Hope (Other World Protection Agency Book 1)

by Serena Simpson

  “Guess what kiddies.” Charon said in his faux kindergarten teacher voice. “The field trip is not over yet.”

  Chapter Six

  Tara hugged Paul closer and tried not to shake. She was over field trips. She would sit this one out thank you very much.

  “Tara.” She felt a hand on her shoulder and knew it was Charon’s. Of course his voice in her ear was a clue.

  “I am tired.” Her voice came out surly, more like a pissed off teen than a weary adult who had a reason to hide away.

  “I know, but you have to come anyway.” He was being gentle with her. She was sure he was the reason she had been left in that living hell, so he should be gentle with her. Standing up when all she wanted to do was sit, she focused on a corner of the wall so she wouldn’t have to meet his eyes.

  Taking both of their hands he gave a sigh. “Let the tour commence.”

  Once again, one minute they were there and the next they were somewhere else. There was no bright sky or car with a happy couple. They were in someplace that could have been a nursing home yet it was a far cry from the ones she had seen on television.

  “Where are we?” Paul asked the question.

  “We are on Demos.”

  They were standing in the corner of a room. It was not a very clean room, almost as if the aides had said forget this and refused to tend to the occupant. Yet looking out the door, you could see that the whole place seemed to be uncared for. The occupant on the bed was elderly and frail and yet was obviously Demos.

  “Why are we here? Do you think I will feel sorry for these people? No, not people, monsters who come to other peoples worlds and try to destroy them.”

  “Tara you’re mad, upset and scared and thinking you may be crazy. Yet, you still have to see the other side of the picture. Just one view of the world, any world is enough to send someone off halfcocked. If you don’t believe me just ask Raimel. Ah, here he comes now and this time even he can’t see you.”

  She watched as he entered the room and finally knew what primal hatred felt like. She hated him with everything they were both worth. She wanted to violently yank every piece of his coal black hair out by the roots and tear off those wings. How she would laugh in joy as she did it. She was definitely going crazy.

  He went to the bed and knelt down. She walked closer. She needed to hear and she needed to see. She needed to feel, even if all she felt was horror and hatred. She needed him to suffer the way she had been made to suffer. That was righteousness, right? That one should suffer like she did.

  “Mom.” That was his mother? She moved in closer thinking about her own mother.

  “Mom.” Did he almost look sad? “You’re going to die. There is nothing they can do for you.”

  “No son, I am not. Hope is coming.”

  “There is no hope.” He screamed, making his mother flinch before he got himself under control. “Hope is dead. This planet will never have hope. All we have is luck. Very few find that and fewer hold onto it. You know this. Why do you continue to delude yourself? I can take you home and you can die there.”

  “I know you can’t feel it yet, but I can. Hope will be reborn right here on our planet. It will grow and fill your heart with the possibilities of what can be. It will break your heart when you see all you have done.” She reached up and stroked his cheek. “One day at a time my son. All is not lost.”

  “I need to leave mother. I have more lives…” He halted as he looked at her. “I have things to do, but I will come back again soon.”

  He strode to the door needing to get away when he heard her call his name. “Raimel.”

  “Yes mother.”

  “Have I asked anything of you?” She never asked anything of him.

  “No mother you have not.”

  “Then I ask that you honor this request.”

  “Mother?”

  “Do as I ask.”

  “I will try to honor your request.”

  “The one you have in captivity.” He turned to look at her. No one should know about that. “Let her live. She is the one thing that could break you.”

  With that she laid back and dismissed him by closing her eyes.

  “I feel you in here. Take a good look at my planet, then tell me if you can judge him as harshly. Charon, I know you are there. Remember you promised to take me to see Hope being born.” This time she dismissed them with her silence.

  They disappeared this time to reappear on what was a dividing line between the privileged and the slums.

  “You are looking at the section the lucky live in. The rest is where everyone else lives.”

  “What do you mean? You’re rich or poor and there’s no in-between?”

  “Paul, I mean either you’re lucky and end up here or you’re unlucky and you live over there.” He said pointing to the other side.

  Really it couldn’t even be called a slum. She had seen places like this in third world countries. Looked like no running water. No safe place to live. The people were wearing rags and no one seemed to really care. There were no children playing happy games. There was no hope in the faces of the people walking by. How could this be? Nothing in a third world country could ever have prepared her for this.

  “Tara, what if hope were a person?”

  “What? That’s preposterous. Hope is not a person. Hope is this faint emotion that people feel in order to think things will get better. Heck, according to legend, it was in the bottom of Pandora’s Box and barely escaped with its life.”

  “Paul, what if hope was a person. What if Hope the person was killed before he or she grew up? What would happen to a planet left bereft without hope?”

  He opened his mouth several times, but nothing came out. He simply looked around.

  “Give it a try Paul. Tell me what your life and your planet would be without hope.”

