Hope (Book 2, Harvester of Light Trilogy; Young Adult Science Fiction) (25 page)

I stared at the
empty space and found myself shaking my head.

I met Zoe’s eyes and
saw she was leaned up on her elbows looking at the void Ash had left behind.

With a heavy sigh and
a new set of tears, she cried, “Seriously?”

Chapter 24

I found the river
water Ash boiled still sitting on the small gas stove on the boat.  A pile of mismatched
towels was sitting on the galley table also.  I picked it all up and brought it
back to the boathouse.  After cleaning the babies off and wrapping them in
towels, I laid them beside Zoe so she could watch them sleep while I cleaned
her up and healed the tear in her flesh caused by the babies’ births.

“They’re so
small,” Zoe said, staring at her children.  “I’m not sure what to name them.”

I looked up at Zoe
with a frown.

“You know what to
name them,” I told her.  “Simon and Rose.”

I could literally
see the light bulb go off above Zoe’s head.

“Oh my God,” she
said, eyes wide.  “I should have realized that.”

When Zoe looked
back at the babies, she seemed wary of them.

“They’re still
yours,” I said to her.  “They need you now.”

“I know,” she
said, her voice sounding little. “But what about the other girl?”

I pulled the hem
of Zoe’s gown down and started to wash the blood from my hands in what was left
of the river water.

“I don’t think
she’s going to make it,” I said bluntly, seeing no need to pander to Zoe’s
human emotions.  “She doesn’t seem to exist in the future.”

As if knowing we
were talking about them, both Simon and Rose began to cry.  Zoe’s motherhood
gene seemed to kick in as she sat up and picked one of them up.  She exposed
one of her breast and coaxed the baby to begin suckling at the nipple. 

“Oww,” Zoe complained
as the babe began to draw milk from her body.

I sat there and
watched them for a minute wondering what it would feel like to hold your own
child in your arms and feed it with food your body made naturally in order to
ensure your progenies survival.  I knew I would never get the chance to
experience the closeness between a mother and her child and felt a small part
of myself fade away.

After a few
minutes, Zoe lay one baby down and picked up the other who hadn’t stopped
crying to be fed while its sibling ate his fill.  The third baby remained
still.  I got up to check to see if it was even still alive.  Content in its
makeshift white towel wrap, the baby was quietly making quick observations of its
surroundings.  How much it could actually see probably wasn’t much.  I
remembered reading in a book once that babies could only see 8 or so inches in
front of them clearly.  I bent down and picked the baby up being careful to not
touch its exposed heart.  As soon as she was cradled in my arm, the baby’s eyes
locked on my face.  A hint of a smile curved her tiny lips as she continued to
watch me.

“I want to name
her Hope,” Zoe said.

“What do you think
about that?” I asked the baby.  As if in response it closed its eyes and
promptly went to sleep in my arms.

After a while, I
laid Hope back down beside her brother and sister.

I heard a splash
of water and looked behind me to find Ash.  He had reappeared with one foot
firmly stuck in the bucket containing the bloody river water.

“Where have you
been?” Zoe asked not trying to hide her frustration with him.  “We were worried
sick.  How could you leave when we have three babies to take care of?”

“It wasn’t by
choice,” Ash replied, not seeming to take Zoe’s anger to heart. 

“Where did you
go?” I asked.

“You mean when?”
Ash said pulling his now drenched foot out of the bucket.  “I went back to my
first day of kindergarten.  My Mom was dropping me off and trying to give me
pointers on how to make friends.”

“Did you happen to
bring anything back?” I asked.

“No,” Ash looked
confused.  “Should I have?”

“Bringing back
some supplies for your kids would have been a smart thing to do,” I said
crossing my arms.

“Well I’m sorry,
your highness,” Ash said with a mocking bow.  “I don’t exactly have this time
travelling thing down yet.  Next time I’ll try to make sure I materialize near
a Wal-Mart.”

And with those
parting words, Ash disappeared again.

“Hope he remembers
to go to Wal-Mart,” I said dryly.

