[scifan] plantation 02.5 - daphne Read online

  Daphne didn’t respond.

  “I could go on if you want me to,” Finn said after a while.

  “There is no safe way to live, Finn,” she said. “There never was. We are fragile every one of

  us.”

  Her words resounded in the empty space with unforgettable clarity. “Maybe we should get

  back,” Finn said letting the night air fill his lungs. “They’ll be looking for us.”

  “You mean Freya will be looking for you.”

  “I’m not sure. She’s mad at me. She thinks I’m hiding things from her.”

  “Well, you are.”

  They laughed and then they found nothing to say for a while.

  “You shouldn’t worry about Freya,” Daphne said. “She’s stronger and smarter than you think.

  She will always land on her feet.”

  “Did I hear you right? Did you actually put something nice about Freya in there?”

  “You have showed me how to be a better person,” she said. “Maybe if I survive this, I can make

  things right with Damian and with Freya.”

  “You should make things right for yourself first.”

  “Do you always say the right thing, Finn?”

  “Always,” he agreed.

  Daphne threw her blanket aside. “You were right before, too,” she said. “We should get back.”

  *

  DAPHNE PUT ON HER VEST padded with blades of all types that she had picked one by one. There was

  a long thin knife in her right boot and a shorter folding knife in the inside of her jacket’s sleeve. She’d probably not get a chance to use most of them, if any at all, but keeping her precious weapons close to her made her feel safer.

  The evening outside the tent had grown quiet while she was getting ready. Nothing was stirring

  in the silence of the camp creating an audio vacuum that would have thrown her off completely if she wasn’t so lost in the preparations for the long journey to the canyon where the alien ship would land.

  She pulled her hair back in a ponytail and put her jacket on. She took one last look in the small mirror she kept on her desk. She had plucked her long eyebrows and put mascara on her eyelashes so her eyes looked brighter and cleaner. Zoe knew what she was talking about. She had been freezing

  cosmetic products for years to preserve them for as long as possible. “If I die, I’ll die beautiful,” she whispered to her image in the mirror.

  Daphne got her pulse gun in the holster around her waist and checked the time on her touchpad.

  She had at least half an hour before departure.

  She stepped out of the tent to take in the familiar landscape of the facilities one last time. She found Damian crouching down outside his tent. He immediately stood up when he saw her.

  “This is it then,” he said. “We’re really doing this.”

  Daphne nodded. “It had to happen sometime,” she said.

  Damian pointed at the Observatory tower. “Theo left a new scanner device up there,” he said.

  “According to him, it will alert us of danger even when we’re miles away.”

  “All the way to the canyon?”

  “No.”

  “Yeah, that would be too much.”

  “There’s still time, you know,” Damian said after a while.

  “Time for what?”

  “To change our minds about this expedition.”

  “Right, that’s what you mean. No, there’s barely time for anything,” she said but then she started to think that maybe he was right. Maybe Finn was right, too, when he said she should use the vision to change the future. Her future. Maybe all she had to do now was to apologize to Damian, accept his decision and call off the trip to the canyon. Sure, everyone was all keyed up about it but with Finn on her side, she’d change their minds. Another opportunity would come.

  She considered this for a moment while Damian went inside his tent to bring out his backpack.

  The more she thought of it the more sense it made but then the white light appeared out of nowhere.

  She saw Damian bathed in the light, weak, pale and on his knees right outside the Observatory in their camp with deep gunshot wounds in his arm and leg. She saw a Sliman holding a gun to Damian’s head and about to shoot.

  The vision disappeared fast leaving a bad taste in her mouth. She was confused now more than

  ever. Would she cause Damian’s death right here in their camp if she tried to avoid her own destiny?

  Damian came out of the tent all ready to go.

  “I don’t think we’re doing the right thing,” he said, “but once I’m in, there’s nothing I won’t do to make sure we succeed. I hope you know that.”

  She nodded. “I believe you’re the man to lead us to victory,” she said with a smile.

  Damian took his flashlight out and scanned the tents in the area.

  “That should wake anyone who’s actually managed to sleep,” he said.

  “What about Finn and the rest?”

  “Are you kidding? Finn wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

  He bent over to open his backpack and take out his journal. “Here, hold this,” he said as he

  handed her the flashlight. “I’ll go make sure they’re ready in a moment,” he added when he noticed the disapproving expression on her face.

  Daphne held the flashlight over the journal while Damian jotted down his notes on the mission.

  In the focused white light ray she noticed the mark on his right forearm. To her surprise, it started changing shape slightly under the light. The edges went from smooth to pointy as little spots showed up all around the mark.

  She realized then that what she had thought of as a coiled snake when she was a little girl was in fact a long curled DNA chain that could only be properly discerned under direct light. As strange as it was, Damian carried his genetic code on his arm.

  As he took back the flashlight from her with a smile, she felt certain that he was the little boy sitting next to her in the plantation room while they were both being experimented on.

  She would have liked to talk to him about it but he was already getting his backpack straps on

  his shoulders.

  “I’ll go check on Finn,” he said. He stepped closer and took her in his arms. “It will all go

  according to plan,” he said. “When this is all over, I want us to be friends again.”

  She felt his beating heart against her cheek and for the first time since the visions began she felt some kind of peace. She put her arms around him and held on to him until he gently pulled away. He placed a kiss on her forehead just as Doc walked up to them.

  “Sorry,” Doc said blushing, “I didn’t mean to walk in on you.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Damian said. “Make sure everyone here is ready.”

  He stepped off in the direction of the part of the camp where Finn, Freya, Rabbit and Scout were

  staying.

  Daphne took his arm. “Give this to Finn,” she said pulling a small knife out of her vest. She

  thought for a second before pulling out a second knife. “And this to Freya,” she added.

  “Keep it,” Damian said. “She won’t be joining the fight.”

  “Why?”

  “Because those were my orders,” he said and marched away.

  Daphne stayed frozen for a while. She looked down at her shaking hands. Of course, those were

  his orders, she thought. He would do anything to protect that little pixie. He’d probably give up his life for her. It didn’t make any sense but she was certain of it.

  Doc went from tent to tent getting people out and handing them warm tea. Daphne felt her

  breathing becoming labored. She closed her eyes to concentrate. She took a deep breath in and held it for a long while before letting it out.

  “Freya will stay with the medical team,” Doc offered her an explanation.

  “You mean she will be in the back
with you,” Daphne said.

  “Well, yeah. I am the medical team. It will be nice to have an assistant.”

  “You are the one who’s nice,” she said. “The nicest one among us all.”

  “Don’t worry, we will win,” Doc said.

  “I’m not worried.”

  “Then you’re silly. How can you not be worried?”

  “You just told me not to worry,” she reminded him.

  Doc didn’t have an answer to that. “The important thing is that we will always be able to rely on each other,” he said. “We all have our place in the bigger scheme of things and we will never be

  alone.”

  Daphne gave him a smile. As tempting as it was to let go and admit defeat, she’d persevere until

  the end. She turned her gaze up at the purple, quiet sky taking in the immensity of the unknown.

  “It’s the simple things that are the hardest to understand,” she thought and turned her attention back to the camp and her friends confident that she would make things right if given half a chance.

  Thank you for reading Daphne. I hope you have enjoyed her story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

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  Books

  Books in the PLANTATION Series

  THE PLANTATION (BOOK 1)

  THE DARK LEGION (BOOK 2)

  THE SHADOW EMPIRE (BOOK 3)

  BEYOND THE RIVER OF TIME (BOOK 4) Coming this March: RISE OF THE SAVIORS (BOOK 5)

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