by Casey Hays
Then, the broken titanium cage veers into my thoughts, and my heart crushes inward.
Because doing nothing is just as risky.
Chapter 20
“Will it hurt?”
Klayre sits on the edge of the metal table in the lab, an I.V. inserted into her small arm.
“It shouldn’t.” Dad smiles, securing the line with a few strips of tape. “In fact, I think it’s going to feel wonderful in the long run.”
“Really?” She beams, tosses a glance at Penelope for confirmation. I take hold of her hand, and she looks at me. “He says it will feel wonderful. Do you think so, Justin?”
I meet Dad’s eyes over her head. “If Doc says so, then yes.” I squeeze her fingers, but uneasiness surfaces inside me somewhere.
“Okay, Klayre. Go ahead and lie back.” Dad pushes on her chest gently until she yields. “Just relax.”
Her lids blink several times. I sink down to my elbows against the table’s edge, keeping hold of her hand. Her blue eyes dash toward me, the first hints of fear taking over. I smile.
“It’s okay.”
“Don’t let go,” she whispers.
“I’ll be right here the whole time,” I promise.
She nods and shifts her gaze to the ceiling. Penelope stands at the end of the table near Klayre’s feet. Her expression wavers, and when she takes hold of Klayre’s ankles, pinning them to the cold tabletop, all the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. Dad taps out the keys at the computer, his back muscles tense in concentration. A white liquid suddenly surges into the I.V. line, flows into Klayre’s arm, and I find myself having a tiny second thought. Breathing in deep, I watch her face.
Dad turns. “You’re going to feel your heart beating really, really fast. But it’s okay. It’s supposed to do that.”
“Okay.”
Nothing happens at first. The liquid floods into her veins, and she lies perfectly still, concentrating on the ceiling. I know the minute things change. Her face slowly contorts, a pain searing deep. At first, she’s not quite sure what to do with it, and the small fingers nestled in my hand suddenly tighten around my thumb. Her body goes stiff, and her breathing turns rapid, fierce. She squeezes my thumb tighter; a pinch of pain runs up my forearm.
“Justin,” she whispers. I straighten, panic fully sprouting. “Justin!” Her eyes connect with mine, a terror gawking at me out of their depths. And then… she screams.
It’s a blood-curdling sound—so piercing it rattles my bones. Her leg jerks, but Penelope holds her tight.
“It hurts, it hurts! Make it stop! Aaggghhh!”
I squeeze her hand.
“Klayre! Klayre, look at me.” She does, briefly. “I’m here, Klayre. Just… hold on.”
“Make it stop, Justin.” She clenches her jaw and speaks through gritted teeth. “Make it stop!”
I glare at my father. “Do something!”
He does nothing. She flails, writhing so roughly that the needle bends where it pricks into her flesh. Dad pins her arm, holding her steady. I swing my head toward Penelope. Her face is flooded with empathetic pain, but she keeps her hold on Klayre. It’s too late to turn back now.
My heartbeat pounds in my head. Without thinking, I reach for the line, ready to pluck it from Klayre’s arm. My dad’s hand is there instantly. I snarl at him.
“You told her it wouldn’t hurt,” I grapple with his hands; he shoves me off. Klayre’s grip tightens. “You lied!”
“Just wait, Justin,” Dad orders. “The Serum knows she’s in trouble. It will kick in any minute now.”
“You lied to her,” I repeat.
Ignoring me, Dad pulls the stethoscope from around his neck, presses it against Klayre’s heart, and listens.
I curl my fingers around her bicep, waiting. But her screaming and flailing is almost too much to bear. My chest hurts.
“How much longer?” I place my hand on her forehead.
“Shouldn’t be too much longer now.”
A few minutes more and Klayre’s screaming fades to whimpering, then stills into silence. She breathes evenly, eyes closed.
“What’s happening?”
“Things are taking effect.” Dad swings the stethoscope back around his neck and looks at me. “The worst is over.”
I scowl at him. “You shouldn’t have done that to her.”
“It was no worse than the Shift, son. Something Klayre was too young to remember at the time.”
