Cooper (10 page)

"I know the kinds of risks we're all in. Fa... Hays is an evil man. It's a relief to be able to admit that out loud. My loyalty to him, because I thought he was my father, kept me from admitting the truth."

"Yes, and he has done terrible things to you, Miss Amy. I wish I could have stopped him. All I could do was try to take care of you as best I could. But I could not do it openly or I would have been sent away like Maria."

A memory surfaced swiftly. "It was you. You wanted to take me to the hospital when I was twelve, which forced Hays to do it. I was in so much pain I didn't realise that until just now."

"And we tried to get your parents to commit you when things got too dangerous at home. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it did not." Juanita shrugged guiltily.

"Who shot the boy behind the school bleachers?"

"Miguel. He was US Special Forces before he took this job. He tries to watch over you as best he can. I am sorry, Miss Amy, but I read your diary. I was told to. We needed to monitor you. I read about that boy telling you to meet him and I knew it was trouble. So Miguel went and stood watch. He shot a tranq dart into him and then removed it. The boy woke up with his pants around his ankles, his video camera broken in a hundred pieces beside him, and no clue what had happened. I do not think he told anyone about that day."

Amy let out another sigh and felt tears prick her eyelids. On one hand she wanted to feel offended that her private journal had been invaded. On the other, she felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude for her unseen guardians. She had always felt so alone after Maria left, but she hadn't been. There had always been people watching over her.

But why?

"Were you told what I am?" Amy asked carefully.

"We were told you were very special and very important to the Résistance. I was to monitor your activities and report anything unusual. There was nothing to report. You seemed perfectly normal, for someone raised by monsters."

"I always felt anything but normal. In a bad way. Now I know I'm not normal in a good way. The things I can do…I still haven't explored them all yet, but they told me what I'll be able to do. I have a panther inside me, Juanita. And my eyes can turn cat and my teeth get pointy and sharp, like I was a vampire or something. It's really weird." It was such a relief to be sharing this information with someone she could trust; someone who'd been watching over her for years.

Juanita's eyes had widened so that the whites were observable on all sides. "How is that possible?"

"I was genetically engineered to be the mate of a super-soldier. He's the man I met last night. He fights for the Résistance."

"Oh, Miss Amy. I…We were not told. Everything is secret. We only know our small piece of the puzzle, so that if we get found out we cannot give any more away."

"Maybe I shouldn't have told you all this then. I…I'm new to this covert stuff."

"Go to Maria. She knows more than I do. And she will want to know what has happened to you. We hated leaving you here with Hays. We worried you might not survive his beatings. But you had to stay. It was part of the plan."

"What plan?"

"I do not know. Not my piece of the puzzle."

Amy nodded and stared down at the mug of soup. She would eat it, just to please Juanita. After everything the woman had done for her, it was little enough to offer in return.

"Thank you. I doubt I would have survived if you and Miguel hadn't been watching out for me."

Juanita shrugged again and smiled. "Just go get these monsters. It is a long time coming."

As Amy settled in for what was left of the night after Juanita had gone, she wasn't sure what she was supposed to do about the Guild, other than birth the next generation of fighters. But if Juanita believed she was part of some greater plan then who was she to disagree? Her decisions were starting to seem less wrong now.

When she was woken by Adelle, their cook, at eleven the next morning, it was with a plate of her favourite egg-white omelette and a note from Juanita saying Miguel would be ready to drive her to her destination at midday. Gobbling down her food, she raced for the shower. Though she’d managed to get very little sleep, the excitement of the new world opening up before her was energising. Soon she would see her beloved Maria for the first time in ten years and get more answers to the questions that still circled in her mind like vultures. It was a dream-come-true.

It was just after midday when Miguel pulled the car up out front on the circular driveway. He looked a lot healthier than he had the night before. It was worth Hays' abuse to know she'd been able to leave the poor man in his bed last night instead of sitting out in the cold, waiting for her.

As they drove, Amy wondered exactly where they were going. Juanita had been vague, but as Miguel was the one who needed to get them there, she didn't push the point. After about ten minutes, Amy felt the need to address the Paul situation.

