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

“That’s probably
because you don’t know many people,” I said, trying to shrug off his praise.

Ash smiled.  “I
know enough.”  He leaned down and gave me a kiss on the cheek.  “See you
tonight.”

“Ok, see you.”

I let go of his
hand and watched him enter his greenhouse before I stepped into mine.

Once inside, I saw
Doc Riley was already giving everyone their instructions for the day.  Zoe, Ian
and a few other volunteers stood around her in a semi-circle.  When Ian saw me,
he arched an imperious eyebrow and turned to pointedly look at the digital
clock on the wall which showed me I was five minutes late.

“I know,” I
mouthed silently coming to stand with everyone else.

“Well, nice of you
to decide to join us, Skye,” Doc Riley said.  From anyone else it would have
sounded like a condescending remark, but I knew Doc Riley was just picking on
me for being late.  She was a hard-as-nails woman to most people but for some
reason she held a soft spot in her heart for me. 

After giving
everyone their instructions, Doc Riley pulled me to the side out of earshot of
everyone else. 

“So is today the
day?” She asked in a hushed conspiratorial voice.

Other than Ash,
Doc Riley was the only other person in the Southern Kingdom I had told about
Lucena Day’s claim to being my mother.  She urged me to speak with my father
about it as soon as I told her, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. 
Something inside me already knew the answer.  I worried having my father
confirm it would push me past the point of no return.

“Yes, I plan to
ask him at lunch today.”

Doc Riley nodded. 
“Good.  You need to get to the truth.  If what she said is true, then it will
unburden your father from a lie.  I’m sure keeping such a secret from you
hasn’t been easy to do all these years, especially something so monumental. 
But, anyway, I digress; I have something for you to take on your picnic.”

Doc Riley walked
to one of the large stainless steel refrigeration units on the far wall and
took out a small Tupperware bowl.  When she walked back to me, she handed me the
bowl.

“Try these out,”
she said excitedly.  “They’re a hybrid I made of a strawberry and grape.  Simply
delicious!”

The combination
seemed odd to me, but I thanked her for her generosity and tucked it inside my
backpack to share with my father later.

The wait for lunch
time was made easier with work.  In the orchard unit, we took care of a
cornucopia of apple, orange, and pear trees.  We were in the middle of harvest
time for the apple trees which took a lot of man power since we weren’t allowed
to squander gas or electricity on machines to help harvest food.  Everything which
could be done by hand in the Southern Kingdom was.

“So, I hear you
have a hot date tonight,” Ian said coming to stand beside the ladder I was perched
on to collect apples.

I looked down at
him and saw he had already collected his first bushel.  Ian may have had the
Cain virus but he still maintained some of his harvester abilities like super
strength and agility.  He could collect more fruit in an hour than I could in a
whole day of working.

“It’s not a hot
date,” I told him, continuing to pluck apples hoping he would get the non-verbal
hint I didn’t want to talk about it with him.

“Out of sight out
of mind?” He asked.

I looked back down
at him.  “What is that supposed to mean?”

Ian shrugged and
put his container of apples on the ground.  “Seems like only, what two weeks
ago, you told Jace you loved him while he sacrificed himself to the Queen for
us.  Or did you just do that to make sure he didn’t change his mind and try to
run off before we could make our escape?”

A red, blurry haze
clouded my vision.  I quickly descended my ladder and promptly slapped Ian’s
face, drawing the unwanted attention of a few of my co-workers.  My hand
throbbed from the force of the blow and a patch of red flamed against Ian’s
cheek before slowly disappearing.

“How dare you! 
Don’t assume to know how I feel about Jace or Ash for that matter.  You have no
idea what I’m going through.”

“What I know is
that Jace gave up his freedom so you could have yours.  And how do you repay
him?  You jump into the arms of another man without giving him a second
thought.  Do you even think about him anymore?  Don’t you wonder what the Queen
has him doing for her?  If you thought the people of Alliance were bad, you
don’t know what bad is.  That woman is pure evil.  I sure as hell wouldn’t want
someone I claimed to love to be under her thumb.”

