by Gillian Zane
“But we are good, right? What changed?”
“You know what changed.” I kept my voice low so no one could hear us.
“Miley, we’ll work it out, that’s—” I held up my hand to stop him. I didn’t want to hear “it will all be okay.” I knew this wasn’t going to be okay. I knew this was all going to blow-up in my face. I was carrying a child. I was going to have to put my life at risk while I was pregnant. It was the most screwed up scenario I could think of. How was I going to fight a war, all while carrying a child? And the way this worked itself out, I knew this was how it was supposed to happen. Fucking fate. It would seem these gods and goddesses had some kind of plan for me, and even worse, probably for this child.
I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t put myself in this situation. Set-up for so much loss. Who would I lose? Zeke? The baby? Myself? I didn’t know what would hurt the worst. So, I would take myself out of the equation. I would make the choice myself.
“Stop. I’ll be back, give me space.” I slipped under his arm and out onto the front porch. I had things to do.
43
There was no way to hide anything from Miley. She could read my thoughts, read me, she had to know what I planned to do. I couldn’t let her go off on her own. It was too dangerous. I grabbed the keys to the truck and followed behind her, waiting for her to get a good distance and think she had made an escape. Then I tracked her. I knew where she was, I knew where she went. I could feel her in my soul, her despair ripped through me like a physical illness. I couldn’t let myself slip. I couldn’t let myself be taken over by her emotions.
I followed her through the back roads. We went through the city. I don’t know if she knew I followed her, I didn’t get close enough that she could recognize the truck. I followed the feeling of her, catching glances of her vehicle every now and again through the plants that hugged the road. I concentrated so hard on her that I didn’t realize she had stopped until I almost passed her up. The SUV was parked at the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. The only thing in the area was a tall water tower that stretched into the sky.
“Oh please, no.” I looked up and saw her small shape scaling to the top of the tower in record speed. Heights weren’t my thing. Not my thing at all. I tried to get a read on her intentions, but there was a wall up. She had realized I was behind her. She had caught on to me chasing her and somehow figured out how to keep me out of her soul. She was the only one I could read like this, and now she had pushed me out. Because she was afraid. She was terrified.
What was she planning to do because of that fear? I didn’t think she would do anything to harm herself, or was that just me being optimistic? My anxiety spiked as I put my hand on the ladder. The water tower had to be five hundred feet high. I began to climb. I didn’t focus on the ground below me or the railing above me. I focused on Miley.
“Go away, Zeke,” her words carried over the wind. I ignored them and continued to climb. “I know you’re afraid of heights. Just leave me be.” Her voice sounded strained. I increased my pace, hand over hand, one foot, the next foot. I didn’t look down. I didn’t look up, I concentrated on my current position, until I didn’t have a hand hold. I had gotten to the catwalk that ran around the tower. Miley sat to the side, her legs dangling over the grate that circled the tower. I did this unmanly butt scoot thing to get myself onto the catwalk and next to Miley, then looked over at her. She appeared to be holding back laughter.
“Are you laughing at me?” I was a little upset. Scratch that, I was kind of pissed. She had run off like a lunatic, climbed up a damn tower, forced me to chase her, and she was laughing at me. Not so nice words were buzzing around in my head.
“No.” she kept her lips pressed together so tight they were turning white.
“What the hell, Miley?”
“I came here to be alone.”
“You ran off. I could feel your desperation. Then you climbed a tower, you know, something you could fall off. While you might be slightly suicidal. I was supposed to just be like, sure, okay, let her be alone.” I was out of breath from the death-defying climb.
“I needed to think. I can think up here.” A tear streamed down her cheek. I wanted to wipe it away, but I didn’t know how she would react to me touching her.
“Remember what happened when I ran off to think,” I said it sort of under my breath, but she heard me and sighed. “If anything happened to you, I don’t know—”
“Yeah, I know, same here, Zeke, and I don’t know how I feel about that. I’m in this engineered relationship—”
“Engineered?” I cut her off, because that hit below the belt. Is that what she felt about us?
