by RJ Crayton
Luke’s head turns ever so slightly, moving so it lies uncomfortably on my middle and index fingers. That slight bit of discomfort brings me more joy than I’ve ever known.
“Luke,” I say, leaving my hands in his hair, gently supporting his head.
His eyes open and he smiles at me. Dimples, a glint in the eye, and pure love radiating from his face. Then he does a slight double take, and appears confused.
I put my face closer to his. “Are you okay?”
He doesn’t answer immediately. He just looks strangely at me and then at the surroundings. The blackness, the tall grass. It must seem odd; he is disoriented.
“Did you hit your head?”
At this, he sits up, with a bit of effort, and a gentle push from me.
“Hey,” Luke says, offering up his smile again, but not answering my question. “I’m fine. I just got confused for a minute.”
I nod, try to look reassuring, though I am worried. Luke being unconscious was bad. “We should get you to a doctor,” I tell him. “Do you think you can walk?”
With a look that suggests this is the silliest question in the world, he replies, “Yeah, I can walk.”
I nod again, but don’t move from my spot on the ground next to him. He doesn’t look ready to walk. He looks hurt. “Do you remember what happened?”
Luke lifts his hand, rubbing his forehead. I wonder if I missed that spot when evaluating his head. Is there a lump there? It doesn’t look like it. Luke tilts his head back and stares straight up at the sky, then at me. “We jumped,” he says, blowing out a long breath. Then he shakes his head. “And my chute didn’t open. I had to pull the emergency one.”
“I saw,” I say, trying to shake the horror I’d felt as I watched him slam into the ground. Even from above, it had been frightening. “Did you hit your head? You were unconscious.”
Still rubbing his forehead and now the front top of his head, he looks at me and hesitates. It’s as if he is deciding whether or not to be honest with me. Deciding whether to hold back or lay it all out. “I think I did hit it.” He looks to the helmet lying a few feet away. “But I was wearing that,” he says, pointing to the helmet. “I’ll be fine.”
Maybe, I think, examining him for myself. Then, he leans toward me and kisses me. His lips feel soft, supple, and happy, even, if lips can feel that way. Then he pulls back, and grins.
“We did it,” he yells. “We made it.”
His smile, his enthusiasm are infectious. I can’t help but mirror his look of goofy, unadulterated happiness. “We did it. You, me and Ingo.”
He laughs. “Name’s grown on you, eh?”
I shake my head. “Not really, but given that you almost died when your chute didn’t open, I thought I’d throw you a bone.”
He squints in mock disapproval. “I won’t comment on whether or not I almost died, but I will say, someone who almost died should get the chance to pick the baby name in its entirety.”
I scoff at that. “Nice try, buddy, but no.” I stare at him, taking him in, in all his good form. He doesn’t appear badly injured. Maybe he isn’t. Maybe he is going to be alright. I smile. “Whenever you’re ready,” I say, “we can walk to the hospital.”
I think he’ll take awhile, work up the strength, test his steadiness. Instead, he springs up, as if nothing had happened. Standing steadily, assuredly, he holds out his hand to me. “Come on,” he says. “You ready to start our new life together, Mrs. Geary?”
I stand, my heart finally beating at a normal pace this evening, and take his hand. “Yes,” I say. “Yes, I am.”
THE END
***Thank you for taking time to read Life First. If you enjoyed it, please consider telling your friends or posting a short review. Word of mouth is an author’s best friend and much appreciated. Thank you.
Turn the page, if you’d like to read the opening chapters of the next novel in this series: Second Life.***
Second Life Preview
Don’t wait to find out what happens to Kelsey, Luke and Susan. Read the first three chapters of the next book in the series, Second Life, and if you like it, pick up the complete novel at your favorite online retailer. Turn the page to start your preview.
Prologue
KELSEY
~ Present~
I wake up with a gasp, my breathing heavy. I sit up in bed, pulling the blanket with me. Luke turns beside me, disturbed by my sudden wakening and the lack of covers. “Are you alright, Kelsey?” He slurs his words, half asleep.
