Catalyst (16 page)

             
“I was going to get Lily for Marissa.” He laughed and walked past us, calling over his shoulder. “
Don’t worry, Merrick. Mom told me all
about the birds and bees. You haven’t scarred my mind.”

             
I gawked after him wondering how he’d read my mind so easily.

             
“Merrick,” Sherry laughed
and slid her palm down my cheek
, “it’s all
over
your face
, babe
.”

             
“What is?”

             
“Embarrassment.” S
he laughed again. “Come on.” She pulled me to the commons room and
we were greeted by a barrage of murmurings and conversations. “What’s going on? What is this meeting about?”

             
“We need to go search for others.” I saw her face change. “We talked about this, remember? Malachi isn’t going to stop hunting them and they need to be aware if nothing else.”

             
She smiled bravely before saying, “I know, I remember. It’s ok.”

             
“Ah, Merrick,” Miguel said loudly and waved us forward to sit. “Now that everyone is here, let’s get started.”

             
We moved to sit against the back wall. Sherry
ran to get us both a cup of coffee and sat beside me,
her hand squeezed mine a little too tightly to be normal. I knew she was worried, but right then, there wasn’t much I could do. And it was about to get worse.

             
“
Now,” Miguel began
again, “most of you saw the news
that day. Malachi is
using every ploy to his advantage. He’s using the people’s need for food and shelter and money against them. There is a massive reward offered to those who turn
in
someone who is considered a rebel, though we don’t know if he’s actually giving them the money or not. Now we’re lucky here.” He held up his hand to Polly who was about to protest. “Compared to other people, we are
bloody
lucky. Other
s don’t have this safe environment. Some are out there every day fighting wankers for food and abandoned places to stay. They d
on’t have access to a telly
and don’t even know about the reward. They don’t know they are being hunted now. We do, and it’s our duty to go and try to help them, if nothing else to give them as heads up about the reward so that they have a fighting chance.”

             
"
I agree
,"
Cain said loudly and stood up. "
We saw what they did to
those people at the facility."
He glanced at the new girl sitting ne
xt to Ryan and then to Sherry. "
We can’t just sit back with the knowledge t
hat we have of what’s going on."
             

             
“But we’ll be targets out there like that,”
Celeste
chimed and hooked her arm through Danny’s in a display of protection and possessive.
Kay nodded her head in obvious agreement. It seemed the Keepers were split down the middle on this one.

             
“Can’t be helped,” Miguel shot back and turned the TV on, fidgeting with the rabbit ears. “The thing is, we have a hand up over the enemy. They don’t know what we know. We’ll be able to evade them quicker and get more people here if need be. Things are getting worse out there,” he looked at Sherry sympathetically, “and sadly enough, our little rescue didn’t help things
atall
.”

             
"Sorry," she muttered
,
but he smiled and brushed off her apology
with a wink
.
The news was on already and Miguel waved his hand to it as if proving a point. We listened.

             
“
The rebels came
in a deceptive and underhanded move. A
fter
posing as
recruits for the enforcers and then
destroying all the property
and surrounding areas with homemade bombs they stole equipment, money and vehicles from the facility. The enforcement
officers
present were all killed before even having a chance to fight back. The traitors who Malachi has worked so hard to rid us of were also released. Reports are not certain if this was a ploy to trick the enforcers
; turning in
a fake rebel, taking the
reward money and then ambushing them. The brave soldiers who risk their lives to save us and construct peace in an otherwise un-peaceful world lost their lives. Estimated casualties are in the hundred
. Efforts are being put into place to more aggressively s
earch out these ruthless rebels. In an effort to thwart the new threat, Malachi has double the reward…
”

             
Miguel slapped the butt
on to turn the offending TV off and turned to look at us all. “See what I mean?
Hundreds? Complete fabrication of what really happened to make us seem worse. The humans fear us too, now. They
are not going to stop and things are not going to get better.”

             
“What are we waiting for?” Cain spouted in his usual fashion.

             
“Told you he’d be all for it,” Ryan said to Simon who scowled from the back wall.

             
"I'm in too," Billings announced loudly. "I wouldn't miss payback for all the corn in China."

             
“
Good.
We have to get a plan together,” Jeff chimed in
, ignoring Billings half joke,
and stood. “No half cocked attempts, remember? This has to be all or nothing.”

             
I squeezed Sherry’s fingers in a soothing manner before standing. Danny stood too in response as I spoke.

