Forsaken (The Forgotten Book 2)
Page 1
FORSAKEN
THE FORGOTTEN: BOOK TWO
M.R. FORBES
Published by Quirky Algorithms
Seattle, Washington
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This novel is a work of fiction and a product of the author’s imagination.
Any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.
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Copyright © 2017 by M.R. Forbes
All rights reserved.
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Cover illustration by Tom Edwards
tomedwardsdesign.com
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THANK YOU to my readers, for staying with Hayden and Natalia as their story continues. I hope you enjoy the ride!
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THANK YOU to my beta readers. This book would be a much harder read if you didn’t exist.
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THANK YOU to my wife. This book wouldn’t exist if you didn’t.
1
“HAYDEN, we’re going to be late,” Natalia said, raising her voice slightly from the bathroom of their cube.
“We won’t be late,” Hayden countered. “We’re only going two blocks, and we have ten minutes before the Governor will start to wonder what happened to us.”
“You’re forgetting that the lift is offline again. I’ve got Mae coming to look at it while we’re meeting with Malcolm, but we still have to slog down the stairs.”
“Plenty of time,” Hayden insisted. “Do you think they’ll have steak?”
Natalia emerged from the bathroom. She was wearing a blue dress that sat tight across her shoulders, the distressing of the worn cloth causing it to fade into more of a light blue and then a white as it crossed over her breasts and bulged out at her stomach. It made a rounded shape there before tucking back in at her legs and ending with a looser flare just below the knees.
Hayden stood near the door to their cube, staring silently at his wife.
“What?” she asked, smiling at him.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “I just don’t know. I can’t believe how lucky I am to have a wife as beautiful and intelligent as you. I can’t believe how honored I feel that we’re going to be parents. I’m grateful for everything we have, but especially for you.”
Her smile got a little bigger. “I feel the same way.”
“I know things in Metro aren’t always easy, but I feel like together we can make a difference.”
“We already are making a difference. That’s why Malcolm is treating us to this dinner.” She took on a deep voice to mimic the Governor. “A small token of my appreciation. I’m bringing a surprise from my special stash.”
“What do you think it will be?” Hayden asked, laughing.
“I’m hoping for chocolate,” she replied. “He brought a few pieces to Engineering a couple of years back. I haven’t forgotten the taste. I want you to try it.”
“And I want to try it.”
Hayden walked over to Natalia, putting one hand on her face and the other on her stomach. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Their lips met. Small kisses at first, but growing as they maintained the connection.
“We’re going to be late,” Natalia said beneath his mouth.
“We can skip the dinner,” Hayden suggested.
She laughed. “Not this time. But I’m sure you can make it up to me later.”
He kissed her one last time before pulling away. “I would be honored.”
“Good. Come on.”
They left the cube, moving out into the hallway, hands clasped together. Hayden had never felt happier in his entire life. He had everything he ever wanted. A great job. An incredible wife. A growing family. Not everyone on the Pilgrim got to have children. It was special to win the lottery.
They made it to the stairwell and started to descend. The lift had died only an hour before and would be repaired by the time their dinner with the Governor was over. Hayden didn’t mind the steps. He could use the exercise.
They were on the twelfth floor when Natalia came to a sudden stop. She was silent as she gripped her stomach, but Hayden noticed immediately.
“Nat, are you okay?” he asked.
“Just a second,” she said. “A little cramping. That’s all.”
He put his arm around her shoulders. “We can go back up?”
She shook her head. “No. I’ll be fine. I just need. Ahh-” She clenched her teeth, a pained expression on her face. “Oh, Hayden. Get Doctor Hun.”
Hayden’s heart began to race. “Here, just sit. I’ll see if she’s in her cube.” He helped Natalia down, a sense of panic rising in his chest. He wouldn’t let her see him worried.
She sat, still clutching at her stomach. He sprinted back up the stairs, out onto their floor and down the hallway to Doctor Hun’s cube. He knocked on the door.
Doctor Lin Hun opened it, her expression immediately concerned.
“Sheriff? What’s wrong?”
“Natalia,” he said. “She’s in the stairwell. She’s having pain.”
“I’ll be right there. Call Medical and have them bring a transport.”
“What?”
“Do it.”
She closed the door. Hayden returned to his cube, grabbing his badge from the table and tapping it to activate the transceiver.
“Medical,” he said. “Emergency.”
“This is Medical,” a voice said immediately. “Sheriff Duke, what do you need?”
“It’s Natalia,” he said. “Doctor Hun said to have you send a transport to my Block.”
“Of course, Sheriff,” the woman replied. “We’re on our way. Hold tight.”
Doctor Hun was already at the door to the stairwell when Hayden left the cube and ran down the corridor. They descended together, back to where Natalia was sitting. She had tears in her eyes, a sight that broke Hayden’s heart.
“Hayden,” she said, her lip quivering. “I can’t feel her.”
