Reverence: A Faith-Based Dystopian Novel (The Reverence Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  Reverence

  Raena Rood

  One Foundation Publishing

  Copyright © 2022 by Raena Rood

  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, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV® Copyright © 1973 1978 1984 2011 by Biblica, Inc. TM

  Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  ISBN: 978-1-952431-14-2 (paperback)

  ISBN: 978-1-952431-13-5 (e-book)

  Cover Design by Ampersand Book Cover Designs

  Map Design by Ben Rood

  Edited by Kimberly Murphree

  http://raenajrood.com

  REVERENCE

  Raena Rood

  “I (Darius, King of Persia) issue a decree that in every part of my kingdom people must fear and reverence the God of Daniel. For he is the living God and he endures forever; his kingdom will not be destroyed, his dominion will never end. He rescues and he saves; he performs signs and wonders in the heavens and on the earth. He has rescued Daniel from the power of the lions.”

  Daniel 6: 26-27 (NIV)

  For my husband and best friend.

  I finally dedicated a book to you.

  You’re welcome.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  2. Two Years Later

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  9. Sunday

  Chapter 10

  11. Monday

  12. Tuesday

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  19. Wednesday

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  22. Thursday

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  28. Friday

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  37. Saturday

  38. Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Raena Rood

  Chapter One

  My mother will be dead within the hour.

  The words played like a song in Kira Liebert’s mind, drowning out every groan, every cough, and every muffled sob of the Compulsory Clinic’s waiting room. Looking from one face to another, she observed the silent multitude of thinning hair, sunken cheekbones, and hollow eyes with a passive sorrow, unable to generate a single tear for anyone other than her mother. In another part of the room, a baby wailed—an unnatural, strangled sound—but she refused to look.

  She would not consider, even for a moment, why an infant would be in this awful place.

  Two months earlier, a city physician had discovered a golf ball-sized mass in an x-ray of her mother’s right lung during her mandatory semiannual health screening. Inoperable cancer, he’d explained. Too large to remove. The notification had arrived on their doorstep within the week like a cruel joke.

  Nothing moved quickly in Vita Nova—except for Compulsory Notifications.

  Madison Liebert had accepted the manila envelope from the courier, and after reading the letter, she’d gone to the Governmental Sector to apply for a sole parental exemption. Exemptions had become rare in recent years, especially when the children living in the household were nearly adults themselves, as was Kira, but she’d held onto hope. What else could she do?

  Another letter had arrived a week later, hand-delivered by the same grim-faced man who’d dropped off the Compulsory Notification.

  Exemption Request Denied.

  They had only one other option, but Kira’s mother couldn’t bring herself to do what needed to be done, so Kira had done it for her.

  She’d called her father’s office and left messages. Dozens of messages.

  He returned none of her calls.

  “Madison Liebert?”

  A tiny whimper escaped Kira’s throat.

  Her mother glanced at her, eyes narrowed in warning, and Kira swallowed back her emotions. This wasn’t the time or the place. She kept her head down as she followed her mother across the waiting room.

  They arrived at a tiny cubicle and lowered themselves into two cushioned chairs opposite a thin brunette with freckled skin and a pixie-cut. The woman pecked at the buttons on her keyboard, refusing to acknowledge their presence for a full minute.

  “Paperwork,” she mumbled, without raising her eyes from her computer screen.

  Maybe that’s how she copes with the horrible things she sees, Kira thought. By not looking.

  Her mother slid a stack of forms across the desk. As she retracted her hand, Kira placed her palm on top of her mother’s, feeling delicate bones beneath tissue-paper skin. Offering comfort in any way she could.

  “Age?” Brown Pixie-Cut asked.

  “Forty-seven.”

  “Marital status?”

  Madison Liebert cleared her throat. “Never married.”

  An older gentleman sat in a neighboring cubicle, answering similar questions. There weren’t many old people left in Vita Nova. You could go months seeing no one over the age of fifty. Those individuals fortunate enough to celebrate their sixtieth birthdays were automatically selected as Compulsories—as were those with chronic medical conditions—since the city government considered them a strain on the city’s limited resources. Only those people deemed essential to the city’s survival were allowed to live past the age of sixty.

  The leadership of Vita Nova considered the Compulsory Program to be a humane alternative to simply tossing all the old and sick people over the wall.

  Kira craned her neck around the barrier to steal a glimpse of the man. He looked to be in his late fifties, with bone-white hair and a kind face. He wore a wrinkled navy-blue suit and a red tie, and although it was way too big for him, it was probably the nicest outfit he owned.

  The chair beside him was empty.

