Fighting For Your Rights

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

As Owen laid some blankets on the floor in front of the bed, Robyn walked up to a reservoir in the wall. She opened the locket of her necklace and flipped the contents into her hand. Smiling at the picture of her grandparents, she turned her attention to the tiny chip in her hand. Owen stood behind her and started to fish around in his pockets as Robyn looked over her shoulder at him, “What are you doing?”

After digging through his third pocket, he pulled out a card and answered, “Getting something to let you read the chip.” He wiped the rain off of it and she dropped the chip into the proper slot then slid the card into the reservoir. She backed up to the bed as the wall began to flicker and her Grandma appeared while Owen walked to the side of the bed. As Robyn sat down, Angela’s image began to speak, “My dear family, I don’t know what has happened to me that has brought you this recording, but I want to explain my past before anyone else does. My real name is Mariah Masda…”

“Masda? It can’t be. How is she Mariah Masda?”

“Maybe you should just listen,” Owen replied pulling of his vest and emptying the pockets.

Robyn nodded reluctantly without looking at him as her Grandma continued, “…promised your father or grandfather, as the case may be, that I would not tell you the truth unless it was about to be revealed. I wanted to be the one to tell you and let you hear it from any rumors being spread. I don’t know how much you know, but I will just tell you everything now and we will see if what you think you know is the truth. I did not start the group of revolutionaries. It was formed long before the first King Roham took power. The last President of the North American Continent, with the direct purpose of protecting the people if the president was defeated, appointed this group of men and women. I don’t know how much history you know, but contrary to what King Roham said, the President did not force Mexico, Central America, or Canada to submit their power to him. These countries came to him asking to join forces in fear that the world powers would conquer them. The president reluctantly agreed on the condition that they ruled as a group; he would lead the countries, but all would discuss the decisions pertaining to the continent as a whole. He let them continue to rule their own countries the way they had. As the president had figured, he was defeated and Roham took on the power of the whole continent killing all the leaders of old.”

Angela took a deep breath and continued, “Then the king made his new laws and I was dragged out of medical school. The years I had worked to get to that point were destroyed in one day. I protested and watched people shot and killed with no remorse or trial. It was at that moment that I knew everyone’s freedom was taken not just women’s. I don’t know how the revolutionaries found me or why they tried to find me, but they did and I am glad of it. It didn’t take long for them to convince me that this is what I should do. They wanted someone with medical expertise, but they got more from me. We never tried to hurt anyone except in self-defense. Our job was to protect the people and that is what we did. I was chosen as the leader when all of the original members died or were killed. Then I met my husband to be. No matter what anyone tells you, I want you to know that I loved my husband more than anything else. I did not marry him to try and disappear from the revolutionaries, I married him because I loved him and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. I want you to know one more thing, I love all of you whether you are my child or grandchild, but I would not change my past for anything. I am proud of what I did and tried to accomplish. I know deep down I would never have been able to live with myself if I did nothing.”

The screen went black and then the wall went back to the original color. “She knows the truth and the king can’t let that get out. That’s why he wants her dead,” Robyn stated as she walked to the wall and pushed the button to eject the card. She grabbed the card and stared at it while twirling it around in her fingers.

In one instant all the events of the day hit her and the emotions fell on her like a waterfall and she dropped to the ground in a heap. Tears cascaded down her cheeks as Owen rushed to her side to console her. He pulled her limp body up far enough to hold her in his arms and let her wail in his chest and soak his shirt with her tears. He stroked her hair as her body began to shake from her sobs, “I was waiting for you to do this.”

“Do what?” she cried into his shoulder squeezing the cloth of his shirt in emotional agony as her face rubbed across his chest.

“You needed to cry. You needed to…”

“But I shouldn’t. I need to pull myself together and…”

“And act human,” Owen interrupted kissing the top of her head. “It has been a long day and it isn’t going to get any better tomorrow…”

Robyn rested the side of her face on his shoulder and loosened her grip on his shirt, “That isn’t very reassuring.”

Owen pulled her head away from his shoulder, her face was red from crying and rubbing it on his shirt, her hair was disheveled, her nose was running as she sniffed, and he wiped some tears with his thumbs from each eye, “But we will face it together.”

Leaning forward, he kissed her forehead as she asked, “Why?”

“What?”