“Stay calm, Natalia,” Doctor Hun said. “The transport is on the way. We’re going to get you to the Hospital.”
“It’s too late,” Natalia replied tearfully. “It’s too late. I can’t feel her. I don’t understand. I don’t know what happened.”
“It’s going to be okay,” Hayden said.
“No. It isn’t. She’s gone, Hayden. I know she is. Our baby is gone.”
Hayden felt the words like a knife to the chest. He couldn’t breathe, but he had to breathe. He had to keep telling her it was going to be okay, to keep her calm until Medical arrived. Even if it wasn’t going to be okay. Even if it was already too late.
He put on a show for his wife, calm and confident and strong. Let the doctors do their job. We don’t know anything yet. There could be a thousand reasons you don’t feel her.
Inside, he knew she was right. He knew it by her face. By her tone. By her words. She was too damn smart, too damn in tune to be wrong.
Inside, his entire body was burning with the agony of the loss.
Outside, he was burning, too. So hot he could barely stand it. So much pain he could barely keep from crying out.
“Shhh,” the man said, leaning over him. “You need to stay quiet.”
Hayden’s eyes fluttered open. He looked up at the man. A bushy, ragged white beard. A wrinkled face. Sad eyes. It hurt so damn much. He could feel the moisture in his eyes. What the hell was happening?
“Dad, you have to keep him still,” someone else said.
A light was flickering around them, making it hard to see. His entire body felt like it wanted to explode. There was so much stinging, so much throbbing, so much pressure.
“I’m trying, Jake. I’m not as young as I used to be.”
“You need to stay still, mister,” the younger voice, Jake, said. “Real still. You don’t want me to grep this up.”
“I don’t understand,” Hayden said weakly. “Where am I?”
He tried to sit up. His left arm was being held down, but his right was free. He swung it out, trying to push the old man away. He knocked something off a table beside him and heard it shatter on the ground.
“Damn it, Dad,” Jake cursed. “Look, mister. If you want to die, you keep flailing like that. If you want to live, if you want me to do something about that missing hand of yours, stay the grep still.”
Hayden flipped his head to look at the man. He was older than his voice sounded, with a thin beard and a handlebar mustache that made Hayden want to laugh. He was leaning over him, over his arm. He had some kind of tool in his hand. It was nothing Hayden had ever seen before, primitive and greasy.
It wasn’t grease. It was blood. His blood. Hayden squeezed his eyes closed, trying to remember. There had been so much blood it had run down Natalia’s leg. The baby. His little girl. They had lost her. By pure chance, bad luck, they had lost her.
“Natalia,” he said, choking out her name.
“I don’t know who Natalia is, son,” the old man said. “But if you want to see her again, you have to calm down and let Jake work. He knows what he’s doing.”
Hayden clenched his teeth. He kept his eyes closed. The pain was intense. Almost unbearable.
Natalia.
An image of a man in a white suit, wearing a white-brimmed hat. He was holding onto Natalia. Taking her away.
The monsters. They were right behind him. Towering over him. Foul and ugly and horrible.
His wife. Where was his wife?
Where the hell was he?
“Who are you?” he managed to whisper.
“Nobody special,” Jake replied. “Just a man trying to save another man’s life. There isn’t enough of that in this world. Not nearly enough.”
“Why?”
The old man laughed. “Because you brought my horse back, son,” he said. “Those asshole Scrappers took him from me two months ago, but you brought him back. And judging by your wounds and some of the words you’ve been babbling, it sounds like you did that group of hyenas well and good. It’s about time somebody stood up to them.”
“I would have saved you from the infection anyway,” Jake said. “The replacement is payment for killing Pig.”
“Pig?”
Hayden tried to remember the word. The name?
What did he mean replacement, anyway?
The sound of the drill drowned out his thoughts. The whirring reminded him of the machine in Medical.
The one that took their baby away.
The pain drowned out his consciousness.
2
“STAY STILL,” the old man said, the next time Hayden opened his eyes.
It was still dark around him, the single small light the only source of illumination. He was in the same place. In the same position. It was as though he had never slept at all.
He was calm enough now, sane enough now, to heed the old man’s words. He remained still, moving only his eyes. He was in a room of some kind. Wood, real wood, surrounded him. It was weathered and worn, and it smelled wet. It was a new smell for him. He tried to make sense of it.
He tried to make sense of all of it.
He remembered now. Everything that happened before, though he was sure he was missing a few days. Metro, the xenotrife, the Scrappers. He remembered Pig. And the giants. How would he ever forget the giants?
“Where am I?” he asked, voice hoarse.
The old man leaned over, picked up a metal flask and held it over his face. “Water.”
Hayden let his mouth fall open. The old man dumped the liquid in. It was cool and crisp. Hayden had never tasted anything like it. He was so used to the recycled water of the Pilgrim. This was the real thing. Fresh. Not processed out of urine.
