Mending the Rift (13 page)

“I heard him mutter something about a second chance. Maybe they had a fling when they were younger?”

“My dad would’ve never been interested in someone like Miller,” Luca said, opening his eyes to glare at the other two men. His dad had been besotted with his father from a very early age.

Smith waved Luca’s retort away. “It doesn’t matter now. We’ll have to make sure to get off their radar, and I think it would be the best for you to sleep for a while.”

Luca recoiled in his seat. The scarred man sighed, but reached over to him and gripped his arm so Smith could push another load—of clear fluid this time—into his arm. Luca hissed at the pressure and cradled his arm against his chest when the scarred man released it. He blinked when coldness seeped into every bone of his body. Before sleep claimed him, he pressed a hand against his belly.

LUCA WOKE
up in darkness. Nausea rolled through him, and it was all he could do to not vomit. Someone switched a light on next to him. Luca squeezed his eyes shut when a cool hand rested against his forehead.

A female voice said, “The fever’s down. You gave us quite the scare, Mr. Walker. Should I call you Mr. Walker, or would you prefer Luca? I think I’d prefer Luca, so we’re going with that. My name is Mia, and I’ll be your attending doctor for, hmm, for some time.”

The hand withdrew, and the air filled with a cackle that sent shivers down Luca’s spine. This was a nightmare. Maybe he could pinch himself to wake up. He was done with this hallucination, absolutely done. He needed Marcus to chase this awful dream away, to wrap him in his arms and help him forget.

“Open your eyes, Luca. You’ve been in a fever-induced sleep for almost two weeks and that’s enough, don’t you think?” Mia said.

Luca blinked against the harsh light. Two weeks? Impossible. He couldn’t have lost two whole weeks of his life, no way. That would mean his baby was now fifteen weeks old—old enough there was a chance he could feel first movements. Luca flinched when memories and fragments of words slammed into him. His baby! They wouldn’t’ve taken the baby out and killed it, would they?

He shot up into a sitting position, his circulatory system protesting against the sudden change of position. Sputtering, he tried to suck in enough air to ward off the strong desire to puke his guts out. A steel bowl was placed underneath his face, and Mia’s cool hand gripped his neck tightly.

Her voice was equally tight when she said, “You can’t do anything the easy way, can you?”

Luca opened his mouth, a snarky reply on the tip of his tongue, but no words left. Instead, he retched until tears spilled over his cheeks and his stomach cramped in painful spasms. Still gasping, Luca slid a trembling hand down his chest to his belly. The swell was there, even more prominent now. Luca sobbed in relief.

Mia took the bowl away, and a moment later, the sound of water filtered through Luca’s foggy mind. He slumped back against the pillow and curled up on his side, stroking the swell with great tenderness.

Mia’s heels clicked on the floor, setting Luca’s teeth on edge. “What did you think? That we’d killed the embryo?”

Luca pressed his lips together and tucked his legs up farther to his chest. Soon the swell would make this movement difficult. Luca closed his eyes as more tears blurred his vision. Two weeks. If he’d really been out of it for two weeks, where was Marcus? Why hadn’t he been rescued? He’d never been captured for that long. His oldest sister, Julietta, had once been kidnapped for about three days, and during those days, his parents and Julietta’s husband Henry had moved heaven and hell to get her back. Of course, she’d been pregnant with twins for the second time, so she was infinitely more valuable than Luca.

He drew in a shaky breath. He was not going there. He was worth being rescued. If he was still here, wherever here was, there must be a good reason for it, but it wouldn’t be for the lack of Marcus or his parents trying.

The bed dipped and Mia rested her cool hand on his cheek. Luca flinched at the contact. Mia laughed. “I’ve got cold hands, I know. Come on, Luca, drink a bit. We’ve got you hooked up to an IV drip, and you and the baby are healthy. No worries there.”

Luca opened his eyes and peered up at the woman holding out a small glass with a straw. Delicate features dominated her face, and if he’d gotten to know her through different circumstances, he’d have said she was strikingly pretty. Light blonde hair was tied back in a braid that flowed over her shoulder, and her cornflower-blue eyes showed a warmth Luca wasn’t feeling. Confused, he lifted his head to reach the straw. She helped him take a few sips before she set the glass aside.

