Prologue
“You are not fucking going, and that’s final!” my father roared, his words slurring as spittle flew from his mouth.
I hated him, and it wasn’t your usual twelve-year-old spoiled angst which made me feel that way. Staring him down I watched as he squirmed to readjust to a more comfortable position in his reclined chair. He was overweight, his stomach currently free from the confines of his pants which were opened at the zipper. An off-white singlet hugged his bulging belly while his unbuttoned business shirt showed its age, not to mention the stains under his pits from sweat. He disgusted me, barely able to hold himself upright as he lounged in his chair with a beer about to topple out of his hand.
No, I hated him like a little girl who had been beat on by a man who was supposed to love and protect her. A backhanded slap here or a lashing with the metal end of his belt there, the violence my father bestowed upon me every time he drank, which was often, had ignited a fire in my belly which had strengthened with each passing day.
My mother tried her best to step in and take the brunt of his alcohol-fueled anger, but it was never enough. There was a small part of me that hated her too. She’d never leave my dad, she would never lash out at him to protect me, and I didn’t understand why. I couldn’t comprehend what I’d done to deserve this life.
The side of my face felt tight, my eye puffy and swollen. The back of my head throbbed from where it had hit the wall after my father’s casual backhand for whatever transgression he felt I had committed this evening. I was supposed to be on my way to my best friend’s house. It was Belle’s birthday, and we were having a sleepover. Just me, Belle, and Farrah, three girls who wanted an escape from our broken world, if only for one night. Much to my surprise, my parents had agreed to the sleepover. It would be the first time I’d spend a night away from them, and I couldn’t wait.
Problem was, my father was drunk, of course, which meant he couldn’t drive me over. And my quiet as a mouse mom refused to drive the car after dark for fear of being carjacked, or worse, murdered. Her worries were baseless, as America’s laws were defined by a strict zero tolerance on crime. Anyone who broke the law, regardless of how small or how large the offense, was sent to the underground prison known as the Underworld. So, the chances of us being carjacked, or murdered, were slim.
People feared the Underworld. It wasn’t like the criminal element of society had disappeared under fear of the harsh law, it was just they were more careful about committing a crime, less brazen, more devious.
Hurt, angry and determined, I waited until my mom gravitated toward her usual spot in our home, the kitchen, and I watched as my father’s eyes drooped closed before grabbing the keys to his car from the chipped, black bowl by the front door. Quietly, I slipped outside and jogged through the cool evening air toward my dad’s car. There was no way I was missing out on my one night’s escape from this hell. I was owed a night off. I’d never driven a car before, but I figured if I got it started and backed it down the drive, it would freak Mom out enough to take me.
Climbing into the big SUV, I started the engine just like I’d seen my dad do hundreds of times. The engine purred to life and I smiled, proud of myself. Glancing down at the large shift between the two front seats, I allowed my hand to settle on it, and as I began to nudge the car into gear the animalistic roar of my father cut through the night. My hand jammed the gear shift back more out of alarm than concentrated effort, and when I saw my father racing down the front porch steps, adrenaline surged through me as I stretched out my leg and pressed my foot heavily on the accelerator. I honestly thought he’d reached that point where alcohol would steal him away to a deep sleep, and he wouldn’t hear the car start.
For a moment the world was a mess of confusing momentum, the car lurching forward when I expected it to go backward, followed by a loud crunch that scared me spitless.
And then, all was still.
Even with my foot firmly pressed on the accelerator. The revving of the engine, accompanied by a soft hiss and pained groan interrupted the otherwise quiet night. Glancing out the windscreen, I realized straight away what had happened. I’d put the car in drive instead of reverse. Currently, I was jammed up against the side of the house, my father’s body trapped between the crumbling brick and the wrecked hood.
My hands slapped over my mouth, hoping to keep my cry trapped inside. It didn’t stop my mother’s cry though, her heart-torn wail coming from the top of the stairs to my right. My meek and mild mother who almost never raised her voice, her grief spilled in that moment and I realized I’d been the cause of that pain, it was my fault that agonized cry fell from her lips. That sound scared me more than what I’d done. It was raw, honest and painful.
