Hope (Book 2, Harvester of Light Trilogy; Young Adult Science Fiction)

“Are you sure,
Skye?”

I looked at Kirk’s
horrified reflection in the mirror of my vanity.  Teegan stood beside him with
both her eyebrows arched, a sure indication she thought I had completely lost
my mind and was about to make a monumental mistake.

“You’re not her,”
Zoe said from her spot on my bed hugging a blue flower shaped pillow to her
chest.

I still wasn’t
used to seeing Zoe at her true age.  To my mind she should still look like the
seven year old girl I found underneath Simon’s protective shield, but in the
two weeks we’d been in the Southern Kingdom, her growth had increased
exponentially.  Her body had finally caught up with her true age of eighteen. 
I just prayed that was the extent of her odd accelerated aging.

“Seriously Skye, you
haven’t even asked your father if what she told you is true,” Zoe reminded me. 
“At least wait until you do that before cutting off all your hair.”

“It’s not just
because of that.  I need a change,” I said to my friends.  “I might not be able
to control much else but I can control this one thing in my life.”  I looked at
Kirk.  “Cut it.”

Kirk gathered a
section of my hair with one hand and held a pair of styling scissors in the
other poised to cut my hair to a point just above my shoulders.  A good six
inches needed to be lopped off for the new me I envisioned for myself to make
her first appearance.  Kirk met my eyes in the mirror once more almost begging
for a last reprieve.  I nodded my head urging him to do what I wanted.  The
metallic song of metal sliding against metal was suddenly deadened as the sharp
edges of the scissors met the strands of my hair slowly making the first cut.

For over half an
hour Kirk clipped and shaped my hair into the style we had been discussing for
days: an asymmetrical layered bob which fell somewhere in the style spectrum between
punk rocker and sophisticated lady.  The new layers framing my face gave the
illusion of a different girl staring back at me in the mirror.

After he was done,
Kirk stood back and admired his own handy work.

“Not bad,” he said
in surprise.  “I think I like it.”

Teegan gave me a
wink and thumbs up.

Zoe stood from my
bed and walked up behind me.

“I like it too. 
How do you think I would look with a cut like that?”

“No!” Kirk and I
said simultaneously with equal vehemence.

Zoe stuck her
tongue out at us.  “Spoil sports.  You guys never let me have any fun.”

Her body might
have caught up to her real age, but Zoe still acted like a seven year old most
of the time.

“Do you honestly
think I would willingly cut those natural golden curls?” Kirk said in
exasperation.  “I never thought I would cut Skye’s hair.  At least let me get
over one trauma at a time before you throw a new one at me.”

I smiled.  “You
act like it was your hair being cut.  You know it’s just hair.  It’ll grow
back.”

Kirk pressed a
flared hand to his chest.  “Honestly, it might as well have been mine as much
as it hurt me to do it.”

Kirk quickly packed
his scissors in his backpack lying on my bed.

“Come on, Teegan. 
We better leave before Mr. Lande wonders where we are.”

“How are our
dresses coming along anyway?” Zoe asked.  “You know the dance is tonight.”

“They’ll be done,”
Kirk promised with a wave of his hand.  “We’ve had so many new orders we’ve
been working almost around the clock at the shop.  I’m surprised he let us come
here this morning, but I guess it doesn’t hurt to do a favor for the daughter
of a council man.”

“That’s true,” Zoe
agreed.  “People do seem to give Skye’s father whatever he wants.”

It didn’t take me
long to figure out my father was an important man in the Southern Kingdom. 
Usually all I had to do was ask for something and it was given to me on a
silver platter.  There were a total of five people on the council, including
the man who used to be President of the United States, and they were all
treated like royalty.  When I asked my father if Zoe could live with us, he had
no trouble in obtaining a new apartment with three bedrooms.

“Teegan and I will
be back tonight to help you guys get ready for the dance,” Kirk told us,
tossing his backpack over one shoulder.

After Kirk and
Teegan left, Zoe and I got ready to leave for our own jobs.

No one in the
Southern Kingdom got a completely free ride.  Just because my father was on the
council didn’t mean I could loaf off and do whatever I wanted.  To make the
community work, we all had to contribute our far share.  Zoe and I chose to
work in the greenhouses Doc Riley helped supervise.

As we were walking
out of our apartment, the door to the apartment adjacent to us opened.  Ash
smiled with genuine happiness when he saw us.

“Good morning,
ladies.  Ready to go to work?”

“Honestly?  I
think I might have to change jobs,” Zoe said, looking at her nails in dismay. 
“I can’t seem to keep the manicures Kirk gives us clean for more than a day. 
All that dirt,” Zoe shivered.

“It’s a small
price to pay for fresh food,” I admonished.  “And you’ve certainly eaten your
fair share of it since coming here.”

“Quit picking on
my girl,” Kale said, coming out of the apartment he and Ash shared.

“Seriously, Kale?”
Zoe placed her hands on her hips.  “I am not your girl.  Teegan is.  Well, she
would be if you could say more than a lame ‘hi’ to her every time you come
within a five foot radius.  Man up and ask the girl out already.”

If there was ever
a perfect guy for Teegan it was Kale.  She definitely wouldn’t have to worry
about not being able to speak because Kale could carry on a conversation with
himself if he had to.  With his naturally tanned skin and corkscrew curly brown
hair, they were physically a perfect match too, each looking like they should
be frolicking on a beach somewhere.  Kale was from Hawaii which was why he
professed to love wearing Hawaiian shirts, cargo shorts and ultra-white sneakers
all the time.  He claimed it kept him in touch with his heritage.

“Then who would
take you to the dance tonight?” Kale asked.

“I’m sure Skye
would share Ash with me,” Zoe said.