“I’m fine,” I lie. “Just had some gas that woke me. I’m going to the bathroom.”
Luke pulls the blanket back over him as I slide out of bed, tiptoe to the bathroom and shut the door. I pee; this is something I have to do all the time now. I wipe, but don’t flush. Instead I stand, lower the seat cover and sit back down. I need a minute to recover from the dream.
This same vision has invaded my sleep every night for the past few weeks. It’s like watching a movie of the life I could have had. Luke and I in a grand wedding at my family home; my father and I arriving by horse-drawn carriage; Dad proudly walking me down the aisle; Luke and I moving into our first home; decorating as we prepare for a baby; my best friend Susan and I laughing like giddy children together; and Susan helping me pick baby clothes out. Then the dream descends into a nightmare. Susan is yanked away by some unknown force. One moment she’s showing me an infant onesie. The next she is gone — evaporated into thin air. There is nothing but red, bright, dazzling red like her hair. The red darkens, thickens and congeals until I realize it is blood. A pool of blood and Susan is at the center.
During the day, I can force these images from my mind, but at night nothing drives them away. They keep coming back, stronger and more vivid than before. I have put on a brave face for Luke and tried to have a good attitude. Tried to convince myself that all is well, that this is the life I wanted, that this is the life that is best. That everyone is alright. After I fall asleep, though, my thoughts and fears run free in my mind. They seed my dreams, transforming both my wishes and regrets into living, breathing visions.
I always wake up second guessing myself. I escaped the Federation of Surviving States (FoSS) nearly two months ago. I was scheduled for a mandatory kidney transplant; the government would take one of my healthy kidneys and give it to an ailing stranger. FoSS is what remains of most of the former United States, following a pandemic 100 years ago that wiped out 80 percent of the population. The survivors live under the policy of Life First. Each person is expected to help his fellow man survive, even if it means donating his own body parts. After I was determined to be the best match for a sick man, I was officially “marked” for donation. Once marked, your only choice is donation or death. Most people choose donation. I risked death, and fled instead.
I barely escaped to Peoria, a bordering country located mostly in the former state of Florida. The country also includes some coastal areas that used to be part of Alabama and Mississippi. Peoria did not want the Life First policies of mandatory donation and seceded from FOSS many years ago.
While I call Peoria my home now, it didn’t have to be that way. There were other choices, ones I’m regretting not making. Luke asked me to go through with the donation, instead of trying to flee. If I’d just said yes to him, if I’d just gone in for the surgery, I would have learned I was pregnant, and they would’ve cancelled the donation. Instead, I followed the pipe dream of a flawless escape.
I glance at the little clock on the wall. It’s 2 a.m., and instead of sleeping, I’m holed up in my bathroom regretting my decisions.
I touch my belly, hoping it will give me some comfort. Even though I know I’m not far enough along to feel movement, part of me hopes I will. Hopes I will feel some semblance of joy that tiny flutter of life within is supposed to bring. But it’s too soon. I sigh as nothing happens. Most first-time mothers don’t feel movement until the fifth month. I’m only three months along. I blow out a breath, lean forward, rest my elbow
s on my thighs and place my head in my hands. My pregnancy has been healthy and uneventful so far; that is the one bright spot in this whole mess. I must find joy in that, if nothing else in my new, uncertain life.
I lift my head and look at the closed door. If my husband was more than half awakened by my departure, he will now start to wonder why I haven’t come back to bed. If he was just barely awake, as I suspect, he has fallen fast asleep and I can have a moment more to myself.
I sigh. Whether Luke is awake or not, I should go back out. I need to sleep for the baby. I stand up and peer into the mirror above the sink. I look awful. Leaning forward, I scrutinize my reflection: there are dark circles under my eyes and thin red lines mar the whites. My haggard appearance isn’t helped by my hair, which is a little more than an inch long. My head was shaved three months ago when my attempt to escape landed me in a FoSS holding facility. Sort of like prisons, holding facilities are places for lawbreakers, only you wait there to die. Inmates are used for life-ending organ donation. The government takes everything: heart, lungs, pancreas, corneas and whatever other usable parts unhealthy law-abiding FoSS citizens need. Inmates are prone to suicide, so they’re allowed nothing that can help them achieve that end — including hair, which early inmates used to weave into nooses. The spiky brown tufts of hair that have grown back since my imprisonment sit atop my head like a poorly shorn lawn. It is a dreadful, unpleasant look. Part of me prefers the peach fuzz I had when I escaped the facility to what has sprouted since.
