Fighting For Your Rights

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

“That’s their building,” Angela gasped looking at the building straight ahead of them. Owen looked at the building she pointed to and saw only half still standing. Angela was reluctant to let him drive. He was already turning pale from the loss of blood, even when she tried to redo his hasty dressing job. The only thing that was going to help was for his leg to be checked for splinters and stitched up, but she only had one place to take him for that. When she broke into the hover vehicle and hot wired it, much to Owen’s surprise, she was not ready to tempt fate by being pulled over for something so simple as driving. Grabbing the lever beside him, Owen pushed it forward and the hover quickly accelerated toward the building.

Owen dodged around other vehicles, moving and parked, barely missing them as his reflexes slowed and blood dripped on the floor of the hover. “Are you going to make it?”

“I’ve had worse,” Owen mumbled swerving around a parked car and driving over some debris with a piece of piping grazing the bottom of the hover.

“Did you drive any better then?”

“Funny.” Making a turn down what was once a street and was now covered in a collapsed building then swerving as another hover decided to take a shortcut over the collapsed building, Owen spun the vehicle to the left then turned the steering hard to the right to return to his previous position and Angela held on tightly to the door handle trying to hold in a scream. “Sorry,” Owen mumbled not even bothering to look at how she was doing in the passenger seat.

“Maybe I will drive us to safety after I get my daughter.”

“You think it’s my leg that is the problem?”

“It isn’t helping,” Angela retorted as Owen swung the hover into a quick U-turn to park it in front of the half-collapsed building. Before he could give an answer or shut off the hover, Angela jumped out and rushed to the door of the building. She pulled on it and it would not budge. Owen limped up to her and started to dig in his pockets, Angela quickly stopped him. “Let’s do this my way. We don’t know how unstable this building is.”

“And what is your way?”

She walked up to the card panel and felt around, “Do you still have your knife?”

Owen bent over and slid his pant leg up. He pulled out a knife in the sheath inside it. She took the knife from him and worked it around the metal. “So, was that meant for my granddaughter or for me?”

“What?”

The old woman ran the knife around the edge of the panel, “Who were you going to use the knife on?”

“I don’t know. I like to be prepared.”

“I still don’t know whether to trust you or not.”

“I don’t know whether you should trust me or not,” Owen muttered as he watched her pop the security panel off of the building.

As she expertly began to work on the panel, she stated, “You want some pieces of truth, Mr. Dored.”

“Like what?”

“I am Mariah Masda. So, do you wish to turn me in? Sentence me to death? You can torture me all you want, but I won’t let you take my granddaughter back to the palace.” She turned her head and looked at him intently, “I have endured more lashes, more beatings, and more pain than you can ever imagine at the hands of torture that I would outlast anyone they use against me.”

Owen turned his head from her face unable to handle the fierce look of her eyes the same eyes that Robyn had, “How about we find your daughter first and then we will figure out what to do?”

“Well,” she began doing one last thing to the panel to make the door slide open, “as long as we have an understanding.”

Owen nodded as he stepped aside to let her enter first, “I understand where you stand on the situation.”

As he followed her inside, she spoke, “I believe I have an understanding of what you will do, but it is your choice in the end.”

“You are not helping me to build a defense for both arguments.”

As they made their way down the main hallway, Angela spoke, “Did you expect any different from me?”

“I guess not.” They both walked over a fallen door and archway. “It just would be nice…”

“Shh,” she interrupted him when they made it halfway down the hall, “did you hear that?” Owen listened and nodded that he heard the noise of something banging on a door then quickly moved towards the end of the hallway. There was no door only a pile of stones and metal. Angela stepped forward and worked to move a beam. As it scraped across the floor, the knock was heard again and a faint voice. “It’s underneath us,” Angela said freezing in place.

Pulling her away from the area where they stood, Owen squatted down and started to knock on the floor and received knocking in response a few feet from the beam. He pulled a stone away and saw the edge of a trap door in the floor. He looked at the buried doorway then at the wall to find a panel to open it. “How do you want to get into this one?” he questioned pushing the beam that blocked the panel away from the door to let it crash to the floor.

“We can’t use explosives, we don’t know how unstable the building is,” Angela replied squatting down beside the debris and trying to move it.

Owen carefully pulled her aside and started to move the debris. Placing her hands on her hips, she watched him impatiently, “This country may not respect women, but I was taught to do so.”

