by S. J. West
“What is it?” I asked, staring at the object.
“The trigger to detonate the bomb in Jace’s head.”
My head snapped up, and I knew from the look in Lucena’s eyes that she was telling the truth.
“It’s yours,” she said. “I won’t use it against you anymore.”
Gently, I picked the small black card up.
“How do I destroy it?” I asked.
“Crush it.”
“Is this the only trigger there is?” I asked, not trusting her completely.
She nodded. “Yes. There’s only one. Once you destroy that, I’ll no longer be able to detonate the bomb.”
“Can the bomb be removed after I destroy this?”
“No, I’m afraid that program is embedded inside the bomb itself. It’s very similar to the program inside the Harvester chip. It’s a self-defense mechanism. But once you destroy the trigger, I lose control over it.”
“Why are you letting me destroy it? You’ll lose your leverage over me.”
“You still don’t understand, do you?” Lucena said, a sad smile on her face. “I want you to want to be here with me. If you don’t, then what’s the point?”
I held the trigger between the palms of my hand and crushed it. I watched as the pieces fell onto my empty plate and breathed a sigh of relief.
“If I decide I want to leave after my two weeks here are up, what will happen to this town? What will happen to the people in it?” I asked, remembering Mr. Lande’s gentle reminder about the harvesting facility above us.
“If you’re asking me whether or not I will send them upstairs to be harvested, no. I won’t do that to them. I’ll allow them to remain here and live out their lives. Like I said, you’re not the only reason I made this town. It’ll be my own little escape when I need it. But, Skye, I sincerely hope you decide to stay with me. There is nothing more that I want in this world. And that’s the truth.”
I knew there wasn’t a chance in hell I would choose to stay with her, but I didn’t say it. With her latest bargain, she had just given me two things. A time frame in which to kill her and an escape plan in case I never found my opening. Either way, I knew I would be able to go back to Jace and the kids. That was all I cared about. Everything else would have to find a way to take care of itself.
Two weeks.
I had two weeks to either kill Lucena or leave.
I hoped I found a way to do both.
CHAPTER TWENTY
For a week, I did my best to act as though I were trying to assimilate myself into the town Lucena had constructed for my benefit. Whenever I felt like I was having a memory slip about Jace and the kids, I pulled out the pink heart-shaped stone and forced myself to remember things about them. The day we spent at the house in Roanoke (Jace’s gift of a normal family life) was what I focused on the most. It was the clearest set of memories I had of them, but even parts of that day were beginning to fade.
Lucena made sure I took my medication at every meal, and they seemed to be working. I hadn’t had a seizure since I started them. It was a small blessing.
Strangely enough, I found myself beginning to enjoy the time I spent in Lucena’s company. She was surprisingly easy to get along with. Most days we went into town and shopped for things to decorate the house with. Lucena had good taste. And I found that most of the things she liked I did too. It was odd how similar we were in ways I never thought possible. At night, she would cook our supper, and we would settle in for the evening in the living room watching movies made before the war or playing games from her secret stash of them.
By the end of the week, I was finding it almost impossible to remember why I wanted to leave. I had everything within my fingertips. What rational person would want to leave? All I had to do was ask for something and it would magically appear in the house the next day.
And that’s when I knew something was wrong, because the real question I should have been asking myself was what rational person would want to remain with Lucena?
Wait … when did I start thinking of her as Lucena? I had always called her the Queen, even to myself because calling her Lucena, or my mother, just seemed too personal, too intimate. I needed to keep her at a distance. I needed to keep her in her place in my mind but the box designated with her name on it was slowly dissolving. And … I was actually starting to like her.
What the hell was wrong with me?
“Skye.”
I was brought out of my reverie and looked over at Lucena sitting beside me at the dinner table.
“Don’t forget to take your pills,” she gently reminded me.
I automatically reached for the red and white pills sitting on my plate when it finally dawned on me.
The first time I realized I was losing memories was right after I started taking the medication Lucena gave me to control my seizures.
“What exactly do these pills do anyway?” I asked, staring at them in the palm of my hand.
“Well, I could tell you, but I doubt you would understand the biochemistry. Why do you ask?”
I shrugged and popped them in my mouth.
“Just curious,” I told her, reaching for my glass of water and acting like I had swallowed the pills.
I kept them under my tongue, intent on spitting them out the first chance I got.
I ended up having to eat my meal with them both clasped tightly under my tongue. When Lucena stood to take our plates to the sink, I quickly spit them out into my hand and stuffed them in the back pocket of my pants.
From then on, I stopped taking the medication.
It seemed to take two days for the medicine to leave my system enough for some of my memories to return. The pieces missing from the day I spent with Jace and the kids began to reappear, filling in the holes and making me miss them even more. But I feared the damage had already been done.