Ian’s words
brought my fears for Jace’s safety bubbling to the surface.  I couldn’t prevent
the tears which racked my body next anymore than I could have stopped the flow
of a river.  I put my hands over my face to shield my display of grief from Ian. 
For the past two weeks, I tried to put on a brave face for my friends.  They
all seemed so happy to be in the Southern Kingdom.  I didn’t want to dampen
their joy with my feelings of loss. 

I felt Ian try to
put his arms around me but pushed him back.

“Don’t,” I told
him.  “Don’t touch me.”

“I’m sorry,” he
said.

I believed him but
that didn’t matter.

“I just wanted to
make sure you hadn’t forgotten about Jace,” he continued, the hostility in his
voice gone.  “He’s not here to fight for you so I thought I should at least try
to make sure you remembered he was out there.”

“Do you think
there’s been a day that’s gone by I haven’t thought about him?  Do you think
it’s easy for me to walk around this place and try to pretend I like it here? 
I don’t want to be here, Ian!  I want to be out there looking for him!”

“Then why aren’t
you?  You’re father’s a big wig around this joint.  Can’t he help you?”

I shook my head. 
“I’ve asked but he says he can’t do anything.  I think he just doesn’t want me
to leave.  He just got me back.”

I wiped the tears
from my face.  “But don’t you dare think I’ve forgotten about Jace.  He’s in my
thoughts all the time.  I just haven’t figured out a way to get him back yet.”

“You know I’ll
help you if I can,” Ian said.  “I just don’t want to see you make a mistake
with this Ash guy.  I know you’ve been friends for a long time but if you ask
me, he had his chance while you guys were running around the Eastern Kingdom alone
together for the past five years.  Jace has always been upfront with you about
his feelings.  He never tried to pretend he wasn’t in love with you, and I knew
you were in love with him even before you said it.  Everybody in that van saw
it but you, until it was too late.”

I closed my eyes,
lifting a hand to my temples to ease the sudden headache which was squeezing my
temples like a vise.  “Leave it to a reformed harvester to be the champion of
romance.”

Ian shrugged.  “Just
looking out for Jace’s girl.”  He held his hands out palm up.  “Forgive me?”

“I’ll forgive you
this one time,” I said, pointing my index finger at him.  “But just remember, I
haven’t forgotten about Jace.  I couldn’t forget about him even if I tried.”

As Ian picked up
his bucket of apples, he winked at me.  “Like the hair by the way.”

“Thanks.  Needed a
change.”

“Suits you.  Kinda
shows your spunk but keeps you looking like a lady at the same time.”

The sound of a whistle
marked lunch time.  I suddenly realized I was just leaving one emotionally
charged conversation for another.

Chapter 2

My father was
waiting for me outside the orchard unit when I stepped out.  He had aged since
I last saw him as a child but time had only made him more handsome.  The gray
in his brown hair accentuated the sharp angles of his classically handsome face
and gave him an air of wisdom.  He leaned down to me and kissed my forehead before
taking my arm as we walked to the artificial pond built in the center of Central
Park.  The nuclear powered sun slowly made its way across the blue sky above
us mimicking what the real sun had done in the days before the war.  The gentle
breeze blowing across the greener than green grass almost made me forget things
around me were man made.

“What to try one?”
I asked my father, handing him the Tupperware bowl filled with the fruit Doc
Riley had given me.  It truly did look like the misbegotten child of a grape
and strawberry with its thin purple shell dimpled with small seeds.

My father’s left
eyebrow arch involuntarily.  “You’re sure it’s safe to eat?  It looks like it
might eat me instead.”

I laughed causing
my father to laugh as well.  The rich rumble of the sound coming from his chest
made me smile.  Before the war, laughter filled our home around every corner. 
Now it seemed to be a rare commodity.

“Doc Riley is
always trying out new hybrids in the greenhouses.  I haven’t tried it either so
we’ll both be her guinea pigs.”

Before I lost my
nerve I picked up a piece of the fruit and popped it into my mouth.  The juices
spilled out of the thin purple skin and pooled against my tongue.  The
sweetness was on the verge of being overwhelming until a slight tartness
revealed itself.

