Voices of Humanity

Chapter Thirty-Nine

I had no difficulty convincing Rebecca to act sooner than previously planned. The woman had been looking to stab every sibla on the estate from the moment she arrived. Though the wild one told me Dreda had taken a bit more convincing, she too acquiesced to my plans without much protest. All efforts to finalize our alliances and the details of the attack began to crystalize.

    Two days after my encounter with Dulane's respective "guests" I began my cycle and five days after that, I was sent to Gregory, as I knew I would be.

    "They are all eager to join us!" Gregory exclaimed once the door closed us into the small shed, so loud I gave him a cautionary frown. He smiled sheepishly, grabbing my hands in his own and bringing his voice to an excited whisper "Alice, you have done what I thought was impossible."

    But though the news and his enthusiasm filled me with hope, that elation curded almost instantly, my body stiffening as his arms wrapped around me in a tight embrace. He didn't seem to notice, and a moment later his lips were firmly pressed on mine.

    A shiver of disgust traveled along the length of my skin along with the cold feeling of dread I'd become so accustomed to in the breeding sheds. But I had invited this. I had called on him as an ally. Broken down the boundaries between us. He had done all that I asked and now I wasn't certain how I might now stop him from what I feared he had planned.

    "We have found where Everett stores the keys to the gun safe," Gregory said, thankfully releasing me of his own accord. Trying to hide the sigh of relief that slipped through my teeth, I allowed the man to lead me to the bed as he shared the details of his own successes but took care to sit just a bit farther from him than I might have otherwise, forcing my heartbeat to slow with deep breaths.

    I was grateful that Gregory's momentary lapse of control did not extend to our following trips to the breeding shed, though I found myself trying to keep as much distance as possible between us, preempting any further procreative attempts he might make.

     I did my best to push from my mind any discomfort in his presence. He and the other males were crucial to our success. And though I caught the looks of longing in his eyes when he thought I'd turned away, I took solace in the fact that our time together would ultimately be short.

    Meanwhile, Rebecca and Dreda worked in the nursery, using the time they spent alone in Dreda's quarters to work with the information I slipped to the wild one after my sessions in the shed, offering me further details to share with Gregory the next day. Of course, there was one detail I kept from all of my allies. The true reason I had chosen the date I had for Dulane's death.

    Magnus Kendrick

    I wasn't certain why I felt so much reticence in telling the others of his existence, or the kindness he'd shown me. Perhaps it was because I did not yet know myself what to make of it. And if I could still not process the idea of a sibla man possessed of compassion having seen it myself, I couldn't imagine someone like Rebecca or Dreda might be able to do so. It had been hard enough to convince Dreda that the breeding males were our true friends and they were human! Still, as the days flew recklessly by, bringing us closer and closer to our moment of reckoning, I could not push Kendrick from my thoughts.

    Was the momentary kindness all in my mind? I wondered. Even if it was sincere, what ramifications would my concern for Kendrick have for our revolt?

    Magnus was a sibla. A farmer of human flesh. We had already determined we would end the lives of every sibla on the estate, man woman and child. Though I would use Dulane's assassination attempt against the man as a moment to strike, I could not quite imagine how Magnus might avoid becoming a casualty of our murderous rage himself. And perhaps that was what he deserved. Surely any who bred and harvested humans was culpable in the same crimes as all sibla.