Death Thieves

by Julie Wright

  “One moment.” Professor Raik’s voice called out. “I brought you here. I should see to it that you return home safely.”

  Brianna released my arm and smiled at Professor Raik with utter adoration. “Why, that is very kind of you, sir.” Brianna gushed and fawned over the professor a moment more before Jeremy dragged her off.

  They were gone before I could think of anything to say to keep them with me.

  Professor Raik made hurried good-byes to a few select guests and took me by the elbow, leading me back to the front of his house where his car waited.

  His driver was already seated in the front, appearing to have not left in the few hours we’d been inside. Professor Raik looked at the driver and an opaque divider went up between the front and the back.

  Panic.

  The car took off into the air. Professor Raik sat across from me, his eyes sharp and hungry like a hawk staring at a small rabbit. After several minutes, I almost relaxed, thinking he only meant to intimidate me—which he had. But surely he couldn’t touch me. I was a New Youth. He was diseased. It was his own law. Of course he wouldn’t break his own law.

  I told myself these lies until he moved from sitting across from me to sitting next to me.

  “You have no intentions of marrying,” he said.

  “Of course I do. I’m still really young. I have lots of time to decide on stuff like that.” The tremor in my voice revealed my fear.

  He smiled and reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “I make you nervous.” A statement—not a question. I didn’t respond but automatically inched away toward the window. Really, if I jumped, would it kill me? Maybe I’d only break my legs. Or maybe I’d fall on something soft.

  His arm wrapped around my shoulder while his other hand went to my leg.

  I kept my knees locked together, wishing I’d worn jeans instead of a skirt.

  He used my leg to pull me away from the door and closer to him. “I won’t hurt you,” he whispered.

  I wished desperately for that to be true. Don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt me. I wished Aunt Theresa was here in this time with me. She’d kill any man who even allowed the thought of anything inappropriate to cross his mind. And if anyone ever had hurt me, she’d have hunted him down and killed him a hundred different ways.

  But Aunt Theresa was dead a hundred years ago. And Tag was too far away and entirely helpless when it came to the professor. I had no protectors.

  Professor Raik’s lips fell upon mine. My teeth ground together hard—my entire body clenched tight like a fist. His hand moved up my thigh, demanding, claiming.

  NO! I screamed inside my head. Please No!

  Winter and I protected each other from this sort of thing. And yet here was the very man who had managed to separate us. He’d managed to get me alone where I had no protection, where no one would save me.

  No one could save me but me.

  I bit down on his lip, hard enough that when he yanked his head back in reaction to the pain, his lip tore in my teeth. I spit and almost threw up at the metallic taste of blood—like I’d been sucking on a dirty penny. I tried to scoot back toward the window, but his hand on my leg prevented me from moving. “No!” I said.

  “I promised not to hurt you,” he said, pressing a clean white handkerchief at his mouth. He lowered his face to mine again, his breath hot against my cheek. “I should’ve made you promise not to hurt me.”

  My breath stuttered out in spurts; my eyes tracked his every move so that I was prepared to block any further advance.

  Professor Raik smiled, the blood giving his teeth a pink shine. “Of course, you can’t hurt me. Not really. I am powerful, Miss Rae. You need to understand that. I hold the nations by a chain. They all want what I have to offer them in the New Youth. I have wealth greater than anyone in all the nations because of my arrangements with the regents. Why should I not get for myself what I’ve given them? I gave them futures in the New Youth; why deny myself a future?” His eyes searched over me as if I was a possession. “But I won’t force you, Summer.”

  He called me by my first name, stripping me of the politeness in referring to me as Miss Rae.

  “Just remember the power I have—the world and future I could offer you.” He breathed in deeply at my neck before straightening. “But I won’t force you. Someday—someday soon I’d imagine, you will come and ask me. You want to save this people. To save them, you’ll need power. Power I have. You’ll need me. You will desire me. All you have to do is ask.”

  He removed his hand.

  I scooted back as soon as he released me. He smiled, taking note of the blood staining his handkerchief. He folded it neatly and put it back in his pocket before straightening his tie. He moved to sit across from me again.

  I tucked myself against the door, keeping a wary eye on him while trying to see how far it would be to the New Youth dormitory.

  He didn’t say or do anything else the rest of the ride—just smiled at me in that smug and satisfied way.

  I hated him.

  As soon as the car came to a stop on the rails in front of the dormitory, I jerked on the handle to open the door.

  It didn’t open.

  In panic I turned back a questioning gaze to the professor.

  “Eddie won’t be allowed to bother you again. His claim on you is obviously misplaced. You need an intellectual equal. You belong to me, now.” He reached across me, not bothering to keep his fingers from grazing over me as his ring glowed green and he opened the door.

  I leaped from the car and ran into the building. Not even caring that I left a stack of books behind.

  Kathleen was at her desk and stood immediately upon seeing me. “What happened?” she asked.

  Could I tell her? Who could be trusted in this lunatic world? “Nothing,” I said and tried to edge my way past her.

  “You’ve got blood on your mouth and chin, and you just exited Professor Raik’s car. That’s quite a bit more than nothing.”

