Uprising: A Collide Novel Part 41

She started to wave, her image waved and moved like ripples of water and I remembered this. This is a dream. This is how people leave my dreams, just like my dad did that time. Her body swayed, then the background.

The ridge in front of us started to bleed and run like paint thinner splashed on a portrait. The rabbit was the last thing to go and I looked once more at Mrs. Trudy and she touched my cheek easily.

"You were the daughter I never had. Bye, sugar."

"Bye," I said through tears.

I awoke instantly and felt Merrick's hand rubbing my arm, in his sleep. I took a deep steadying breath and wiped the tears from my cheeks. I didn't know if the dream had been real, it felt real, but I needed it nonetheless. I needed a boost of Mrs. Trudy's guidance and no nonsense encouragement. I needed the calm of my ridge for just a minute.

Later on in the morning, it was Sunday so there was no school lessons, no training lessons, no ch.o.r.es except kitchen duty so I sat by the stairs with Merrick and Lily, Calvin and Lana, Jeff and Marissa, Lillian and Cain, and Danny and Celeste. We played Name That Tune, with me on the piano. Cain won, almost every round. He was pretty impressive.

Celeste had finally gotten her mom to come down during the night while everyone was sleeping but has now barricaded herself in her room. We just decided to give her time and leave her alone.

After a while Cain got out his guitar, which I didn't even know he had brought one with him. It was a yellow wood Gibson acoustic. He sat down on the stairs in front of us and tuned it. He looked around and smiled shyly. I thought he looked kinda nervous, which was weird for Cain. He looked at Lillian and they smiled wide at each other.

Then he began to strum Collective Soul's 'Run'. He started to sing the words and I froze in utter shock. He could sing. Seriously.

Are these times contagious

I've never been this bored before

Is this the prize I've waited for

Now as the hours pa.s.sing

There's nothing left here to mature

I long to find a messenger

Have I got a long way to run

Pretty soon, people gathered around and he played a few more and sang with that easy mellow voice. I joined in on some with the piano if I knew them but mostly just listened. He then played Mat Kearney's 'Where We Gonna Go From Here' to honor Aaron and Mitch.e.l.l since they were buried and we hadn't gotten to have a memorial yet.

It was sweet of him to think of that.

All of your ways and all your thunder

Got me in a haze running for cover.

Where we gonna go from here?

Where we gonna go from here?

The back of your eyes look like my mother's

When we talk you're like my brother.

Where we gonna go from here?

Where we gonna go from here?

Lillian was smiling through her tears the whole song. It wasn't a popular song. With this group of people I figured only Cain and I had ever heard it but it was pretty and soothing. We cried, we sang and just remembered the ones we'd lost. There were so many now...

He played a few more tunes, including, by request from Josh, The Hollies version of "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother".

I thought about my dad. My mom. Mrs. Trudy.

After Cain was through, he put down his guitar to indicate that his concert was over and people started talking again. Mostly about the ones who had died. Funny stories or crazy things they'd said or done. Josh was telling a particularly hilarious story about his father.

Cain and I glanced at each other, remembering that we'd seen Josh's father outside that night before the cave. And we'd never said a word to anyone. Josh's father wasn't just dead like he thought. Josh's father was a Lighter.

Which was worse.

"So anyway, he took this board, right?" Josh was very animated in his telling. "Like a piece of plywood and placed it over the hole in the window, only we had no way to prop it up or make it stay so, my dad came up with this crazy idea to use the mop. So he propped the mop up outside to hold the wood in place propped against the tree and we went to bed. Well, we heard a thud and a big crash and went to check. I was behind him and when we turned the corner to the kitchen, all you could see was the mop standing there. The mop head looked like hair and the tree branches looked like arms. Upright it looked like some lady was just standing there in our broken bay window. My dad screamed like a girl. I thought he was gonna pee his pants."

Calvin and Franklin literally rolled on the floor laughing and murmuring "pee his pants".

We traded storied for a while and then I saw Lily start to nod off in Merrick's lap. Then a quick look showed Merrick nodding off too. I remembered that we hadn't gotten much sleep the pa.s.sed couple night, what with all the drama and uh, other things going on at night. Ahem.

I gingerly took Lily, it was a hefty task, from Merrick on the floor and urged him by scratching the top of his head to follow me to bed for a nap.

