The Believers (The Breeders Series - Book 2) (6 page)

“It’s you, isn't it?” he says, pointing a loosely cupped hand at Clay's chest. “Much like Krishna killed his uncle Kansa.” The Messiah gestures to a statue of a blue man sitting with his hands turned upward. “We murder out of fear or we murder for power. Which was it that caused you to slay your kin?” The Messiah points his expressionless face in Clay's direction, but does not look at him.

Clay says nothing, just sits with this fist jammed in his lap.

The Messiah floats over to stand in front of Mama. His cupped hand hovers over her swollen belly. Finally, he presses his hand onto her stomach. His thin lips move, but no sound comes out. His face darkens.

“Kalli,” he says, and the pregnant woman shuffles over. He reaches out for her hand and places her palm on my mother's stomach as well. She frowns and shakes her head.

“What?” I say, leaning forward. “What are you doing?”

The Messiah turns my way, his eyes floating in my general direction. “A hospital-grown fetus. An aberration. We do not believe in the experiments those doctors perform on the Gods' children.”

“Neither do we, but they really didn't give us a vote before they put one in her,” I say.

“What's wrong with Mama?” Ethan whispers to me.

The Messiah turns his head toward Ethan. I don't know if he naturally looks like the Jesus-man or if he's dressed that way for effect. Either way he's creeping me out.

“Your mother is infected with one of their fetuses. The baby will grow exponentially in the coming months. They gestate much faster than normal.”

I look down at Mama's distended stomach. We all knew she looked too pregnant.

“What'll happen to her?” I ask, my pulse throbbing into my head.

The Messiah tilts his face to the ceiling. “Only the Gods may know. Here we can ease her pain. Our midwives are blessed.”

“How can you have women here?” I ask, looking over at the pregnant woman who stands next to him, her hand on his sleeve.

The Messiah bobs his head up and down as if he has been expecting my question. “The Gods have carved out a place for us in this citadel. This land is holy. The Breeders may not enter. The Gods have granted us fertility in exchange for obedience to their commandments. The diseases of the world do not affect the Gods' people.”

In the flickering candlelight, his face is calm and assured.
These
lunatics are the chosen people? The giant and cruel Andrew? And Stephen, who seems to like raping Benders? Really? I shake my head. “That doesn't make sense.”

“How dare you contradict the Messiah,” Kalli hisses, lurching forward, her gray hair crowding her face like a storybook witch. “He is the Word. He is
not
to be contradicted.”

“Gentle, Kalli,” he says, placing his hands on her shoulders. “They will learn our ways soon enough.”

He turns and floats toward the back of his room where the shadows grow darker. Soon I can only hear the swish of his fabric. “Tonight you will rest. Tomorrow you will be inducted into the fold.”

We stand to shuffle out, but his voice calls to us again.

“No harm can come to the Gods' people. Should you disobey the commandments while you are here and put any one of my sheep in danger, the Gods' wrath will fall down upon you like the seven plagues of Israel. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

He says it so calmly, a proclamation of death. They may be the Gods' people, but I got a feeling we've stumbled into hell.

I sit on my mattress, arms around my knees, and watch Mama try to get comfortable beside me. They've locked us in one of the shops in the women's wing of the mall and ushered Clay, Ethan, and Rayburn down another hallway. Panic rippled in my chest as I watched Clay and Ethan walk away. I know Clay will protect my brother, but in his weakened state I worry about all of them. Every layer we unpeel of this onion is more rotten than the last.

Our room appears to be a store that once sold face creams and perfumes. There's a faded poster of an attractive woman with sunglasses pouting at the camera. I can't read the caption below, but I get the impression that whatever she's selling is meant to make women feel attractive to men. The room is bare except for a few things: the yellowed mattress my mama and I will share, broken hangers, small plastic hooks, crumbling cardboard boxes, and the plastic dinner tray with the food we've already scarfed down. Before he left, Andrew pulled down the metal grate at the store’s entrance. He locked it, smirking, and said the Messiah doesn't want us to hurt ourselves by wandering around. I've already tried the back door and found it locked too. I think of the open ceiling, but it’s twelve feet up with nothing to stand on, and there's no way I can get Mama up and over in her state.

