Harvester of Light Trilogy (Boxed Set)

by S. J. West

  After making a human chain with a dog in the lead, we continued to walk. A few minutes later, Zoe’s shield completely failed, leaving me as our only hope for survival. I concentrated on the four people behind me, sending out my energy to each of them, hoping it was enough to keep us all protected from the effects of acute radiation poisoning. After only thirty minutes, I felt the weight of so many lives begin to drain whatever energy fueled my power. I began to feel nauseous, feverish, and my head ached like it was about to explode. I heard someone cough behind me and knew it was Teegan.

  I looked at my hand holding onto Blue’s tail and knew my vision was blurring because I had three hands instead of one. I closed my eyes and willed my body to be whole, but when I opened my eyes again, I could barely see anything, everything was a blur. I wanted to cry and scream that what was happening wasn’t fair. We had to be close to the Southern Kingdom. I knew it in my bones.

  Kirk’s hand slipped from mine just as Blue lay down on the ground in front of me. I turned and watched the others as they fell to their knees, overcome with the same sick feelings as me. Ian cradled Zoe to his body as he lay down on his back, unable to move another inch. I saw Kirk vomit and Teegan fall to her side, unmoving.

  I chose to lie down beside Blue. If I was going to die, I wanted it to be next to someone who had always been there for me. In the last moments of his life, I wanted him to know how much I loved him.

  “You were a great friend,” I told him, my throat feeling raw.

  Blue closed his eye and gave a whimper.

  I closed my eyes and welcomed death.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “We want to see Skye! Why are you keeping us from her?”

  The agitated male voice woke me. I tried to open my eyes but didn’t seem to have the strength to do even that small of a task.

  “She needs her rest,” I heard a woman reply. “Or do you want to kill her?”

  “Doc Riley, there’s no reason for that,” a deeper male voice said.

  Doc Riley sighed heavily. “Then please, would the both of you just let me do my job and stop pestering me? You two will be the first to know when she’s well enough for visitors. I have four patients who need me more than you do right now. Plus a dog! Please, just leave me in peace for a little while. When you come back, I might have more answers for you.”

  Four people and a dog echoed in my mind. My friends were alive. We hadn’t died in the barrier. We made it to the Southern Kingdom.

  “We haven’t seen her in a very long time,” the man with the deep voice said. “She’s everything to us.”

  I recognized that voice, but my mind rejected what it thought it knew.

  “I realize that. I do sympathize with both your plights, but you must understand how critical her condition could become if she comes into contact with any sort of contagion either of you might be carrying. It could very well kill her. You need to find some patience.”

  I heard someone walk closer to my bed and move something that sounded like a sheet of thick plastic. A cold piece of metal touched the skin on my chest.

  “I just don’t understand it,” I heard Doc Riley say under her breath. “They should all be half dead, but there’s nothing wrong with them.”

  Had my gift of healing been enough to protect us until we were rescued from the radiation field? If I was well, why did I feel so tired?

  I forced my eyes open to slits, trying to focus on my surroundings. I was in a dimly lit room with white walls and one glass door on the wall to my right. A canopy of plastic surrounded the hospital bed I lay in. Several needles, administering liquid from bags hanging beside my bed, dotted my arms. The beep of a heart monitor brought my eyes to the right of me where a woman stood, staring at me in a moment of surprise before she smiled. She was older than I expected with a head full of white hair and a face full of well-earned wrinkles.

  “Where are my friends?” I asked her.

  “They’re in their own rooms,” she told me. “How do you feel?”

  “Groggy.” I closed my eyes because the room began to swim.

  “Can you tell me what symptoms you encountered while you were in the barrier?”

  “Nausea, fever, my head hurt, and I wasn’t able to see very well.”

  Doc Riley didn’t say anything, so I opened my eyes and found only one of her standing beside my bed instead of three blurry ones.

  “Who rescued us?”

  “We have people watching the barrier all the time. The guards saw you and brought you all here.”

