[scifan] plantation 02.5 - daphne Read online

Finn dropped the stick he had been chewing on for a while. He looked at Daphne unable to

  speak. Ah, great, now the puppy eyes were directed at her and she had a fair amount of explaining to do.

  “I’m sorry I dropped this on you like that,” she said. “It wasn’t very tactful but we don’t have

  much time and you have to hear me out.”

  “You’ re messing with me, aren’t you?” Finn said.

  “No, not really. I wish I were, Finn, honestly.”

  “Okay, suppose it’s all true. Why are you telling me?”

  Daphne sighed. “I told you, I need your help. I need you to replace Damian as the leader of the

  Saviors for a little while. Just so I can be there to comfort him.”

  “Do you realize how this sounds?” Finn said with scrutinizing eyes.

  “I will be honest with you, Finn. I love Damian.”

  “Wow, too much information,” Finn teased her.

  “If I am to die, I want to have some time with him. He won’t come to me while he’s up. He has

  to fall down for that. You and me can make it happen.”

  “It sounds crazy, Daphne.”

  “So what? Haven’t you ever done anything crazy? What about that precious Freya of yours? We

  broke into a plantation to free her.”

  Finn considered her words for a while. “You have to leave Freya out of this,” he said. “And you

  have to tell me everything from the beginning.”

  *

  SHE DIDN’T TELL HIM everything. She couldn’t bring herself to do it and it didn’t really matter. She told him what he needed to know. Enough anyway to make him agree to help her even if he insisted

  that he was going to help her in his own way.

  She didn’t want to use her powers of persuasion on him and she would avoid it for as long as

  possible. But she had Finn’s attention and he had agreed to help. He had even put his arms around her to reassure her it would all be okay. She could see why Freya was so attached to him.

  Finn had a soothing quality about him, a way to calm you down when you were freaking out and

  he could give a positive spin to just about everything.

  When they made it back and rejoined the group, she saw how nervous he was when he handed

  her his flask of water and how his eyes had been on her since they got back. One day it would be her turn to watch over him, maybe from a different dimension.

  She was shaken violently out of her thoughts when Damian yelled for everyone to get down to

  the ground. She searched for his eyes to ask him what was going on but he was focused on Rabbit

  now who had just returned from a scouting trip.

  “Big trouble,” Rabbit said. “The camp has been raided.”

  Damian ordered everyone to get off the path and hide in the trees while he and Rabbit went back

  to the camp to evaluate the situation.

  Daphne sprang to her feet. “I’ll go with you,” she said.

  “Yeah, me too,” Finn offered.

  “No, you stay put and take care of the group,” Damian said without even looking at her.

  Daphne sat waiting and wondering if today would be the day she’d die. But she didn’t worry

  about that. She worried about Damian and Rabbit going back to what could be a trap. Because there was nothing in her visions about this new enemy.

  Finn sensed her frustration and went to her. He put his arm around her, startling her at first, but gradually producing a feeling of safety and gratitude in her. It wasn’t often that she allowed anyone to comfort her.

  Evening fell heavily on the world and Damian and Rabbit had not returned yet. Shadows grew

  into monsters and threatened to take her back to the vision realm.

  She shook her head violently. “Nothing wants me anymore,” she whispered, barely aware of

  what that meant. She dug her nails into the palm of her hand to keep the premonition away. She

  couldn’t afford to go down that path right now. Strength and presence of mind were needed more than ever.

  Theo received a message from Damian as she was about to lose the battle and turn her eyes to

  the sky to receive the new images. “I am saved for now,” she thought and held on to Finn’s reassuring hand.

  5

  In the dark of the cave, Daphne could barely make out the silhouettes of the two girls who were

  arguing near the entrance. She expected this to be a difficult time for everyone, with tension reaching its highest levels since the time they had found each other in the woods and had formed the Saviors, the group that was humanity’s last hope in the wretched new world of human slaves and alien

  masters, but this was too much.

  Going back to the camp was out of the question. Damian and Rabbit had not been able to spot

  the intruders but they were certain there were many of them. The camp had been turned into a total mess. It was inevitable that anxiety would get some blood boiling but Daphne didn’t expect it to

  happen during a guard shift. She definitely didn’t expect that Zoe would be involved in an argument.

  Zoe was the most logical and sensible person in the group, the one that held everything together

  under any circumstances. Zoe had a tendency to be quiet, she liked to observe, she was intelligent, patient and cautious. For her to be having it out with Nya was so out of character that it made Daphne realize the situation was more dire than she believed.

  Daphne got up to go and talk to the two girls when she noticed Damian rushing to them. She

  stayed put and watched how Damian defused the quarrel and calmed Zoe and Nya down, how

  protective and authoritative he became when circumstances called for it.

  Daphne sprang up next to Zoe. “It’s been a tough day,” she said. “I’ll take over, you and Nya can go get some rest.”

  “You don’t have to, Daphne,” Zoe started to say when Finn cut her off.