Mama's hand slips over my elbow. “You need to sleep, love.” She rolls over slowly and props her head up on her hand. “You can't solve all our problems tonight.”

I drop my head to my knees and dig my chin into the hole that has worn through my pants. “I just don't get this place. What're these crazies playing at? The Gods' chosen people? Breeders can't come here because this is holy ground? Sounds flakier than lizard skin.”

Mama ponders this a minute, her burned face crinkling as she thinks. “Maybe they have faith that lets them believe it's true. Sometimes faith is enough for people to act in a way that protects them from harm.”

I bite my lip and stew on this. “Did you ever believe anything like that? I mean,” I say, shifting on the saggy mattress, “did you ever have faith in something bigger?” I spread my hands out across the disheveled storefront.

Mama pushes herself up. It hurts me to see how hard it is for her to move. It hurts me to hear what the Messiah had to say about the baby that saps a little more of her strength each day.

“Riley,” she says, taking my hand, “I believe in my children. You're the future I see. In you, there grows something better than what's out there.” She gestures out toward the world. I lean into her, pressing my shoulder against her boney one. She rests her cheek on my head. “I don't know if there's a God. I hope there is, but if He's there, I don't know why He would choose to let some of His children suffer and protect others. I think that's just convenient thinking on their part,” she says, gesturing toward the mall’s interior.

She quiets and stares off into the distance. “I used to believe there was someone out there watching out for us. How could we have survived this long without being captured? Then when Arn was killed,” she drops her head, swallowing hard, “it felt like something was severed inside me. I didn't even get to bury him. I was so
angry
. I wanted someone to be angry at. Other than the Sheriff, God was an easy choice.” She takes my hand, turning her burned face to mine. “One morning, when Auntie and I were the Sheriff’s prisoners, I asked the guard to take me to the outhouse. As I walked over the concrete, I saw dawn's first light. The heat hadn't yet settled over the land. It was so peaceful.” She looks up and a sad smile lights on her face. “A morning star shone bright as any diamond in the west. Arn loved morning stars. He used to…” she sniffs back a tear. “He used to point them out to me.” A tear traces down her cheek and she brushes it away. “The minute I saw that star, Riley, I swear to you I felt Arn's love pouring down on me.” She lifts my hand to her lips and kisses it. “I think he's still up there loving me. Love like we had, like the love I have for you and Ethan, is too big to die with this body. My love will exist somewhere even if I don't.”

“Don't talk like that,” I whisper, resting my chin on her shoulder. She holds me like she did when I was small. Suddenly I feel like sobbing. “You're always gonna be around.”

Mama says nothing, just strokes me. Finally, she sighs. “I hate that you always have to worry about me. I should be the one protecting you, not the other way round.”

“I don't mind.” I swallow down the tears and lay back on the mattress.

“I do,” she says, with a faraway look in her eye.

“I'm gonna go to bed,” I say, trying to control my voice. She doesn't question me, just lies down beside me. Her hand finds mine and we fall asleep connected, just like we were long ago.

I wake to shaking. Movement. Something's happening, though my brain is foggy from sleep. I roll over and see the dark, empty room, the bare mattress. Where am I? The mall. The mattress is shaking and something warm is puddling under my elbow. I roll over.

Mama sits, her face white, hands trembling. Beneath her the mattress is stained red. She lifts frightened eyes to mine. She's sitting in blood. Her blood.

“Mama!” I crawl to her side and hover, frightened.

She looks up at me. “Riley,” she says, her hands shaking, “something's wrong.”

“Help!” I shake the grate, the metal rattling in its casing. It echoes down the hall. Let them all hear. Then they'll come. I shake it until my arms throb. “Help us!”

The grate across from me pushes up and a puffy-eyed, salt-and-pepper-haired woman climbs out. “Shhh!” she scolds, putting a finger to her lips. “We're trying to sleep.”

I stick my arm through the bars and wave her toward me. “Please, unlock the grate. My mother is bleeding. She needs someone… a doctor.”

The woman frowns and tightens her blanket around her shoulders as if the thin fabric could ward off the crazy I'm infected with. Another woman with smooth, brown skin and short black hair approaches the grate. She clutches a tattered blanket to her chest. Even straight from sleep she's wearing half a dozen gold bracelets on her wrists. “What's going on?” she asks, groggily.