"Thank you, Miguel, for that day at the bleachers."

He turned his head and put his finger to his mouth. Oh, god, was the car bugged? Was her bedroom bugged? Had she given away the Résistance's secrets earlier, without knowing it?

"Anything I can do to help, Miss Amy," he replied in his usual formal, polite way.

How had she not seen how these people protected and valued her? They'd been there all the time and she'd never realised.

They drove deep into the Bay Area and into one of the less affluent neighbourhoods. The limo was completely out of place here, but Miguel didn't seem to notice. He pulled up in front of a well-kept Spanish-style hacienda painted pink and looked over his shoulder.

"This is your stop, Miss. I’ll return for you in an hour."

An hour? He was only giving her an hour to reunited with the only real mother she'd ever known? It didn't seem enough. But Amy had no idea what Maria's life was like now. Maybe she only had a lunch-hour free to see her?

She hurried up the neat path to the front door. It opened before she could raise her hand to knock. In front of her stood the small woman who had been the only mother she'd ever known, greyer than she remembered, but just as energetic, her dark eyes still sparkling with enthusiasm.

"My Chiquita…Oh, my little Amy! How you have grown!" Maria lifted her arms for a hug, her eyes filling with happy tears.

"Maria. I'm so glad I found you. I missed you. Every day, I missed you."

"I know, Chiquita, I know. But I was always near; always watching over you. Your padre, he try to make me go back to Mexico. But I had powerful people behind me, so I did not have to go. I could not leave you in that terrible place alone."

Maria led her by the hand into the small house that was colourfully over-decorated but as neat as a pin. Amy sat down on the couch and Maria sat at her side, still holding her hand as if she was afraid to let her go.

"Tell me everything. You have found out about yourself, si?. It must be time. I waited for this day for years."

As Amy filled in the details of the last day, Maria nodded silently, squeezing her hand with joy when she told her of Cooper.

"Your young man sounds perfecto for you. I am sorry he is… in a wheelchair."

"It doesn't matter. I don't even think about it. He's just sooo…competent and in control, and yet gentle with it. I just don't notice he can't stand up."

Maria nodded again and smiled.

"You were always a sweet child. Caring for others, uninterested in the wealth and privilegio being a Hays granted you. It was tortura to see those monsters crush your espiritú and make you cry. I wanted to shoot them all. Miguel tell me about the boy when you were fifteen and I wish he used a real bullet. That diablo did not deserve to live. And when you disappeared, we were so afraid! When the policía found you we make sure you were sent back to the sanatorium for safety."

"I know. I was always surrounded by guardian angels, I just didn't know it. But Maria, why did I have to stay there? Why was my m…Gloria impregnated with me? And how did they never find out I wasn’t theirs?"

"Ah, well, that is a story. See, La Resistencia stayed hidden so long because it operated in pequeñas, independent
cells,
as they now call them. We knew there were others, we didn't know who or where. We gave information to un hombre, who gave it to another, till it go wherever it needed to go. We did that with everything we discovered about Hays. Scraps of información, not enough to do any good. We knew he was in-bed with the banks, making people take on more and more debt. And he pushed to keep the health sistema the way it is so he and his people could make una fortuna from pharmaceuticals. But none of it was criminal, just inmoral.

"Then nearly twenty one years ago – oh, how the time has passed! –, we get the message la señora Hays was impregnated by a special embrión. She and señor Hays had tried for years to have a baby the normal way, but it not work. So they go to one fertility clinic where they were to use her eggs and his sperm. But their fertilized embrión did not return to her womb, it was another.

"Nobody knew who organised it. Nobody knew what this embrión was, excepto it was very especial. Not just any humano and not Guild. Who made it happen must also made sure the blood tests always show the correcto DNA. It is far too complejo for an uneducated woman like me.

"I think someone high up decided the Guild could be brought down only from inside, and so they
put
one of their own inside. They never thought what it can do to a child like you. It was cruel. But the cruelty of the Guild is world-wide and terrible. Any sacrificio was worth it to end their
tiranía
. We thought we doing the right thing… I know you may not think so. You had to take more than anyone should, and you were valiente and strong, surviving that life. I not think any ordinary child could do it."