Ash looked taken
aback by Zoe’s suggestion.

“What?” Zoe asked
seeing the sudden look of alarm on Ash’s face.  “You wouldn’t be interested in
taking two hotties to the dance?”

“No, it’s not
that,” Ash said.  “I was just hoping to have some time alone with Skye to talk
about something important.”

This was news to
me.  Ash hadn’t mentioned needing to speak with me, though in the past two
weeks we hadn’t been able to talk much.

After we arrived
in the Southern Kingdom, Doc Riley made us stay in the hospital for a couple of
days to make sure we didn’t experience any adverse side effects from being exposed
to the barrier.  Then we were all questioned separately about the events leading
up to the time we became trapped in the radiation field.  Even though my father
was on the council, I was still subjected to the same questions my other
friends had to answer.  None of us mentioned the claim Lucena Day made about
being my real mother.  I didn’t ask my friends why they omitted that small fact
from their statements, but I had to assume it was close to the same reason I
didn’t.  What would the people of the Southern Kingdom do to Lucena Day’s
child?  Plus, I couldn’t exactly make myself say the words.  Not yet.  Not
until I talked to my father about it.

Ian had it worse
than any of us.  He was placed in a high security jail cell for over a week
before Doc Riley was able to have him remanded into her custody.  She argued
with the council that his blood could hold the key to defeating the
harvesters.  Before we came, no one on this side of the barrier had ever even heard
of the Cain virus.  Doc Riley convinced the council that if she could study Ian
she might be able to find a way to distribute the virus to every harvester in
the Eastern Kingdom, finally giving humans a fighting chance to regain control
over the world.  Ian was soon fitted with a security bracelet which emitted an
alarm if he stepped out of the boundaries the council set for him.  Ian didn’t
seem to mind the restricted access.  I think he was just glad to be out of Alliance
and out from under Freddy’s control.

I was surprised
Ash hadn’t told me before now that he needed to speak with me about something
important.  Since being reunited, we’d only had time to have one serious
conversation, and I had monopolized most if by telling him everything which
happened after Rose snatched him away from me.  Ash let me do what I always did
with him: bare my heart and soul then help me pick up the pieces afterward. 
When I needed to cry, he held me in his arms and let me unburden my heart
without trying to make me believe everything was going to be all right.  We had
both grown up in a world where happily ever after didn’t exist, if it ever had,
and he wasn’t about to start lying to me now.

“Do we need to
talk about it before then?” I asked, wondering how serious whatever he wanted
to say was.

Ash shook his
head.  “It can wait until tonight.”  I saw Ash’s eyes travel to my hair.  “Like
your hair by the way.  Looks good on you.”

“Yeah, looks
pretty cool,” Kale agreed with a nod.  “Though I’m a sucker for women with long
brown hair,” he said wistfully.

It wasn’t hard to
guess who he was seeing in his mind.

“Oh shut up,” Zoe
said with a roll of her eyes while tugging on a sleeve of Kale’s shirt to make
him start walking down the hallway.  “Until you get the guts to tell Teegan how
you feel, you don’t get to day dream about her around me.”

Zoe and Kale
continued to banter back and forth like brother and sister as they began their
descent down the central stairwell of our apartment building.  Ash walked by my
side as we gave the other two a wide birth in front of us.

“Listen,” I said
to Ash, “I know we haven’t had a lot of time to talk, but I’ll make time if
it’s important to you.”

Ash grinned as we
descended the steps behind our friends.  “I know, Skye.  But it can wait until
tonight.”

“Why can’t we talk
about it now?” I asked, more than a little curious what he considered to be so
important to talk about but not urgent enough to discuss immediately.

“Because it’s
something I would rather talk about when we’re all dressed up and don’t have
anything to worry about except having a good time.  Heading to work isn’t the
most romantic time to have a talk.”

The word
‘romantic’ sent up a red flag in my mind.  It was the first time Ash had ever
used the word when referring to me.  I thought back to that moment in the
library after we disposed of the harvester bodies and before he fell unconscious
from the injuries he sustained in the fight with them.  I felt sure then Ash was
about to tell me how he truly felt for me.  If he was waiting for a ‘romantic
time’ to have a talk with me now, was he about to declare his true feelings for
me?

Ash seemed to
assume I understood his intentions because he casually took hold of my hand as
we walked out the double glass doors of the apartment complex we lived in.  In
all the time I had known him, only once had Ash held my hand: the night we
escaped the breeding camp.  Back then it was to make sure I kept up with him. 
Now, it seemed to convey a completely different meaning, and I honestly wasn’t
sure how I felt about it.  There was a time I would have been head over heels
in rapturous joy but that was before Jace became a part of my life.  Now, my
heart felt torn in half between the two men who held it.  I couldn’t prevent
feeling like I was betraying Jace by letting Ash to do something as innocent as
hold my hand.

As we walked onto
the street outside our complex, I had to marvel once again at the ingenuity of
those who built the Southern Kingdom.  Basically, it was a circular indoor city
with twenty story buildings forming a double circle.  A monorail system was sandwiched
in between the buildings and a green pastoral oasis sat in the middle of it all,
Central Park.  My father said it was given the title to bring back memories of
its name sake. 

Ash held my hand while
we rode the monorail and didn’t let go as we got off at our stop in front of
the green houses.  He was assigned to work in the corn farming units next to
the orchard unit Zoe and I worked in.

“You’re having
lunch with your dad today right?” Ash asked.

“Yeah.  I’m planning
to ask him about Lucena and get that whole nightmare over with once and for all. 
I need to know the truth one way or the other.”

“Just remember,”
he said, squeezing the hand he held tightly, “no matter what the answer is
you’re still you and nothing can change that.  You’re the best person I know,
Skye.”