The Tradrych Strain- The Complete Series

by Marissa Farrar

  Then he turned and walked away.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The four of us navigated our way through the tunnels, past the city walls, and beneath the expanse of desert that separated the facility from the city.

  After an hour or so, I started to recognize parts of the tunnel. There was the spot where I’d had to stop and rest, the contractions I’d been experiencing back then—but refusing to acknowledge them for what they were—growing worse. There was the crevasse where we’d hidden from other Trads, with me crushed between the bodies of the guys, the first stirrings of desire from their proximity racing through me.

  I imagined the captive women at the facility—their faces so like my own—all hope gone, unaware of the people coming to help them. I imagined their elation and disbelief when we arrived, and the thought filled me with emotion. I’d never considered for one moment that there might have been those among the monsters who’d taken me who would want to help, and I was sure those still captive would feel the same way.

  There was violence ahead, of that I had no doubt. The Trads remaining at the facility would fight for what they believed in, even if it was wrong. I didn’t know where Aleksy had gotten his hands on all the weapons, but I had to admit that I felt safer now I was armed. I knew he was relying on me being able to communicate with the other women and reassure them that not all Trads were bad—something I was sure they’d struggle to accept initially—but it would have been pointless me going in there unable to defend myself.

  A wave of nausea rose inside me at the idea of having to see Rhetarz again. The last time I’d seen him, I’d been pregnant with his child. He’d still wanted me, even then. When I’d been shut down in the hole as punishment for not doing what I was told, he’d made it clear that his business with me wasn’t over. Nadeusz had saved me then, and I was sure Nad would do the same if Rhett even looked like he was going to put his hands on me, but it didn’t stop me feeling dizzy with fear at the idea of seeing him again. Would Rhett have the baby with him? I doubted it. I’d never seen any signs of the babies who had been born at the facility when I’d been there. The child would most likely be at Rhett’s home, perhaps being taken care of by a relative.

  I didn’t know how I felt about that. If we took Rhett captive and made him pay for his crimes against humanity, would there still be someone to take care of the baby? My guts twisted, and I tried to push the thought away. It wasn’t my problem, and yet my caring was what made me human. I wasn’t a Trad, and I couldn’t just disengage myself from my emotions.

  Whatever happened today, if I survived and was still a free woman by the end, I promised myself that I would track down the child and make sure it was with a family member who would raise it right.

  “We’re here,” Nad announced, drawing to a halt.

  I gazed up at the stairwell that led to the facility.

  “Everyone ready?” he asked.

  I swallowed my nerves. “As I’ll ever be.”

  “We won’t let anything happen to you, Tara,” Diarus said.

  I threw him a grateful smile.

  Miko hooked his arm around my shoulders and gave me a hug. “And we’ll make those sons of bitches pay.”

  With me sandwiched between Nad and Miko, and Diarus covering our backs, we climbed the stairs toward the door that led onto the bottom level of the facility. Memories of descending these same stairs those few weeks ago pummeled me. I’d been huge with the pregnancy, slow-going, and trying to ignore the jabs of pain that signaled the start of labor, convincing myself it was only back pain. I hadn’t trusted any of them then. Even though Nad had saved me from Rhett, and I’d shared some connections with Miko and Diarus, I hadn’t known what to think.

  We reached the top and stopped in front of the closed entrance.

  “Locked,” Nad declared as he tried the door.

  I hadn’t expected for us to just be able to walk right in.

  “What now?” I asked, keeping my voice low. I didn’t want anyone on the other side of the door to hear us.

  “We’ve got someone on the inside. He was supposed to have unlocked it by now.”

  “Can you contact them?” I asked.

  “The data pads don’t work this far underground.”

  “Shit.”

  We were stuck. If we couldn’t get through the door, we wouldn’t be able to access the facility through the tunnels. The only way we could play our part in taking down the facility was if we joined the others on ground level.

  “What now?” I asked.

