Dawn by S. J. West Read Free Book Online Page A

Estate meant to keep those like me with powers from escaping.
    Once alone inside my stark white prison cell, I lay down on the twin bed in the room and replayed that future scene again and again until I could almost feel the sun caressing my face.
    I’m not sure how long I laid there until I heard the catch of the door release, forcing me to return to my reality. I sat up and looked at the now open door unsure if it was some sort of trick. When I heard the cry of a baby, I didn’t care if I was about to step into another trap set by the queen. I burst out of the room and ran down the stark white hallway barreling through a set of swinging glass doors. There I found Rose, wrapped in a pink blanket lying beside some sort of control panel with a single red push button about the size of a baseball. Above the panel was a window of glass, but the room on the other side of it was shrouded in complete darkness making it impossible to see what was there.
    I went to Rose and picked her up, cradling her in my arms as I told her in a sing song voice that everything would be all right.
    “Welcome back, Skye,” the disembodied voice of the queen said to me.
    I looked above me and saw the grate of a speaker imbedded in the ceiling.
    “Where are Jace and Simon?” I demanded.
    “Oh, they’re here,” the queen said, a smug smile lacing her voice. She knew she held all the cards and wasn’t above letting me know it.
    “Let Jace take the babies away from here and I promise I will stay with you,” I told her.
    “Now you see, I just don’t believe you’re sincere in that promise,” the queen said, “not in your current state anyway. No, I’m afraid I just can’t trust a word you say until I change you back to the way you should be.”
    “Back?” I asked, rebelling against the idea of returning to my true Harvester state of mind. “And just how do you plan on doing that?”
    The dark room on the other side of the glass window suddenly lit up to its full brightness.
    I stared past the glass, transfixed by the sight of a bloodied Jace strapped into a large metal chair with a myriad of wires embedded underneath his skin. He stared at me with haunted eyes.
    Simon’s desperate cry drew my attention away from Jace. Within the same room, Simon lay naked inside a clear plastic box sitting on a table fitted with a glass tube which ran from the top of the box to the ceiling.  
    “Now, Skye,” the queen said, “you get to choose.”
    “Choose what?”  I asked, but already fearing I knew the answer without the queen having to tell me.
    “Choose who lives,” the queen paused for dramatic effect, “and who dies.”
    “No,” I answered quickly.
    “No?” The queen laughed. “You sound like I’m going to give you a choice. I’m afraid that’s not how this little game works.”
    “I’m not going to play this game with you. I’ve offered to stay with you forever if you let them go. What more can you possibly want from me?”
    “I want you back the way you were!”
    The ferocity with which she said these words sent a chill of dread down my spine. It was then I knew for certain she would do whatever she had to, use whomever she needed to revert me back into an obedient Harvester again.
    “And how is killing one of them supposed to help do that?” I asked.
    “I admit I’m not sure it will, but it certainly can’t hurt to try. I have a theory on how you and Michael were able to break the Harvester programming, and I’m hoping this little experiment will prove me right.”
    “So I’m just another experiment to you?” I asked. “I’m your daughter. Aren’t you supposed to treat me better than your other lab rats?”
    “I will treat you better when you deserve it!  You’re lucky I don’t just kill you now the way you’ve behaved the last few months. But, I can’t completely lay the blame totally on your shoulders. I never should have let you see Ash and Zoe until their experiment was complete. If you hadn’t, I