Harvester of Light Trilogy (Boxed Set)

by S. J. West

  “Well, the solution to that is simple. Don’t make me into a weak human again.”

  Ian looked at the others in the room. “So, any of you know how to help her? I’m assuming we can’t use the Cain virus, since she’s the cure to it.”

  “I may have a way,” Michael said. His relaxed stance seemed to indicate Ian’s heartfelt confession made him trust Ian a touch more.

  “Good.” Ian looked at me. “The sooner we get you back to normal, the less regrets you’ll have later on.”

  While Wilford was taking a sample of my blood, Michael, Jace, and Ian went upstairs to speak privately. Even with my advanced hearing, I couldn’t hear them, which seemed to be the point of their departure.

  “You know, ever since Michael found out about that boy he hasn’t been able to think about anything but finding him,” Wilford told me.

  “Why did it take him so long to find out about Jace?”

  “Lucena kept him a secret from Michael. It took him a while to figure out where Lucena was keeping the boy. But when he did, he didn’t let his people rest until they got him out. Guess God was smiling on us when he sent you there too.”

  “So you could use me as your own personal lab rat?”

  “Were you this ornery before the conversion?” Wilford asked.

  “Sometimes. Every little thing seems to be aggravating me now,” I admitted reluctantly.

  “Hope I like you better when you become human again,” Wilford grumbled.

  “Ditto.”

  Wilford chuckled.

  “Got what you need?” Michael asked as the trio walked off the elevator.

  “Yeah, should be enough to work with. If it’s not, I know where to find her while you’re gone.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

  “You’ll have to stay here while we go get your friends,” Michael told me. “Wilford will keep an eye on you.”

  “It’s safer this way, Skye,” Jace said.

  “So you’re just going to leave me with Mr. Poke-and-Prod over here? I thought you were supposed to love me? What if he tries to dissect me while you’re gone?”

  “Now, wait just a damn minute little lady …”

  “Wilford, she doesn’t know what she’s saying,” Michael said. “It’s just the chip making her this way.”

  “Well, the sooner we get her human again the better,” Wilford grumbled, looking even grumpier than usual.

  “You people act like I want to be human again,” I said. “Well, I have news for you. I don’t.”

  “You do,” Jace countered. “You’re just not thinking straight right now.”

  The more they insisted they knew what was best for me, the angrier I felt. How dare they tell me what I should want. They couldn’t read my mind. I was thinking clearer now than I had ever in my whole entire life! Unburdened by emotions like guilt and love made me realize exactly what a great gift the Queen had bestowed upon me. I no longer had to abide by the rules of right and wrong. I could live by my own set of standards and take what I wanted. I wasn’t about to let them change me. I was perfect.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The men decided it would be in everyone’s best interest to lock me up in a specially designed prison cell while they went off to play hero. They didn’t talk about the details of the mission to rescue Ash and Zoe in front of me, but I didn’t care. Whether they found them or not wasn’t my concern. All I wanted to do was find my way back to the Queen and take my rightful place by her side.

  The prison was housed in the basement of a building adjacent to Wilford’s lab. It was the proverbial dark and dank dungeon with four prison cells, no windows, and a singular thick metal door being the only way in or out of the room.

  “The bars and door are made of titanium,” Michael told me as he opened my cell. “So don’t waste your time trying to escape.”

  I looked around the room and then at Jace. “Are you really going to let them cage me like an animal?”

  “It’s for your own safety,” he replied, though I could read the guilt on his face like the lines of a book. “Wilford will watch over you while we’re away.”

  “And you trust that quack to protect me?”

  “Unlike most of the other men in this compound,” Michael said, “Wilford is immune to your charms, such as they are.”

  Before I could protest further, Michael grabbed my arm and threw me into the cell, shutting the door before I had time to react.

  “You’ll regret doing this to me,” I warned them.

  “And you’ll regret it if we don’t,” Ian said. “Just chill your heels in there until we get back. Maybe seeing Zoe and Ash again will help you.”

  “I don’t need any help! Why can’t you people get that through your thick human skulls! I want to be sent back to my Queen! I want you people to leave me the hell alone!”

  “I love you.”

  Jace’s simple declaration brought me up short, unexpectedly diffusing my wrath. I closed my eyes and turned my back to him. I couldn’t look at his face, filled with so much love for a person who didn’t exist anymore.

  “Skye, I love you.”

  “Shut up,” I said through clenched teeth. “You’re wasting your breath and your time. I don’t want your love.”

  “You need it now more than ever,” he insisted. “And I know deep down you still love me. That’s why you can’t look at me right now.”

  I forced myself to turn around and face him to prove his theory wrong. His eyes were filled with so much hope it made me want to rip his face off.

  “I never really loved you,” I said with false conviction, knowing the old me had loved him very much. “I just let you believe I did because I felt sorry for you. I always loved Ash not you.”

  The muscles of Jace’s jaw clenched.

