by Sara Kincaid
I tried to keep my mind blank and keep as much of the fear he wished to see in me at bay. With no earth to grasp onto, I could not dig my toes into the soil and find relief. The prison that held me was much more than my enemy could ever imagine. I was alone.
I could not get more energy to heal myself, unless I was able to steal it from Kade himself. His life energy pulsed before me, as much of a torment as the lacerations he etched into my flesh. But no matter where he moved, he was never close enough for me to touch with my bare skin and thus he might as well have been miles away. Finally, blessedly, I lost consciousness.
When I woke, I was caressed by silence and found myself crumpled on the floor. A sob escaped my throat in a gasp and echoed down the corridor. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I realized I was in the same holding wing where I had been placed before my Pop test. Metal walls and floors greeted me, offering a distorted reflection of myself. My dark hair was knotted and my eyes were swollen. My clothes were covered in dark stains. Slowly I tried to move my arms and legs and winced in pain. I felt the tender scabs tear as I bent my arm and pushed myself into a sitting position.
The floor was smeared with blood and I tried to clear my swimming head. Instinctively, I pulled into myself, drawing my awareness inward in search of comfort. I started when I recognized the gentle lilt of an Aquae Curare beside me. I opened my eyes and turned to my left and recognized the prone woman from my last imprisonment in this wing. Though I was unsure how many days had passed since my initial capture and Pop test, I was surprised to see her lying on the floor, her back to me. Her breathing was labored and shallow and I wondered if she’d moved at all since I’d last been there.
Painfully, I dragged myself across the floor to our shared barred wall and reached for her prone form. Her back was to the hallway, which meant her smooth face and wan features faced me. I reached tentatively through the bars and brushed the back of my hand across her bangs, smoothing her blonde, unkempt hair out of her face. When my hand made contact with her skin, she fussed and shied away from me. “It’s okay,” I cooed softly. “I won’t hurt you.” The movement caused my shredded body to scream in protest but the instant connection with another Curare calmed me.
She opened her eyes, her gaze wild and fearful until she focused on my face. “I know you,” she whispered. “I’ve seen you before.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “Yes, I’ve been captive here before. What happened to you?”
Tears dripped down her face and her mouth opened in a silent cry of sorrow. “They took everything,” she whispered before dissolving into tears again. “Somehow I used my ability to heal him and still they took it from me.”
I gripped her shoulder in support. “What do you mean? What did they take?” I tried to imagine what she had lost. It was more than her freedom. Her abilities? Something else? I tried to console her, but the frail woman shuddered and sobbed freely once more. “Please tell me. I want to help,” I pleaded. “Has he hurt you? I can heal you!” Suddenly, desperately, I wanted to give this woman my energy, to heal her wholly inside and out. I was going to die anyway, so I might as well speed up the process. My thoughts were wild and desperate.
“No! Please. I can’t.” She took in my bloodied form, her eyes trailing along the gashes in my flesh. “You can heal?” Recognition lit in her eyes. Somehow she’d heard of me, even in this deep prison.
“Yes!” I cried fervently, no longer caring if Kade knew the truth. My arms shook with the effort of holding up my body and my head swam with the loss of blood.
“Please, I can’t take any more.” She sobbed. “Don’t let him come for me again. Free me,” she begged instead. Compassion clutched my heart and I blinked, trying to maintain consciousness, but I lost the strength to respond. The woman rushed to her knees and clutched my shirt in her hands, holding me up, her eyes wild. “Please save me. He’s taken everything!” She withdrew her right hand and lifted her shirt, revealing two small incision scars on either side of her lower abdomen. He was going to try to breed Curare himself in a test tube. Her shirt slid back down, obscuring her torso once more and I felt a tugging at my neck. “What’s this?” she asked, inspecting my necklace. I was surprised that it was still there after my encounter with Kade. She gasped, her suspicions confirmed. “They said you’d come.”
“What?” I blinked, my eyes foggy.
