, but she hoped it would be enough.

It took Frank about twenty minutes to arrive, and when she opened the door to let him in, Lorna flung her arms around him tightly, finally letting out the tears she’d been holding in since hitting Logan with the bat. “Thank you, Frank,” she said. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.”

“Hey, I’d have done the same for any of my girls,” Frank said, shrugging, before he drew out the shotgun he kept behind the bar from the holster on his back. “Where’s Logan?” Lorna pointed behind her to where Logan was tied up, and Frank whistled in surprise. “Damn, girl,” he said. “Looks like you didn’t need my help after all.”

Lorna shook her head. “Well, I need help moving him. I can’t keep him here, Frank, not when his resistance buddies are bound to come looking for him. One of them must know where he is – it won’t be too long before they follow him here.”

“I guess you’re right,” Frank said, scratching his chin thoughtfully. “Okay, you take his legs and I’ll take his arms. We’ll get him down in the elevator, put him in the back of my car, and then we’ll worry about where we take him from there.”

“You ain’t takin’ me anywhere, pal,” Logan rasped through bloodied lips as he raised his head a little groggily, making both Lorna and Frank jump almost out of their skins. Then, as the two of them turned to look at him, he glared at them with slightly glazed eyes and continued “I ain’t gonna go without a fight.”

“Don’t bet on it,” Frank said, cracking him across the face with the butt of his shotgun and knocking him out cold again. Then he looked down at the little man as Logan’s head lolled limply on his chest. “Damn. I was afraid that might happen,” he said ruefully. “You definitely did the right thing tying him up like that.”

“You... knew he might do that?” Lorna said, stunned. “How?”

Frank pulled one side of his mouth up in a rueful half-smile. “Hey, I wasn’t always a bartender – I used to be a resistance fighter too, until I decided to give it up for my health. I saw Jimmy-boy here heal from a dozen different bullet wounds that would have killed you or me, and I saw him get back on his feet pretty quickly afterwards, too. You were lucky he was out for as long as he was.” He shook his head, and then started to heave Logan off the seat after loosening the belts securing him to it. “Come on, kid – no time to waste.”

“Okay,” Lorna said, taking a deep breath and trying to compose herself a little. “Let’s do it.”

The two of them struggled out into the hallway, heaving Logan’s limp form along the corridor and into the elevator. Lorna quickly stabbed the button that would take them right to the ground floor with one fingertip, and then waited for the elevator to come back to life. It managed to creak in annoyance once before it juddered into life and started to move downwards. Lorna cursed her landlord for the hundredth time, absurdly wondering at random just what it would take for the stingy old bastard to actually put some effort into maintaining the place. She cut that train of thought off sharply, though, as the elevator came to a grinding halt and its doors opened spasmodically. Gritting her teeth, she helped Frank carry Logan outside and then dump him in the trunk of his car, the belts that she had used to tie the little man to her chair firmly secured around his knees and ankles. When Frank was satisfied that the job was complete, he turned to Lorna and said “You’re not coming with me, are you?”

Lorna shook her head. “No. I can’t leave Libby or my mom.”

“That’s what I thought,” Frank replied. “I’ll have to find a manhole cover somewhere that I can dump this guy through, then. I’m sure he can find his way home once he wakes up – but I’ll give one of my old resistance buddies a call just in case, and they can make sure he gets found. Jim might be an asshole, but even he doesn’t deserve to lie in rat shit for days on end.” He paused and ran a hand over his bald scalp. “Look... you have to get out of here, as quickly as you can. The resistance’ll be looking for you as soon as they find their boss, and they won’t be happy.”

“I know,” Lorna said, her expression downcast. “I’ve got an uncle in Maine I can call. If I tell him what the situation is, maybe he’ll let Libby and me stay with him for a while until we can get settled somewhere else.”

“Well, I hope it works out for you,” Frank said. He brushed his hand against her chin then, an almost paternal look crossing his face. “Make a good life for yourself and Libby – both of you deserve it.” He turned towards his car, opened the driver’s side door and climbed in. Winding down his window he said “Take care of yourself, honey. I might ask you back as a special attraction one day, and I wouldn’t want you to be anything less than perfect.” He winked at her as he did so, making her laugh despite herself, and then he pushed down on his accelerator and drove off, leaving Lorna standing on the sidewalk by herself. She stayed where she was for a few moments before she went back inside, taking the stairs to her apartment this time, and then checked on Libby briefly before she picked up the phone and, feeling a renewed sense of security, finally called for some medical help.

