Fallen Daughters: A Dark Romance

by Alta Hensley

  “Present?” Birdie looked at Rem, surprised and confused.

  Rem smiled and nodded. “Go ahead and open it.”

  Birdie stood up and walked over to the package and pulled at the string, releasing the brown paper free to fall on the table. Inside was a neatly folded grey dress with a tiny blue daisy pattern. The edges of the collar and wrists were lined with a delicate lace. She ran her fingertips along the fabric, not being able to accept that this dress, this present, this kind gesture, was for her.

  “Rem? You shouldn’t have.”

  “It’s about time you have a proper dress that hasn’t been worn by my ma. I may not be a rich man, but no wife of mine will only wear cast-offs.”

  She held the dress up against her bosom. “It’s so pretty. So perfect in every way.” Tears exploded from her eyes. “I don’t deserve this.”

  Rem walked up and smacked her bottom playfully. “What are my rules about talking down on yourself? I’d hate to have to give you a whoopin’ right before church. It would make for a mighty long sermon.” He leaned in and softly kissed Birdie’s lips, brushing away her tears with his work-worn hands.

  “I love it, I love…” She paused.

  He kissed the tip of her nose, each eyelid, and then her lips again. “Say it, Birdie. Say what you were going to say.”

  “I love you,” she whispered. “I do, Rem Langston. I never knew what love felt like until you. These last few days have been the best of my life.”

  Rem wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tightly into his embrace. “And I love you. I knew it the minute I rescued you from that shack in the snow. I knew I loved you then, but I had no idea how much until now.”

  The door crashed open, breaking them from their love spell. “Rem!” his ma called. “We got trouble!”

  Standing behind Anna Mae, was a winded and flushed Timmy Collins.

  “What’s goin’ on?” Rem asked, releasing Birdie from his hold and instinctively pushing her behind his broad build.

  “Jedson Bluebell is up in arms in the middle of town. Busted up the mercantile pretty good looking for answers to where his Birdie is,” Timmy started, struggling to catch his breath. “I came runnin’ here as soon as it started. But, Rem, he is spittin’ mad and has a shotgun at his side.”

  Rem walked over to the fireplace, where a rifle leaned up against the side, and grabbed for it.

  Birdie ran to him and seized his arm. “Wait! Please don’t go. My pa will shoot you. He won’t care none of the law. He don’t feel it pertains to him. Please!”

  “Birdie, I’m not going to let someone else fight my battles. He’s at the mercantile and may move on to the church or someplace else. I have to go confront him and put a stop to this.”

  “But he will kill you! Please! Let me go and talk to him,” she pleaded.

  Anna Mae walked over to Birdie and wrapped her arms around her shoulders. “Shhh, dear. Trust your husband.” She looked at Rem and gave a knowing look. “Rem can take care of himself.”

  Without saying another word, Rem stormed out of the cabin with rifle in hand.

  Minutes turned to hours, and Birdie could barely breathe as panic overtook her body. Her husband was out fighting her pa, and she didn’t know if either would come out alive. Rem could lose his life all because of her.

  “You stop your worrying, girl. You damn well have me in a heap of nerves too,” Anna Mae said. Birdie could tell the woman was doing her best to be strong, but even she looked afraid.

  Fear and relief blended when there was finally a knock at the door. Birdie bolted to it, terrified at who and what news would be on the other side. Timmy Collins stood winded as before, but with a smile on his face.

  “Rem sent me to tell you both that the matter was taken care of, and he would be home soon.”

  “Where is he?” Birdie asked, still panicked that he could be hurt, but not having the slightest concern for her bastard father.

  The Collins boy shrugged. “He had to check on the ice or somethin’ like that.” He didn’t wait for a response and ran back toward town effortlessly. His job as messenger was complete.

  Anna Mae walked up behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Rem is fine. He sent word so we wouldn’t worry. But he is fine.” Relief filled her voice.