  “Do you think I’m infected?” I blurted. “Do you think I’m diseased now? Will I get the shakes?” Why would such a thought be the first to come to mind? I’d pretended to be too good to be elitist about the diseased people, but I felt terror at the thought of having caught the disease from Raik.

  “What happened? Did he—”

  “He kissed me, and I bit his lip. I spit the blood out as soon I tasted it, but what if I’m diseased?”

  She took me up in her arms and held me tightly for a moment before tugging me into the back room behind her desk. “Let’s get you away from prying eyes and clean you up.”

  The back room was more like a little break room complete with a small bathroom, probably so she didn’t have to leave her post for very long. She handed me a water glass. “Wash your mouth out and spit into the sink. Do it until you feel like you don’t need to anymore.”

  Would such a time ever come?

  But I did as directed. I drained three glasses of water before sitting heavily into a chair, my whole body trembling.

  “He broke the law,” I said. “And I can’t do anything about it. I can’t tell anyone because he owns the whole world.”

  She smiled. “But you have the satisfaction of knowing he’s going to have a sore mouth for a while. Lip wounds take a long time to heal.”

  I smiled, too, though the action felt thin.

  “Seriously, dear, good for you for fighting for yourself. He probably never imagined you were capable.”

  “Do you think I’m infected?”

  “I don’t know. You work in the labs, Test yourself tomorrow. I’m sorry he did this to you. I’m sorry I can’t help more, but let’s get you to your room.” She helped me to my feet and kept her arm around me the whole way to my room.

  “You’re different from the others, Summer. You have a spark I’ve not seen for a long time. I have so little power, but I’ll see what I can do to keep anyone from snuffing that spark out.”

  I nodded as my door glowed gre
en. She turned and left me to enter on my own. I scrubbed in the shower for over an hour trying to get the feel of him out of my skin. Stupid! Stupid! What had I been thinking getting into a car with him? And yet, how could I have said no? Who really ever said no to Professor Raik? And for him to think I would someday choose him? On purpose? That’s an old man with a healthy dose of ego. I would need to be on guard from now on. Could I buy a gun in this future? Did they have permits for things like that? Or maybe they still had pepper spray. I sank to the tub, letting the water run over me and down the drain.

  ***

  On my way to bed, I noticed my lapdesk flashed with messages, sleeping would be impossible until I was certain none of those messages were bad. When I saw the first one was from Jay and knew that Jen was so close to delivering, I felt sick. Please let the twins be okay. The thought repeated itself in my head as the message opened.

  Dear Summer,

  I’m in the hospital right now with Jen. I am proud to tell you that I am the father of twins! I know, I know. I’m taking all the credit when Jen did all the work. We had a boy and a girl. Their names are Erica Dawn and Scott Michael. They are so tiny that I am terrified to hold them. Jen is exhausted and is sleeping now, but I figured she would want you to know immediately.

  It was a little scary there for a while. They wouldn’t let me in the room with her while she delivered due to the complications the others had faced. So I sat outside that room panicking. During one part of the delivery, nurses came running out and told me they had to put her under so they could take the babies because her stress levels were too high. I have no idea what they were talking about (and still don’t). But they sure caused my stress levels to go up. Anyway, when they finally let me in, there were two bassinets with babies in them. Jen was still sleeping. She woke up for a minute, smiled at the babies, and went right back to sleep.

  I’m glad the babies are okay. I don’t think she’d have been able to handle it if something bad had happened to them during the delivery. Visit us soon. We’re asking you to be their godmother, so you have to come soon.

  Love you, kiddo,

  Jay

  Relief flooded me. It wasn’t like the last few moms. Everything turned out fine and all the suspicions that had crawled into the back of my mind slinked away invalidated. And I was a godmother!

  I had no idea what that meant or what that required of me, but the honor of it thrilled me and overpowered some of the horrors of my night. There was a couple of messages from Alison—one informing me she’d borrowed my silk skirt, and another telling me that she found the cutest little puppy and wondered if I’d mind a pet in our dorm.

  I looked around our room, and shook my head. If she had a dog, I’d end up being the one to take care of it.

  Definitely no dog. Except . . . a dog would be good for protection. I wrote her back and told her to go ahead as long as the dog grew up to be one of the large breeds with big teeth. I wrapped myself entirely in the sun quilt and curled into the fetal position like so many of those babies in the public nursery after we’d taken them from the fluids and placed them in incubators until the parents came to pick them up. I wondered if they slept that way because they felt so completely unprotected.

  ***

  Tag hadn’t communicated since Professor Raik’s little dinner party. I tried to tell myself he was just being careful, that he wasn’t angry with me—or worse—dead because of me. If Professor Raik really suspected anything, he would definitely get Tag out of the way. I wrote several notes to Tag but didn’t mention the incident with the professor. The shame of being in such a position making me want to hide.

  I didn’t have the shakes—no HTH infection, which gave me great relief and guilt. Relief because I still remained pure-blooded and guilt because the disease shouldn’t have mattered so much to me. Was I just like the others in my group? If Tag came and asked me to marry him, would I deny him for fear of becoming tainted? I’d never inspected my feelings toward the disease on a personal level and now didn’t like what I’d discovered about myself.

