From the Shadows

by Jacqueline Brown

  “Can we go home now?” I mumbled, as his arms held me tight.

  “Yes,” he said, and kissed me on the forehead as if I were a young child.

  “Good,” I said, inhaling deeply.

  His body tightened, and my senses came alive. The sound of muffled crying carried on the wind. We exchanged a cautious glance and went toward the sound.

  Sage was there, a few hundred feet from camp, hidden by the scrub of plants. When she saw us, she stopped crying, madly wiping her eyes.

  “I’m going to go hunt,” Jonah said, before squeezing my hand and leaving us.

  I sat beside her on a patch of velvety moss. I folded my knees to my chest and laid my head on the ripped knees of my pants. Sage began to cry harder. I placed my hand on her back and the crying increased even more. After a few minutes, she sniffed, wiping her nose on her pants.

  “I’m pregnant,” she said.

  I lifted my head, my eyes becoming wide with confusion. “You’re what?” I asked, thinking back to the guard and wondering, if somehow, he had gotten to her before I realized what was happening. No, that wasn’t possible, and that was less than twenty-four hours ago.

  “I’m pregnant,” she said again.

  All I could do was stare. I knew that was the wrong response. I was doing everything wrong in this moment, but none of it made sense. She had been alone with us for the last month and before that, she was caring for her dying mother and with us in camp for a month. In all that time, I had only ever seen her around Haz, Josh, and Jonah. And … “Hayden?” was all I could say as the realization came.

  She nodded and fresh tears poured from her puffy eyes.

  “Are you sure?” I asked, knowing again that was not the right thing to say. But how could she know? There were no pregnancy tests and it wasn’t like she was months along, with a swollen belly.

  She nodded. “I’ve never been late in my life. Even with the near starvation and crazy stress, my period still came, and came on time.” She sniffed.

  “But you were sick, and your mom—” I stopped myself.

  “And my period still came. I’m a week late,” she murmured. “What else could it be?”

  I didn’t know what to say or feel. Sara said all life was a blessing and sacred. Would she feel the same when that life was growing inside her seventeen-year-old sister, in a world where death was always so near? Childbirth could be deadly before—it took the lives of my mother and my brother. What would it be like in our new reality?

  I thought back to Sage, calling to Hayden as he rode away … of the pain in her voice when he didn’t come for her. Of how withdrawn she had been since he left, not saying anything. If she knew today of the baby, she must have known the day before, and if she knew then ….

  “Did he know?” I asked softly. I hoped her answer was no, so I could pretend he was not as much of a jerk as he was.

  She nodded, and I felt her heartbreak, of the promises shattered and the lies spoken.

  Twenty-Nine

  “What are you going to do?” I asked as darkness engulfed us. The smell of roasting snake and rabbit carried on the breeze.

  Jonah had silently checked on us once on his way back with the kills and then again a while later. Both times my hand had been on Sage’s back as she cried. She was weeping for far more than the loss of a boy who said he loved her and didn’t.

  “It’s not like I can have an abortion,” she said.

  The word stung my ears, or perhaps it was the way she’d said it.

  “Not that I would. I don’t believe in that.”

  It sounded so simple from her lips. She had a belief and she would abide by it. She was telling the truth. Even if she had a different option, her decision would have been the same. I envied her.

  “Are you going to tell the others?”

  “I’m pretty sure they will figure it out,” she said.

  “I meant, before that,” I said.

  “No, not yet. I’ve cried enough for one day. Actually, I’ve cried enough for a month. Plus, my sister will be disappointed.”

  “No, she won’t,” I said, thinking of the many pregnancy scares Sara had during the years I’d known her.

  “The old her wouldn’t, but the new her is so holy. I mean, that’s good, I guess, but it’s weird and it definitely doesn’t lend itself to being supportive of me being pregnant.”

  “You’re wrong,” I said, thinking of Quinn. “Yes, she’s holy, and yes, that’s weird. But I don’t think it will make her less supportive. She will be excited to be an aunt and she will be there for you, no matter what.”

  “She’ll want to kill Hayden,” she said, her face red and swollen.

  “Trust me, if we ever came across him again, he would be dead long before she got to him,” I said in a joking tone—though I was speaking the truth.

