Claimed (6 page)

Fern cast his eyes down sadly. “Actually Mom is. She told me all about it a couple of days ago- after you disappeared.”

Jared turned to him with surprise. Tara had never shared his enthusiasm for the woods and his weaponry. She would rather live on bread and chicken for the rest of her lives than watch him be arrested or killed, she’d pontifically remind him whenever she could and almost rather often. “Are you saying your mom, my sister told you all about it?” he asked again in disbelief.

“Yeah, she did.”

He chuckled. Miracles happened after all. “She’s got an active imagination,” he said, trying to dispel the boy’s sudden fixation for the woods and archery. He wasn’t as strong as his father in risking the boy’s life. He would never live with himself if anything happened to Fern because of the woods or the archery. The burden was for him to bear alone. He would never allow his family to become any more vulnerable than they already were.

“Uncle Jared,-” the boy started to insist again.

Jared put an arm over his shoulder. “I’ve heard you’ve been playing hookey?”

Fern grew quiet as he ran his fingers through Wolf’s thick coat. “I don’t like school. They teach algebra and geometry and verbs and how to talk. Things that we don’t ever
gonna need.”

“Won’t ever,” Jared corrected.

“Yeah, won’t ever need,” Fern repeated. “I want to be useful and do the proper stuff.”

“School is the proper
stuff,” Jared murmured. “And you’re not helping any of us by wagging it.”

“I want to hunt. I don’t want to study all that algebra shit.” He paused, biting his lips as if he was contemplating something. “They tease me in school too,” he finally revealed.

Jared’s hand tightened involuntary at his shoulders. “Yeah?” he asked, forcing some composure into his voice. “Tease you like how?”

“Well, they say Dad was a squealer; that he was a drunk and he betrayed his people for the dogs and got people arrested too. And that’s why he lives in some big fancy house in the Capitol
as a government dog.”

Jared recalled the tall lean man with chiseled feature
s that Tara had fallen in love with at the mere age of seventeen. Unfortunately, his father had seen through his façade very early on. Tara saw no choice then but to elope with the man who would later leave her for his avarice dangled before him like a carrot by the government.

“I think everyone’s gone through that awkward phase and faced those bullies. I’ve had them myself,” he comforted, trying to detract from the subject of Fred Wilson.

“
You
had kids bully you?” Fern asked in surprise.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “I was a pretty small kid for my age.
And because of my height and scrawny built, they called me ‘Gherkin’.”

“Gherkin?”
Fern spat out in disgust. “Like a pickled cucumber?”

Jared laughed.
“Yes.”

“Really?
Wow,” he breathed out with disbelief.

“Wow is right,” Jared patted his shoulder. “And I turned out just fine.”

Fern shrugged. “But Uncle Jared, those were the old days. They weren’t as bad as they are now.”

Jared chuckled again, reminiscing how he had used an almost similar line wi
th his father. And he also remembered another that his father had said to him. “I’ll make you a deal. If you go to school and make an impressive effort, I will think about the… woods.”

Fern brightened.
“Really? You mean that?”

“I swear,” Jared slapped his back. “
Just don’t make me regret it.”

Tara sat across him slitting pea pods into a bowl. “I’m sorry,” she muttered, without looking up at him.

Jared stared at her, unsure
of what she was sorry about. She had never once apologized about him storming into the Callum’s residence and pulling her out of there.

“I didn’t know about
Da,” she continued. “I never knew what had happened to him. I had always blamed his arrest on his bow and his fascination for the woods. I didn’t know he was unarmed though, when he was arrested.”

Jared rocked his cup slowly, contemplating all she was saying. “Ma didn’t want to tell you because-”

“I know,” she cut him short. “Let’s not go there now, okay? I was wrong and I simply wanted to tell you that. I also wanted to let you know that you won’t be getting any more trouble from me on going back to the Callums. I’m not returning to work at Callum’s Hill.”

He twisted his lips thoughtfully. He should have been elated on hearing her
say that. But something tugged at his heart, stealing any joy in this little victory. There was no longer any reason for him to return to Callum’s Hill and implausible as it was now of all times, he desperately needed one to go back.

“I would miss Ellie
Callum, though,” she said, watching him over her eyebrows. “She was really nice. She never said a harsh word to me. Nor have I heard her use one against any of the staff.”

“Well, she certainly had a lot to say to me,” he murmured.

“That’s because you were being such a jerk,” she snapped.  “All she was doing was defending me from someone she thought was abusing me.”

Jared swallowed.
So much for first impressions. He remembered how she had been utterly outraged at his behavior, challenging his decision to take Tara away.  Her eyes had flared. And while she had continued to rage at him, he had been busily entranced by the way her tresses had danced about her face, how her almost amber eyes had glowed in her ire.

