The Cost Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

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  A Synopsis & Table Of Contents...

  Inspiring Words

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Copyright

  The Bounty

  The Cost

  Book 1

  Dystopian Romance

  By: Kacey Lu & Third Cousins

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  A SYNOPSIS & TABLE OF CONTENTS...

  When the world government realized that the world was about to be damaged beyond repair, they had to take drastic action. A thousand years later and the last of the population are living without technology and under the strict regulations set by The City of Hope council.

  The problem is that nobody can fight back. Each person is required by law to have a chip inserted into them at birth. This chip can be deactivated at any time and once that happens, your life is deactivated with it.

  There is a small fraction of people, though, who fight against The City of Hope. They are “old worlders”. They’ve managed to hide for generations and can’t be tracked, because they were never chipped. They’re the reason that Sarah was forced to become a bounty hunter. They’re the reason that the most important thing in her life was taken from her.

  When Sarah finds a huge camp of old worlders, she knows that she only needs one to finish paying of the council. But when she chooses to take a girl with wild hair and leave the rest, she doesn’t realize that there’s one man who will stop at nothing to get that girl back.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  DISCOVER MORE BOOKS BY THIRD COUSINS

  A SYNOPSIS & TABLE OF CONTENTS...

  INSPIRING WORDS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  DISCOVER MORE BOOKS BY THIRD COUSINS

  COPYRIGHT

  INSPIRING WORDS

  “Love consists of this: two solitudes that meet, protect and greet each other.”

  - Rainer Maria Rilke

  CHAPTER 1

  Sarah

  The air was filled with the sweet smell of corn, and of the sunshine which was pouring down from an almost perfect blue sky. I could only count a handful of small, fluffy, white clouds in the entirety of the sky.

  I walked carefully over the broken surface of the sidewalk that had been left to decay when the old world fell. It was among the last known remnants of the old world that existed outside of The City of Hope.

  The City of Hope looked strange compared to the world outside of its walls. I’d heard stories that, thousands of years ago, the world had been covered in imposing, tall gray buildings and narrow, sun shy roads. But The City of Hope was the only place you could find them now.

  A gentle breeze played through the tall corn that was growing in the fields beside me. It felt good as it caressed my skin and cooled off the sun’s hot touch.

  I reached a small row of huts. They were all built of clay and wood and their roofs were thatched. It had long since been outlawed to build houses with bricks and cement. It was considered too permanent.

  I stopped when I reached the first door and wrapped my knuckles against it briskly. I had a lot of houses to cover and I didn’t want to feel like any of my time was getting wasted.

  I heard a shuffle of feet on the other side of the door and then it opened. A friendly-looking, rosy-cheeked woman with fly-away brown hair looked at me hesitantly. I knew that she knew who I was. I could tell from the way all of the friendliness she had first shown dropped from her expression.

  “Can I come in?” I asked her. Then I pushed open the door without waiting for a reply.

  “Why are you here?” The woman demanded. “I’ve paid my taxes and my crops won’t be ready until the end of the month.”

  “That’s always good to know,” I said with a curt nod. “That’s not why I’m here today though.”

  I pulled the small leather bag off of my shoulders and opened it. “Is your husband here? I would really rather speak to both of you at the same time.”

  She shook her head. “He’s working out in the field.”

  “Well, I’d appreciate it if you could go and call him back,” I said with a forced smile. She wasn’t being very helpful and, although I could force her to find him or find him myself, I preferred the smoother way when I could use it.

  “I’m sure you would,” the woman said and she looked at me in a stuffy kind of way. “The crops need to be seen to, though, if you expect your harvest on time. So you’re just going to have to do without him.” Her eyes gleamed, as though she’d just won the argument.

  “Look,” I said sternly, because I wasn’t in the mood for people thinking that they had a right to prevent the course of justice. “I’ve been told that there is an old world camp settlement close to here. If this is true and you have been helping them in any way, then the punishment will be deactivation of your chip.” I stopped. I could see the small flicker of fear in her eyes, when I mentioned the deactivation process.

  “I haven’t seen or helped no old worlders,” she said quickly.

  “That may be true, but I’d like to speak to both you and your husband, so that I can be sure.” I gave her a long hard look, until she nodded and headed towards the back door of her hut.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she said with a flustered face.

  “Hurry,” I said with nod.

  I took a seat next to the small hearth, so I could wait in at least some comfort. My feet ached with relief as I took my weight off them. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the feeling of not doing anything at all until the woman came back in with her man.

  “What is all of this about?” her husband asked gruffly as he walked into the room.

  “Ah, good, you’re both here,” I said.