“Help me get away from here.” I looked up at her, barely registering her words. “Do it! Before he can take anything else from me. Set me free.” She could see that I didn’t understand so she held up her own wrist and around it, attached to a hemp thong, was the small wooden figurine of a bird, a phoenix in flight.
“Where did you get that?” I mumbled. “How…” My thoughts swirled. How did she know about my abilities? Where did she come from?
“He will be back for me again soon. Please...” She began to cry, her tears trailing down her nose as she knelt over me. My legs had collapsed again and I was all but lying on the floor. “I miss the water so much,” she gasped. Finally, she took my hands in her own, and in spite of myself I could feel the rich energy pulsing in her veins, although she was weak already and her body had been mangled by Kade in ways that extended beyond his stealing the eggs from her womb.
I gazed up at her, her face floating in and out of focus. “Do it,” she begged once more. Finally, I gave in. I drank in her energy, my body quivering at the feel of her life force as it flooded my starving form. Though she didn’t have much to offer me, I felt myself reenergized. I was careful not to heal the wounds in my flesh, but I felt the weakness caused by the loss of blood begin to recede.
As I drew from her, the woman began to fade. Her heartbeat began to slow and her breathing became shallow. Her eyes became glassy and she sank shakily to the floor. The mysterious Aquae Curare’s energy flowed through me like a river. I felt the pulse of her life as it raced through my veins, clasping onto the gentle song of her blood, even as her own red river of life slowed and her body filled with darkness. I cradled her head in my hands and cut our connection after seeing her softly to the ground. Tears for this Curare and Leo flooded my cheeks and grief twisted my spine.
I moved away from the wall where our two cells met and resumed my curled position on the floor. After a few minutes, I heard a bustle of guards rushing down the hallway and knew that my miserable companion was now on the brink. I hoped for her sake that she would die in peace.
“Hurry! Unlock the door!” One guard cried at another who was busily tapping at a keypad on the wall near the entrance. After a few failed attempts, the guard punched the correct code and the other, a thin man with pursed lips, flung the door open and plunged to his knees at the side of the prone prisoner. In a gesture of compassion, he smoothed the blonde woman’s hair from her face. I watched, my eyes hidden beneath my own mass of spiky hair, and looked on in wonder as I realized that the Curare’s flesh was unblemished. Unlike the soldier I had stolen energy from before, her flesh was smooth. The wrinkled bodies of the animals I had accidentally killed as a child and the image of Maric’s shriveled arm were all evidence of my power. What was different about the woman who had just given me her life?
The second guard, a petite woman with red hair, followed the man into the cell and knelt beside him. She took a pack from her shoulder and opened it, digging around inside for tools. She was about to attach a defibrillator to the Curare’s chest when the other guard blocked her reach and shook his head. “It’s too late. She’s already gone. She’s suffered enough. Let her go on in peace.”
The woman dropped the cords of the machine and clasped her hands in her lap. “Of course, sir.”
I stayed quiet, hoping to avoid notice, and watched over the course of the next few hours as the body was recovered and taken away, the cell cleaned. All evidence of the Curare was gone, except for the surge of power that lived in my body. For once, I did not feel guilty. Remorse did not bite at my conscien
ce; and as the energy of the other prisoner coursed through me, I felt my soul harden with resolve.
Time passed slowly and I shifted my position, finally sitting up. My thoughts drifted to Trayvor, Nita and Micah. I had no idea how long I’d been imprisoned, and I hoped they would wonder what had become of me. I examined the gashes Kade had inflicted, my limbs now stiff. He wouldn’t forget about me. I knew that this was far from over.
I’m not sure how long it was until Kade summoned me to his chambers once again. Every few hours a guard would look in on me and each time it was a new person I didn’t recognize. So, I began to track the time by the appearance of my captors.
When they finally unlocked the door to my cell, I had witnessed six different guard changeovers, so I guessed it had been about two days; though I had slept intermittently, so the true lapse of time was unknown. Luckily I didn’t require food, since no one bothered to feed me. At some point while I slept, someone had left behind a pitcher of water that I drank thirstily after I awoke.
