I hesitated, but then she ran past me and pounced like a leopard.
My heart leapt into my throat. I spun around. Faith crouched. All I could see was her slight, delicate back and the flash of a blade. As quick as a demon, she drove her knife into the head of a hissing snake.
“Diamondback,” she said, as if that settled everything. She picked up a handful of leaves to clean the bloodied knife.
“Crossing your path is a dangerous thing,” I said.
“Not if your intentions are good.”
“Is that why I’m still alive?”
“I suppose,” she said. “As for this snake, he was up to no good.”
“Snakes get that way,” I said.
“Not this one, not no more.” Her mood turned dark, almost sad.
“I appreciate you handling that, Faith.”
She nodded. “You’re thinking of running away.”
“What? No. I’m right where I want to be.”
She locked her eyes on mine. “I’ve been watching you.”
Hope coursed through my blood like sugar. “You have?”
“When you live in the woods, you watch everything,” she said. “You’re the most restless creature out here. I think there’s some place you’d rather be.”
“This is the place I want to be,” I assured her.
“Okay, then maybe you’re one of those people who has to prove something or save the world.”
I leaned forward and pressed my palms against the tree behind her. Faith stood now between my arms. “Do you know the subtle, electric fire that for your sake plays within me,” I whispered.
She gasped. “Now you’re quoting Whitman? We’ve created a monster.”
Before I could respond, she rose onto her tiptoes and kissed me. Her lips were chapped, but sweet like blossom honey. I kissed her back, wrapping my arms around her small waist. Our tongues met hungrily, shedding all past sins and transgressions in what felt like a glorious renewal.
We kissed again and again, only stopping to take in much needed air. I relaxed for the first time in years, allowing my body and soul to enter a state of blissful abandonment.
“Anyone there?”
It was Richard calling, one of the leaders of our group. He was in his early twenties and was in the habit of reading poetry and short stories to us in the evenings, proud of the books he had saved from his father’s collection, books he carried with him everywhere the world took him.
I got myself untangled from Faith’s warm embrace. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand just as Richard came to us.
“Yeah, it’s Eric and me,” Faith told him. “What’s up?”
Richard gave me the once over before he turned to her. “Maya is pan frying those fish you caught.”
“Cool,” she said. “I guess we’ll be there then.”
Richard stood stumped. “Okay,” he said.
“Sounds good,” I said.
Richard raised his eyebrows, nodded and walked off.
Faith slid her hand up the back of my shirt and rested her whole arm warmly against my spine.
“That was nice of him to come all the way out here,” I said.
“He has a sixth sense for when I’m bathing,” Faith said, dismissive.
Her fingernails lightly scratched my back. I wanted to coo.
“You’re powerful,” she said with a hungry grin.
“You have the powers,” I said. “Your touch floods my insides.”
“You’re funny,” Faith said. “Come to my tent tonight. There’s a lot more I want to share with you.”
She gave me a quick kiss and like that she was gone.
***
I felt like an imposter. I entered Faith’s tent determined to do the right thing. Presenting myself as a regular man was wrong. I needed to set the record straight.
Faith lay sideways on the bed with a book in her hands. She was fully clothed with jeans and t-shirt for the first time since I had known her. A beeswax candle was burning on a white plastic table, casting shadows onto the walls and hard floor.
“Hey, you,” Faith said, “come sit next to me.”
My need for her intensified in a million different ways.
She sat up and I sat next to her. We looked into each other’s eyes. Our lips met eagerly. Her kisses were hurried and hot. My lips forged a path that led down to her neck.
Faith made a sound then like an animal trying to find its voice. It was my turn to slip my hands under her shirt. Her skin was warm all over.
“Have you done this?” she whispered as she pulled my shirt off.
I could only shake my head.
“Don’t worry. It’s a natural thing, it’s good.”
It was as if I was being swept away from the world. Even my surprise she had previous lovers seemed distant from that moment. All that had ever existed, as far as I was concerned, was us touching each other.
We lay on the bed, my face above hers. She felt weightless under me, so small I worried she was no more than smoke that might disappear. I pulled her as close as possible to make sure she was real.
Faith laced her fingers with mine. Her breathing got heavier.
I vanished. Completely. My heart lusted, there’s no other way to put it. The blood inside wiped me away. Only she remained. And her whispers as thin as air and as full as the universe. She would be mine if I would be hers.
That night was infinite. And the next morning, when the new sun came, and my sweet Faith’s eyes opened… that was my eternity.
***
When I found Faith digging through my satchel, I knew it was not good. She threw me an indignant glance and held up a folded yellow paper.
“What is that?” I had no idea what that folded paper was supposed to signify, but I did not like the look on her face.
“Were you ever going to tell me that you escaped from a plantation?”
“What?”
“They are obviously hunting you,” she added. “Isn’t that something we should know?”
“Nobody’s looking for me. I’ve lived in the wild for years.”
She slapped my chest and spun me around. “Where’s your plantation tattoo?” she said, pulling down my collar to search my neck. “I know you have a number somewhere.”
I grabbed her hands. “I don’t have a number, Faith.”