             
“We’ll need to get supplies
gathered
up. Look over the map of the area and see where and how far out we want to go. This will have to be covert. No traveling at night because it’ll be too unsafe with Markers and car headlights. We
'll
move during the day and inconspicuously. And it’d be best….if we split up.”

             
I felt the collective realization. No one wanted to do that
,
but they all knew I was right.

             
“Inconspicuous g
roups of five
,
” Jeff agreed with a sigh. “It’s the only way. We can leave on three or four day bouts and all be scheduled back at different times so as not to attract attention to the store.”

             
“It’ll work,” Miguel replied and then moved to
wards
the hall behind the stairs.  “There was a whole but of atlases and maps in Trudy’s old office. I’ll get them laid out and we can have a war room.”

             
“Great
. Everyone that wants to come with us, come into the back office room and we’ll work on a plan. I think the sooner the better. We can leave first thing in the morning.”

             
My gut clenched at thinking of leaving Sherry so soon after we just got her back.

             
“That whole 'You’re safer with me'
bit isn’t going to work this time is it?” Sherry asked me sadly as she stood, looking defeated.

             
“No, honey.” I hugged her to me. “I hate to think about leaving you so soon.”

             
“
I’ll be plenty occupied with Lily,” she replied bravely. “And Calvin. There will be plenty to do here.”

             
“Ok. I’m going to go with them to plan it all out.”

             
She nodded and said, “Yes, go.”

             
“I’m so proud of you,” I whispered to her as I kissed her forehead.

             
“It would be selfish of me to try to keep you here.”

             
It was my turn to nod.

             
“Sherry,” Miguel called from the hall, “can you check and see if there’s any supplies we can get or need? We can kill two birds with one stone.”

             
“Ok,” she agreed and then pulled me down to kiss me. “Go…plot.”

             
“I love you, honey
.”

             
“I love you, honey
,” she repeated but it meant something a little different now because I knew exactly what she was implying.
She loved me for me and no other reason.

A Well
Stocked Pantry

Chapter 9 - Sherry

             
I watched him go and knew that what I said had been correct. There was no way to stop him without being selfish. I hated it
,
but there it was and I was determined to deal with it with grace and maturity, when really I just wanted to ball up and pout.

             
I passed Polly and Piper. They were whispering and watching me.
I rolled my eyes at them and kept going down the hall to the empty rooms where we had been stocking food.

             
Polly caught up to me in the hall and said,  "Is there something I can be doing?"

             
I looked at her in astonishment and replied, "Like what?"

             
"Anything. Everybody's just running around," she answered and swiped at her hair in a bored way. It was almost like she'd been made to ask me and hadn't
really
wanted to.

             
"Have you done the cleaning yet this week?"

             
"Nope."

             
"Well, that's a good place to start."

             
"You're not my warden," she barked.

             
"And you're not my prisoner, but you are assigned chores like everyone else."

             
"Whatever," she said and flipped her hair as she strutted away. Her ridiculous boots clacked all the way down the hall.

             
I
huffed and wonder what the heck that had been about. I
opened all nine
pantry doors and peeked inside. They were all full. It struck me as awesome because it seemed that every week when they came back from food r
uns, the rooms got so much
full
er
. It seemed that they brought back more food than it looked like when they were unloading it.

             
And I was all neatly stacked and organized. I didn't let anyone else back here for fear of me never finding what I was looking for.
I organized it all and I prepared most of the meals.

             
So I pushed the doors closed, happy with my assessment
. A
s I’d said for weeks now that the pantries were full and smaller and less frequent food runs were needed.

             
When I turned I ran smack into Calvin
’s chest,
with Franklin close behind him. He reached out to steady me and laughed.

             
“Easy there, Sherry. You’ll break something
running into people bigger than you
.”

             
“Ha, f
unny. Where you headed?”

             
“
I was looking for you, actually.”

             
“Ok,” I said and waited.

             
“We, uh…” he glanced back at Frank and then back to me, “we wanted to see if we could go on the run with them this time.”

             
“Why are you asking me?” I said and hated the thought of them going but knew that Merrick would never let them.

             
“Well, Merrick does everything you say, so we thought you could talk him into letting us go.”

             
I burst out laughing. In fact, I laughed so hard
that
my side hurt.
They looked at me like I was an insane person. I put my hand on Calvin's shoulder to steady myself before saying, "Come on, guys. You can ask
for
yourself
,
but even with
my persuasion
I guarantee that you
won't be going. Sorry."