  “Do you think he’ll come back? Do you think he is looking for us?” she said with a childlike hope that reminded me of myself at her age.

  I had asked myself the same thing after I had told the father of my child. As the days went by, I hoped he would reach out. I told myself he just needed time. That he did love me and would love our child. Every vibration of my phone had made my breath stop in the vain hope it was him. It wasn’t. Never. He never checked on me. He never knew if I had had an abortion or his child. He didn’t care and he didn’t love me, and the sooner I accepted that, the sooner I could move forward.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “He knew you were pregnant and he left anyway.” Even if I could have, I wouldn’t have lied to her. Not about something like this.

  “He said he loved me,” she said, tears again filling her eyes.

  “I know he did,” I said, pulling her tear-soaked hair back from her cheeks. “But I think a lot of people, Hayden being one of them, don’t know what love is. It’s possible he thought he loved you, but the truth is words don’t mean much, especially when it comes to love.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. You have Jonah. He would walk through fire for you. I must look like a fool to you,” she said, her voice full of self-loathing.

  “I’ve been there. I’ve been where you are,” I said, nervous to tell her my secret, but it needed to be told. “You are not a fool. You are someone who wanted love, and you trusted someone you should not have trusted.”

  She sniffed, wiping tears as she peered up at me. “You have been here? Where I am?” she asked, gesturing to her stomach.

  I nodded.

  “What did your guy do?”

  “The same thing Hayden did,” I said, and the pain of memories washed over me.

  “What did you do?” she asked.

  “Something I regret.”

  She placed her hand on my back. “I hate men,” she said.

  “Hayden isn’t a man.”

  The sound of Jonah’s voice caused my face to flush and my heart to race. My words had not been meant for him.

  “A man isn’t selfish and cowardly,” he added. “A man puts those he loves above himself. He dies to himself, to give to them. He doesn’t take what he wants, he gives all that he is.” His voice was both angry and kind.

  Sage and I stared up at him, face lit by the moonlight. My mind raced, wondering how long he had been standing there. What had he heard?

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he said. “I came to check on you. Between the predators and harvesters, it isn’t safe to have you two so far from camp. Not at night.”

  He offered us each a hand, his signal that it was time to return to camp; he was not leaving us out here by ourselves, regardless of what we may want.

  “It’s okay,” Sage said, watching me as my face flushed red and then a deeper shade of red.

  ***

  Our camp had been moved, and now hunkered under the granite face jutting from a mountain. This site would offer protection from rain and allow at least some of us to sleep with our backs to stone, which was always safer than in the open.

  Sara and Ju
liette were the only ones who noticed Sage, Jonah, and me arrive. Blaise sat, staring into the darkness, and the other three sat staring at her, though only Josh was blatant about it.

  “Where have you been?” Sara asked.

  “I needed some time to think. Bria found me and sat with me,” Sage said, her voice no longer distraught.

  “Are you doing better after thinking?” Sara asked, handing Sage her portion of the food.

  “A little,” Sage said. She took the food and eased down between her sister and Juliette.

  Juliette held out her hand, offering me the remaining food. I took it and sat between her and Jonah.

  “Blaise, can we talk?” It was Felicia’s voice. She, too, had been crying.

  I felt exhaustion wash over me.

  “Can you bring back those people you killed?” Blaise asked, venom flowing from her lips.

  “Have you not killed?” her father asked. “Have you survived these six months without getting blood on your hands?”

  “If I killed, it was by accident,” she shouted. “With every shot, I avoided the organs. No matter what they had done or who they were. That’s how you raised me.” She stood near him, staring down.

  Blaise turned and stomped out the fire. “It’s time to sleep. This fire can be seen by harvesters, and we have enough of them with us as it is.”

  Her parents said nothing. Her mother fell against her father. I wondered if they knew they had lost her—that by killing that family, they had also killed their own.

  Blaise’s shadow returned to Josh’s side as I finished chewing the dry rabbit.

  “I’m on watch,” Jonah announced, taking his gun from his hip and a spear from his quiver.

  “Wake me in a few hours,” Sara said.

  None of us had slept in two days, and not even Jonah could handle a full night’s watch on that little sleep.

