The Revolt (The Reapers: Book Two) (13 page)

She nodded. Bruce’s head swung between the
two of us like he was watching a game of tennis he didn’t
understand. “What kind of crazy mumbo jumbo have you been feeding
her?” he asked, his face reddening and his fists tightening. I was
certain he’d like nothing more than to beat me to a bloody pulp,
and I didn’t really blame him. Still the ghost was here for him,
not because of me.

“Just try to be extra nice to Angelica,” I
said, as gently as possible. “She needs all the support she can
get.”

“I think you should leave now,” he said, his
jaw clenched tight.

“Bruce…”Angelica said, but her voice was weak
and I knew she was in no state for a fight.

“I’m already gone,” I said. I sprinted all
the way back to the condo.

I woke up the next morning to the sound of
voices in the condo. Both of them male. My first thought was Caleb
and I considered hiding out in the bedroom, but I didn’t want Jed
to face him alone. I was certain Jed could be hurt more by Caleb
than I could, since he actually loved his brother.

Fifteen minutes later, showered and dressed,
I walked out to find Jed sitting on the couch and a woman sitting
in the armchair. They were talking football, but stopped when they
saw me. I don’t know how I mistook the woman’s voice for a man’s.
It was a little deeper than mine, but looking at her, there was no
doubt she was all woman.

She was thin and dressed in a stylish
pantsuit with her thick brown hair loose to her shoulders. Her skin
was a smooth, flawless brown. She was so well made-up and polished
that she seemed to shine a little bit, like a glossy magazine ad. I
felt self-conscious and scrubby, with no make-up on and my hair
still wet from my shower, next to her perfect femininity.

Jed didn’t seem to notice, he gestured for me
to sit on the couch next to him, his eyes warm.

The woman stood and crossed to me, extending
her hand. “Hi, I’m Holly Daye, from Harvest One, and I’m going to
be staying here with you and Jed for a little while.”

“I’m Kelsey Andrews” I said. I wanted to ask
her why she would be staying with us, but that seemed rude.

She answered my question as though I’d spoken
aloud. “I’ve been assigned to help Jed protect you and to do my
best to convince you to come work with us at Harvest One.” She
grinned, but there was a darkness in her eyes and a weariness in
her face that belied the grin. She walked over and sat back down in
the armchair. “Jed’s been filling me in on the tragic events at
Varius, and I’ve been sharing with him what I know of this reaper
war. He thought you might like to hear what I have to say. Would
you?”

“Sure. After breakfast?”

“I actually haven’t eaten yet, either,” Jed
said. “Holly would you like to join us?”

She waved her hand. “You two go ahead, I have
a few phone calls to make.”

I followed Jed into the kitchen. “I’m just
going to have cereal,” I said, as he started pulling out a pan and
a bowl. “Don’t fix anything special for me.”

“I’m not. I’m making myself scrambled eggs
and toast. You want some?”

“Sure. Can I help?”

He shook his head and went to work. I sat at
the table and watched him. He was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt,
both of which fit him exactly as they should. I caught myself
noticing the way his muscles rippled under his clothes and I turned
my attention to the table top instead. That got boring pretty quick
and I figured it didn’t hurt to look. He was just so darn
pretty.

When he finally turned to carry two plates to
the table, he met my eyes with a wide grin and I felt certain he
knew I’d been watching him. Heat rose to my cheeks, and I tried to
cover it with a smile. “You seem to like to cook. That can’t have
been programmed into you by Varius right?”

He put my plate in front of me and sat down
his food. His smile faded to a frown and I wondered if I’d gone too
far. “I like to eat. It’s a survival tactic.”

“So you don’t like to cook? Because I love to
cook and you’ve kind of been hogging the kitchen?”

His eyes sparkled. “You could have mentioned
that two days ago and saved me some work.”

“You didn’t give me a chance. Every time I
walk in here, you’re already cooking.”

“Uh-huh.” He took a bite of eggs and chewed
thoughtfully. “I like to be doing something all the time. I don’t
like to sit still, so yeah, I guess I like cooking. I’ve never
really had the time to try new recipes or get creative with it
though.”

