Chapter Sixteen

THAT MORNING HAD STARTED as the worst ever, thanks to the dream, but as Sean sat there laughing at the breakfast table with Vanessa and Adrianna, something had shifted in his soul. He could be good for a woman as long as he kept making strides to improve what he knew needed work. And Vanessa was strong. Much too strong to allow him to bowl her over. No less woman would be able to handle him.

Her long, blond hair was down and shone in the morning sunlight that drifted through the kitchen window. Her full lips parted often in a ready smile, and the warmth in the blue-green depths of her eyes had his body physically responding nearly every time she graced him with a glance. He’d been wrong to compare her to Laney. They only thing they had in common was their strength of character. He’d been a fool to miss it. She had a smart mouth that bordered on crass, and she terrified him with talk of going on more supply runs, but she’d help him grow where Aria hadn’t been able to. He hadn’t been ready then, but now? Vanessa made him want to be a better man for her.

She was a guard now, and as much as it scared him that she’d be in more danger than the average civilian, he’d seen her in action. She was deadly, ruthless, and capable. He’d have to learn to let go of his protective instincts so she could be happy with her career. With her life. With him.

“So, were you just passing through, or did you hear me screaming all the way from your cabin down the mountain?” he asked as he pinched another piece of flaky pastry off and took a bite.

“Oh, I forgot. I actually came here for a reason.” Her cheeks turned the most attractive shade of pink as she blushed. “You totally don’t have to go, and I would understand if you have plans already, it’s just—well.”

What had flustered her so much? She never hesitated in what she said. Granted it was usually insults she flung into the world, but the people on the receiving end of those usually deserved it, more or less. “What is it?”

“I wanted to invite you and Adrianna to the ceremony.” The words tumbled from her mouth like a boulder down a mountain.

Inhaling slowly so he wouldn’t yell his answer right away and scare her off, he smiled. “Ade, do you want to go to Vanessa’s graduation today, and then eat dinner with her?”

“Uh huh,” his daughter said with a big head nod and solemn, slow-blinking eyes.

“We accept.”

“You do?” Vanessa asked. “I mean, you do. Good.”

Static crackled over the radio, and he frowned at the thing flung carelessly onto the hand carved coffee table in the living room. “Hang on. Let me see what’s going on.”

“—ean?—an? Sean?” Mel asked. Her voice was laced with panic or fear, or maybe both. Never since he’d known her had she ever sounded scared.

Button jammed, he said, “Mel, I’m here. What’s wrong?”

“—aney.” Crackle, crackle crackle.

“Mel, I can’t hear you. Press the button hard and slow down.”

“Laney’s had the baby.”

“What? It’s way too early.”

“Sean, are you around your weapons?”

“I’m still at home, so yeah.”

“Bring them. Bring them all to Dr. Mackey’s, and get there now.”

Vanessa had gathered Adrianna into her arms and said, “I’ll take care of her.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes! Just go!”

He bolted for his closet and threw it open. Behind a hidden panel was a small armory. Two handguns in holsters and an AK slung over his shoulder and he was running for the door. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he called as he flew down the porch stairs. What could have Mel so worried that she’d asked him to come weaponized inside the colony gates? The baby wouldn’t have survived at seven months gestation. It wasn’t like the old days where there were equipped Neonatal Intensive Care Units just waiting for a baby to save. Times were different now. Only the strongest under the best circumstances survived.

He pushed himself harder, faster down the trail until his feet barely touched the ground. The angry wind whipped his face as he raced it, as if it were telling him to go back home, back to Vanessa’s easy smile, where it was warm.

Dr. Mackey’s office came into view much sooner than it should have. Hordes of people were gathered around the small log building, and their angry voices carried up the mountain. Shoving his way through the throngs, weaving in and out of the maze of angry bodies, he bullied his way until he reached the porch. “Hey. Hey!” he yelled before putting two fingers in his mouth and blowing an ear piercing whistle. “What’s going on?”

“The baby is a monstrosity!” cried a woman. “It cannot be allowed to live.”

“It’s all right!” a man yelled. “Sean’s here. He’ll take care of it in a minute flat, and nobody’ll have to worry about it anymore.”

What the hell was going on? “I want everyone settled down while we figure out what is happening, okay? I promise we’ll fix whatever is amiss. Please, just stay out here while I check on what’s going on in there.”