Robyn stood up and walked to the sink. “Why do you want to face this with me?”

She started the cold water running and splashed several cupped handfuls onto her face as Owen stated, “Because I said I would.”

Turning off the water and grabbing a towel, she dried off her face and spoke, “You simply decide not to kill me and then go off on your own. There is no need for you to face any danger with me. So, I ask you again, why are you helping me?”

“Your grandma asked me to,” Owen reasoned as he got off the floor and made his way back to the bed to work on the items in his vest.

Looking at him through the mirror as she dropped the towel on the rack, she leaned on the sink, “There’s got to be more than that.”

He picked up the items from the bed and turned around to place them on a nearby dresser, “We better get some sleep.”

Robyn turned around to look at him, tears brimming at the eyelids again, “If our lives are going to be dependent on each other? We have to be able to trust each other and that means no secrets,” Robyn muttered looking at his back while he fiddled with the objects from his vest. Wiping her eyes with the side of her hands, she took a deep breath and decided to take the first step in revealing a secret, “I liked it when you kissed me.”

Owen froze then slowly placed the explosives container he held on the dresser and turned around, “What?”

“I liked it when you kissed me.”

Slowly making his way across the room, Owen admitted, “I love you.” Robyn’s eyes widened and he spoke, “That wasn’t a confession you were expecting.”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe we should just get some sleep.”

“I don’t think I could right now,” she spoke putting her hand to her temple and rubbing it. “My mind is just racing.” She slid her fingers up her scalp and through her hair as she glanced up at Owen, “How about we talk?”

“About what?” Owen asked as she walked to the bed and crawled to sit at the top and lean against the headboard.

As Owen sat at the foot of the bed, she asked, “Why don’t you tell me about yourself?” as she pulled his leg up on the bed and removed the bandage to examine the wound.

“You know who I am,” he stated watching her reach for her bag on the floor next to the bed.

“Just rumors that the king forced to be spread or allowed,” she defended pulling out a sealing tube as he rolled over onto his stomach. She worked to close up the wound again from his sitting next to her on the floor. “They don’t have to be difficult questions. Where were you born?”

“Ireland.”

“How old were you when King Roham took you?”

“Ten.”

“Come on, tell me more,” she said wrapping his leg with a fresh dressing then tried to stifle a yawn. “What about your parents?”

As soon as she tossed the dirty bandages in the waste receptacle, Owen moved to the top of the bed and sat beside her. She quickly took his arm and pulled it around her head and leaned against his shoulder. As her fingers traced the lines on his freehand, Owen continued, “My father was killed in the fourth war when I was just a baby. My mother raised me, but constantly feared that we wouldn’t survive. Then my uncle claimed power over England and asked for his sister and me to come and join him. My mother jumped at the chance of knowing that I would be able to survive even though she didn’t agree with her brother on why he was supposed to be ruler. So, when I was about six we moved to Paris. My mother continually fought to desensitize me from my uncle’s belief. I guess she convinced my uncle that she succeeded.”

“Why do you say that?”

“When Roham took me, it was thought that I would be the next ruler,” Owen explained looking at her hand then turning their palms and fingers flat against each other. “I guess Roham was misinformed. My uncle didn’t want me to take his rein, so he denied my rescue. Roham decided to take this opportunity to use me to discover a weakness in my uncle. Roham took me in, I knew it was to use me to get to my uncle, but I didn’t care as long as I had a place to stay. I learned everything possible about combat, weapons, technology. I was a natural and so the king used that too.”

“Is your mother still alive?” Robyn asked as she tried to get him to look at her.

He turned his head and looked into her eyes, “We need to get some sleep. It is going to be a long day tomorrow.”

As he tried to pull away from her, she held on to him and repeated, “What about your mother?”

Looking back at their hands touching palm to palm and fingers to fingers, he stated, “When I was about eight, my mother put me to bed and put our hands like this. She said to me that when my hand got to be the size of hers I would have to decide what the right thing to do was. I feared that day. My life depended on my uncle and then King Roham, I was too scared to stand up to them, until now. Unfortunately, I don’t know what happened to my mother.” Kissing her hand, Owen got off the bed and walked to his makeshift bed on the floor, “Good night, Robyn.”

“Good night,” she spoke scooting down on the bed to lay down as he laid down on the floor.

“Robyn.”

“Yes?”

“Happy Birthday.”