by S. J. West
“And I do mean saved,” Julia said, drawing out the last word. “I think Zoe would have eaten everything if we’d let her.”
Zoe said something through the mouth full of cookie. I think it was something like, “I’m a growing girl. I need food.”
“Zoe, please don’t talk with your mouth full.” I shivered. “It’s gross.”
Zoe opened her mouth as wide as she could at me, giggling all the while.
Jace put his index finger underneath her chin and closed her mouth.
“That wasn’t very nice,” he scolded.
Jace’s words seemed to have a far deeper effect on Zoe than mine did. She immediately wiped the grin off her face and looked contrite for her action.
“Sorry,” she mumbled through the gob of cookie in her mouth.
Julia placed the dirty cookie sheet in the sink and turned to Zoe.
“Would you like to go take your bath now?” she asked.
Zoe nodded her head and wiped the remaining crumbs from her lips and hands as she stood from her chair.
“Do you mind if I help Zoe with her bath?” Julia asked me.
“No, I would appreciate it,” I answered.
Julia pointed to a plate covered with aluminum foil on the marble counter.
“There’s your supper. And feel free to eat as many cookies as you want for dessert.”
“Not all of them,” Zoe begged. “Leave me at least a couple.”
“I promise I won’t touch them until you get back,” I said, holding up my right hand like I was making an oath.
Zoe grabbed Julia’s hand and practically drug her out of the kitchen.
“Come on,” she urged. “The faster we get done the sooner me and Skye can eat the rest of the cookies.”
Julia’s laughter trailed behind them up the stairs.
I picked up my covered dish and went to sit down across from Jace at the table. When I took the aluminum foil off, I found half a chicken breast, one leg, a roll, and a four inch section of corn on the cob. It was the largest display of fresh food I had seen in a long time. I wasn’t even sure how she was able to get fresh corn.
Just as I was about to take a bite out of the drumstick, Jace said, “Something here just doesn’t add up.”
I put the drumstick back on the plate and looked at him. “What do you mean?”
Jace’s eyes roamed the kitchen, and he shook his head slowly, like he was trying to understand something but just couldn’t make the pieces fit.
“She has too much,” he finally said. “From what you’ve told me and from what I’ve seen for myself, Julia’s life just doesn’t make sense.”
“She just got lucky,” I said, trying to pass off Jace’s suspicions.
“Have you ever seen someone with so much though?” he questioned, not letting me ignore what was around us. “How does she get all the fresh food? Where is she getting the gas to run her generator? Something’s not right here, Skye.”
“Maybe she barters for things,” I said, trying to find a logical explanation.
“But who’s she bartering with and what’s she bartering? She has a lot of stuff. It seems like she’s accumulating things, not trading things away.”
“Listen, let’s just stay the night here and move out tomorrow.” I didn’t want to leave Julia’s sanctuary so soon, but Jace had raised some genuine concerns.
“Ok,” Jace said, though I could tell he would be more comfortable leaving Julia’s house right that minute.
Jace remained silent at the table while I ate, but his expression remained thoughtful and brooding.
When I was finished with my meal, I asked, “What else is bothering you?”
“I don’t like the way she looks at Zoe,” he said bluntly.
It made me think of how odd it was that Julia’s face lit up the moment she saw Zoe. It had sent a warning inside my head at the time, but I had been seduced by the prospects of a warm meal and hot bath and didn’t give it further consideration.
“Me either,” I admitted, which seemed to surprise Jace from the look on his face.
“You’ve noticed it too, then? I’m not just being paranoid?”
“No, it’s not just you. She looks at Zoe like she’s a gift on Christmas morning.”
“Maybe we should leave before Julia wakes up tomorrow. I don’t want there to be a scene.”
I nodded my head in agreement. I could see Julia trying to persuade us into leaving Zoe in her care. She would most likely argue Zoe would be better off with all she had to offer in her home. I couldn’t disagree with that point, but I knew Zoe belonged with me and Jace. Plus, even though I hated to admit it, Jace was right. Things at Julia’s didn’t add up.