  “Let’s just wait a moment,” Nad said. “There’s still time.”

  It felt strange to be just standing there, in the dark, waiting, but that was what we did. The minutes ticked by, and still there was no sign that this was going to happen. If the others started their attack and we were still stuck down here, we’d be no help at all.

  I opened my mouth to tell—

  A click sounded, and the door cracked open. We all froze, collective breath held. Just because the rebels had someone on the inside didn’t mean that was the person opening the door now. It could be one of Borys’s guards for all we knew. I was surprised we hadn’t had to fight anyone in the tunnels yet—they were clearly still busy in the city, though I was sure Borys would have demanded for security to be increased at the facility as well. He knew this facility would be the final target.

  Nadeusz must have known the Trad who opened the door. “Where have you been? We’ve been waiting?”

  He checked left and right, making sure the Trad was alone, and then stepped inside. We all followed. I vaguely recognized the Trad who’d opened the door. He hadn’t been one of those who’d been supervising us in the birthing ring, but I’d seen him pass down the corridor beyond a handful of times. He clearly played a role in keeping the facility running, though I didn’t know what. It had never occurred to me that there may have been other rebels working at the facility, but then I remembered how, after I’d given birth, rebels had brought the baby back here to be returned to Rhetarz.

  I shuddered at the memory.

  We slipped into the corridor beyond, each of us alert for any signs that we’d been spotted. The other teams would also be surrounding the building by now and should divert attention from us.

  Two Trads wearing the facility’s silver uniforms crossed the hallway ahead. They must have seen or sensed us there, as they turned and looked directly at us.

  Miko and Nad exchanged a glance.

  “Hey, what—” one of the Trads started to exclaim.

  They didn’t let them finish. Both Miko and Nad lifted their lasers, firing, and the Trads slumped to the floor.

  I couldn’t tear my eyes from the bodies. I didn’t want anyone to die, though I knew it was going to happen. This was war, and people died in battle.

  “You okay, Tara?” Diarus asked me.

  I turned to look into his deep-amber eyes. So calm, so intense, no matter what the situation. I always felt better when I had him beside me.

  “Yes. I will be.”

  He touched my elbow lightly with the tips of his fingers. “This is only the start.”

  I understood what he was saying. This was going to get a hell of a lot worse before it got better.

  We moved past the bodies, and I pressed myself against the wall, trying to put as much distance between them and myself as possible. The idea of a dead hand shooting out and grabbing me around the ankle played in my mind—too many hours spent watching horror movies when I was younger.

  I put some distance between myself and the dead Trads and risked glancing behind me. They were in exactly the same positions, just as they should be.

  The women were held on the first floor, and we were currently in the lowest level beneath them. The long passageway had doors and windows onto other rooms leading off it. We needed to reach the stairwell and ascend to the upper level.

  A thin wail of a cry reached my ears, and I drew to a sudden stop, icy fingers trailing down my spine.

/>   A baby’s cry.

  The sound was so distinctive, it immediately set my heart racing. The hairs on my arms and the back of my neck rose, and every sense instantly focused on the cry. Where was it coming from? Behind one of these windows or doors, I was sure.

  The others hadn’t noticed and had gone on ahead, but I stopped, instinctively following the noise. I’d forgotten about the danger and that we were somewhere we shouldn’t be. All I knew was that I had to find out where the crying was coming from.

  I stopped at one of the long windows which gave a view onto a room on the other side.

  I froze, my lungs refusing to work, as I stared through the glass.

  A walkway ran through the middle of the room. On either side of the walkway were a number of pens.

  A moan of dismay escaped my lips.

  Each of the pens contained a baby.

  No, no, no. This wasn’t what I’d imagined when I’d refused to see the baby I’d carried, when I’d sent it back to be with its father. I’d believed the child would be taken care of and loved, not...this. I could barely muster the words to describe what I was seeing.