“Is… is the baby really okay, or are you just messing with me?” Luca croaked.

Mia arched a fine eyebrow. “If I were messing with you, how likely would it be that you’d receive a sincere answer to your question? Don’t look like that, Luca, you’re probably still out of it from the fever.” Her eyes darkened as she clenched her hands into fists. “Smith gave you two newly developed drugs, and your body had a strong reaction to them. At least now we know that they shouldn’t be mixed. Someone else would’ve probably died, but since you’re pregnant and your metabolic system is already working at a higher rate, it developed a massive amount of antibodies right away.”

Swallowing, Luca dug his fingers into the swell. Mia’s gaze followed his movement and she smiled. “We checked on the baby. He’s fine. The placenta protected him from the drugs, and the little bits that went through didn’t harm him. From the blood we drew, it seems as if he’s developed antibodies as well. We’re not sure, but at the moment, we believe there won’t be any lasting effects on him.”

“Him?” Luca echoed.

“Yes, him. Didn’t you know you were carrying a boy?”

“We were on our way to an ultrasound at the clinic where we were supposed to find out about the gender,” Luca choked out. It should’ve been a wonderful moment to find out about the gender. And now? He turned his head into the pillow, his heart aching. He wanted Marcus, wanted to lose himself in those gray eyes.

“Didn’t turn out the way you thought it would, hmm?” Mia asked. She patted his back. “You’d better get a grip on yourself, since you’ll be here a while. I’m not keen on dealing with you crying all the time, and I’d like to keep you without drugs as long as possible.”

“Excuse me for having feelings. I’m not actually a lab rat. Just thought I’d tell you, since you obviously weren’t privy to that memo,” Luca snapped.

He pushed himself up on his elbow, anger coursing through his veins and lending him strength. Mia slid her hand into Luca’s hair and yanked his head back with a hiss. “Don’t you dare think of attacking me. I’m not only a doctor of the Southern Union. I’m also one of their genetically altered warriors. I might look small, but rest assured you’re not a match for me.”

One of the genetically altered warriors? Luca swallowed at this tidbit of information. The Southern Union had always liked to play havoc with genetics. Most of the time the results had been useless, but sometimes they’d been successful, like they’d been with the warriors. Those warriors had decimated the Northern Confederacy’s army during the Third World War, forcing the Confederacy to use chemical weapons on a large scale. The Union had retaliated with biological weapons, but that had backfired spectacularly. Especially because their genetically altered warriors had fallen sick or died because of it. Of course, that had been the reason why they’d eventually agreed on a treaty since they wouldn’t’ve been able to resist the Confederacy for much longer.

Mia forced him to lie on his back before she shoved the white blanket aside, revealing his nude body. “Keep your hands to yourself, or I’ll restrain you. Just to prevent you from hurting yourself, of course.”

Luca clutched the sides of the mattress, ignoring the way goose bumps arose all over his skin. Mia palpated his abdomen with her cold hands, sending shivers through his body. She made small, grunting noises as if she was pleased with whatever she encountered, then draped the blanket back over Luca’s quavering form.

“Why are you doing this? What do you want with me and my baby?” A boy, he was carrying a boy. So he’d been right all along. What would Marcus say if he knew? Did the gender matter to him, or had he only wanted to know out of curiosity? What would he look like? Would he have Luca’s blue eyes or Marcus’s gray ones?

Mia finished typing something on a small tablet before she pocketed it in one of her oversized lab coat pockets. She cocked her head to the side, seemingly lost in thought, then gave a curt nod as if she’d come to a decision. She rolled a leather stool toward Luca’s bed, which was a standard hospital bed. If he wasn’t mistaken, he was in a private hospital room, though it was one without windows.

“Since you won’t be leaving again, I’d say it’s only fair for you to know what you’ve gotten yourself into.”

“What
I’ve
gotten myself into?” Luca asked. “Smith kidnapped me. I didn’t sign up for this.”

Mia shrugged, a light smile playing around her lips. “The end result is the same, isn’t it?”

“What do you want from me?”

