Chapter One

Life is a funny thing. We are born. We live. We die. Sounds simple enough, right? But it’s not. Those stages may be simple, yes. One hundred percent, yes. Those are the easy parts. It’s the in between parts that are hard and seem funny to me. I am the creator of life. I can create in many forms. I can grow plants from just the idea of them. I can help to create life in animals with nothing but what can be called a small bit of energy. Easy. I can do it all without much thought.

However, creating life must come with thought. It just has to. Is it right what I can do? Is the outcome good? Is it evil? Is it wrong? Honestly, creating life is hard on the soul. Or at least it is on my soul.

Then you have the life growing inside me, that I did create, but not with any purpose or even desire. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I want this life. It’s wonderful and special and its mine, but it was not one I sought out and not one I actively created. In a common happenstance, it was unplanned, an accident. A wonderful, exciting, and yet scary accident.

We, being Ash, Nora, Reed, and me, have all been through so much in our short lives. We’d been created by SaneCorp through DNA experimentation. When we started showing signs of our gifts we were taken from our families, some peacefully, and some by force. We were all caged in a building where we were again experimented on. I didn’t realize that was what was happening as for me it felt more like school. Until it didn’t. We also hadn’t known about each other. We’d each thought we were the only ones.

My gift at that time was not as developed as it is now, but I was able to grow life. That could be plants or animals. I could grow anything I wanted. Trees, roses, and my favorite, daisies. I could help animals to reproduce. Everything I touched with my spark of life energy, I could make grow, and grow fast. A tree in a day. Fruiting plants in a moment. I could also help animals reproduce and reproduce in multiples. I thought my gift and my learning was amazing.

But then, I was made to experiment on my animals I’d grown to love. Mixing creatures to create abominations. They told me I was creating new species, but all I created was pain and death. When I balked, the people of SaneCorp didn’t like it. They began to punish me. Physically in some instances, but mentally as well. They would use my favorite animal friends against me. They would hurt or kill my bunnies or goats or whatever, if I didn’t do what they asked. It wasn’t a threat they used against me. It was a promise. Do this now, or Reggie will die. My heart couldn’t take it.

One night, after Reggie, my sweet mini white and black goat I’d created and raised from a baby, had been taken and murdered in front of my eyes, for not doing as the scientist had demanded, I decided I couldn’t do it anymore. That night, after the building went quiet, I opened a window and grew myself an escape route, in the form of a tree. It was a mix of several types, but mainly oak and willow. I wanted something strong enough to hold my weight, and I wanted it to grow fast. When it reached my high window on the fourth floor, I climbed out with only a bag that held a change of clothing, and I ran. I had no money. I had no idea of the world outside that building. I just ran.

We, again meaning me, Nora, Reed, and my Ash, we’d all had about the same reaction to being at SaneCorp as children. We reached a point where escaped was the only option, and we scattered out into the world. I ended up at a small farm in New Mexico and made a life until Reed found me. The others arrived in my life not long after. We’d taken on Dr. Dane, who’d gone mad trying to give himself what we had.

We’d then tried to work with SaneCorp, thinking a home was better than a life on the run, but that didn’t work either. We found out they were trying to make us into weapons they could use against the world. We also found they were still experimenting on people, and not in a good way. Death and destruction followed. We’d had to take on Creed to escape. To do that, we’d burned the place to the ground. Well, Ash burned the place down.

We left that burning building, and were again on the run, with no idea where to go or what to do. This time though, we had each other. And we knew we were stronger as a group. We would be okay if we stayed and worked together.

Looking at the faces staring at me, all with many different states of emotion on them, I knew they were feeling some of what I was too. A baby was wonderful, beautiful, and yet it was not a good time for it. Maybe that is why it was such a miracle. It happened when I and Ash were actively trying not to have a baby.

However, maybe blurting out that I was having a baby had not been the right course of action. Especially considering all that was going on.

“How long have you known?” Nora asked from where she was turned around in the front seat of the car, so she could look at me. Her shoulder length hair once colored black and purple, was now the bright white of her natural color she’d tried to hide. She’d kept touches of the purple here and there for, as I liked to think flare, but maybe because she knew the people of SaneCorp had disliked it. Either way, it suited her.

I decided to be honest with them. Reed, Nora, and especially Ash deserved the truth. “I thought maybe I was a few weeks ago, but I didn’t want to know. So, I pretended to myself it wasn’t there. I know now that I have known for a while. Even if I didn’t want to see it or feel it, the energy had been there, and I knew about it from the moment it sparked to life.”

“Eve, why didn’t you say anything?” Ash asked from where he sat next to me in the back seat. He took up a lot of space in that back seat. His warmth emanated from where his body touched mine, making me feel soft and safe even if the discussion was hard. We were parked in the berm of the road in front of a growing field of soybeans. We had just left the SaneCorp building where, as we were making our escape, I’d sprung the reality on the other three. Reed in the driver’s seat had turned with a jerk to look at me with his dark piercing black eyes wide in shock, after I’d voiced the simple phrase of “Oh, by the way, I’m pregnant.”