“You’re in luck,” he virtually sang as he waltzed into the room. His hair was a wild shock of gray on his head, though his step held bounce and I thought perhaps he appeared younger than he had during our previous encounter. I shifted uncomfortably in the metal chair. I had been trussed, my arms wrenched painfully behind my back, which caused some of my wounds to reopen and leak, and dragged back into Kade’s chamber some time ago.
“Oh really?” I shot back, my tone thick with sarcasm. My energy was high and I felt sure and ready.
He jolted to a stop, his hand rising dramatically to his cheek. “Eureka! She speaks! It seems our little encounter from the other day has worked its magic.” He dragged a chair across the floor until he was right in front of me, the metal on metal sound grating my ears. “Now, we know you can heal. We have audio of you talking with Alette about healing her. Though, I suppose you didn’t, since she died anyway.”
I was surprised that he knew her name, though the callous shrug of his shoulders didn’t leave me with any questions about how he felt about her. She was nothing more than a tool to him. Had I been in more control of my senses, I likely wouldn’t have mentioned my ability to heal, but at that moment, I had been beside myself. “You won’t get anything from me,” I growled at him, struggling against my bonds.
“Oh, we’ll see about that. It seems you’re memory is quite short. I have ways of making you talk. Don’t you worry. I’ve been doing this a long time.” He leaned back in his chair and the light caught his hair. I noticed it seemed more silver than white. “I have been around you Curare for a long time and I’ve learned quite a bit about your abilities, more than the bunch of you seem to know about yourselves. You see, Alette was a fortunate Aquae Curare. She was healing me, in a way.”
“Curare can’t heal!” I yelled. “You’re delusional.”
“Yes. But you can,” he mused, his lips puckered with satisfaction. “Alette couldn’t heal a wound like it seems you have done. But she was healing me. Humans are about seventy percent water, right? It was working, too.”
My stomach lurched and I tasted bile. I gave a growl of frustration and swung violently from my perch, rocking the chair back and forth. It screeched, metal on metal, grating against my ears. “That’s sickening. She killed herself healing you!”
Kade crossed his arms in front of his chest, unamused by my display. The fabric of his lab coat hissed as it rubbed against his clothes. “Her loss is regrettable. I had more to glean from her. But, no matter. I have harvested her reproductive cells and will make attempts. Perhaps one will stick.”
“You can’t treat people this way!” I roared.
“I can do whatever I want. The people of the City trust me and have done so since you creatures first appeared. Bram made poor choices. Things could have been so different. Instead, he chose the coward’s route.”
“The coward’s route? He was murdered in the street!” I strained against my bonds, but only succeeded in ripping open my poorly healed wounds. My mouth opened in a silent howl of pain and the harsh lights danced in my eyes.
“Don’t you think I could have stopped the attack if I had wanted to? That the mayor could have stopped it if he saw fit? Think about it, Vea. You’re clearly a clever girl. But while Bram was a good scientist, he was also in possession of that irritable conscience.”
“Bram was a martyr,” I seethed, my eyes alight with rage.
Kade let my response hang in the air. “It’s clear that we’re not going to see eye to eye. I think perhaps it’s time to step things up a bit. Since you won’t voluntarily share your abilities, I’m going to have to force you.”
“You weren’t able to force me before,” I growled.
Ignoring my remark, Kade walked to his desk and hit a button. “Bring in the Curare, please.” A few moments later, the door to Kade’s quarters swung open and an elderly woman was wheeled into the room. Her skin was leathery and her eyes rheumy. She blinked as she was wheeled into the bright light that shone down on my face. “Vea, I’d like you to meet Annel. I believe you might be familiar with each other.”
I looked up from the floor and drank in the sight of my aunt. Her presence drowned my rage, snuffing it like a candle. I saw what my mother would have looked like in her old age, spine curved by hard work and unrelenting heat. My mouth was round with shock even as my stomach plummeted with anticipation. On Annel’s wrinkled left arm, I saw the etching of the Aquae Curare mark, now faded, with colors blending together. When my aunt’s eyes met my own, hers filled with tears and she began to sob in earnest. “Aunt,” I began. But I had no words to offer in apology. I knew from my mother that Annel’s greatest fears would be for me to be discovered, for she herself had endured all that every Curare had and would never wish it on her kin.