When he opened the cabin door, he came face to face with the barrel of a gun. Mitchell’s gun. “Sean, I know you, and you’re good people. You have this sense of honor, and a need to protect your people, but you don’t have to protect them from us.”

Sean shoved the gun away from his face and dodged around Mitchell’s stiff figure to the room where Laney lay exhausted and pale. “You okay?”

She gasped a sob. “Sean, they’re going to kill us.”

“No one is going to kill you. I won’t let them.” He sunk onto the edge of the bed and squeezed her hand. Her cheeks were pale and splotched from crying, and her lips trembled as her eyes filled. “Did the baby live?”

“Mmhmm, but something’s different about her. Dr. Mackey wants to run tests on her to see the extent of the problem, but Davey Cummings came in here to get his hand stitched up and saw the baby when Doc was bathing her, and he told everyone in the whole colony.”

None of what she was saying made any sense at all. Carefully, he pulled the blanket aside from the bundle she held. He kept his face completely still and emotionless as he looked at the little creature.

Laney hadn’t had a baby. She’d had a Dead.

The child’s skin was so pale it was translucent, and a network of veins could be seen under her skin. Her nose and lips favored Laney, but her eyes favored no human. They were so light blue they were almost white. Her pupils dilated strangely when she looked at him, like she was much more developed cognitively than a normal infant. And her hair? She had a full head of platinum blond, silken tresses atop her tiny head, colorless to match her eyes. The child was striking and beautiful in an otherworldly kind of way, but she was part Dead, and no one could deny that.

“Doc, how’d this happen?” he asked the solemn man in the corner of the room.

Dr. Mackey adjusted his baseball cap and pushed his glasses further up his nose. “The best guess I have is that Laney’s immunity passed to the child. But she still has the virus in her blood. It’s been there all along, and when the baby was developing, a war was going on in there between the immunity and the virus. Both won, I think. She’s a hybrid. Likely the first and only of her kind.”

“Can she spread the disease?” Sean asked, pulling the blanket back to her chin again.

“Don’t know. We’d have to do extensive tests to answer any of these questions, and those tests take time. The crowd outside won’t give us that time. They see the child as a Dead inside the colony gates.”

“Laney, has she eaten yet?”

She nodded, on the verge of tears.

“Tell me, what does she eat?”

“Milk. She nurses. Hasn’t spit up even once, not even when we burped her. The milk satisfies her. Sean,” she pleaded, grasping his sleeve. “I love her. She’s our child, and they’ll have to get through me to get her.”

“Me too,” Mitchell said with such an eerie calm, his words couldn’t be anything but truth. “She’s not some monster. She’s our daughter, just a baby with a birthday and a name.”

“What’s her name?” Sean asked.

“Soren. Soren Mitchell,” Laney said with a proud smile.

“It’s beautiful. Perfectly suited to her.”

“Sean,” Laney said. “Think if Adrianna had been born this way. What mountains you would’ve moved to save her. Soren deserves to live. She’s human, too.”

He knew exactly what he would’ve done if anyone had come after his baby for any reason. He’d have burned them all and spat on their smoldering ashes. The child had to be given a chance at life—a chance at proving the human side of her was in control.

“I need to talk to the masses before they light this place up with us all in it. Mitchell, it’s probably best if you’re there too.” He squeezed Laney’s trembling hand once more. “We won’t let them past the door. You and Soren are safe.”

Waiting around wasn’t going to work for Vanessa. It wasn’t her style and probably never would be. With a firm tug of Adrianna’s jacket zipper, she steered the girl toward the door and shut it behind them.

“I brought an apple to share,” Adrianna announced, holding out the red, and slightly bruised, delicious offering in her mittened hands.

Oh, it had been so long since she’d bitten into the sweet skin of an apple. “Where did you get it?”

“Daddy helps people in the colony, and they give him treats to pay him. Mr. Forester gave him three shiny apples for helping him rebuild his cabin when a tree branch fell on it. I’ve been saving this last one.”

“Tell you what, how about you eat as much as your little belly wants, and I’ll eat what you can’t finish? And I’ll carry you down the trail so you can eat it on the way, and I don’t have to worry about you choking. Sound good?”

“Can you do it piggy-back style?”