I swallowed the
juices and nodded.  “It’s good.”

Since being
reunited, my father had done what seemed like a million little things to make
me feel comfortable in our new home.  He didn’t push me to tell him about the
last five years of my life, and I wasn’t in a rush to know how he survived what
happened after Ash and I escaped from the breeding camp.  I knew that knowledge
would most likely lead to a retelling of how my mother died.  Or at least the
death of the woman I always believed to be my mother.  I needed to know if what
Lucena Day said was true.  Was the most reviled woman in history responsible
for giving birth to me?  And if she was, what did that mean for me?

“Dad, I need to
ask you something.  I’ve been putting it off but I just can’t anymore.  I have
to know the truth.”

“You know you can
ask me anything, Skye.”

I looked my father
straight in the eyes because I needed to see his initial reaction.  I feared he
might try to lie to protect me but protection wasn’t what I wanted.  I wanted
the truth.

“Is Lucena Day my
real mother?”

He didn’t seem
surprised by the question.  He actually looked like he was expecting it.

“In a way,” he
answered, suddenly finding something interesting on the red and black checkered
blanket we sat on to pick at.

“What do you mean
‘in a way’?  She either is or isn’t.”

My father took in
a deep breath as if preparing himself before looking back up at me. 

“Lucena
is
your biological mother but she is
not
the woman who gave birth to you,
raised you and loved you.”

“How can she be my
biological mother and not my birth mother?”

“Your mother and I
tried to have children for a long time.  When we finally learned she was
sterile, we went to Lucena for help.  Back then your mother’s sister was a
fertility specialist, among other things.  There wasn’t anything medically
Lucena could do to help your mother but she offered to donate her own eggs,
fertilize them with my sperm and implant them inside your mother’s womb.”

“Why would Mom go
through all that?”

“Because Emma and
I were desperate to have you.  You should have seen your mom when she found out
it worked and you were on the way.  It was like she swallowed sunshine she
glowed so much.”

“Why don’t I
remember Lucena?  If she was Mom’s sister why wasn’t she ever in our lives?”

“She and your
mother had a falling out right after you were born.  Your mother pretty much
told her she was never allowed to see you again.”

“What happened to
make her do something like that?”

“I’m not sure.  I
didn’t push her for an explanation because she seemed so distraught by whatever
it was.  Lucena was never in our lives that much anyway.  She was always busy
with her work.  I just assumed your mother was frightened she might try to take
you away from us one day because even then Lucena was rich and powerful.  Plus,
I don’t think your mother wanted you to know her sister was your biological
mother.  The possibility of you finding out the truth seemed to scare her more
than anything.”

 “So if Mom was
Lucena’s sister and I’m her biological daughter, why did she keep us in a
breeding camp?”

“I suppose Lucena
thought keeping us in a camp was better than having us run around in the
wilderness with you.  In her way, she loved you and wanted to make sure you
were looked after.”

It finally put
into place pieces of my past I could never quite figure out.  My family was the
only one not required to have children for the harvesters.  Now I understood
why:  my mother was incapable of having children on her own.  Ash’s family
wasn’t as fortunate.  While in the camp I saw Ash’s mom give birth to two boys
and two girls.  As soon as they were born, they were each taken away to be
raised by the harvesters for spare parts.

“She told me I was
supposed to go live with her the night Ash and I escaped.  Is that true?”

“Yes.”

“I try not to
think about that night,” I confessed.  “But, I dream about it a lot.  I
remember Mom hugging me so tight I couldn’t breathe.  She kept saying over and
over how much she loved me and that she was sorry she couldn’t have brought me
up in a better world.”

“She always blamed
herself for how Lucena turned out.”

“Why?”

“Because she was
Lucena’s big sister.  She felt like she should have seen the person Lucena
really was and stopped her before things got so out of control.”

I closed my eyes
and let my mind replay that night. 

“I remember all
the houses being lit on fire and people screaming before Ash and I made it out. 
I tried to go back but he wouldn’t let me.  Right before we crawled through the
hole you told us to look for in the fence, we heard machine gun fire.”