  Again he looked around then took a steadying breath. “My parents loved me. We lived a good life in a nice house in the good section of the city. I had friends and family and enough to eat, but still I struggled. School didn’t come easy, especially when I was younger. My mom spent hours working with me. Re-teaching me at times. She would say that not all teachers could work with every child, but she would always be able to work with me. If not for her, I would have lost hope.”

  He stopped as his eyes got big and he realized it was the truth.

  “It was the hope she gave me that kept me moving on. When I said I wanted to be a doctor my dad almost laughed, but not my mom. She said ‘Paul has given us a reason to celebrate’, so we had a party. By high school I was excelling and the rest is history. Without the hope she had in me and in her ability to teach me, I would not be here today.”

  “Tara, I am asking you again. What if Hope were a person and that person died? What would happen to the planet and those that lived on it?”

  “Without hope there are no thoughts of a better tomorrow.” She continued as if the words were being torn from her. “Without hope the planet and its people could perish. There would be no medical breakthrough. No lifesaving medicine. No care for another, but it wouldn’t end there.”

  Tears started to gather in her eyes and that cold hatred she felt flared hotter than the sun before it began to cool. The cooling hatred was also the waning hatred and she began to feel hope. It was almost like a tidal wave waking up in her body, taking her over.

  “A planet without hope and a people without hope would be condemned to a hatred so fierce or a sadness so deep that whichever overtook them they would be unable to shake. Such a choice is unthinkable.” She ended with a whisper.

  “Do you understand now, Tara? If your planet was hopeless you too might scour the worlds looking for hope in order to end its life. In order to end your life.”

  Without a word and without touching them, they disappeared and reappeared in the warehouse.

  “Mother?”

  “Hi baby did you miss me?”

  She considered fainting, she really did, but how many tim
es could she pull the floor thing in one day without looking like a total wimp? So no, she was going to have to face her mother whose name just happened to be Pandora, although they always called her Dora.

  “Mom do you have something to tell me?”

  “Charon hasn’t told you yet?” She threw him a look like he was the naughty child.

  “Nope, I don’t think he has told me yet. So why don’t you start with how you look as young as you did in the picture when I was a baby?”

  “Aww, that’s the easy part. I stopped aging the minute I conceived you. Although I didn’t know of course. It took Charon years to finally get around to telling me what was going on.”

  “Course you know Charon. Go on.”

  “Finally I understood that in order for hope to wake up in you, well I realized that your life would need to be hard. As your mom I wanted to protect you, coddle you. Instead I let you go your own way. I let you ditch me and work this out on your own, but I never left you alone. Please believe that I always knew where you were.”

  “How can I be hope? It makes no sense. There was hope already on the planet when I was born.”

  “Hope is born every day. Hope will keep families together and start revolutions to change things. And it will be left behind when the person dies. Then there is a different kind of hope, one that is a key. That would be you. Without you, the world would become hopeless over time.”

  “What is a key?”

  “You have to wait on that one. It will be revealed in time. Suffice it to say that without you, things would be changing and not in a good way.”

  She rolled her eyes at her mother then looked at Paul. “Maybe we should make a list of things that have to be done so life can go back to normal.”

  “I have a feeling that normal is over rated.”

  “We have to save the perky… Forget it. What’s her name?” He gave her a smile that was melting her new heart to the core.

  “Amanda.”

  “We have to save Amanda.”

  “We have to make sure one baby boy Demos is born. I say we do that first and then save the perky blonde.” Charon looked around innocently.

  “Why do we need to make sure a baby Demos is born.”

  “I know the answer to this one.” Tara said with her hand high in the air. “Pick me, pick me.” Charon waved at her to continue. “Because Demos has no hope and I am just betting that someone is waiting in the wings to kill little Hope Demos. Course we can’t call him hope because he’s a boy.”

  “So we make sure the baby is born. We free Amanda and then all is ok? We just go back to our lives like this never happened?”

  “Paul, all I can give you is the hope for tomorrow.” He smiled as he pointed to Tara, “what you do with it is up to you. I would suggest everyone get a good night’s sleep, because tomorrow a certain child will be born.”

  “Paul explore upstairs I think you will appreciate it.” Charon said before he shimmered and faded away.

  The upstairs was not a full floor. It was simply offices or rooms around three sides of the warehouse with the center open, allowing you to see the high ceiling. They were standing at the top of the steps wondering what direction to go first. The floor still looked like it needed a lot of elbow grease except for the section on the farthest side. It looked as if someone had already scrubbed it.

  Looking at each other they walked over and opened the door. Walking in, they stopped in their tracks and just stared.

  “A bedroom?” The room was beautiful, Tara held her breath as she marveled over it.

  In the middle of the room sat a four poster king size bed. The kind she had always secretly wanted. It had matching dressers and night stands to go with it. The bare walls were now covered with pictures of beautiful landscapes giving the feeling of being outside, despite the lack of windows in there. She would have paid a fortune to own something as beautiful as this room

  “That’s putting it mildly. This place is marvelous.” Paul said as he stood still just taking it in.