  I smiled.

  “Don’t listen to her. She’s lying her ass off,” Ian said to Jace before looking at me. “Or don’t you remember crying like a little baby over Jace in the orchard the other day?”

  I felt the muscles of my own jaw tighten.

  Ian grinned. “Yeah, don’t try to play like you don’t know what I’m talking about. I know what it’s like to be a Harvester, remember that. And right now, you’re using everything you can to build a wall against Jace so he doesn’t reach the real you. I know the tricks—used them myself a few times.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said to Ian. “Do I look like someone who really wants to hear your woe-is-me stories? You don’t know me. So stop pretending you do.”

  “I know you, sister. Probably better than you do at the moment.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “Don’t you people have somewhere better to be right now? I’d much rather be alone than have to deal with all these heart-to-heart conversations you insist on having.”

  “She’s right,” Michael said. “We need to get going. The sooner we rescue your friends the better. I don’t know what Lucena’s plans are for them, but I’m sure they won’t be pleasant.”

  Jace looked at me. “No matter what you say or how hard you try to push me away, I won’t stop loving you. And just remember, I know your future. You won’t always be like this. I know you’ll find a way to come back to me.”

  I turned my back to them and heard them leave, finally granting me some peace and quiet.

  The cell was sparse with only a small cot tucked away in the corner with a thin dark blue wool blanket and a small pillow. I lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling, trying to think of ways to escape my solitary confinement.

  A few hours later, I heard the door to the room open and stood to see who it was. Unfortunately, it was Wilford.

  “Come to gloat?” I asked him, sitting up on the cot.

  Wilford shuffled toward the door to my cell and drew out a key from his pant pocket.

  “No, I came to help you escape.”

  Before I knew it, the door to my cell stood wide open with only Wilford standing in the way of my freedom and the Queen.
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  “Why are you helping me? Is this some sort of trick?” I asked, sure Wilford was trying to get me to stick my head in a trap.

  “I’m helping you because that godforsaken mother of yours will kill my granddaughter if I don’t.”

  “Your granddaughter?”

  “Couple of years ago, Lucena grabbed my daughter. She was pregnant at the time, and Lucena still has the baby.”

  “What about your daughter?”

  “The first time Lucena tried to blackmail me by using them, I called her bluff. She killed my daughter and sent me her head in a box. She told me if I ever tried to do it again, she’d kill my granddaughter.”

  “So, she knows about this place?”

  “Of course she does. What doesn’t that woman know about?”

  “Then, why hasn’t she destroyed it?”

  “Cause she’s got me by the balls, doing what she wants. Didn’t I just say that?”

  “What does she have you doing for her?”

  “She gave me the Cain virus to pass off as something I invented. The damn fools here actually thought I was smart enough to make it.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “Hell, if I know. Why don’t you ask her yourself? She’s waiting for you out past the guard post.”

  I stepped out of the cell filled with a new sense of purpose. “Which way?”

  “You’re gonna have to do something for me first. I can’t keep my cover here if it looks like I let you out without a fight. I already destroyed your blood samples, but you need to hit me a couple of times in the face to make it look good to the others when they get back. Just don’t get too carried away. You still need me to show you how to get out of this joint.”

  My first hit clipped Wilford’s jaw. For a moment, I thought I might have broken it, but Wilford was sturdier than he looked. The second hit was square on his nose, causing blood to gush out, but it was more for effect than destruction.

  Wilford turned out to be extremely helpful guiding me through to the back of the compound where a solitary guard post was stationed. He wobbled up to the two guards and told of my escape, ordering them to search for me in the opposite direction I needed to go.

  “Make sure your mother knows how much I helped you,” Wilford said to me.

  “I wouldn’t have been captured in the first place if you had been doing your job,” I replied tersely. “Why didn’t you warn the Queen about Michael’s attack?”

  “He knows someone has been tipping Lucena off about his missions. He only tells the people he takes with him what’s going on and only after they get to where they’re going. I didn’t find out about it in time to warn her. Now”—Wilford pointed to the north through a patch of woods—“head that way. There’s a clearing a couple of miles out. She’ll be waiting for you there.”

  I turned and ran toward the woods without a second look back. My heart raced when I realized I would soon be with the Queen again. I could physically feel her presence drawing me closer to her like a piece of metal to a magnet. Within a matter of minutes, I found the clearing and my Queen. She was standing with two guards by a small black helicopter emblazoned on the side with her silver infinity symbol. The Queen was dressed in a white cashmere coat and seemed to glow like an angel amongst the dingy world around her. She smiled when she saw me, making me feel as though the sun itself was wrapping its warm rays of light against my skin. I ran to her and knelt down on one knee with my head bowed in complete reverence.

  With a gentle caress, she cupped my chin in the palm of one hand and raised my head until our eyes met.

  “You never have to kneel before me, Skye. You are my daughter. You kneel to no one,” she said gently.