“I’m honored, but you aren’t in much better condition.”

Shaking his head, Owen commented, “There isn’t much here and I’m feeling fine,” he spoke trying to ignore the spinning room and resting a little longer than expected on the piece of stone before shoving it aside. He pulled away the last piece then moved over to the panel. He pushed the button to open the door but it only moved slightly. Pushing the button again it sparked. He looked around the door as he pulled a collapsed tube with clamps out of his pocket.

“What is that?”

He put the pieces of the tube together and brought the clamps together as tight as possible. “I’m surprised you don’t know.”

“Funny.”

“It is a tool to open jammed doors.”

“Or doors people don’t want you to get into.”

He looked at her then back at the door. As he slid the clamps into the crack of the door, he quickly began to ratchet it open. When it reached a manageable distance, he looked at the people inside. “You are going to have to crawl around this because it is the only thing keeping the door open.”

One by one the men left the room and then the women slowly followed, frightened at the sight of a man helping them. Angela leaned into the door and started helping them out of the room, “It will be all right. Nothing will happen to you.”

“Mom?” a voice called from inside the room.

Unable to hold back her joy, Angela spotted her daughter and two grandchildren and quickly pulled them out of the room and into her arms. “You are all safe.”

“Mom,” her daughter said again holding her tightly then mumbled into her shirt, “we lost everything.”

“I know, Dear.”

“We need to go to the warehouse, Mom. It is the only place that we can stay.”

“Maybe we should wait for your husband to get back from work,” Angela spoke glancing at Owen and hoping there was another option he would come up with, but knew there really was not.

“He is so busy with this storm. I contacted him and told him that was where we were going and that he should meet us there.”

Angela nodded slowly as she took her grandchildren’s hands, “We will go to the warehouse.”

“I will drive you,” Owen replied staring at Angela intently. “We wouldn’t want you to draw any attention to yourself,” Owen defended as he was starting to understand Angela’s hesitation at him going to the warehouse. Angela reluctantly nodded, “I’m guessing I’m not the only one you weren’t planning on seeing at the warehouse this soon.”

Angela looked up at him with her fierce look that stared deep into his eyes and felt like it hooked into his subconscious, “Just remember the understanding we had, Mr. Dored.”

Frozen in place, Owen slowly nodded his head, “Yes, Ma’am.”

“Then let’s go,” she said taking her intent look away and walked forward with her family towards the entrance.

Owen shook himself from his ridiculously terrified state and hobbled to get in front of them. He whispered softly into Angela’s ears, “You have got to teach me how you do that?”

Angela released a melodic laugh, “It’s a family trait.” With a bigger smile at the possibilities, she finished, “Passed down from mother to daughter… to granddaughter.”

XXXX

It was a simple but large structure that belonged to generations of Amerows. It had started as wooden planks in the 1800s and reinforced to steel in the 1900s and given some technology upgrades as they became available and necessary. Some had to use it as a place to live during times of war and chaos.

Angela looked at the door of the warehouse and reluctantly slid her hand under the door panel beside it. It quickly scanned her hand and the door slid open. She stepped inside and Owen stood amazed at the interior of the building, “What is this place for?”

“It was where my husband stored a lot of things for his work,” Angela answered as Owen stepped up to the first ceiling high shelves filled with boxes as the rest of the group walked inside.

Everyone turned to the sound of footsteps running down the long hallway to the left, and Owen drew his gun. Angela quickly pushed his gun down and stood in front of him with the look he was starting to recognize. He looked over her shoulder to see Robyn run towards them.

Robyn stopped suddenly when she saw Owen’s gun and darted for the door. Owen rushed to intercept and grabbed a hold of her by the waist as he holstered his weapon.

“Robyn, what are you doing here?” her mother inquired watching the whole situation and holding onto Robyn’s brother and sister to keep them out of trouble from Owen Dored.

Holding onto her as she fought him and yelping in pain when she kicked his injured leg, Owen answered, “She escaped from the king’s palace this morning.”

“What?”

“Mother, I couldn’t do it,” Robyn defended as she tried to pry Owen’s hand off of her but he only tightened it. “I had to get out of there. Grandma hid me.”

“Mom?”