  Alison decided not to buy the dog.

  Another regent adopted from the public nurseries. Professor Modesitt felt that the regents’ example was a good sign for society. He said if we continue our work to make the fluids stable, we might be able to get all the regents to adopt.

  I ignored his excitement. The regents were stuck-up morons who spent more time claiming equality for everyone than practicing it. And the fluids weren’t the problem. I was sure the actual sickness in the cells caused the insanity. But Professor Modesitt waved away that theory as one that had already been studied and turned out to be inconclusive. Professor Modesitt firmly believed the birthing fluids were the trouble.

  It had been almost four weeks since I’d heard from Tag. I fumed and worried over this on my way to the nursery when I realized there were many families with small children on the ferry with me—children who all appeared to be around the age of three.

  My gaze, accustomed to slipping away from the people around me, focused.

  The woman sitting across from me clutched her squiggling daughter tight. “Down!” the child insisted as she tried to squirm her way free.

  The mother murmured in her daughter’s ear; the child relaxed and turned to stare at her mother pointedly. The child brushed the mother’s lavender hair away from her face. “Are you going to cry?”

  The mother was, in fact, already crying. Her husband kept a protective arm around her shoulders and tears fell from his eyes, too. The mother never took her eyes off the child as though each second might be the last she’d see of her.

  And so it might be.

  All of the parents seemed to be in a pre-mourning state—regardless of dress, hair color, skin color, or age.

  Some of them didn’t cling to their children so tightly but allowed them to play and hold the railings as the wind from the sea swept across their faces. Children pointed out seagulls and clouds. Some of them looked down, hoping to see a fish jump from the water. Angel Island grew on the horizon as we neared its docks. All the parents remained focused on their little ones. As the ferry shuddered into its dock, small cries erupted and were quickly hushed by a few of the women.

  No one noticed me, the New Youth, as I stared at them whispering words of comfort to one another and silently saying good-byes to the children who didn’t understand. And for the first time, I felt guilty—guilty that I could have children without worrying that I would one day have to ride the ferry.

  I’d never come to the island on the day they did testing. Almost a whole year without ever having to witness this heartbreaking scene.

  The ferry docked and people unloaded, walking up the ramp not knowing their fate, but I stayed seated watching them go.

  Every one of those adults would come back to the ferry crying. Some would come back and be crying out of sheer relief. But others would weep for the loss.

  Nearly two-thirds of those children would not leave the testing center. They would be the unnamed—the lost.

  A guard, not one of the soldiers, but a regular day-job guard approached me nervously. “You need to exit the ferry. If you want to go back to the mainland, you can get back on by reentering the turnstile.”

  My eyes met his. He shifted nervously under the direct gaze of a New Youth. I looked back to where the last of them disappeared up the ramp. He followed my line of site.

  “I am not getting off the ferry today.” My eyes burned with the tears I held back.

  The guard eyed me a moment before nodding his understanding. “No. I don’t suppose you are.”

  The guard went back to the captain manning the ferry, and they exchanged heated words. “Then you go tell her!” the guard said before stomping away.

  But the captain never did tell me whatever message he wanted relayed. After several passengers got on, the ship pulled out of the dock away from the weeping mothers and fathers and children who would not live to see another sunrise.

  Ch
apter Twenty-Four

  I waved my hand in front of my dorm room door, making it glow green for me, and bit back a sob. Some days, the green approval glow reminded me of the glow sticks Tag had used for light during the time we had between my world and this one. Thinking of the lights reminded me of how uncomplicated that brief moment in my life had been. It had seemed complicated at the time, but in comparison it had been like a moment of weightlessness before gravity pulled me to the ground and sucked me into the crust of the earth until I suffocated.

  I pushed the door open and dropped my stuff just inside the room. Alison hated it when I did that, but I didn’t care.

  “I didn’t think you’d ever come home.”

  The unexpected man’s voice in my room made me jump and curse at the same time. He stepped out of the shadows, and my moment of startled fear turned to surprised relief. I needed a friend today. I needed someone to cry with me and understand my horror. “Jay! What are you doing here? Is Jen with you?” I crossed over to him and gave him a hug. Only when I had my arms around his neck did I realize his arms stayed rigidly at his side, and he hadn’t smiled when I’d greeted him. I pulled away. “What’s the matter? Where’s Jen?”

  When his eyes stared at me like glassy pools of dark water, I gasped. “What happened to the babies?”

  His face crumpled at the word babies. He covered his face with his hands as tears leaked out his eyes. And then he reached out for me and clung to me like I was the only handhold on a sheer rock wall. “The babies are gone.” His words broke into a sob.

  Gone. Not sick or hurt, but gone. I pulled him over to the bed and made him sit down. “Tell me what happened. Where’s Jen?”

  “She’s at home. I can’t tell her. She’ll be so . . . so broken. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to go or who to trust.”

  “Wait. What do you mean gone? How would Jen not know that her babies are gone?”