Donor 23 (43 page)

Gates crumpled it and threw it on the floor. He narrowed his eyes. “These…,” he spit the word out, “disturbances. They have to end. Perhaps it’s time to use the ace up our sleeve, Biggs.”

45

D
uncan, Bash, and Isabel rode mostly in silence, alternating between galloping, trotting, and walking. Having Isabel by his side as his wife, he felt fulfilled. But he also felt as if he lost something—something important. He couldn’t place it. When he first met Joan, she triggered his memories. She reminded him of his sister, obviously, but it seemed more than simple resemblance. There was something about her. His helping her filled a void within him. It permitted him to realize his life and realize his love for Isabel. He hoped he would see her again.

Isabel looked at Bash, reached her hand to him, and rubbed the back of his neck. A simple gesture. A gesture of love.

Duncan, riding in front of the two, stopped abruptly. He scanned the horizon ahead of him. The two caught up with him, but he still held his horse immobile. They paused next to him.

“You OK?” Isabel asked, noticing the odd look on his face.

“I don’t know. I think I…” Duncan’s voice drifted off. He swiveled his horse around and looked behind. They followed his gaze.

At first it was hard to see, but then it came into view. A solitary horse and rider rode swiftly toward them. Isabel removed the shotgun from her shoulder.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“Let’s spread out,” Bash advised. “In case it’s something nefarious.”

Duncan continued to stare at the figure. Suddenly, he pushed his horse toward the unknown rider at a full gallop.

With her hat tied tightly around her chin, Joan raced along on her horse. They weren’t far ahead—they only had a few hours head start. After a while, she had to slow to a trot. In the late afternoon, bouncing up and down with the pony’s jaunty gate, she spied the three of them ahead of her. She urged her horse faster.

Then Joan noticed one of the three riders was riding toward her.
Duncan. It must be Duncan
. She prodded her horse to go faster.

The two riders approached each other at high-speed. Duncan slowed his horse, but Joan’s ran too fast. She couldn’t stop it, and they rode right past each other. She reined in and swerved around. Duncan had turned and waited.

Joan pulled her horse to a stop and slid off, running to Duncan. He remained on his horse. She stopped at his side, looking up at him. She reached her hand up to his thigh, resting it there. With her other hand, she touched his foot in the stirrup. He bent his head to her. There is, at times, an enchantment—an allure—in a simple pose. Breathing heavily,
she couldn’t speak. It was as if she’d never seen his blond hair, his golden-brown eyes, his lips, his jaws. She loosened the hat around her neck. Duncan leaned forward in the saddle and caressed her cheek.

“Joan,” he whispered it.

He slid off his horse and stood next to her. They just looked at each other. She pushed the hat off his brow and let her hand linger at his forehead. He tossed the hat off his head with a flourish. He slipped his arm around her waist. She slipped hers around his.

The sunlight skated across his face. His golden eyes, usually calm, were stormy—wild with life. The past months of separation fell away, like a backpack that had been too heavy and bulky, falling off one’s shoulders. He felt the gracefulness of her flesh. He pulled her toward him, causing her hat to fall off her head.

“Joan,” he voiced again.

Their lips touched. He kissed her. He moved slowly, leisurely, as if they had the whole day. His lips moved to her neck. The goose bumps. She trembled. Her hands went to his neck, pushing him away, but pulling him to her at the same time. The beating of his heart pounded through his pulse, to his neck, and to her fingertips.

Joan pulled back and inhaled deeply. Once as a little girl, she had been jumping on the bed in a moment of pure joy and happiness, and she fell off, landing on her stomach. It knocked the breath out of her. When it returned to her, she had gasped, filling her lungs with the sweet air and feeling stunned. She felt that way now.

The four of them sat around a campfire in the late afternoon.

“So what made you come back,
hija?
” Isabel asked.

“Well…what all of you said…I guess I finally let it sink in. The phone, seeing the pictures, the scripts…I understood more.”

“Pictures?” she asked.

“Yes, photos of my parents were on the phone. Some of Duncan, too, that I took,” she said, smiling at him.

“Oh, let me see,” Isabel begged.

Joan removed the phone from her wrist, punched into it, and handed it to Isabel.

“That’s my parents on their wedding day,” she explained. “Just push the arrow button to move through them.”

“So young.”

Isabel scrolled through the photos. She paused. “Funny. Your mom’s smile in this one…”

“What?”

“Well, the way she turns her head, her mouth, her eyes…”

“Yeah?” Joan asked.

“It reminds me of you, Arch.”

Bash wasn’t paying close attention.

“You saying I look like a girl?” he joked.

“I guess I was just thinking, Arch. Your sister…” Isabel sensed something. She turned to Joan and asked about her mother, “What was her name?”

Bash, still not paying attention, replied, as did Joan. They answered in unison, “Annika” and “Ann.”

He looked at Joan, not understanding. He looked at Isabel, whose face proffered something important. She held up the phone, and he grabbed it, examining the photo. Isabel punched a button on the phone, while he held it. She told him, “Here, look at the older photos. She’s younger there.”

