Raven: The Young Adult World of Genetically Modified Teens and the Elite (Swann Book 6)

by Ryan Schow

  Or perhaps I’m incapable of love. Perhaps my emotions are nothing more than the lies of a little girl who became a monster herself. A baby Mengele. A product of the Gerhard uprising against God and humanity.

  Baby Bumps and Baby Dumps

  1

  It’s past midnight when Netty’s cell phone rings. She picks it up fast, hoping not to wake her mother. “Hello?” she whispers.

  “It’s me,” Brayden said.

  A long pause, then: “It’s late.”

  “I know. It’s just…I wanted to talk to you. I miss you.”

  “The feeling’s not mutual,” she said with humor in her voice. Sitting up, she thought about him the way she was thinking of him when she let herself get pregnant with his baby.

  “Hah! Now I really miss you.”

  For awhile they talked about this and that, about school, but Netty thought maybe he was holding something back. Maybe a girlfriend or something. Or perhaps he just wanted to see her, to do her again. How would he feel if he knew she was officially pregnant with their child?

  “I want to see you,” he said.

  “That’s not a good idea,” she told him. When he asked why, she said, “I put on weight.”

  “Not in your bra, I hope,” he teased.

  “Yeah, in my tits. And my hips and my butt.”

  “Oh my God, I loved your butt and boobs!”

  She burst out laughing at the absurdity of him, and he laughed at her laughing and all the sudden she found herself crying, not knowing how she got from there to here.

  “Are you alright?” he asked.

  “I just miss Abby, that’s all. And you, sort of. Not your lame gaming persona, but you the friend. These people here, they don’t get me. And I’m angry all the time.”

  “Why?”

  She knew she should tell him, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She would expect things from him, things he couldn’t do for her. In her mind, she wanted him to be Brayden the boy she needed for a night. She didn’t want him to let her down. She didn’t want Brayden the deadbeat teenage dad.

  “I just am,” she said to his question of why she was angry all the time. “What’s up with you? Are you seeing anyone?”

  “I was. This girl named Julie.”

  Her heart sank. She almost hung up the phone, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. He was the father of her child, after all.

  “So, you’re not seeing her then?”

  “No,” he said, laughing an ironic laugh. “She’s pregnant now.”

  “You got her pregnant?”

  “Not me!” he said. “Her step-brother, if you can believe it.”

  “Are you effing kidding me?!” Netty exclaimed.

  If he dumped a girl for being pregnant, how would he react to Netty’s news? Don’t be a dummy, she told herself. The reason he dumped this Julie whore was because she got knocked up by her step-brother. Not because she was preggo. Brayden’s ex-slut’s baby wasn’t his. He would be different with her, she rationalized. Wouldn’t he? Netty wanted to tell him about the child, but she couldn’t risk it. She wouldn’t.

  “When Abby gets back from…this little trip she’s taking to Nevada…I want us to meet up,” he said. “I want us to hang out. There are some things you’re going to want to know.”

  “She’s taking a trip to Nevada? Why?”

  “She didn’t say. She just texted me and said she’d be gone for a day or two.”

  “So what is it you have to tell me? What have I got to know?”

  “Good things, about Abby. Things best not discussed over the phone or after midnight.”

  “Okay,” Netty said, “but don’t make me wait too long. Seriously. Just don’t.” She told herself he wouldn’t do well being a boyfriend and a father. He just wasn’t ready.

  Or was he?

  When they were off the phone, her mother cracked open the door and asked if everything was alright. Irenka wore her exhaustion on her whole body. Netty’s eyes went to the baby bump in her mother’s nightshirt. They could be twins, that’s how close their mistakes brought them. It was a nice change from fighting, though, not that she would ever admit it.

  “I guess,” Netty answered. “That was Brayden.”

  “Did you tell him?” her mother asked. Netty shook her head, no. “Are you going to tell him?”

  “I don’t know,” Netty said. “Probably not. You? Are you going to tell Dante about his baby?”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “No.” Soon it would be impossible to conceal their physical conditions, though, and Netty wondered if her mother would dump Dante to preserve her secret.

  Scooting down under the covers, tired but sad, Netty said, “What about dad?”

  Standing in the doorway, her mother thought about it for awhile, then said, “I don’t know about that yet. I guess, when he gets out of jail, he’s going to see us and want to kill us.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Netty said.

  “First he’s going to hate the absolute shit out of us, and then he’s going to kill us both.”

  “Probably,” Netty said, laughing half-heartedly in spite of her mother being right. Except for one thing. Her father—with his temper—he would keep them alive long enough to kill Dante and Brayden, and then he’d kill them next and keep the children for himself.

  Irenka finally walked into Netty’s room. She took a seat on the side of the bed and took Netty’s hand. Netty warmed to her mother’s touch. Her skin was soft, safe. In her eyes was her mother’s love for her. In her eyes was her love for her mother.

  Talk about weird.

  Irenka smiled at her daughter, then Netty said, “We can do this, can’t we?”

  “I think so.”

  “This is so stupid,” Netty replied, to which her mother laughed and said, “Yes, this is totally stupid.”