  “So, everyone’s all right?”

  “In the same shape as you,” she told me. “Would you like to see them?”

  It took half an hour, but Doc Riley eventually walked back in with Ian, Kirk, and Teegan.

  “Where’s Blue?”

  “He’s still sleeping,” Doc Riley told me.

  I got out of bed and was hugging Kirk and Teegan when I saw Ash walk through the door.

  I felt my heart well up inside my chest and ran to him. He held his arms out to me, welcoming me home.

  “You’re alive,” we both said at the same time, laughing at ourselves for stating the obvious.

  I pulled back from him and held his face in my hands, marveling at the fact he was standing right in front of me. He looked just the same but far healthier than the last time I saw him. Tears of joy streamed down both our faces and we hugged each other again tightly, trying to prove to the other that we were in fact real. When I pulled back from Ash the second time, I saw a tall figure standing in the doorway directly behind him. I felt my body shake and my heart hammer inside my chest, scared to raise my hopes that the person was who I thought he was.

  “Skye,” the man said, reminding me he was the one who had given me that name.

  When I looked up at my father, I feared I was hallucinating. Maybe the radiation had fried some neurons in my brain, dooming me to see a ghostly vision of my father for the rest of my life.

  “Skye, it’s me,” my father said, taking a step closer to Ash and me.

  “Skye,” Ash said, drawing my attention away from the specter haunting me. “You’re not imagining him,” Ash assured me, knowing I would doubt my own senses. “He’s real.”

  I let my arms drop away from Ash and took a step closer to my father. With a shaky hand I touched the buttons on his white button-down shirt, letting the smooth plastic slip between the tips of my fingers. Before I knew it, my father had me in his arms, cradling me against his warm, broad chest.

  “I thought I’d lost you,” he cried, his shoulders shaking as his emotions got the better of him.

  Tentatively, I wrapped my arms around my father, letting the truth of him being alive sink in.

  The moment was almost perfect. I had everyone I cared about around me, all except one.

  EPILOGUE

  The weeping willow swayed in the artificial wind as I watched my father and Ash fish in the manmade pond a few yards away from me. We were in what was called Central Park in the Southern Kingdom with a simulation of the sun high in the blue sky above us, almost making it feel like we were actually in the old world on a clear spring day. The illusion would have been perfect, except for the knowledge that none of it was real.

  I smoothed out the skirt of the white daisy print summer dress I was wearing. Makena’s daughter brought it to me after I told her the story of how her father saved my life. She had been relieved to tears to hear he was still alive. I only wished I could have told her more.

  As I watched my father and Ash, I marveled at how well they had adapted to life underneath the Great Smokey Mountains, where the Southern Kingdom was built. I feared I would never get used to it and wondered if I had ever been meant to live in the sunlight.

  I closed my eyes and lifted my face to the warmth of the nuclear powered sun shining over us, letting my mind drift where it often went lately, to Jace. Was he safe? Was he thinking about me? Was he doing his job for the Queen?

  He haunted my dreams and mo
st of my waking thoughts. Ash kept asking me what was wrong, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him I was thinking about Jace. I told him most everything that had transpired after Rose took him from me and brought him here to the Southern Kingdom, but I couldn’t find my voice when it came time to tell him about my feelings for Jace. I didn’t know what his reaction would be, and I didn’t want to ruin the nirvana he had found here.

  “Mind if I sit down?”

  The familiar voice caused my eyes to snap open.

  Rose took the empty seat beside me on the bench. She was dressed in a pale peach short-sleeve shirt and white Capri pants and sandals. Her shock of short blonde hair looked the same as the first time I had seen her, messy but stylish.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, feeling the hostility I harbored for Rose return. I hadn’t forgiven her for what she had done, even though she had fulfilled her promise in saving Ash’s life.

  “I came to see how you’re doing.” Her blue eyes met mine. She seemed sincere in her worry over me, but I had no idea why.

