The Proposed Prophecies
Chapter 23: THE SHUTTERED LOVE

Her bare feet slowly walked across the wet concrete floor, the cold water sprayed around from the shower heads. There were at least fifty shower heads in each row: ten rows on one side, ten on the other. It was rare that someone had the luxury of a shower head all to themselves. But this time she didn’t even care. It was hard to get up that day, hard to eat, hard to think straight after Jake had left early in the morning. What he had said about Evan haunted her all day.

She walked between the showers, aiming for the last row as she spotted the one shower head on the end which appeared empty. The light above it was blinking as it was about to lose the long bulb in a matter of seconds. She let her white towel fall onto the ground. She didn’t even care that it would get wet. It always got wet and she used to get angry but not this time. It didn’t matter at all. She let the cold water run down her skinny body. She looked down onto her feet. Her legs appeared so skinny and white. Normally she wanted to clean herself quickly and get out of there as soon as possible but this time she couldn’t. Memories from her past kept polluting her mind. She remembered everything all over again; the first day she had met Evan, his smile and the night on the beach and Tiffany’s party. She remembered Tiffany’s face at the motel, her beautiful but beaten up face and the overdue bills in Evan’s apartment. “Oh it’s nothing,” he had said. She remembered the sound of his calm voice. “I think we need to spend some time apart.” She imagined him right in front of her. What she hadn’t understood was why he had chosen the easier way out instead of opening up to her.. Now it was all clear, she thought. The lie was surely better than the truth. She remembered running after him as he’d left Amy’s house. It felt hard to breathe just thinking about it and the agony she had felt after he had left for good the day he brought her the diaries.

Suddenly she laughed. It all made sense: his quietness, his lies, and the whole mystery about why Eve had been part of his life since he had come back from the boarding school. He was probably not even Tiffany’s real brother but a replacement that must have surfaced in boarding school, she thought, as remembered Tiffany telling her she hadn’t seen him for some time. Tiffany said Eve had been there ever since he had come back. “Of course she was,” Liv thought out loud and closed her eyes. Her laugh became a cry. She didn’t feel the coldness of the water. Her tears flowed along the water, down into the drain.

“Are you going to move or should I move you?” said the short woman who had bumped into her on the first day she was placed into the red zone. Liv looked at her but remained silent. There was nothing that could stop the flowing memories of the past.

“Do you hear me?” The short woman raised her voice again and this time pushed her lightly aside. Liv always hated it when she was touched but never said anything. But his time, she felt anger rouse inside her and the adrenaline of hate brush through her body. Her breathing became stronger, deeper. She pushed the woman back. In a matter of seconds Liv found herself on top of the woman, punching her with all her strength as the woman fought back. It was a feeling she had never felt before. The sudden, shy, good-girl image was gone forever and a darker, careless person who was hiding deep inside came out and couldn’t stop until she had blood on her hands. She continued to punch and punch, not even caring that she was completely naked on top of another naked body. All that mattered was the hate inside her, the undeniable disappointment of the past months.

“Stop it” It was Carmen’s voice. She felt Carmen’s hand pulling her arm. Everything moved in slow motion. She stopped hitting and noticed the short woman on the ground underneath her. Blood from her face was sliding down into the drain hole along with the water from the showers. Other women stared at her and were screaming something but she couldn’t hear. She could only see them opening their mouths and raising their arms as if they were watching a soccer game. She turned to the left and saw Carmen’s wet, curly hair and concerned face. She was yelling something too. Liv let Carmen pull her up and noticed the guards approaching her. They looked like they were yelling too. Suddenly she thought that they were going to either shoot her or take her to prison. The bold guard ran towards her first and she saw his fist approaching her face. Everything went dark. She remembered her father Christopher, who used to use his hand as a warning for her to not disobey him, but never his fist.

It was a strange feeling of darkness. It looked like there was nothing, the pain was gone and the memories were slowly fading, leaving only a feeling of emptiness.

****

“Liv?” Jake’s deep voice was somewhere in the background. But it was still dark. She slowly opened her eyes but closed them right away as the light above her head blinded her for a second.

“Poor thing. Her eye is all swollen.” Liv recognized that voice. It belonged to Joann. She wondered where she was but her eyes still couldn’t fully open.