I was just washing off my plate when I heard Zoe bound down the stairs. Her small naked feet slapped against the hardwood floors of the hallway until she reached the kitchen. She was dressed in a blue nightgown with a picture of Tinker Bell on the front. I had no idea where it had come from.
“Did you eat any?” she immediately asked me, searching for the plate of cookies.
“I said I would wait for you,” I told her, wiping the water from my hands with a hand towel hanging from the oven’s handle.
“Julia said she’d make us some hot chocolate!” Zoe’s enthusiasm was infectious. She had me smiling in no time and forgetting the serious conversation Jace and I just shared.
Julia was true to her promise to Zoe and began making us all some hot chocolate on the stove with fresh milk and cubes of chocolate. She stirred in different ingredients from her cupboard, explaining it was a recipe from her Mexican grandmother.
By the time Julia placed steaming hot cups in front of us, Zoe and I had finished off the cookies.
Julia stood on the other side of the kitchen island with a cup of cocoa in her hands while we all took tentative sips from our cups.
There was a hint of cinnamon and cloves detectable to my pallet as the warm liquid passed over my tongue. The chocolate was so rich it almost made the drink too sweet.
“Do you like it?” Julia asked us, cradling her cup of cocoa in her hands, watching our reactions.
We all acknowledged it was one of the best things we had ever tasted.
Zoe downed her drink and asked Julia for some more.
“I’m sorry sweetie, but I don’t have any leftover,” Julia told her. “It’s almost bed time anyway. Would you like to see where you’ll be sleeping?”
Zoe looked at me expectantly. “Are you going to sleep with me, Skye?”
“I have plenty of rooms,” Julia said, mistaking the reason for Zoe’s question. “You can each have your own bed.”
Zoe continued to look at me. I knew why she had asked her question. She needed someone to hold her tonight while she slept. Who wouldn’t after everything she had experienced since being released from Simon’s bubble? We still hadn’t discussed how she was able to make the shield that saved our lives. I knew she wanted me to hold her and tell her everything was all right. That she wasn’t a freak. She might have even thought I had some answers for her, but I didn’t. Were the nanites in her body responsible? I had no way of knowing, but it was the only logical conclusion I could make. If they were the source of Zoe’s powers, what did that mean for me? Did I have a power too?
“I’ll sleep with Zoe,” I finally said.
I saw Julia’s eyes narrow on me for a fraction of a second. She seemed perturbed by my decision, but I had no idea why.
Zoe opened her mouth in the biggest yawn I’d ever seen.
“Can we go to bed now?” she asked, her eyelids drooping.
Jace stood from his chair and picked Zoe up in his arms.
“Which room are the girls sleeping in?” he asked Julia.
“Follow me.” Julia grabbed the lantern sitting on the table and made her way out of the kitchen and up the stairs with all of us following her lead.
The farther we went up the stairs the heavier my feet felt. By the time we reached the second landing, Zoe was f
ast asleep in Jace’s arms. Julia held the lantern out in front of her leading us toward a room next to the bathroom I had used earlier.
The walls of the room were decorated with a painted mural of a fanciful castle in the clouds. I recognized the floating figures on the walls as the Disney princesses. The bed had four posts with a white canopy and matching white comforter with embroidered pink and purple pansies.
“This used to be my daughter’s room,” Julia explained, setting the lantern on the white painted bedside table. “I thought Zoe would like it.”
I felt too tired to make a reply. All I wanted to do was lie down on the soft, clean comforter and let sleep overtake me.
Julia pulled back the covers on the bed and stepped aside so Jace could lay Zoe down. When he turned back to me, his eyes narrowed in worry.
“Are you feeling ok?” he asked me. “You don’t look well.”
My tongue suddenly felt like it had transformed into a piece of lead. I couldn’t even force my lips to move to make a reply.
Just as Jace took a step closer to me, I saw his eyes widen in surprise before they closed as he crumpled into an unconscious heap on the floor at my feet.
