Dawn (17 page)

I laughed. “I'm sure they survived the shock.”

Jace looked at me and I knew we were about to enter into a serious conversation as his eyebrows drew closer together.

“Did you run into any trouble getting Simon back?  I didn’t have time to ask.”

“Had to kill a few Harvesters,” I told him, knowing Jace would understand how hard that was for me. I didn’t like to kill people, not even Harvesters, but I did it when it was necessary.

“Did you see the queen?”

“Yes, she had Simon sitting on her lap when I made it to the room where she was keeping him.”

Jace’s eyes narrowed on me even further.

“And she just handed him over to you and let you walk out?”

“She tried to talk me into staying with her again. For some reason it seems important for me to come to her of my own free will. I guess she figures she tried brute force. Now she’s trying kindness.”

“Doesn’t sound much like her.”

I shrugged. “I’ve pretty much given up on trying to figure that woman out, and I really don’t want to talk about her again for a while, if that’s ok. Right now, I just want to be with you and the kids.”  I held my hand out to Jace and he took it immediately, lacing our fingers together as if he never intended to let me go.

“Then let's go home,” Jace said.

Jace and I spent the next day alone in my house in Roanoke with our children. I think it was his gift to me. A whole day to pretend everything was normal and we were simply a family spending time with one another. It reminded me so much of the way my own home life used to be with my parents. I cherished every minute because I wasn't sure when it would happen again. My father didn't even try to interrupt our quiet interlude, but I chalked that up to being due to the influx of Cain infected Harvesters arriving in the compound.

Apparently, Michael was being successful in his recruitment of Harvesters within the Cain virus encampments. I had mixed feelings about them. I knew some of them had indeed regained their moral compasses after being infected by the virus but not all had. It was those 'not all' I was worried about mixing into the general population of the camp. Most of the humans who were in the camp at the time my father took it over evacuated as soon as they could. It seemed they thought life outside, no matter how uncertain, was better than staying with an army preparing to take down the queen. Did I think less of them for leaving instead of choosing to fight?  No. Especially not after seeing the devastating aftermath of what the queen's troops could do if concentrated and focused on one spot like Michael's camp.

The humans who left were probably the smart ones. And a small part of me was relieved to see them go. They had been witness to the cruelty of the Harvester side of me. It was probably completely selfish on my part, but I didn't want anyone around to remind me of a time in my life I would much rather forget.

We were playing with the kids on the floor of the living room, trying our best to get them to sit up by themselves without any support. Rose seemed more proficient in it than Simon who looked like the Leaning Tower of Pisa as he tried to remain seated upright on his own. Poor Blue tried to help Simon stay upright by using his muzzle to push him up when he began to lean too far to the right, but even his help wasn’t enough.

“I'm going to talk to Doc Riley tomorrow about the surgery,” I warned Jace, seeing no need to waste any time. I had no way of knowing when exactly Walsh would be coming to get -me. The sooner I got the chip out the better.

“You don't need to,” Jace said. “She spoke to me about it when Simon ported us back here. The surgery is set for tomorrow morning.”

“Why didn't you tell me before now?” I asked.

Jace sighed. “Because I didn't want to think about it. I wanted us to have one perfect day we could remember just in case...”

He didn't have to finish. I understood what he wanted and why. My vision became blurred with warm tears. The thoughtfulness of the man sitting next to me continually amazed me.

“Have I told you how much I love you?” I asked him, my tears freely streaming down my face.

“Don't cry,” Jace almost begged, extending a hand to my face to wipe away the path of my tears. “If you keep that up you're going to make me cry, and I don't want you to have any sad memories of today, only happy ones.”

“I'm not sad,” I reassured him, taking in a deep breath. “I'm the happiest I've ever been. Thank you for today. And thank you for trying to make it so special for me. But, I don't want you to sit there and think today will be the last day we have like this. You've already seen parts of our future life together so don't look so worried. Everything will go perfectly tomorrow.”

Jace grinned at me. “Glad to see you as a glass half full kind of girl now.”

I shrugged. “How can I not be when I have my own personal fortune teller?”