  “Just go, Zoe. I’ll keep watch with Daphne” he said with a smile.

  Daphne nodded at Finn grateful for his support. She didn’t know why he had chosen to be on her

  side after all. Maybe it was as simple as he could not say no to anyone who was in trouble.

  “You smile so much I’ll start thinking you enjoy a crisis,” she teased him when they were left

  alone.

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “Crap, you’re smiling again.”

  “I can’t help it, it’s a reflex. It’s caused me a great deal of inconvenience,” Finn said with a

  pained expression that put a smile on Daphne’s face.

  “It’s contagious,” she said but immediately stopped paying attention to Finn when Damian

  walked past them and out of the cave followed by Freya soon afterwards.

  “Hello?” Finn said. “Anybody there?”

  She turned to him but her mind was still stuck on a single image that had just formed in front of her eyes. She finally shook it off with a determination that bordered on despair.

  “Can I leave you alone for a couple minutes?” she said in a pleading voice. “I need to stretch my legs.”

  “You are going after Damian, aren’t you?” Finn said and in the dim light of daybreak she could

  clearly see the disappointment on his face.

  “No, I’m not,” she said before setting off into the dark woods.

  The early morning sky was just waking up and the brilliant moon of the previous night was still

  visible. Daphne started counting her steps to keep her mind occupied. Every cell in her body was

  alert to the mysteries of the woods and those of her own heart. Frailty was not a quality she cared for.

  She made out the two figures as they came to a small clearing in the woods. One of them was

  tall and massive against the silent arrangement of the old trees around him; the other
was frail and seemed resigned to a fate she couldn’t quite understand yet. Nobody could, not even Daphne who was so gifted at picking up these things.

  Damian’s hand reached up to touch leaves and branches as he started walking with Freya again.

  “He feels vulnerable and he doesn’t understand why,” Daphne thought. “Maybe it’s best he

  never does.”

  She wished now she could make out his face as well as Freya’s. But maybe she had it all wrong.

  Maybe there was no attraction between them. No bonding of any type. What evidence to the contrary did she have? A weird vision that appeared out of nowhere a few times and was mixed with images

  of doom and destruction?

  Besides, Damian didn’t know how to lie and he would never feel the need to hide or mask

  anything. He was too proud and arrogant for that. If he wanted Freya, he’d go after her.

  She took heart from those thoughts and allowed herself to move closer. She stayed behind a tree

  glimpsing through openings in the branches. She wasn’t close enough to hear what they were saying but she was close enough to interpret their body language.

  They were awkward and uncomfortable with each other, suspicious even, but there was no

  evidence of an underlying animosity now that they were by themselves.

  Then Damian must have said something that gave Freya some pause. She stared at him for a long

  time before grabbing him by the arm and forcing him to look at her.

  Daphne turned her face away for a moment catching her breath. She felt as if she had been

  running for hours. When she looked back, Damian and Freya had locked eyes. Then she noticed

  something she had never seen before in her life. Their auras were merging. She could actually clearly see Damian’s aura for the first time flickering in the dim light for a split second before it blended with Freya’s aura with its vibrating hues and transparency.

  Daphne’s eyes hazed over as she tried to decipher the scene. A black mist descended and

  enveloped the trees and the moon and the few last dying stars above. Daphne felt the cold attacking first her feet and legs, then her mid section before it settled inside her chest. She shivered and felt as if she were on fire all at once. Her eyebrows were melting and so was her heart. Because in that

  moment when she escaped into a world of shadows she knew that Damian would be destroyed and

  destroy the world at the same time if he stayed in Freya’s perimeter.

  The vision dissolved into a memory from a time she couldn’t quite remember. She was a child

  then and surrounded by strange creatures in white robes and masks. They asked questions and she

  answered them fast not quite knowing where the answers came from or why she could find them at the tip of her tongue.

  A boy on the bed next to hers was hooked up on machines that breathed air in his lungs and

  pushed recycled blood into his veins. There was a mark on his forearm. It looked like a coiled snake with black and red scales. She had seen that mark again although it was dark like tanned skin then.

  Just a deep scar across his arm. Damian’s arm. How was that possible? Why did it feel so real when it was obviously not? The two of them came from different plantations. Was it an implanted memory?

  To what purpose? Or were there more boys with the same small tattoo on their forearm out there?

  Back in the room of her childhood the white-coated creatures all stared at her now with their

  eyes burning holes through her soul. “He will end humanity,” they hissed. “He and the alien bride.

  They belong together.”

  Daphne fell to the ground with tears in her eyes. She yearned to be free of those visions, free of her abilities and her delusions as Damian had so aptly put it. She wished she could live a life free of confusion and doubt.

  “Daphne, what are you doing out here?” Zoe’s voice startled her. She turned away her face so

  her friend would not see her tears in the light of dawn.

  “It’s my foot again,” she said. “It hasn’t healed yet. What’s up?”

  “We’re going back,” Zoe said. “Rabbit thinks it’s safe.”