“Yeah, Zeke, you don’t think we were manipulated to be together? To create this,” she grabbed her stomach.
“Miley, that’s—”
“It is, Zeke, even the father said it. The Creator has a cruel sense of humor. I have the father's powers, you have the mother’s power, and now we’re creating life ourselves. This was the goal, for me to carry this child, and for what? Is my child’s fate set out before them? Before even its birth?”
“Miley, I think you are giving these beings too much credit.” I tried to reach for her hand, but she pulled away.
“I think we know nothing of these beings, but the things we do know point to them being manipulative and capricious.”
“So, you think what we have between us, you think it’s engineered, that it’s just me being manipulated to —” my words were lost for a second another set of words wanting to come out, but it was too soon for that. She would think it was engineered. Fate. “Want you?” I finished with instead.
“Our powers attract each other, that’s all I can think.” She looked absently at her hands.
“You think what I feel for you is only because of your powers?”
“Lust isn’t that hard to manufacture, Zeke.”
“If you think all this is between us is lust, you haven’t been paying attention.” She gave me a cross look, a frown pulling her eyebrows together and her mouth in a little pucker.
“Isn’t that all it is? All we want to do is fuck,” she sighed, her shoulders drooping.
“Yes, I want to fuck you. All the time, yes. But I also want to touch you. I want to watch you while you work in the garden. I want to listen to you speak. I want to hear that snarky tone you get when you think I'm being all geek boy. I want to marvel at your perseverance in this madness, and take strength in your courage, feel insecure because I’m not as strong as you, but I’m still going to protect you. And I want to sleep beside you every night and make a life with you even through all this bullshit…” I watched her face to see if there was any kind of reaction. She stared at me, open mouthed, in shock but excitement fluttered through her chest. “And I want to fall in love with you. But, I'm pretty sure I'm already there.”
She cried out, a broken sound, and this time, I grabbed for her, pulling her to my side.
“I told you this before, and I meant it. If this is engineered, if we were pushed together, I don’t care because I have never felt like this before. You’re my entire world now, Miley. And I want you to be my world. And now, with this baby—” I choked a bit on the words, not from fear but just because I had voiced it, making it more real. “I didn’t realize I was missing so much in my life, and now I have it. Don’t trivialize it, because this isn’t forced on me. I want this, I want you, I want you as my family.” She pressed her head to my chest, her body shaking in silent sobs.
“We’re in a war, though, Zeke. You might lose me, I might lose—” Her voice broke, and her arm slipped around me pulling me closer.
“We won’t. There is no way we can lose if we are together. I believe that is why we were drawn to each other, not because of some manipulation, but because together we can defeat her. That is the kind of Universe I wish to live in, not one that forces hands for sadistic pleasure, but one that sees the greatest possible outcome and gives you a little push toward it.”
“You can’t know that.” Her cries had slowed, but she didn’t look up at me.
“I can hope. With all my heart I can hope. Miley, if this were normal times, if we would have met in a bar, and there was a high probability that I would be in a motorcycle crash, would you end our relationship because of that possibility?”
“No, but this is more tangible.” She sat up, pushing away from me. “This is a war, Zeke. That means people are going to die. People that we recruit. It could be you, it could be me. What would you do if I died?”
“I would be destroyed, but I’m not going to push you away because it might happen. I’m going to make every moment with you count. Every time I can touch you, I will, every second you are near me, I will appreciate it. Every single moment I will celebrate. And I will have faith that we will make it through this, because nothing in this world is set in stone.”
“I’m so stupid.” She fell against my chest again, and I startled, not feeling safe in the position I was in. Why did she have to come up here?
“You’re not stupid, Miley, you’re scared. I’m scared too. Now, there is a new level of fear now that you’re carrying our baby. But don’t let your fear push me away.”
“Our baby,” she sighed with those words.
“Our baby, it’s crazy, and faster than I expected, but it happened, and we will do everything in our power to protect it. I’ll be right by your side, Miley. No matter what. You know that, right?”