  “You think he made this for you?” She said that with a bright smile planting the seed that all of this had been done for him.

  The look he gave her said are you crazy? “No I think he made it for us.”

  “There is no us.” As long as she kept telling herself that, she could keep distance and perspective between him and her fragile new feelings for him.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Course, I am sure.” Men were crazy. There was no them. Where was the Love? Where were the dinners and the romance? Where was “I will be here in the morning?” No there definitely was no them. There needed to be dinners and flowers or gifts.

  “Ok, there is no us then. So we will just sleep here instead of downstairs.”

  “We can’t sleep together!”

  “Why? Haven’t we been sleeping together for days now? Or has it been weeks?”

  “We have not been sleeping together.”

  “Then what do you call your head on my chest as we lay down and close our eyes.”

  “That’s not sleeping together.”

  “Oh, what do you call it?”

  “Well I mean, it is sleeping together, but it doesn’t count.” She could feel her cheeks heating up and her skin was light enough that she knew he could see how flushed she was.

  “So we’re not a couple and we’re not sleeping together?” He walked up to her and began to rub her cheek. “So I guess you don’t want to kiss me?”

  Kiss him? Memories of his lips briefly touching hers as she escaped the hospital came back and warmed her cheeks even more. Yeah, she wanted to kiss him, but she hadn’t waited so long for the perfect man to just give up now. She wanted her perfect man, the one that passed all the magazine questions, like all the other women.

  She tilted her head up to meet him as he lowered his lips to her. Nice and easy she thought as his lips covered hers. Just one kiss and then she would go back to waiting for Mister Right. His lips were hard yet smooth and warm and soft on hers. Instinctively, her body swayed closer and he gathered her up against his chest. Her mouth opened on a sigh and she felt his tongue slip in and caress her briefly.

  Clutching at his shirt her mouth opened even more, letting out a soft moan. His tongue invaded her mouth meeting her tongue in a duel. Closing her eyes, she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him for all she was worth.

  Drawing back she gasped. “Wow.”

  She watched as he smiled, looking at her.

  “Definitely wow.”

  Breaking away she walked over to one of the large paintings. “So you really just work? There’s no one special?”

  “There is definitely someone special.”

  “How could you kiss me if there is someone special in your life?”

  “Because you are my special someone.”

  “You’re not funny.”

  “You’re probably right, but you should remember this. Every relationship is different and no two relationships start the exact same way. So yeah, we missed the eye longing stage and two straws in the milkshake, but maybe that was good. I know that at times you can absolutely be down, but even then you bounce back and are ready for the next thing. I know you care even when you don’t want to. I know you have a great sense of humor. I also know you love cookies.” He winked at her.

  “No I am not dreaming of a house with a white picket fence, but I bet you are not either. You’re loyal and you’re willing to lay down your life for another, even as you protest the fact that they should be allowed to take another breath. You’re quirky and I like it. More than anything though you’re honest and I would rather have honest than shrimp and meaningless small talk. Bed time?” He stopped talking to look at her, giving her time to take in all he had just said.

  “Yeah.”

  Chapter Seven

  The morning had brought tensions that Tara had hoped to avoid. She had woken up wrapped around Paul. For one wonderful moment, she felt like she belonged. She had felt cherished a
nd loved and almost expected to look out the window and see that white picket fence she always read about in her sinfully sweet romances. There was no white picket fence. In fact, there was no house. She was on the second floor of a warehouse that had been cleaned by a magical someone. He never really said what he was, even though he resembled a Demos.

  She was not loved. There had been no dates and flowers. No dinners where he asked her to be his girl and promised to love her at least for a while. So yeah, the tension was high, but not just with him. What was she supposed to do with a parent that just shows up out of the blue? She loved her right? Okay maybe she loved her and hated her at the same time. She could have been spared years of agony if the truth had just been spoken. The logical part of her brain was saying it had to happen this way. The logical part of her brain should meet her heart. Now they were all downstairs discussing what needed to be done.

  “It’s very simple. All we have to do is make sure the baby is born.” Three sets of eyes turned to look at Dora.

  “If that is all we had to do Mother, why would all of us be needed. Couldn’t we just send Paul? I mean he is the doctor.”

  “Settle down kiddies,” Charon said with a sigh. “This will not be easy, Dora. No matter how much you may want it to be. There will be factions and not just other Demos who wish this child to never be born. There are too many species to name that have no hope on their planet. Many of those species have the Demos to blame for being hopeless. So there is the possibility of an all-out war. Before any of you get comfortable you need to understand if this child dies, this world will suffer.”

  There was silence. It should have been tension filled, but for once it was not. It was almost like everyone was lost in their own thoughts.

  “So it really is simple, just like my mother said. We go and protect one child, fight like crazy, do a couple of Hail-Mary passes and pray everything turns out alright. Simple.”

  “Since when did you start liking football?” Dora’s face held a look of shock that was making Tara feel much better.