“I don’t care. You should have warned her.” I glare at Penelope. “Both of you.”
Penelope merely nods, but before she can speak, Klayre stirs. Her lids flutter open, and she shoots straight up. She blinks once. The momentary terror I saw in her is gone, and in its place is complete elation. I rub my hand up her arm.
“Klayre?” Dad bends to catch her eyes. She blinks again, looks at him, then shifts her gaze my way. Her eyes are different. Bright. Intense. She smiles.
“I can feel everything,” she whispers. “It feels… wonderful.”
The tension literally breaks. Dad straightens with a sigh, crossing his arms over his chest victoriously, a half smile taking a seat on his lips. Penelope chuckles with a shake of her silver-streaked hair, and releases her hold on Klayre’s ankles. Relieved, I tug the little girl to my chest.
“Does it?” I laugh.
She nods and peers up at me. “It tickles.”
She giggles. I hug her again.
Penelope runs a scan, and the results are just what Dad had hoped. The communication center in Klayre’s brain pulses a steady rhythm. Dad checks all her vitals one more time.
“You should test her, Justin,” Penelope says with a nod. “Make sure your training has paid off.”
I situate Klayre on the edge of the table and pull a stool close. I sit, eye-level.
Okay, Klayre, let’s play Hot or Cold.”
“Okay.”
“Right now. Is the Serum hot or cold?”
She screws up her face, thinking. “It’s… warm.”
I lift my brows. “Warm? Are you sure?”
“Mm-huh,” she nods.
This is new. Usually, the Serum is always one or the other with these kids. I look to my Dad for guidance; he merely grins, like he has amazing news to share, but no way of delivering it. I frown.
“What?” I prod.
“It’s working,” he says. “She’s balanced.”
I turn back to Klayre, intrigued. “Can you make the Serum hot?”
Again, she thinks. Her eyes flicker briefly, and she takes a deep breath.
“Yes.” Her fists clench against her sides as the heat surges in.
“Okay. Now make it warm again.”
She does, and the flickering settles. I pat her leg in praise.
“How about cold?”
She concentrates, then nods.
“Cold,” she says.
A puff of frosty breath literally emits from her mouth with the word. Shocked, I swallow.
“Let’s move it back to warm.”
She does, and her face brightens with a smile.
“Wow,” I whisper. It’s… incredible. Klayre has complete mastery over the Serum without any effort. One of the most complicated aspects of training, and she just nailed it.
One last test. I hold my breath as I reach for the scalpel lying on a tray against the wall behind me. Klayre studies me. After a second, I feel her nanos tapping against mine, like synapses trying to fire. I brace myself, an involuntary wall flying up, fighting the intrusion. But then, a reassuring warmth floods in with the invasion. She doesn’t want to control me. She wants to communicate.
I drop the wall and let her in, and without hesitation, she holds her hand out, palm facing upward.
I take it, the scalpel hovering inches above her hand, and I hesitate a moment longer before I plunge right through the center and cut deep across her palm. She winces but doesn’t look away from the blood that pumps up and out, pooling and then gushing out to run down her fingertips
. Immediately, a surge of blue liquid flushes to the wound.
Dad and Penelope are silent observers in the background. I hardly feel them in the room anymore. It’s just Klayre and me and four years of training.
“Do you feel the Serum working, Klayre?”
She nods, mesmerized by the reds and blues meshing into a purplish swirl of color.
“Okay. I want you to tell the Serum not to heal you. Make it stop.”
We watch. Her face contorts slightly, and the blue liquid pulls back, allowing another gush of blood to spill through. Klayre tosses me a smile.
“I did it.”
“Yeah, you did,” I laugh. “Hold it steady for a few seconds.”
I count to seven in my head. That’s as long as I’m willing to wait. I don’t need her bleeding out.
“Now, tell it to go ahead and fix you up,” I say.
Another surge of blue fills the wound and in less than a minute, there’s nothing left of it but a sticky, thick coat of red on her healed hand and drops of blood at our feet. An Outsider would be morbidly disgusted by it. But we aren’t Outsiders. We’re from Eden, and this is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. I reach out and run my fingers the length of Klarye’s single braid.
