Read Online Uprising by Jessica Therrien - Free Book Online

me. “You could start there.”
    I stared down at her palm. It wouldn’t hurt to know more about the man I was supposed to destroy. I nodded my head and turned to face her as she pressed her fingers to my temple. This might be the most valuable weapon she had against him—a secret.
    The memory was distant, and I could tell as I looked through a young girl’s eyes that it didn’t belong to her. The details were washed and muted, the sensations dull and forgotten with age, but I watched secretly from another room as a young Christoph spoke to his father.
    “You’ll come to understand in time, Christoph.” The man’s stare was intimidating. He looked almost ghostly with his thick white sideburns and cheeks that sunk into shadows on his long face. “I used to be naïve as you are, but I’ve seen things. They’re not a race worth saving.”
    The boy’s blond hair was combed to the side and fell forward slightly as he bowed his head. “Yes, sir. I only thought . . .”
    “They’re all the same, son.” His voice was cold and unyielding as he busied himself with papers behind an oak desk. “I had to watch my mother burn at the stake for being taken as a witch. They’ll never accept us. Look at them now. My mother was killed in 1692. It’s nearly 170 years later, and they’re still persecuting others because they’re different. Their own kind, no less. Enslaving them because of the color of their skin.”
    “Nettie is one of us,” the boy whispered. He stood some distance away, seemingly afraid to come closer.
    “You know I’ve tried to help her. The railroad has aided many of our kind. She knows I’m a shepherd. I can’t make her leave if she is not willing.”
    “But it’s your job to find them, Father.” His voice spiked as he stepped forward, the bravery shining through his still innocent blue eyes. His face was sad but hopeful, with a sweet naivety that I knew he’d lose with age. “Why can’t you make her go?”
    “It’s her choice. She chooses to stay. For you.”
    The memory shifted in time, but not by much. I peered through different eyes, an older man as he watched Christoph run from afar.
    “Nettie!” he screamed. His feet beat the dirt as he ran into town. His frantic face glistened with tears. The man hurt for him. I hurt for him.
    In the town square, people were gathered around making a commotion over something. Men and women towered over him as he forced himself through the mob of angry protests and jeering voices. The man only stood and watched in horror. He was a Descendant. It could easily have been him in place of this poor girl.
    “She’s a monster!”
    “Kill her!”
    The gunshots fired before Christoph had made it through the crowd, and as he finally reached the front, he saw her chained and wounded.
    “I love you, Nettie,” he spoke through the riotous mob. His words were lost to yells and cheers, but the man heard.
    “I love you too,” she mouthed as her eyes closed.
    Images blurred and yet again the boy sat facing his father, the same desk sitting between them. For a while they said nothing. Christoph’s hair was tousled, his cheeks red from tears, but his eyes had changed. They were heavier, full of shame and anger as he stared across the room.
    “She exposed her ability, and they shot her.” He yelled the words, like he’d found power in his rage.
    “I’m sorry, son,” his father said without feeling.
    “What are you planning?” Christoph demanded, wiping his wet cheeks with his coat sleeve. His voice was hoarse as more angry tears came. “I want to help you. I want to kill them. All of them.”
    Maybe it was me, but I thought I saw a glimmer of a smile in his father’s face.
    “Keep your wits about you, Christoph. Don’t involve our kind. Soon there will be a civil war.” He leaned back in his high back chair. “Let them kill themselves.”
    “Wow,” I said, pulling out of the memories. I didn’t want to admit it, but I sympathized with the boy