by S. J. West
Zoe was sitting on the padded V-shaped bench, which conformed to the bow of the boat, holding a baby in each arm, trying to rock them and soothe their agitation with a hummed tune. I walked over to her and picked up Hope, who was quietly sleeping.
“How can she sleep through all this noise?” I asked.
“I don’t know, but her brother and sister are about to drive me stark raving mad,” Zoe complained.
I stared at Hope’s thin pale face and wondered why the Queen hadn’t seen her deformity before she was born. Or had she seen it and just not worried about it since Rose and Simon were so healthy? All she needed was for one to survive to prove or disprove her hypothesis.
As if sensing my presence, Hope slowly opened her little eyes and yawned. She stared at me with her bright blue eyes, which seemed too large for her small face. A happy smile lit her face as she gurgled at me.
“She likes you,” Zoe said.
“She doesn’t know me,” I replied, completely sure that if the babe I held could understand what I was, she wouldn’t look at me with so much trust.
“She knows you better than you know yourself right now, Skye.”
I sat back and relaxed against the wood paneling.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I confessed to Hope. “But I know if I take you back to the Queen, she’d have you killed before she wasted her time fixing you.”
Hope gurgled in response.
“You know I’m right, don’t you?” I sighed heavily, trying to understand why I felt the need to save the little human cradled in my arms. She trusted me with an innocent openness only someone who’s never had to struggle can have. But what was I saving her for? A life in a dark world where you had to hide and run while surviving on whatever scraps the modern world had left behind? Wouldn’t it be kinder to just kill her now, to save her from having to live in a dying world?
I heard the engine of the boat groan to life. I’d had my doubts the engine would even crank. It had apparently been used recently for some purpose. I just hoped whoever used it didn’t come looking for it anytime soon.
The boat slowly pulled away from the dock and set us on our way to freedom. Something within me wanted to stop what I was doing and immediately return to the Queen’s side. I felt torn between my desire to be with her and my need to see Zoe and the children somewhere safer. I knew they would never be safe with the Queen. She cared about them about as much as a child does bugs trapped in a jar. She would never let them go, and they would probably never survive her tender, loving care.
“Where are we going, Skye?” Zoe asked me, having finally rocked both Simon and Rose to sleep.
“She needs a doctor,” I said, looking down at Hope, “a surgeon who can fix her. If we can find a way to get to where Jace is, she might have a chance.”
“Where is Jace?”
I thought back to the map the Queen had in her office. Michael’s camp had been marked on it.
“We need to go south,” I told Zoe, laying a sleeping Hope on the bench.
I walked over to a small desk near the door of the cabin with a bunch of maps strewn across its surface. I found one showing the river we were on and followed it to where it would take us. I saw that the waterway would lead us straight to a large lake called Smith Mountain. If I were going to bet on a place to find transportation, it would be there. Before the war, people always loved to live by water. The majority of those people were usually wealthy. Hopefully one of them had left a large enough vehicle to transport us all.
“Skye.”
I turned from the map to look at Zoe.
“Why are you helping us?” she asked. “Why didn’t you just let Lawrence take us to the Queen?”
I turned away from her, unable to stand the worry I saw in her eyes to continue my study of the map.
“Don’t question your good luck,” I told her. “I’m still not sure I won’t change my mind.”
“You won’t,” Zoe said with more conviction than I felt. “Your love for us won’t let you.”
I let out a harsh laugh. “Love isn’t really an emotion a Harvester is supposed to be able to feel.”
“I don’t think that’s true. The Queen loves you.”
I turned back to Zoe. “What makes you say that?”
Zoe shrugged. “It was obvious when I saw you with her. There was a light in her eyes after she brought you back with her that wasn’t there before. They may say Harvesters can’t feel love, but I think some of them do.”
I couldn’t deny what Zoe said might be true. Even I had noticed the Queen’s love for me. Maybe Harvesters weren’t as immune to human feelings as they liked to believe.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
About thirty minutes later, Jackson opened the cabin door.