I put Lily down and then we went to bed ourselves. By now it was lunch but I could care less. Too many things on my mind.

We laid there and I decided to grill him, even though we were beat, on all the things that could happen, are happening and what he thinks we should do.

"So, the new Taker has all the old Takers memories?" I ask after he explained as much.

"Yes. It's like, the very first Taker and every one after him is kinda stuck in the new one. He has their memories, their thoughts so they know exactly what they were thinking about, what they wanted, what they had planned to do. It makes the new Taker all the more dangerous because he knows what worked and what didn't."

"Why can't Lighters and Takers be female?"

"We have no idea. For whatever reason, Lighters in Lighter form are all males. We can only come here in the same s.e.x of a the body we take. Human females can be absorbed, but that's it. They can't be used as vessels."

"How do they reproduce?"

He laughed.

"They don't, honey. Neither do we. We are a limited number. That's why it's so hard on us when a Keeper dies. Because unlike humans, there will never be another one to come along and replenish the numbers. Just like Lighters. When they are all dead, they're dead. Done."

"So, I know it's impossible but, if we somehow killed off the thousands of Lighters who made their way here, it would be over?"

"Yes."

"But, would the moon's light return?"

"No. The moon would still be dark because the Lighters weren't there."

"Hmmm. I never understood that- wait. The glowing skin? They all just sat up there and glowed all night?"

He laughed again.

"You are so cute. Yeah, kinda. After everything you've seen, is that really so hard to believe?"

He left his arm there as my pillow but shifted so he could lay sideways to face me. I did the same.

"Yeah. It sounds so fake and weird. I always thought the moon's light was a reflection of the sun's light."

"It was the only way humans could explain it."

"Hmmm. I see. So, I'm not trying to be self centered or anything but...you think I'll have to worry, about this new Taker, ya know, trying to come and take me?"

"I hope not. Like we said, I've never seen a Taker do that before. The human who absorbed him must have had a very strong sense of family. Some of the human stuff sticks around, just like it does with us when we take a body. Us usually more than them but, the Taker is very susceptible to human emotions and the Lighters really are when he's here."

"Well, good."

"And besides, this Malachi is not new, he's from England, back in the sixteen or seventeen hundreds. I remember he was particularly ruthless. He doesn't like to kill humans, or at least he didn't back then. He wants to make them his mindless minions and slaves, basically. He just wants to be treated like a king. Make them his maids, cooks, chauffeurs, army, his, uh, entertainment."

He cleared his throat.

"What? You mean s.e.x?" I whispered it like it was dirty, because I thought it was.

"Yeah."

"Takers have s.e.x? So it wasn't just the last one who had an interest in it?"

"No. They are in human bodies. The bodies physical needs are the same as any other human. He doesn't love them, he uses them and keeps them on staff specifically for that purpose."

"What?" I can feel my face scrunched in disgust.

"It is what it is to them. Some human men are the same way."

"That's...gross."

Gross! Gross! Who would want to have s.e.x with a Taker? I guess, to them he's like a rock star or the president or something. Eww. I'm appalled also by, not just the devious nature of the Takers but how it mixes with the human stuff too. Humans have enough meanness in us without adding to it. I wonder if he hurts them or cares about them at all. But if he was terrible to them and hurt them, wouldn't just not go back?

Then I remember the Takers compulsion. Oh no. They stay because they can't leave. My stomach heaves and I feel sick thinking of helpless girls, just trying to be loved and feel special, though going about it completely wrong and being turned into, for lack of a nicer word, wh.o.r.es for evil. Against their will. I pray that's not true. I pray that he is gentle with them and they at least want to be there.

I refuse to ask Merrick if that's how it is with the girls because I'm afraid of his answer.

"Yeah, but it's what the Takers do, most of them. I remember Malachi was extremely unruly about things like that. But the saddest part are the human woman lined up willingly to be his next girl. Just to be put on the list, to be next because he won't keep the girls for very long, is such a privilege to them."

"Ok. Can we stop talking about that? It's making me sick thinking about it," I whispered because I didn't trust my voice.

Suddenly I felt as if I'd led a very sheltered life.

"I'm sorry." He kissed my nose. "Let's talk about something else."

I racked my brain for anything else.

"So, he's a Taker who's done the job already but with a free education of the last couple centuries."