“When he heard the guard at the door, he reached for Ana who was pretending to be asleep in the next bed. Without even looking at her, he threw her like she was nothing against the far wall. I don’t know what he expected, if he intended on killing her or just hurting her, but there are metal posts that come out of the walls in our rooms, I don’t know what they were used for. Most were filed down and dull but not all.”
Tears came faster now as she remembered too well the sight of Ana as she fell backward, her face when the sharp point pushed through her middle, impaling her. “It went through her, through her belly. She looked at me at the end, her face was strange and she just looked at me, her expression one of pain, of disbelief. She raised her one hand to touch the wound, but barely.”
When she wavered, Silas pulled Rowan into his arms and held her as she wept. She didn’t fight him, instead she rested her forehead on his hard chest, feeling the full sadness of that night for the first time, crying over Ana for the first time.
“You don’t have to tell me the rest if it upsets you,” he said, holding her, rubbing her back, her head. “Shh.”
Rowan shook her head and pushed away so she could look up at him. “When the guard came in, Captain Amro pulled me back as if he were trying to keep me from Ana. He accused us of fighting, said that I’d pushed her. They never even asked me anything. Some of the other girls, they had seen what he had done but if they were afraid before, well, they were terrified then.”
“And you, are you terrified of him?”
Rowan thought for a second then shook her head. “No. I want to kill him.”
“Hellcat,” he said under his breath.
“What about you? Why are you doing this? If it’s for the medicines, the colonies have always traded for them. I don’t understand why you would do this.”
She studied his face, saw the struggle behind his eyes.
“Why?” she asked again.
“For my people,” he said, shuttering his eyes. “We will be given as much as we need forever.”
“But why breed me with you? And why not just take what they need from you, it doesn’t make sense.”
“It seems we savages have some use for them. We are stronger than the men of the colonies, we have acquired, or perhaps we’ve always had, a different makeup. It’s not a gene like what you have, it’s not so easily identifiable in fact. But what they’ve discovered is that breeding one of you with one like me will take the possibility of birthing a breeder to an almost assured success.”
She sat listening, letting his words absorb into her mind. Understanding.
“So there’s not much chance of me having a baby that is natural?” she asked. “That is not a breeder?”
“Only a ten percent chance.”
“The male children then?”
“There are rumors of the gene you carry being found inside a few male children.”
She was surprised by what he said but before she could question him, he continued.
“I imagine they are trying to birth both male and female who carry this gene. If it’s true, in some years’ time, the majority of the population of earth will be able to breed again. It’s a good thing, not for us perhaps, not for our children but for their children and those that come after.”
“But at what cost? How many lives? How many mothers will have their children taken from them in the meantime? They think we don’t feel. They think we don’t care, but we do. Our hearts are torn apart when one of our children is taken from us.”
* * *
Silas turned away, unable to look at the pain in her eyes. They implored him, the humanity, the suffering, the strength and courage he saw in them too much. He had to remember why he was doing this. She was right—she had a right to her question. The cost was her life, her children’s lives. But there was too much at stake and she was one person. One breeder.
“We should move,” he said abruptly, standing. “We have a long way to travel today.”
She looked surprised at the sudden change, but he had to remain strong. If he began to feel for her, to feel for her situation… no, he would simply not allow that. He took the small container of ointment from his pocket. She glanced at it, then back at him.
“Stand up,” he said. He could hand it to her, tell her to do it herself, but he wouldn’t do that. Instead, he would use this to put distance between them, to put her back on the side of fearing him.
Rowan rose slowly to her feet and faced him.
“Take off the fur, you won’t need it during the day.”
She slid it from her shoulders as if she already knew what he had in mind.