  Unlike the older gentleman, Madison Liebert would have someone by her side during her last moments. That was something, at least.

  The day before, Kira and her mother had spent the entire day outside, kneeling in their tiny backyard garden, tearing weeds from the dirt so they wouldn’t choke out the flowers. Afterward, they’d ridden the bus to the market and splurged on two T-Bone steaks, fresh zucchini, a pound of strawberries, and a small basket of potatoes.

  They’d pulled two kitchen chairs outside and eaten dinner on the front porch, watching the sunset together for the last time. Kira had made her mother’s favorite dessert—homemade strawberry shortcake. The strawberries sold at the market were bulbous and watery and more sour than sweet, but she’d sliced them extra thin, drizzled them with a little honey, and let them sit in the fridge all afternoon.

  Her mother had spooned the strawberries over her slice of cake and then poured a little milk on top. “This looks
wonderful, Kira,” she’d said, bringing a spoonful to her lips. “You outdid yourself.”

  Although she hadn’t been hungry, Kira had cut herself a generous slice and forced herself to eat, taking small bites and chewing slowly, trying to focus on the flavors. Such a decadent dessert was a rare treat in their household. But then her eyes had landed on the cake pan. Only two slices were missing, and the thought had hit her: My mother will never eat another piece of strawberry shortcake.

  She hadn’t been able to swallow another bite.

  “Is anyone here with you, Ms. Liebert?” Brown Pixie-Cut asked, as if she couldn’t see Kira sitting in front of her.

  “Yes. My daughter.”

  “Her name and age?”

  “Kira Liebert. She’s seventeen.”

  The intake officer refused to meet Kira’s eyes. Instead, her eyes flitted between her computer screen and the paperwork. The lack of eye contact felt deliberate, and Kira leaned forward and stared at the woman, silently daring her to make eye contact.

  Look at me, she thought. Look at me, you coward.

  The woman didn’t look.

  After the intake officer finished entering her mother’s information into the database, a heavy-set female nurse in black scrubs materialized behind their chairs and escorted them to an elevator. After a bumpy ascent, the doors opened, and the nurse led them into the eerie quiet of the third floor. Only the high-pitched squeaking of the woman’s purple clogs against the polished floor broke the silence of the hallway. Other officials in black scrubs hurried past them, their eyes fixed on their clipboards.

  Most of the doors in the hallway were closed. All except for one. When Kira peered inside the room, she saw a young woman huddled over the bed, her tears falling onto the body of the motionless young man who lay buried beneath the clinic’s linens.

  Kira’s mother grabbed her hand and squeezed. “Come on, honey. Don’t look at them.”

  The nurse veered off to the right, leading them into a private room with a window overlooking the clinic’s crowded rear parking lot.

  A small sign hung over the door: Room 317.

  The tiny room had no television, no dresser, and no medical equipment. Just a single bed and an uncomfortable plastic chair. A clock—the closest thing the room had to a decoration—hung above the door. A hospital gown, a plastic bag, and a pair of gray socks with treads on the bottom lay on the neatly made bed.

  Kira’s stomach twisted at the sight. “Mom…”

  Her mother silenced her with one word. “Quiet.”

  Lingering in the doorway, the nurse regarded Kira with wary eyes, as if trying to decide if she was going to be a problem. Then the woman tipped her head toward the hallway. “None of these rooms have private bathrooms. If you need to use the restroom, it’s down the hall on the right.”

  Madison Liebert nodded. “Thank you.”

  Kira struggled to hold herself together after the nurse left. Collapsing onto the plastic chair, she dropped her head into her hands while her mother dragged the privacy curtain around the bed.

  Her mother emerged a few minutes later wearing her hospital gown and socks. She’d folded her clothing and placed it inside the plastic bag. She had left what little jewelry she owned on the kitchen counter at home.

  “I’m going to use the restroom,” Madison Liebert said. “I’ll be back.”

  “Okay,” Kira choked the word out.

  After her mother slipped out of the room, Kira released the emotions she’d kept bottled inside since the Compulsory Notification had arrived on their doorstep. She wept until her eyes hurt, her chest heaving with great, body-wracking sobs. Anguish poured from her body, hot tears stealing through the gaps in her fingers and falling onto the thin fabric of her t-shirt.

  She gave herself two minutes. Two minutes to lose control. Two minutes to be angry. Two minutes to grieve a loss that hadn’t happened yet. The clock was nothing but a blur of black and white on the wall, so she counted the seconds off in her head. When her time was up, she pulled a handkerchief from her mother’s purse and wiped the remaining tears from her cheeks, forcing the powerful emotions deep inside her chest where they would remain until this was over.