  The babies lay in bassinettes. From the top of the pens, what could have been mistaken as hospital drips, but which I assumed contained a form of nutrients for the infants, ended in a rubbery nozzle close enough for them to find by twisting their heads, open mouths seeking.

  Movement came behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder to see the others had noticed I’d stopped and had come back for me. I looked to Nad and Miko.

  “Did you know?” I demanded, my voice hard. “Did you know this was how they’d be taken care of?”

  Nad shook his head. “No, I didn’t. I swear it.”

  I’d never have sent the baby back if I’d known it was going to be raised like this—like farm animals in a pen. No arms to hold it, or voice to sing it to sleep, or soothe it when it cried.

  “I need to get in there.”

  I searched for the door. There had to be one.

  “The baby,” I asked as I looked, “the one I gave birth to. Was it a boy or a girl?”

  Miko pressed his lips together and then answered. “It was a boy.”

  I think I’d known that, deep down. Maybe that was why I’d refused to let them tell me in the first place. It was what I’d feared most in many ways—a child who would remind me of Rhett and what he’d done to me. But now I saw that I couldn’t ignore this. This would be a new generation of Trads, all brought up without knowing a loving touch or a kind word. They’d be raised as an army who’d be taught that going out and taking what they wanted, with no thought to who they affected, was the only way to survive. If I turned away again, I’d be no better than Borys, and Rhetarz and the matron, and anyone else who’d played a part in this horror.

  I found the door, but it was locked, a barcode of some kind that needed to be scanned. I gestured to the Trad who’d let us into the building. “Open it.”

  He glanced nervously toward Nadeusz.

  Nad nodded. “Do what she says.”

  He stepped forward and scanned the keycard, and the door to the nursery slid open. I stepped inside, the crying instantly growing louder. The place smelled of wet diapers and stale milk, but that didn’t put me off. I counted twelve babies, though there were more empty pens farther down. So, not all of the newborns came here, some must have gone home with their fathers, or perhaps there were other places like this in the city that I hadn’t yet come across. There was the possibility that the child I’d given birth to wasn’t here, but every fiber of my soul screamed that he was. I’d been the one to send him here, after all, hadn’t’ I? I’d known Rhett would be back at the facility and so I’d given the baby to one of the rebels and sent him here as well. What had I thought would happen? Had I convinced myself that Rhett would give up his job and go home and take care of the baby full time? Yes, I guessed I had. He’d traveled to a different planet and had taken on the form of a different race, and then been involved in kidnapping to ensure this child would be born. I’d thought he would at least have cared for it.

  I moved along the line of pens. Above the cage doors were dockets containing slips of paper, each with a name written on them. I scanned each one, reading the names, my finger underlining the letters as I went.

  Rhetarz.

  I sucked in a breath and dropped my gaze to the baby lying on his back in the bassinette.

  He was no longer crying.

  He lifted a hand and pushed the knuckles of his fist into his little rosebud mouth. Wide, innocent blue eyes watched me, and he let out a gurgle. Bare legs, thighs already chubby, bicycled feet in the air.

  Regret, stronger than anything I’d experienced before, punched me in the chest. It opened a gaping hole inside me, making me dizzy with sudden vertigo, a desperate longing to go back and change how I’d acted. How could I have been so cruel? So heartless? I’d despised another alien race for treating humans as though we meant nothing—had no feelings or needs or desires of our own—and yet I hadn’t thought twice before doing the same to an innocent child who’d never asked to be born.

  The baby might not be mine genetically, but simply looking into his eyes had made me recognize him as my own. I remembered him moving inside my belly, feet pressing up under my ribcage and the rhythmical jolt of his hiccups. I remembered the way I’d felt like I was talking to him in my thoughts, the emptiness I’d experience after I’d given birth and then given him away.

  What the hell had I been thinking?

  I dropped to my knees, wrapping my fingers around the metal bars, seeking a catch to open the cage.