“You’ve got time now.”

He nodded and turned his attention to his
breakfast. When he finally looked at me, I raised my eyebrows in a
question and inclined my head toward the living room.

“She’s alright, but don’t tell her too much,”
he said. “She’s the daughter of one of the head honchos at Harvest
One, and her loyalty will always be with them first. She’s a good
fighter, though, and she’s telling the truth about being here to
protect you. Harvest One must think you’re pretty special to send
her.”

“Or she did something to piss someone
off.”

He laughed. “You already understand how it
works with the corporations better than some people do after years
of working there.”

“Cat told me some things and, if it was me,
I’d want to be out fighting reapers and protecting my own people,
not some girl I don’t know.”

“Holly doesn’t really have people from what I
can tell,” he said in a low voice. “That’s the impression I got
from working with her, anyway. The job is her life.”

“Some life.”

Holly joined us at the kitchen table as we
were finishing up breakfast. “I have spreadsheets and power point
presentations I can show you to demonstrate exactly what’s
happening with the war around the country if you want. But it all
adds up to the same thing. The reapers are serious and they’re
working together, which no one, except Len, predicted would ever
happen. They’ve taken powerful figures in fifteen cities in North
America, including this one. Those are just the ones we’re aware
of, so I would say they probably have more like thirty to
fifty.”

“Are they trying to take over the whole
country?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Maybe, but I don’t think there
are enough powerful reapers for that. Everyone has a theory, and no
one knows for sure what their ultimate goal is. Right now, it looks
like they’re taking territories. A powerful reaper takes a powerful
individual and tries to gain control, then other reapers in that
territory can take people as they please and the leader, the
powerful reaper, will cover up any questions that result. They’ve
been killing any corporate reaps they can find, like Cat. They seem
to be particularly angry about the reapers who were allowed to live
again when they were denied. They’ve killed a few living corporate
members as well. We’ve lost three people, one of them at the top
level.”

Jed whistled. “What’s the plan?”

Holly looked down at her coffee. “You can
probably guess what Harvest One intends to do.”

“You can’t be serious, Holly? You aren’t
going to let Varius fight this war alone, are you?”

“What’s Harvest One going to do?” I was
trying to keep up, but I didn’t know enough about either
corporation.

“Sit back and do nothing until the dust
settles, then go wherever there’s money to be made,” Jed said.

“And what should we do? Go out and waste our
lives trying to stop the war? These are powerful, smart reapers.
They’ve been planning this for a decade at least. We’d lose a
substantial number of our staff.”

“You can’t just let them take whoever they
want, whenever they want,” I said. “Imagine all the harm they could
do.”

“Or all the good. Who’s to say the reapers
can’t do better than the people they’ve reaped?” she asked.

That didn’t mesh with what Jed had told me
about reapers. “How can you know that? If they’re so good, why
weren’t they given a shot at a second life by one of the
corporations?”

“Because the corporations don’t care if a
reaper is a good, well-intentioned person or not, they only care
that the reaper is willing to work for them. My last partner found
the jobs we did revolting. He hated every moment of trying to con
people into believing they were haunted. He did it out of
desperation. Many reapers aren’t willing to make that sacrifice. It
doesn’t make them any less worthy of a second life,” she said.

“And what about the people they kill to get
that second chance at life? What are their lives worth?” I
asked.

“I’m not saying it’s always right, but it’s
all there is,” she said. “As long as the reapers have the ability
to reap people, they will. Even some among the living don’t believe
the corporations have the right to dictate who should or shouldn’t
be reaped.”

“Including yourself,” Jed said.

“Maybe. We can’t stop it, so we decided to
try to control it. I know the motives of Harvest One aren’t pure
and honest. You’re an idiot or naïve if you say the motives of
Varius are.”

He picked up his plate and mine and walked to
the sink with them. He dropped them in and leaned on the counter.
“If we let this happen, there will never be any slowing it down or
stopping it.”

