by S. J. West
Who did that leave to fight against her?
“I’m not sure,” I admitted, realizing even I didn’t have all the answers.
“Skye?”
I looked over at Jace’s face and saw that he was now fully awake. He kept opening and closing his eyes like he was having a hard time focusing on me. Perhaps he just thought I was a figment of his imagination.
My eyes watered of their own accord as my body flooded with relief. Jace sat up and wrapped me in his arms, being careful not to smother Rose between our bodies. He pulled back and cupped one side of my face with his right hand. I pressed my cheek into his palm and took in a deep, easy breath. Something I hadn’t been able to do since leaving his side. He leaned into me and kissed my lips, a gentle reminder of his love for me.
The ground shook again.
Jace lifted his head from mine and asked, “What was that?”
I shook my head as he pulled away from me slightly.
“I don’t know,” I told him. “Someone’s fighting the Queen, but I’m not sure who it is.”
Jace noticed Lux standing by us and looked over at her.
“Hiya,” she said awkwardly, obviously feeling like a third wheel now that Jace was awake.
“Hello,” Jace said to her, an unasked question in his voice as he looked back at me.
I told Jace what happened to me and Rose after Ash time jumped us and how I came to know Lux.
“I saw Zoe,” I told Jace, a catch in my voice at the memory. “She looked almost exactly like the way we first found her.”
“Zoe?” Lux asked. “Is that why you acted the way you did when you saw her? Is she here in the future? Is she part of your group?”
I looked over at Lux.
“She’s one of my best friends in this time line. And there’s more you should know about her.”
I told Lux how Jace and I first found Zoe and what transpired after that. I think the fact that the little Zoe she knew had two children completely blew Lux’s mind.
“Damn. And I thought your story was messed up. Her story is even more screwed up.”
“That’s what the Queen does, I guess,” I said to Lux. “Messes things up. Nothing is the way it should be anymore.”
I heard a dozen or more footsteps run across the floor of the room above us. I concentrated on the sounds, trying to figure out by what I heard what was happening. I heard gunshots and the whistle of swords swinging in the air.
“They’re fighting in the room above us,” I told Jace and Lux, unsure if they could hear what I could.
The fighting lasted for only a few minutes. The trapdoor swung open, and I saw the one person in the world I hadn’t expected to see peering down at me.
My father.
“Skye!” he yelled down to me, relief and excitement in his voice. “Wait just a minute. We’ll get you out!”
Another familiar face replaced my father’s as he disappeared back into the room. I almost started to cry as I saw Blue sniffing the air and barking down at me as if letting me know he was happy to see me again.
“Hey, Blue boy,” I said, feeling overwhelmed all of a sudden at the unexpected rescue.
My father came back quickly with a rope looped at one end. I made Lux go up first, and Jace made me and Rose go up second.
As soon as I made it to the top, my father brought me into his arms and just held me while two men I didn’t know helped pull Jace out of the hole. My father’s shoulders began to shake, and I knew he was crying. I let him unload himself of his emotions without saying a word. I looked at our surroundings over his shoulder and noticed we were in what looked like a basement of a large house.
There were dead bodies littering the floor, Harvester and human, but I didn’t see the one corpse I hoped to see. It had to mean the Queen was still alive.
When my father finally pulled back from me, I asked, “Have you killed her? Were you able to kill the Queen?”
“We’re still looking for her,” he said to me, wiping at his eyes. “But we can’t kill her, Skye. I thought you would have been told why by now.”
It was only then I remembered my father knew nothing of what had transpired within the last four months.
Blue walked up and sat down beside me wagging his tail, patiently waiting for my attention. Jace was by my side now, and I handed him Rose to hold.
I knelt down and hugged Blue around the neck. When I pulled back, he started to lick my face and for some odd reason the action made me cry. Blue licked my salty tears away, and for the first time in a long time, I felt like everything was going to be all right.
When I stood back up, I turned to my dad.
“We need to talk,” I told him. “We have a lot to tell you, and I need to know how you escaped.”
“Escaped?” my father asked with a tilt of his head. “Escaped from what, Skye?”
“From the second facility.”
My father shook his head. “We just walked out,” he told me. “No one tried to stop us. It wasn’t an escape.”
“How long ago was this?” I asked.
“About a month ago, I think. Half of us decided to leave and come up here to help in the fight against Lucena. But why were you under the impression that we had to escape from it?”
I sighed because I knew I would have to be the bearer of bad news.
“We should all get together and talk. There are things you need to know. Things I have to tell you.”
CHAPTER NINE
I made quick introductions between my father, Jace, and Lux. When Jace casually took my hand into his, I noticed my father lift an eyebrow at the action, but he didn’t say anything. I figured the interrogation about my relationship with Jace would happen at a more private time.