“Hey, we’re at the fence,” he yelled down, leaving the door open for me to come out on deck.
“Stay here,” I told Zoe. “This shouldn’t take very long.”
When I got up on deck, Jackson was standing out on the bow an arm’s length away from the fence. The hum of electricity and an odd metallic odor seemed to fill the air around us.
“Do you think you can absorb this much electricity?” I asked, looking at the fence dubiously. There was so much electricity pulsing through the steel fence that the hair on my arms was standing on end.
“I don’t know,” Jackson admitted. “But if we want to get out of here, I’m going to have to try.”
I looked around the deck and saw a large red and white buoy ring with a rope attached around the outside of it.
“Wait a sec,” I said, grabbing the buoy and handing it to Jackson. “Put this around your waist. If you start to fry, I’ll pull you back.”
“Thanks for the mental picture,” Jackson said, taking the buoy from my hands.
Jackson positioned the floatation device around his waist.
“You might wanna stand back,” he told Ava.
“No, I’ll stand here with her,” Ava said. “If she doesn’t pull you back, I will.”
“Don’t trust me?” I asked her, slightly amused.
“You’re a Harvester,” she answered, not needing to say anything else.
I just shrugged.
“Ok, well, here goes nothing,” Jackson said, turning to the fence and only hesitating for a heartbeat before grabbing the chain-link with both hands.
I’m not sure what I expected to happen, but the entire thing seemed a bit anticlimactic. After a few minutes, the hum of the fence faded into silence, indicating Jackson was slowly sucking it dry of power. Eventually, Jackson let go of the fence and turned to face us. Sweat was pouring down his face, and his clothes were starting to smolder.
“That’s it,” he said before collapsing onto the bow.
“Jackson!” Ava yelled, running to her friend. As soon as she tried to touch his face, she cried out in pain, drawing back a hand burnt raw. The metal on the bow began to glow red hot around Jackson’s body.
I cursed softly under my breath. Before I could even take a step forward, Jackson’s body began to convulse violently. Ava had the good sense to step back just as her friend’s body melted a hole through the deck. I knew the hull of the boat wouldn’t be far behind.
“Grab your stuff and jump off the boat,” I ordered Ava.
“But what about Jackson?” she asked, completely hysterical.
“Get off the damn boat, Ava, unless you want to be sucked down with it!”
I threw the door to the cabin open and rushed in.
“Is everything all right up there?” Zoe asked. “I heard the yelling.”
“Jackson’s melting a hole in the boat,” I said, realizing how silly the truth sounded. “We’ve got to get off.”
I grabbed Hope and the leather bench cushion she was resting on. Zoe carried Simon and Rose in each arm. By the time we reached the deck, the bow was already starting to tilt forward as it filled up with water. I saw Ava swimming off to the woods to the right, towing an unconscious Jackson like a l
ifeguard would with one arm around his chest and under his armpits. I assumed the cold river water must have dissipated the heat his body was emanating enough for her to hold him.
“How are we going to get the babies and ourselves over there?” Zoe asked.
“Follow me,” I told her, heading to the back of the boat where the ladder leading to the water was.
Once there, I tucked the bench cushion under one arm and held Hope close to my chest with the other. After I descended the steps, I placed the cushion on the surface of the water to make sure it would float and not simply sink. Thankfully, it was water tight. With one hand, I held the cushion steady while placing Hope, Simon, and Rose on it before completely stepping off the ladder into the water.
It didn’t take us long to swim to shore, but by the time we reached it, the fishing boat was already half submerged in the river.
Soaking wet but still alive, Zoe and I pulled the bench pad to shore. The babies were only slightly damp from their first swimming experience.