  “As well as can be expected,” I replied. “Why are you really here?”

  Rose smiled, seeing that I wasn’t fooled by her answer. “I came to tell you that your job isn’t finished. You have more to do.”

  “What is it you want me to do?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Why don’t you and Simon ever say what you mean? You may think you’re being helpful, but you guys just end up irritating me more than anything.”

  “I want to tell you more,” Rose said, and I believed her. “But I’m not allowed to.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because if I told you exactly what it was you were supposed to do, I might change what happens inadvertently. That isn’t my purpose. I’m just supposed to guide you and help when it’s allowed.”

  “Allowed by whom?” I asked in exasperation. “Who would be stupid enough to tell you to only say half of what you mean?”

  “You.”

  I was certain I misunderstood Rose but had to ask, “Me?”

  “You taught Simon and me to only reveal what was needed. That’s all we’re allowed to do. You’ve told me exactly what I just told you. That telling you too much in this timeline might alter the future, and we can’t let that happen.”

  “So, you’re telling me you’re from the future?” I scoffed. “You know how crazy that sounds right?”

  “You said you would say that and made me bring this.”

  Rose put one of her hands in a pant pocket and pulled out the same thing I had in the pocket of my dress, the heart shaped stone Jace had given me.

  “Where did you get that?” I asked, feeling inside the pocket of my dress just to make sure my version of the rock was still there. It was.

  “You told me to bring it, so you would know I was telling the truth.”

  “So, what, do you have like time machines in the future or something?”

  “No,” Rose paused and looked over at the backs of my father and Ash before continuing, “Simon and I inherited the gifts our parents had.”

  “Gifts?” I asked, slightly perplexed. “Are you talking about abilities like my healing?”

  Rose nodded, letting the information she just gave me sink in.

  “So, is Zoe your mother since Simon was able to make a shield?”

  “I’m not allowed to say.”

  “Could you do me a favor and tell my future self to stop being such a bitch and let you tell me things that are important every once in a while?”

  Rose chuckled. “I’ll pass that along.”

  “So, what’s supposed to happen next, Rose?”

  “I think you already know the answer to that. You just haven’t decided how to go about it yet.”

  “Yeah.” I looked at my father and Ash, knowing they weren’t going to approve of what I needed to do. “I know what I have to do.”

  I had to rescue Jace.

  Hope

  Book Two

  ∞

  Harvester of Light Trilogy

  By

  S.J. West

  ©2012 S.J. West. All Rights Reserved.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Are you sure, Skye?”

  I looked at Kirk’s horrified reflection in the mirror of my vanity. Teegan stood beside him with both her eyebrows arched, a sure indication she thought I had completely lost my mind and was about to make a monumental mistake.

  “You’re not her,” Zoe said from her spot on my bed, hugging a blue flower-shaped pillow to her chest.

  I still wasn’t used to seeing Zoe at her true age. To my mind, she should still look like the seven-year-old girl I found underneath Simon’s protective shield, but in the two weeks we’d been in the Southern Kingdom, her growth had increased exponentially. Her body had finally caught up with her true age of eighteen. I just prayed that was the extent of her odd accelerated aging.

  “Seriously Skye, you haven’t even asked your father if what she told you is true,” Zoe reminded me. “At least wait until you do that before cutting off all your hair.”

  “It’s not just because of that. I need a change,” I said to my friends. “I might not be able to control much else, but I can control this one thing in my life.” I looked at Kirk. “Cut it.”

  Kirk gathered a section of my hair with one hand and held a pair of styling scissors in the other, poised to cut my hair to a point just above my shoulders. A good six inches needed to be lopped off for the new me I envisioned for myself to make her first appearance. Kirk met my eyes in the mirror once more, almost begging for a last reprieve. I nodded my head, urging him to do what I wanted. The metallic song of metal sliding against metal was suddenly deadened as the sharp edges of the scissors met the strands of my hair, slowly making the first cut.