Jace held his hand out to me and I placed one of mine in the warmth of his palm.

“Our life will be as perfect as you can imagine. I promise you that.”

I squeezed his hand. “I know.”

I didn't worry about the world outside our house for the rest of the day or evening. No one but the four of us existed as far as I was concerned.

Not even the queen.

The next morning Kirk, Teegan, and Kale came over to take care of Rose and Simon at the house while Jace took me for my surgery. I didn't say goodbye to the kids because I didn't believe anything bad would happen. I just told them we would be back soon.

When Jace passed the mansion where headquarters had been established, I turned to him and asked, “Where are we going?  I thought we would be doing this at the mansion in the queen’s laboratory.”

“No,” he said glancing away from the road for a second to look at me. “They're doing it at the hospital. The equipment the doctor needs is there. I'm sorry. I guess I should have mentioned that earlier.”

“It's ok,” I said, realizing we were going back to the scene of the crime, at least to my way of thinking.

I could still remember the little girl and her father being taken into the hospital because of me. The hatred in the eyes of the girl and her vocal screams of that very emotion still haunted my memories. I tried not to think about it and desperately tried to reason with myself that it wasn't my fault. I hadn't truly been myself at the time. But, in the back of my mind, I knew I had been myself, just the worst part of who I was. That's what the queen did. She was the purveyor of darkness, exposing a person’s dark side to the world and forcing you face the monster within.

When we reached the hospital, we drove right up to the emergency room entrance. My father was there pacing back and forth on the sidewalk anxiously awaiting our arrival.

“I hope you don't mind me being here,” my dad said as I walked around the front of the car to give him a hug.

“Why would I mind?” I asked, letting him go so I could look into his face.

He shrugged looking a little embarrassed. “I just don't want to act like the over protective father, I guess. And I'm tempted to ask you not to go through with this, but I know your mind is made up so I won't even try.”

“Everything will be fine, Dad. Jace has seen my future. I'll survive this.”

“It's a father's innate right to worry about his child,” my dad told me, cupping the side of my face with one of his hands. “I can't help but be scared for you. I've worried about you since the moment you were born, and I probably won't stop until I'm dead. Even then I'm not completely sure I'll stop.”

We both smiled at that.

“Don't be scared,” I told him in my most confident voice. “Everything will be fine.”

It didn't take them long to prep me for surgery after we walked in. Doc Riley introduced me to the Harvester doctor who would be performing the procedure. He was a handsome African-American with almost model like features and a pleasant smile. I instantly wondered what he thought about himself now that he was no longer truly a Harvester after being infected with the Cain virus. Did he feel any guilt over the genocide of the human race he obviously played a part in? 

“My name is Ken,” the surgeon said while I was waiting in my hospital room to be wheel into surgery. “I’ve implanted a lot of chips before, but this will be the first time I have ever tried to take one out. I promise I'll do my best to remove it, but this sort of thing has never been attempted before. I'm not completely sure what will happen. Doc Riley said she already told you about the side effects you can expect if this goes wrong.”

I nodded. “Yes, I understand the risks.”

“Ok,” Ken looked uncertain, almost like he wanted to back out of doing the surgery, “well, you'll need to be awake during the procedure so you can heal any damage I do trying to remove it. I'm sorry I can't spare you from the process.”

“It's all right,” I said, taking in a deep breath. “I'm prepared for it.”

He nodded. “Ok then. Let's get this done.”

Ken looked over at Jace. “Would you like to be in the room with her while we perform the surgery?”

Jace looked surprised by the offer. “I can be in there?  I didn’t think I would be allowed to do that.”

“Under normal circumstances, no, you wouldn't be allowed in there. But these are far from normal circumstances. I think your presence might make a difference to Skye,” Ken said. “It might be more calming for her if you’re there holding her hand while I dig the chip out.”

“Yeah, you could have made that sound a little more pleasant,” I said with a wry grin at Ken.

“Sorry,” Ken said with a grin of his own. “My bedside manner was never my strong suit even before I became a Harvester. How about delicately extract the chip with exact precision?  Sound better?”

