I will be hunted for as long as the alien species remains on this planet. I hold the receptor firmly against them until they release Tilly and take off in their vehicles. I could probably blow them to pieces but I feel drained.
I drop to my knees, overwhelmed by suspended emotions and physical exhaustion. When I look at my friends, beaten, bloodied and worn out, my blood freezes.
The Saviors stare at me with caution as if I were a stranger.
Chapter 19
Darkness has crept inside the forest, turning the greens to browns and grays, causing pupils to dilate and hearts to shrink.
We’ve traveled as far as we can on our way to the mountains, but we can’t go any further. We are bodies without spirit, legs without muscles, thoughts without hope.
Daphne lies on the ground. Her breathing is labored and forced. Her eyes are closed. Her connection to the world is fading.
Doc has tried to tend to her but there’s nothing more he can do.
Zoe is inconsolable. She, Theo and Doc are the only ones that haven’t been injured. They are alert enough to fully comprehend the weight of our situation. Zoe caresses Daphne’s hair while trying to hold back her sobs.
Finn hasn’t said a single word but I can tell he’s in great pain emotionally and physically. He has been badly hurt as are Tilly, Nya, Rabbit and, worst of all, Damian.
I am numb, confused, I can’t make sense of anything.
“Freya,” I hear my name whispered. I look up and see Zoe who wants me to go to her. Her face is pale but a glimmer of hope emerges on it.
“Daphne has asked for you,” she says.
I am paralyzed. My body won’t move.
“Go, Freya, talk to her,” Zoe insists. “Your name has been on her lips since she regained consciousness.”
I feel the anguish in Zoe’s voice, but I can’t talk. I can’t form a single sensible sentence. I want to tell Daphne that I’m sorry but what good is that now? I’m sorry for all my petty thoughts. I’m sorry for my jealousy. I’m sorry for my arrogance. I’m sorry I made you my enemy.
I don’t know how to say any of this, so I kneel next to her silently. Daphne moves her lips but no sound comes out. I lean over her. “I will make them pay, Daphne, I promise. No matter what it takes, I will destroy them all.”
I tighten my fists around the alien device and squeeze it hard. It releases a rainbow of light that grows larger and larger until it encompasses the trees all around us. The forest is lit with colors and shimmering lines of energy. A little circle of yellow and white light sparks out of the receptor and lands on Daphne’s face.
She opens her eyes with a sudden burst of energy. She gazes at my face and Zoe’s face, then stares at the suspended light with a smile on her lips.
“The flood of light. It was you,” she says. “You were the one in my dream. You are the flood of light.”
The smile lingers on her lips even as she leaves this world. The light around her turns into a white mist and it sprinkles down onto her.
The tears we have been holding back are free to roll down our cheeks. One by one we lean over Daphne to say goodbye. When it’s Damian’s turn, he hurries to walk away, hunched over and dragging his injured leg.
I walk over to Finn. I sit next to him and rest my head on his shoulder. The familiarity of this seems strangely odd in the semi-darkness of the forest under the moonlight.
“Everything is my fault,” he says. “I don’t know what I was thinking, or maybe I simply wasn’t thinking at all. I put all this in motion.”
“No, if it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine, Finn. Daphne died because of the mess I got myself into, because I grabbed the sensory receptor from the alien, because I put Damian in a position where he had no option but to try to protect me.”
“We shouldn’t even be there,” Finn regrets. “I shouldn’t have convinced all those kids to go with me. We weren’t ready. Damian knew it.”
I know that he believes what he says. I know that he’s overcome with guilt. I know that he’s in pain. I am not mad at him, not anymore, nobody can predict the future, why should he?
“It’s no use blaming yourself. You had no idea this was going to happen. You followed your instincts. Now we have to regroup and move on. They know about us.”
“They know about you, you mean. They will not rest until they get their hands on you,” Finn says as he looks at me with curiosity.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I beg of him.
“You connected with the receptor,” he says. “You shouldn’t have, but you did. You made the impossible happen. You connected to it more efficiently than the aliens themselves. Maybe Theo will have an explanation.”
“You don’t sound too surprised.”
“I’ve always known you were special,” he says with a wink. “How many times have I told you?”
“What are we going to do?” I ask.
“I’m the wrong guy to ask. Damian is our leader.”
We don’t say anything for a while. We will say goodbye to this forest that has been our home for so long. Daphne will never leave this place and we may never return. I will take her energy with me. I feel this more than I think it.
“What are you thinking?” Finn asks.
“Daphne. Did you fall in love with her?”
He gives no response for what seems like an eternity.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “She’s inside me now. I feel her. She’ll always be with me.”
Finn gives me a sad smile. “Silly, Tick. Daphne loved Damian for years. He didn’t share her feelings, or maybe he didn’t want to have feelings for anyone while he was responsible for our lives. Daphne tried to get him to change his mind. He became distant. He shut her out. He refused to talk to her in private anymore. He kept her at a distance.”
“But why did she confide in you? Does it have to do with the hidden box? Please, Finn, tell me.”
