Thunder (5 page)

Everling spun in his chair to face him. “What could be bigger than the test run—”

“The donor has died.” Stemple pulled his halo-tablet close to his chest as though using it as a shield.

Everling's face went crimson. “You let him die?”

“We didn't
let
him do anything.” Stemple took a step back. “I sent the technician to harvest an additional sample. He was dead and in the process of desiccating like the others.”

“Rank incompetence! Did someone start the timer?” Everling bolted from his chair, slamming it into the wall as he rushed through the doorway.

He stormed into the lab area. Several technicians veered from his path to avoid a collision. “Where's the body?”

“They moved it from the prison pod to Lab Section Ten.” Stemple waved off people trying to stop him for conversation.

Everling swerved toward Ten. The sound of his leather shoes on the lab floor matched the staccato beat of his heart. He couldn't have lost another subject. How did this keep happening? He slammed through the magnetic doors and stopped to don a quarantine lab coat and headgear.

He needed more test subjects. He'd committed a secret
team of scientists to work on overcoming Bethany's cancer mutation. She'd fallen into a coma two months ago, and unless he pulled this off, she would be gone in another month.

Everling burst through the quarantine barriers. “Where's subject fifteen? Give me the time.” His bellowing reverberated off the metallic resin walls.

“Subject fifteen had a name. He was called Joshum,” Stemple said.

Everling expected Stemple to do his job well, but sometimes he was an annoyance with his attention to details. Everling turned on him. “I don't care if his name was—”

“Here's the subject, sir,” a petite lab intern interrupted as she wheeled the sheet-draped body into the examination theatre.

Everling looked over his glasses at the young lady as Stemple helped him into the special gloves. This was the same girl who'd just dispatched Ganston. Her white linen pants and lab jacket were well pressed and crisp. “And who would you be?”

“Treva Gilani, sir. I'm the new lab tech.” She flipped on the time monitor at the head of the table. Green numbers counted down as the visual slide moved toward the red zone. She folded her hands together and backed away from the body.

Everling stepped to the gurney and lifted the sheet. A gasp escaped his lips and he stumbled back from the wheeled table.

“Sorry, Doctor. I should have warned you about the advanced condition of this particular subject,” Treva said. Standing five feet four allowed her long auburn ponytail to flop over her shoulder and almost reach the gurney as she attempted to cover the corpse with the sheet.

Everling composed himself. “Leave it. Tie back your hair better. It's distracting.”

Treva blushed but used a complicated over-and-under hand movement to secure the ponytail into a bun at the nape of her neck.

Everling clicked together the two pieces of the antique magnifying glasses dangling around his neck by a cord. He glanced at the timer then peered closely at the shriveled skin. The desiccation was so complete the skin retreated from the face, exposing a macabre sort of grin on the open jaw.

Stemple pushed an examination tray of instruments and containers within his reach. Everling inserted the tip of a scalpel into the leathery skin between two ribs, sawed his way through what had been supple and soft flesh just an hour ago, and inserted a probe to measure moisture content.

He stared at the probe dial. It registered zero. He hurriedly scraped at a section of bone, attempting to collect a sample and remove it from the body in time.

Stemple stood on the other side of the gurney. “Five minutes.”

Everling nodded. He knew what he was looking for, but finding remaining evidence often proved rare. His hands worked with deft precision, claiming bits of leathery tissue and cross-sections of wide bone.

“Two minutes,” Stemple announced. He moved away from the glare of the theatre lights trained on the gurney and pulled peripheral equipment away with him.

Everling snatched up forceps and plucked out sliced-off samples of liver and kidneys that were shriveled to the size of dried-up fruit.

Stemple trained his gaze on the timer at the head of the table. The slide entered the red zone. “One minute!”

“I know, I'm working as fast as I can,” Everling said. His hands delicately pried loose a section that looked like links of dried-up sausage and placed it in the collection pan on the rolling tray. He pushed the tray toward Stemple, who grabbed the handle and moved it to the other side of the room.

Stemple turned back. “Dr. Everling, five, four, three—”

“Clear.” Everling threw up his hands and backed away.

S
elah started to laugh. She clutched at the rumbling in her chest and expelled a huge gush of air. “Oh, Mother! I never knew you had such a scary sense of humor. You really had me going for a minute there.”

“Your real father ended our marriage before you were born so he could protect us from the Company.” Mother remained stone-faced. She slid from the bed, padded barefoot to the window, and drew back the drapes. Sunlight spilled into the room. She moved to a cedar chest in the far corner, squatted, and rummaged through the contents until she found a small metal box near the bottom. Holding the box to her chest with both hands, she turned to face Selah.

Selah watched her mother walk toward her as though she were going to the gallows. Her last few steps faltered, but she sat on the bed and opened the box with pale, shaking hands.

“This is no joke.” She sat on the bed and placed the box between them. Yellowed folded sheets of paper came into view.