  Birdie turned and looked at her mother-in-law. “Do you think Rem would mind if I went up to the ice ponds to find him? I just can’t wait around here any longer.” When Anna Mae looked as if she was considering the idea, she added, “I’ll walk along the river and stay clear of town. Just in case Pa is still around. I promise I will go straight to the ponds and nowhere else.”

  Anna Mae nodded. “You go on. You better stay clear of trouble and not make me regret letting you go.”

  Birdie leaned in and gave a quick peck to the woman’s wrinkled cheek. “Thank you, so much. I won’t be long.”

  Before Anna Mae could change her mind, Birdie reached for her heavy wool shawl and dashed out the door.

  She ran along the river’s edge, anxious to see Rem. She hadn’t made it halfway to the ponds, when she saw his figure emerge from the woods ahead.

  “Rem!” she called out. She waved her arms so he could see her from the distance.

  His brisk walk turned to a run when he realized it was her. In an instant, he was standing in front of her, taking her into his arms. “Birdie? Are you all right?” He pulled away and examined her body. “Is Ma hurt?”

  Birdie shook her head. “No, I couldn’t wait for your return any longer. I was so worried.” Now that she was away from his hold, she could see that his shirt was covered in blood. “Oh my! Are you hurt? Have you been shot?”

  Rem ran his hand along her face to soothe her. “No. I am fine. This blood is not mine.” He studied her eyes, looking sad. “Your pa…he’s dead.”

  Birdie simply nodded. No hysterics, not the slightest ounce of sadness, nothing but a huge sense of relief washed over her. “You did what needed to be done.”

  Rem leaned in and kissed her lips quickly, and then looked over his shoulder and the flowing river beside them. “Birdie, I need you to turn away.”

  Confused, she asked, “Why?” She walked closer to him, desperate to be held in his arms again.

  “Birdie…” But before he could say anything further, she saw a large piece of ice flowing down the river. The sight of large pieces of ice wasn’t uncommon on the Truckee, so why would Rem want her to look away? This was his job after all. Why—

  The large chunk of ice floated closer, close enough that she could make out her pa’s frozen form inside of it. His mangled and contorted body folded in the most grotesque way, and his face appeared frozen in agonizing pain.

  She should have turned away and screamed. Maybe even cry or feel ill to her stomach. A proper lady would possibly faint at the sight. Something, anything besides what she was feeling. Watching that block of ice in the cold Sierra river was one of the most beautiful sights she had ever seen. She stood on the river bank with her husband’s arms wrapped around her and watched her misery, her pain, her fear all wash down the river with the tiny rapids around it. It was over. She had been freed from her cage—just as the birds at the Valentine’s Dove Festival had been freed from theirs. She was free. Birdie Bluebell was finally free.

  Fallen Daughter #4

  20

  I hated white. I hated the color that would forever be my curse. White epitomized death. A color once believed to symbolize purity, perfection, new beginnings and life, now represented destruction. When I saw white, I saw the darkest shadows in the depths of hell. Colorless yet black as coal.

  Marching in line through the ruins of a city that once stood so bold and bright, now crumbled all around. Prosperous replaced with poverty. Peace replaced with war. Life replaced with death. I marched with all the other defeated soldiers to meet my new fate. And although I would leave this God-forsaken planet, I would never be able to leave the white.

  Looking down at my worn leather boots,
I remembered the day I had first put them on. Blisters formed as I broke them in, and I had no idea at the time that I would be marching to the intake area to receive my next assignment as a captured Unin, never to be free again.

  “Color?”

  Snapping out of my thoughts, I looked at the irritated woman before me. Her purple-tinted fingers tapped away on her information pad, never looking up as she spoke.

  “Color?” she asked again, a little louder this time. “Come now, I don’t have all day. What color were you?”

  “Blue,” I squeaked out. Clearing my throat, I added, “I was blue before.”

  “Cause of death of your twin?”

  I couldn’t help but cringe with the pain of having to recall my sister and the way she died. The memory was like a sharp stab to the heart. I didn’t want to answer the woman, but figured I had no choice in the matter. I was just one of many going through the intake process.