Although, his reaction to the innocent show of affection did remind me of what Ian had said to me about the expectations my father might have for Jace and me. Who would have suspected Ian to be so intuitive about a father’s reaction to the man in his daughter’s life? At the time, I thought it a funny notion. Now, being in my father’s presence, I suddenly felt uncomfortable about the way Jace and I had been living the past four months. It made me wonder if Jace had felt this unease around his own father all this time. He had never mentioned it bothering him, but knowing Jace, he probably would have hid any discomfort he might have felt for my sake.
We walked up the stairs from the basement to the first floor of the mansion we were in. There were people milling about dressed in green military style uniforms with an array of guns on their shoulders and swords hanging from their hips. One man ran up to my father.
“We’ve cleared the camp of Harvesters, sir,” the man reported.
“Any sign of the Queen, Paul?” my father asked.
“No, I’m afraid she was able to escape.”
“Have you found a baby in the house?” I asked the man. “A little boy?”
“No,” Paul answered, “we didn’t find a baby, but we did find a nursery upstairs. It looked like a baby had been there recently from the supplies scattered around and the waste basket had some dirty diapers still in it.”
I squeezed Jace’s hand. “She still has him.”
“Has who?” my father asked.
“Simon,” I said. “He’s our son.”
My father lifted his eyebrows in surprise at this revelation.
“It’s a long story,” I told him. “We’ve really got to talk.”
“Agreed.” My father turned back to Paul. “Bring in Doc Riley. She should be here for this discussion too.”
Paul bowed slightly in my father’s direction and immediately headed out of the house.
My father turned to us. “I kept her and the ones who were unable to fight outside the camp while we took it.”
“Are Kirk, Teegan, and Kale with you?” I asked.
My father smiled. “Yes, they’re with us. They weren’t about to be left behind. Not when there was a chance of finding you again.”
My heart felt lighter after hea
ring this news. I didn’t want to admit it, but I needed my friends now, more than ever. The more people I had around me who truly cared for me, the less I felt like the chip inside my head would turn me back into the monster I was fighting so hard not to become again. I wasn’t sure how much of what I had done as a Harvester I would tell them, but I knew their presence back in my world would help me fully reclaim who I once was.
My father led us into a living room where we waited for Doc Riley to join us.
“What are we going to do?” I asked Jace as we sat down together on one of the two couches in the room. I absently started to pet the fur on Blues’ head. It was something I used to do quite often when I was upset in the past. “You know she has Simon.”
“She won’t hurt him,” Jace said, fully confident in his statement. “He’s the only leverage she has to use against you now. He’s probably the safest person in the world because she won’t let anyone or anything hurt him.”
“He’s right,” my father said. “We’ll just have to find a way to get him back.”
Doc Riley walked in and let out a cry of joy when she saw me. I stood up to greet her, and she hugged me so hard I thought maybe she had gained Harvester strength somehow too.
“Oh child, we were so worried about you for so very long,” she said as if she felt a need to explain her behavior to me.
I hugged her back just as fiercely, letting her know I had missed her too.
“Skye,” my father said, drawing my attention. “Tell us, why did you assume we had to escape from the second Southern Kingdom?”
I looked between him and Doc Riley.
“The Queen sent a message to me that she was going down there to get you,” I told them. “But when I got there, it had already been destroyed.”
I heard Doc Riley gasp and saw her raise a shaky hand to her mouth.
“Dear Lord, child,” she said, “are you sure?”
I nodded. “Ian said it looked like the self-destruct had been set off. It was just a big crater in the ground by the time we got there.”
My father sat down heavily in the chair he stood by as if all the strength in his legs had suddenly vanished.
“If we hadn’t left when we did …” he said, not having to finish the statement.
“What made you decide to leave and how long have you been up here?” I asked.
“Things were getting out of control down there,” my father said. “The President was starting to implement a martial law society. His hunger for power was getting completely ridiculous and the council was unable to stop him. I knew if we didn’t leave soon, he would find a way to keep us all trapped down there like prisoners. So, we put it to a vote and over half the population voted to leave.”
“That couldn’t have made the President very happy,” I said, retaking my seat beside Jace while Doc Riley sat on the other side of me on the couch.
“No, it most certainly didn’t,” my father said, “especially not after we took half the supplies and weapons with us too. But he didn’t have much of a choice. He had to accept our decision to leave. The people who wanted to stay supported our departure because it meant they wouldn’t have to share space and future supplies from the crops we already helped them set up. Most of them seemed happy to see us go.”
“The second facility was much smaller than the first,” Doc Riley told me. “I seriously doubt it would have supported much population growth anyway. No, our voluntary departure was seen as a blessing in disguise to those we left behind.”
“I guess it ended up being a blessing in disguise for the ones who left instead,” I said.
“Agreed.” Doc Riley shook her head in dismay. “I just can’t believe all those people are gone. Why would she do such a thing? What did she have to gain by destroying it and killing all those poor souls?”
“I know she needed the food supplies,” I said. “I’m sure she took everything she could first before she blew it up. Maybe she even took the people with her to breeding camps or harvesting facilities. I just can’t imagine her wasting so many viable organ donors. But I don’t know why she destroyed it before she left.”