  Until her mother was gone.

  The door to the hospital room swung open. Madison Liebert scuffed across the room on her anti-skid socks and crawled into the bed, pulling the blanket over herself. When she spoke, her voice was distant and dreamy. “Well, the bed feels good. And the rooms are nicer than I expected.”

  Kira swallowed a few angry responses before the bitter words slipped past her lips. “We shouldn’t be here. We should’ve run when we had the chance.”

  Her mother gave her a look sharp enough to cut glass. “Run where? Outside the barricade?” She shook her head. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  Kira said nothing. Her mother was right.

  They had nowhere to go.

  “Refusing the Compulsory Order would’ve only made things worse, Kira. They would’ve thrown me in the Confines and killed me anyway. This way, you get to be by my side until the end. We had a beautiful day yesterday, didn’t we?”

  “Oh, Mom…” Kira remembered their dinner on the porch and began to cry again. So much for being strong for her mother. “What am I going to do without you?”

  Her mother flapped a hand at her, shooing the idea away. “You’re going to be fine. You’ve got the townhouse and there’s enough money to carry you through until you start working in a few months,” she said, referring to Kira’s upcoming job as a volunteer advocate for the city. “I’m glad you got that job. There’s lots of room for advancement in the Governmental Sector. Plus, the pay is decent.”

  “That’s not what I meant, Mom,” Kira cried, swiping the handkerchief along her leaking nose. “How will I go on without you?”

  Raising herself up on her elbows, Madison Liebert gave her daughter a penetrating look. “You will go on because you don’t have a choice. Life doesn’t always give us options, but the strongest ones among us keep moving forward, no matter how difficult things get.” Her mouth hung open, as if she had more to say, but she closed her lips and swallowed hard. “There’s a lot you don’t understand about the world you’re living in. So much you don’t remember. You were too young. What I wouldn’t give to spend a few more days with you.”

  A few more days? Kira glanced at the room’s only window. There were no bars. No alarms that she could see. They weren’t that high off the ground. Only three floors. What if they climbed out the window? Could they make it to the ground without breaking their legs? And then what? “Mom? What if we—”

  “It’s not going to happen,” her mother cut her off. “I know what you’re thinking, and I’m not jumping out any windows. Running isn't an option. We have to face this together.” The anger on her mother’s face dissolved into compassion. “Sweetheart, I never wanted to leave you—not if I could help it—but now that it’s happening, you need to know that I’m not afraid to die.”

  The fantasy of breaking her mother out of the clinic fizzled like a fire doused with water, leaving only steam that burned Kira’s eyes. “You’re not afraid to die? You expect me to believe you?”

  As the faint ticking of the wall clock counted off the last minutes of her life, Madison Liebert raised her gaze to the window. “I know you won’t believe me, and that’s my fault. I should’ve explained everything a long time ago, but I couldn’t do it. I was a coward. One day, hopefully, you’ll realize I did what I thought was best. Not for me, but for you.”

  “Explained what?” Kira demanded. “What did you do?”

  A soft knock on the door interrupted their conversation.

  “Come in,” her mother called out. “We’re ready.”

  No, we’re not! Kira wanted to scream. Go away! We’re not ready!

  The door swung open, and a doctor entered the room, identifiable by his white lab coat. Middle-aged and handsome, with chestnut hair and tanned skin, he offered Kira a bright smile that remind
ed her of the toothy hosts on the old game shows the city ran on Saturdays after the morning broadcast. Two junior nurses followed him, both wearing black scrubs. One nurse carried a tray with a single syringe and a small silver vial.

  “Good morning, Ms. Liebert. I’m Dr. Stern.”

  Kira shot out of her chair, imploring the doctor with her eyes. Hoping to appeal to whatever shred of humanity existed within the man. “Please. I’m begging you. Don’t do this.”

  “Sit,” her mother ordered. “Right now.”

  Rebellion didn’t come easily to Kira. She never disregarded her mother’s commands, but this was different. She couldn’t allow this to continue, no matter what her mother wanted. “No! I will not let them kill you.”

  “That’s enough.” The doctor’s megawatt smile disappeared, and he narrowed his dark eyes at Kira. “Young lady, if you can’t control yourself, I’ll have clinic security escort you from this room and your mother will die alone.”

  Your mother will die alone.

  Closing her eyes, Kira saw the doctor’s words scrawled in crimson on the backs of her eyelids, and she realized there would be no last-minute escape attempt for Madison Liebert. No hero swooping in to save the day. The only way her mother would leave this building was in a disposal van, and Kira could do nothing about it.

  It wasn’t fair.

  But she couldn’t let her mother die alone.