Born (13 page)

"Those men held me captive. They're
the others."

"Do you know where their camp
is?"

"Yup. I'd like to avoid it."

"What if they have Jake and
Anna?"

The pain in his eyes hurts me somehow,
"I never said I was going to avoid it. I said I'd like to. I'm betting
they have Jake and Anna."

I take one last look and know it will be
a long time before I ever come back, if I ever do. I take my last look at the
white siding and the small windmill in the front yard waves goodbye to me.

As my feet make their way back down the
tree, I see something that makes me feel the smallest amount of fear and hope
simultaneously.

On the ground is a small bandage and
above it is a broken branch. I look deeper into the forest and see another
broken branch.

"They got away. They're this
way." I point.

Will looks at the bandage and frowns,
"Emma that could belong to anyone."

I shake my head, "No it's not. It
will smell like tea tree and the branches." I point to them, "I told
Jake it was how I always found my way through the woods."

He bends his face to the ground and
sniffs the air around the bandage, "It is tea tree."

I turn to run, but he grabs my arm as he
stands and pulls me into him, "One thing first." He puts his hands on
the small of my back and lifts me into his arms. His lips meet mine with
desperation and excitement. His tongue slides into my mouth, caressing mine. He
sucks my lower lip and nibbles it. His hands take up most of my back and rub
and caress me. Suddenly his hands make their way lower. I don’t feel
uncomfortable as he cups my butt and lifts me into him. He wraps my legs around
him. I'm feeling the way I used to when I read the romance novels granny had
stored at the cabin. I feel a heat rising low in my belly.

He lets me slide down his body, till my
feet touch the ground again. Air rushes between us. I open my eyes, not
realizing I had closed them, and look up into his face.

He grins, "I am going to have a hard
time staying focused."

I giggle like a schoolgirl, as my granny
always said. It is the first time that has left my lips, a giggle that is.

He kisses me softly one last time and
walks away toward the broken branches.

"I never imagined they were alive. I
went back to where they were when I got taken and I couldn’t find them. I knew
Jake was young and not very responsible. Well neither of us were." He runs
a hand through his dark shaggy hair.

"Anna told me you guys were pretty
bad for paying attention."

He chuckles and I catch myself staring at
his butt. It is round and firm and when he takes a step, it moves in a way I
enjoy. I realize when I watch him I feel a small amount of guilt. Jake kissed
me too. Jake made me smile and made me laugh.

Will makes me scared of him but safe
against the world, where as Jake makes me feel the opposite.

The sun sets as we reach the top of a
hill I have never climbed. It is in the opposite mountain range from where I've
been and I am nervous of it. I don’t know what lies on the other side. My feet
hurt and I'm tired.

He lays a bunch of bows on the ground and
gives me a very appealing look. It makes my stomach hurt.

I walk to where he has chosen to sleep
and smile at it. There are branches on the ground making a mat for sleeping. He
has chosen a huge tree with great bows to protect us in case it rains. He is
like my father, more than I expected him to be. Not that I ever expected to
meet him.

"They think you're dead."

He puts the last bow down and sits on it.
He takes the jacket he has brought with him out and puts it down. He pats it
for me to sit beside him.

My steps hurt my feet now that we've
stopped walking. I drop onto the ground beside him and watch his eyes sparkle
as darkness takes over the night sky. I tuck my bow and quiver next to me,
always close.

"I was taken to the work farms. We
were hiding in this old house like your farmhouse there. I wasn’t smart like
you though. I never even thought about bunkers or having a few different houses
and traveling between them. I was an idiot. Anyway they came. I hid Anna and
Jake and let them take me."

His face is stoic. I want him to kiss me
again. I start to wonder if he's going to.

"How did you get away from the
farms?"

"I met some people while I was
there. Doctors who were forced to work the breeder camps and other scientists.
They convinced me I needed to start a revolution from the outside. I escaped
with some of them." He shakes his head, as if his thoughts entertain him
and brushes his hands through his hair again. He looks at me and smiles,
"You know of a good spot to clean up around here?"

I shake my head, "Never been here
before. You're starting a revolution?"

He nods, "The camp we were just at
is one of our peace camps. It's like a retreat. The children and young and old
stay there. We have people coming and going constantly. Didn't you notice how
easily you were welcomed?"

"I guess. I just thought that’s what
people were when they live in a camp like that. After the machine gun escort
that is."

He laughs again. I like the sound of it
but it reminds me of Jake.

"Well that is big timber wolf Emma.
How did you end up with him?"

"His mother gave birth and must have
gotten sick shortly after. Leo was waiting for me at the door to the cabin one
day. He was tiny then. I could hear his brothers and sisters in the woods. I
found the mother dead and half eaten surrounded by the other cubs who were weak
and sick. It was awful. I shot them and burned them. It’s the closest infection
ever got to my cabin. He's immune anyway so that's helpful."

"He's immune? Naturally? Maybe he
never ate any of the mom."

I shake my head, "She wasn’t the
only sick thing Leo has eaten. He likes the infected."

He grimaces, "That's disgusting.
Disgusting and lucky all at the same time."

I nod, "It is."

"What do you know about the start of
the infection?"

I shrug, "People got sick and some
died and others lived but went a little crazy."

His eyes look dark as his expression
looses its humor and the sun sets completely, "No Emma people didn’t just
get sick. The infection was spread on purpose. Everything that’s happened has
been a plan all along."