That much was true. Nalok had my tattooed number removed only days before the plantation fell to Eldaria’s forces. I wasn’t about to explain all that to Faith, not while she had that disappointed look in her eyes.
She threw the folded paper at me. “Enough lies,” she said.
I crouched down to retrieve the paper and unfold it. Inside was a thin patch with a plantation insignia stamped on it, the kind that were sewn onto the shirts the child slaves had to wear. I stared at it, stunned.
“Where did you find this?” I said. “It’s not mine.”
“I found it, Eric. Right under your mattress.”
I examined the patch. It wasn’t even from Plantation-15. The engraved P6 meant it belonged to Plantation-6. That was a detail I could not share without needing an even bigger explanation.
“My bed?” I said, scrambling for an explanation.
“If it’s not yours, that’s worse,” she said, disappointed. “That would mean you’re a thief at the very least.”
“Where you the one to find it?”
She didn’t respond, which told me everything.
“Faith, it’s not mine,” I said. “This is someone wanting you to doubt me.”
“Really? Well, it worked,” she said with a scowl.
“That’s all it takes?” I said, losing patience. “This insignia doesn’t belong to me. I’ve never seen it before. If someone is lying to you, it’s not me.”
“And I’m supposed to take your word? You never share anything. We’ve been together for two months and I know nothing about you.”
“You should know that I love you.”
She shook her head
and said nothing. Her loyalties became obvious.
“Forget it,” I said. “You should just be with the ones you trust.”
I stormed out of the tent. Disappointment blinded me. I knew I left my satchel behind but was too angry to go back. I ran up the hills and kept running. When darkness fell, I lit a bonfire in an open plain. I did not care about the dangers. In fact, I welcomed any beast that would come and let me take my vengeance out on them.
Two days passed stuck in denial. I muttered all day like an unhappy child. The truth slowly took hold. It was me. I was the problem. I blamed Faith for not believing in me, but she uttered not one lie. I, meanwhile, ran from any hint of the truth with every word I spoke.
I had been a fool, a jackass more accurately. Instead of taking her in my arms and explaining my past, instead of apologizing, I acted like the victim.
She had every right not to listen, but I decided to trudge back to the woman I loved and beg for forgiveness. I did not run. I walked so I could rehearse the words I would say a thousand times.
I arrived at dusk to a campsite in disarray. Tents had been tossed and torn down, dishes broken, books burned and scattered. I feared the worst.
My heartbeat raced. I closed my eyes and called upon the raging forces inside for guidance, something I vowed never to do. With my senses enhanced, I noticed barely-there footprints and some signs of struggle in the dirt. There was a drag trail from Faith’s tent to the brush twenty feet away. When I crouched down, my eyes instantly found spots of blood-darkened dirt.
Fury inside me boiled. I rose to follow the trail when I was jumped.
I spun quickly to apply a headlock. I recognized the man immediately.
“Richard,” I said, “what the hell?”
He bent over, hands on knees, choking.
I tried to help but he slapped away my hands.
“Where’s Faith?” I said, firmly.
“This way,” he said, barely able to speak.
My lungs breathed slow and deep as I followed him. Everything slowed down, the whole world, as our arms swam through dense vegetation, navigated wet grass and exposed roots. Birds circled above as if the story had already been told. The smell of forest decay became stifling.
Faith was lying on a bed of leaves, her eyes closed, a baby blanket covering her torso. She had found that blanket when she was a little girl and it had been her comfort ever since. She even gave it a name, Coco.
My fingers landed gently on her burning forehead. My heart sank. Her breathing was faint. Her connection to this world faded with each thin breath.
“What happened?” I asked Richard.
He pulled her blanket aside. A deep gash split Faith’s chest. My vision blurred as I fell back and sat on the dirt.
“The others?” I asked.
“Moved on. I stayed behind until—”
Until she’s gone. I could have destroyed him for bearing that message. I could have leveled all the forest around us.
“She was out hunting alone,” Richard said. “We believe she came upon a squad of wild rangers. They might still be out there.”
I nodded, numb to my core. I was falling into that dark hole again, where all I am is guilt and regret-filled brutality.
An itch raced across my right palm. Hope surged into my chest. I hadn’t used a force field since I massacred my people. I didn’t know if I could control it, but I knew I had no other choice.
Nalok’s voice, an old lesson, echoed in my head. The energy could be channeled for healing. I instantly gathered a low-energy field, cautiously, letting it build to a pulsating density.
“What’s happening?” Richard said.
I threw a glance at him so lethal it silenced him.
My hands trembled. The energy flowed suddenly out of me and into Faith’s open wounds. Nothing happened. She did not move.
Richard and I both stood in awe as the energy became visible all over her chest, forming multiple rings of glowing amber and orange.
“I don’t understand,” Richard said quietly.
Faith’s eyelids fluttered. Her breathing became stronger. Then her eyes popped open so wide and sudden Richard took a quick step back.
A sigh escaped her, as if a thousand lost breaths had returned.
She reached out and touched my face. Tears streaked down my cheeks as I took her hand in both of mine.
