The Rule of One (The Rule of One, #1)

by Ashley Saunders

As I penetrate another half mile into the city,

quadrangle

prudently coiffed heads,

That longing ache of desperately wanting something I never actually had in the first place, I’m learning, is the pain of true disappointment.

grandeur,

implores.

It’s impossible to fight back; the government made sure of that long ago. Civilians are not allowed to own weapons—only the Guard has that authority. The people can fight solely with their raised voices, and I’ve only ever heard them silenced. The ones with the guns always win.

Your eyes register what your brain expects to see. Father expects to see Ava, so I am Ava.

The people may vote for Roth, but they will never love him.

Inscrutable.

And what my wall cannot defend, I make damn certain my soldiers and my drones protect,

Gluts

Famine breeds war, and humankind will always raid before they starve.

But can we blame the desperate? I didn’t do anything special or have a say in the matter—I was just lucky enough to be born in a land still capable of growing food. Most political issues are so black-and-white, but I live in the gray. I am the gray.

“I will protect the body of Texas and drive out all who threaten to kill it.” The governor sits back, allowing his allegory to sink in.

amiably

eagle’s claw cacti.

The greenhouse seems to shrink, the glass walls pushing in, the ground threatening to open up and swallow me.

Japanese Nikka

a congested urban sprawl

Father’s words burn past my throat and erupt off my tongue: “Keep quiet. Keep hidden. Don’t stand out; blend in.”

Father locked me in.

every object produces spheres that float around us like someone just wished on a dandelion.

my nerves suddenly start to fracture.

A mark of my penitence.

He stands hypnotized, eyes raking over the two of us cowering behind our father’s arms.

Dumbstruck, terrified. Identical.

“You were born tied together forever,” he says, folding my hand into Ava’s. “Never leave each other.”

Texas lab-grown beef.

unabashedly.

a politician’s poise.

egregious

If Father is a traitor, then we are traitors too.

formidable

behind the guise

trapped in a steel box,

unceremoniously

respite

gaunt body

I recognize the run-down exterior of a former bookstore and shove aside my immediate impulse to run inside, to witness all the empty shelves, to take in all those lost words hanging forgotten in the vacant air.

Resist much, obey little; Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved; Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city, of this earth, ever afterward resumes its liberty.

without ceremony.

Our freedom for Father’s imprisonment.

The danger of encountering feral animals never once crossed my mind.

emaciated

it hits me how I’ve been severed from every anchor I was tied to my entire life.

Glut?

arid,

the allure of the country that once famously proclaimed “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” has faded.

melted Arctic Ocean.