Dawn (16 page)

I could feel the blood lust of the remaining eight Harvesters below me. I looked down at them and was immediately reminded of a pack of rabid dogs Ash and I ran into once. The fierce determination on their faces to kill me said everything. If I didn't kill them first, they would tear me to shreds.

Three more Harvesters tried to rush up the staircase while the remaining five hid underneath the iron walkway. I shot the three on the stairs easily enough but soon figured out they were merely decoys for the five below me.

The grinding of metal let me know the remaining Harvesters were about to force me down from my position by pulling the walkway off the wall. I cussed under my breath and stood up on the railing, jumping off and landing in a crouch in front of the back door. I stood and quickly spun around, barely having time to shoot two more of the Harvesters in the back of the skull while they were busy trying to pull the walkway down. Unfortunately, that still left three Harvesters to be dealt with.

Like one organism, all three of them rushed me at once, each with a grim determination in their eyes to see me dead.

“Stop!”

I looked towards the interior entrance of the room and saw the queen standing there. Oddly enough, even with the order the three remaining Harvesters seemed more interested in killing me than listening to an order from their queen.

“Kneel!” She bellowed, becoming agitated that her first order had been completely ignored. The Harvesters didn’t kneel. They didn’t even falter one step in their headlong charge towards me.

I pulled the triggers on the pistols in my hands only to find out I didn’t have any more bullets left. I threw the pistols from my hands and unsheathed my sword just as one of the Harvesters reached me. I swung my sword slicing easily through his neck and severing his head from his body, but the other two Harvesters tackled me to the floor, jarring my body and causing me to lose my grip on the sword.

The last remaining female Harvester was just about to plunge her hand into my abdomen when I saw her arm unceremoniously ripped off at the shoulder causing a spray of blood as she howl in pain.

My eyes were drawn to the queen as she stood over me with the Harvester's arm in one hand. With her free hand, she grabbed the last of my attackers by the throat and pinched his head off with one effortless squeeze, adding to the blood already drenching her pristine white dress.

I quickly scrambled to my feet.

“What the hell happened?  Why didn’t they listen to you?” I asked, catching my breath after the fight.

“I upgraded their programming to make sure they protect me at any and all cost,” the queen said, her face creased with confusion. “After all the attempts you people seemed to be making on my life, I felt like I needed the extra protection.”

The queen looked at me, her head tilted to the side.

“By the way, why
does
it seem like your people are trying to kill me?  You know the consequences of doing something like that. Or do you think I’m bluffing about the shield?”

“No, we know the shield is real. Maybe you’re just being paranoid,” I said, not looking her directly in the eyes but instead diverting my gaze to the carnage around us. I feared she would see the truth on my face if I tried to lie while looking straight at her.

“Did you program them to kill me on sight?” I asked. “They seemed more determined than usual to turn me into a corpse.”

“No,” the queen looked down at the two Harvesters she had to kill. “Actually, I told them to subdue you if I were in any danger. I’ll have to adjust their programming before you return to me.”

“If your plan is to have me remain in one piece when I come back, it would probably be a good idea.”

I walked over to the back door and retrieved my sword.

“Expect Walsh in a few days,” the queen said to me. “I want you with me a soon as possible.”

I stared at her as a scenario of me chopping her head off with my sword ran through my mind. But, I knew she would never let that happen. She would see it coming. I needed to be patient and wait for the right time. Plus, this wasn’t the way Jace’s vision of me killing her went. Tonight wasn’t the night the queen would die by my hand.

“I’ll be ready,” I said, turning my back to her and walking out the door.

When I reached the raft, Lux was valiantly trying to push it into the lake by herself.

“I’m here,” I said, tugging on the other side of the raft and easily setting it onto the surface of the lake.

Lux climbed into the raft and picked Simon up from his spot inside. He protested hotly when Lux picked him up and sat him on her lap. I wished I had the luxury to coddle him but putting as much distance as I could between the woman who thought herself my mother and him was my first priority.

“Why do your children hate me so much?” Lux asked, bouncing Simon on her knees but having no luck in quieting his cries.

“Don't take it personally,” I said. “It's just been a while since he saw me. I'm sure he just wants me to hold him instead of you.”

“But Rose did the same thing,” Lux whined, taking my children's rejection of her to heart.

“Maybe it's the pink hair,” I suggested with a grin, “like Ian said.”

“Pfft, don't suppose you have a hair salon here in the future?”

“No,” I replied, trying not to laugh at her predicament. “But we might be able to find a bottle of bleach somewhere.”

“I'm about ready to try anything,” Lux said, continuing to bounce Simon on her knees in a useless effort to stop his cries.

  I rowed us back to the other side of the lake in what I felt sure was record time. Jace and Ian weren't back yet when we reached the shoreline. Sam helped Lux pull the raft onto shore while I took care of Simon.

Simon clung to me like he was scared I might disappear if he let go. I kissed him all over the face and hugged him tightly, trying to reassure him that no one would ever separate us again. I knew it was a lie, of course. In a few days, I would have to leave him, Jace, and Rose. But, it wouldn't be forever.

I would bide my time while with the queen until an opportunity presented itself and I found my opening to kill her, an act which would finally end our torture and free the world of a mad woman. If there was one thing I knew without a shadow of a doubt, it was that the queen was completely insane and locked within her own self-delusional world. Unfortunately, she had destroyed the real world to make her dream world our reality.

About thirty minutes passed before Jace and Ian made it back.

“We couldn't find them,” Jace said walking up to me as I sat with Simon in the opening of the helicopter.

“No, she moved them,” I replied as I handed Simon to Jace.