“What is this?” Selah reached for a paper.

Mother touched her hand. “You need to hear this from the beginning.”

Selah shook her head and moved to leave. “No . . . you're scaring me.”

Mother reached out to stop her. “Selah, you need to hear this.”

Selah's mind turned to scrambled eggs.
No. No more words.
She tried to squirm free. Tears welled in her eyes. The rational part of her brain screamed for her to cover her ears and flee far away before her world crashed. But Mother's hand kept her rooted to the spot.

Mother used her free hand to open the top page with the kind of care usually reserved for handling her delicate pastries. “You've come of age, and unfortunately it's time you know the truth about your heritage.”

Selah stared, afraid of what might come next. Finding out her mother had betrayed her father during their marriage was tantamount to murder in her book.

“You were conceived when I was married to Glade Rishon.” Mother held out a yellowed document.

Okay, so it wasn't betrayal in marriage, it was another husband. Selah pushed her hand away. “I don't want to hear this. You're telling me the only father I've ever known isn't really my father, and you expect me to just stand here and calmly listen?”

“You have told us for weeks—no, months—that today you would be a grown-up. Actually, you demanded it. Well, these are grown-up problems. I'm sorry that it came to this, my darling, but you need to know the truth. Your survival will depend on it.”

“Survival? And you called me a drama queen.” Selah slumped to the bed.

A strangled sob pushed from Mother's throat. “You are now among the hunted.”

Selah shook her head. “I am
not
one of them! This is lunacy.”

“Your real father was one of them. He told me before he left this might happen to you, but I always gambled that it wouldn't.”

The realization finally settled on Selah like a boulder. She jumped to her feet. “This is insane. Why are you trying to ruin my life?”

“I'm trying to save your life.”

“I need to talk to my father.” He would fix this. He always fixed everything, even when she sometimes didn't like his ultimate answer. He would not force her to leave home and never see the family again. She could explain. She hadn't meant to defy his order. It was an accident.

“You shouldn't do that,” Mother said in a small voice.

Selah turned to leave again. She looked back to her mother. “Why? Why can't I talk to the man who's been my father for eighteen years?”

“Because he came here as a Lander. His mark didn't remain after the first day. He's hated other Landers since then, and he trained you and the boys to hate them. He's jealous and vengeful, and I can't help him with those feelings.” She shook her head.

“But why would he take it out on me?” Her thoughts mashed into a jumble of emotions. Maybe this explained why he spent more time with the boys and seemed to ignore
her now that she was grown. She'd felt it before. She really was adopted. It was more than fanciful imagination.

“You would be an extension of all that he hates.”

“I-I would be . . . Are you telling me he doesn't know about my real father?” Her heart sank even further. He didn't know her father was a Lander, yet he treated her differently than his own boys. So his indifference was just because she wasn't his blood.

Mother buried her head in both hands. Her shoulders trembled, wracked with sobs. “There was just no right time to tell him. After he confessed his story and the disdain he felt . . . Well, then I couldn't tell him. I was afraid of what he might do to you.”

Selah shook her head. “He'd never hurt me.” She couldn't be sure of that, but saying it helped her to feel better.

“I couldn't take the chance. You've always said yourself he favors the boys over you.”

Selah stopped in her tracks. Anger welled in her. “So what happened to my brothers? No, wait! They aren't my brothers, they're Father's sons.” She slapped her palm to her chest. “Why didn't Raza or Cleon get this mark? Why did only I get it?”

Mother shook her head. “I don't know. But I do know that Glade's mark—er, your father's mark—remained on his forehead, so maybe that has something to do with why you got one and Raza and Cleon didn't when they turned eighteen. They also didn't come in contact with Landers the day before. Your father knew the possibilities, and we made sure to keep them at home. I don't know how he does it, but he has more information about the Landers than anyone in our clan.”

Selah wiped her sweating palms on the hem of her night
shirt. Too much to process. Too many emotions trying to wrestle for the top spot.

Mother strangled another sob and shook her head. “You're just so headstrong. I tried to keep you home yesterday without tipping my hand to your father.”

“Were you ever going to tell me he wasn't my father?” Selah started pacing the room. Mother had always prided herself on telling the truth, but this was the biggest lie of them all. She wanted to strike back and tell her mother all she had seen and heard yesterday, but her insides were collapsing. This was life-changing and earth-shattering.

“No, that was one of the conditions Varro Chavez set before we married. You were never to know that he wasn't your real father. But I vowed in my heart when Glade first left that I would honor my love for him all of my days.”

“Is that why you kept Rishon and never took Chavez as a name?”

Mother nodded. “It's not unusual for women to keep their family name if they are the last offspring, so no one ever thought anything of it.”

“But Rishon was your married name, not your family name.”

“I'm sorry,” Mother said. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She sat statue-still.

