The Revealed
Advance Praise for
The Revealed
“Ripe with political intrigue, forbidden romance, and a mysterious group of outsiders who threaten to turn Lily Atwood’s world upside down, The Revealed is a riveting story about love and courage. It’s also a captivating look at a future society where overcoming the odds means finding the power within yourself to become truly extraordinary. Jessica Hickam has written a story that will entrance readers.”
—Emily Kiebel, author of Serenade
“The Revealed will have you hooked from the beginning. Jessica Hickam has written a thrilling story about love, sacrifice, and fighting for what’s right. This book will surely lead the pack in the next wave of popular young-adult novels.”
—Lauren Joskowitz, entertainment manager, SheKnows.com
“The Revealed weaves an adventurous tale of true love, deception, and bravery. Along the way, Jessica Hickam captures the beauty—and heartache—of finding your first true love. And, most importantly, finding yourself.”
—Leesa Coble, BOP and Tiger Beat
“Filled with heart-pounding action and suspense, The Revealed is a vivid exploration of one girl’s fight against the seemingly impossible—and the forbidden love that helps her survive. The adventure will keep readers wanting more. Jessica Hickam is truly a young author to watch!”
—Neville Page, concept designer, Avatar
“There’s much to admire in this debut novel”
—Kirkus Reviews
The Revealed
Jessica Hickam
SparkPress, a BookSparks imprint
A division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC
Copyright © 2014 by Jessica Hickam
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
Published by SparkPress, a BookSparks imprint,
A division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC
Tempe, Arizona, USA, 85281
www.sparkpointstudio.com
Printed in the United States of America.
ISBN: 978-1-940716-00-8 (pbk.)
ISBN: 978-1-940716-01-5 (ebk.)
Cover design © Julie Metz, Ltd at metzdesign.com
Photo illustration © Monica Gurevich
Cover photo © Arcangel Images at arcangel.com
Author photo © Benny Tecson
Formatting by Polgarus Studio
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Dedicated to my sisters, Megan and Sarah.
Big adventures are waiting for us.
“Reach for the stars, and if you miss, aim for the heavens.”
—Unknown
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
About the Author
CHAPTER ONE
If I’m going to be taken, I plan on having at least a little fun first.
Sleek and silver with the latest technology, including dent-resistant metal, my father’s Aston Martin is made to drive. The doors recognize DNA and I’m half him, so it’s easy to break inside. I just press my hand against the door. The car needs a moment to analyze, then lifts the door, allowing me to slide into the driver’s seat. I toss the still-sealed letter onto the passenger seat.
There’s no need to open it. I know what it is.
The car’s ignition can either be started with fingerprint recognition or overridden by the key. I took the keys from the shelf by the front door while my mother wasn’t home earlier this morning.
I shift gears and press my ballet flats on the gas, not wasting any time.
The odometer climbs higher as the car smoothly accelerates.
The sensor in the car’s front mirror triggers our gate, and it opens just in time for me to speed through. Let security try to track me down now.
Pulling out onto the main road, I press my foot to the floor, going well over the speed limit.
I glance in my rearview mirror.
Security doesn’t stand a chance!
My eyes return to the road.
Strategically placed, black SUVs block my path to the freeway. My lungs constrict, forcing the air from my chest. Somehow they’re already one step ahead of me.
I grip the wheel.
I’m driving too fast.
My foot hits the brake.
Tires sear the road.
Adrenaline spins through me as I brace the wheel, keeping the car straight.
My knuckles tighten. I feel the road beneath me slipping under my feet.
The Aston slams to a stop, throwing me up against the wheel. The first SUV is only inches in front of me. Relief fills me but is quickly erased by mounting frustration.
I rip off my seatbelt, stomping out of the car.
Jeremy, head of my father’s security, stands at the front of the line. There are half a dozen other members of security lounging against the cars as they wait for me to arrive. They straighten to a standing position once I storm toward Jeremy.
Jeremy’s lips are carved into a thin line. He looks like he’s expecting me to barrel into him and continue running down the road. “Did that scare you enough to get these insane ideas out of your system?”
“You could have made me crash!” I advance on him.
“Good thing you were paying attention then,” Jeremy says, opening the backdoor of the SUV. I hand over the Aston’s keys and slump inside. The smell of the black leather reminds me of past trips to speeches and conventions. My father used to let me pick the music on the touch screen positioned in the side-door panel, anything I wanted, while my mother would chastise me for turning it up too loud. But my father would just laugh and tell her to let me be a kid. I feel like a kid now more than ever, and it’s a hard reminder that I don’t get to make significant decisions. Especially when it comes to my life. It has already been laid out for me.