Zoe was doing her best to cajole Simon and Rose to stop crying. When I leaned down to pick up Hope, her face lit up with a smile at the sight of me. I began to wonder if she thought I was her mother since I was usually the one who held her. Her siblings always seemed to be in more need of attention, even though they were perfectly healthy.
“My God, what happened?”
I turned to look behind me and saw Ash standing there with a backpack slung over one shoulder.
“Did you bring back some supplies?” I asked, not feeling like answering his question when he could plainly see what had happened for himself.
“Yeah,” he said, crouching to the ground to open the pack. “You’re lucky my mom used to work at a Target. I was able to snatch some stuff before I teleported again.”
“Hey, who’s this?” Ava asked, coming to stand by us.
“Ava, Ash. Ash, Ava,” I said by way of introduction.
“Oh, you the baby daddy?” Ava asked Ash.
“How would you know that?” Zoe asked.
“Guards talk.” Ava shrugged. “Heard about what the Queen was doing with the two of you. Jackson and I figured we’d end up being next. Figured that was the reason she hadn’t made us into Harvesters yet.” Ava shivered at the thought. “I can’t imagine having a litter of babies.”
“It wasn’t a litter,” Zoe said defensively. “It was only triplets.”
“Ok, half a litter,” Ava amended.
“How’s Jackson?” I said, feeling a need to change the subject.
“Unconscious but still breathing,” Ava reported.
I looked back to Ash. “Did you happen to bring us any clothes?”
“I brought Zoe and the babies something to wear, but didn’t know you would be soaking wet. Best I can do for you is a dry towel,” he said, rummaging through the contents of his bag and handing me a coral-colored towel with a decorative border.
“Guess that’ll have to do,” I said, grabbing the towel with my free hand. “Here, hold Hope,” I said, handing her over to Ash.
Just as he was about to take hold of her, he vanished again.
“I really wish he would stop doing that,” I growled in irritation.
I tossed the towel to Ava. “Here, dry yourself off as much as you can. Maybe when he comes back he’ll remember to bring some clothes for us too.”
After Ava toweled off, she held Hope for me. Zoe changed into the clothes Ash brought for her. I found a pack of diapers, wipes, and clean clothes for the babies in the supplies Ash brought back from the past. While I was changing Simon into a long-sleeved onesie, I heard Zoe begin to whimper softly. When I looked up at her, I saw she was crying and pulling down the purple sweatshirt she wore past her hips. Zoe’s outfit brought back to mind a childhood show I once watched with a big singing purple dinosaur.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Are you hurt?”
Zoe shook her head. “No,” she whined. “But look at how big this shirt is!”
“And your problem with that is?” I asked, not seeing what the size of the shirt had to do with anything.
“Ash must think I’m as big as a house!” she cried. “Why else would he have brought back something so big for me to wear?”
“You’ve lost me,” I said, still not understanding why she was so upset.
“She’s having a girl moment,” Ava explained with a roll of her eyes.
“You just had three babies,” I said to Zoe, continuing to snap the bottom of Simon’s outfit. “He probably just wanted you to be comfortable and warm.”
Zoe sniffed and seemed to realize how ridiculous her behavior was. “I don’t know why I care,” she said, coming to help me change Rose into some dry clothes. “It’s not like he cares about me in that way. He loves you.”
I didn’t miss the envious way Zoe made her statement, but I did intentionally ignore it. All I needed was to have an argument with a hormonally imbalanced Zoe. Whether or not Ash still loved me was completely irrelevant. We had bigger problems to contend with at the moment. Namely, where we should head to next.
“Man, what happened?”
Jackson came stumbling toward us holding his head with both hands. His clothes were wet like the rest of ours, but he had a lot less of them. There were so many holes in his jacket and pants it looked like he had been attacked by a horde of angry giant moths. His shirt was nonexistent.
“You sunk the boat,” I informed him, standing to take Hope from Ava to change her clothes while Zoe finished up with Rose.
Jackson looked out onto the water, but the boat was already completely submerged.