Bash didn’t speak. He had been kneeling next to Isabel, and he fell back to sit. After a moment, he admitted, “It looks like her. Could be. But no…impossible.” He shook his head.
“She’s dead. Besides, you’re a donor, Joan, so your mother and father were also donors, right?”

Joan didn’t fully understand the import of what was happening. “My mom was born outside the Alliance. The Alliance rescued her when she was young and brought her inside. She wasn’t really a donor.”

“Rescued? I don’t understand?” Bash queried.

“From the barbarians…” Joan tried to explain.

Isabel intervened to clarify, “Kidnapped. I think that’s what she’s talking about.” Isabel had learned of this old practice during her investigative reporting. “Years ago, the Alliance used to kidnap outsiders. They’d take them back, interrogate them…” she stopped. If this is what happened to Joan’s mother, she didn’t want to go into more detail.

That revelation stunned Bash. “She wasn’t—” He looked back through the photos. “Did she ever tell you where she was from? Anything?”

“Bash…I’m sorry. She didn’t know or remember much. She spent years in a place being educated, before she was released and met my dad. She told a lot of stories. We were never sure what was real and what wasn’t.”

Bash watched Joan intently, begging her with his eyes to continue.

Joan looked up to the sky. “There was one story she told the most, though. Something about a boy and girl living with books, in a library. They would run around the building, playing hide and seek among the shelves. Oh, I remember one other part.” She paused, as the memory floated through her mind. “They would use large books—atlases, I think—to study the maps on a certain page. Then with the book wide open, they’d slide down a staircase, like it was a sled.” Joan laughed. “She called it ‘sledding the world.’” Sighing, she concluded, “That was one of the main ones she told us.”

A look of incredulity crossed Bash’s face. “That’s us. That’s what we did. That’s my sister. It can’t be anyone else. Joan, are you…? You must be…my niece.”

For the next hour or so, Bash grilled Joan about the stories her mother told. He wanted to know about her mother’s idiosyncrasies, habits, likes, and dislikes. He studied the photos. He had no doubt. Annika Lion was Ann Bash. He had his family back. It made sense why he had felt so close to Joan.

It took a while for the meaning to sink in for Joan. She had a family.

She questioned Bash. What was her mother like as a child? She wanted to know everything they used to do. What were their parents like? Her family history. It clicked for her, as well. She now understood why she could talk to him, why he understood her, and why he helped her.

“Uncle Arch,” she uttered with an impish grin.

“I like that,” Bash leaned back. “It has a ring to it.”

“Sounds funny to me. But I like it, too,” she agreed. “Uncle Arch.”

“I bet I know how you got your name,” Bash disclosed, with a wise smile. “A statue stood in one of the towns we used to visit to sell stuff. Much of the city—it was on a large gulf—was destroyed, but it was rebuilding, getting quite big. Great Orleans, they call it. Anyways, the statue was of a girl—a girl warrior on a horse. It was large and gold. Ann loved it. She used to climb on it. She played imaginary games that she was the girl. The pedestal of the statue had something imprinted on it. It was worn, but we could make out one word, a name. It said ‘Joan.’”

Duncan and Joan strolled hand in hand, deep in discussion, as they watched the setting sun. A reddish-orange mist
cascaded over the desert hills in the distance, causing them to appear to be a sea, with the brilliant colors moving upon them like waves swallowing the large, red sun.

Joan stated confidently, “I have to go back, though. I have to do what I can for the Resistance. For the donors.”

“I’ll go with you,” Duncan assured her.

She knew he’d say that. Or she had hoped, at least. No, she knew. “Lucas is waiting for me. It’s too late to go tonight. Is tomorrow OK? We’ll head out in the morning, then?”

“Whatever you think. You and I,” he murmured, as he kissed her lightly. “Joan.”

Joan.
She loved hearing him say her name. Glancing over at the campfire she saw Bash.
Uncle Arch
. She had an uncle. A family.
Her flesh and blood.
She hated the idea of leaving him and Isabel, just after they’d discovered their connection, but she had to. Bash, of all people, would understand why. She turned back to Duncan. The disappearing sun cast a golden-reddish radiance over his face.

“Say it again,” she pleaded.

His brow furrowed softy with a question.

“My name. Say my name.”

He touched her cheek, and she moved her hand up to his, holding it against her skin—preventing him from taking it away. They both knew the other wanted the touch, wanted the brush of the hand—the primal comfort of human touch.

“Joan.” He pulled his hand away, glanced over her shoulder and nodded. “Look, the moon.”

But she didn’t follow his look to the rising moon. She gazed at him. His face carried a look of…
What was it?
Joan wondered. It was one of bliss. As for herself, Joan felt victory. Triumph. What stirred inside her at Glimmerglass, what began that day was complete. In being true to herself, she could now face her ghosts.
Could she free others, like she had been freed?
She brushed a lock of hair from his forehead. The smear of dark ink on her
hand contrasted against his blond curls, and she paused. She took a deep breath and promised herself that she would do all she could to free the donors
and
the citizens. This was an opportunity—
her
opportunity. It had been offered to her—dangled in front of her. Gazing at her tattoo and then at Duncan, she thought what a heartbreak if she had not grasped at it.