Born of Kytec by Kennedy Harkins (the best e book reader txt) 📖

fight this. Fight the darkness that was slowly pushing it’s way through my anatomy. The truth of it was that I didn’t have any fight left. I was tired. Tired of battling everyone and everything just for a little ground, a little space. Would it really be so wrong to just let go? Just for a moment?
The hand was immediately retracted, just seconds after it’d been placed, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. I felt myself being gently lowered to the ground, all the while still in his embrace. He was cradling me, for what reason I couldn’t fathom. My eyes found the deep, magenta colored ‘sky’, it’s stars far too perfect in their placement to be real. A face entered my perception as he leaned over me. The hard lines of his jaw, the kind, merciless brown, and dark chocolate skin so familiar. I knew this face. Didn’t I?
His lips moved, I was engrossed by it, but I had no hope of hearing his voice over the roaring in my ears.  I smiled as I stretched out my arm and stroked the rugged aspects of his features, they were set grimness. His skin was like fire under my frigid touch. A shiver ran it’s way up his spine and he captured my exploring fingers in his over sized hand.
I met his terrified eyes. He looked so angry, so full of dread and dismay. I opened my mouth to question him about it. What had this man so paralyzed with such pure, unkempt  panic? But instead, a gasp forced it’s way past my lips, and I was shoved under the thick blankets of unconsciousness.

* * *

I was at peace. Everything was so warm, so safe. Nothing could hurt me here. . . Almost nothing.
“He loves it when you scream...” Her sadistic laugh cut off suddenly, “It appears we have an audience. Come here, sweetheart, come and play.”
No! It was my currently mental voice that screamed out. I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t back there. Back to that room full of pain, and sick pleasure. I’d escaped it once, and I couldn’t do it a second time. Despite my best attempts the horror threatened to pull me with it.
“Come here, sweetheart, come and play.”
“Gia,” someone whispered from just outside my mind. It shocked me from her clutches, because while he was bad, she was worse. The only difference was that while she tormented her psyche, he controlled the corporeal realm. He was easier to run from. How do you fight monstrosities that live only in your head?
“Sweetheart-” Her voice practically bled evil, contempt, and bad intentions.  
“Gianna, please. Please wake up. You have to wake up!” The words were filled with such hurt, desperation, and fear, that it punctured my nightmares instantly. But they would return, they never left her, and they never would.
My eyes flickered open, the ‘sky’ was even darker than I remembered, which made me think I’d been out for a couple of hours. I was laying on my back on something warm and firm. The rough hands I felt before were still holding me, but now they rocked me delicately back and forth. A soothing motion that curbed any of my earlier anguish.
Turning my head I stared into hard brown eyes, that softened upon meeting mine. There were large circles under his eyes that I didn’t remember from before, and the lines of his face were tense with worry.
“Cedric? I thought-” My voice was hoarse with strain and hysteria bubbling right beneath the surface.  
He cut me off, “Shh, your okay. Your safe, no one’s going to hurt you.”
They were the exact words I needed to here, but I wasn’t surprised when I felt the presence of salt water on my cheeks. Angling my face into Cedric’s chest, I let the sobs over take me. My body shook uncontrollably. Cedric gripped me tighter, and held me through it. He said nothing of me getting his suit all wet. And he said nothing of being strong and stiffening my upper lip. In that moment he was exactly who I needed him to be; my best friend.
I’d never cried as much in my life as I did in those few minutes. Despite my views on unnecessary shows of emotion, I found it very relaxing. Like a huge weight was being lifted off me- pound by pound. Before long my shaking ceased to nothing, and I lay there exhausted in Cedric’s grasp.
It was a few minutes after that that he broke the silence. “Don’t ever do that to me again, Giana.” His voice was cold and furious.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled into his chest. I couldn’t imagine how bad I must have scared him, how much I’d scared myself. I had never experience an outbreak like that. I’d always been so good at hiding the damage, the festering wrongness. I wanted to make sure no one saw the ugliness that brewed below the olive-tinted skin.
“I said I was going to go look for water to refill our supplies. . . I told you I would just be couple feet away if you needed me. I was behind you the whole time. . . when you were running.”
I glanced up into his eyes, they held worry, concern, and a little fear, but not the disgust I had expected. What was wrong with him? It was like he didn’t understand, like he hadn’t seen how broken I was.
“Gia,” His tone was unbearably gentle. “Your my best friend, I’d lay down my life for you in a heart beat, so would Koen.” The brown spheres that I’d always run to for guidance were full of severity and hurt. “Why didn’t you tell us?” His voice raw with emotion, “You shouldn’t have kept us in the dark.” His thumb traced the curb of my cheek bone, leaving a trail of caring warmth behind. “Your hurting. Let us help.”
“I don’t know that you can. . .” I whispered. “I see them everywhere. I relive it every time I close my eyes.” I motioned to my temple. “They’re in here, always. Some times it feels like they’re out here as well,” I laughed without humor.
He was silent for a long moment, probably trying to find the right ways to make me better. I shouldn’t have told him to save his breath, I wasn’t heal able. It must have been really hard for him, not being able to fix me like he always had with everyone around him.
There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that Cedric would be the best ruler Nucleo had ever seen. He helped people, no matter there class or social standing. Ced was the kind of man that you took a bullet for, just because you knew he’d do it for you. Unlike his father, he wasn’t genetically programed without emotions.
My thoughts froze and back pedaled. You didn’t even dare to think that way about the Everetts. It wasn’t done, you never knew who was listening in, even in the privacy of your own head.
To say Habe Everett was cold and calculating would be an understatement. The nation loved him, with his fake smiles and promises of a better tomorrow. A tomorrow where we would take back the surface from the brute animals that dared inhabit our crust. A tomorrow where we didn’t have to fear the Infected or their disease. His plan was to cure them, to rid the world of the Kytec infection once and for all. Mr. Everett then spoke of how we would reunite with our mislead brethren, how all would be forgiven, and we would live together in peace. The people ate it up.
But unlike the nation, I had met H. Everett. I’d seen the lies and deception that rolled freely off his tongue.  And I had to pretty fantasies that he meant anything he said. That was one of the reasons why I wanted to set off on this adventure in the first place. I had to see it with my own eyes. I had to believe that my life had amounted to more than just a pretty face marrying another pretty face, and procreating more pretty faces.  I wanted to able to lie in a sick bed a hundred or so years from now, obviously dying, and remember that I had lived. Not the crap they sold in books or on the news. Real happiness, fulfillment. I was determined to die with that dignity, I had the right to it, and anyone who got in my way. . . Well, let’s just say that growing up in my childhood had at least one advantage; I wasn’t afraid to go to surprising lengths to get whatever I wanted.
“There is something you can do for me,” I told him. His scrutinizing eyes searched my face for implications of what I wanted from him.
“Anything.”
I locked our eyes with every intention to hold him to that promise til my last breath. Hell, maybe even a little after that.
“Help me live.”
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Publication Date: 10-13-2011

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