Julia stood behind Jace’s prostrate body with an empty syringe in her hands.
“I had a feeling I didn’t put enough sedative in his drink. It’s hard to tell someone’s size sometimes,” she said with a nonchalant shrug before looking up at me. “You look dead on your feet though. We better move you out of here. I don’t want to disturb Zoe. Plus, I still need to check you and Jace out before I call Freddy to come pick you up. I have a feeling you might be worth more in the trade than I originally thought.”
Julia lifted one of my arms onto her shoulder and led me out of the room. I felt like a zombie. My thoughts were sluggish like mud had been thrown into the gears of my brain. I knew I needed to fight against what Julia was doing but couldn’t make my body do anything I wanted it to. I felt like a puppet being led around by a sadistic puppeteer.
“I saw that little exchange with you and Jace when you came out of the bathroom,” Julia said, as though we were having a polite chit chat.
“I thought the two of you were lovers when you first arrived, but from the way you both reacted to you being in a towel, I knew I was wrong.” Julia led me to a room across the hallway from Zoe’s, but this room wasn’t a bedroom.
From the faint glow coming from Zoe’s room, I could see one of those padded tables you used to see in doctors’ offices standing in the middle of the room. Julia led me to the table and helped me lie down on it.
“But before I call Freddy, I need to see if you really are what I think you are. If I’m right, you’ll be worth your weight in gold.” Julia smiled at me and gently smoothed a lock of hair off my face. “Don’t worry, Skye. I’m a doctor. I know what I’m doing.”
I watched helplessly as Julia pulled out stirrups from the end of the table and placed my feet into them.
“I’ll come back in just a minute,” she said to me from the doorway. “I need to go check on Jace and make sure he’s still out. By the time I’m through with him, you should be asleep.”
Julia closed the door behind her, leaving me in total darkness.
I tried to will myself to move, to do something, but all I could do was lie there and stare at the crack of light coming from beneath the door. I fought to keep my eyelids open, but it was a losing battle. My conscience thoughts fell into a black abyss as my fight against sleep was lost.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I’m not sure how long I was unconscious. When I woke up, I felt groggy and parts of my body felt numb, except for where tight bindings bit into the tender flesh around my wrist and ankles. My head ached and seemed to throb in time with the beats of my heart. The voices of the two people talking in the room sounded like they were shouting through a megaphone, causing my ears to ring. I kept my eyes shut and body still, unsure I would be able to remain conscience if I added light to the fragile state my mind seemed to be in.
“Are you sure she’s a virgin? You verified it?” I heard a man with a British accent ask.
“Have I ever lied to you before, Freddy?” Julia replied, a bit perturbed. “I checked her myself. She’s as pure as the day she was born.”
A gathering ache formed in the pit of my stomach from Julia’s words. What sort of monster was she to violate my body in the most intimate way and proudly discuss my sexual innocence with a stranger?
I heard the light tread of footsteps walk toward me. A cold hand grabbed the bottom of my chin, moving my head from side to side.
“With a little fixin’ up, she’ll probably bring in some good customers to the house. In fact,” Freddy said with a sense of newfound excitement, “I think it just might be time for another tournament!”
Julia snickered. “That’ll be like offering a piece of steak to a tank full of piranhas. Every man in town will end up trying to kill each other to be the first to bed her.”
“That’s what I’m counting on,” Freddy said, a smile in his voice. “They’ll sell their souls for a chance to be with someone so beautiful and unspoiled.”
Freddy let go of my face. I heard the creak of leather as Freddy seemed to turn to face Julia again.
“What about the other girl?” Freddy asked. “I have some customers who like them on the young side.”
“You keep your dirty hands off her,” Julia replied in a low menacing voice. “She stays with me.”
“How long do you think she’ll stay when she finds out you sold her friends?”
“She won’t know the truth. I’ll just tell her Skye and Jace decided to leave her in my care because they felt she could have a better life here, instead of on the road with them.”