  I stood and felt humbled by her kind words.

  “As you wish, my Queen.”

  “Call me mother,” she said as she caressed the side of my face. “You don’t know how long I’ve waited to have you at my side, Skye. I almost thought I had lost you.”

  “I will always be by your side, mother. I will never leave you.”

  My mother held her hand out to me, and I joyfully accepted it.

  “Now, first things first,” she told me. “I need to get back to one of my experiments. Are you still interested in knowing what I’m doing with Ash and Zoe?”

  “Yes, but Michael and Jace are on their way there,” I told her.

  “Ahh, yes. Wilford mentioned they were trying to rescue them with Ian’s help, but I have no idea why they think I would keep them in the old breeding camp Ian used to run for me. Either way, it doesn’t really matter. They won’t find anything there. That camp was destroyed by one of the south’s bombs months ago.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  My mother nodded. “Oh yes, quite sure.”

  “Is there any way Ian could guess where you have them?”

  “I don’t see how. He wasn’t important enough to know about all of my installations. Don’t worry, they won’t be taking you away from me again. They’ll have to kill me first, and that’s something Michael would never let happen.”

  As I entered the helicopter and sat by my mother, I tried to find reassurance in her words but was left wondering why Simon would go through all the trouble of bringing Ian to help if what he knew actually wasn’t any help at all. It didn’t make sense. What was my future self’s purpose in sending them on a wild goose chase? What was she up to?

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  As we flew to our destination, something the Queen said made me ask, “Why did you say Michael would never let them kill you?”

  My mother cocked her head to the side. “No one’s told you? I thought Michael or Jace or even your father would have explained things to you by now.”

  “No,” I said, suddenly realizing the people who supposedly loved me were keeping secrets from me. “Explained what?”

  My mother shook her head in disbelief. “I find it interesting you don’t know, but it’s something you absolutely must know now that you are one of us. No one will kill me, because if I die what’s left of the world dies with me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “During the war, there was so much radiation in the atmosphere it eventually destroyed what was left of the ozone layer. If it wasn’t for me, the world would have died years ago.”

  “If the ozone layer is gone, what’s protecting us?”

  “I built a shield that acts as an artificial ozone layer. That’s why there are so many clouds in the sky. They’re part of the design.”

  “You built one to cover the whole world?”

  “No, there wasn’t enough energy to sustain a shield that enormous. I was only able to save the eastern part of what’s left of the United States.”

  For years I had wondered what was happening in the rest of the world. It was mildly disconcerting to learn the rest of the world was dead, drifting in ash.

  “So, we’re all that’s left?”

  “Yes, but don’t let it bother you. It was a necessary sacrifice.”

  “So are you the only one who knows how to operate the shield? Is that why Michael didn’t kill you?”

  “The shield is on an automated program. It can run itself until the end of time. No one will kill me because if I die, the shield will shut itself down. It’s programmed to monitor my brainwave activity through my Harvester chip. Once it detects I’m dead, it will power down and allow nature to take its course, incinerating what’s left alive on the surface of this planet.”

  It was then I knew Jace was a liar. The night before we had reached the barrier, I asked him to tell me something good about my future. He proceeded to weave a fanciful tale describing a scene where I was chasing two children in a field of wheat with the sun shining down on us. We would never be able to see the sun again unless the Queen was dead. And if she somehow died, we would all perish instantly, not be growing wheat under a clear blue sky.

  I let what the Queen told me sink in before mild curiosity got the better of me.

 
; “Would you mind telling me now what type of experiment you’re performing on Ash and Zoe?”

  “It’s something I’ve always wanted to try but just never had the right subjects for until now. I’d rather wait until we get there so you can see for yourself, but I have to say Zoe’s accelerated growth has helped tremendously.”

  “She’s still aging?”

  “Yes. Didn’t Doc Riley tell you that?”

  “No, she didn’t. I was under the impression once she reached her true age her aging would slow down.”

  “Thankfully, it didn’t work out that way. Her aging is still accelerated.”

  “Then she’ll die soon?”

  “Not before my experiment is complete, thank goodness. She’ll probably live another year, though the added stress I’ve placed on her system may tip the balance. I have people watching her closely, just in case.”

  I felt a knot of dread form in the pit of my stomach with the thought of Zoe’s short life expectancy. Doc Riley was added to the list of liars I’d recently discovered in my life. And why didn’t Rose or Simon mention it to me? Why hide such an important piece of information? And most importantly, why did it seem to be upsetting me so much? She wasn’t even related to me by blood. We may have pretended to be sisters while we were together but that’s all it was, pretend. Still, the thought of the child I had helped rescue being doomed to a truncated life unsettled me more than I wanted to admit. I tried to shake off the feeling, but it seemed embedded in my psyche.

  In less than an hour, I felt the helicopter descend to our final destination. We landed behind a large red brick mansion.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  “This is the house Emma and I grew up in.”