  For over half an hour, Kirk clipped and shaped my hair into the style we had been discussing for days: an asymmetrical layered bob, which fell somewhere in the style spectrum between punk rocker and sophisticated lady. The new layers framing my face gave the illusion of a different girl staring back at me in the mirror.

  After he was done, Kirk stood back and admired his own handiwork.

  “Not bad,” he said in surprise. “I think I like it.”

  Teegan gave me a wink and a thumbs-up.

  Zoe stood from my bed and walked up behind me.

  “I like it too. How do you think I would look with a cut like that?”

  “No!” Kirk and I said simultaneously with equal vehemence.

  Zoe stuck her tongue out at us. “Spoil sports. You guys never let me have any fun.”

  Her body might have caught up to her real age, but Zoe still acted like a seven year old most of the time.

  “Do you honestly think I would willingly cut those natural golden curls?” Kirk said in exasperation. “I never thought I would cut Skye’s hair. At least let me get over one trauma at a time before you throw a new one at me.”

  I smiled. “You act like it was your hair being cut. You know it’s just hair. It’ll grow back.”

  Kirk pressed a flared hand to his chest. “Honestly, it might as well have been mine as much as it hurt me to do it.”

  Kirk quickly packed his scissors in his backpack lying on my bed.

  “Come on, Teegan. We better leave before Mr. Lande wonders where we are.”

  “How are our dresses coming along anyway?” Zoe asked. “You know the dance is tonight.”

  “They’ll be done,” Kirk promised with a wave of his hand. “We’ve had so many new orders we’ve been working almost around the clock at the shop. I’m surprised he let us come here this morning, but I guess it doesn’t hurt to do a favor for the daughter of a councilman.”

  “That’s true,” Zoe agreed. “People do seem to give Skye’s father whatever he wants.”

  It didn’t take me long to figure out my father was an important man in the Southern Kingdom. Usually, all I had to do was ask for something, and it was given to me on a silver platter
. There were a total of five people on the council, including the man who used to be President of the United States, and they were all treated like royalty. When I asked my father if Zoe could live with us, he had no trouble in obtaining a new apartment with three bedrooms.

  “Teegan and I will be back tonight to help you guys get ready for the dance,” Kirk told us, tossing his backpack over one shoulder.

  After Kirk and Teegan left, Zoe and I got ready to leave for our own jobs.

  No one in the Southern Kingdom got a completely free ride. Just because my father was on the council didn’t mean I could loaf off and do whatever I wanted. To make the community work, we all had to contribute our fair share. Zoe and I chose to work in the greenhouses Doc Riley was in charge of supervising.

  As we were walking out of our apartment, the door to the apartment adjacent to us opened. Ash smiled with genuine happiness when he saw us.

  “Good morning, ladies. Ready to go to work?”

  “Honestly? I think I might have to change jobs,” Zoe said, looking at her nails in dismay. “I can’t seem to keep the manicures Kirk gives us clean for more than a day. All that dirt.” Zoe shivered.

  “It’s a small price to pay for fresh food,” I admonished. “And you’ve certainly eaten your fair share of it since coming here.”

  “Quit picking on my girl,” Kale said, coming out of the apartment he and Ash shared.

  “Seriously, Kale?” Zoe placed her hands on her hips. “I am not your girl. Teegan is. Well, she would be if you could say more than a lame ‘hi’ to her every time you come within a five foot radius. Man up and ask the girl out already.”

  If there was ever a perfect guy for Teegan, it was Kale. She definitely wouldn’t have to worry about not being able to speak, because Kale could carry on a conversation with himself if he had to. With his naturally tanned skin and corkscrew curly brown hair, they were physically a perfect match too, each looking like they should be frolicking on a beach somewhere. Kale was from Hawaii, which was why he professed to love wearing Hawaiian shirts, cargo shorts, and ultra-white sneakers all the time. He claimed it kept him in touch with his heritage.