  Cage. That was what these were—cages. I’d been too kind in my thoughts of them being pens. Finding the catch, I popped the door open. I reached in and scooped him up in my arms. I barely saw the nubs of horns nestled within the golden curls of his hair, or cared about the way his tail wrapped around my forearm, in the same way his little fist found my finger and held on tight. I lowered my head and pressed my face to the crown of his head, inhaling the milky scent of him.

  “I’m sorry I sent you away.” My eyes filled with tears. “I’m so sorry. I thought you were going to be loved. I thought he would care for you.”

  I’d been wrong. So wrong. I didn’t know why I’d ever convinced myself that Rhett had the capacity within him to love. Maybe it had just been wishful thinking. I’d been traumatized, understandably, by what he’d put me through, and I hadn’t been able to contemplate the idea of keeping the child. He’d been an easy and obvious get-out clause.

  “Tara?”

  Nad’s deep voice came from behind me.

  I knew what he was going to say, and I held the baby tighter.

  “I... I can’t leave him now.”

  The weight of his hand found my shoulder. “You have to. We have to put an end to what’s been happening here. He’ll be safe in the meantime. I promise.”

  I gazed back down into the baby’s face. His little fists bumped against each other, and he mouthed one gummily. Nad was right.

  It broke my heart to place him back in the bassinette. “I’ll come back for you, I swear,” I told the child. “I just have to take care of something first.”

  I’d never experienced rage like it. Rhett had impregnated and kidnapped me, and he didn’t even give a shit about the child I’d given birth to.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I needed to focus on what we were trying to do here, but my thoughts and heart remained with the baby I’d placed back in the bassinette and all the babies around him.

  “This way.” Miko lead us back out into the corridor and down toward the stairwell which led to the upper floors.

  I was surprised we hadn’t seen more Trads. Perhaps they’d gotten a glimpse of the other rebels approaching from the desert surrounding the building, and that had distracted them from the possibility of us accessing the place from a different level. Or maybe they knew exactly where we were, and were coming along right behind us?

&n
bsp; Somewhere in the building, sirens sounded.

  Miko, who was still leading the way, glanced over his shoulder. “It’s started.”

  My heart rate jumped again, my mouth running dry. Now the fighting would begin, and at the end, there would either be us or them. There was no in between. I thought of all the women who’d been attached to their pods and would be terrified, with no idea of what was happening. I needed to get to them and reassure them that things would be okay. I hoped I wouldn’t be lying when I did.

  We picked up our pace. The guys, with their longer legs, pressed on ahead, and I hurried to keep up.

  A booom, distant, but strong enough to vibrate the foundations, sounded. From somewhere in the building, someone yelled, and another voice joined the cry.

  Borys must have sent his guards here. He knew there was a high chance of us attacking, considering we’d already taken out his other facilities. Those teams that were moving in above ground—Aleksy and Zoe, and the others—would have come head to head with them by now. I prayed they’d be all right. I hated the possibility of losing any of them, but people would die tonight. The only way to prevent that from happening was to retreat, and there was no chance that was going to happen. Not now. We were already too far into this.

  My thoughts went to the baby I’d left on the lower level. And all the other babies with him. I couldn’t let them be raised in that way. We had to win this thing. I wasn’t sure what would happen next, but no more women would be held captive in this place, and no more babies would be born to be kept in cages, I’d make sure of it.

  From out of nowhere, a hand covered my mouth from behind, a strong arm locking across my chest, yanking me backward before I even had the chance to scream. I was pulled off my feet, my heels dragging, my cries muffled against my captor’s palm. The small amount of noise I did make was drowned out by the sirens. My body instinctively recognized who’d grabbed me before the rest of me did. His scent, the taste of his skin as I tried to bite his hand.

  The alarms had muffled my abduction, the others continuing, clueless. I fought like a wild thing, thrashing and kicking out behind me, but he was too strong. He’d always been too strong.