I turn on the hot water, grab a wash cloth and hold it under the tap until the entire cloth is warm and wet. I wring it out, feeling the water trickle through my fingers. Raising the cloth to my brow, I wipe my face. It is soothing to do this. In fact, I must do this if I am to have any chance of getting back to sleep. I can relax now, I tell myself. I will go out, have a good night’s sleep and wake up at peace in the morning. I repeat the process, trying to force the nightmare down the drain with the water, letting the heat from the cloth warm my face, and hopefully my soul.
Deep breath. I’m going to be fine. This new life is going to be fine. I hang the wash cloth on a rack opposite the toilet, then lean over to flush, telling myself again that I will have a good night’s sleep.
As I straighten up, a sharp, searing pain shoots through my abdomen. God, what was that? Another pain, fast and angry, follows the first. I grab my belly as I double over. My gut tightens in agony. Peanut! Not my little baby. I kneel on the floor, and the sharp pain diverges into hostile throbbing. I can’t move.
“Luke!” I scream, then lie down on the cold tile floor. “Luke.”
* * *
The ride to the hospital is a blur in my memory. Coping with the pain took the bulk of my concentration. The acute anguish subsided shortly after I arrived, but the doctors don’t have a lot of answers. The physician on-call examined and admitted me, saying I was a bit dehydrated. Now, I get to experience a standard hospital room, an intravenous fluid drip and machines that go beep in the night.
If I were solely at the mercy of the doctors here, I don’t think I would be as calm as I am. Luckily, I am not at their mercy. Dr. Grant happens to be in Peoria, and I am glad for it. Dr. Grant aided my escape from FoSS and has been a good friend to me, despite my fugitive status. While the Peorians say their doctors are excellent, I still have a FoSS mentality. One that says the people here do not have the same advances in medical technology. I feel better that Dr. Grant has come to check on me.
“The doctors who examined you earlier are right, Kelsey,” he says, looking up from the electronic tablet he’s reading my medical chart on. “The baby’s vital signs look good. The baby also looked good on the ultrasound. There’s no bleeding. Normal heart rate. I agree with them: you should stay here today for observation, and if everything remains normal, head back to the compound.”
I cringe when he says “compound.” I hate that place. It’s supposed to be for my own safety, but it feels like a prison. I push thoughts of the compound from my mind. I have more important things to think about. I touch my belly.
“Peanut will be alright, then?” I say.
Dr. Grant smiles at my nickname for the baby, then says reassuringly, “Peanut is fine.”
I let out a whoosh of air and adjust myself slightly in the hospital bed. Dr. Stephen Grant is a world-class obstetrician from FoSS. He also has a clinic here in Peoria, where he is free to do more medical procedures than FoSS allows. While FoSS generally has better medicine, its Life First policies that try to preserve human life at the utmost mean slow approval processes for new procedures. Dr. Grant perfected a procedure to remove a uterus containing a fetus and support the unit until the fetus reaches full term. He had to test it here in Peoria, because FoSS felt it too risky for its citizens, even though the procedure can be used to save the life of both a mother and baby if treatments to one would harm the other. One of his first Peoria successes was a woman with pancreatic cancer whose two-month-old fetus was able to continue to grow with artificial support while the woman received treatment. Those cancer-killing drugs would have killed the baby had he still been inside her body. So, Dr. Grant truly is a miracle worker.
I return my hand to my belly and decide to pick Dr. Grant’s brain about what went wrong. “I’m glad everything is well, but what do you think caused it?”