I heard Zoe bust
out laughing.  I looked over at her and couldn’t prevent myself from smiling a
little.  Even in the face of everything she had been through that day, she
could still find a way to laugh.  Human behavior was odd and unexplainable
sometimes.

After she stopped
laughing, Zoe wiped the tears from her eyes and looked up at me.

“Skye, I’m
hungry,” she said simply.

“What do you want
me to do?” I asked.  “Go catch a fish in the river with my bare hands?”

Zoe giggled. 
“No.  But it’s probably safer for you to go find food than it is for me to try
and find it.  You’re like a god now right?  Nothing can hurt you.”

Nothing but having
my head chopped off by a bunch of angry humans, I thought to myself.

“All right.  You
stay put and try to keep the babies quiet while I’m gone.  I’m not sure what’s
going on out there right now but if the human’s blew up the Queen’s house,
there’s no telling what else they’ve done.”

Zoe cocked her
head and looked at me like I had suddenly grown horns on the top of my head.

“What’s wrong?” I
asked.

“You called Lucena
the Queen, not your mother.  It’s the first time you’ve done that since I’ve
seen you.”

“Slip of the
tongue,” I said with a shrug.  “She’s both.”

“No,” Zoe said a
light a hope in her eyes.  “No, you’re starting to think about her
differently.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes…”

“Stop!” I said,
becoming frustrated.  “We’re not five years old, Zoe.  I said it was a
mistake.  Leave it at that.”

Zoe shrugged. 
“You can say what you want, and I’ll think what I want.”

I growled in
annoyance.  “Why are you so stubborn?”

“I’m only stubborn
if I know I’m right,” she said before pointing her index finger at me.  “And
you know I’m right.  You just don’t want to admit it to yourself yet.”

I held my hands
up, fingers splayed to act as a wall against Zoe’s righteousness.

“Think what you
want,” I said turning towards the door.  “I’ll be back when I can.”

I locked and closed
the door to the boathouse behind me telling Zoe not to open it for anyone but
me. 

I started to walk
back through the woods the way we came but decided to veer off to the right in
hopes of finding a house with some food in it.  I was vaguely aware I was
avoiding the sensible thing to do: go back to the Queen’s home.  The Queen was
probably there by now, but I wasn’t certain yet what I planned to do about Zoe
and her babies.  Which brought a question to mind:  Why did I care what
happened to them?  I should be running to the Queen and proudly handing over
her triumph in genetic manipulation, but I wasn’t.  I was holding them secret
from her which didn’t seem right but it didn’t seem wrong either.  I knew I
couldn’t keep them hidden forever and that I would have to make a decision one
way or the other soon.

As I reached the
edge of the wooded area, I heard the unmistakable sounds of gun fire.  The sky
was made even cloudier with smoke from what had to be a multitude of burning
buildings.  Considering the breadth of the human uprising, I could only assume
it had been planned for months if not years in advance.  The events at the
hospital seemed to have spurred the rioters into action.  Perhaps they no
longer cared about what the Queen might do because they knew she could have
them killed and/or harvested at any moment of her choosing.  That was the
beauty and fault of her power.  She could in fact kill anyone she wanted with
the tiniest twitch of her finger but by doing that she instilled in humans a
hatred so deep it was able to overcome their natural instinct to survive and
simply thirst for revenge.

I walked out into
a small quiet cul-de-sac.  Only one of the homes was set on fire leaving the
others to fend off the flames of its neighbor or eventually succumb to the
blaze over time.  I hoped the people living in the homes were either joined in
the fighting or had left for their own safety.  One small yellow house, which
reminded me of the one I once shared with my parents, had its front door wide
open.  I dashed from my hiding place in the woods and into the house. 

The house appeared
empty.  It was sparsely decorated which made me wonder if anyone had lived here
at all.  I found the small kitchen easily and quickly discovered what remained
of the food supply.  A few cans of soup and a loaf of bread in the cupboard and
a small container of milk in the refrigerator was all that was left.  Either
the people who lived here had taken most of the food with them or the Queen
wasn’t giving her subjects much to survive on these days.  Considering the fact
she was feeding them recycled meat and the bareness of the cupboards in the
home, lead me to the conclusion that the Queen’s food supply might be running
out.  Could that be one of the reasons for the human riot?  Starvation had been
the cause of more than one war in history.  Perhaps the humans figured they had
nothing to lose and everything to gain.