  “Shot. She died in the battle of Vex.”

  The woman nodded as if she had heard that answer many times before, and most likely she had. The battle had taken over 22,000 lives—my twin sister being one of them. Somehow, I managed to walk away alive; yet lost my sister, my soul, and my lifeblood.

  “Lifeblood color of your sister?” The woman continued on with the interview.

  “Pink.”

  Looking down at my milky-white hands, all signs of my blue hue forever gone, I closed my eyes trying to block out the painful memory of watching my sister take a bullet to the head. As her life left her body, all lifeblood left mine. As her eyes went black, my skin went white. Pink evaporated from her body the same time the blue dissipated from my own.

  “Your name and original planet?”

  “Truth,” I answered not much louder than a whisper. “My name is Truth from the planet of Unin.”

  “An original Unin?”

  “Yes.”

  “And your sister’s name?”

  Clenching my fist, and doing the best I could to control my temper, I took a deep breath. Why did this woman need to know anything about my sister? It wasn’t like my sister was now a Pallid Slave about to be shipped off to one of the working planets. That honor rested with me. Her color, her cause of death, or anything about her was not important anymore. My twin sister, Trinity, was gone and the less I had to relive the memory, the better.

  “Sister’s name?” the woman asked with more authority this time.

  “Trinity,” I snapped.

  For the first time, the woman looked up from her one-finger tapping. She clearly didn’t like the way I spoke to her, but at this point, I didn’t have much to lose. I was already deemed a Pallid Slave, and I was being sent to an unknown far off planet to do some type of backbreaking duties. My home of Unin had all but been destroyed, and what was left was quickly being devastated by civil wars throughout. Everything I once believed, once knew, once fought ruthlessly to protect, had now vanished.

  For centuries, Lifeblood Twins were believed to hold a special gift—a possible answer for immortality. Each twin would be born a different color that didn’t exactly make the entire skin a solid hue, but rather it would illuminate from underneath. The opalescent beauty of lifeblood held a mysticism still undiscovered. Lifeblood Twins were thought to be descendants of an ancient God who used lifeblood for eternal existence. To be born with lifeblood, put you at a level of superiority. You held the possible key to everlasting life. Being born a twin with lifeblood was once a gift rather than the curse it was now.

  That was until the invasion of Dren. The Drenkens killed thousands upon thousands all to gain the knowledge on how to recreate the lifeblood that flowed beneath our skin. Their quest for immortality, fueled by a merciless need for power, brought on three decades’ worth of war. They failed in this mission, but they did not fail in destroying Unin. In fear that all the LifeBlood Twins would soon become extinct due to the heavy battles, and that they would lose all hope in discovering if, in fact, our blood did hold the secret to immortality, a treaty was eventually created that protected the Unin Lifeblood Twins as long as the lifeblood ran through our veins. The lifeblood still served a purpose—or at least the Drenken believed so—but if the lifeblood left any citizen of Unin, the terms of the agreement was that the remaining twin would become a Pallid Slave. We became useless other than to serve in the workforce. A Lifeblood Twin was no longer sacred—or protected under the treaty—without the other twin alive. And it wasn’t like this could ever be a secret. If one twin died, the lifeblood would die as well. The sign of no lifeblood was absolutely no color. A ghostly, waxen twin would be left standing.

  So here I was. A Pallid Slave. Colorless. Alone. Where once an opalescence of azure flowed freely beneath my skin, what now remained was a wraith-like non-existence of pigment.

  The woman reached into a box and pulled out two wristbands made of metal—one blue, the other pink. “Here, put these on. Blue on your right.”

  I did as she asked, snapping both closed. It seemed odd to see the colors of what once belonged to my sister and me pressed tightly against my white flesh. It was a painful reminder that the only color in my life would now be limited to the two bracelets branding me as a Pallid.

  “Skills?” the woman asked. Her voice irritated me, and I seriously considered, for a moment, taking her life by reaching out and snapping her neck, but then it wouldn’t be fair to her other twin who would become a Pallid Slave at no fault of her own.