Dr. Grant shakes his head, sympathetically. “It could’ve been anything, Kelsey.” He glances back at my medical file. He looks intense as he scrolls through the pages of what the doctors here have recorded. After a few moments, he tosses his head in bewilderment. “Pregnancy is wonderful, but sometimes strange things happen that are perfectly ordinary. It could be a pulled muscle, overstretched ligaments, or just stress that caused this pain.”
Stress. I try to look normal, as if that don’t feel like I’ve just been slapped across the face. The idea that my regrets, my unhappiness here are causing stress that could hurt my baby cuts me to the core. “Stress?” I ask tentatively.
“Yes, stress is never good for you, Kelsey,” he says, pausing, paying careful attention to me. “When you’re pregnant, it’s not good for your baby.”
I nod.
“Is there something worrying you, Kelsey?”
I bite my lower lip, knowing I need to be honest about why I am stressed. Pushing my hesitancy aside, I speak words I have been unwilling to say to Luke. “I haven’t been sleeping well. I can’t stop thinking about Susan.”
Luke walks in at that moment. He has brought me a can of sardines. It’s one of those weird pregnancy cravings; I totally love sardines, and my husband was willing to venture from a hospital after being up with me all night just because I craved them. “What about Susan?” Luke asks, his brow furrowed.
Dr. Grant looks from me to Luke and folds his arms. “I was just telling Kelsey that stress can bring on incidents like last night. When I asked if anything was stressing her, she said Susan.”
Luke’s face falls. I’m not sure if it is learning that stress may have caused this or that Susan’s disappearance continues to weigh so heavily on my mind. Luke starts toward me. Dr. Grant, who was at the foot of my bed, backs up to give him a wide berth. Luke sits next to me in the chair he vacated forty-five minutes ago. A cloth grocery bag dangles from his arm, and I am sure the sardines are in it.
He sets the bag in my lap, leans in and takes my hand. “Sweetheart, I know you feel guilty about Susan, but there is no way we could’ve known —”
I cut him off. “Known that they would take her somewhere that no one would be able to find her? Not her uncle and aunt, not my father. Known that she was held captive at one point, and right now she might be dead or worse because she tried to help me?” I hurl the words at him. “No, I couldn’t have known, but that doesn’t make it any less my fault, Luke.”
What I have done to Susan is what haunts me most, what makes me unable to sleep, unable to do anything but dream constantly of what would have happened if I had simply made a different choice. I
close my eyes and bring my hands to my face, as tears seep out. My decisions have hurt everyone who has tried to help me, Susan most of all.
“Kelsey,” Luke says softly, rubbing his hand along my arm. “I asked Susan to do this. It’s my fault, OK? Please don’t do this.”
I wipe the tears from my eyes and open them in time to see Dr. Grant slipping out of the room. He’s probably running for the hills, not wanting any part of this domestic drama. I look at Luke. “It doesn’t matter that you brought her there,” I tell him. “She came because of me. She stayed and let me escape. We left her in a prison, Luke!”
“Holding facilities aren’t prisons,” he says weakly.
“Semantics, Luke. We left her there. And now she’s … she’s… God only knows where she is.”
Luke looks down, pauses. “Kelsey, I didn’t realize Susan’s disappearance was stressing you out so much,” he mumbles.
Didn’t realize. How could he not realize? Oh, I suppose because I’ve been trying to put on a good show. Trying to act normal, hoping I might feel normal. I sigh. “I guess I broke our rule,” I say. He looks at me, half smiles, probably remembering when we promised to always be honest with each other, even if it wasn’t something the other person wanted to hear. “I don’t think I’ve been honest with myself, on some level. I’ve wanted things to work, and I’ve tried to put the bad things out of my mind and focus on Peanut. But, it’s not working.”
“I know, Kelsey,” he says, commiserating with me. “I’ve been trying, too. And it’s not working as well as I want, either.”
I close my eyes again. I wish I could tell Susan I’m sorry for all of this. That I could make it up to her. “I just wish I knew she was alright or what they’d done to her.”
“Well, about that, Kelsey,” Luke says, stumbling over the words slightly. “Your father, he, um, didn’t want to get your hopes up falsely. But —”
