The Starborn Saga (Books 1, 2, & 3) (17 page)

I set my jaw firmly and look Aaron straight in the eyes. “Your leader better be a fast talker. If I have one shred of doubt about you and these other Starborns, then I stick with my plan.”

“That’s your choice,” Aaron comes back. 

He says nothing else as he turns and walks away.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The sun hasn’t risen yet, but already I’m wiping the sleep from my eyes, getting myself ready to go. There were no bad dreams last night, but it wasn’t exactly the best sleep either. I forgo the pleasure of washing my face so I don’t wake Connor who is sleeping in the upstairs room, and I try to open the front door as quietly as I can. I’m not expecting the outside air to be cold, but this morning it is. I nearly jump out of my skin when I see Aaron standing in the road, staring at me.

“Sorry,” he says as I stifle a gasp. “You ready to go?”

Part of me feels very weird about going with Aaron to see his leader or mentor. I know this trip is meant to change my mind about everything. And I can honestly say that I’m not the biggest fan of how Screven has presented itself – especially with the way Jeremiah talked to us, nearly demanding that we take part in his recruitment plan.

Another part of me wants Aaron to show me a good reason not to go along with Jeremiah’s plan, but I’m afraid that unless he shows me some kind of immediate solution to Springhill’s problems, then I will be forced to do as Jeremiah says.

“Yeah, let’s go,” I say.

“I vr tn s ps Connor’s place comfortable enough for you?” he asks, nodding to the shack behind me. 

I look back, but only out of embarrassment. Aaron had offered to let me stay at his place, but I had told him I was comfortable here. I clear my throat. 

“Yeah, it’s okay.”

He smirks and shakes his head, seemingly trying to hold back a laugh. I don’t really know what to say, so I don’t say anything.

Through the early morning darkness, Aaron leads me along the eastern edge of Salem near the wall. When we come close to a part of the wall that is shrouded by trees and thick bushes, Aaron looks over his shoulder to see if anyone else is around. When he turns back to the wall, he steps forward and pushes aside some bushes and begins to kick dirt to the side.

This is when I see the trap door at the base of the wall, large enough for someone to crawl through. 

“Only a few of us know about this,” he says to me. “But it’s been here from the beginning.”

He bends down and pulls open the trap door with ease. From here, I can see a set of stairs that leads down into a small room.

“It’s a good way to get in and out of here without detection,” he says. “And no greyskin would be able to figure out this secret entry.”

“Couldn’t you just tell the guards that you’re leaving?”

He lets out a snort and shakes his head. “They aren’t letting anyone out of here without a good reason. And they aren’t going to track me, because my wristband was destroyed a few nights ago.” He smiles at this. “I like to sneak out every now and then to practice with my gift.”

“You have the need to use your abilities often?” I ask. 

“Not really,” he says. “But it’s good to know my limits. To practice. To really get to know what I can do.”

I never really thought about my new abilities as something that I should test out. So far, they’ve just worked for me. Until now, I haven’t really thought that I needed to practice.

He motions for me to go down into the tiny bunker first. He then grabs the covering of bushes and places it over the trap door so it will camouflage the space when he closes it. 

If I thought it was dark outside, the inside of the tunnel is pitch black. When Aaron closes the trap door, I can hear him shuffle toward me. He bumps into me by accident. 

“Sorry,” he mumbles. 

I hear him feeling around for something until there’s finally a blinding flame from a lighter he has pulled from his pocket. The flame cuts through the darkness, revealing the corridor that is about ten feet long and five feet wide. I have to bend my head low to keep from hitting the ceiling. On the other side is an identical set of stairs, apparently leading up to the ground, just outside the Salem perimeter.

“How have the Screven guards not discovered this?” I ask

“Those of us who know about it are very careful,” he says, almost as though to give me a warning to keep my mouth shut about it. He walks past me and I follow as he climbs up the stairs. The light flickers out as he reaches up to open the new trap door above us. At first, he barely lifts the covering, and the dirt that had been camouflaging the door starts to fall in. The darkness is thick, although the beginning of the daylight is all but ready to wake the slumbering people of Salem. He turns his head in every direction, and when he is satisfied, he lifts the door further and scoots it to his side. He then motions for me to follow out into the open field.

