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The Pursuit (Emancipation Warriors) (Volume 3)

By Marissa Shrock

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Chapter 1
Vivica

No matter how often I dreamed of a happy ending, turmoil wasn’t finished with my life—and I couldn’t escape its tumultuous grip. Taking a breath of suffocating August air and ignoring the lump clogging my throat, I gazed at the shimmering lake on the fifty-acre compound where I lived with my mother, the president of the United Regions of North America.
My son Isaac turned one today, and I wasn’t with him to celebrate. But he was no longer mine, so it shouldn’t matter. Yet it did.
Pulling a twisty from my wrist, I gathered my blond hair into a ponytail. My mother’s stylist had changed it back to my original golden color after all of the disguises the Emancipation Warriors had given me during my time fighting with them in the revolution. I tore off my bathing suit cover-up and charged off the porch into the lake.
The change in temperature robbed me of my breath, but I waded forward until the water covered my shoulders. I should’ve found a way to send a gift. What kind of mother didn’t send a present to her child on his first birthday?
If I still had my courier, my son’s adoptive mother Alma could send me pictures. Photos of a beautiful brown-eyed boy enjoying his first birthday cake.
But I’d surrendered to my mother’s demands and returned to live with her, and that meant giving up the device, along with my freedom and the people who’d come to mean so much to me. Now, all I had was the government-monitored doc that all citizens carried, and pictures from Alma weren’t safe. They could be used to track us.
Eyeing the distant shoreline, I swam toward it, hoping the exercise would clear my funk. Though the activity eased the tension in my muscles, the dull ache in my heart remained. I stopped and floated, gazing at the white streaks crisscrossing the hazy sky. For weeks, it had rained daily, but today the sun had decided to appear.
I swam back toward the deck that led into my suite, eased out of the water, wrapped myself in a towel, and lounged in the chaise. I’d thought my mother would let me leave the presidential compound when I turned eighteen. But a month had passed, and here I was, still shackled to wealth, power, and political intrigue.
On the expansive patio that surrounded the presidential mansion, the uniformed household staff bustled around setting up tables and placing flower arrangements for tonight’s state dinner. I caught a whiff of garlic on the breeze.
I closed my eyes as the afternoon sun warmed me and birds chittered. There was time for a nap before I had to shower, wasn’t there?
“Vivica, sweetie, you need to start getting ready.”
I opened my eyes. Melvin, my mother’s assistant, stood at my feet holding a garment bag.
“I know.” I got up and took the bag. “I hope the alterations are right.”
“Me too.” He scrutinized me. “You’ve lost far too much weight. We can’t have the Peacekeepers or the media thinking Genevieve is starving her daughter.”
No. We wouldn’t want that. I unzipped the bag and examined the gown as I walked into my bedroom. My mother’s designer, Zelda, had taken in the waist and added padding to the bust. The form-fitting baby blue gown would give the illusion of curves and enhance my aquamarine eyes, but it would do nothing to disguise my twiggy arms.
“Thanks, Melvin. I promise I’ll hit the shower now.” I hung the dress in my armoire.
Melvin hesitated next to the door that led from my suite. A frown creased his forehead, and he ran his fingers through his thinning gray hair.
“Is there something else?”
He adjusted his purple silk tie. “You know how important Secretary General Zahedi’s visit is to your mother.”
That was an understatement. Ever since she’d brokered a peace deal and ended the revolution the Emancipation Warriors had started, the Council of World Peacekeepers, led by Secretary General Zahedi, had been keeping a close watch on our country for signs of conflict. If the peace agreement didn’t hold, then the Peacekeepers planned to take over URNA.
“Melvin, I’ve been a model prisoner these past eight months.”
He shook his head. “Don’t let your mother hear you say that.”
“We both know it’s true.”
He sighed. The man would never say a disloyal word about my mother. Ever.
I held up my right hand. “I promise. I’ll be a perfect first daughter at the dinner tonight. I do have social skills.” I removed the twisty and shook my wet hair. “I think.”
Melvin stepped back to avoid the water spray. “I know. It’s just that…”
“What?”
“Secretary General Zahedi has a specific request.” Melvin studied his perfectly polished loafers.
Uh oh. “Let me guess. It somehow involves me.”
“He’d like to meet with you privately in the library before the dinner. There’s a matter he’d like to discuss.”
I sat on the edge of my bed. “Did he say what?” Since I’d never met the man, I found it hard to imagine what he’d want from me.
“No. Your mother asked, but he refused to say. She was infuriated.”
“But she feels pressure to comply.”
“Exactly.”
“Then I don’t have a choice, do I?”
 

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