“Hang in there,” I said, fighting to keep the energy stream stable.
“You never learn,” she said.
I hushed her, increasing the volume of the energy.
As quickly as her eyes opened, they closed.
“No,” I said in a gasp. “Stay with me. Stay awake. I’ll heal you, Faith.”
A pained grin shaped her lips. “Nothing can happen more beautiful than death,” she whispered. “I’ll stay with you forever.”
Faith’s chest rose one more time and then never again.
Her hands fell away, dirt under her fingernails. A guttural groan escaped my mortal soul. The energy field was no longer rooted to her and leapt to other targets, splitting trees and exploding rocks.
The ground began to quake with tremors.
“You’re one of them,” Richard bellowed, raising his gun.
The force field weakened, then stopped. I dropped to my knees.
I knew then that Richard was Faith’s previous lover, and I knew that he had hidden the insignia under my mattress. What a fool I had been.
My hand opened and, with a single pointing finger, melted the gun in Richard’s hand. I stood before him with the devil in my eyes. I beat that man until there was nothing left in either of us.
He begged for mercy and I had none.
In the end, I let him live, and that was for Faith only.
My feet found a path and I left that place. I realized I was on a road to nowhere and always had been. I’d say I was empty inside, but that’s not true.
I was nothing inside.
CHAPTER 14
FREYA
Freya watched as, one by one, the Lagerian lords bowed to Eric and offered him an assortment of three-edged swords of different lengths. It was a ceremonial act since, like the Lagerians, Eric did not need swords to fight. Zarok insisted that the gift of an ornate sword was the highest honor in their culture, a symbol of legacy and past glories.
Eric accepted the gift with solemn grace. Freya did not like his strategy of playing along. She knew there were things he must not be telling her.
“Perhaps you’d like to sit?” an attendant asked, pointing at a round table, decorated with crystal fruit bowls and paper flowers in tall ceramic vases—yet another attempt to imitate human ways.
Freya smiled, uneasily. “I’d rather stand.”
Eric held a sword close to his face, blade up. He spun it around, admiring it from various angles. Freya began to think he truly valued the gift.
The ceremony ended when Zarok instructed the lords to resume their duties. Freya lingered as the room cleared. Lada entered and began cleaning a nearby table, placing the bowls and vases in big, plastic containers.
“It is meaningful to see you hold a cherished sword, son of Nalok,” Zarok told Eric. “My hope is that it brings clarity to your decision.”
Freya watched from a distance as Eric began to respond, too quiet for her to hear. “What are you saying?” she blurted out with unintended volume.
Eric turned to her, his conversation stopped cold. He lifted his hand like a peace offering. “Please, Freya, join us,” he said.
She gulped down the curse word that rose to her lips and reluctantly walked over to them.
“I have never had a son… or daughter,” Zarok reflected, looking at Freya. “Offspring are precious commodities on Lageria. Even before fertility waned, our embryos were fragile. Only the strongest survived.”
Freya felt faint. Eric squeezed her hand. They both remembered what Eldaria had put her through and what Eric had to do. He destroyed the last Lagerian embryos that had been implanted in Freya�
�s belly.
Zarok took interest in Eric’s affection. The Lagerian Commander’s eyes lingered on their conjoined hands until Freya let go.
“If I had a child,” Zarok said, “I’d hope they would be as brave as you.”
Freya considered the alien’s words. “Well, I do ha—”
Eric interrupted her words with his lips. Too stunned to resist, she let the kiss happen. If Eric knew what was good for him, this had to be a part of a bigger plan of which that kiss was a key component.
“Ah, the whims of youth,” Zarok said. “My instinct was right.”
Freya wished for the floor to open up and swallow her whole. It would be more dignified than standing there, listening to that old alien goose suggesting there was an apparent attraction between Eric and her.
“Zarok,” Eric said. “You will excuse us. Freya and I need to talk.”
Zarok nodded expectantly as his guests left the room.
“What the hell was that about?” Freya asked as they rounded a corner.
Eric raised a thin shield around them. “Me? I’m not the one who was about to tell Zarok about Tobi.”
“Your energy source is back,” she observed. “Were you going to tell me?”
“Of course. Don’t change the subject. Freya, you can’t share private details with these people.”
“They probably know already.”
“There’s much they don’t know,” he said with surprising certainty.
Freya looked down. Being away from her little guy made her ache physically. She longed to hold him and stroke his hair. It broke her heart to think of him missing her. What if he woke up in the night asking for his mom? What if he got a stomach virus and needed mommy’s hugs and kisses?
“You’re right,” she said. “It’s just this place. I feel suffocated. I’ll watch what I say, but, please, tell me we can leave soon.”
Eric furrowed his brow. “Did I just hear that? Did you say I was right?”
“About one thing, maybe. Now let’s get serious. What did you tell Zarok? Are we going to help these Lagerians or not?”
“I’m going to help them,” he said. “Not you. You’re going back. I keep my promises.” He lifted a strand of hair away from her eye.
She swatted his hand away. “I’m not a child.”
[scifan] plantation 06 - plantations origins Page 8