“Much,” I said with a laugh, feeling confident I was in good hands with Ken as my doctor.

“Do you want me in there?” Jace asked me.

I held my hand out to him. “I always want you with me. I need you.”

Jace took my hand and squeezed it. “Good.”

Jace was given a surgical outfit to wear in the operating room and was asked to wear a white mask over his mouth and nose so all I could see of his beautiful face were his eyes. Once I was inside the operating room, the prep was the same as when the chip was implanted. Someone shaved a spot on my head. I was given a local anesthetic to deaden a section of my scalp and a bone saw was used to cut a hole in my skull. I squeezed Jace's hand as the saw made its first cut.

“Can you feel that?” He asked, concern for me in his eyes.

“Just the pressure,” I reassured him. “It’s not painful just … odd.”

“Ok, boys and girls,” Ken said behind me to the other members of his surgical team. “Here we go. Skye, when I get to the chip I’ll tell you. I'm going to extricate it as slowly as possible to give you time to heal any damage I do by extracting it.”

“Ok,” I told him.

As Ken worked his magic, I kept my eyes locked on Jace, finding strength just in his gaze and touch.

It didn't take long before I heard Ken say, “I'm at the chip. I'm about to grasp it with my forceps. From here on out, I'll tell you every move I make, Skye. Are you ready?”

“I'm ready.”

“Ok, I'm placing the tips of the forceps on either side of the chip.” I heard Ken take in a sharp, startled breath. “Oh shit...”

And those were the last two words I heard before I died.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I found myself standing on the lookout platform in front of the horseshoe falls of Niagara. The cool misty spray of the water surrounded me like a wispy cloud. The sun hung like a shining jewel in the clear blue sky above me. I closed my eyes and lifted my face to bask in its warmth, relishing the feel of its gentle caress against my skin.

“It's so beautiful here,” I heard a familiar voice say beside me. “I always loved it here too.”

Slowly, I turned to my left and saw my mother standing only an arm’s length away from me. I felt a myriad of emotions all at once:  confusion, sadness, joy and, above all else, love.

“Mom?”

She smiled at me, a small stretching of the lips that could light up the world with its brilliance. She held her arms out to me, and I didn’t hesitate to accept her embrace. I inhaled deeply, being reminded of how she always smelled of roses and sunshine.

“I've missed you,” I cried, hugging her tightly to make sure she was real and not just a mirage.

“I know, baby,” she said against my hair. “I've missed you too. You just don't know how much I've missed holding you like this.”

I held my mother and didn't try to over think the miracle of being able to feel her arms around me, to feel her warm skin pressed against mine. But, that nagging logical voice ever present in the back of my mind told me this shouldn't be possible.

“How are you here?” I asked, realizing something else. “How am I here?”

I pulled away from my mom to look at her face and saw her worry.

“Am I dead?” I asked her, seeing it as the only reasonable explanation.

“For the moment,” my mother told me. “The doctor is trying to revive you. He will succeed but....”

I could tell she was reluctant to say the rest.

“But what?” I asked, prodding her to go on. “What's going to happen to me?”

“There will be complications from what you tried to do but nothing you can't overcome, Skye. You're strong. You need to always remember that.” My mother caressed the side of my face with the back of a hand looking melancholy. “We only have a few more moments before they bring you back to life. I came here to not only see you, but to tell you that I know how much you're struggling with the idea of killing Lucena.”

I took in a deep breath. “I'm not sure I can do it, Mom. I know I need to, but I’ve always tried to avoid killing people. And…” I wasn’t sure how my mother would react to the rest of my statement but I felt she already knew what I was about to say. “And she’s my mother too.”

“In order for the world to have a new beginning, she must die, Skye. You know that.”

“So you’re telling me to kill your sister?”

My mother shook her head. “Lucena hasn't been my sister for a very long time. The girl I once loved was corrupted by madness years ago. In a way, you’ll be giving the sweet girl I once knew her final release. When the time comes, and it will, you must kill her. It's the only way to give the world a fresh start. I think you understand that.”

I nodded. “I know.”