  2

  After Brayden hung up with Netty, he picked up the phone, hesitated, then dialed Julie’s number. He didn’t want to call her, but he did. Things were like that with her, always so push and pull. When he found out during one of their little ‘who-can-trump-who-in-the-confession-department’ that she was pregnant with Emery’s child—as Raven, rather the real Abby—said, he played like it was no big deal, but it was. It was a huge deal. He had been sucking face with a girl who was maybe in love with her step-brother, and who—all this time—had his baby growing in her belly. It was a white trash nightmare. A sort of reverse Damien/Kaitlyn thing. Did she plan on hiding the baby? Aborting it?

  He stomached the revulsion for as long as he could before realizing his abhorrence was a permanent, measurable thing. It was like a light switch inside him shut off and his eyes and heart refused to characterize her as human anymore. She was worse than a bitch. She was trailer park trash. Which completely blew because the way things were heating up between them—how she was almost ready to take it to the physical side of things—it was exactly what he needed to cope with the mess his life had become.

  Julie Sanderson, a.k.a. Julie Satan had a way of ruining things.

  When your special someone tells you they’ve got a baby in their belly and it isn’t yours, you begin to think about things like, what the hell am I doing with her? And, who does this sort of thing? And then your thoughts turn darker and you wonder what kind of a twisted wreck of a human being gets pregnant by their family?

  To Brayden, this started as a game. A challenge. He wanted to piss off Abby and make her jealous, to hurt her for changing and leaving him behind. And then one goal became two as he dreamt of breaking Julie, because she was a dreadful person and this challenge was a larger-than-life feat. One that kept him focused on something other than Abby.

  He could never love Julie though.

  Never.

  So he decided to break her. He wanted to do her and destroy her and then he wanted to make her suffer for everything she was and had been. Now this? Talk about the epic backfire!

  Not only was Abby really Raven, he wasn’t int
erested in Julie either. Not in kissing her, not in having sex with her, not in being friends with her. Whatever shreds of respect she earned by trying to be a better person (she was after all Julie Satan, a rotten slab of bitch meat for days), whatever risks she took in separating herself from the Bitch Brigade and destroying her base of friendship, it meant almost nothing to him the moment she finally confessed to being pregnant.

  Raven was right.

  The line rang through several times before Julie picked up. “Hello?” she said, groggy, still half asleep. It was after midnight.

  He paused a second, thought again about hanging up, then said, “It’s me.”

  Silence.

  “What do you want, Brayden?”

  “To apologize.”

  “For what?” She was starting to wake up. He could hear bits of clarity trickling into her words. He even imagined her sitting up in bed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

  “For being judgmental about you being pregnant.”

  “You can’t be any more harsh than I am about that,” she said, the weariness in her voice as much from being asleep as from the burden she was carrying in her heart and in her belly.

  He felt his eyebrows lift in cautious admiration. What kind of a girl has this perspective? For being so mean and yet, also being insightful and forgiving at the same time, she was starting to become interesting again. He felt bad for judging her, but he was also sickened at the thought of her…doing what she did. He couldn’t get past that.

  “I guess I saw you a certain way, and maybe it was unfair of me to cast you in such an innocent light knowing how cruel you can be—”

  “Thank you,” she said, and he could hear her smiling.

  —“but I thought perhaps you and I could be abnormal people with traces of a normal relationship.”

  “I never wanted to date you,” she said.

  “I know,” he replied. “I didn’t want to date you either.”

  “Then why come after me?”

  “Because you were one of the most hated people in school, and I wanted to break you. But I also wanted to break Abby for…for not giving a shit about our friendship.”

  “And there it is,” she said, like she’d been wondering about this for entirely too long.

  “Yes.”

  “But let me guess, you came to find I’m somewhat human, and that you really have an attraction to me and we’re meant really to be.”

  “You didn’t think this was going to be our PG-13 romance movie, did you?”

  “No, dickface. I was thinking you were thinking that.”

  “I just wanted to see your nipples,” he said, and she laughed. “No honestly, I did come to like you, but you are seriously screwed up. I mean, way worse than me, which surprised the crap out of me because I’ve got issues.”

  “Yeah,” she said, not offended.

  “Even though you got knocked up by Emery, and it’s morally repugnant—”

  “Morally repugnant?” she quipped.

  “Uh, yeah, totally,” he said. “Stop interrupting me.”

  “Okay.”

  “As I was saying, even though your actions are morally distasteful, they’re not illegal. Well, mostly they’re not illegal. There might be rape or incest issues in the law, but whatever. What I’m trying to say is I’ve got a history, too, and it’s not vanilla, and it’s not legal. What I have is a history I can’t share with you because it’s not just my history to confess. It’s morally irreprehensible, Jules. Really bad. The secrets I’m carrying inside me will die with me. They have to, and that’s not fair to you because you were so forthcoming.”

  “I knew you had that inside you. It’s all over your face sometimes. How you sit there and stare off into space with that blank look.”

  “Anyway, I called to say I was sorry.”

  “Thank you,” she said, more serious. “Brayden?”

  “Yes?”

  “I was thinking, maybe…I mean, do you want to come and eat me out?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “You do?”

  “Yeah, I was thinking that,” he said.

