by Pam Godwin
Razor barbed wire and electric fencing reinforced the barricade on the other side of the dam, which required all of our foot and vehicle traffic to use the main gate. But that didn’t stop the mobs from gathering outside both walls to get a glimpse through the metal bars.
The woman strode toward us, a hand on her pregnant belly and her long legs eating up the distance. None of the soldiers accompanied her, and the look of determination etching her pixie-like features compelled me to step forward. But Roark stopped me, his arms holding my back to his chest.
“Let her come to us.” He glanced over his shoulder at the elevators. “The crowd is contained, but we want to keep ye close.”
“Contained how? What if spiders come? All those people—”
“We have patrols around the perimeter.” Jesse leaned a hip against the ledge beside me, arms crossed, and his bow on his back. “Hundreds of troops are spread out within a two mile radius of the dam.”
They must’ve brought in Link’s army from Vegas, and they’d kept me in the dark about what was going on.
I studied Jesse’s relaxed posture for concealed signs of tension and found none. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Before he could answer, the woman closed the final distance and stopped within arm’s reach.
She stood a head taller than me, her body firm and toned despite the roundness of her stomach. A very large stomach. Probably due any day. Sweat sheened her scalp, and her cropped blonde hair stuck to her hairline. She watched me with shrewd gray eyes, but I didn’t miss the slight tremble in her hands as she rested them over her belly. Why was she nervous?
She licked her bottom lip and lowered her head, peering up at me through her lashes. “You’re Eve?”
“Evie.”
“Evie,” she breathed, and it sounded like a plea. Or a prayer. “You’re…” Her gaze roamed my face. “You’re as beautiful as they say.”
“Uh…thank you?” Embarrassed and completely off guard, I rubbed the back of my neck, sweating like a hog with my gut hanging out. “Who’s they?”
She glanced behind her at the armed men and returned to me. “Whoever has seen you, I guess. Your name is whispered on every breath from here to the coast.”
Questions lumped in my throat, but I managed to remember my manners. “What’s your name?”
Her shoulders squared, even as her chin remained tucked to her chest. “Selene.”
“Where did you come from?”
She looked around at my guardians. “They didn’t tell you?”
I clenched my teeth. They hadn’t told me shit. Jesse and Michio watched our interaction with soft smiles and even softer eyes. And Roark, still curved around my back, brushed my wet hair from my face and kissed my shoulder.
I returned my attention to Selene. “You’re from the coast? Which one?”
Her trousers and tank top were clean, bearing a few haphazard stitches over holes and tears. No blood, dirt, or injuries. She didn’t appear to have fought her way here, but her athletic physique and strong eye-contact suggested she could hold her own.
“I’m from Minnesota originally, but I came here from Oregon.” Her eyes clouded, and she blinked it away. “I escaped one of the Drone’s breeding facilities.”
My insides flipped and tumbled, and my questions poured out, each one more rushed than the one before. “How? How many women? Where is it? Do you know where the other facilities are? Oh my God, are there still women at—”
“Evie.” Michio gave me a stern look. “Let her speak.”
When I gave her a nod, she explained how she and three hundred other pregnant women used chains, forks, and whatever makeshift weapons they could find to fight their way out of a tunnel system beneath Oregon State Hospital. They managed to kill the thirty spiders and human men imprisoning them, but only seventy women made it out alive. She knew nothing about the other facilities or how to find them, and she had never seen an aphid—only heard about them. She said there hadn’t been any known aphid sightings since the day the Drone died.
My breaths scattered beneath the gravity of her news, and my fingers trembled against my lips.
She straightened her spine. “When we were cured, some of the human men…the men who…” She glanced ruefully at her belly and cleared her throat. “They explained a few things, such as how the world died with the Drone’s virus and was rebuilt with the blood of one woman. His queen.”
Fierce resentment growled through my voice. “I was never his queen.”