“Nice job, sweetie.”
“Klayre.” Dad edges around the table to stand beside me, shoulder to shoulder. “We need you to try one more thing.”
“Okay.”
I stiffen, uncertain what else we could possibly ask of her to prove herself.
“Can you find Nick? Can you connect with him? Inside?”
At first, she tosses a confused look his way. But after a few seconds, some sort of light seems to click on in her head. She smiles.
“Found him.” She looks at me, puzzled. “He’s not in the basement.”
“I know.” I take her hands. “Can you take us to him?”
A beat. She shakes her head. “He says no. Only me.”
I’m taken aback by her comment. And by the looks on Dad’s and Penelope’s faces, so are they.
“You’re talking with him?” Dad asks. “Right now?”
“Mm-huh.”
The room goes dead silent as we digest what she’s just revealed. Communication from Serum to Serum is one thing, but telepathy? It’s more than we’d expected by far. I scoop Klayre from the table and drop her to her feet.
“Do you understand what you need to do?”
She nods. I place a hand on her head.
“Then go get Nick, sweetie. Bring him home.”
I don’t have to tell her twice. She smiles, spins, and speeds out.
Chapter 21
The lawn is full of large puddles that reflect the sun, and the porch is slick with leftover rainwater. A calm-after-the-storm atmosphere lingers in the air. A bird twitters; a drip-drip resonates off the edge of the roof. There’s no sign yet of Nicholas or Klayre, but Jesse and Liza are still out there, so I take a deep breath, clutch a piece of raw wood in my hand, and let the sounds of the storm’s aftermath soothe my nerves.
I reach for Diana’s hand, examining the circumference of her ring finger. I haven’t carved in days. I also haven’t had time to devote to us. Tonight, I focus on both, and my knife can’t work fast enough. As if it has a mind of its own, it rakes along the length of a slim piece of wood, removing the bark and gutting the center. Soon, the first of two wedding bands begins to emerge. Diana nestles up close to watch me work. The wicker couch we sit on creaks with her motion. I catch her eye and wink.
I told her everything I learned in the lab today. Dad has big plans to continue his work with the Serum, just as I’d feared. He’s convinced Penelope that there is merit in his research—that he sees a clear path to perfecting the cure so that no one who is given an injection will become what Nick has become. And Penelope is willing to let him try. Me? I doubt him still. And I fear the extremes he will go to this time.
The truth is, we can’t know who is sick at birth; we can only know who most definitely isn’t. It all comes down to that strawberry birthmark—a birthmark that appears on the surface of the skin only ten percent of the time. In fact, mine isn’t visible, but here I sit, completely immune.
I sigh and look off toward the skies. I’ve seen it firsthand; the Serum is too unpredictable. What do we do with Nick when he’s full grown and out of control? No. Dad will have to show me a miracle before he gets my support.
The sun is just beginning to set when two small figures accompanied by two larger ones slide into view on the horizon. Jesse waves an arm in the air. Diana jumps to her feet the minute she spots him.
“Nick,” she whispers.
“Wait.” Wary, I rise and grab her wrist before she can leave the porch. “Just… wait a minute.”
She pauses, understanding, and together we watch the foursome trek across the muddy, bumpy potato field toward us. A twinge of fear envelopes me as I step to the end of the porch.
Nick looks calm, almost serene clinging to Liza’s hand, and the heaviness weighing on my chest dares to ease a little as hope invades.
In the lead, Jesse careens through a few puddles and stops at the foot of the steps. He lifts his cap, scratching at his blond curls. “What the heck happened while we were gone?”
I settle my gaze on the two children clutching Liza’s hands as they move toward us. Nick smiles, his shoulders relaxed, his eyes clear, and I wonder…
I glance at Jesse. “Your little family is going to be grateful.”
“Yeah?” A half-grin tilts his lips. “I can’t tell you how much I like the sound of that.”
I hesitate, regretting the uncertain hope I might have just planted. I need to see Nick first. I need to look him in the eyes and know that he’s okay before I trust in the words I just said. I slap Jesse on the shoulder and move past him.