He sighs as he turns his face away. “I need time to put everything in order inside my head first. Daphne had a premonition that she was going to die in a flood. She didn’t talk about her premonitions much but she had quite a few that turned out to be fairly accurate according to her.”
I remember now. She said I was in her dream. She called me the flood.
“She wanted to have some time with Damian before this happened,” Finn continues. “She thought if Damian lost the leadership of the group temporarily, he might be more open to her. She asked for my help, she wanted me to find a way to replace Damian. I didn’t really agree to that, but I did agree to show more initiative and put Damian in a spot to give her opportunity to approach him when he was vulnerable. I made a horrible mistake.”
“I want to know about the box,” I tell him. “It consumes me.”
“The box was Daphne’s. She wanted me to give it to Damian after she was gone. I knew she was serious about this. I couldn’t turn her down even though I never believed she was going to die, Freya, honest.”
The trees bristle in the breeze unaware of our human struggles. I squeeze his hand. His burden weighs heavily on him. I want to help him carry it.
“Somebody should go find Damian,” Finn says. “He’s hurt in more ways than he will ever admit.”
This is what I can do for Finn. Help Damian. “It’s the least I can do,” I say. “He saved my life even though all I’ve ever done is defy him.”
“Thank him for all of us. He has always cared only about our well being.”
“Finn, we will get through this.”
I let go of his hand and turn my eyes to the spot where Daphne’s body lies, surrounded by the familiar faces of her friends and companions.
“Safe travels, Daphne,” I whisper.
*
Damian sits at the root of a big oak tree. The screen of the sensory receptor has turned into a flashlight. I can see him clearly. He is perfectly still, staring into the void of night. His arm and leg have been clumsily bandaged. His face is bruised in several spots, yet he looks more
handsome than ever.
“Go away,” he says without looking at me.
I don’t go. I sit by him. The look on his face is murderous when he turns it on me.
“Are you deaf?” He spews the words out slowly, putting emphasis on the deaf part, but then he starts laughing. His laughter fills the space around us with an angry intensity. It ricochets off the trees. It bounces off the ground and hurts my eardrums.
I fear he has gone mad.
“Fine, if you don’t go, I will,” he says as he stands up.
“It’s not your fault, it’s mine,” I say, but I don’t think he cares. I get up, too, and stand in front of him. “Daphne made the choice to give up her life for you. I know how terrible it feels, because in a way, she gave up her life for me, too.” My voice breaks into a thousand tiny glass shards as I speak.
“What do you know?” Damian shouts at me. “You have no idea, so spare me your pity. You are clueless still even if you somehow turned into a super-hero today. Now clear off and leave me alone.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” I say, trying to sound as calm as possible.
“Well, maybe you should be,” he says.
“I know a lot more than you think. I know Daphne loved you.”
“Just shut up.”
“I don’t know when you realized that you loved her, too. I don’t know if it just hit you today or a long time ago.” I grab his wrists as he tries to raise his hands to push me away. “She chose to jump in front of you because she loved you. It was her choice, her right.”
“If she had just listened to me,” he says as he begins fighting the pain in his heart, “I could have kept her safe.”
“We will never be safe, Damian. We are fugitives. We are the Saviors. A lot of us will die and when more join us, they will die, too. Fewer will die with you leading us. You can’t wallow in guilt. We all need you.”
He remains silent but I can feel a pressure he doesn’t understand building up in his chest, choking him, making him light-headed.
“I came here to thank you,” I tell him. “For saving me, for all that you did.” I realize then that this is not what I came to say. This is what Finn wants me to say. My words would be questions, petty and confused and accusing him. I’d ask him why he came back for us. I’d ask why he didn’t run to safety, to the mountains, when he had the chance.
He turns his face away. “I cared for Daphne. I respected and admired her, but you were wrong before. I didn’t love her. Not the way she wanted.”
I take a step backward when he moves toward me and locks his eyes on mine. Then another step and another until I find my back against a tree.
“Do you realize what you did back there, Freya?” he says as he crouches down to level his eyes with mine. “You’ve changed the rules of the game forever. You are our future.”
He kisses me and I want to fight him off but I don’t. I stay in the kiss and when he gets his arms around me, I do the same. I don’t know what I’m doing or why. I don’t know why it feels good. Our pain swims away into the forest and the sun erupts into our hungry hearts. I wait for the guilt to begin but there are only his lips now.
My senses suddenly target a rustling among the trees. Finn. I turn my eyes and see his face stunned in the moonlight, watching us.
What have I done?
I push Damian away as I watch Finn disappear into the darkness.
“I’m sorry,” Damian says. “That was stupid. I’m not myself.”
“It’s okay,” I say as I set off running into the dark to catch up with Finn.
*
I find everyone where I left them but now they are not concentrated on Daphne. All eyes are on me. Finn’s included. I wonder if he has told them about what he’s just witnessed. I go red all the way to my ears.
But it’s not that. What I see in their eyes when I step closer is a flicker of hope, a flash of wonder.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“We’ve been talking about you and the sensory receptor,” Theo says. “It somehow synchronized with your brainwaves and nerve receptors and it responded to your touch. I have no explanation as to why it happened, but we all agree that you give us a fighting chance.”