  Daphne nodded absentmindedly. “Some good news finally,” she said.

  “We’ll see,” Zoe said. “Just let me help you back. Damian has been asking for you.”

  So Damian and Freya had gone back already. How long had she been lying there afraid to

  move? How long before she’d not be able to hide her impeding nervous breakdown anymore?

  She took Zoe’s hand and pulled her to walk back with her as fast as possible.

  “Mind your foot,” Zoe warned her.

  “It’s never been better,” Daphne said having already made the decision to confide in Zoe. To

  tell her about her feelings for Damian, her vision of dying, her fear of Freya. Because it was fear that she felt, not jealousy.

  She had tried to hate Freya but found that she couldn’t. If anything, she felt sorry for her and in awe of her abilities and her destiny even though she wasn’t quite sure what those were.

  She’d have liked to give Freya a warning about what was to come but it would be in vain. Freya

  would never believe a word she had to say. And who could blame her?

  6

  Daphne watched Damian in the meeting, examining his every move and expression, the way he

  furrowed his brow when he got interested in a subject or how he took notes of various seemingly

  inconsequential things.

  She missed Damian with a destructive fierceness as if he was already dead not just to her but to

  the world. And there was no fear greater than that of losing the person you loved most.

  All she wanted was more time with him, a chance to remind him they could be good together,

  even if it meant upsetting his world for a little while. He would be the better for it once she was gone.

  She braced herself for what was to come. She was going to annoy him today, hurt him even, as long as Finn stayed true to the plan and didn’t chicken out.

  The opportunity had presented itself already. There was tension and uncertainty in the Armory.

  Daphne was sitting next to Finn and opposite Damian. She had just told Damian that Scout was one

  more deserter of the main camp and getting ready to move in with Finn, Freya and Rabbit.

  Damian turned his attention to Scout. “Is that true?” he said.

  “Um, I guess,” Scout said.

  “You guess or you know?”

  “I guess… I know?”

  Tilly laughed but before Damian could call her back to order, Daphne cut in.

  “Where people stay should be their own business,” she said looking into Damian’s eyes.

  Damian wavered for a moment trying to take in the unusual situation. “You have no say in this,”

  he told her.

  “I don’t have a say, but Scout definitely does,” Daphne said.

  “We have more urgent matters to deal with,” Damian said barely able to control his temper.

  “Daphne’s right,” Finn said. “You can’t bully us regarding our personal freedoms just because

  we’ve elected you to lead us into battle. We didn’t escape the plantations so that we could submit to you about every little decision we make.”

  “Would you like to be the leader, Finn? Is that it?” Damian said looking at Finn with flaming

  indignation.

  “I’m not challenging you, Damian. I just want to remind you that we are free people now. You

  shouldn’t snap at anyone.”

  Damian turned to Daphne. “Do I snap at people without a reason? Is this what I do?”

  Daphne felt the pink taking over her cheeks. She feared she was going to surrender under the

  pressure he was putting on her. “You just snapped at me,” she whispered gat
hering her last scraps of strength.

  “This has gone far enough,” Zoe came to her rescue. “We’ve all been through a lot. We’re

  blowing off stress. That’s all. We have to keep it together. There’s a lot of work to be done.”

  “You’re right, Zoe,” Damian said keeping his eyes on Finn.

  “I’m sorry,” Scout said. “I had no idea that I’d cause such a stir. I’ll stay where I am.”

  “Do whatever you want, Scout. None of this was your doing,” Damian said before marching out

  of the Armory.

  *

  IT WAS LATE when Daphne returned to the camp after practicing all by herself in the woods. It was a dangerous thing to do and it was against rules but nothing could stop her from being deliberately destructive now that her plan had been set in motion. There was no turning back.

  Damian waited for her outside her tent. He grabbed her by the arm as soon as she reached him.

  “What was that little show in the meeting all about?” he said. “Are you trying to punish me?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said pulling her arm off his grip.

  “Are you and Finn good buddies now?”

  “Jealous, Damian?”

  He ignored her remark. “At first I thought he must have put you up to this, taken advantage of

  your disappointment in me somehow,” he said. “But the more I think about it, the more obvious it

  becomes that it’s the other way around.”

  “Really? How so?” The front she was putting on was laughable and she knew it. He would not

  buy her act for one second but she was so uncertain of everything, she didn’t have the presence of mind to come up with something better.

  “You are the one doing the manipulation, Daphne. We both know how good you are at this.”

  “You should be thanking me. If Finn’s occupied with me, you might get your hands on poor little

  Freya again.”

  Damian stared at her for a while. He was the one who was uncertain now, trying to figure out

  what she meant by that.

  “What do you have on Finn?” he said at last drawing his words out slowly.

  “Nothing. Listen, Damian,” she said in a reconciliatory tone, “there’s no conspiracy. I just said what I thought in the moment. So did Finn, I guess.”

  “Okay,” he said. “If you want to keep lying, I can’t stop you.”