  “I’ll leave the door open,” she said, a little breathless. “Just come in.”

  “You’re sure? I mean, we haven’t, I mean, you—”

  “Just come over you big dummy before I change my mind and put my panties back on.”

  3

  Holland, Quentin and his lab assistants, Jasmeka and Brooklyn, stood over Rebecca’s child. The infant was laid out on a gurney. Beside her was eight CC’s of an amber solution inside of a large needle.

  “Swab her,” Holland said, picking up the needle.

  Jasmeka swiped an alcohol soaked cotton ball over the injection point on the infant girl’s arm. The child smiled, cooing, blowing tiny spit bubbles out of her mouth. Her little mouth was so cute you could kiss it. But no one did because the miracle baby might not survive the shot, let alone everything else it was going to have to endure to survive. Basically, no one was looking to get attached.

  “She’s adorable,” Brooklyn said. Okay, Holland thought, maybe someone was attached.

  Holland looked at Brooklyn like he couldn’t believe what she was saying. He looked at her like he couldn’t believe it while at the same time thinking he’d like to give her the baby she seemed so desperate for. Not because he wanted a kid, but because he wanted Brooklyn. If only to take a few runs through the sheets.

  “What?” she asked, looking back at him.

  He swallowed, regained his composure and said, “Focus. You need to focus.”

  “I’m just saying—”

  Holland was about to put the needle into the child’s arm, apply the serum he and Quentin had been working on for months now, when someone entered the lab. A man. They were in an underground lab hidden behind and beneath a bookcase in his now vacant office, so Holland was surprised to say the least.

  “Professor Teller,” he said, coolly. “What in God’s name are you doing down here?”

  Teller looked at them with a strange look on his face. He sort of stared.

  “Professor Teller,” Holland repeated, “what is it? What do you need?” The needle was hovering just over the pudgy yet delicate, pink arm.

  “You’re Holland, aren’t you?” he said.

  He smiled slowly, admirably. “Yes,” he said, “I am.”

  “And that’s Rebecca’s baby, the one that survived, right?”

  His assistants look at each other, then at Holland. And Quentin? He’s looking at Holland like Holland knows something he honestly doesn’t.

  “How do you know about them?” Holland asked.

  Teller walked forward. He looked like a wreck. Like he’d been up all night and his eyes and face were paying the price. Tension aggravated the air around them, but no one moved.

  “That age-defying, anti-viral serum,” he said, “the one you’re about to inject her with, it’s going to work exactly as you hoped, but only for the next fifty-seven years.”

  “And then what?” Holland asked, suddenly finding it difficult to catch his breath.

  “And then they just look at you and die. They all die. Millions of people. They just take their last breath and expire.”

  “Who is this freaking nut job?” Quentin asked.

  “A traveler,” Holland replied.

  “What’s a traveler?” Jasmeka asked.

  “It doesn’t matter. What matters is he’s here right now and we have a problem with the serum.”

  “How do you know they only live fifty-seven years?” Brooklyn asked.

  “Because that baby you’re about to inject? Her name is Skye. Not this second, but when Rebecca realizes you have her baby, she’ll take her back and that’s what she’ll name her Skye.”

  “You can’t know this,” Brooklyn said. She said it, but the look on her gorgeous face said she didn’t believe it. He was, after all, telling them things not even Holland knew.

  “Dr. Holland, if you put that in her arm, not only
will you be killing her and millions of people in advance, you’ll be taking the one thing I value most in my life. She’s why I’m here.”

  “Dr. Holland?” Brooklyn asked, clearly lost.

  “She’s his wife,” Holland said, deadpan, not taking his eyes off Jake Teller.

  Teller looked at him like he couldn’t believe Holland knew. “Yes,” he said. “She’s my wife.”

  Instead of injecting her with the serum, Holland put down the needle and said, “Looks like we’re going back to square one.”

  “Thank you,” Professor Teller said.

  Just then, Alice appeared in the hallway with the second child. The one that survived the birth but not Alice. Everyone gasped. The scene was horrific, even for Holland who’d done his fair share of some of the most atrocious things to people over the years.

  Alice was pulling the flattened child by the foot. The arms were sprawled out, the body rotting, lifeless, her head smashed in from being dropped out of the high-rise apartment window. Alice saw everyone looking at her. She pushed her new bangs out of her face so she could see. No one said a word. They couldn’t.

  “I got it after I dropped it,” she said.

  “You killed it?” Quentin asked. He looked at Holland and said, “She’s why the second child didn’t live?”

  “It cried too much,” Alice said.

  “Where have you been keeping it?” Holland asked.

  “Backpack.”

  “Don’t you think that’s a bit…deranged?” Jasmeka asked, horrified.

  Standing in the doorway to the lab, Alice dropped the dead baby’s leg and shrugged her shoulders like it didn’t matter.

  “I guess,” she said.

  4

  Jake left the lab, sickened by the death of his wife’s sibling, but content with what he did for his wife. He was anxious to get back to her. Skye, the love of his life. His world. The moment he walked outside, however, he was greeted by a woman who looked to be in her mid thirties. She was just standing there, staring at him. He felt his chest swell.