“So impatient, it’s a character trait that’ll get you in trouble if you don’t curb it.” Mia shook her head. “Anyway, as you’re probably aware, the Southern Union’s population is dwindling. Our breeders aren’t as strong as the ones you have. In the last century, many breeders died while giving birth, or the children were born with gen defects or other kinds of disabilities that made it impossible for them to live.”

Luca gripped the blanket’s edge and tugged it up higher. A light tremor ran through him. “Was it really impossible for them to live, or did you decide they weren’t worth it?”

“There’s a difference?” Mia replied.

Luca gaped at her and she laughed.
She laughed.
Luca clicked his mouth shut and tried to school his features into disinterest, or at least something that didn’t scream horror. From Mia’s maniacal laughter, he deduced he was failing spectacularly.

“Oh, you should see your face, Luca! All you Northern Confederacy people are deluded. Not every life is sacred, and if a child is born with malfunctions, it has no right to live in the Southern Union. However, what is most concerning is the fact our breeders die during childbirth. Many of them try to flee, and that’s not acceptable. We’re experimenting with new drugs to make them more compliant. We also found out that especially the male breeder’s wombs grow too thin and rupture at the end of the pregnancy. We’ve already taken blood samples from you and will do further tests as you go along with the pregnancy, to get a clue on why this has never happened in the Northern Confederacy.”

“I wonder why they try to flee since you’re treating them so well,” Luca said.

Mia’s eyes blazed with anger. “Maybe Johnson was right and you need to learn your place. So far you haven’t suffered, and it would be easy to change that.”

“But if you make me suffer, you won’t know if your test results are valid or not. You must be desperate to kidnap the son of the Northern Confederacy’s vice president, so you’ll have orders to do anything to ensure I’ll be all right. I’m probably the Southern Union’s chance to get some fresh blood in and carry lots of children for you, so cut the posturing. You need me, and I’ll damn well say whatever I want. Did it ever occur to you that your breeders might suffer psychological damage because they know their babies might get killed if they don’t meet certain standards?” Luca ranted. He was playing with fire—or more likely his health and ultimately his life—but how was he supposed to keep quiet when he had to listen to such crap?

Mia shoved the stool aside and stalked toward the door. “I told Smith he should’ve applied for someone else. Nothing’s worked out since we got involved with your family.”

“That wasn’t my choice either.”

“It’s a fucking miracle no one caught on to Smith’s connections to the Southern Union, but then again, the man didn’t want to have to do anything with us at first.” She slammed the door shut after her, leaving Luca alone.

What did she mean about Smith’s connections to the Southern Union? Had he been forced to help them? Or had he betrayed the Northern Confederacy?

Luca sank deeper into the pillow, tucking the blanket firmly around him. Maybe that would stop him from shivering. When he got home, he’d tell Marcus to implant a tracking device in him as well. No matter how it would make him feel, anything was better than being here.

THE NEXT
two weeks passed without any signs of someone attempting to rescue Luca. Instead, Mia and a whole armada of doctors came in twice per day, examined him and his baby boy, spouting more radical nonsense than Luca could stomach. While the doctors made sure not to hurt him badly, they weren’t gentle with him. They invaded his body with probes, drew blood and bone marrow, leaving Luca a sobbing mess.

After another one of these excruciatingly painful examinations, Luca was curled up on his side, huddled under two thick blankets. Dinner sat on a tray next to his bed, but he couldn’t find the motivation to eat. He stroked along the swell of his belly, taking comfort in the knowledge his baby was doing well. The ultrasounds showed a healthy boy who liked to do somersaults and suck on his thumb. A lump formed in Luca’s throat. He’d have to find a way out of the hospital, away from the Southern Union, to protect his baby.

A light fluttering motion drew Luca’s attention. A moment later, another flutter, similar to small wings tickling him, repeated. Tears of joy sprang into Luca’s eyes. The first movements of his baby; he could feel him. Luca kept stroking his belly and softly whispered to his son, eliciting more movements inside him. For the first time in four weeks, Luca smiled.

The smile vanished when the door opened. Light footsteps hurried toward him. Luca hunched his shoulders and peered up at whoever had come in. He locked eyes with a man whose eyes had the same color as Marcus’s. Even his facial features reminded Luca of Marcus. Although Marcus’s face usually wasn’t bruised. Neither was his face so thin, as if he hadn’t eaten properly in months.