“Sure. Hop on.” She bent down and loaded Adrianna up like a pack mule carrying a squirmy pile of boulders.

Adrianna was light for her age. She remembered when Nelson was this age, and he’d been a solid young boy, with the benefit of all the food he could want. Were all children destined to be petite from here on?

The child munched happily on her treat as Vanessa hauled her down the hill toward the medical cabin.

“Whoa,” she murmured as the growing number of seemingly angry residents were piling around the porch and vying for the best view.

“What’s going on?” she asked the first person who wasn’t busy grumbling or yelling their complaints. Martha Baynard chewed on her lip with a worried set to her delicate eyebrows.

“They’re going to kill a baby. And everyone’s so riled up no one will listen to reason.”

“What?” Her stomach dropped to the floor, and she set Adrianna down to pull her in close.

“Shh,” Martha said, pointing to the opening door of the medical office.

Sean stepped out, followed by Mitchell.

Both men looked somber, but it was Mitchell who held her attention. His dark hair had never been out of place, but there in the morning light, he looked downright disheveled. The grim set of his mouth was completely at odds with his chronically happy demeanor. Oh, this was bad.

“Listen up,” Sean barked. “The child is as you say, but more than that, she’s human too. Her name is Soren, and she takes milk from the breast, not blood or steak—milk, like any other babe. She hasn’t been sick on it even once.”

“She’s an abomination!” yelled a man, seconded by another.

“She’s a product of Laney’s immunity, that’s all. Developmentally, she looks just like any other infant.”

“That’s a lie!” yelled Davey Cummings. “I saw the little devil with my own eyes. She looks just like a Dead!”

“No she doesn’t!” barked Mitchell. “Her coloring is pale, and her eyes are lightened, but her skin is warm and alive. She’s human!”

“Dead!” screamed a red-faced Davey. “You know the rules well as everyone else. No Deads in colony gates, no exceptions. That monster has to be put down before she bites someone and compromises the whole damned place. She’ll be the death of every last one of us!”

A chant of agreement was flung into the surrounding forest by the members of the mob, and the lot of them surged forward.

“If you don’t have the guts to protect us, we’ll do it ourselves,” yelled a man in the thick of it.

Sean and Mitchell fought viciously as the door was besieged. The look on Sean’s face was captivating and dangerous enough to send a chill down her spine. He was going to die for Laney and her baby. Blow after blow was swung, and though Sean and Mitchell didn’t fall, their faces were cut and running rivers of blood.

She understood why they hadn’t drawn their weapons. The mob wasn’t the enemy, after all. They were frightened and trying to protect themselves as best they knew. Firing shots into a crowd wouldn’t sit well with their ethics.

It sat just fine with hers though.

She took a bite of the apple core Adrianna had handed her and pointed her Glock at a cloud above them. And then she shot it.

The crowd hunched and searched for the danger in panic. Some of the fighters on the edges ran for the woods, and she yelled, “Oy!” around a bite of apple. Dragging Adrianna behind, she waved the handgun limply and chewed the fruit as she ascended onto the porch. “’Scuse me, crazy lady with a gun coming through,” she muttered to the masses separating like the Red Sea for her.

Sean shoved a man off him and stared at her like she’d just walked through a wall.

“Adrianna, you go on inside with Ms. Laney,” she said. “I’ll be in there shortly.” Sean’s way wasn’t working, and she needed to jar the mob into listening to reason. She turned. “Okay, people,” she addressed the crowd before turning a glare on a man still clutching onto the front of Sean’s shirt. She lowered the gun into the general vicinity of his eyeball and said, “Let him go, and get off my porch before you spend the last thirty seconds of your life fighting to be a baby-killer. I’m pretty sure they have a special room in hell for that caliber of sin, mister.” As he scampered from the deck she raised her voice. “Or have you all convinced yourself that you wouldn’t actually be killing a defenseless baby because of what she looks like? You heard Sean—she drinks milk. Milk! When was the last time you saw a Dead chugging a gallon of two-percent? Hmm? Now, I’ve listened to both sides of this, and here’s how this is going to go. Dr. Mackey wants to do tests on the baby. Let him! Give him time to see if she’s even dangerous. Put Laney and her baby in quarantine until then. Brandon—” she gestured to Dr. Mackey’s assistant, who leaned against a tree behind the mob “—can you set up a first-aid tent by the mess hall?”