Angela stared intently at her daughter, “I didn’t want another one of my children to belong to him, but didn’t get to her in time. So, when she came to me I wasn’t going to let her go.”

“And I don’t want to go back,” Robyn cried turning her head around to look at Owen. “I thought you were different. Why did you help me get out of there?”

Owen sat her on the ground and turned her around, “Will you let me talk?”

Angela looked at Owen and saw the desperation on his face while he held onto Robyn’s shoulders and held her eyes with his. She walked up to them and motioned towards the hallway, “Why don’t you fix his leg while he talks?”

Robyn finally pulled her eyes from him and looked at her grandma and slowly nodded her head. She looked back at Owen and motioned for him to follow her, but he paused in exhaustion. Glancing down at the blood dropping down his leg, Robyn pulled his arm over her head and helped him down the hallway.

She led him to the room that had the door marked “RECEIVING” and led him to the cot shoved in the corner of the tiny office. As soon as she helped him to lay down on his stomach on the cot, she walked to the cabinet at the end of the cot and pulled out the first aid kit. As she opened it and knelt on the floor beside the cot, Owen asked, “Do you know what You’re doing?”

“My grandma was a teacher at Harvard Medical when the king banned women from school. She taught me everything I know,” Robyn answered as she pulled out a scissors and began to cut the cloth covering the wound.

“Have you had a lot of practice?”

“You said that you wanted to explain Mr. Dored, I suggest you do so,” she replied not taking here eyes off of the wound.

“The king would not accept the explanation that I was bested by a girl.”

Robyn pulled out a syringe from the kit and injected the numbing agent into Owen’s leg, “Why didn’t you try and stop me before you found out I was an eldest?”

Sucking in air at the pain from the needle and chemical, Owen spoke through gritted teeth, “That is the problem for being well known for my combat skills. You took me by surprise, okay. No one comes to my lab and you caught me off-guard,” he sighed as the medicine started to take effect. “Anyway,” he continued as she pulled out a tube and squeezed it along the three-inch gash, “the king called for me and questioned my loyalty to him. He didn’t say that exactly, but in so many words he did.” The putty from the tube began to expand and seal the wound while Robyn started to clean up his leg. “I asked him what he wanted me to do. He said the only way for me to prove my loyalty was to bring back the heads of you and your grandma.”

“My grandma?” Robyn questioned looking up at him.

At the shock on her face, Owen softly spoke, “Your grandmother has a past that the king does not approve of.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Well, that is my task.”

“So, our fate rests in your hands,” she stated tying off the dressing and packing up the first aid kit with a little more touch of aggravation then she wanted to show. Owen rolled onto his sides and tried to take her hands. She jerked her hands away, “My definition is correct and you know it.”

Sitting up on the cot, he took her hands and held them a little tighter while he tried to look into her eyes with tenderness, “I liked kissing you.”

Robyn turned her head away from his eyes in frustration and pulled her hands from him. “How am I supposed to react to that?” Robyn stood and backed away from him. “You come in here saying that you are my executioner and then say… something like that.”

Owen cautiously stood and stepped towards her. Robyn countered his steps until her back was against a wall and he was close enough to hold her shoulders as his legs wobbled beneath him. “It is the truth, Robyn.” She wriggled out from under his hands and started for the door as he declared, “I liked kissing you and having you in my arms. In that brief second, I knew I wanted you.”

She stopped and looked back at him with her hand on the doorknob, “Well, then you have a decision to make. What is more important?”

“I want to know how you feel,” he replied standing up straight.

“How dare you?” she stated releasing the knob and stepping back toward him. “You have no right to put that pressure on me.”

“What?”

“I don’t want to live thinking that you will kill me if I displease you. So, you decide what is more important and then I will tell you my feelings,” she stated opening the door.

“Don’t leave,” he called as she snatched up her emergency bag by the door with her coat and hat beside it.

“I want to be out of here before my father comes,” she called over her shoulder. “He’s a good cop and doesn’t deserve me ruining it.”

Robyn pulled on her coat and hat with Owen trying follow after and hobble on his numb leg. She ignored comments of her family to stay as she waved her hand in front of the door sensor. As Owen was about to reach out for her, the door opened and she was gone. Owen refused to look at Angela when she spoke, “You better go after her.”

Looking back at her over his shoulder, he scoffed, “Now you want me to go after her even though I’m supposed to kill her?”