Simon cooed with happiness to be in his father’s arms again. Jace held him against his chest hugging him tightly.

“Hey little man,” Jace said, kissing Simon on the cheek. “We sure did miss you. Rosey's waiting for you back home. She's missed you too.”

Before I could even blink, Jace and Simon suddenly disappeared.

I stared at the empty space and sighed.

“Uh, where do you think they went?” Ian asked, one of his arms hanging loosely across Lux’s shoulders as they approached the helicopter.

“My guess would be wherever Rose is right now,” I said, realizing Simon had just given me a gift in disguise. “It's just as well. I need to tell you two the deal I made with the queen.”

Ian took his arm off of Lux's shoulders and crossed them over his chest. The look on his face reminded me of a brewing thunderstorm.

“Deal?” He asked me, his tone on the verge of becoming angry. “You don’t make deals with the devil, Skye. Haven’t you learned that by now?”

“I didn’t have much of a choice. Let’s get in the air and on our way back to Roanoke. I'll tell you what you need to know,” I said, standing and getting inside the helicopter to take my seat.

Once we were in the air, I told Ian and Lux the conditions of my bargain with the queen.

“If you think about it, it's a perfect way for me to get close to her and finally find a way to kill her,” I reasoned.

“And what if she finds a way to reactivate your Harvester chip?” Ian asked, his eyes blazing with both anger and worry. “You can't just hand yourself over to that woman on a silver platter, Skye!  She's insane!”

“There won't be a chip to turn back on when I go to her,” I said. “Doc Riley is figuring out a way to remove it.”

Ian shook his head. “Can't be done. You take that thing out and it'll kill you for sure.”

“No, not necessarily. I can heal myself, Ian. It'll work for me.”

“You don't know that,” Ian replied, a stubborn set to his jaw. “What does Jace say about this asinine idea of yours to remove the chip?  Or have you even told him what you plan to do?”

“Yes,” I said defensively, “I try to tell him everything. But you know as well as I do that he would never let me hand myself over to the queen, especially if knew it was because of him. Trust that I know what I'm doing, Ian. And I'm fully aware of the risks with the surgery.”

“What are the risks?” Lux asked.

I could see the concern on her face for my welfare which tempered my irritation with Ian a small bit.

“There could be some loss of eye-hand coordination, repetitive speech, severe headaches, vision impairment, seizures, or I could go into a vegetative state, but that's highly unlikely.”

“A what?” Ian exploded. He said a few choice curse words under his breath. Lux probably couldn't hear them but I did, clearly.

“Ian, I can't go to her with the chip still inside my head. If I do, she’ll find a way to change me back into a Harvester. She’s a freaking genius after all. I'd rather be dead than be like that again. Hopefully, while she’s preoccupied with trying to find a way to change me back, I can find a way to kill her. We've all known I'm her weakness. She'll let her guard down around me. And when she does, I'll take her down. I know you've had doubts that I will be able to kill her when the time comes, but I’ll have an added incentive, getting back to Jace and the kids. It's the only way I'll be able to escape from her and have a normal life. It’s the only way we’ll be able to see our first dawn.”

The thought of what was supposed to happen the first dawn brought an unexpected smile to my face.

“Jace wants us to get married that first morning,” I told them, feeling my heart swell with the thought of marrying Jace with the rays of the rising sun illuminating his face.

“That's so sweet,” Lux said smiling at me. “He must really love you.”

I nodded. “Yes. He does. And I love him.”

“Just make sure you live long enough to see that first dawn,” Ian said, sounding like a true curmudgeon.

“Neither of you can tell Jace what I just told you,” I said.

“Are you serious?” Ian shouted. “You expect me to keep this from him?”

“Please, Ian,” I begged. “The only reason I told you was because I needed someone to tell Jace where I went after I'm gone and to warn him about the bomb in his head. This is the way things have to be. It's my only chance to end things once and for all.”

I thought Ian was going to pulverize the teeth in his mouth his jaw was clenched so tightly.

“Fine,” he eventually said, but turned his gaze away from me like he couldn't bring himself to look in my direction any longer.

The rest of the trip was mostly made in silence. Ian was pissed at me. Lux wasn't sure what to say. And I just relished the quiet. I closed my eyes and drifted off into a dreamless sleep to escape the tension for a while.

I didn't wake up until I felt someone kissing me.

On instinct, I grabbed the person by the throat before I even opened my eyes to see who it was.

Jace choked slightly before I came to my senses and let him go.

“Oh my god, I'm so sorry,” I said as he sat back on the seat across from me, catching his breath and rubbing his throat.

Jace soon chuckled looking slightly embarrassed.

“No, I probably should have known better than to do that. You just looked so beautiful, like a sleeping princess in a fairy tale. I thought it might be romantic to kiss you awake.”

I stood and walked the short distance to him. I straddled his lap and sat down.

“Let me make it up to you,” I said, touching our foreheads together before teasing his lips apart with mine.

Jace rested his hands around my waist as I leaned further into him. I felt his large, warm hands slide beneath my shirt as the tips of his fingers ran up and down my spine like a concert pianist expertly playing the keys of a piano, causing me to shiver in pleasure.

Reluctantly, I broke the kiss attempting to catch my breath.

“We better stop,” I said, unable to prevent myself from leaning in for one more kiss. “Or I won't be able to in a couple of minutes.”

Jace groaned in frustration and leaned his head back against the headrest.

“Did Simon take you straight to Rose?” I asked.

Jace nodded, a smile stretching his lips. “Yeah. I think we scared Kirk and Teegan half to death though.”