When I emerge, I can see the darker outline of the woods in the distance. Aaron makes sure the trap door is properly conceale {erlg until td again and starts walking toward the woods. 

Little is said as we reach the edge. After a few minutes, the sun is up and I’m sure that Connor is wondering where I’ve gone. But I know he won’t raise a fuss about it. He knows what position I’m in, and will probably assume that I wanted to be alone before my little presentation with Aaron. After we’ve been hiking about an hour we find ourselves standing in front of a house in the middle of the woods. In truth, the place looks beautiful – much more so than the living spaces of those inside the colony walls. 

“So, this is where he is?” I ask. “Your leader?”

“This is where
she
is,” Aaron says as he takes a step forward. 

I hesitate, not sure now whether I should move forward with him. What if they convince me that what I’m doing is the wrong thing? I just don’t feel ready for that kind of argument. 

Aaron looks back at me. “You have nothing to be afraid of,” he says.

Perhaps he’s right. But I don’t necessarily fear what or who is inside the house. I fear my own willpower that might be so easily bent. 

I step forward beside Aaron and move to the door. He lifts his fist and knocks. It only takes a moment for the door to open, and once again I come face to face with the redheaded girl that I met when I was out with Evelyn. She looks me up and down, then looks at Aaron.

“You’re early.”

“Have to be,” Aaron answers. “We might have to be somewhere by noon.” Aaron motions to me. “This is Mora. Mora, this is Heather.”

“Yeah,” Heather says as she turns and walks back into the house. 

“It takes her a little bit to get used to newcomers,” he says. 

I remember similar treatment from Heather the other day when Evelyn had introduced us. Two strikes for her as far as I’m concerned. 

When I walk into the place, I barely get a glimpse of the inside before a very tall, muscular, blonde-headed man walks up to me and extends a hand. 

“Mora, right?”

I try to keep from wincing as his grip grinds my knuckles together. 

“Oh, sorry,” he says. “I forget sometimes.”

“Because you’re an idiot,” Heather calls out from the other room.

He rolls his eyes, then smiles. “My name is Danny.”

I smile back at Danny as he moves aside to allow us to pass.  

The house is spacious, and we seem to have walked into a large foyer. The entire place is neat, tidy, and very open. It lacks that end-of-the-world quality as my grandma calls it. No bugs. No dirty floors. I feel about as rich as when I stayed in Screven. The wooden floors of the hallway go deep into the house and branch off into various rooms throughout. Part of me wants to explore the beauty and craftsmanship, but I know I’m not here to gawk. 

“Do all of you live here?” I ask. 

“On and off,” Aaron says. 

Heather peeks her head in from one of the doorways on the right. “Aaron, she’s ready for you in the kitchen.” Before she moves into the room across from the kitchen, Heather gives me another once-over, and then a short scowl. I’m not sure where the animosity comes from, but I do know that Heather is on the verge of strike three. 

Aaron nods his thanks to Heather and looks at me with a grin. “Let’s go to the kitchen,” he says. 

I’m not ready for what I see in the kitchen – rather who I see. Sitting at the table with a box of apples next to her {s n="2, and a peeler in her hand, is Evelyn. She looks up at us and smiles widely. 

“Mora. I thought you’d be coming to see me sometime soon.” She motions to a chair on the other side of the table. “Come, have a seat. Grab a knife.”

Aaron pulls out a chair and I sit, facing the doorway to the hall, and I can see Danny and Heather sitting in the living room, ears toward us. Aaron sits to my right. 

“Surprised to see me, I’m sure,” Evelyn says. 

I don’t deny it, though for some reason I feel like it just makes sense.

“It’s all right, sweetie. I’m not going to bite. How’s that leg of yours?”

“It’s healing well,” I mumble, still a bit shocked at seeing her. 

She bends down to pick up an apple and begins to peel it. In front of her sits a row of already peeled apples, apparently they’re to be used eventually. I first wonder if she plans to bake apple pies like my mom and grandma did when I was a little girl. 

