Want to read from the beginning? The prologue can be found here: Prologue
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Major rewrite coming soon!
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Mrs. Mills was not a particularly frightening person. She was of an average height and had plain white hair. She wore no frivolities; she rarely raised her voice. Everyone in charge of the border was terrified of her. She was not particularly old by most standards, she had just turned sixty seven, in fact, but these were extraneous circumstances. She would even go so far to say that she was the oldest one left, and wanted to keep her status. And the administration did not like that one bit. To add insult to injury, she visited their jail once a week; just before she went home to make the big Friday night dinner for anyone that could, or dared, to come. Yes, these were dangerous times indeed, she thought, as she walked through the prison door.
“Name,” the officer at the desk asked.
“Mrs. Phyllas Mills,” she stated, looking him square in the eye, her expression stoic. The officer rolled his eyes and pushed a paper towards her.
“Sign.” Mrs. Mills signed her name in big flowing script that went way above the dotted line allotted. She smiled seemingly pleasantly at the officer.
“Have a good day,” she said. The guard remained silent as he went back to reading his magazine at the desk. Mrs. Mills opened the barred door and walked through.
Moments later, an officer from the gate walked through the front door. Smiling, the desk man stood up and held the barred door open for the coworker. “Have a good day, sir,” he said pleasantly, as the other man walked through. The man tipped his had and continued without a change in expression.
“Always a good day when you’re helping out delinquents like these,” he said.
“That it is, sir.”
Mrs. Mills rolled her eyes and continued on down the hallway. “Hey, old lady,” she said with a laugh, stopping at one cell and pulling a folding stool out of her bag to sit down.
“Hello, Phyllas,” the other woman greeted her pleasantly. “How are you today?”
“I’m doing just fine, Joyce,” she said. It was redundant to ask how her friend was feeling. One didn’t need to ask. Her hair was unwashed and tangled, her face dirty, and she looked as if she were wasting away, having not had a decent meal in months. When the guard had turned away, Mrs. Mills began slipping things one by one out of her bag, out her dress’s sleeves, out of her shoes, to her friend. A bottle of no-water-needed shampoo, a toothbrush and toothpaste, tablets to purify the water, a pack of gum, all of which Joyce secured in the waistband of her pants. The guard had turned around again, and Mrs. Mill took her book out of her bag. “What did you think of the last few chapters?” she asked Joyce, who began smiling.
“They were very entertaining,” she said just as quietly. “Tristan needs to stop being so tragic and weepy, but it's funny to hear him angst first.”
Mrs. Mills laughed and pulled out a second copy of the same book, this one taken from Joyce's house not three weeks ago. “Here, I’ll get you the next chapter.” She opened the book to the next chapter and began ripping pages out.
“Hey, what are you doing?” the guard yelled down the hall.
Mrs. Mills smiled and waved to him. “Who, me? Oh, just defiling government property. Nothing important. Go back to work, Arnold.” Joyce laughed silently, covering with a cough when the guard turned to her. When Mrs. Mills had finished, she handed the pages to her friend, who in turn handed her back the previous chapter, torn in the same fashion which Mrs. Mills replaced in the front of the book in order with the other torn out chapters. She then closed the cover and replaced it in her bag. After a few more pleasantries and assurances that everything outside was the same as it had been, Mrs. Mills stood, packed everything once more into her satchel, and left. Just as she passed through the gate from the city to the associated community, there was a big commotion.
There was a little girl, no more than thirteen or fourteen years old, struggling to get free as the officers struggled to restrain her. Her shirt was torn, no doubt from barbed wire, and her face, however sneering or stoic, was dirty, no doubt from being shoved in the mud. They walked her past Mrs. Mills, roughly kicking the dirt at her feet, and as Mrs. Mills looked after them, she saw a trail of blood from the girl’s hands making an almost perfect line where they had walked.
“Excuse me,” she demanded as she caught up to the group. “Excuse me,” she charged again when no one paid attention.
Lazily, the group turned around to face Mrs. Mills. The girl looked up briefly, and then focused her attention sternly on the wall just above Mrs. Mill’s shoulder, a sneer burned into her face. “What are you doing with this girl?” Mrs. Mills snapped, catching the girl’s attention momentarily.
“Relax, Millie, you’re not getting her out that easy,” one of the officers jeered. “This one’s going to be serving her time, unlike the last ignorant whelp you pulled from here.”
Mrs. Mills remained silent to the last comment. “Need I remind you that this badge gives me full privileges within this building due to article five, section three, clause fifteen, corollary two, and that I have every right to challenge any prisoner who is brought in here?”
“And need I remind you that I have just as many, if not more, privileges than you?”
“Not while I still outrank you,” the guard, Arnold, said.
“Oh, don’t cross me,” Mrs. Mills said. “Don’t you dare try and cross me. We wouldn’t want a repeat of the last time you tried, now do we? Now boys, let’s just settle this little disagreement right here. How much bail are you posting?”
“Twenty thousand.” Mrs. Mills had to struggle to keep her jaw from dropping. “Like anything; that’s nearly as high as Joyce’s!”
“Like I said, you’re not bailing this one out. Your friend over there has a background. This one has a background waiting for her unless we do something about it. We’re going to teach little Miss Mary Sue here a lesson. No one tries to get out and gets away with it. Especially after disfiguring our lead commander. Now enough of your damned rules. Move aside, Millie.”
The girl smirked and looked at the floor, trying not to chuckle at the memory. “What are you laughing at?” the guard asked, kicking her in the back of the knees. Apparantly she hadn't covered well enough. Bao hovered at the edges of Mrs. Mills’s vision, looking around the wall.
“Well,” Mrs. Mills continued, “I believe you are wrong. First of all, she’s a minor. And will be for quite some time, unless I’m mistaken.” The girl lifted her head to glare at Mrs. Mills, who glared right back. “And second of all, I believe that I am given the explicit power—”
Bao pushed an opened sandbag off the top of the wall just behind the guards, making them jump and blinding them with dust. In the cloud, Connie looked up to see Bao mouthing “Run!” to her before disappearing behind the wall himself.
And run she did, across the bridge and into the forest. Smiling to herself, Amelia Mills buttoned up her sweater, it was the late fall after all when the evenings seemed subject to the occasional chill, and leisurely strolled across the river, taking in the scenery as she went. Behind her, she could hear Bao’s footsteps, sneaking along, searching for the girl they had freed.
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Author's Notes
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I think some things are a little shaky; let me know if there's anything particularly eye-rolling. I feel like I write in cliches with corny expressions and dialogue.
Should I break these chapters into shorter parts? I know fiction can be daunting to read online sometimes. For reference, this chapter was 1,300 words even, the first chapter was about 1800, and the prologue was about 750. So a BIG thanks to everyone and everyone who made it through my story to the point where they're reading my note.
Amelia
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