“My mother. She’s bleeding!” I gesture back into the store. Both women stare at me like I’m a wild animal gone nuts in her cage. “Go!” I shoo them away. “Get help.” I don’t wait to see if they’ll listen. I turn back and run to my mama.

She’s sitting stock-still, her eyes on her knees. Beneath her, a red blossom spreads on the mattress. How much blood am I looking at? I kneel before her. “What do I do?”

She raises her eyes to me slowly. Her face has gone past white to a pale green. “I … I don’t know. Something’s wrong with the baby.” She shakes her head slowly. “Maybe it’s for the best.”

Behind me the grate rattles up. Guards rush in, rumpled, sleepy, and annoyed.

“You gotta get a doctor.” I stand up and tug on the arm of a man I’ve never seen before. He brushes me aside and goes for Mama. Behind him another man pushes a rickety wheelchair. They lift her. In the giant man’s arms, she looks like a child. They lower her into the chair and she winces. I clutch my face.

“I’m fine, Riley,” she says, waving a weak hand at me. Her head sags forward as they wheel her back to the grate. She’s a terrible liar.

I trot behind them, but a hand presses against my shoulder. The guard shakes his head.

“I’m going,” I say, pushing his hand aside.

He shoves me back. I stumble into the store as he lowers and locks the grate.

“I’m going with her!” I scream. I was supposed to protect her. I promised myself when we got her out of the Breeders’ hospital that I wouldn’t leave her side, and here we are, separated again. How could I have failed her so soon?

I rattle the grate. Rattle it as they wheel her away. Rattle it as she turns and looks over her shoulder at me. Rattle, rattle, rattle until the women glare at me and go back into their stores.

I slip down against the grate as a cold dread steals over me. I press my sweaty forehead to the metal until it hurts, until it’s a piercing spike in my head, until it's a quiet throb matching the pain in my heart.

I wake to someone shaking me. I snap upright and the hallway lights blind me momentarily. It's morning. I’ve fallen asleep against the metal grate. My neck aches, but not more than my chest as I remember my mama being wheeled away, bleeding.

I scramble to my feet and notice who’s been doing the shaking. On the other side of the security grate, a girl blinks at me. She's petite, with wide, curious eyes, and a cute, puckered mouth that spreads into a smile. Her hair is a mess of curls circling her head like a golden halo. Jeweled bangles run up both her skinny arms.

She tilts her head to the side and grins at me. “Riley?” she asks. Her voice is quiet, squeaky like a child’s, but her manner is much older. I wonder how old she is. Eleven, maybe?

“Yeah,” I say, rubbing the kink in my neck. “Who’re you?”

She holds up a food tray with a glass of water, a bowl of soupy grain, and two strips of cooked bacon. “Breakfast patrol,” she says, beaming. “Can I come in?”

“You’d be the first person to ask.” I gesture inside.

She sets her tray on the floor and works at the lock. Behind her, one of my neighbors walks past and glares in my direction.

“Thanks for your neighborly kindness last night!” I yell at her, unable to contain my anger. What’s happening to my mama right now?

The girl opens the grate, slides it up and walks in carrying the tray. Surprisingly she leaves the grate up. I stare at the opening, thinking, planning. If I bolt now—

“They have your mom,” she says, setting the tray beside me on the floor. “They say if you run you’ll never see her again.” She looks up at me with her wide, gray eyes, framed with long golden lashes. “Sorry.”

I sit on the floor beside the breakfast tray. The food sends my stomach cart wheeling, but I wait. I look over at the girl. “Do you know what happened to my mama?”

The girl shrugs. “She’s with the Middies.”

“The Middies?”

“Yeah, the ladies the Messiah anoints to care for the sick. Stupid old birds won’t let me in there.” She leans forward, whispering. “I peeked in, though,” her eyes flick to the hall, “when they weren’t looking.”

I nod and lean forward. “What'd you see?”

She leans closer, her eyes going wide. “She was lying on a bed.”

“And?”

“And she had her eyes closed,” she whispers.

I pull back. “Is that it?”

“Yeah. Sorry. I wanted it to be way cooler than it was.” She takes a piece of bacon off my tray and chomps it. “I'm sure they'll fix her up proper. The Middies might be ugly, but they know how to heal.”