“It’s a shame you and I didn’t get a chance to talk before you went off to Screven,” she says. 

“Why, so you can tell me more about how it’s a bad idea?” I wonder if it would be unwise to mention the meeting she had me witness between Aaron and Heinrich. “I already know your thoughts on the matter,” I say. “But I know mine too.”

“No,” she says, peeling the fresh apple. “You just think you know how I feel. But you don’t know the whole story, do you?”

“I guess not. But I’m not looking for the whole story. I’m looking for protection.”

“Oh, so you don’t want to know the origins of the Starborns and why you can do what you can do? I get it,” she says, focusing on her apples. “Then I suppose that you also don’t care about the fact that Jeremiah has made it his life goal to capture Starborns. That there is so much blood on his hands that I wouldn’t even know where to start when it comes to telling you how horrible of a man he is.”

I’m silent after Evelyn’s words. I’ve heard plenty of things to make me think little of Jeremiah, but mostly, I’m more interested in what it means to be a Starborn.

“So, you’ve got answers then?” I ask. 

“Not all of them, but enough for you right now,” she says. She picks up a knife and slices pieces of apples and divides them among the three of us. She then takes a piece for herself and eats it. She lets out a sigh and shuts her eyes as she chews the fruit. 

“Nothing like fresh apples,” she says. “Some of the best fruit in the world for you.”

I care nothing for her take on apples. I give Aaron a long look, trying to inform him that the conversation better take a quick turn. He shrugs slightly and turns his attention back to Evelyn.

“So, you can move things around with your mind, right?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“That’s a good gift,” she says, taking another bite. “Not entirely uncommon for Starborns, but a powerful one for sure.”

“You’ve known others like me?”

“Over the years,” she says. “Starborns often come and go. So many are afraid of their own gifts. Too often they look at it as a curse instead of a gift because they have trouble controlling it.”

“I haven’t run into that problem,” I say. 

“Then you’re lucky,” she says. She nods at Aaron. “So is he, and the other two listening from the other room.”

“So, they are Starborns too?”

Evelyn nods. “Heather is the fastest runner I’ve ever seen. Danny could lift a vehicle above his hea {aboe Std. Aaron’s is a more unique, yet limited skill.”

“Limited?” I ask, looking at Aaron.

“Limited to the amount of electricity that is near him,” she answers. 

I nod, remembering the way he burst the light bulb in Screven, and how he used the electricity from the vehicles at Garden’s Peak. 

“But for all we know,” Evelyn continues, “we’ve all got hidden abilities that haven’t manifested themselves yet.”

“You mean, I can probably do more than move things around with my mind?”

“I didn’t say probably,” Evelyn says. “It’s only possible.”

I give her a questioning stare until she continues.

“It’s all simple, really. The Starborns have been around for thousands of years. Though we haven’t always been known as Starborns. Many languages have produced varied names for people like us.”

“So, why are we here?”

“Well, legend says that we are all descendants of a race of human-like people who once inhabited the Earth and had children with mankind.” 

“Legend?” I ask with a raised eyebrow. “Aliens? Sounds a bit far-fetched.”

“Any more far-fetched than a person who can throw rocks around with a thought? More so than a person that can run faster than a vehicle? Of course it sounds far-fetched, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”

“So, you and I have the same alien ancestors?” I ask. 

“The true Starborns, yes.”

Hearing her say the word
Starborns
makes me realize where the name originated. Starborns. People born from the stars. Otherworldly people. 

“I couldn’t tell you their purpose for coming here,” Evelyn says. “All I know is that we are here now. I believe that the first of us had many more gifts, but the crossbreeding has led to a bloodline far removed from our ancestors. I also think that the original Starborns had all of our gifts combined within them. That they could move things with their mind, run fast, carry gigantic objects with their strength. They were in tune with everything around them.”

“If they were so powerful then where did they go? Why are they no longer here?”

“The dinosaurs were powerful, but they aren’t here now either. Humans won’t be here many years from now. I couldn’t begin to tell you where they went, or where they are now. Perhaps they left. We will never know for sure.”

“So, my brother, Jake, he’s a Starborn too?”