I found a canvas
bag in one of the drawers of the kitchen and quickly deposited the food into
it.  As I walked out onto the front porch of the house, I heard the distinct
click of a shotgun being drawn back and loaded.

“Don’t move,” I
heard a man say to the left of me.  “Put the bag down and slowly turn to face
me.”

I did as he said
and found myself staring into the eyes of not a man but a frightened teenage
boy.  His arms were shaking as he pointed the barrel of the shotgun at my head.

“Do you know who I
am?” I asked him.

He looked confused
for a moment before his eyes widened and his breathing came faster.

I heard more than
saw him begin to pull the trigger.  Without thinking I lunged forward grabbing
the barrel of the shotgun with my right hand and tearing it out of the boy’s grip
just as he fired his weapon.  

I held the gun at
my side and looked back at the boy.

If he had been
frightened before, he was terrified now.

“Go ahead,” he
said with more bravado than I thought he would be able to muster.  “Shoot me
and get it over with.”

“Are you so ready
to die?” I asked.

“At least I’ll die
on my own terms.”

“I won’t kill you
if you answer some questions for me.”

Distrust entered
his eyes but I also saw a flicker of hope.

“What do you want
to know?”

“Do you know
what’s up the river?”

The boy looked
confused by my question but finally answered, “I’ve only gone up near the fence
there.  Not sure what’s past it.”

“No one’s tried to
escape that way?”

“It’s an
electrified fence over water,” the boy said.  “What do you think?”

He had a point.

“Ok, thanks for
the info,” I said before hitting him in the head with the butt of the shotgun.

He slumped onto
the porch without making a peep. 

I picked up my bag
of provisions and decided to keep the shotgun with me, just in case.

It didn’t take me
long to make my way back to the boathouse, but when I got there I heard two
distinct voices coming from the inside.

One was of course
Zoe’s, but the other one belonged to someone I had almost completely forgotten
about, Lawrence.

I ran for the door
of the boathouse and forced it open with my shoulder. 

Lawrence was
standing over Zoe holding one of the babies in his arms.  He looked up at me
not at all surprised by my sudden appearance.

“Skye,” he said with
a pleased smile, “your mother sent me to look for you.  She’ll be happy to know
you’re safe.”

I trusted Lawrence
about as much as I would trust a snake slithering between my legs.  His manic
devotion to my mother indicated to me he had a few screws loose.

“Where is she
now?” I asked, walking in and laying down the bag and shotgun against the wall
by the door.

“The Queen is
putting an end to the human rebellion.  She should have it in hand soon.”  Lawrence
looked down at the baby he held.  “She’ll be glad to know you took care of Zoe
and the babies.  She’s been waiting for their birth.  Have they shown any signs
of having powers yet?”

“No,” I said
meeting Zoe’s frightened eyes.  “They haven’t yet but their less than an hour
old.”

“I noticed one was
defective,” Lawrence said looking down at Hope at his feet like she was a piece
of trash that needed to be discarded.

“She just needs a
doctor,” I said.

“Your mother
doesn’t like imperfection.”  Lawrence looked over at me.  “It would be better
to just get rid of it now and not bother her with having to dispose of it
herself.”

“Skye…”  Zoe said,
a desperate plea in her voice.

“I’ll handle it Lawrence,”
I said, taking on the tone of superiority I had heard the Queen use with her
subordinates.  “Why don’t you go tell the Queen I’m safe and intend to keep Zoe
here for the time being?  As soon as it’s safe, ask her to send someone to help
me move them all.”

“If that’s what
you want to do,” Lawrence said walking towards me still holding the baby in his
arms. 

“Give me the
baby,” I told him in no uncertain terms.

“The Queen ordered
me to bring at least one of them back to her if Zoe had given birth.”

“And I’m telling
you to give the baby to me.”

“I can’t do that,”
he said, certain in his resolve.