Theo hugs me and I hug him back, uncertain of what to say.
“Can I hold the device?” Theo asks.
I hand it over to him and he pushes a red button, then a yellow one. He closes his eyes and shakes the receptor but nothing happens.
“Just as I thought,” he says. “It’s only you that it likes.”
“Who knows what else you will be able to do with it,” Tilly says. I can tell she’s excited about the possibilities.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to fly, Tilly,” I say trying to steal a glance at Finn.
I don’t see anything out of the ordinary on his face and demeanor, but I feel like I have to explain myself. I want to tell him that what he saw wasn’t real. It wasn’t planned. It was a momentary lapse in judgment brought on by the shock and pain and heaviness of the day.
I want to tell him that my only focus is the Saviors and trying to figure out this new ability of mine.
But why do I need to redeem myself in his eyes? Finn and I are friends. We are free to make our own decisions.
Rabbit, Scout, Tilly and Biscuit hug me all at the same time. Doc and Zoe make the sign of victory. Nya bows ever so slightly to me.
Damian walks back to us and shakes Finn’s hand, as the energy in the company changes from dark to light. It hits me that this new chapter we are entering comes with a great deal more responsibility for me.
I will fight and I will persevere. I will put aside arrogance and self-pity. I will inspire those still in chains and will protect the Saviors with my last breath. I will cherish every beat of their hearts.
And I will become a flood of light in the darkness.
Chapter 20
The landscape changes slowly as we move north to the mountains. The land becomes dryer, the trees shorter. The march is slow as we are injured and we have to pause frequently to cover up our tracks and make sure we’re not being followed.
Theo says he doesn’t think the aliens will try to follow us, not while I am in possession of the sensory receptor device and they have no understanding of what I can do with it. They will need to gather forces and devise a plan.
We will have to live like nomads for a while until we find a new place to settle down, a place far away from the plantations.
At the break of dawn we buried Daphne in the woods. We set off through the underground tunnel with heavy hearts. Now that we walk out in the sunshine again, with the heat burning our wounds and scorching our pride, I visualize Daphne’s face one last time, her beautiful eyes, her proud gait and her intensity when she used the powers of her mind. I am coming to terms with what has happened to her and with what lays ahead for me.
I will never forget her or my promise. I will find a way to avenge her death and the deaths of so many before her. We will find the strength to believe in each other again, and from now on I will not let doubt and fear dictate my actions.
It was no accident we all found our way to the Saviors. We were all meant to be here and even I have discovered my role. I am needed as much as anybody else, but, most importantly, we are not alone.
It’s not just Finn and me anymore. Tilly, Rabbit, Theo, Zoe, Biscuit, Nya, Doc, Scout and Damian have become my family. Daphne will be remembered in my heart along with my sisters and brother and my poor, fractured mother.
Rabbit and Scout who have been leading the way signal for us to halt.
“There’s someone out there,” Rabbit says.
“About two hundred clicks ahead, hiding in the woods,” Scout adds.
“Someone? What do you mean? Is it alien or Sliman?” Damian asks.
“Human,” Rabbit says. “It’s human.”
Tilly steps in and squints, trying to improve her focus. “If it’s human, it’s a small one. A child.”
We mov
e closer until we distinguish the small silhouette that lingers uncertainly in the distance.
“Rabbit, go get it or go kill it,” Damian says.
Rabbit dashes off leaving a cloud of dust flying up behind him. Our breathing slows down as we watch the scene. Rabbit covers the distance within seconds and grabs the child from behind. We can see the child’s limbs kicking wildly in a desperate attempt to break free.
As Rabbit walks back toward us, holding the child in his arms, I feel a strange twinge in my heart. I know it’s impossible, yet I recognize her right away. I’ve often thought of her, dreamed of one day seeing her, even chose a name for her.
She’s very small and looks hungry. Her hair is very short. Her eyes study each and every one of us. She’s confused, but not scared. She stretches her neck to show she has no fear of us.
“Let her go, Rabbit,” I say drily.
Rabbit looks to Damian for approval. Damian nods that it’s okay. Rabbit releases the girl and she stays right where she stands. I walk to her cautiously.
She considers me without any hesitation or doubt. Her tiny body straightens up in an attempt to appear taller. She lifts her hand to pat her hair down and then she wipes her hand on her brown uniform. On it, sewn with red and black thread, I can see the insignia for Plantation-15.
I place my hands on her shoulders for a moment, then change my mind and put them on her red cheeks, closing her face inside them. My chest fills with tenderness and affection.
“Pip,” I say. “Welcome to the Saviors.”
~~~
Author Note
I hope you have enjoyed THE PLANTATION. Join my mailing list to receive news on upcoming releases, free stories & promotions: Stella Samiotou Fitzsimons Books
Don’t miss the next book in the series!
THE DARK LEGION
(Book 2 in THE PLANTATION SERIES)
A little excerpt
I place the receptor in front of my face and gently blow at it. My breath is visible as it touches the small screen on the receptor. Immediately, the energy switches and I jump out of the trees and right in front of the convoy. The two Sliman that lead the way are caught unawares and waste seconds before reacting.
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