Freedom


It was almost impossibly easy when she finally left. When she drove away and never looked back (maybe the ghost story about never looking over your shoulder while walking away from a graveyard stopped her, maybe she just didn’t want to see…) It was easy, painfully, impossibly, easy.

She drove home, no accidents, no large trucks driving her off the road. Not even a black tailing car full of men in dark suits with even darker souls.

Nothing.

Inside she picked a few things that she needed, a few more that she wanted, slung the sports bag over her shoulder and locked the door behind her.

Her car still worked when she climbed into it, didn’t blow up when she started it up and the brakes still worked when she put her foot down.

Nothing.

A destination in mind (yet no idea how to get there) she drove, the gas tank was nearly empty and she pulled into a service station (the gas station she attacked a cigarette dispenser and ended up meeting Thomas.) $50 in gas; who knows when she might find one next.

Still nothing.

The highway stretched endlessly in front of her and her mind started to drift. No one escaped The Centre, no in all its history, not in years to come. She’d been prepared for a fire-fight, running for her life, living out of motels and awful things like that. All in the name of freedom. And yet, no one had come for her, no one was looking for her. It wouldn’t be a matter of waiting for them to discover her absence – they knew all. She was raised as the Chairman’s daughter, a traitorous part of her mind said, she was the infamous Mr Lyle’s sister, Mr Raines’s biological daughter. Catherine Parker’s daughter, huntress of the best Pretender to ever come out of The Centre. She was the Ice Queen, had been for years.

And yet, nothing.

She didn’t matter, for all that she’d sacrificed (friends, family, love,
Jarod, her life), they didn’t care.

It was stupid, she should have known that all along. They cared about nothing

but themselves. But it had always seemed, through all the manipulating, lying and guiding of her life, that maybe they did care.

At the next gas station Miss Parker turned the car around.

She wasn’t meant for freedom.