“Everything will work out the way it should. Your destiny was set into motion the moment you were conceived. Your fate is set. All you need to do is follow it.”

“I’ll do my best,” was all I could promise.

My mother brought me into her arms, and I knew without her saying it that she was telling me goodbye.

“We've got her back!” I heard a man say in the distance.

“It's time for you to go,” my mother said yet refused to let me out of her arms. “I love you, Skye. I have always loved you. Now go and do what you were born to do.”

My eyelids felt like they weighed a ton. I forced them opened and saw Jace sitting on the side of my bed, his perpetual look of worry for me on his face.

“What...” I said intending to ask what happened but finding my throat too dry to get the words out. “Water.”

I heard water being poured and soon found a cool plastic cup pressed against my lips.

“Just drink a little bit,” my father said, tipping the cup slightly for me to drink from it.

I took two sips and stopped.

“What happened?” I asked as my father drew the cup away.

Jace and my father exchanged worried glances.

“What went wrong with the surgery?” I demanded.

“You died,” Jace finally told me. “I don't think it could have gotten much worse than that, Skye.”

“I know I died,” I told them. “My mom told me.”

All was quiet until my father finally asked, “You saw Emma?”

“Yes. I saw her.”

All went quiet again.

“So what went wrong?” I asked, breaking the silence. “The last memory I have is Ken saying 'oh shit'. Not exactly something you want to hear the person cutting into your brain say by the way.”

“The chip had a built in self-defense protocol,” Jace told me.

“What kind of self-defense?”

“When Ken grabbed it with the forceps, it bored down deeper into your brain.”

“Deeper?” I asked, my heart sinking at the implications of such a statement. “Tell me he was able to get it out, Jace.”

Jace stared at me for a space of a few seconds before he shook his head.

“He tried. Lord knows he tried, Skye, but every time he touched it the chip just kept boring a deeper hole to hide in. I'm sorry but it’s still inside you. There just wasn’t any way to get it out without doing more damage. Ken was barely able to bring you back from the dead.”

“You might as well tell her the rest of it,” my father said. ”She needs to know.”

“It gets worse?” I asked, not sure I was strong enough to hear 'the rest'.

“Since you were dead when the chip kept boring a hole through the tissue, we're not sure how much damage was done. The fact that you’re even awake and talking is a small miracle from what Ken told us to expect.”

“Maybe my body automatically healed itself,” I suggested, hoping I was right and very little damage was done. “Is Ken going to try to find another way to get the chip out?”

“No,” Jace and my father said in unison.

“It's just too risky,” my dad told me. “Plus, Ken said if the chip went much further you would die and there would be no bringing you back from the dead a second time.”

“Then I'm stuck like this,” I said on the verge of tears.

“You're alive.” Jace grabbed my hand closest to him. “That's what matters.”

“But I'll be like this forever. Not really a human and not really a Harvester.”

“Then I guess I'll just have to love you and keep you happy until the day you die to make sure your human side always wins.”

“Yeah, I guess you will,” I said, trying to muster up a smile for him but failing miserably as tears formed in my eyes.

Jace crawled into bed with me and held me as I cried. I faintly heard my father walk out of the room giving me time to come to terms with my fate.

Once I calmed down, I still clung to Jace, not wanting to let him go for fear I might sink into a black abyss and never find my way back out again.

“It was my only chance to get back to normal,” I told him. “I'll never be the person I used to be now.”

“That's not necessarily a bad thing, Skye,” Jace said.

“Was that some kind of backwards compliment?” I asked, trying not to take offense.

“Everything you've been through has changed you, not just that chip in your head. Even if you somehow found a way to take it out, there's no guarantee you would go back to the way you were when we first met. And honestly, you don't need to be that girl again. You're perfect the way you are right now.”

“I'm scared,” I admitted. “I'm scared the queen will get what she wants. I’m scared she'll change me back into a monster. I'm scared of losing you and the kids. I'm just scared, Jace.”

Jace tightened his arms around me.

“There's nothing that can happen to us that we can't handle together. Absolutely nothing, Skye.”