“I know. But it wasn’t until we escaped and asked questions of every man and woman we passed that we learned who you really were and the salvation you would bring.”
There was that word from Roark’s discourse on Our Lady of Akita. Salvation. I couldn’t see his face behind me, but I bet those jade eyes were glowing like the Virgin’s mandorla.
What on earth were people saying about me? How did anyone even know I existed? I supposed word had traveled from Arkendale about the source of the cure, and perhaps Link’s men circulated stories, but that information had likely twisted into wild fairytales as it passed from person to person. It made sense now why this strong woman kept her chin lowered. She was standing before me in misguided reverence.
I didn’t want to disappoint her or shatter her fantasy, but I wouldn’t delude her either. “What are the rumors?”
Blinking rapidly, her gaze fell on my stomach, and her hand shakily reached out. “May I?”
I nodded, my body stiffening against Roark as her fingers grazed the swell of my belly.
Making the situation even more awkward, she lowered to her knees and touched her forehead to my naval. “They say you fought the Drone in Iceland. That you killed all the bugs with a single thought. That you weep blood and move as fast as the spiders.”
Oh. Well, most of that was true. I touched her cheek. “I’m not as fast as the spiders.” I sighed. “Please stand up. The pavement must be burning your knees.”
She remained kneeling with her head bent. “They say if a golden strand of your hair is used to sew a wound, the injury will heal within minutes.”
“Wow.” I laughed and shook my head. “News to me.”
She looked up with a knowing smile. “They also talk about how you fly through the Black Canyon with blood-red wings, and the spots on your back represent all the creatures you’ve slain.”
I turned in Roark’s arms, lifted the hem of my shirt, and showed her my back. “See? No wings. And the spots are just pigment changes in my skin.”
Pigment that changed whenever I controlled the aphids.
When she gasped, my insides constricted. I didn’t want her to place false hope in me just because I had some biological anomalies.
I pressed my fingers into Roark’s shoulders, his warmth burning my hands through his shirt, and met his eyes. “Tell her to stand up.”
He kissed me with smiling lips and twisted me back to stare down at her kneeling pose.
She rested her palm over my belly, her head returning to its bowed position. “The prophecy says your daughter will destroy the spiders the way you eliminated the aphids.” She looked up, and her eyes were filled with so much hope it staggered me. “She will reverse the programming and save our babies.”
A hollow ache lodged in my chest, clenching tighter with each desperate word.
I didn’t know how my child would save them, but I was willing to do whatever was needed to aid the effort, including dying while delivering her. “I hope so.”
“She will.” Selene rose and set her shoulders. “I can see it in your face. You know what’s at stake, and you’ll sacrifice yourself for it, just like the prophecy said.”
Roark’s breath cut off, and Jesse and Michio looked away, their jaws hardening and postures stiffening.
“The people know this, as well.” She stretched out an arm, making a wide gesture to the surrounding crowd.
With nerveless fingers, I rubbed the ledge of my belly. “That’s why they’re here? For my
child?”
“They came for you.” Her gaze lingered on the women at the gate. “For a glimpse, an encouraging word, or a touch of your hand. For your blessing, a token of your strength, so that it might carry them through the years ahead.”
My throat dried as I struggled to parse my conflicting emotions. I was shocked by what people thought of me. Hopeful for the future. Sad to not be a part of it.
Hundreds of faces peered through the gate, staring back at me like a waking dream. Thousands more watched from the river’s shores and surrounding bluffs.
I swallowed. “How many of the pregnant women have been bitten?”
“Most of them.” She absently touched her neck, the marks no longer there, but the venomous consequence shadowed her eyes. “The few who haven’t been bitten know it’s only a matter of time.”
They faced an unthinkable future. If we couldn’t reverse the programming, the spider babies would have to be killed. If they were born with fangs, who would be able to hold them? When they walked and became mobile, grew faster and stronger, who would be able to stop them? Killing them young, perhaps as soon as they were born, was the safest option.