"That can't be true."

"I wish it weren’t. There was
something called the United Nations. They did all of this."

I feel sick, "They were evil?"

He shakes his head, "Not evil just
detached. The world was running out of resources and everyone was constantly
putting a hand out to them and asking for aide and food and money. The UN had
been warning us forever about the global warming and the ice melting and ocean
becoming acidic. Anyway in 2012 all of Greenland's ice and snow melted in a week.
The earth started to enter a drought. We thought it was a cyclical event but it
wasn’t. It was man made. We had pushed it too far. The same time all this was
happening, a conference was held in Rio about the environment. Canada, the US
and China pretty much pulled out and admitted they had no intention of slowing
their pollution to the recommended level. It would be too hard on their
economies. That was the final straw. Apparently the UN had a backup plan for a
worst-case scenario such as that. They had a plague. It had a vaccine, which
made it easy to spread and then control. The problem was it mutated. They
spread the virus at the same time they had bombs placed deep in the ocean along
the Japanese coastline. They bombed the shelf and pretty much wiped Japan off
the face of the earth and made the west coast of North America a target for
huge tidal waves."
It felt like a movie. It didn’t feel real. It felt like the ramblings of my
father, before.

I shake my head, "How could you know
all this?"

"The work farms. I met people who
had been part of the initial plan. The plan was to reset everything. Instead
the UN decided they wanted to start humanity over but set it up to succeed this
time. The breeder farms were built where only the fit and healthy were allowed
to reproduce."

I shivered imagining it.

He laughed, "It isn’t what you
think. I know what everyone thinks happens but it's not. The girls only breed
every three years and only up to three times. The pregnancy isn’t the result of
rape, it's done using science. The baby is made in a lab and then inserted into
the woman's womb."

I gag and he laughs.

"The religious had the same
reaction. The UN never mentioned this plan to anyone but the very high up. It
never went well."

I frown, "The girls are still taken
against their will and made to make babies against their will."

I see his head nod in the dark, "Yup
and the babies are not God's children to the Christians. Anyway the UN runs the
military but again they sit in their closed office and plan using numbers and
facts and data. They don’t leave it to see what the world looks like or how
corrupt the military is. They have built six cities world wide from the ashes
and rubble of the previous cities. They plan on cleaning every inch of the
world."

My head spins, "What about the
borderlands?"

"They can't use anymore bombs
without affecting the weather and pollution again, so the plan stands at
leaving us to our own devices until they have this part of the world cleaned
up. Then they will round us up."

"Why?"

"They want the diseases and
illnesses bred out. They won't allow those people to live and breed."

"Oh my god it's like a
nightmare."

"It is. On that note we need to
sleep. You sleep first and I'll keep watch."

"That's some bedtime story." I
liked Jake's better.

He laughs. I watch his silhouette in the
dark for a moment. He doesn’t lean in to kiss me. He watches the hill we
climbed.

I lie down on his jacket and snuggle into
the smell.

"How long have they been breeding
the science babies?"

His outline turns to me and I see the
shine of his eyes in the dark, "A long time. They started in the early
2000's."

"Are the babies different than the
rest of us?"

"Yes."

The broken branches lead us to a camp in
a valley on the opposite side of the mountain where my farmhouse sat. The size
of the camp is disturbing.

Will smiles as he sees it and walks
directly up to the man holding the gun amid the trees.

"Halt."

"Lancaster." Will shouts.

The gunman smiles, "No shit, Willy
boy you're alive and well. I heard they caught you."

He laughs, "They think they did. Is
Marshall still in charge?"

Lancaster points to the camp, "He's
in the smallest tent, you know what he's like. Still paranoid they will bomb
us."

Will laughs and points to me, "This
is my friend Emma."

I feel hurt he calls me his friend. I
don’t know why but the word stings.

"I'm John." He puts a hand out
and I notice he has a nice smile. I meet his gray eyes and smile back,
"Nice to meet you."

His eyes flicker on Will for a moment and
an even bigger smile crosses his lips, "So where did you two meet?"

I look at Will.

He shakes his head, "She walked up
to the mountain retreat the other day with a huge timber wolf for a pet and an
unruly teenager."

John's eyes grow wide, "You have a
wolf?"

I nod. I want to find Anna and Jake. I
don’t understand why Will isn’t busting inside to see them. I feel myself
fidget.

"Well I'm going to go see Marshall
and see what's new on this side of the hill."

We walk toward the camp as the sound of a
bird squawking fills the forest. The gunmen lower their weapons as they hear
the sound and we walk past them. The camp opens as the forest spreads thin.

It looks like the camp we were at before
except that everyone is wearing a firearm or a knife. At one point I swear I
see a sword. There are no children here.

"
Will.
You're alive!"

A girl with long blonde hair in two
braids and cut off shorts runs and jumps into his arms. My heart stops. She
kisses his lips. The lips that only just kissed me the day before. I feel heat
radiating from my cheeks. I've read about rogue men in the romance novels and
feel sick that I've fallen for one. All the years of reading the novels and
judging the females who seem strong and smart and then fall for a jerk. Reality
hurts. I want Jake and Anna and my cabin with Leo and Meg. I want to let the
world kill itself and hide up in the mountains. I will never kiss him again. I
can't believe I was so reckless.