Chapter Ten
The Messenger
I sat by the fireplace with my eyes on the dancing flames. Everything seemed to stop around me when I was in front of the fire. I held a cup of mouth-burning coffee between my freezing hands and placed my feet even closer to the flames. I hate winter. I hate the way it numbed parts of my body and how it would sometimes keep me from leaving my warm bed. The snow was well past my knees outside, which made it impossible for Cassie to walk through it without me to make a path for her. So today—my second day home as an unemployed woman—I decided to just stay inside with a fire going. Jack didn’t let me start it because, let’s face it, bad things happen to me. He was sweet enough to start it before he left to transport goods. Of course, Jack being Jack, he filled up a bucket of water and told me how to use it and had Zoey check on me in case I caught myself on fire. It’s comforting to know that he thinks I have no common sense.
Cassie and Daniel were in the living room with me. Daniel was napping in a playpen Jack had made him while Cassie sat bundled in blankets with her doll. She kept brushing the doll’s hair over and over until every single knot was brushed away. She sang some tune I didn’t know, and was actually creeping me out as she kept repeating it. I went into the kitchen and poured the warm cocoa into her sippy cup, making sure it wasn’t too hot for her by taking a sip of it myself. I gave her the drink and reminded her to be careful to not spill before returning to my seat by the fire. I wasn’t sure how long it would take Zach to get here. I had thought it’d be sooner considering I had asked him yesterday to come over today.
How was I supposed to tell him what the Keepers told me? This entire time I’ve been going over different ways to say it, but each way was pathetic. I began to worry that Jack would come home when Zach would be here, which would force me to tell him everything. Jack would most likely do something after hearing the news, and Zach being here during it would have really bad results. I planned to tell Zach today about everything and to warn him to maybe keep a safe distance from Jack for a few days. I’d then tell Jack everything, preferably at night when the Keepers are all in separate homes, and then wait for him to calm down. It seemed like a decent plan. It was logical. Well, maybe not logical in the Twiad way, but it seemed logical to me.
“I spilled,” Cassie announced her eyes on her legs.
I sighed and shoved myself away from the chair and into the freezing kitchen for a towel. When I returned I began dabbing at her sweatpants as she sang the tune over and over again. She patted my face when I finished like a dog and introduced me to her doll. Got to love that girl for her strangeness she most likely got from me.
There was a light tapping at the door that made Cassie stop singing. I stood up and went to the door, completely forgetting everything had planned to say. When I opened the door I was immediately blasted with a coldness so bitter that I cursed under my breath. “Sorry. Come in,” I told Zach, who was giving me a strange look.
Zach came in and knocked the snow off his brown boots before taking them off and neatly setting them by the door. He shrugged out of his thick black coat and placed it on the hook with the rest of the coats. I could tell he was freezing because he kept flexing his fingers, so I gestured for him to sit by the fire. “Want some hot cocoa? Coffee? Tea?” I offered.
“I will take some tea, if that is not too much trouble.” He shuffled next to the fire and held his hands out to the flames.
As I was leaving I could hear Cassie introducing Zach to her doll. He pretended to be very interested in the doll, even speaking to it. I couldn’t hear the entire conversation because the sound of water pouring into the kettle drowned out the sound. I turned on the stove and sat the kettle on it. Thankfully these stoves heated so quickly that it only took a few minutes before the water boiled. I grabbed a mug from the cabinet and placed a simple black tea bag in it and poured the hot water in. Jack and I weren’t ones for hot tea, so our selection was pathetic. But, then again, Renton’s tea supply was dwindling because no one has produced any tea yet. We’ve simply been using what was brought in bulk from earth.
When I came back into the room I saw Zach with Cassie on his lap. She was singing that song while he hummed along with it. It dawned on me where she heard the song from. Him. I carried the mug in with some honey and milk in case he wanted some. I sat everything onto the coffee table and sat across from him, on the couch. “I remembered how you don’t like sugar in it. Honey, right?” I gestured towards the tea.
He smiled and helped Cassie off of his lap. “Yes. Thank you.”
I looked at Cassie. “Cassie, could you go play in your room for a bit while your dad and I talk?”
She scooped up her doll and went upstairs without a word. I was relieved that she didn’t put up a fuss or anything.
“What’s wrong?” Zach asked with a mixture of chocolaty brown in his irises.
“Nothing serious. I don’t want you to worry,” I quickly responded.
He seemed to relax. “It’s difficult not to when you plan a secret meeting with tea.”
I held my cup of coffee between my hands and looked up at him with a frown. “It’s about the Keepers. I didn’t tell everyone what actually happened.” The other day I had told everyone the same thing I had told Jack. Zoey was appalled about me being ‘fired’ from my job while my mother was pleased to have me safe. No one suspected anything.
Zach gave me a skeptical look. “What do you mean?”
“They called me there to talk about what I am. They said it was basically a gift to the Twiad race for me to be half Twiad.”
He began mixing his tea, but he maintained eye contact as he did. “A gift for the Twiads? How so?”
“The Keepers want to try to reserve the Twiad race.”
“Preserve,” he corrected.
I rolled my eyes. Leave it to Zach to correct my words during a serious discussion. “Whatever. Anyway, they think the best way to preserve the Twiad race is by making it purer. That’s apparently where I come in.”
His expression tightened. “They want to use you to help make the race purer? Do they think you’re some kind of machine or something?”
“I guess so. They said they want me to have more children all because they don’t want to mix their precious blood with the humans.” I scowled at the memory of being in that room.