I sighed and pulled away from Jace slightly so I could look into his face. When I did, I noticed something strange happen.

As I looked at him, it was like a white haze suddenly covered him and everything else inside the room. I tried to tell Jace what I was seeing but found myself unable to speak. Either from fear or from whatever was happening to me, my heart began to race and I felt an uncontrollable panic set in. My fingers began to twitch of their own accord, and I was helpless to stop their movements. Every muscle in my body went completely stiff all at once.

Jace brought me back into his arms and simply held me, not saying a word. Oddly enough, my thoughts remained clear, unblemished by the betrayal of my body. I wanted to ask Jace what was going on but simply couldn't find my voice. Time passed and Jace continued to hold me until my body finally relaxed against him, releasing me from its prison.

Jace kissed me on the forehead.

“I’m so sorry, Skye. We hoped this wouldn't happen.”

I felt almost too weak to ask what he was talking about but I had to know.

“What was that?  What's wrong with me?”

“It was a seizure,” he told me. “I'm sorry. I was hoping the damage wasn't as severe as we feared. Ken warned us you might have them since the chip went so deep when it repositioned itself.”

“How long will I have them?”

“The rest of your life.”

I closed my eyes, unable and unwilling to face any more bad news. I felt completely exhausted like I had just run a marathon and simply sought the succor sleep would provide to save me from my waking nightmare.

When I awoke, I found Doc Riley standing by the window in the room looking out at the city.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, sitting up in the hospital bed.

Doc Riley turned to face me and tried to put on a brave smile.

“Your father and Jace asked me to stay with you while they were away,” she replied, coming to stand by my bed. “I'm sorry, child. I should have known that woman would make it impossible to remove the chip. It never even occurred to me that it would have a self-preservation program built into it.”

“It's not your fault,” I told her. “Like you said, no one has ever tried to remove a chip before. There was no way of knowing what would happen.”

“Ken had no idea the chip would react that way either.”

“Do you believe him?”

Doc Riley nodded. “Yes, I do.”

“Then there wasn't anything any of us could have done. And I had to try. You know that.”

“Yes, I know,” Doc Riley sighed. “But it doesn't assuage the guilt I feel over this epic failure. As doctors we take an oath to do no harm. And I've done you a grievous injustice, child. I should have tried harder to talk you out of it. I shouldn't have let my feelings for you get in the way of my better judgment.”

I held one of my hands out to her. She walked closer and grasped it.

“You were just being my friend and trying to help me do something you know I would have found a way to do anyway. If you hadn't helped me and found someone who halfway knew what they were doing, I would probably be dead. So, quit blaming yourself. It was my decision, no one else’s. Now, what can be done about these seizures?”

“I hope we can bring them under control with medication, if we can find it. It's not exactly like I can just run down to the local pharmacy and write a prescription for them.”

“Would the queen have access to the medicine?”

Doc Riley's eyes narrowed on me like she suspected I was up to something. “Why would you ask such a question?”

I shrugged. “I just want to know.”

“I would presume she probably has access to the medication you need. But she won't just hand it over to you, at least not without gaining something in return.”

Jace and my dad walked into the room with Rose and Simon.

“I thought they would be the best medicine for you right now,” Jace said, handing me Rose. Jace took Simon from my father and sat down on the side of my bed sitting him on his lap facing me.

I looked at my son and daughter and felt even more determined to do something I felt was important for them.

I looked at Doc Riley. “Have you been able to find someone to who can activate Jace’s precognition with the genetic codes we found?  I want to find Zoe's sister if we can.”

“Ken says he knows how to do it,” Doc Riley told us. “Apparently he helped develop the technology.”

“So after her code is uploaded to you,” I said to Jace, “we'll know if she's alive or dead right?”

“Yes, I'll see her if she's still alive or I'll see nothing if she's dead. That's usually how it works.”

I looked down at Rose and Simon. “I think we owe it to them to find their aunt if we can. And I want to do it for Zoe as our last gift to her. If she were here and knew her sister might be out there somewhere, she would move heaven and earth to find her. I can’t do any less.”