Emergence (Eden's Root Trilogy) (26 page)

Silas s
idled in front of her, his weapon pointed at the ground. It didn’t escape her notice that he still had his finger on the trigger. He was either cautious or paranoid, but either way it was clear he didn’t trust them one tiny bit.

He
appraised her with a sneer. “To prove yourselves? You have to be baptized.”

Baptized?
Fi suppressed the urge to share a glance with Sara.
Like dipped in the river?
“That doesn’t seem like a problem, Father. We’ve both already been baptized, but it can be just like being born again…”

“Yes,”
Carter murmured. “What do you think, Nona?”

“Well we can’t put them with…” her voice trailed off.

“No, obviously we can’t have that.” Carter said.

Sara squeezed Fi’s hand
again. They both knew what that meant. They didn’t want to put them into the prison camp with the colonists. Fi was dying to see Kiara, but her mission was to gather intelligence. She couldn’t do that behind the prison walls. The girls waited while their fates were considered.

“We can’t let unbaptized walk among us,” Silas argued.
“The others won’t like it. Especially since many did their time…”

Fi sucked in her breath
.
The prison camp was standard operating procedure?
Good gravy.
The Truthers were more cunning than she’d thought.
Silas’ eyes slid her way and she coughed into her fist. Her skin crawled and goosebumps flared up her spine.
No wonder they call him the Ghost
, she thought.
It’s not his eyes, it’s the way he gives you the creeps.
She peeked up again and found his gaze still boring into her.
Or the way he beats the hell out of you
. Her legs weakened.

Crap.
Internal dialogue really wasn’t working out for her right now.
You know, Papa, if you could just show up and crack this guy over the head, that would be awesome
. The thought popped into her head out of nowhere, and she nearly laughed at the image of her skinny father in his tweed blazer, knocking Silas senseless with a physics textbook. Warmed, she forced herself to focus on the others.

“I’ll take them in with my family for now and then we can set a date,” Nona said.

“But...” Silas began.

“Hush, Silas.
” Carter interrupted. “Let me think about it.”

Silas clamped his mouth shut, but the vei
n in his neck pulsed.

“We have
baptism for the Rooney twins coming up in a few days,” Nona offered. “I’m sure they wouldn’t mind sharing their day with these girls. And I think the colonists can be convinced to let the girls stay in the settlement for just a few days…given the circumstances.”

Fi’s heart leapt.
They were going to get to stay in the settlement! It was perfect! But just as quickly her throat closed. She would be so close to Kiara, finally.
But not close enough
. Not close enough to hold her. Not close enough to keep her warm. Not close enough to protect her.

She clutched Luke and pressed her cheek to his head.
There’s no other way.
She pasted what she hoped was a tentative smile on her face. “Yes, Father, we’d be happy to do whatever is needed. So…what do we have to do for the baptism?”

“What do you have to do?”
Silas repeated, his mouth twisting.

Her heart sank.
This man, this head of the Lobo-Angels, was not to be underestimated. It felt like he could see the lies in her mind. Her eyes skittered away and her heart stuttered, an arrhythmic drumbeat in her ears.

He held up his hand, the
white scar of the capital “T” gleaming in the meat of his enormous palm. “What you have to do to be one of us is bleed.”

------------ Fi -------------

On the way to Nona’s family cabin, their new benefactor explained more about the baptism process to Fi and Sara. Her kindly prattle about confessing sins and committing to the Truth fell away into the background as Fi’s mind stayed preoccupied with her “sister” Sara’s sacrifice. When Carter agreed with Silas that a part of the baptism was the sacrifice of pain and blood, Sara had jumped in, insisting that they could not do that to Fi.

Though Fi knew it was part of Sara’s commitment to protecting her and Luke, and though her excuse that Fi couldn’t risk an infection while breastfeeding was valid, it was still killing her that Sara had offered herself
up instead. She wished she could get some private time to talk with her. But first they had to make nice with Nona and her family.

As it turned out, that wasn’t as hard as she’d thought it would be.
The more she got to know her, the more she found herself liking this warm woman. She was so disarming that Fi had to keep reminding herself that she was the right-hand woman of the enemy.

“W
elcome to my home,” Nona said, stopping before a small cabin with screened windows, now shuttered with wooden planks. Inside there was only one L-shaped room, divided in two by a hanging sheet. There was a tiny metal folding table with chairs in one corner, and a wooden bookcase against the far wall. A worn Bible sat atop the table beside flickering candles. The floor was wood plank as well, with mud or something like it smashed into the crevices. The interior walls were similarly planked and plastered. Despite these efforts at insulation, Fi’s breath still came in steamy puffs.

A man emerged from behind the curtain.
“What do we have here?”

He was nearly too tall for the cabin, and rail thin.
Like Nona, he wore the tunic and loose pants of the Truthers. His smile glowed in the candlelight. “Are these the new additions?”

“You’ve already heard, Tyson?”
Nona said, chuckling at Fi’s expression of surprise. “Not much stays secret around here for long.”

Good
, Fi thought.
That’s exactly why we’re here.

Nona introduced them to Tyson and indicated that her
grown son, Lonny, would be back from maintenance work in the settlement soon. She led them to a separate room the size of a small closet. There was a rumple of blankets and pillows on the floor. “This was once a counselor’s cabin and they’d had this little extra area for storage. I know it’s not much, but Lonny won’t mind bunking with us until we can get you more permanent lodging, I’m sure.”

Looking around, Fi wasn’t so sure that Lonny would be thrilled to lose his only bit of privacy in the world, but she wasn’t going to argue.
Hopefully Lonny was a believer too, and would agree with his mother. “It’s wonderful, Nona. We’re so grateful, I can’t tell you.”