Selene held her pregnant belly, probably only days from giving birth, and stared at me grimly, fully aware of what she would have to do.
Maybe my daughter would save them, but not without their help. I gazed out over the masses of surrounding people. I’d arrived here on the ruthless wings of confusion and adversity, fighting, killing, and surviving, just like them. Yet here we stood, together as a whole, undivided. Was it a sign that peace would return? That a harmonious world waited beyond the horizon? My daughter would need their continuing persistence and faith in humanity, and right now, they needed mine.
I pulled out of Roark’s embrace and angled toward the gate. The silence lifted, and dense murmurs roared into excitement.
Roark grabbed my hand, halting me. “This is why we didn’t tell ye they were here.”
Because they thought I’d find my way into the crowd before it was contained? I wasn’t that reckless. Jesse and Michio blocked my path with their arms crossed.
I tugged against Roark’s grip. “If it’s contained, let me go to them.” I lowered my voice. “If I remain behind an iron wall, it’ll foster distrust. They need my hope, not my fear.”
Michio’s nostrils flared. “We knew you’d say that.”
Selene stood to the side, her head down, watching us out of the corner of her eye.
I stopped pulling against Roark, and instead stepped toward him and wrapped my arms around his waist, cradling our child between us. “I’m not going to die out there.” Assuming the cliff was no longer a threat, I would at least live long enough to give birth. “I’ll stay near the gate and away from the ledge.”
The blazing heat was brutal, drenching us in sweat, but Roark smelled like soap and musk. He was strong and steady and…testing the hell out of my patience as he shared a look with Jesse and Michio behind me.
My aching need to soothe those people far outweighed whatever risks he was conjuring in his stubborn head. “Come with me.”
Jesse made an amused noise. “Oh, we’ll be with you.”
And so they were. With Jesse and Roark pressed to my sides and Michio at my back, I walked through the gate. Selene disappeared into the crush of bodies, and the guards circled my guardians and me, weapons raised and ready. But they didn’t need to interfere. The crowd didn’t push, didn’t attack. They lowered their heads. Then they lowered to their knees.
“No, don’t kneel.” My heart thumped slow and heavy, my hands finding and gripping Jesse’s and Roark’s. “Please, just…everyone stand up.”
Bodies continued to sink to the ground, rippling from the front row and spreading out, until all I saw was a wave of kneeling people in every direction. Those who peered up from lowered heads, looked at me with awe and respect.
It was too much. My nerves ran wild, shaking my legs and numbing my tongue. My throat caught fire, and a moment later, my eyes joined in, burning and aching and flooding with moisture. Shit, my tears. I raised a hand to quickly wipe the blood away.
Roark caught my arm. “Let them see.”
But it wasn’t me they revered. I mean, they didn’t know me. They knelt before the promise of a miracle, an iconic image of a woman who carried a prophesied child, a baby who might give them a reason to not have to kill their own.
I sniffed, wiped my nose, and sniffed again. Then I drew in a deep breath and shouted through the canyon. “Hi. I’m—” Crap, I didn’t need to state my name. “You don’t need to kneel. Please stand up.”
No one moved.
I turned to Roark, silently begging him to do something.
His emerald eyes lingered on my face a little too long, his smile a little too mischievous. He leaned in, brushed his lips against mine, and lowered to his knees.
My face flushed, and I grabbed his shoulder, tugging. I might as well have been trying to lift a mountain.
I turned and watched, horrified, as Jesse and Michio joined him on their knees. Behind me, Shea, Link, all of my friends—my equals!—were kneeling with their heads bowed. The only ones standing were the armed guards. Oh, and my happy-go-lucky dog, who stood on the inside of the gate with his tongue lolling between the bars.
Ducking my face against my shoulder, I whispered at Jesse out of the corner of my mouth. “Get your ass up.”
His hand encircled my ankle, his thumb stroking.