He sipped his tea, appearing calm. Yet, as I looked closer, I noticed his eyes swimming with crimson. “What did Jack say about it?”
I blinked. I don’t know why that question caught me off guard. Maybe it’s because I expected Zach to say how insane the Keepers were or maybe ask me how I felt about it. “I, um, haven’t told him yet.”
His eyes widened in surprise. “Why not? I thought he would be thrilled.”
“Why would you say that?”
He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Jack may have mentioned wanting a large family before… He has always wanted a large family.”
How could I not have known that? After all of the times I’ve seen into his head! I never knew he wanted that. “I-I have a reason for not telling him. It’s why you’re here, actually.”
Zach leaned forward, now enticed by my story.
“They don’t want Jack as the father because of his mixed blood. Because Jack is half, and I am half, it will be the same results as a human and a Twiad. So they’ve chosen someone else.”
It clicked for him in that second. He nearly choked on his tea. “Me?”
I nodded.
“Why me?”
“It’s less complicated. They said that it makes more sense because we already have one child together. But I have a feeling there’s more to it than that…”
“So they want me to be the father?”
“Yup. They said it would be exactly as before. I’d go in, get the injection, and pop out a baby eventually. Well, they didn’t say it exactly like that.”
He looked away from me and at the flames in the fireplace. “Are you considering it?”
I nearly dropped my mug. “What? No!”
He turned his gaze back towards me. “So why am I here?”
My mouth opened to say something, but quickly closed. Why wasn’t he angry? Why wasn’t he complaining about the Keepers? “I thought you should know that they went behind your back and planned this.”
“Well, thank you for tell me.”
I nodded, still bothered that he wasn’t bothered. “Aren’t you upset? I was fuming when they told me.”
“I am slightly bothered. But the Keepers always have strange plans. They were the ones that planned to have females from earth to carry on the race in the first place.”
My mouth, which had been gaping, now shut closed loudly. It never occurred to me that they were the ones that planned all of it. That would mean that what they had planned for me was nothing. “So you’re not upset about any of this?”
“I am upset that they pushed this on you. However, I can see their reasoning for it. It makes sense.”
That nearly blew me right off of the couch. I stared at him as if he were a complete stranger. How could he agree with them? “Are you serious? Are you saying you would do it?”
“Yes. I would.”
“Well, err, that changes things.”
He gave me a quizzical look. “How so?”
I sat my coffee mug down and began rubbing my eyes. “I thought this would anger you like it has angered me. I thought maybe we could go down there together and tell them off. I didn’t think you’d actually agree with them.”
“I’m surprised that you’re surprised. I have gone with this plan once before, Samantha. And the people that were dealt with then were not willing. This time would be different because you have a choice, correct?”
“Well, yes, I have a choice…” I drifted off, once again questioning myself. And then I was reminded when I saw one of Jack’s jackets draped over the back of the couch. “But I won’t do it. Especially not without Jack’s blessing.”
Zach lifted the mug to his lips, but then paused. Slowly, he lowered the mug back down and began dunking the tea bag over and over again. “Why did you ask me over here, Samantha?”
Wasn’t it obvious? “I thought you had a right to know.”
He leaned back in the chair and took a few sips of his tea. “Thank you for telling me.” He glanced at me briefly before looking at the fire. “But I can’t help but question why you haven’t told Jack yet. Isn’t this something he has the right to know as well? Why tell me first?”
I looked at the door as if Jack might suddenly burst through with his own questions. He wasn’t supposed to get home until late tonight, yet I still worried that he would throw those plans out the window. Jack is spontaneous, after all. “Honestly? I thought you should prepare yourself in case Jack comes flying across the yard to your house.”
“Why would Jack attack me for this?” he questioned in confusion.
I laughed because Zach of all people should know what Jack is capable of. “When I told you that Noel had informed me that I was supposed to have Jack’s child, were you not upset?” We both knew the answer to that one.
He didn’t say anything, so that only confirmed it.
“I plan to tell him soon. I mean, I only have until the memorial service before the Keepers ask for my final answer.”
“Is that the only reason you told me first? Just to let me know of the Keeper’s intensions?”
I looked at him in confusion. “Of course. What other reason would there be?”
He gave me this strange expression before dipping his tea bag again. “I thought maybe you wanted a friend to speak to. You always used to come to me for advice.”
I thought back to every time something bad had happened. It was true. Each time I came to Zach. He was my best friend at one time. He was the guy that I could trust to listen to anything and everything I had to say. I think that’s why I still find it difficult to speak to Jack. Of course, the connection means I don’t even have to tell Jack things. But sometimes it’s hard to even do the connection because I don’t know how to tell Jack something. It’s his reactions is why I have so much trouble telling him something important. Right now, for example. Zach listens thoughtfully and replies calmly as if we were just discussing the weather. I was pretty concerned over Jack’s reaction to all of this. So talking to Zach was just easy. I knew he wouldn’t overreact to anything. It’s Zach, the most calm and levelheaded man I have ever met.
“I guess old habits die hard,” I responded dryly.
A small smile formed on his lips. “Have you decided?”
My mood changed from calm to panic in just two seconds. “I can’t. I’m still astonished that you’re up for something like this.”
“I was a part of the program before. I will do anything to help my race.” The way he had said it made me see Zach different. He was so devoted to his race that he would further complicate his life if it meant helping them.
“It’s just not as easy for me. Maybe I’m just too emotional and am not seeing this from a logical side…”
“Sometimes emotional is not so bad. You just have to learn balance. Unfortunately, I have yet to learn that.”
“I think you’re doing just—“ I cut off as soon as the front door opened.
Jack.