The old man put the flask on the table beside him. “You have a name, son?”
“Duke,” he replied. “Sheriff Hayden Duke.”
The old man laughed at that. “Sheriff? As in, a man of the law?”
“Yes.”
“There hasn’t been any law but the law of survival around here for, I don’t know, a hundred years. Probably more. Where did you come from?”
Hayden noticed his left arm was burning, close to the elbow, not down near the wrist where he had lost the hand. Pig had cut it off, trying to get to his identification chip, not realizing it didn’t have access to Metro. He started to turn his head, but the old man reached out, putting a hand on the side of his cheek and holding it straight. The hand was weathered and dry.
“It’s best not to look at it just yet,” the old man said. “It takes a little getting used to.”
“What does?”
“The replacement.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“My son, Jake, he’s a Borger. Do you know what that means?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll repeat my question. Where are you from? Your clothes are strange, but not that strange. We figured maybe you made the trip across Central, which already makes you pretty damn impressive. But you should know what a Borger is.”
“What’s your name?” Hayden asked, instead of answering the question.
He knew the Pilgrim was valuable to the Scrappers. So was Metro. How did he know it wasn’t valuable to this man and his son, or people they knew?
He remembered what the old man had said about the horse. They were no friends of the Scrappers, that was for sure.
“Hank,” the man replied. “Hank Jackson. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sheriff Duke.”
He smiled, a hint of mirth lining it.
“You don’t need to patronize me,” Hayden said. “I might be a stranger to this place, but I’m not an idiot.”
Hank laughed. “I love your spirit, Hayden.”
“What happened to me?” Hayden asked.
“You’ll have to tell me that, once you trust me a little more. And you will. Me and Jake, we’re what someone calling themselves a Sheriff would call the good guys. The Scrappers, the militia you got mixed up with, they’re the bad guys.”
“I figured that much,” Hayden said. “I killed their leader. Pig.”
“No. You killed one of their Sergeants. A pretty notorious one at that, but Pig was nowhere near the top of the Scrapper food chain.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that.”
Hank laughed again. Hayden’s eyes shifted when part of the wall opened. No, it was a door. A hidden door. He could see past Jake, out into another dark room.
“You’re awake,” Jake said. “Good.”
He was holding something in his hand. A bowl. The smell rising from it made Hayden’s mouth water instantly.
“I brought you some broth. No solid food for you yet, I don’t think you’ll be able to keep it down.” He handed the bowl to Hank, who set it down on the table.
That was when Hayden noticed the man only had one arm.
“What happened?” he asked, looking at the stump that ended just below the elbow. It was bleeding slightly, the wound relatively fresh.
“Scrappers,” he said, using his hand to pick up a spoon from the edge of the soup bowl. “I’ll have to do the feeding for now. You shouldn’t move yet.”
“When can I move?” Hayden asked.
Jake sat on a small stool next to Hayden. “You had an infection in that wrist of yours. I see someone tried to cauterize it, but whatever they used it was a lousy tool for the job. You also had a fragment of metal in your back, and a number of lacerations and bruises. You showed up looking like you’d been through hell.”
“It felt like it at times,” Hayden
admitted. “How did I get here?”
“You were lucky,” Hank said. “Cass knew the way home. She showed up here early morning, a couple of days ago, with you slumped over the saddle.”
“Cass?”
“Cassiopeia. My best breeding mare. Or she would be if the Scrappers hadn’t taken all of my other horses.”
“That was Pig’s doing,” Jake said. “Most of the Scrapper Sergeants leave us alone. They barter for the horses instead of outright taking them because they know we provide an important service. He said he had extra burden he needed beasts to carry.” Jake smiled. “Before you killed him.”
“I was sick, then?”
“Very. We weren’t sure you would survive. I cleaned out your wounds, cut out the infected part of your arm and hit you with some penicillin. You’re lucky some people still know how to make that.”
Hayden was aware of his arm again. It felt different. “You did more than that.”
“Have some broth,” Hank said, dipping a spoon of it toward Hayden’s mouth.
He opened it and let the man pour the broth in. The taste was bland, but it was real. He savored it for a moment.
“I need to get out of here,” Hayden said. “As soon as possible. The Scrappers have my wife, Natalia. She’s the reason I’m here.”
He started trying to sit up, but Hank put the spoon back in the bowl and used his hand to press his chest back down.
“Hold up. You won’t make it two days out there in your condition. You need to stay alive if you plan on finding your wife.”
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” Jake said. “But you’ll need to do a hell of a lot more than that if you intend to get her back from the Scrappers.”
“I’ll do whatever I have to.”
Jake didn’t argue. “I don’t doubt that, mister-”
“Where are my manners?” Hank said. “Jake, meet Sheriff Hayden Duke.”
“Sheriff?” Jake said. “Like in the old videos? Wyatt Earp?”
“Yup,” Hank said. “A lawman.”