Fine. If I couldn’t beat them…
I dropped to my knees. But I didn’t make it to the ground. Michio caught my hips mid-drop and hoisted me back to my feet.
Twisting at the waist, I looked around for an escape. I didn’t want to run, but I’d come out here to offer comfort and encouragement, not to tower over them as if they were second class citizens.
I took in all the faces nearest to me and paused on a young, pregnant girl who couldn’t have been older than eighteen. The fresh bite mark on her pale neck was a knife in my stomach. Had she been raped? Or was she carrying a child she’d created with a husband or boyfriend?
She brushed her tangled brown hair from her face and met my eyes. A shaky smile lifted her lips. Her chest rose with a deep breath, and her expression glowed with expectation. Hope in the face of the tragic future she carried in her womb.
Her faith bolstered me. Jesse’s hand on my ankle helped me find my voice.
Stretching my lungs, I spoke as loud as I could. “Thank you for coming. I…uh…”
What should I say? Even if I’d had months to prepare a speech, I wouldn’t have been able to produce a message that would vanish their problems. And I wouldn’t give promises I couldn’t keep.
So I spoke from my heart. I told them about my family before the plague, about my journey here, leaving out the gruesome details and focusing on the heroic people I’d met along the way. I talked about the Lakota and their respect for all living things. Ian, the young man who’d helped me cross the Atlantic. The brutish Icelandic men, who didn’t speak my language but sacrificed their lives to lead me to the volcano. My guardians, who dedicated every breath to protect me. I unfolded stories about Georges and Tallis, Shea and Link, and the proliferation of Arkendale, and how the peninsula began with the determination of Link’s men and women.
As my words echoed through the canyon, I knew only a fraction of the congregation could hear me. But my stories would ripple, like their kneeling postures. The details might change, but the meaning would carry: Women wouldn’t be here without the extraordinary acts of ordinary people. People just like them.
When my voice grew too hoarse to shout, I thanked them again. Then I spent the next three hours greeting the continuous rotation of men and women. Many of them had dogs with them, which filled me with warmth. The world needed more loving companions like Darwin.
I touched pregnant bellies, rested my hand on countless bowed heads, and whispered words of encouragement. At first, I wasn’t sure what to say, but as
I looked into each set of eyes, it was easy to simply say what I felt. When a woman smiled, I told her she was beautiful. If a man had a soldier’s bearing, I told him he was strong. You’re brave, remarkable, thoughtful, gentle, earnest… I gave them my honesty and approval like a chant.
The crowd of thousands queued without an end in sight. I could’ve gone another three hours, but the sun was waning, and exhaustion drew circles under my guardians’ eyes. Michio, less so, but the three of them never left my side, their vigilance straining their shoulders and tightening their necks. At the very least, they needed to eat.
I gripped Jesse’s hand. “It’s time.”
There would be a tomorrow and a tomorrow after that. I couldn’t offer food and shelter to thousands, but I would return to the surface in a gesture of hope.
I lay in bed that night, perpendicular to Roark’s body, curled on my side with my head on his chest, as Jesse and Michio molded around my lower half. My limbs felt lighter, my heart fuller, my entire being immersed in the essentials of life. I had love with three men, hope with my child, and purpose for my existence.
My guardians had been unusually quiet through dinner, and now, with their eyes closed and breaths even, they were either asleep or deep in thought like me.
Our daughter was due at the end of August. Two months. Was that all the time I had left? I needed to reach more people outside. Needed to collect more baby supplies. Needed a name for our child. Needed to talk about the future with her fathers.
I needed more time.
The next morning, I woke with a tiny foot pressing against my bladder. She stretched and twisted in my womb, each movement surging a shock of pulsations through me. I’d felt her aura strengthening over the past month, but her life force was substantial today. It felt like Michio’s humming vibrations, only more pronounced, as if I were inside her instead of the other way around. She felt like a warm conductor of emotional and living energy. The kind of energy that could expand beyond all boundaries.