“You won’t kill her.” Crossing her arms as Owen turned his glare to the door, “I saw it in your eyes.”

“And what did you see?” he questioned looking at her again over his shoulder.

Angela stepped toward the door panel, “Something you already know, but right now she needs you. Robyn is a strong-willed woman in a world that needs her dead if it doesn’t want to change.”

Owen looked at her confused, “I don’t understand.”

“This will explain everything,” she spoke handing him a locket and chain

Taking the necklace, he asked, “What is this for?”

Angela looked at her daughter trying to comprehend the situation and whispered, “It contains something I made to explain to my children my past if I never got the chance. Now go before you lose her.”

Smiling at his nod, Angela slid her hand onto the scanner and the door quickly opened. Owen pulled his hat further down on his head and pulled his coat tighter around his chest as he rushed out into the downpour while he slid the necklace into one of his numerous jacket pockets.

He searched the sidewalks of the few people making their way through the rubble in search of supplies and shelter. Spotting her hat and coat to his right, Owen yelled, “STOP!” He ran after her unsurprised that she was ignoring him with each call that he made. Wiping some rain from his face, he spun the person around and looked at the man’s face. “Sorry, I thought you were someone else,” he spoke raising his hands in apology and backing away from the scared man.

As Owen was about to start in a different direction, he spotted movement out of the corner of his eye. Wiping rain off his face again, he turned and looked at another person wearing the same coat Robyn was a half a block away. Cautiously he walked up to the person, “Excuse me.”

“Go away, Mr. Dored,” Robyn replied softly as she continued walking and pulling her jacket closer around her.

Owen grabbed her arm and she jerked it out of his grip. When he reached out for her again, she spun and slapped his hand away with her right hand. He grabbed her left wrist and yanked her towards the alley a few feet away. She turned her hand in his grip to grab his wrist and rushed forward to knock him off balance. They fell into the entrance of the alley with her landing with her knee in his back. “I choose you,” he replied grunted trying to keep his face out of the puddle of water they landed in.

She slid off his back ignoring the puddle of dirty water she knelt in as he pushed himself off the ground to sit with one leg crossed and the injured one bent while he leaned on it. “Why should I believe you?” Robyn demanded trying to force skepticism into her voice instead of the joy she really felt.

Reaching out and softly taking her hand, he slowly looked up with just his eyes, “Because it is the truth.”

All the lessons her dad and grandma taught her surfaced and she looked intently at the sincerity on his lips, face, and in his eyes. She tilted her head to the side trying to maintain her knowledge of believing his truth just a little longer and asked, “Were you toying with the idea of killing me?”

“If I had, I was working too hard to make sure you were still alive.”

“You may have wanted to do the job yourself.”

“The king literally wanted your head and wasn’t going to be satisfied with the excuse of a storm,” Owen stated getting to his feet. He offered his hand, “We need to get off of the streets.”

Trying to hold on to her anger, Robyn pushed his hand away, “I didn’t say I believed you,” as she climbed to her feet.

Owen sighed in annoyance and did not see her smile as he turned his back and walked further into the alley. “What else do you want me to say?” he questioned as he rubbed his face in frustration and understanding of her hesitation.

He turned around and jumped at Robyn standing right behind him. With a wonderful smile, she slid her arms around his waist and whispered, “It’s a good thing I believe you then.”

Owen hesitated for an instant then enjoyed it as his arms crept along her waist then instantly flung around her and pulled her tight against him. Uncaringly, he pulled off her hat to let her better rest her head on his chest and place her warm forehead against the crevice of his wet, cool neck. “Tonight we will stay at a hotel and tomorrow we leave the city.”

“The city?”

“We need to get out of the king’s playing field.”

Robyn pulled her head away from his calming heartbeat, and looked up at him, “What about my grandma?”

“I will see her before we leave in the morning,” he answered as he pulled the necklace out of his jacket. “She wanted me to give this to you. She said that it would tell you who she was.”

Robyn took the necklace and stared at it as he pulled her hair up and slid her hat back on. As he led her back down the alley, she stopped suddenly, “You are a criminal now, unless you leave now and go back to the king.”

Taking the chain and placing it around her neck, Owen spoke, “I can’t return to the king without the head of you and your grandmother.” He turned her head to look at her face, “So, we are both criminals.”