Father. Stepfather. Deception. Fear. All jumbled together. She didn't know why but she began to laugh. “And here I always thought I was adopted because Father seemed to love the boys more.” The laughter turned to anguished crying. “It was the truth all this time. I'm such a loser that my own father left me behind.”

She darted toward the door. She needed air. Time to think.

“That's not true.” Mother rushed around her, blocking the way. She tried to wrap her arms around Selah but she pushed away. Mother grabbed her hand. “Please come back. Let me tell you the whole story before you decide how you feel. I know this is a lot for you to handle at one time. But we don't have the luxury of time.”

Selah's head hurt. Too many things were trying to filter into her brain. Her chest hurt and she didn't understand why, which only added more fuel to the headache pounding in her temples. Her brain threatened to explode, but she reluctantly followed Mother back to the bed.

Mother sat and patted the spot beside her, but Selah didn't want to sit. Her mother busied herself rooting through the folded papers. “Your real father and I fell in love the day I saw him on the shore in Georgia. We were married for almost four years before I became pregnant with you, and we thought our marriage would be complete with a baby. Then they started the hunting.”

“You mean no one hunted Landers back then?”

“No, there were whole communities of Landers and normals living together in peace. They didn't make the bounty announcements until I was about six months pregnant. We fled from Georgia because people went crazy at the thought of easy money just for capturing people who were different. Your father, Glade, felt we would be safer if he left us.”

“But didn't you fight to stay with him?”

“Glade was a very stubborn man, and he frightened me with stories of what they might do to you since you would be a hybrid. He took me to our Borough Council and they
pronounced the marriage ended. I let him leave, but then I had a change of heart and tried to follow.”

“You never found him?” The pounding in her temples began to subside.

“No, after three months of traveling I made it here before I went into labor. Your stepfather was traveling through the area and found me along the road. His wife had died giving birth to Cleon during their travels to escape the plague. He was so out of his element with Raza as a three-year-old and Cleon as a baby. But he helped me through your delivery and offered to let me stay with them if I'd help with the children.”

“And you never went back to looking for my father?”

“I couldn't take a new baby on the road. It was a very hard life. The only reason I escaped attack from marauders for the three months I was on the road was because I was hugely pregnant and none of them wanted to tackle that problem.”

“So you just gave up?”

“Yes. Your stepfather was so caring and gentle during that time that I eventually learned to love him. He felt we needed to marry right away so I wasn't looked upon as an unmarried woman with child. And since we were both new to the area, no one would be the wiser. We spent all the credits we possessed between us to pay the Borough official to marry us and keep it quiet that we arrived with children and unmarried.”

“You never found out what happened to Glade?” Saying his name out loud pushed a warmness into her chest. Selah felt a strange calm wash over her.

“No, I couldn't risk it with a child, and as I said, I eventually came to love your stepfather. I felt my time with Glade was lost. He did leave me several letters he'd written over
time and never gave to me. I want you to have them. Maybe you'll interpret some clue I may have missed and it will help you find him.” She quickly placed the letters back in the box, pulled a small leather bag from the drawer in her side table, and shoved the box into it, then pressed the bag into Selah's hands.

Selah clutched the brown drawstring bag to her chest. This was happening too fast to process. She felt like she was standing outside the house looking in a window. Maybe this was really a nightmare. She pinched her arm and pain shot up to her elbow.

Thunder rolled through her chest again. Her hand slid up the center of her ribcage as her heart pounded with a vengeance. No, not a nightmare. Real. But this time the thunder brought peace. She didn't understand why.

“Why do I have to go? I could hide the mark.” She rubbed at her chest. It didn't distress her as much now.

“It took several years before your stepfather admitted he'd been a Lander. He has some kind of strange sense about the mark. He knows when there's one nearby and he'd figure it out. I'm afraid of what he'd do, and I'm torn because I do love him.”

“You would choose him over me?” Her mouth went dry.

“No, never, but we've got Dane to think about. He's so young and he loves his father. Do you want him to lose a father the way you did?”

“No,” Selah said. “But this isn't fair. Why do I have to suffer?”

“I'm sorry, but we have no choice. I can't take Dane from his father. None of this is his fault.”

“So it's my fault?” Selah stared. It seemed like she was always giving in so the boys could be treated better. Hadn't this been the reason she'd felt adopted in the first place? Don't mess with the precious boys' psyche, but rip hers to pieces and then throw her away.

Mother squeezed her eyes tight. “If only you had listened and not gone—”

“Okay, I get it!” Selah pounded her fist into her other hand.
If only
covered it all.

“If I want to keep you alive, you have to leave.” Mother put her hands over her eyes.

Selah's eyes darted about, landing no place in particular. “Where would I go?”

“Glade talked about traveling north. He said there were other Landers in that direction, but that's all I know,” Mother said. In the morning light her face took on a worn and haggard look that Selah had never noticed before.

“We know all captured Landers wind up at the Mountain,” Selah said, thinking out loud while she still had Mother's advice to guide her.