Jeremy tosses the Aston’s keys to one of the security guards standing behind him. He’ll drive it back into the garage. “You’re gonna get yourself killed if you keep pulling these stunts,” he continues his lecture.
“Either I do it or The Revealed does,” I say as he slams the door, trapping me securely in the back.
Two hundred fifty-two days until I’m nineteen. If I make it until then.
Jeremy is about ten years older than I am, a war vet who came to my family’s rescue a few years ago and quickly advanced to the head of our security. He keeps his dark hair short and holds himself stiffly, marching around doing his job. Most of the time he’s assigned to watch after me. It used to be kind of a joke. I would see the challenge in his eyes, daring me to find a way to outsmart him. Now he just looks bored, tired of my escapades.
My parents are rarely home these days. They apparently don’t have time to supervise their eighteen-year-old only child.
Jeremy opens the door and sits behind the wheel. “How did you know I left?” I ask.
“The cameras caught you taking the keys this morning,” he says. He pinches the bridge of his nose and then runs his fingers over his eyebrows. This is all business to him, and it’s been a long day on the job.
“Right,” I sigh and cross my arms over my chest.
From the front seat, Jeremy turns to glare at me before he starts the car. “You know, you could try listening to your parents for once. They’re trying to save your life.”
“No one has ever been saved once The Revealed choose a target.”
“No one targeted has ever been the presidential nominee’s daughter before.”
I roll my eyes and look out the window so I don’t have to argue anymore. Not that there’s much of a view, just trees and grass. Capitol City once had giant cherry trees—thousands of them, all with light-pink flowers in place of leaves at certain times of the year. My father used to take me to the park when we took our regular trips to Washington. I would decorate my hair with the petals. People cut the trees down when the war first started. It was a message of isolationist action, my father always said, since the trees were originally gifts from abroad. Not a very effective message. Now, there’s only a monotonous green.
The drive home is short; I’d made it less than a mile. I watch sullenly as Jeremy punches in the gate code, and the tall wrought iron gate splits. The bars may be twisted into a pretty pattern, but the metal doesn’t fool anyone. It’s at least twice my height and equipped with a security camera and alarm. Once that gate is closed, no one is getting past. I’m not sure if it’s to keep The Revealed out or keep me in.
Jeremy waves to the guards on duty at the entrance station as the car passes through.
Our house is laid out on thirty acres. The gate continues all around the property. Cameras are positioned at every entrance and more dot the landscape like decor. There is always someone in the control room watching the footage.
This house is more like a castle than a home. It was built specifically for my father after the war, with over twenty rooms, two kitchens, fifteen and a half bathrooms, a ballroom, two pools, and a guest house around the side of the property. Jeremy lives in the guest house—one of the perks to being head of my father’s security team.
This isn’t home to me. My home was back in our small three-bedroom house in Oro Valley, Arizona where I was born. I loved that house. Living there was the last time I felt at home. We moved shortly after my father was elected to the Senate when I was eight into a house that was more suitable for someone of his stature.
I know it’s selfish of me to be ungrateful for this mansion. Selfish of me considering the vast majority of the population now works in the factories and lives in studio apartments—struggling day to day, barely able to make ends meet. I know nothing of working twelve-hour days. I look at my ballet flats and picture them covered in tar. Even the thought of the thick, burnt scent makes me turn up my nose. My house was built on the opposite end of town from the factories on purpose.
I should be grateful, but this house is too big and spread out for the three people who occupy it. My mother hired an interior decorator, of course, and most of the rooms are kept impersonal and bland with ruffles and silk to hide the fact that no one ever uses them.
Jeremy escorts me through the door, catching my arm as I trip over one of the new chair deliveries. I walk inside and ignore my mother fuming in the entry, tapping her foot on the Italian tiles. Her eyes burn but her face is smooth. She wouldn’t want to cause any brow lines.
Men move around me, bringing towering flower arrangements through the door behind me. “Just put them over there,” she says, waving at the ballroom entrance. I duck past, hoping the deliveries will distract her.
I hear the click of her heels as she marches after me. “Just what do you think you were doing taking your father’s car like that?” She’s holding a shuffle of papers but has decided my escape attempt warrants an interruption from her party planning.
I respond by handing over the unopened black letter I’m holding. “This is what I was thinking.” With that, I continue up the stairs. My mother follows me, but I don’t turn around, not stopping until I reach the back of my bedroom. The entire wall is glass, including the doors. Outside is my balcony. The piece of tape still hangs on the pane where I found the note. It was fixed so you couldn’t miss it.