Ian’s warnings about how hard it would be for me to kill Lucena seemed to be rather prophetic now. After spending so much time with her, I was actually starting to care for her a bit. I tried to remind myself that she was a monster, but every glance, every smile she bestowed on me made my hate for her diminish a little more each time.
But I had to kill her. It was what everyone expected of me, even myself.
Lucena and I were walking down the sidewalk in the middle of town when it happened. A large explosion went off in the middle of the square. The humans screamed and ran in all directions, determined to get away from whatever was happening.
A group of fifteen Harvesters came running from the center of the square, and I could see the blazing remnants of the elevator that was there. Just like at the Geneva compound, I could feel their single-minded determination. They turned as one unit and headed straight for us at a dead run.
“I thought you adjusted their programming,” I said to Lucena.
“I did,” she said completely confused. She grabbed me by the arm and turned me back in the direction of our house. “Run home! I’ll try to hold them off.”
Without asking any questions, I ran as fast as I could back to the house.
I heard Lucena order the Harvesters to stop chasing after me and chanced a glance over my shoulder to see if they were obeying her or not.
None of them seemed to be in the mood to do her bidding, and I saw that the Harvester leading the charge was Walsh. If he was too far gone to listen to Lucena, there was no way any of the others would either. He was loyal to his Queen to a fault, but apparently he thought killing me was more important than following her orders.
I ran as fast as I could back to the house. At some point, Lucena passed me, running faster than any of us. I’m not sure why I was surprised by this. It was logical for her to be faster and stronger than her creations. Why make followers who were equally as fast and strong as yourself?
When we reached the house, she opened the door and slammed it shut behind me, throwing the dead bolt. Even I knew that wouldn’t hold them for very long though.
She took one of
my hands and led me upstairs.
“Where are we going?”
“We have to get away from them,” she said desperately. “If they get ahold of you, I think they’ll tear you to pieces.”
Not a very comforting thought.
Lucena led me into her bedroom and shut the door, locking it behind her.
“What are we doing in here?” I asked, wondering why she was cornering us.
Without saying a word, she walked over to her dresser where two swords hung on the wall for decoration. At least I thought they were part of her décor until she pulled them off the wall and threw one at me to catch.
“Just in case they come in before we’re gone,” she said before walking into the large closet attached to her room.
“Follow me,” she instructed over her shoulder.
She walked to the end of the closet and pushed the clothes out of the way.
She laid her hand against the bare wall and an illuminated key pad appeared. I watched as she tapped in a code and an opening materialized like the wall had been partially holographic.
She stepped inside and looked back at me.
“It’s an elevator,” she explained.
I heard the front door downstairs crash inward and knew I only had a few seconds left. I ran to the elevator and stepped in. The doors closed behind me, and we automatically began our ascent.
“How far does it go?” I asked.
“All the way to the top of the mountain,” she said. “The helicopter should still be up there. So when we get to the top, run as fast as you can to it, and I’ll fly you away from here.”
I looked at her, not quite sure I had heard her correctly.
“You’re letting me go?” I asked.
“I won’t let them kill you,” she replied with grim determination. “I’d rather return you to your father than see that happen.”
“You said you changed the programming, right?”
She nodded. “Yes, I did it right after the incident in Geneva.”
“Then why do they still hate me so much?”
“It’s not so much you as the fact your father is knocking at my door right now demanding you be returned to him. He’s threatening my life because of you, and they’re still programmed to protect me at all costs. I thought I could protect you by keeping you away from them, but I suppose the program is telling them to kill you so the threat from your father will go away.”
“My father’s here?” I asked, instantly wondering if Jace was out there too. “But how did he even know where I was?”
“I’m sure when they found you missing, it didn’t take them long to figure out who had you. And Michael knows my moves. He would know I would come to my most fortified facility with you.”
“Lucena,” I said, watching her face as I asked my question. “Why are you letting me go?”
A glimmer of tears made her eyes shine as she said, “Because I love you.”
The elevator doors opened. Dusk was quickly settling against the gray world we lived in, making things even darker. Straight ahead of us was the helicopter but surrounding it were five Harvesters.
“We’ll have to kill them,” Lucena said bluntly.
I hefted the sword in my hand. “Ready when you are.”
“They won’t hurt me,” she said, looking over at me. “So stay near the elevator and be prepared in case any of them get past me.”
I nodded. “I will.”
Lucena ran out of the elevator heading straight for the Harvesters with her sword raised.
The Harvesters didn’t even seem to pay her any attention. Their eyes were completely locked on me.
I was always amazed by how fast Harvesters were able to move. Their speed and agility was superhuman. But Lucena’s abilities were almost supernatural. She became a blur to my eyes as she met the line of Harvesters, taking out three of them in a blink of an eye. Their heads flew off their shoulders and into the air as their bodies crumpled to the ground. She whirled around as quickly as she could, but the other two Harvesters were almost to me.