  “Skills?” she asked again.

  “Killing people,” I answered truthfully between tightly clenched teeth. It truly was the only thing I was good at. Being born during the Drenken invasion, I was brought up to fight. Going to battle was inevitable, so learning the skills of war from the time I could walk was the focus of the Unins. I was raised by commanders and generals in one of many soldier camps, only to become skilled enough to kill before being sent off to war. It was the way of the Unins and what had become of the Lifeblood Twins. There were no loving mothers or protective fathers. Parents’ only purpose was for procreating more soldiers to drive out the Drenken, and sending them off to the camps as soon as the toddler years had passed.

  She looked up at me emotionless. “Five,” she said.

  “Excuse me?” Not understanding what she meant by simply stating a number.

  “Landing bay five. Go stand on the marked spot and wait there.” She looked back down at her pad and motioned for the next Pallid Slave behind me to stand before her.

  It didn’t seem I had much of a choice but to proceed forward and scan the large landing stage for my assigned number. The roar of the engines from all the transport ships reverberated against the soles of my feet as I walked on the metal dock. It appeared that about ten ships were landing as twenty were taking off. Pallid Slaves lined up all around me awaiting their fates. Even though there were Drenken soldiers everywhere, armed and ready for a fight, there was no need for them to even be on guard. Everyone seemed so compliant, as if when the lifeblood left our bodies, so did all our fight. Colorless figures stood at attention, but rather than going to war as we were all trained to do, we were standing in line to be a slave. Shoulders drooping, heads down, these once legendary Lifeblood Twins now stood as broken, milky, and chalky shells. I understood the pain. Losing your Lifeblood Twin was the same as dying. There was nothing left to give.

  As I walked by all the others, I finally saw the number five etched into a metal post. Unlike all the other numbered bays, no one stood there to join me in the journey to wherever my vessel took me. Actually, it was better that way. I had no desire to talk with anyone unless I had to. Friendships did not exist in my world. Killing machines did not have connections, bonds, or any feelings toward another person—unless you count your twin. Your twin being the one person you needed…for lifeblood.

  Approaching the landing pod, I saw what I could only assume was my transport vessel coming in for a landing. It seemed older than some of the others, and definitely much smaller. This ship wouldn’
t have a chance in transporting the larger numbers of Unins who waited on different bays, and I actually wondered if there would even be enough room for me with the crew. I didn’t care. It didn’t matter what my ship looked like, how big it was, or where I was even going. I just wanted to leave Unin and all the sadness this planet possessed. Disappointed, defeated, and dead. That is all that remained. Anything would be better than this.

  Standing with my hands behind my back, legs shoulder-width apart, as any good soldier would do, I watched the ship’s cargo hold open and a man walk out from the depths of its belly. His dark hair, dark eyes, and muscular body were all lost on the fact that his prismatic skin shone bright with a golden glow. The lifeblood ran beneath his skin. This man…was a Lifeblood Twin. What was he doing working as a slave carrier? He was one of us! Why was he not on the battleground fighting for his people and fighting for the cause?

  He marched forward, squinting against the bright lights that beamed down onto the landing strip, blinking and then focusing his gaze on me. Taking a quick moment to size me up, he continued to walk until he stood right in front of me.

  “I guess you are the lucky Pallid Slave who gets to come with us.” He didn’t reach out to grab me, or seize my arm or anything of hostile nature like a Drenken would, but merely stood awaiting my next move. He didn’t smile, but he did have a somewhat pleasant demeanor about him.

  “You’re a Lifeblood Twin,” I said, almost accusingly so.

  “Yes,” he simply stated.

  “Your twin?”

  “Inside. Waiting. And he doesn’t like to be delayed long, so let’s get going.” He offered his hand for me to take. I looked down at his palm and studied the way the golden lifeblood flowed beneath his skin. The lustrous effect almost took my breath away. It had been too long since I last saw such flowing beauty. His body lit up from within, much like mine once did.