He ran a palm over his face. He didn’t have much of a chance now, did he? The thought clenched his heart. “How is it that you never mentioned her before?” he asked carefully.

“When were you ever interested in learning about the Callums?” she retorted. She pulled in a tired breath. “Miss Ellie has been living in the Capitol. She was studying at some fine university there. She only comes over occasionally to the house to visit her father. Unfortunately, I never met her until her current trip to Callum’s Hill. I doubt she will stay any longer though. She’s here temporarily. You see, she’s engaged to Edmund Farriss and she’s here to plan their wedding that they’re going to have at the end of the year. By the way, he’s just as mighty fine as she is.”

His face grew dark and pensive. His limbs felt as heavy as lead.
“Edmund Farriss?”

“
Yeah, he works for the Governor. I heard Governor Callum’s grooming him to take his office after he retires.”

Perhaps, it was for the best. What were his chances anyway? Ellie
Callum would never fall for him- unless of course she slipped again, literally. He stood up abruptly from his chair.  “Tell Ma, I’ll be back soon.”

He wandered aimlessly through the small hamlet.
So he finally got Tara to stop working at Callum’s Hill anymore and he would never have to see Ellie Callum. Now what? He reflected on his life and his future and he realized he didn’t like what he was seeing. He watched Wolf bound about him. “I guess it’s gonna be just you and me, boy,” he muttered.

He returned home, feeling more dejected than when he had left
it.  A dark SUV cut across him, pulling into his driveway. He stopped immediately, studying the vehicle for a while. No one he knew owned an expensive vehicle as that. In fact, he didn’t know anyone who did. Vehicles were too expensive for their class. But even if anyone could afford it, there was the equally expensive application for permission to the Governor to own one. Politicians called it a necessary measure to rectify the damage their ancestors had done to the climate a thousand years ago.  In light of the fuss that anyone would need to endure to own and retain a vehicle, it wasn’t surprising no one bothered applying for one. Even Baker Felix and the butcher preferred a horse and cart to motorized vehicles. Since each sector was required to be self-sufficient, there was rarely any shipment of goods between sectors at all. Population was tightly controlled with people retained to their own birth sectors. Immigration between sectors was strictly disallowed subject to genuine reasons such as the proven likelihood of interbreeding. Some people like sixty year old Marge from two houses down, chose to rather die a spinster than move to another sector and never see her friends or family again.  If he were in Marge’s place, he would probably have opted for the same.

The driver stepped out of the vehicle and looked about him uncertainly.

“Can I help you?” Jared called out to the middle-aged man.

He spun around with a jolt. His face lightened up, beaming at the dog at his ankles.  Wolf leapt up to him and licked his outstretched hands that were no
w ruffling the dog’s fur.

“Hey there, Wolf,” he was saying as he chuckled at the excitable husky.

Jared raised his brow with suspicion. Wolf never had greeted a stranger as he did this one.

“Do you know my dog?” he asked, as he moved cautiously towards the man.

“Um… he’s the only one of his kind along these parts,” he replied hesitantly. “I suppose everyone must know him.”

“People in these parts do,” Jared said. “But you don’t come from these parts, do you?”

The man scratched his brow with the padding of his thumb. “As a matter of fact, I do live in Sector 8.”

“When I said these parts, I meant this hamlet, Sector
8 Central.  I didn’t mean the affluent gated community of Sector 8.”

The man grew quiet, looking about him again. “Is your mother home?” he asked at last.

“What do you need with my mother?”

“There’s something I need to talk to her about.”

“Whatever it is, I’m sure I can pass it along to her.”

The man grew impatient. “I need to speak to Stella.”

Jared moved closer still, his breath rasped coarsely against the man’s face. “You know my dog. You know my mother. Who are you?”

“James?” Stella breathed out in disbelief from the front door.

*****

The man called James cleared his throat as he sat at the table. “It’s been long, Stella.”

“Twenty-seven years to be precise,” she said flatly. “It isn’t so hard to count,” she added, nodding towards Jared. “Why are you here, James?”

James shifted uncomfortably in his chair, not knowing where to start. His reception at the Ryder house was exactly as he had pictured- an unwelcoming one.
Jared sat across him with his arms folded across his chest, watching him suspiciously. “Can I speak to you privately, Stella?”

Stella
writhed her hands nervously and swallowed as she turned towards her son. “Jared, will you please?”

Jared rose slowly out of his chair but couldn’t resist walking over to his mother first.
“Ma, are you sure you will be fine?”

“James was a good friend of your father’s. Let me hear what he has to say,” she assured him.