Freddy let out a derisive snort. “Yeah, as long as she doesn’t try to run away.”
“The last girl just wasn’t the right one,” Julia defended hotly. “Zoe’s different.”
“Yeah, they all are, aren’t they, love? I’ll believe it if she manages to stay alive for more than a week.”
“Shut up, Freddy,” Julia grumbled. “Zoe loves me. She’ll stay with me forever. She won’t try to run away like the others.”
“For her sake, I hope not. I’d hate to see a pretty little thing like her get shot in the back.”
“Just take the boy and girl and get out of my house,” Julia growled.
“What about the dog?” Freddy asked. “Cook could probably make a good stew out of him. How much you want for it?”
“No, he stays with Zoe,” Julia said. “If he’s here, she’ll have more reason to be happy and stay.”
I was silently thankful to Julia for keeping Zoe and Blue safe, at least for a while. From the way Freddy talked, Zoe wasn’t the first little girl Julia had tried to use to replace the daughter she lost. Jace and I would have to figure out a way to rescue them as soon as we rescued ourselves.
“Suit yourself,” Freddy said.
I heard the creak of leather once again and felt one arm slide underneath my back and the other slide underneath the crook of my knees. Freddy lifted me up easily, cradling me to his chest. The pungent aromas of sweat and cigar smoke surrounded him.
“How long will she be out?” he asked Julia, making his way out of the room.
“I would say at least another hour considering her size and the amount of sedative she ingested.”
“How about the bloke?”
“Longer. I had to give him something more potent because he’s so big.”
“Good. It’ll be a lot easier for me if they don’t wake up until I get them back home.”
Freddy descended the stairs slowly with me in his arms and made his way out of the house. The outside air felt like a splash of cold water in my face, causing me to involuntarily open my eyes for just a split second, but it was long enough to take in the face of my captor.
He was younger than I first thought, maybe in his late twenties or early thirties. He had dark brown hair, which looked as thoug
h it were trying to escape the confines of the tan leather bucket hat on his head. His face looked kind, but I knew it was just the mask of a con-artist, unassuming and trusting. There was a day or two’s worth of growth on his face and his eyebrows seemed to be in a permanent arch, like an inverted V, above his dark brown eyes. His lashes were thick and long like he was wearing mascara, but it was completely natural. He wore a tan leather coat, which matched the hat, and a multicolored paisley shirt underneath.
Freddy laid me down on something cold and hard before covering me with what felt like a thick blanket.
When I heard Freddy walk back toward Julia’s house, I took a chance and opened my eyes to slits to survey my surroundings.
I was lying in the middle of a minivan. It was similar to the one my parents had owned before the war. The middle seats had been taken out and the back row of seats were hidden in the floorboard to make as much room as possible. There was a thick red comforter made of velvet laid on top of me.
Feeling was starting to return to the numb parts of my body. I pulled and twisted the bindings at my ankles and wrist but soon learned there was no way I could get out of them without finding something sharp to cut them apart with. I opened my eyes wider in the darkness to see if I could find something that would do the trick, but the back of the van was empty, except for me and the blanket covering me.
A few minutes later, I heard the heavy tread of multiple footsteps approach the van and hurriedly shut my eyes. It wasn’t long before I felt Jace’s body laid against my side.
Freddy lifted the blanket and repositioned it, so that it covered both of us. The heat from Jace’s body added to my own warmth underneath the blanket.
“I’ll send someone back with the rest of your payment,” I heard Freddy say as he slid the door of the minivan shut.
“Make sure they bring me the good gas for my generator, not that homemade crap you try to pawn off as the real thing.”
“Yeah, yeah, Jules. They’ll bring the good stuff.”
Freddy’s footsteps crunched against the loose gravel of Julia’s driveway as he made his way to the driver’s side of the van. The van bounced slightly as he took his seat and slid the key in the ignition. The engine roared to life, and we were on our way. I had no way of knowing where we were going, but from what little conversation Julia and Freddy had, I knew it wasn’t going to be a nice place.