“Since you won’t show me your ability to heal on your own person, then you can heal your aunt.” In one swift movement, he grabbed Annel’s wrist and jammed his scalpel into her abdomen. Blood flowed immediately. My aunt grew pale and gave a strangled cry. “She’s worked hard, this one. You can tell by how much she has aged over the years. I hate for things to end this way,” he reasoned. Blood spurted on his lab coat, leaving behind a precious bloom of red. Annel covered the wound with her other hand, trying to staunch the bleeding. The wound was small, but deep.
I cried out and reached for my aunt, my tears escalating as my movements were hindered by the shackles that bound me to the chair. “What’s it to be, Vea? You aren’t just going to let your aunt suffer and die are you?” I tugged in vain at the bonds that held me, another sob catching in my throat. “Why don’t you heal her? You can fix this, right?”
Finally, I cried out. “I have to touch her to heal her! Unchain me!” Another sob wracked its way through my body. “Hurry! Before it’s too late.”
Kade obliged and quickly freed me from the handcuffs. “By all means.” He crossed his arms over his chest and watched.
Freed of the metal cuffs, I stumbled forward and laid my hands upon her. Quickly, I reached down into myself and called upon the energy within me, not caring how much it took out of me to heal her and knowingly choosing to heal her instead of taking out my enemy. I brought it forth with strength and forced it into her body. I called to mind the great rushing growth of the bamboo weed and applied its quick generation to my aunt’s skin, willing it to knit and close the wound in her stomach. After a few moments, the wound was no more and I held my aunt’s hands in my own, my head bowed and our flesh united and drenched in her blood. “Aunt,” I whispered, my eyes filling with tears, and another great sob surged forth from my gut.
As the wound closed and her pain subsided, Annel put a bloodied hand on my head. I closed my eyes, accepting her silent blessing and also, her sorrow. I couldn’t tell her that her sister and brother-in-law were gone, that it was my fault. Instead, I grasped tightly to her sleeve.
“We don’t have time for t
his.” Kade pushed the button at his desk once again and three guards quickly entered the room. “Bring her to the operating table. We have work to do.” I stood as if to flee. “Don’t even think about it. You don’t want anything to happen to your aunt now, do you?” My face fell. “That’s what I thought. And you’re going to do just as I ask, right? Or else we’ll have to play this little game once again.”
I bowed my head in defeat.
Bram,
Phoenix is walking now. His little legs wobble, but he is strong and he loves the land. West Farm is good for him. He has taken to it as I imagine you must have when you were a child. He digs his hands into the earth, squatting next to your father in the thick heat, coaxing blooms from the impossible seeds.
The CPA has built a compound somewhere in No Man’s Land. I don’t dare venture out of West Farm for fear of discovery. But, I expect that before long, Phoenix, Zane and I will need to find somewhere new to hide.
The tide is turning against Cuare, even on the farms where most of them are discovered. Somehow, the CPA has started using Pop to identify them. More have died in result of their work healing the farmlands. Pop does something to them that activates their abilities. I’m not clear on the science as they aren’t releasing a lot of details. But I hear gossip from the neighbors. They grow eager to find Curare themselves for the CPA has promised great rewards for anyone who turns one in and terrible punishment for those who keep them hidden. I worry about their future and that they will become slaves.
Don’t worry. Phoenix is safe. This is the future you feared, isn’t it?
Aster
Chapter 16
The energy required to heal my aunt’s wound and some of the destruction from her life as a prisoner and a slave of the CPA left me feeling dizzy and lightheaded. My brain was fogged and the guards took advantage of my weakness, grabbing me by the wrists and dragging me back to the table. I blinked painfully against the harsh light streaming down and, as my senses returned, I lectured myself for not taking advantage of my brief freedom. I could have sucked them dry in a matter of moments, had I chosen to do so.