Hush (a LUSH novel)

HUSH

(a LUSH novel)

by

S.L. Baum

Book Description

Bluebell’s Citizen Brand is like no other. Because she is LUSH, she’s turned into a public figure – a perfect example of a Concord Citizen, a goal for the next generation. She tries to embrace her fate, but the more she learns about Concord and The Council, the less she trusts in everything she’s been told her whole life.

After discovering that Aspen is not her real mother, Bluebell realizes she has little chance of finding the woman who gave birth to her. She also suspects someone is tampering with her memories, and knows that she must discover the truth about Concord before the people she loves are completely erased from her mind.

Disclaimer: HUSH is part of the LUSH Series – but it's more like a Serialized Television Show. It is the second novel in the series, and it answers some questions from LUSH, but it asks a lot more. Think of the LUSH series like LOST or The Vampire Diaries or Heroes... and not so much like E.R. or Fringe or House. The final novel is due February 2014.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Copyright 2013 by S. Baum

All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

***

I’m dedicating this book to my readers. I love connecting with you all on Social Media. Your words of encouragement can always brighten my day. I wrote a book because I wanted to fulfill a dream, I continue to write because of people like you… yeah, I’m talking to you!

And, as always, my family… the five of us, interlocking circles. I love you.

***

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 One

Get Up, Bluebell

I quietly opened my door and crept over to Aspen’s room. My brain had erased the word mother from any association with her… instantly. The door to her room was cracked open. She was sitting at her dressing table, in front of her mirror, brushing her hair as she spoke with someone on video chat.

It is all going just fine, Aspen said. She is really warming up to me.

If you had nurtured the relationship from the beginning you wouldn’t need to try so hard to fix it now, came the reply.

I couldn’t see the face on the screen, but I knew the voice. It was my grandfather’s.

How was I to know she’d end up Lush like her mother? You never thought it could happen either, admit it, Father. If she had simply been Fertile, or better yet, Infertile, you wouldn’t have felt the need to make a spectacle out of her. This is your doing.

"Her mother ran because YOU forced her to be invisible, I refuse to take any responsibility for that. That was all your doing. You could have let Jackson father another child with her. She probably would have been manageable if you had lived up to your promises when she came to your home."

"Father. There was no way I would share my man with any other woman. You brought her to us… YOU. Remember that?" Aspen hissed.

Aspen, we need to stop laying blame. Jackson barely remembers her, though how you convinced him to willingly take those medicines I don’t know.

Aspen gave a small laugh. He wanted to forget her. It was easy to convince him. And when he showed his loyalty by returning our daughter and living the way we wanted him to, you rewarded him with a seat on The Council. He got what he wanted. I got what I wanted. It will all work out in the end.

What did you get out of this, Aspen? Grandfather asked.

I got a child, she answered.

You never wanted a child, he said.

"But of course I did. How else could I continue to convince my friends that I was Fertile? I purposely made myself violently ill the day of our final Citizen Brands. I drank chemicals just so the doctor would have to keep me in the Medical Center. My bandages were removed, and my brand revealed, in private. There were no witnesses. I’ve been wearing rows of beaded crap on my arm for over twenty years. Convincing that woman to live in our home and have a child for me in secret was the best decision I ever made. When Bluebell arrived and I told everybody she was mine. It created a lie that everybody believes to be true. I am a Fertile woman and everybody knows it," Aspen smiled.

I could see her face through the crack in the door, reflected in the mirror. Her smile was full of venom and malevolence.

She put the brush down on the table and started to remove her bracelets. One by one she pulled them off her wrist and placed them in the jewelry box by the table.

But you are not Fertile, Grandfather said. That mark on your wrist proves it.

I squinted my eyes to see if what he said was true. She held her wrist up closer to her face, took out a cloth, and started to wipe at her skin. Then it appeared and my eyes fixated on it.

Aspen looked at her wrist and her face went blank. But nobody knows it is there, she said, staring at the black X that was her Citizen Brand.

I slid to the ground, my legs unable to hold my weight any longer. Words were just words, anyone could claim that Aspen was not my biological mother, but the black X on her left wrist proved it to be true. While some women with a Fertile Brand found themselves unable to have a child, there had never been a case of an Infertile with a successful pregnancy. It made so much sense; I wondered why I’d never contemplated the possibility before. There was none of her in me; I didn’t look like her, act like her, or think like her. I’d always assumed that was because I took after my father’s side of the family, but other than the dark hair and dark eyes, I didn’t look all that much like him, either. She somehow deceived everyone into believing she was Fertile and had given birth to me.

How could she do such a thing? Who was Aspen? Who was I? Who exactly was my mother? It was all too much. I shook my head, trying to focus. What had Thorn said? Try to remember. I would. Somewhere, locked in my head, were memories of my real mother, and I would try to remember everything.

I heard my grandfather laugh, but then it wasn’t really my grandfather after all. Aspen, my dear, dear daughter, ‘nobody knows it is there,’ is not exactly true. How lucky you are that the former Doctor at Training Tech was willing to be bribed, and Alpha was fed a lie.