“I do, yeah, I do.” She nodded her head still pressed to my chest.
“I meant what I said, I’m falling in—hell, I'm in love with you.” She looked up at me, but didn’t say anything, those big brown eyes blinking up at me. I started to sweat. It was creeping up on noon, and the days were soaring over ninety degrees.
“Give me time, Zeke,” she whispered the words, and they sat heavy on my chest. She didn’t want to be in this situation with me. That was it. It wasn’t about me, it was about the world we were living within. I had to keep telling myself, those words. If not, I would find myself climbing up a tower as well.
44
Zeke had climbed up all these steps to confront me. With a fear of heights. It was easier getting down than it was going up, at least for him. Since we left in different vehicles, I would have to drive home alone. I was still reeling, my mind racing a mile a minute, this time with new words and feelings. I was scared, Zeke was right, I was scared shitless. I didn’t want to lose him. I didn’t want to be a mother during this crazy time.
“Miley.” He grabbed my hand and turned me around, pressing me to his chest before I could get to my vehicle. I let my arms find hold around him. He was losing weight; I had noticed I was as well. We weren’t getting enough carbs. Slipping his hand under my chin, he forced me to look up at him. I couldn’t believe he had been so patient with me, let me basically throw a tantrum, and he hadn’t even raised his voice, all he had done was profess his love for me.
I didn’t deserve him. I didn’t deserve the trust he was putting in me. He called me strong and courageous, but I wasn’t, I was a weak little worm.
“You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known.” He slipped his hand into mine and brought it to his lips. Our power flowed back and forth, everything he felt in that connection. And I felt it. I felt the love. The admiration. The fear of losing me.
“I don’t know if I can do this.” I didn’t mean us, I meant them. The five people sitting in my dining room discussing what we were going to do next.
“You can, we can. We’ll do this together.”
“Together,” I nodded. I wanted to tell him those words that he craved, that he needed to alleviate his own insecurities, but I couldn’t. Not yet. I didn’t know my own feelings right now.
“It’s okay, let’s go make some battle plans.” He tugged my hand slightly; it was evident he was also getting the influx of my feelings as well. Maybe he could make sense out of them, I couldn’t. I had had enough of feelings today. I had let them overwhelm me. I had let them cause so much fear. It was time to keep them in check. It was time to make plans. We had a job to do. We had a battle to plan.
We were close to the clearing. Closer than we had gotten before. We had scouted for days, coming out here every day this week, getting closer and closer, not encountering anyone. I had feared that maybe the mother had moved her plant; this area didn’t feel like it had the last time we had been out here. Now it felt old and angry, the bitter taste of Earth in my mouth and tongue. The residue of the mother thick in the trees had become so distasteful for me as I became more and more like the father, and I responded to Zeke’s powers instead. Sky and Soil powers the father had called them, beaming at us like we were his favored children the last time he had visited to inform us that he had four more of his followers coming our way in a couple of days.
I revved the engine and gunned it, knowing exactly where this damn plant was and knowing just what guarded it. Four-legged beasts prowled the edges, their teeth and claws no match for the ammunition we were loaded with. Zeke and I had brought members of our group that knew how to shoot, sans Mason, who would stay at the house and guard Lily and Melissa. The girls had wanted to come with us but neither were familiar with hand guns and neither of them had developed powers. I would not risk them and I didn't want them here where they could get hurt or distract us. Flynn insisted he was a good shot, and we decided to let him prove it; we needed as much help as possible.
“Get ready, they’re waiting for us, two wolves and a bear.”
“A bear?” Flynn screamed over the noise of the machines. We had told him about the wolves, so he was prepared, but a bear was new.
“A bear,” I acknowledged. I glanced over my shoulder at Zeke. He was ready.