  I lay in the dirt, listening to the breathing of my friends … slow and deep. Blaise was the last to fall asleep; finally, the exhaustion overtook her.

  Jonah’s hand moved to rest gently on my stomach. My eyes were closed; he must have thought I was asleep.

  “How much did you hear?” I whispered.

  He pulled his hand away, startled.

  I sat up.

  “All of it,” he answered. “I didn’t want to listen, but I couldn’t leave you out in the woods. Not with night falling. The smell of fresh blood so near will attract canine predators—and the fire at camp, the human ones.”

  “So, you heard she’s pregnant?” I asked, hoping somehow he’d missed that I had been.

  “Yes, and—”

  “That I once was,” I said, swallowing my fear and forcing it down.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked. His tone sounded hurt.

  “How could I?” I wanted so badly to touch his hand or his face, but was terrified to reach out to him.

  “Did you think it would change things? Did you think it would change how I feel about you?”

  One of his fingers lightly rested on the side of my hand. The touch of his skin reminded me of all I could lose.

  “How could it not?” I said.

  “How could it?” His calloused index finger caressed my cheek.

  My body instinctively leaned into his touch. “I know what you believe,” I said. “I see it in your eyes.” I swallowed hard. “I killed. I didn’t believe that at the time. But I didn’t think about it, either. I was overwhelmed.” I shook my head. “No, I won’t make excuses. I did what I did, and I understand if you never want to see me again. Or if you just want to be friends.”

  “You were alone, Bria. I know that much about your past. Your dad wasn’t there. You felt alone and unloved. Those aren’t excuses, those are the facts.”

  “That doesn’t matter. I took a life. An innocent life.”

  “Have you asked for God’s mercy?”

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “Then you have it,” he whispered.

  “I wish I believed you.”

  “God will give you what you ask for. If you want to be held accountable, he will hold you accountable. If you wish instead to be shown mercy, he will show you mercy.”

  “What about you?” I asked, biting my lip.

  “Please hear me, and I mean really truly hear me. I love you. Now and forever, I love you. I will spend my life beside you. You were made for me, and I was made for you. I will never leave you, and there will never be another. I am yours, totally and completely.”

  His green eyes were dark in the pale light of the moon. Yet I could see they were sincere and I knew his words were true. He asked nothing of me; he wanted only to give, not take.

  I touched his beard. “I love you too. Now and forever,” I said.

  His sunburned lips brushed mine as he whispered, “Did you really think we could ever be just friends?”

  My hand tightened around the back of his neck, as I closed the distance between us.

  “No,” I whispered into the darkness.

  End of Book 3

  Epilogue

  The sand squished between my toes, and the air smelled like saltwater. I sat, watching some sailboats play on the horizon ….

  The dissonance of reality intruded and grew louder, drowning out the crashing waves of my dream.

  I sat up. The sound was unmistakable. A search light filled the forest beyond our stone sanctuary.

  Jonah stood next to Sara and Blaise’s parents in the darkness between forest and stone. Beside them, Astrea growled. Juliette held her, not allowing her to go toward the light.

  I wondered if those we had let live told the helicopter commander about the girl with the pink scar carved in her short blonde hair and the beautiful boy with sea-glass green eyes that loved her. Or about the dark, curly-haired girl whose heart had been broken so many times before, yet was healing, and her sister, whose heart had only begun to break. Or about the brown-skinned prince and his Asian princess who had lived life in the best way possible. And her parents, who hadn’t. Or of the young girl and her dog who had saved them all.

  I knew, of course, they would not describe us like that, because to them we were not people. We were Trent’s murderers, town rebels, slaves, harvester killers.

  More than any of that, we were citizens of a country that no longer existed.

  We were a threat.

  I wondered, as the chopper’s roar faded and the world returned to shadows, if they would continue to hunt us, or if they would forget us in a day or a week or a month.

  I wondered if we could take that risk.

  Also by Jacqueline Brown:

  The Light: Who do you become when the world falls away? Book One of The Light Series

  Through the Ashes, Book Two of The Light Series

  Before the Silence, A Light Series Short Story

  To download your FREE copy of Before the Silence please join the mailing list or visit www.Jacqueline-Brown.com

  Watch the Book Trailers:

  The Light: Who do you become when the world falls away?

  Through the Ashes

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