After fifteen minutes, the paramedics that she had called for arrived and started to tend her mother’s head wound. One of them, a slightly-built young man who looked like he had only just left medical school, stood up from where Lorna’s mother was lying and turned towards Lorna. “Your mother doesn’t seem to be too badly injured,” he began, “but as with all head injuries, I’d prefer it if she was taken to hospital for overnight observation. There’s always a chance that she might be concussed, and it would be better for her to be somewhere that can treat her as quickly as possible.”

Lorna nodded. “Yes, of course. Let me go and get my daughter and I’ll come with you. We can ride in the ambulance, I hope?” The young paramedic nodded, and after Lorna had, with some difficulty, woken Libby up, she followed the two paramedics down to where their ambulance was parked. The journey to the hospital was surprisingly quick, Lorna thought, but then she realised that the driver was probably taking some short-cuts as well as using the ambulance’s siren to clear its path. When they arrived, her mother was quickly moved to where she needed to be, with doctors crowding round her in order to see what was wrong. It took several hours for them to leave Lorna and Libby alone with her, but Lorna was so tired that she didn’t get to say a lot before she fell into as deep a sleep as Libby had been for the almost the entire time.

Three hours later, Lorna awoke with a start, finding Libby curled up in a chair next to her. “Hey,” her mother said in a hoarse tone. “You know, I think I’m supposed to be the one who’s sedated, young lady. What’s your excuse?”

Lorna laughed despite herself. “Another wild night on the town, I guess.” She leaned forwards and took one of her mother’s hands in her own. “How are you feeling?”

“Sore,” came the predictable response. “And I have a bump on my head the size of Delaware. Other than that, I’m fine.”

“That’s good to hear,” Lorna said, before she bit her lip, suddenly afraid to say what she knew she had to say. “Look... I need to talk to you about what Frank told me earlier tonight.”

“Is that your boss?” her mother asked, raising an eyebrow briefly. “What did he have to say that I need to hear? Did he try to get you to work double-shifts this week?”

“I wish he had,” Lorna replied, sadly. “He said... he said I needed to get out of New York, and that I needed to get out quickly.”

“What?” her mother exclaimed, stunned. “Why?”

“The resistance is going to be looking for me after this. They never take no for an answer, Mom – you know that. If I don’t go, they’ll keep coming for me, and I can’t risk putting you or Libby in danger like that again.”

“You’re over-reacting –” her mother began.

“Look at where you are, Mom!” Lorna snapped back. “You wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for me!” She paused, to compose herself. “Look... if the resistance come again, who’s to say they’ll stop at just hurting you? I don’t want either of you to end up on a slab because I made a stupid mistake. You and Libby mean the world to me, and it’s because of that that I have to leave.”

“All right,” her mother said, downcast. “Let’s say you do move. Where would you go?”

“I thought I could give Uncle Teddy a call,” Lorna replied, with a slight shrug. “I know he’s got room in his house for the two of us, and I’m hoping he’ll help me get settled there. If I explain what the situation is, maybe he’ll let me go sooner rather than later.”

“It’s worth a try, I suppose,” her mother said thoughtfully. “Teddy’s a good man – even if he doesn’t act like it sometimes – and he always had so much time for you when you were a little girl. I’m sure he’ll jump at the chance to have you and Libby living with him. I imagine he’ll want you to get a job while you’re with him, though – he never was one for keeping freeloaders around for too long. Do you have any idea what you’re going to do?”

“Well, I can tell you right now that I don’t plan on working in some dirty little convenience store for the rest of my life,” Lorna replied. “Maybe I’ll waitress for a while, but when I’ve saved some money from that... I thought that I could try being a teacher.” She smiled. “I mean, I’ve been passing on information for the past five years anyway – I think it’s about time I tried doing it for a good reason.”

“That sounds like a good plan,” her mother replied. “I’m sure Teddy would be happy to help you with that if he could. Talk to him about it when you call him, and see what he says.”

“Thanks, Mom – I’ll do that,” Lorna said, and immediately felt a weight lifting off her soul. For the first time in a long time, she felt free – and that was a feeling she intended to hold onto for as long as she could.

END.