He gave her a tender rub on her arm and walked out of the kitchen.

“Okay, so he’s gone now,” Stella breathed out
apprehensively. “What do you want to tell me?”

James licked his lips. “He doesn’t know about the experiments?”

Stella sat heavily into a chair; her eyes drooped sadly to the floor. “There was no need. He’s been a normal kid, James. I don’t see why we have to bring all that up.”

“So nothing strange has happened at all?” he verified.

Stella shook her head.

“And he hasn’t been sick or weak or anything
like that?” he asked.

She didn’t bother to answer
him, but she didn’t need to. James nodded his head thoughtfully. “I should have known. The experiment wasn’t exactly successful. Most of the embryos did not go to full term in the womb. Yours was one of those rare successful ones and we had all our hopes riding on it.”

Stella looked up at him with utter shock.
“Hopes? That’s my son you’re talking about!”

“Stella,” James put out his hands, trying to calm her down. “I didn’t mean it that way.
I’m only trying to say he was supposed to serve a purpose in our war against the corporations and the government.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” she minced angrily. “What you did was wrong. What y
ou and Michael and your… Dr. Langford were doing was wrong. It was unethical. It should never have been done in the first place. I’m just glad nothing monstrous was created from all your games in playing god! Your fight with the corporations may be well and good. But when you started getting involved with the experiments, I’d rather have the corporations control the government. Because frankly, you have no ethics, no morals, no nothing which makes you worse than any ruling government. I hate to even think of what it would be like to be living under some Frankenstein government.”

“Those experiments
were the best opportunities we ever had!” he growled.

“There are ways to win a war. But combining human genes with animal genes in a culture dish is definitely no way of doing it!”

“And what difference would it have made? We’re already living like animals. The air isn’t ours, nor is the water, the forest, the land
and
the animals that roam this earth. Everything has got a price, a barcode. Nothing comes free to anyone anymore. Where are our rights to medicine and education? We’re living in the year 3035 and yet those from the ancient world of 2014 had better rights and living standards than any of us could ever dream of!”

“You deceived me! Michael deceived me and he was my husband. He was Jared’s father! Do you even understand how terrified I was of giving birth to a monster? To have a
n eagle, cat and heaven knows what genes you injected into my baby? Have you ever wondered why I despised you, James?  It’s because
you
influenced my husband into participating in an atrocious act. An act against mankind, against humanity!”

“He was bred to save lives!”

“You were playing god!”

The floor creaked and when they broke from each other’s ire to turn to the doorway, they found Jared standing at it.

“Ma?” he asked, his face filled with puzzlement. “What’s going on?”

Stella sat heavily
back into her chair and began to weep. “You need to go, James. Whatever it is you want to say, I don’t want to hear it anymore.”

James Saunders
floundered between Jared and Stella. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Stella. But I really need to talk to Jared.”

“No,” she snapped. “You were the reason Michael got killed. I will not allow you to take away my son too! Stay away from him! Stay away from my family!”

“Ma!” Jared protested.

“He needs to go, Jared. Tell him to go,” she wept.

Jared moved towards the table hesitantly. “What’s all this about Da and Frankenstein?”

Stella stared at him in a stupor. “You heard?”

“The whole house did,” said Tara, walking in. “I thought we shared everything in this family. Apparently, you’ve been holding a secret; which isn’t surprising after discovering that I was not privy to one of them until a few days ago. It seems there was more to Da’s arrest than just the issue on weapons. Have I been the only open book in this house?”

St
ella gulped, color draining from her face. She turned towards James Saunders, “You shouldn’t have come.” She then sighed and asked Tara, “Where are the kids?”

“In their rooms,” she replied. “Don’t worry, I sent them off the moment you started that pitch fight with
Mr Saunders. Only Jared and I heard any of it.”

James moved first and pulled back his chair again. “Shall we sit then?”

James
pulled in a deep breath and started, “Thirty years ago, Dr Langford, a geneticist, made a monumental discovery. He found he could isolate genes from animals that gave them their unique abilities; for instance the wings of an eagle and the eyes of a panther.” He looked up at Jared and perked his lips thoughtfully. “Can I get a drink? Something strong, if you don’t mind.”

Jared stood up and pulled out a bottle of
cheap vodka from the cupboard.  Hooking four glasses with his fingers, he plunked them onto the table.  “Tara?” he asked.

“Yeah.
Something tells me I will need it,” she replied.

“Ma?”

She shrugged.
“Why not?”

He filled their glasses and then sat back down, anxious for the older man to finish his tale.

James swallowed a mouthful of his tasteless drink. He smacked his parched lips to moisten them. “You sure it isn’t just water?”