I raised my sword as the first Harvester reached me and spun out of his grasp, slicing through the backside of his neck to decapitate him.
The second Harvester grabbed me from behind.
“Skye, duck!” I heard Lucena yell.
I ducked my head as far as I could and heard the whistle of her blade pass over my head and hit its mark against the Harvester’s neck. A spray of blood splattered me, but other than that I was all right. The now dead Harvester’s arms loosened around me, and I pushed his body to the ground.
The elevator Lucena and I had just come up in disappeared back into the mountain.
Lucena saw this and cursed before telling me, “Run to the helicopter. More of them are on their way up.”
We both ran to the helicopter only to find that its control panel had been ripped out.
Lucena stepped back from the helicopter, a stunned look on her face.
She shook her head in dismay as she said, “There’s not another way off the mountain.” Her eyes looked haunted with regret and grief as she looked at me. “I can’t get you off this mountain, Skye.”
“What about the lift? Freddy used one to bring us up here before he took me to you at your castle.”
“We cut the cords so your father’s people couldn’t use it.”
Lucena began to pass back and forth in front of me like the movement helped her think.
“There’s only one way to break their programming,” she said, coming to a complete stop in front of me. “If I were to die, they wouldn’t have a reason to kill you anymore. Their purpose for killing you would be gone.”
I felt confused by her statement.
“You would die for me?” I asked.
“I would do anything for you,” she said, panic and desperation in her voice. “I would die for you in a heartbeat if it meant you would live. But I can’t. If I die, the shield comes down and you would be dead either way.”
I hesitated. I had the key to unlock her promise, but did I really want to use it? Wasn’t this what I was hoping for? It was my chance to kill her. To end this nightmare once and for all. But could I do it?
“There’s another shield,” I heard myself tell her.
She stopped pacing and looked completely confused. “Another shield? One like mine?”
“One better than yours,” I replied. “You were right before. We have been trying to kill you so we could bring your shield down and let the other one take over. It doesn’t need to have these gray clouds to work like yours does. It’ll let the sun shine on us again.”
Lucena instantly fell to her knees in front of me.
“Then do it,” she begged. “Kill me, Skye. It’s the only way I can save you from them.”
I swallowed hard because I knew this was the moment Jace had seen in his vision.
This was the moment I was meant to kill Lucena Day, Queen of the Eastern Kingdom and destroyer of the human race.
I lifted my sword with trembling hands and felt the warm sting of tears flood my eyes. The past few days came flooding back to me and feelings I never thought I would have for Lucena overwhelmed me. I knew I should just swing my sword, severing her neck and finally ending the war, but I couldn’t.
I loosened my grip on the sword and let it drop from my hands as I stood there crying.
Lucena looked up at me. “Skye, pick up your sword and kill me. It’s the only way I can save you.”
I shook my head. “No. I can’t. I can’t kill you.”
The elevator reappeared and the doors opened, revealing the fifteen Harvesters who had chased us to the house on the lower level. They rushed out of the elevator and ran straight for me.
I waited for them to come and end my life because there was no way Lucena and I could fight so many off at one time.
Lucena stood to her feet and turned to them.
“End program alpha two zero,” she said to them in a normal voice.
The Harv
esters immediately stopped in their tracks. They looked confused for a moment like they didn’t understand why they were on top of the mountain. Turning as one, they headed back to the elevator.
I watched them leave, unable to understand what was going on.
Lucena turned to me, a euphoric smile on her face.
“I knew I could get you back,” she said, triumph in her voice. “It was only a matter of time.”
“Get me back?” I asked, wiping the tears from my eyes as I looked at her. “What are you talking about?”
“The medication I gave you,” she said. “It wasn’t just to help control your seizures. It also slowly took away the memories you were using to block me out. You finally let yourself have feelings for me instead of simple hatred. And I knew I was right about your group trying to kill me. I just couldn’t figure out what their agenda was until now. Thank you for filling in that missing piece.”
“You set this all up?” I asked, my heart racing. “You planned this to happen?”
“I had to, Skye. I did it for us. And I promise I’ll find a way to repair your chip so we can be together forever. Come with me,” she said, holding her hand out for me to take, “let me show you something.”
I placed my hand into hers, and she led me to the edge of the mountain.
“This planet is ours,” she told me, looking out at what remained of the world. “I’ll bring down my shield so we can have sunlight again, Skye. We’ll build things the way we want them to be. And we’ll never have to worry about death or decay again. We’ll live together forever in the world we create from this day forward.”
I looked over at the Queen, fully seeing her for what she was: a mad woman. The world would be forever doomed under her control. She would destroy my family because they would distract me from the pure adoration she seemed to expect from me. I couldn’t let her hurt them. I couldn’t let her have them or what was left of the world because she would eventually destroy both.
I tightened my hold on her hand, yanking her with me as I jumped off the mountain.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