He nodded. “I will.”

“Good. If anyone gets a splinter or has a bad case of blue balls or toe jam problems or whatever, go to him over there. Don’t come here for the next few days until we’ve had time to make an educated decision on the fate of the baby.”

“Soren,” Sean said.

“The fate of Soren,” Vanessa corrected. “Because if Dr. Mackey does an autopsy on a little baby you’ve killed out of irrational fear and finds out she wasn’t ever a threat to you, you’re all going to have to live with that for the rest of your lives. Now, from where I’m standing, I think you’ve forgotten the reason you have that little vaccine you are all so proud of. Laney Landry is the source of that. Maybe you don’t understand the sacrifices the woman made to get to Dr. Mackey and the toll all of the tests and samples took on her body, but I saw it with my own eyes. The woman is scarred for you. She almost died for you. So that you can live. So that your children can live. That child is the product of her immunity. You can’t put Laney up on a throne, while at the same time condemning her for a condition that is of direct benefit to you. Don’t you think you owe her three days at least to hold her baby before the final decision is made?”

The hum of the murmuring crowd filled the clearing.

“Two days,” a man countered.

The mob seemed to agree so Vanessa pounced. “Fine, two days of sanctuary for Laney and Soren. We’ll give the decision here, same time, day after tomorrow. Now get back to your jobs. Everything can’t just come to a screeching halt around here. We have winter to prepare for, or we’re all doomed anyway.

“Sean,” she murmured as the crowd slowly scattered. “You still control the guards. Call them in, and give the order to protect this place until the two days are up. No way that worked on everyone. You’ll have yahoos out here in the dark on a kill mission, and you can’t afford to keep this little protection on them.”

Sean shot her a grateful look and paced to the end of the deck to talk into his radio. Mitchell stood wide-eyed and staring. “Thanks for doing that,” he breathed.

The apple crunched against her teeth and she gave a full mouth smile. “No problem. I’ve been looking for an excuse to pop off a round inside colony gates.”

“Do you want to see Soren?”

Did she want to see the baby Mitchell had with another woman? Not particularly, but if they were ever going to be on friendly terms, she had to play nice. “Sure.”

Sean and Mitchell stayed rooted on the front porch as she opened the heavy wooden door. Laney stood shaking with a handgun in her limp hand, and a baby cradled in the other.

“I thought they were coming in,” she said in a trembling voice.

“Nope, just me. Where’s Adrianna?”

“I told her to stay in the back room in case they made it past Mitchell and Sean. They’d probably stop after they killed me and the baby.” Laney swayed dangerously.

“C’mon. You’re one tough chick, yes, but you just had a baby and shouldn’t be out of bed.”

“I don’t feel so well. Will you hold Soren?” Her speech was slurred, and Vanessa snatched the baby before Laney went down. “Doc!”

Dr. Mackey rushed from the back room and helped her to the bed. Vanessa peeked her head around the corner, and Adrianna was sitting on Steven’s bed. She didn’t miss the gun he held ready over the edge of the pillow. The mob scene outside could’ve gone very differently, and an ache swelled inside of her when she imagined all she could’ve lost. “Adrianna, let’s go visit Ms. Laney.”

She held her hand out and led the child to the other room before settling her in the chair in the corner. When she was comfortable in her own chair beside Laney’s bed, only then did she pull the baby blanket away from Soren’s face.

“Oh my gosh,” she breathed. Soren was definitely part Dead at least. No child on earth looked like her. Even through all of the abnormalities though, she was shaped like a baby and made little hungry sounds like a baby. “She’s beautiful,” Vanessa breathed, placing her finger in the infant’s tiny reaching palm.

Laney sniffled and it looked like the waterworks were on their way.

“Oh crap, Laney, I don’t do well with sobbing. What’s wrong?”

“I heard what you said out there, and it meant more to me than you’ll ever know that you stood up to all those people on my behalf. I know things didn’t start off good with us, but I really hope that someday I can repay you for what you’ve done for my family.”

“Well, don’t thank me yet, you crybaby. I only bought you two days.”

Laney laugh-sobbed. “Still. It’s two days more than I thought we had when she came out looking like she did.”

Two days. Dr. Mackey had two days to prove Soren wouldn’t jam the entire colony onto the extinction list.

Two days and the mob would come for her.