Amy shook her head in utter confusion. Her Maria, the woman who loved her most in the world, was calling her brave and strong? How could she believe that when Maria was the one to see Amy at her worst? Who’d been the one to hold her as she cried each time her f…Hays or the school kids hurt her? What was brave and strong about any of that?

"You did the right thing, Maria. We are all involved in an undeclared war and must do our part for the greater good. Your pain was worse. It would be excruciating to stand back and watch someone you love go through that, and not be able to stop it. It wasn't as bad for me, honestly."

Maria leaned up and kissed her cheeks, tears now streaming down her face. "Oh, my Chiquita, ever the brave, caring girl thinking of others before herself. But I thank you for forgiving me my part in this. I loved you like una madre. I still do. I would die if it was enough. Instead, I did far worse: I stand by and see those monsters try to destroy my bambino's soul."

"Did they know I was going to be a girl? From what I was told, only female embryos were secreted out of the lab where they were engineered."

Maria wiped the tears from her face and sniffed in embarrassment. "No, we did not know. Maybe someone further up did. But we did not."

"Hmm." So somewhere along the line the knowledge of her gender had been lost. Although she had to assume her genetic make-up had to have been known so that her red hair matched her
father's
. Knowing the importance the Guild put on males, it was likely the Résistance hoped she'd be a boy so she could rise up through their ranks. Girls were far less important. Their only role was to carry on the line, keeping it as pure as possible.

But what if she could become a more valuable member of the Guild? What if she could do what she'd been so well placed to do? Maybe she could marry one of the sons of the Upper Echelon. Her brain stalled on that thought. How could she even contemplate that idea when she belonged, body and soul, to Cooper now? No, not even in theory could she contemplate that possibility.

But she'd heard her mother whispering on the phone to one of her friends about Rothmen's wife taking up Guild responsibilities until her son was old enough. If a woman could wield that sort of power, even for a few short years, couldn't she do something similar too?

But how? By becoming the perfect off-spring for Hays? Subjugating her personality to become the monster he required? It seemed impossible. But it was the better alternative to the first. Maybe if she became useful to Hays he would let her in on more of the Guild's secrets?

Choices, yet again. But they were getting easier, the more correct ones she made. And the new feral part of her was guiding her in those choices. Her cat helped her make decisions that felt right, even if they countered all the ones her supposed-father would have wanted her to make. It was a heady experience, and one she wanted to get more of.

"What are you thinking, my little Amy?" Maria interrupted her train of thought anxiously.

"I was thinking how I'm to play this role created for me. I gather the man who created me and my sisters saw our only use as breeders of the next generation of warriors. But whoever got my embryo must have seen other uses it could be put to. I'm trying to see what those uses might be. I think I'll have to talk to Cooper and his leader, Chase. They have a far broader perspective. They're the ones who are bringing the Guild to justice. The Scorpio Sons collect the evidence of the Guild’s crimes and then kidnap them. Judges then condemn them to death for those crimes. Maybe I could be part of gathering that evidence. I don't know. My head is spinning with it all."

Maria reached up and kissed her cheek again. "It does not have to happen today. Or even tomorrow. The Guild has controlled our world from behind the scenes for thousands of years. A few more days do not matter."

Amy gave a little laugh and rested her head on her mother's thin shoulder, soaking up the warmth and love this one small woman had always given to her. Oh, she had missed Maria so much!

"Whatever you do, Chiquita, do not let this boy go. You were born for him. All else is just extra. Remember that. You known so little love in your life, you deserve this."

"I'm not sure it's love, Maria. We're just drawn to each other by our reproductive urges."

"Everything you have told me about this boy says diferente. He loves you, trust that he loves you. Let yourself love and be loved. It is what a woman is best at. Even a panther woman." She grinned at her joke.

For what was left of the hour, the two talked and laughed, as Maria filled her in on her new employers – not Guild – and the gardener she'd been flirting with. Maria must be in her early forties, so finding love at her age was not out of the question. But it did feel odd for a daughter to see her mother as a sexual being. Still, it was good to know Maria was happy.