The mother's beasts charged through the woods, on the defensive, flooding strong and quick from the clearing. The wolves were two gray bullets in the dawn light, the same ones from before, the mated pair. They went for Flynn first, one taking him down off the bike as its paws came in contact with his chest. I was off my own machine in seconds, running to Flynn’s side, but stopped by the incoming pounding of footsteps on the loamy ground behind me. It was huge, a bear like nothing found in the swamps of Louisiana. This bear was something you would find in Alaska; its thick fur probably stifling in this heat. He was another one of her shape shifters. A man was in there. A human. I aimed the rifle that had been over my shoulder, and I fired. The gun was loud, but the shot did nothing. I aimed again, this time for the head. It moved in a straight line, and I was balanced, so I was dead center. A human couldn’t walk away from a 5.56 SS-109 armor piercing bullet. Neither could a bear. The bear fell and began to shift into a human. That was almost too easy.
I turned, looking for the other wolf. It lay on the ground near Zeke, who was getting up and brushing himself off, looking around in panic. When his eyes met mine, the relief was palpable as his face relaxed. There would be one more wolf. We found the animal nearby with its teeth at Flynn’s neck, blood trickling from the arm he pushed at the heavy animal with. Liam had his gun pointed at the wolf, but it was using its teeth like a gun to the head. Its stance said it was about to kill Flynn.
“The moment you kill him, you’ll be dead.” My voice was steady, even though I was screaming on the inside. I barely knew Flynn; he had just come to Silence, but I couldn’t lose anyone on my team. Funny how it had become my team so quickly after I had accepted the responsibility. The wolf growled at me. Its head lowered, so none of us could get off a good shot. Its eyes darted to me and Liam. But never were its eyes on the man beneath him. Not until it was too late, not until he had his own gun in just the right position, and Flynn fired. I had armed Flynn with a 9mm, so it didn’t do much more than push the wolf off him allowing him to roll away from the snapping teeth. Enough time for Liam, dressed in his military camouflage, to get close and block Flynn from another attack. The wolf lunged, and Liam kicked hard, bringing his rifle up and firing point blank as the wolf charged.
I wasn’t a hunter, I didn’t like the act of killing things, not that I was against it, just the act didn’t sit well with me. Death. Not something I liked chasing. My hands still shook from the bear, which was now a naked, dead man on the ground. Liam didn’t hesitate, though. He was like a machine as Zeke and I stood to the side cringing at the carnage that occurred at such a fast pace.
“Do you sense anything else?” Liam yelled.
I held my hand up, closing my eyes to concentrate on the surrounding area. I sensed nothing, but that didn’t alleviate Zeke’s anxiety. He could sense something I couldn't.
“The plants, watch out. I’m trying to hold them back, but she has total control over some. Get the gas.” His voice was strained, pushing me to hurry. I jumped onto my ATV, unhooking the extra gas tank that we had packed onto all the machines. I drove it into the clearing, with Liam not that far behind me. I started dumping the gas on every bit of green in the clearing. The plant at its center looked like something out of a science fiction novel, like the alien from Little Shop of Horrors. Huge and reaching, the vines of the plant grew in every direction. They crawled up the surrounding trees, creeped over the grass, and tangled with anything it could touch. Large purple flowers sprouted on every surface, their pollen the reason for all the problems in the world. Flynn limped into the clearing behind us, chopping away the huge vines that stretched away from the main plant with a large knife.
When the vines began to move, defending themselves, Flynn screamed as one wrapped around his leg and squeezed. He chopped at it, and it fell away.
“They have thorns, or something,” he called, plucking at his injured leg.
“Quick, move quick,” Liam ordered. I poured the gas onto the main plant as vines moved around me, one wrapping around my waist and yanking me down, making me drop the gas can. The pain was excruciating as thorns embedded themselves into my flesh, tearing through my clothes like paper. I had worn thick jeans and a long-sleeved shirt that protected me some, but the thorns were too thick, too sharp. I slapped at my side, looking for the knife I had stupidly kept in my pocket. By moving my arm, I had gotten it entangled with the vines and pressed to my side. I protectively cupped my stomach where that tiny speck of life was taking shape, but was I doing it more harm by pressing my hand there? Shit, I couldn’t move, and it was squeezing harder, like a boa constrictor. I was as good as dead as it wrapped around my chest and squeezed.