Actually, my dear, dear father, you and I are the only people who know. That dear Doctor kept my secret until her untimely death; she took it to the grave with her. My ever dutiful Jackson remained quiet in the beginning, and then wisely chose to erase the memories.

I guess that makes you extra lucky, doesn’t it?

Father, you have always brought us luck – along with a council seat for my husband’s willful compliance. You gained just as much as I did. It was necessary to claim Bluebell as your own true grandchild; it kept the 1.15 family line going strong. And what a remarkable addition to the family you received. You get to claim that a Lush girl is the product of your superior bloodline.

Hope made that possible for us.

Do not say that woman’s name, Aspen hissed, slamming her hands down on the table. She pushed herself up to a standing position.

Temper, temper.

She doesn’t exist, anymore, Aspen whispered.

I knew I needed to get up from where I was crouched on the floor. It would not be a good thing for Aspen to turn around and see me, sitting in the hallway outside her door. I used the wall to support my wobbly legs as I stood up and began to slowly inch back toward my room, keeping myself out of sight.

Don’t let Bluebell stir up forgotten memories for your husband.

"She’s not. She won’t, I’m taking steps. The past has been erased. Jackson consumes whatever he is told to, without question. And after this many years, could the memory of her really come back to him?"

I highly doubt it. There is nothing to remind him of her any more, except Bluebell, of course.

"I’m grooming her into something that she never was. Jackson would never make the connection between the two of them. I’m ending this chat, Father. Jackson is due home any moment, and I must get to bed. We have a big day ahead of us, tomorrow."

The Gala must go off without a hitch. See that it does, dear daughter, he ordered.

It will, Aspen dryly replied.

I heard the beep, which indicated the end of the video chat session, and without knowing for sure, I was pretty sure that Aspen was the one who terminated the connection. I stepped backward as quietly as I could and slipped back into my bedroom, breathing a sigh of relief. Once the door was closed behind me, I collapsed onto my bed.

The room started to spin. I closed my eyes and brought my hands up to my face to cover them, blocking out the light. My head started to swirl, and then it began to pound. I ached with pain. I rolled over onto my side, curling myself into a ball. My knee knocked into something hard.

My personal tablet was still on the bed where I’d left it. I opened my eyes and stared at the blank screen. My mind tried to process the information in the story that I’d been reading; Lost on the Way to the Beach. The story wasn’t really a story though… it was simply real life. It was about me, about my childhood, about my life. My father had taken a second wife, and I had another mother. She’d been a real mother, someone who had loved me, and she hadn’t wanted to give me up. My mother was trying to get us to a boat, days before I was to attend Training Tech. But my father had stopped her before we could sail away. He had me taken away from her. Back to my home, he’d said to the man who’d grabbed me. But what had happened to her? Where was my real mother? Where was Hope?

I sat up, opened the top drawer in my bedside table, and pulled out the container of Pain Relief I kept there for emergencies. After I opened the container, I took a bottle of enhanced water from the cooler drawer below. I took three of the pills from the container and washed them down with the bottled water. As I twisted the cap back on the bottle, I noticed its label. It was a different color than the ones Aspen usually kept stocked in my room, red instead of orange.

My head started to feel heavy. The pounding had immediately subsided, but that pain was replaced with another as my eyes began to feel heavy and ache. A yawn escaped my mouth. It was hard to focus on any one thing in my room. I just wanted to lie down. I let myself fall back on the bed and held the bottle up close to my eyes, squinting as I forced myself to focus on the words written in black ink across the red label: Sleep.

Just perfect, I thought.

The bottle slipped from my hand as I curled myself up against my pillows.

Sleep took over.

Get up, Bluebell.

I rolled over on my back and blinked up at the woman who was standing over my bed looking down at me. My mind was still half in sleep mode and it took me a moment to register that the woman was Aspen, with a newly blonde head. Although, her hair still seemed darker at the roots to me, not quite the single color she had professed to my father she was going to change it to. Your hair, I mumbled.

She smoothed her hands over her tresses. It turned out well. Don’t you agree?

I pushed myself up so I could sit on the edge of my bed. My legs dangled over the side. Um, sure. I knew she didn’t want an opinion, just a confirmation of her own assessment.

"It seems like you’ve had a good, solid night’s sleep. I’m so glad I put some Sleep water in here yesterday. You looked like you needed some uninterrupted rest. If it were up to me, you would not stay up late reading on that tablet of yours. You are getting dark circles, and it is not a good look. No. Not at all."

My tablet? I asked and looked over at the bag that was resting against the desk in my room. It was designed to hold more than one tablet… wasn’t it? I smoothed my hands out to the side of me, across the bed, and glanced down as I touched something hard. Oh, my tablet.

Aspen laughed. "Yes, both your personal one and the Ambassador one. The lending library registers that you’ve downloaded quite a few stories to read. Between those stories and all the material that Cimarron gives you, I was afraid you’d stay up all night reading. Sleep was a perfect solution. Tired eyes are not pleasant to look at. Stories, she scoffed. I never understood the allure of them. They are a waste of time!"

Stories. I wouldn’t want to exist with out them. I didn’t voice my opinion though, it was pointless to argue with her. I closed my