My gaze moved sluggishly from the heart-wrenching sobs of mother to my father, who was slumped over the front of the car. He seemed so lifeless, so still, so deathly still. But there was no blood. Apart from the damaged car and building, it was so… clean.
Wasn’t death bloodier than this?
My father’s head suddenly lifted, and his lifeless gaze had me stilling in fright.
“You killed me, you bitch. They’ll send you to the Underworld for this.”
They wouldn’t send a child to the Underworld… would they? There were murderers, rapists, and pedophiles in the Underworld, not children.
My father’s words seemed so detached, spoken in a calm voice that belayed his usual volatile temper. Dark sunken eyes watched me with hate and spoke of revenge. He almost seemed pleased over what had transpired, sickeningly joyful with our fate.
Finally, I pulled my hands away from my mouth and screamed.
I lurched into an upright position, wrenched from sleep and back into the world of the living with such ferocity I thought I might be having a heart attack.
Just a nightmare, I reassured myself.
A dark memory that hadn’t leeched its way into my dreams in years. It took long moments to settle the lingering panic and several more minutes of looking around my room for reassurance I was safe. Well, as safe as I could be in this broken world.
I’ve read stories of how life used to be before the war for freedom destroyed everything. It hadn’t exactly been a ‘safe’ world, but America had been whole, rather than the crumbling beast it was still trying to resurrect from.
Over a hundred years ago, America had been crushed to its very foundations. It wasn’t a slow decline—it was instantaneous and powerful. Washington, New York, L.A., and Houston were the first to be attacked. The acts of violence brought buildings to the ground and powerful men to their knees. As America burned, the hopes and dreams of millions went up in ash. Desperation saw good people do bad things. Living sometimes meant killing, and mass hysteria ensued with an every-man-for-himself mentality. Food supplies ran low, and those who were once rich were now poor, and the poor were mostly decimated. For a time, America was in darkness, electricity gone, technology reduced to that of a more primitive era. One of the world’s most powerful countries had been decimated and was weak as a newborn babe. Other countries lent their support, but the destruction was on too large a scale for an immediate reprieve for the ravaged nation.
As time drew on, our enemies were forced from our borders and control was gradually found, evil was brought to heel, and a zero tolerance on crime was voted in. As America tried valiantly to rebuild broken infrastructure and demolished states, the Underworld was born. Subways, caverns, mines, and bunkers were transformed into formidable prisons buried under cement and rock. They were locked down tight, void of light, peace, and freedom.
Each underground prison housed anywhere from a hundred inmates to more than a thousand in the larger states. These prisons were cities unto themselves, with their own rules and leaders. In the bowels of these underground societies, babies were born, and a new legion of inmates was created—innocents. These pure and harmless children were forced to live in the worst of conditions, while the free world above ignored their existence.
When I was twelve years old, filled with more stubborn tenacity than good sense, I made a terrible mistake, and I paid for that mistake with my life. Just a child, I was cast into the Underworld, where every day was a fight to survive, and only the strongest and meanest prevailed. It was in this pit of hell that an angel found me, a knife-wielding, defiant and powerful angel by the name of Nada. She took me under her wing, protected me, housed me somewhere safe, and according to legend, she helped orchestrate the biggest prison heist of all time. All the innocents born into that world, and many unfairly imprisoned, including myself, were liberated in the darkest depths of the night. Rebel forces stole us away, whisking us right out the front door while keeping the worst of the worst trapped inside.
We were freed, driven away in trucks that drove for days into the unknown. Released from evil and delivered to heaven, or at least that’s what we were told. ‘Liberty,’ a compound filled with quaint cabins, and large brick storage facilities. We weren’t allowed to be truly freed into the world, most of the innocents rescued from the Underground had lived their whole lives in that prison. They had no real skills to be employable, no real family, and no real chance to make a life for themselves.
There was also the little matter of a government humiliated over such a large scale breakout in what was supposed to be a highly secure facility.
We were now considered escaped felons.
No, we would never truly be free.
Our new home was almost completely self-sufficient, and I couldn’t deny how peaceful the compound was compared to the Underworld. But the high fences and the enormous double steel door which separated us from the rest of the world told me we might have exchanged one prison for another.