“Yes, thank you,”
Sara added, faking a yawn. They’d been stuck with Carter’s deliberations and plans for several hours and the sun had set. Nona bought the suggestion that they were tired.

“You two should get some rest.
Father says that he’ll give you the tour of the settlement himself tomorrow.”

She said this as if it
were a great honor, and Fi suppressed the urge to gag. She had to remind herself that this was
good
news. A tour of the settlement was exactly what they wanted. Heck, she’d assumed they’d be under watch and would have to sneak around a lot, but it didn’t seem to be shaping up that way. They retired to their little closet and closed the door with relief, alone at last.

“Whew!” Sara flopped onto Lonny’s rat’s nest of blankets on the floor.

Fi settled carefully beside her, working Luke’s sling into a comf
ortable position. He fussed as she got ready to feed him. Her heart finally began to slow now that they could rest and think.
Hopefully adrenaline doesn’t affect breast milk
, she thought,
because otherwise, Luke was in for a wild ride these next couple weeks.

“
‘Whew’ is right, Sara,” she whispered. “But what are we going to do about the baptism?”

“What do you mean
?” Sara’s whisper was nonchalant. She bunched a pillow beneath her head and closed her eyes as if she hadn’t a care in the world.

Fi shook her head.
If someone were planning on cutting into her hand, she’d be pretty flipped out. “I mean,” she hissed, “we can’t let these freaks cut your hand!”

“
We don’t have a choice.” Sara’s eyes remained closed. “Besides, it’s all just fuel for the fire.”

Fi grunted.
So that was it. Sara was willing to let them cut her because it gave her more motivation to…well, to cut them when the time came. But what about her hand being injured? That was hardly ideal for the whole protection detail. Fi took a deep breath and counted to ten. She had to let it go.

They’d just have to rely on
Carter’s assurances that the cutting was done by a Truther doctor. And they’d just have to hope Sara healed fast and well. And they’d just have to roll with things. That was what being undercover meant. It meant not being in control.
God, she hated not being in control!
But if Sara could let it go, then surely she could too.

Luke drifted off to sleep
eventually and Fi settled beside Sara. They lay fully clothed beneath the blanket, but it was cold in the small room. She nestled against her taller friend like she did with Asher. In Fi’s arms, Luke was like the pea in the human spoon.

“Ow!”
Something poked Fi right in her behind.

Sara chuckled.
“Sorry, Fi.”

“What was that, Sar?”

“The hilt of my right dagger.”

“Oh.”
Fi was silent for a second and then she started giggling.

Sara snorted behind her
. “It’s not like your .22 holster feels great rubbing against my leg.”

The two giggled and snorted and wriggled until they were arranged such that their respective weapons no longer caused too much discomfort.

“Yeah, we’re just lost little lambs, aren’t we, Fi?”

“Of course we are, sis. Of course we are…”

Fi settled and sighed, trying to release the tension in her shoulders.
She focused on Luke’s soft breathing. He still made snorting noises at times, but he seemed to be doing ok. Not that she had any real way of knowing. Jonas had taken a look at him for her and declared him healthy, but she still nursed a lingering sense that her neglect may have cost him somehow.

“Fi?
You still awake?”

“
Yeah. What’s up?”

“I know I never say it, but I’m really glad you’re my friend.
It’s not like a lot of people, you know…get me. I kinda told Ash that, but I never told you.”

“Aw
, Sar, that’s really nice.” Fi reached back and patted her friend. A sad laugh bubbled up in her throat and then stuck. “You know, I never even noticed that I didn’t have any friends until Sean switched schools. And then, bam! It was like, ‘Oh, I’m alone.’ I talked to people, but I always felt separate, somehow, like I was living behind glass. Or they were.” Sara squeezed her thigh. “And then the Famine hit and I turned into
this
. And for the first time, I felt whole. And then I felt…”

“G
uilty.” Sara’s voice was quiet.

“Yeah.”

Sara pressed her forehead against Fi’s back. “Who would we be now if it hadn’t happened?”

That was the question
, Fi thought. And so many more. Would she have met Asher? Would Luke have been born? “Would we have been friends?” The words left her lips though Fi hadn’t meant to say them out loud.

“Yeah.”
Sara sighed. “That’s what I meant before. I didn’t really make friends either, even before the Famine. I know we were young, but I always kind of felt alone too. I mean, I’m lucky enough to have my sister, Lily, but like you said, she’s family. And I had Layla…”

Fi
squeezed her eyes tight at the sorrow in Sara’s voice. Layla had been family too. And her rape had cost Sara dearly. It was a dividing line in her life. There was BL (Before Layla) and AL (After Layla). She covered it well. To people who didn’t know her she was the fierce shadow in the corner, watching, listening.
AL
. But to those who did know her, those lucky enough to be present when Sara felt happy and safe, she was the loudest, burpiest, filthiest-mouthed, most outrageously spontaneous nut ever. BL.

W
henever her friend disappeared into AL, sitting at the edge of the firelight and staring hungrily into the darkness, the photo would swim before Fi’s eyes. The one she’d found taped beneath Sara’s desk the day she’d accidentally dropped her coat. She could see it in Sara’s eyes, read it in the purse of her lips — the negative to that image. The two nine-year-old girls in bright bathing suits, their mouths open wide, their faces purple as Sara’s father drenched them with the hose. Two planets, orbiting each other: one dark, and one light. Sara. And Layla.

“You know,” Sara murmured, breaking
into Fi’s thoughts. “Maybe it’s not fair to say we’re friends.”