“Why would Lucena need food supplies?” my father asked.
“Because we’ve pretty much wiped out her storage facilities,” Jace told my dad. “While Skye was a Harvester …”
“Harvester!” Doc Riley said. She looked at me with a more critical eye. “Child, are you a Harvester?”
I looked over at my father. “You didn’t tell her?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t see the point in upsetting her. And when I saw you for myself, I wasn’t sure if the conversion actually took place or not. You don’t act like a Harvester.”
“I am,” I told them both, “to an extent. I have all their abilities, but I was able to regain my humanity to a point.”
My father leaned forward in his chair toward me.
“How is that possible?”
I explained to them about the Queen’s experiment with Zoe and Ash. I told them about the importance of Rose and Simon and how Hope helped me regain my humanity. Last of all, I let them know about the sacrifice Zoe and the older versions of Rose and Simon made for us.
“So we can kill Lucena?” my father asked. “You’re sure?”
I nodded. “Yes, that’s the plan. When we kill her, hopefully it will break her control over the Harvesters. With her shield gone, we should be able to bring sunlight back into the world and give us all a fresh start.”
“Then I can give the order to kill her on sight,” my father said, pulling out his walkie-talkie from his pocket.
“No!” I said sharply. “Not until we have Simon back. She’ll keep him close to her to draw me in. You give that order and he might get hit by some overzealous soldier of yours trying to make history by killing the Queen. We get Simon back first. That’s our top priority right now.”
My father put his walkie-talkie back in his pocket.
“All right,” he said. “Where do you think she might take him now that we have control of this camp?”
I shook my head. “I’m not sure. We should probably ask Michael.”
“Who is Michael?”
“He’s Jace’s father.”
“So he is still alive?” Jace asked, relief in his voice.
“Yes,” I told him, resting one of my hands over his. “He was alive when I left him at the new camp.” I smiled at Jace. “I saw the wheat field by the way.”
Jace grinned. “It was supposed to be a surprise.”
“It was,” I assured him.
“Wheat?” Doc Riley asked in surprise. “How did you grow wheat out here on the surface?”
“There’s a girl named Ava who has the power to make plants grow. Honestly, I’m not sure if she’s alive or dead, but if I were to bet, I would put my money on alive. The Queen needs food. She wouldn’t kill a valuable asset like Ava off. She would keep her to grow crops for her troops.”
“So where is Jace’s father now?” my dad asked.
“I can show you on a map where the camp is,” Jace told him.
My dad nodded as he eyed Jace up and down as if he were trying to decide what he thought about the man in my life. A part of me wanted his approval and another part of me knew it wouldn’t matter if he liked Jace or not. He was the man I loved and nothing in this world would change that.
“Sir.” Paul, the soldier who had spoken to my father earlier, came into the room. “We’ve found something I think you might want to see.”
“What is it?”
“We found the Queen’s laboratory.”
My father stood. “All right. Maybe there’s a clue there to where Lucena went. Skye,” my dad looked down at me, “would you come with me to see if you recognize anything important in there?”
“Okay.” I stood but turned and leaned down to give Jace a quick kiss. “I’ll be back.”
I kissed a sleeping Rose’s forehead before I followed my father out of the room. Blue padded along beside me
, bringing a sense of nostalgia and memories of easier times.
As my father and I followed Paul down a corridor to the back of the mansion, I felt a perceptible tenseness in my dad, like he wanted to ask me something but was holding himself back from doing it.
“I know this may not be any of my business,” he finally blurted out. “But just how together are you and Jace?”
“I love him,” I told my dad, completely unashamed to admit my feelings. “We’re raising Zoe and Ash’s children as our own. I’m not sure how much more together we could be.”
“Have you been … living in the same house with one another?”
“If you’re really asking if we’re sleeping together, the answer is yes,” I said, not seeing any reason to tiptoe around the issue.
“I see,” my father said, his disapproval drenched in the two words.
“Is that a problem?” I asked, feeling a bit aggravated by his reaction. “At least I love him. I’m not just using him for sex.”
I heard Paul, who was walking in front of us, try to cover up a laugh with a spontaneous cough.
“I realize that, Skye,” my father said, his face covered in a crimson glow. “I think it’s hard for any father to face the fact his daughter is sexually active with a man. Would it be presumptuous of me to assume the two of you might get married sometime in the near future?”
When Ian brought up the subject that my father would want Jace and me to get married, I laughed. Now, I just felt extremely uncomfortable by the situation I found myself in.
“I’m more concerned about saving the world right now, Dad. Besides, isn’t marriage a little old fashioned?”
“It may be old fashioned, but if you’re going to be raising children together, don’t you think you should at least consider doing it?”
“Can we revisit this conversation after the Queen is dead?” I almost begged, desperately wanting to end this particular talk with my father.
“I suppose,” my father said, not really wanting to let it go but seeing that I did.