“Remind me not to ever do that again,” he told me. “It was just too much. I’ve never been around that much power before.”
“Don’t worry,” I told him. “You did what we needed. With or without the boat we stick to the plan and go through the fence. There has to be a house around here. We’ll just have to hope they left us some transportation. You got enough juice left to jump-start a car if we need it?”
Jackson flexed his hand and pointed his index finger at a nearby tree. A stream of what looked like lightening shot from the tip and struck the tree, burning a hole straight through its trunk like a pinpoint laser.
“Good,” I said, trying not to show how impressed I actually was by Jackson’s display of power. All I needed was for him to think he had the upper hand in our little détente.
Once the babies were dressed and wrapped up in the blankets Ash brought, I made a pseudo baby carrier out of the backpack and placed Simon and Rose inside it. I was adjusting the straps of the backpack on my shoulders when Zoe said, “I can carry Hope.”
“No, I can carry her,” I told Zoe, taking Hope from Ava myself.
“I can help,” Zoe said. “You don’t have to do everything yourself, Skye.”
“Don’t argue with me,” I told her. “I could carry a truck on my back and not feel the weight. Harvester strength, remember? Besides, you’ll all be able to travel faster without carrying the added weight. The faster we can get away from here, the safer you’ll be.”
Before Zoe could argue further, I walked up to the chain-link fence and tore a hole in it with one hand large enough for us all to pass through.
It was late afternoon, and I knew we would need to find shelter soon. I didn’t want to announce our presence by building a fire, so finding an abandoned house was my top priority. I still had a mental picture of the map from the boat in my memory and knew our best bet would be to travel south until we found a road. Then I would have a better idea about where we were exactly.
Only fifteen minutes after we started walking away from the river deeper into the woods, Simon and Rose began to cry again. We stopped so Zoe could breast-feed them. While Zoe was busy satiating their hunger, I sat with my back against a tree and checked Hope. As far as I knew, she hadn’t cried once to be fed.
“Have you tried to feed Hope?” I asked Zoe.
“I tried to when you were on deck dealing wi
th Jackson and the fence,” she replied, holding a suckling Simon to her breast. “But she wouldn’t latch onto the nipple.”
When I looked back down at Hope, I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination or if she really did seem to look paler than before. I had no way of knowing what her condition meant for the rest of her organs. Was her heart pumping enough blood to them to keep them functioning? I hoped Ash would reappear and perhaps take Hope to the past to find medical help, but I didn’t know when or if he would come back in time. All I did know was that Michael’s rebel base should have a surgeon who could help her. Since Ash’s power didn’t seem to be under his control, I couldn’t solely rely on it to help us.
Once Zoe was through feeding Simon and Rose, we continued our way southward and came upon a forked road with a ranch style home sandwiched in between. A silver Dodge Durango was still parked behind it, but it had one flat tire, which would need to be fixed if we were going to be able to use it at all.
Once we searched the interior of the house, we were able to find clothes that fit all of us, allowing us to shed our river-soaked garments. After setting Zoe and the babies up in the house, Jackson and I went to see what the Durango would need to be made road worthy. Luckily, it still had its spare tire mounted to the underside. I let Jackson deal with that while I went to scout a house up the road that had an array of outbuildings surrounding the main house. I knew we would need to find as much gas as we possibly could. We were still almost three hundred miles away from Michael’s camp.
The only gas I was able to find was in the tank of an old tractor the owners had stashed away in a small shed. It was better than nothing. It didn’t take long to siphon it out with a garden hose into a small gas can.
When I got back to the house, I noticed Jackson was no longer working on the Durango. The spare tire was still leaned against the side of it with the flat tire sitting on the ground beside it. Assuming Jackson went into the house for some reason, I set the gas can on the ground and turned to walk toward the backdoor of the house to find out what the holdup was. As soon as I faced the house, I was met by an image that stopped me in my tracks.