Midnight by Anna Dove (books for new readers .TXT) 📕

Adela did so, blocking out all exterior visibility. She then perched herself on the edge of is desk.

“You’ll have to refer to me as the First Lady soon.”

“If your husband wins,” he said absently, and her flirtatious, sparkling smile changed to an expression of concern.

“What is it?”

“New Hampshire doesn’t look as great as I want it to,” he said quietly.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that it’s not a guarantee anymore. There’s been a few polls this morning that concern me. I’m trying to figure out if we need to stay an extra day.”

“That would mean less time in Iowa.”

“I know.”

“Snyder, you’re the best of the best,” she said. “Don’t doubt yourself. We will win this.”

“I know. You don’t have to tell me that. I know what’s at stake.”

“This is the only chance we will get. Never again will we have so many people willing to work with us. Never. Do you think the intelligence agencies will ever risk this again? Or your military compatriots?”

Snyder stood up and came to stand in front of her. He was a tall, handsome man, and Adela leaned forward and kissed his square jaw softly, and then his lips.

“Careful,” he murmured. “Careful.”

“I love you.”

Snyder cupped her cheek gently in his hand, and she looked up at him with her brilliant blue eyes, so that suddenly he forgot the race and the campaign and New Hampshire and even Iowa.

“If we can just get rid of this government system, our country will be made right again,” she urged in a barely audible tone. “Revolution is never the fault of the people--it is the fault of the government. Democracy in America is almost dead and thank god. Snyder, you have to win this, or we will never get another chance.”

+

                  Standing in front of her presidential slogan banner, which read “Restoration of the Nation” in bold, beautiful red letters, Adela raised her arm high as the cheers began to roar down the mall.

                 “I chose this place for a reason,” she began into the old-fashioned amplifier system, which transferred her voice and spread it throughout the crowd.

                 “This man behind me,” she continued, opening her palm to motion to Lincoln’s marble visage, “restored the nation before. Almost two hundred years ago, he was faced with a crumbling country, death and disaster pursuing the footsteps of its citizens. The words carved into these stone walls forever immortalized his desire that we are unified, that no matter what befall, it is the preservation of our nation that must come first. I stand here today to offer you this. We have immortalized this man for a reason—he stood for what was right, he fought for this nation to be restored, he spoke out when he knew that change was needed. My friends! We know what is right! We must restore this nation! Change is needed! And must we sit and wait for another disaster to strike? Will we?”

                 She raised her arm again and loud shouts in the negative sounded from the throng.

         “Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, ‘If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the new stand side by side, and admit of being compared; when the energies of all men are searched by fear and by hope; when the historic glories of the old can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new era?’ My friends, we have entered the new era!”

               Haley, Elizabeth, Carlos and Jack had crossed the bridge and now approached the Lincoln Memorial, which towered in marble resplendence over the expansive crowd of people. They could hear a chant pouring out, “Restoration of the Nation” again and again from a thousand lips to the feet of Lincoln himself, who sat immovable with his eyes fixed on the chanting crowd.

                “They’re eating it up,” muttered Carlos. Through the columns they caught a glimpse of the First Lady herself, raising her arm in a symbol of power and unity. “It’s sad, all these people thinking she’s their savior.”

                 “You alright?” asked Elizabeth softly, as she saw his face furrowed in a deep frown.

                  “Yes. Just rather hard to believe that I once loved that woman. She seemed to trust me and she told me so much about herself that I believed. Now I wonder if any of it was true. Probably not any of it...” his sentence trailed off.

                 “I’m sorry.”

                  “You did nothing to apologize for,” Carlos replied. “Come on. Let’s go closer. We should see who’s up with her.”

                  The four wound their way closer and closer, until the crowd became so thick that they could barely press any further. Fifty feet from the base, they peered over the heads and waving arms of the crowd, looking to see if there were any other figures on the stage. People pushed and shoved, straining to catch a glimpse of her.

                   She seemed to be alone, save for a few uniformed guards. Perhaps that was part of it all—perhaps she had planted people in the crowd to find anyone in dissent.

                   Haley turned to speak to Jack, who had been standing behind her, and found Elizabeth instead.

                   “Where’s Jack?” She asked, and spun around, but could not find his tall, thin figure. Her heartbeat quickened and she felt a sense of immediate apprehension.

                  “I need to go find him,” she said. “He can’t be far. He was just here.”

                  Before her friends could utter a word of protest, Haley ducked into the crowd, vanishing into a blur of bodies and shouts and raised fists. Jack was an asset, a crucial piece integral to their safety. If he had been taken, they were no longer safe.

                 She pushed her way through the masses, feeling sweaty skin