  I stood up and walked back over to my bag. I reached inside and wrapped my hand around the cool, metal device which I would be using to see whether they were telling the truth. “So, I’m going to explain to you how I like to do things,” I said in a friendly tone. “I’m going to ask you both a series of questions, but on an individual basis. You’re both to be in the same room when it happens, though. This machine,” I paused, as I pulled out the chip reader. “Well, it can read all of your body's vital signs from the chip that you have implanted. So, I’m going to hook you up to make sure you’re not telling any lies.” I finished with a warm smile.

  It wasn't warmly received. “What happens if it says that we’re lying?” The woman asked and she looked worried. Almost a little too worried. I could almost taste the victory that would lead to.

  “It will deactivate your chip,” I said to her simply.

  “You can’t just kill us,” she said. She sounded as though she was about to lose her shit.

  “Well, if you don’t lie, then it won’t happen,” I explained to her. “The choice is yours to make.”

  After an aching pause, she nodded. “I’m going to ask your husband some questions first,” I explained and then I turned on the machine and held it over his arm, so that it could start scanning his chip.

  The woman looked like she was on the edge of breaking. I already knew that it would be her that I got the truth from, but I also knew it would be because I’d threatened her husband’s life. I started my questions and waited for her to spill.<
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  CHAPTER 2

  Nathan

  I walked back through the jagged belt of bushes along the narrow trail that would take me back to camp. The thorny vines snagged at my legs, but I ignored the fiery stinging feeling. My back ached with the weight I had been carrying since that morning. I’d been trying to sell scrap metal saucepans to the farming town that was close by, but I’d been mostly unsuccessful.

  My friend Natasha had been right. She told me that no one would be willing to buy wares from an old worlder. It was too much of a risk for them. I should have listened to her and then I wouldn’t have wasted my entire day on a fruitless effort.

  I found Natasha waiting for me at the border of the camp. Her little nose was wrinkled in annoyance and her cheeks flared red when she saw me.

  “I thought I told you not to go” she said as soon, as I was in earshot of her. “I thought I talked you out of it. Why would you do this to us all, Nathan? Why would you put us all at risk?”

  I wasn’t quite sure what to say to her. The camp needed money. If we ran out then we would be reduced to stealing for our food. “I did this for the camp,” I said, even though I knew she would never be able to understand that.

  “What if you’ve brought a bounty hunter back with you?” she asked. Her small hands reached up to her waist and she settled them as fists on her hips. “What if one of the farmers decides that they are going to report you, what are we going to do then? Do you have any idea how unsafe our camp is now?”

  “Natasha, if we don’t start making some money soon, the camp is going to starve to death anyway. You know, as well as I do that the farmers aren’t happy with The City of Hope. They’re just as persecuted as us. They have nearly everything they work for taken off them. Is it really so crazy to believe that they might be willing to help someone like me?”

  “Yes,” she said bluntly. “No one helps out strangers in this world. We look after ourselves and our families. If a bounty hunter catches wind that you’ve been to the town, then I guarantee you that she’ll find out the truth at the first door she knocks at.”

  “Then we better hope that there aren’t any bounty hunters close,” I said with a warm smile. “You worry far too much, Natasha. It won’t do your health any good.”

  “Neither will getting caught by a bounty hunter,” she said bitterly.

  I wasn’t prepared to continue the conversation much further, so I just shrugged. I glanced over and she was scowling at me. I pretended not to notice.

  “Do you want to know what you’ve missed while you’ve been gone?” She asked when the annoyance finally started to subside.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “I’ve managed to break into the mainframe at The City of Hope. It looks like they have a huge database there of chips. I’m not sure yet whether it has every single person on record or whether it’s just the surrounding districts, but I think there might be a way to deactivate them all without deactivating the person.”

  “Are you saying that you could kill all the chips?” I couldn’t help but give her a look of admiration.

  “I’m saying that it’s starting to look that way,” she said with a small nod. I could tell she was trying to hide how proud she was of herself, but I couldn’t understand why. She deserved to be proud of herself. The old worlders had been trying to find a way into the main system at The City of Hope for years.

  “I think that’s amazing,” I said. “You’re going to be the girl who sets the world free.” I joked and gave her a gentle nudge with my shoulder.

  “And yet I still won’t be good enough for you, will I?” she asked in a wistful kind of way.

  “I thought we’d talked about this,” I said, as a familiar feeling of discomfort began to crowd me. “You know that I’m always going to love you, Natasha. But we’ve grown up together. We’re like brother and sister. It would be totally weird for anything to happen between us.”

  “Whatever,” Natasha said. I could hear an edge of frost in her tone. “You better go tell Eric where you’ve been. He’s been asking about you all day.”

  I nodded. Eric was kind of our camp leader. It wasn’t like he’d been elected into the position or anything. He just had a natural ability to organize people and before he took over, our camp had been anything but organized.