It isn’t the first note I’ve received. In fact, I’m starting to build quite a collection of them.
I turn around and see my mother staring down at the note. Her face is pale.
On the back of the envelope, just under the seal, is a small, silver symbol. It’s an open circle that continues around and up with one swift line to create a lick of flame at the top. The circle is dashed through with two lines, slicing it into four pieces.
Soon
One word written in bold silver letters in the middle of the note. No name. A name isn’t necessary. We both know who sent the letter.
My mother is beautiful—tall and slender with fair skin, bright-blue eyes and deep chestnut hair that matches my own. She has this observant look behind her gaze. She never misses a beat—though I really wished she would, at least occasionally. She scans the letter, and I can see fear transform her face.
“Keeping me locked in this house won’t keep me safe,” I tell her, leaving the room to escape her terse gaze.
My mother, still staring at the note, turns and leaves the room, presumably to show the latest threatening evidence to Jeremy.
The letter is from The Revealed. Their notes started arriving four months ago on my eighteenth birthday. They’re taunting me with their warnings. It’s a game to them, and posting these letters is the way they prove they’ve already won.
It doesn’t matter that my parents live on thirty gated acres, with security patrolling twenty-four hours a day. Forget the security system that sends an alert every time a window is so much as tapped or a door nudged. The cameras around the premises shouldn’t even be wasting electricity, because they never catch anything on video that’s useful. And they’ve vetted everyone who works for us so many times it’s become a monthly routine.
No, The Revealed slip through every time, and yet I’m still ordered to stay locked inside this house for “my safety.”
No one can keep me safe.
The kidnappings started less than a year after the war ended and have continued for the past five years. There are over four hundred missing now. All of them eighteen when they were taken, and none of them ever seen again. They’re called the Taken Eighteen. No one knows why The Revealed are kidnapping teens, only that once the teens are gone, they don’t come back. There’s something weird about The Revealed, too. They have this ability—this way of making things happen that no one can explain. They’re able to make trees fall and lights flicker out. That’s why they call themselves The Revealed. Because they have some understanding of how the world works that no one else does. They’re able to tap into this somehow and abuse it to ruin the harmony our new nation is struggling for.
A lot of people think the Taken Eighteen are dead. It’s a good possibility. What would an organization of any kind be doing with four hundred teenagers? Parents say having one is hard enough.
I think there’s more to it than just a killing spree. The Revealed are too smart. There’s some higher aim here than slaughtering innocent people. They just have yet to clue the rest of us in on their motives.
But what do I know?
Not much, it seems, because everyone around me insists on telling me how to run my life. Since turning eighteen, I haven’t really been allowed to leave the house. My parents hired tutors who come to keep me occupied throughout the day. My schedule is strict. My parents are one of the “lucky” couples that are rich enough to justify locking their daughter indoors for a year. Between our mansion-sized house and my father’s reputation, it’s expected. Most parents with eighteen-year-olds view them as a prime labor force and send them to the factories out of sheer desperation.
My
father wants to see this changed. I mean, so does the rest of the world, but he seems to be the only one with a vision and the right amount of charisma to carry the idea. It’s why he’s a good politician. He’s been vital during the reconstruction process following the war. His military background makes him the perfect candidate to step up to the plate in the country’s time of crisis. He’s big on reorganizing the states and allowing them to keep their democratic rights. People like hearing that in a time where everything they own—including their liberty—is at stake.
We’ve been reduced to the trembling sliver of colonies that was our nation’s beginning. The wastelands start just east of the border between Louisiana and Texas. The boundary line extends north, slicing between Tennessee and Arkansas, snaking up through the middle of Kentucky and Ohio, and ending in the center of New York. Everything west of the line is uninhabited. Sure, there are rumors that some drifters float past the line, never to be seen again. But the attacks came from the west, and pushed farther and farther inland until the East Coast was all that was left of the once-great nation.
Again, I was lucky. When the attacks began, my father was on congressional business in DC. My mother and I were with him like usual. If we’d been at our home in Arizona, we wouldn’t have survived the first attack.
Now my father is running for president, asking these newly reformed little areas along the East Coast to vote for him in the first election since the war.
It’s hard to believe that six years have already passed since that day when the ground came alive and the sky fell. Today, the clear, blue skies mingled with wispy clouds are a sight I thought I’d never see again. For months after the war, the sky was a pitiful shade of gray. It was like being trapped in limbo. Either humanity would crumble, or we would find a way to pick up the pieces. That gray sky hung over our heads, pushing down on us, taunting us with the helplessness we all felt.