ALIVE: The Aftermath Chronicles (Book 1)

Chapter 7 - TORNADO

Cushioned, stoic, and staring on, Russell's castle crowns the colony and all its people. Behind him, his most trusted advisor leans against his desk. Normally, he'd eye her in that pencil skirt in the reflection of the glass, but the vision of what's happening to his protected kingdom is enough to beguile him.

He's executed his God-given right to set into motion a future without the voices of the unsure to guide him. This little world of his needed protection, guidance, strict rules. Protection, from the outside, but most of all, protection from themselves. It took one weak link in this chain to destroy it all. As he looked on to the developing scene, he saw plenty of weak links bending to the will of unneeded chaos.

It was Hannah's fault. Before her, the sniper who came in with the nurse, who questioned his methods since his first day here. Enough so, that it fueled Hannah's fire whether she realized it or not. In line with his comments, his sarcasm, Sergeant Doyle brought back a corrupted military presence Russell did well to cast out when he took Richmond Hill for his own.

Out there, his nephew and last living family member perished. Gone to the infected, no doubt. In this knowledge, the last semblance of his former, empathetic self-cast out with the rough wind outside. Some of his men searched still for Ethan. A search he should be leading, but instead had to worry about the trouble amok in the colony.

In Hannah's torture, the concerned gathered. All of them, subject to her screams, brought to light by Ana Maria's bold display that they'd agreed upon, but was now backfiring. Instead of fearing them, they gathered in protest. Dr. Martin begged called for his own presence pleading for Hannah's life over the radios. To which, he ignored and ordered his men to do the same.
Hannah's torture gave them the strength to call out Russell and his regime for their brutal tactics, at last. What they had once feared, now ignited outrage.

They would learn. They all would learn. He'd reminded them before and he'd certainly, remind them again.

Trials. Mass exiles. Executions of Hannah, the soldier, anyone else who aligned with them, would find dangerous persuasive measures. For those that might choose to rebel still, they'd find starvation inside the colony's walls. Slow, smaller portions, contaminated water....whatever it took for them to remember like last time that an uprising against him, against their hosting district, meant death.

"You should expedite the trial to tonight before they start to revolt..." The voice to the pencil skirt offers her advice, treading lightly on his mood.

Kate, his advisor not only by choice but by the placement of District 4, had her own thumbprint on these people. Nothing more than a spy for the district at first, she avoided the misogyny in one place for a more tolerable position here at Richmond Hill. Here, her intelligence and career found value over her looks, which might have been the first time in her life, where her value shined in the right place.

In the impact of her own leadership here, Kate hid in the shadow of the darkness Russell cast on Richmond Hill. She had his ear, his bed, his best meals. It was far more than she could have in any district and easier to obtain, too. Here, she only had him to worry about, to control in order to control the rest. In District 4, Masters were difficult to blend in with. Super-soldiers, who saw women as property and entertainment alone. Thanks to placement orders from higher up, from their multi-district commander, she found a transfer. A down-grade, she presumed, at first, but it had been much safer here in Richmond Hill than anywhere else she'd been since the fall.
"If I kill the girl first it will show them exactly who is in power here. They'll see they have no voice, that their protests mean nothing." Russell retorts, finally spinning his chair to give her his attention.

The bright red of her hair shifts with her disagreement, but her spine stays poised as ever as she shifts weight on white pumps. "If you instill more fear in them it will cause an uprising against you and in turn, the district. There's more of them than us, this can get ugly quick. We've all seen it before when the virus shifted, how quickly our old government fell. Your guard here can't compare in numbers to Richmond Hill's civilians. Yes, most of them are a bunch of rednecks with nothing more than pitchforks, but they know how to use those pitchforks. Remember, your people are growing hungry and they are feeling the choke of the tight leash...."