  “Eric,” I said, when I pulled back the sheet of leaves which acted as a door to the small hut he’d made for himself.

  “Ah, Nathan, I’ve been looking for you all day,” he said with a warm smile.

  I walked into the small hut and took a seat on the hard earth that had long since dried out with the hut’s protection from the elements. “Where have you been?” he asked.

  “I went to the farming town to see whether I could make any money,” I said flatly.

  Eric looked concerned, but I could tell that I hadn’t angered him. “I know that times are hard for the camp right now, Nathan, but that doesn’t mean that we should take unnecessary risks.”

  I nodded. “I just wanted to help.”

  “I know that,” Eric said and he sounded supportive. “Did Natasha know where you’d gone?”

  “She knew that I was planning to go, but she believed that she’d talked me out of it,” I explained, so that he wouldn’t find reason to scold her.

  “That sounds about right,” Eric said with a chuckle.

  CHAPTER 3

  Sarah

  I asked him simple questions at first. I asked him what his name was and how old he was. I asked him when he’d married his wife and whether they had any children together. He told me the truth through all of them and his vital signs stayed steady on the machine. I knew, though, that I couldn’t build up the comfort for long. There was still a chance that they really hadn’t seen the old worlders and I needed to talk to the people that had.

  “I’d like you to tell me about the old worlder camp that is close by,” I finally said. “I’ve got reason to believe that people in this town have been communicating and even trading with these people. Are you one of them?”

  His vital signs started to spike as soon as the question was asked. I watched as he glanced at his wife. He had fear in his eyes, but I could tell that he was willing to lie for the cause.

  He opened his mouth, but before he had a chance to say anything his wife cut him off. “There was a man here earlier today. He was trying to sell saucepans. He looked rough, he may have been an old worlder. I didn’t ask.”

  “So, you’re telling me that you have seen this man today?” I asked her with all of my attention focused on her and her alone.

  “You need to be quiet,” her husband hissed and she frowned at him.

  “What do you expect? Do you think that I’ll just stand here and watch them deactivate you?” She shook her head. “Yes, he was here today.”

  “Did you buy anything off of him?” I asked. She shook her head. “Did you aid him in anyway?”

  “We don’t have money to be just throwing around,” she said. “We’ve just paid our taxes, for goodness sake.”

  “Okay,” I said with a small nod. I was inclined to believe her and that was enough. “I’d like to know which he way he went after he left your home.”

  The woman told me everything she knew: what he looked like, where he seemed to be going, how fast he was moving (not fast). I just letter talk. I knew from experience that if I started asking leading questions at this point she would make up answers just to try to please me. Anyhow, I had enough.

  I packed up the scanner and pulled my bag back over my back before I walked back out into the openness that surrounded the hut. The sun had started to dip below the horizon and although the sky was still almost perfectly clear, it had started to darken. This wasn’t an issue for me, though. In fact, it was a blessing.

  I headed out of the town and towards the thick woodland that started only a short walk away. I reached the line where farming stopped and the trees grew thick by the time the sun had just dropped out of sight. The empty sound of cr
ickets played through the air, as I stepped into thick bushes which seemed hell-bent on destroying my legs.

  The old worlders normally didn’t set up permanent camps. Since I’d started bounty hunting, I’d only found one or maybe two groups that were larger than three people. It seemed they thought it was safer to travel alone, which I guess in a way was right. The earth was a huge place to search and, without chips, they were impossible to track except by the old methods.

  I softened my footsteps so that the branches underneath my feet wouldn’t break. I needed to be silent in my approach. I needed to make sure that nobody knew that I was getting close to their camp.

  I stopped when I saw flickering orange flames through the trees. I could hear the soft crackling of the embers, which I knew would cover my approaching footsteps.

  I scoped out the camp from where I was standing. The fire seemed to be dead in the centre of the camp. I could count ten or more huts that had been built in a semi-circle around it. I could see slow shadow movements coming from beyond where I could see and I knew that some of the campers must still be up.

  I thought through my plan. I only needed to take one of them. I only needed to take one, which I could be sure would fetch a fair price at The City of Hope. I edged closer to the group. I could hear my mind whispering to me about taking more than what I needed. If The City of Hope found out that I’d left the rest to live out their days, then it would be me who had to face them for crimes against the system. They would never know, though. How could they?

  I walked further forward, until there were only a few short steps between me and the camp. They still hadn’t noticed me, but I could see those who were still up from where I was standing. There were two men. One seemed much younger than the other, but both were men and not boys. There was a girl, too. She was a pretty little thing with wild red hair. I knew as soon as I saw her that she would be the one that I was going to take.