“Found him,” Liza says as I approach. She winks with a downward nod at Klayre. “Funny thing, though. This little buttercup was with him.”
“Yeah, she was,” I say. Liza squints with confusion, and I smile. “I’ll tell you later.”
I kneel in front of Klayre. “Was everything all right?”
“Yes,” Klayre answers.
“And, can you talk to Nick still? Inside?”
“Yeeesss…” she drawls. “And Stephen.”
I pull back, surprised. “Stephen, too?”
“We are all connected,” she answers with an innocent quip. Pressing her lips together, she squints at the house. “I’m hungry. Can I go eat now?”
I laugh, hugging her close. “Sweetheart, tonight you can eat whatever you want. Go tell Diana I said so.”
Beaming, she tears up the steps, and Diana scoops her up, hugging her close. She looks at me, worry laced in her expression, but I smile and gesture her to go on. I turn my attention to Nicholas. Liza squeezes my shoulder and skirts past us.
“Hi, Nick.”
He steps up to me. “Hi, Justin.”
“I sure was worried about you.”
“I know.” He lowers his head, ashamed.
“Did you have a nice adventure today?”
He crinkles his nose. “Not really. It’s lonely out there.”
I tilt my head. “Are you saying you missed us?”
His lips pucker up in thought. “I missed you.”
A catch cramps my chest. I study his face. He blinks, chewing on his bottom lip, and I see no monster in his eyes. I see Nicholas—my Nick—gazing back at me, and a pressure that’s been mounting for weeks releases in a surge of tears.
“Buddy…” My lip trembles. “I missed you like nobody’s business.”
“Don’t cry, Justin.”
He lifts a small hand, lays it flat against my cheek, and it’s over. With a sob, he leaps into my arms, squeezing my neck as tight as he can. I hug him close, take in his familiar scent, and choke back my tears.
“I’m sorry, Justin.” He pulls away to look at me, keeping his arms securely in place around my neck. Tears line the lower lids o
f his eyes. “Do you hate me?”
My brows furrow together as an arrow pierces my heart, and I shake my head fiercely. “No, Nick. Never, ever. I already love you too much. You’re my kid.” My voice cracks. “Always.”
“Okay,” he nods. He runs his finger over my wet cheek. “I’m ready to learn now.”
“That’s very good to hear.” I squeeze him once. “So. Right now. Hot or cold?”
He smiles and runs the back of his hand over his sniffling nose, his answer ready. “Warm.”
I lift a brow. “Oh, yeah?”
He nods. “Klayre showed me.” His arms tighten on my neck. “I like warm.”
I study him, and then… I take a chance.
“Nick? Can you ask your Serum to talk to mine for a minute?”
“Sure.”
I feel the nudge almost immediately. I also feel the difference. No forced entry. No agitation. Just calm interaction as his nanos communicate with mine. Warm.
My heart settles into this wonderful place, and I smile through my tears. “I like warm too,” I whisper. “I like warm a whole lot.”
I rise, and hand in hand, we climb the steps. I toss up a quick prayer of thanks before I settle on Nick’s baby face. He looks like an angel smiling up at me, and for the first time since we came to this farm, I know that I’ve captured the one thing I’ve been longing for.
Hope.
***
I find myself on the porch again after the children are tucked in for the night. I lean over the rail, working my knife. The moonlight turns the leftover puddles to silver pools. There’s no wind, not even a breeze, and it’s deathly quiet. So quiet I can hear my heart beating. If I concentrate, I hear something else: the whispers of God in the rhythm. I pause in my whittling, close my eyes, and listen, basking in the solace.
In the past week, I’ve come to understand how much peace there is in the storm when Yeshua pilots the boat. For so long, I wanted to steer. I wanted to be in control. Most of all, I wanted to live up to Ian’s standards when God only wanted me to be me. To trust him. It’s been my struggle for as long as I can remember, trusting God. But I’m learning every day that life is just easier when I do.
The screen door creaks open behind me, then slaps closed against the doorjamb. I toss a glance over my shoulder.