“At least she wasn’t killed. I don’t even know what happened. I just saw a fight but the last thing I thought was that it would be Liv until I moved closer and saw her.” The voice was Carmen’s, Liv realized, as she moved her head to the left to avoid the light. Her vision was blurry but somehow clearing.

“She is opening her eyes,” said another female voice. Liv opened her eyes and the blurriness slowly disappeared.

“Becky?” It was hard to believe she was there, right in front of her. Becky looked like she was on her knees and looking at her. Her big brown eyes were exactly same as before and her smile was wider than ever. “I’ve missed you so much,” Liv said and Becky grabbed her hand and her eyes suddenly sprang tears. “I’ve missed you too,” Becky whispered.

Liv tried to sit up. Her energy was weak but Becky and Carmen helped her. Each of them grabbed her by her arms from each side. She saw Jake standing between the bed and the door and Joann stood next to Becky. She was in her room in the red zone. She looked up to make sure there was no camera on but could see no blinking, no red dots were visible. Jake had his arms crossed and was staring at her.

“What were you thinking, Liv? The guards could have killed you right there. You were lucky that there was a guard who was on our side on duty.” Jake sounded angry and she felt someone sitting next to her. It was Joann. She hadn’t seen her ever since she had told Liv she was really an Alter and she had to leave. But she was back.

“This is all my fault, I should have never told her about Evan. At least not so quickly. I should have waited or prepared her more.” Jake’s voice seemed to turn from angry to full of guilt. She realized he wasn’t as disappointed in her as she had first thought but at himself.

“It’s not your fault. I lost it,” Liv said and felt her whole face was hurting. She thought she must have been punched pretty badly if her whole face hurt instead of only her eye.

“You can’t just lose it. At least not right now. We need to focus,” Joann added. “It was a lot for her to take,” said Carmen “You don’t know what was between her and Evan before. She loved him!” Carmen raised her voice. Liv looked at Jake who wiped his face with his hands and then brushed through his hair with his fingers.

Carmen and Joann continued to argue and she heard them arguing about the importance of the plan but she still didn’t get what were they talking about or why they were all in her room which must be pretty crowded now.

“Jake told us about Evan and about the plan to take Eve off the post.. He told us what he asked you earlier this morning. About Evan,” Carmen said, quieter this time, as if she wasn’t even sure about the plan herself and if it would work. Liv looked at her sister Becky who kept chewing on her index finger.

“We need to try. We are too far through the plan now to back off. Eve will kill every single one of us if she finds out.” This came from Joann. Carmen sat down on the other side of the bed next to Liv. Everyone must have lost a lot of weight over the months if all three of them fit onto that small bed, thought Liv. “You don’t have to do anything with Evan if you don’t want to. I am sure we can find a different way,” Carmen said and held her hand.

“Like what?” Joann asked, with irony in her voice.

“I will do it.” Liv said quietly but no one listened as they kept arguing. “I said I will do it.” She raised her voice and silence overtook the room. “Are you sure?” Carmen asked and Liv shook her head. “I will do anything to help and to get the hell out of here.” Liv truly meant this. She didn’t care about facing Evan. He represented the dark shadow of Eve. They both represented everything bad that had happened over the past few months and all she wanted was for this situation to be over.

She sat on the bed and stared at them. Jake was giving orders on who had which role in the plan. He ordered Carmen to start convincing people that now was the time they needed know the complete truth about the proposal and about Alters, and that they needed to choose a side. Joann and Jake would continue working together on the top floors, preparing the Alters to fight, if necessary.

“I feel worthless. You all have roles and I don’t.” Becky whispered once she had switched places with Joann. Liv hugged her and let Becky’s head lay on her shoulder. “All that matters is that you are back with me. You are my mental and emotional supporter and that is the most important job of them all,” Liv whispered back.

“I think that Evan truly loved you no matter whose son he is.” Becky’s whisper made Liv laugh a little since Becky had never even met him. She knew nothing about him. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” Liv whispered to Becky and watched Joann, Jake and Carmen talk about the plan to take Eve off her post. Carmen didn’t seem to be looking at Joann. She seemed angry with her. Possibly because Joann hadn’t told her about her being an Alter. Liv realized that Evan had never said anything either but that didn’t mean that he was lying. She held Becky’s hand tightly.