“The reapers will police themselves. They
don’t want to be found out, so they’ll get rid of the
troublemakers. Kind of hard to keep your job as mayor of a town
when the living figure out you aren’t one of them. They will make
sure only the weakest are culled from the living population.”

“Was Rose weak?” I asked. “Did she deserve to
die?”

“From what I’ve been told she was hiding in a
hospital rather than living her own life. She was already dead.”
She spoke the words with no apology and no sign of guilt or unease.
“If she stuck around in the spirit realm she’ll get her own
opportunity at a second life. Perhaps she’ll make better use of
it.”

“Damn,” Jed said. He sat back down at the
table. “I knew you were dark, Holly, but this is extreme.”

“I’m a realist.” She looked like she wasn’t
happy about that statement. “And don’t pretend you haven’t thought
it. I’ve never bought your stupid act.”

He grinned. “What act?”

“Right. In any case, this is what it is.
Maybe if Varius was in a situation to fight, we’d think
differently. How many people have they lost there?”

“Varius has lost fifteen people from
headquarters, three of them at the executive level, and they’ve
lost five in the field.”

“Have they discovered who’s killing people at
headquarters?”

“Not yet, but they will.”

“Ever loyal, Jed. Just don’t let that
attitude get you killed. Varius can’t really fight until they
eradicate the threat at headquarters, and Harvest One isn’t willing
to take on the reapers alone, so there you go. Who’s left?”

“What about my dad?” I asked. I almost didn’t
want to hear the answer. I couldn’t accept Holly’s idea that we
should just let the reapers take over.

“That’s the million dollar question,” she
said. “My money says he’s somewhere saying ‘na, na, na-na, na, I
told you so’ since he predicted an uprising over two decades
ago.”

“Do you think he might be helping the
reapers?”

She looked at me wide-eyed and then she
looked at Jed and her eyes got wider. “You didn’t tell her?”

“Tell me what?” I asked when Jed didn’t
answer.

“He didn’t think it was right that the
corporations allowed reapers to take over living people. He tried
to tell us our system wasn’t working and that reapers who weren’t
chosen by us to take a life were bitter and furious. No one
listened to him,” Jed said. “In fact, his views are considered a
sort of blasphemy by the corporations. I’m sorry I never told you,
it’s just something we’ve been trained not to discuss with
potential new employees.”

My father was a jerk, but I liked him a tiny
bit better knowing which side he was on. I liked Jed a tiny bit
less. “You should have told me.”

“Honestly, I figured Cat told you,” he said,
without meeting my eyes.

I nodded, but I didn’t believe him. The way
he’d looked when Holly brought it up made me certain he’d hoped I
didn’t know. It was clear he was still actively trying to recruit
me to work for Varius and not being completely open and honest with
me. “What matters right now is that my dad isn’t working with the
reapers, and we need to figure out what we can do here to stop the
war.”

Holly sat back down. “Haven’t you been
listening? This isn’t a war, it’s a takeover and it’s almost done.
We just have to wait for it to end.”

“No, I’m not okay with that. I don’t really
care what the reapers deserve or what they think they deserve, they
can’t be allowed to take over this town or any other town. They
didn’t reap Rose because she was wasting her life, they took her
because she was a convenient tool for their plan. If we let them
get more power, they’ll reap whoever they want. If I can do
anything to stop it, I’m going to.”

“Your motives are admirable, Kelsey, but if
you try to fight them alone, you’ll lose. You’re too valuable to
throw yourself away on an unwinnable war,” Holly said.

“What will be left for me to do if the
reapers succeed? If my skills are going to matter, they’re going to
matter now. I’m not going to just sit here and watch while the
reapers destroy this town.”

“They won’t destroy it,” she said. “They want
to keep it a nice place.”

“Yeah, right, a nice place for them to live
and reap whoever they want with no repercussions. Once they’ve got
a town full of reaps and reapers who are on their side, they’re
going to be a lot harder to beat than they are now.”

“And if you stop them here?” she asked.
“They’ll just find another town to take over. You can’t fight them
alone.”

“You’re right. That’s why I’m going to call
my dad.” I got up and went back to my room before either of them
could stop me.