The car had swerved sharply before he’d gotten it back under control. He’d quickly pulled over to the side of the road, where we now sat on a small road surrounded by fields on one side and a thin forest on the other. I looked out over the field of beans and felt the concern, fear, maybe a bit of anger at the situation from the other occupants of the car. Not at me. I knew it wasn’t at me. It was there though, a bright red emotion swirling about us, all the same.

Nora sat, calmly turned in her seat and looked at me where I sat in the back seat behind Reed. She was studying me, but not upset really. One way to tell with Nora was the car was not cold and there were no little snowflakes floating about. Those were always a dead giveaway when she was feeling anything heavy.

They were all waiting for my answer to Ash’s question. “I was afraid. Not of any of you, but to say it out loud. It would have made it real. I was afraid of what would happen if the company knew. If anyone found out. We know they were listening to everything we said and watching everything we did.”

We sat in silence for a few moments. I was deep in my own mind wondering what to do and where to go from here. They probably were too. I was proven correct when Reed asked, “Well, what’s our next move? We can’t sit here all night.”

“I think we should get as far away from here as we can,” Ash said while looking at me.

Nora nodded her agreement, but Reed looked at me from the rear-view mirror and seemed to be waiting to see what I would say. He was good like that. Watching. Thinking. A load of patience, while I worked it out.

“I think we should stay here,” I said.

“What!” Ash said. Or yelled, depending on how you wanted to look at it. He was obviously not expecting my response.

“Why?” Nora asked. She, however, was still just a calm force within the mix of many emotions.

Reed again stayed quiet. He was giving me a chance to say and explain my reasons.

I spoke carefully, but with a firm purpose so they would know I had given my answer some thought. It was not just a whim. “We have been running for a long time. Each of us in our own way. I thought we could stay at the compound here and be happy. We could be together and safe and not running and fighting for our lives anymore,” I said.

“Eve, we can’t stay at the compound. We just set it on fire,” Ash said as if I didn’t remember.

“No, we can’t stay there. But we can’t leave either. First, we need to stop running. We need to fight for ourselves and our lives and now I need to fight for this child. I am not going to allow this baby to live and know only a life of running and fear. I don’t want them to always be looking over their shoulder. You felt that way once too. You sought us all out to end the running. I’m ready to make that happen. This ends here for me. You guys can do what you think is best for you. I’m not the boss of anyone, but I’m staying.”

“Eve,” Ash said and took hold of my hand. My hand felt small in his. I could feel the callouses on his palm, rough against my own. I could sense the strength and energy he held within himself. He was so gentle with me, yet he was raw strength inside. The energy that raced around in him was immense and heavy.

“Plus, I have this desperate need to know what the company was doing here. We have an idea, but we don’t know. There were hundreds of people on the list of missing. Where are they? And did any of them survive whatever SaneCorp was doing to them? Are there others like us out in the world? What happened? Don’t you guys want to know?”

Nora and Reed shared a look. All Reed did was lift and drop one shoulder. Nora gave him a tight smile then turned back to me. In that moment I knew they were on board. They didn’t seem to need to talk to each other to communicate sometimes, but I was able to read them better than they probably expected.

Nora and Reed weren’t mind readers. That was not one of their gifts. They communicated with their eyes and their body language. They knew each other so well they just seemed to know what the other was thinking.

I turned to Ash and asked, “What are you thinking?” He sat there, my hands in his and his bright amber, red eyes on mine. His face pale in the low light of the car. His hair black as night had grown in the last year. It was long and straight down to his shoulders, but that day as he’d done more often than not, he’d tied it up in a ponytail bun at the crown of his head to get it out of his way.

“I am thinking I understand what you’re saying. I hear you. Part of me even agrees with you, but I don’t want you anywhere near SaneCorp. I don’t want them to know about you or the baby or anything. I can’t do it Eve. I can’t put you and our child at risk. You understand what I’m saying, right?”

“We have to do this, Ash. You know it. We can figure it out. I mean look at us. We have powers that are awesome and together we are badass,” I said.

Nora and Reed both laughed. The sound thankfully broke some of the tension that felt heavy in the confines of the car.

“Cussing doesn’t sound right coming from me, does it?” I asked with a rueful grin.

Ash squeezed my hand. “No, babe. Not at all.”

“I’m going to win this argument. It’s my turn,” I said to the car as a whole, but to Ash specifically.

I watched several emotions cross over Ash’s face before he looked to Nora who nodded once. He then turned to Reed, and they stared at each other for a moment, quietly communicating in a manner I didn’t understand. I saw Reed lift one dark eyebrow. Was that the answer? It must have been as Ash turned back to me, and said, “Okay, we need a plan. Then we will see.”