“Could you all leave me and Liv alone for a second?” said Jake. Liv looked at her watch. It was two in the morning. She had been unconscious all day, she realized. She wasn’t even tired and it did not feel like it was this late at night. “I am going to sleep anyway,” Becky said and rubbed her eyes. Liv kissed Becky’s forehead before she stood up. “We will talk on our lunch break” Becky whispered and smiled. Joann walked out first followed by Carmen. “Be quiet on your way back. Just because the guard is on our side it doesn’t mean you don’t have to keep a low profile,” Jake said and Carmen rolled her eyes at Jake but winked at Liv.

Jake laid next to Liv once Becky had left too. “How do you feel?” he asked and placed his hand behind his head. Liv shook her shoulders. “Fine… I guess.” This wasn’t entirely the truth. She felt confused about Evan. “Come here” he said and he opened his arm for her to lay there. And she did. She felt the warmth of his body as he gently rubbed her shoulder. “I am sorry for everything. This isn’t an easy situation.“ He said and hugged her tightly. “I love you and I would die if anything happened to you,” he whispered and she lifted up her head. “What did you just say?“ He smiled. “You should get some rest. We will talk tomorrow.” He kissed her and she smiled. She had heard him clearly but it felt strange to hear it. He got up and walked to the door. She looked at him opening the door. “I love you too,” she said and he looked back and smiled, then walked out. She really meant it. She felt happy around him. Her heart was racing just thinking about him and each time he touched her or looked at her it felt as if she was in a dream. She smiled again but then Evan came to mind. Deep down she knew she still had feelings for him too despite the fact that he was Eve’s son. All the effort that she had put into not thinking about him or ridding herself of her feeling for him had been impossible, she still had feelings for him. She had never thought it was possible to love two people at once, but somehow it was.

She pulled the sheets all the way up to her chin and then above her head. It was the only way to keep the strong light out of her face. “How am I supposed to face you again?” she asked out loud.

“The next two weeks until my next meeting went quickly. I could not wait to spend each second of my free time with my sister. I had missed her so much. She had barely changed at all. Her hair was longer and her eyebrows were bushier as there was surely no such luxury as getting your eyebrows done in the bunker. She used to make fun of the time she spent in the showers and said that it was funny to see so many naked bodies fighting over the cold water. This didn’t seem funny to me but her laugh was always contagious.

On many occasions I looked around for the woman I had almost killed but Carmen said she had been taken somewhere and never returned. I wondered if they had killed her or put her in jail and felt bad that this was all because my moment of anger had brought out the worst in me.

Carmen had started working on getting people on our side and each night after the cameras turned off she walked from one room to another and explained that there was an upcoming fight and they all needed to choose a side. The news travelled fast and people started talking about it. Most people seemed confused about this news and I couldn’t blame them. They never even knew that there were such a thing as aliens… and now suddenly they had to choose a side, without even knowing the competing parties. Normally when we voted for a president there was at least a speech given to enable us to work out our favorite. But not this time. They only had Carmen’s word to rely on.

Jake came into my room the night before the second meeting. The prospect of the second meeting was worrying me. I wondered if my mother would be there again. I really missed her, despite all that happened. I imagined that this time I would hug her and tell her it would be alright. Jake said everything was going according to plan. It was good to hear that more and more Alters were on our side and that they were ready to fight against Eve. But each day I felt more fearful. Fearful that something would go wrong, fearful that Eve would find out about the plan to depose and usurp her, and fearful of the day I would see Evan again. And what if Evan didn’t want to be a commander or if he was a worse commander than Eve. Jake said Evan would be a better commander than Eve but I wasn’t sure. Despite my feelings for him, I had never felt like I had known Evan well. He might have faked a lot more than I thought. I pretended that I was strong and was able to make Evan stand up against Eve but deep down I doubted that I could persuade him and I doubted whether I could push my feelings of disappointment and anger aside.. I wished I had more of my grandfather’s diaries so I could learn about what had happened when he was still around. But life never worked out that easily and the truth was almost always harder to deal with.”

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