Daughter of Rebels

Chapter 5 - The Hive

Her clothes, somehow, were clean and dry, and the small hole in the shoulder where the arrow had struck her had been patched.

"The mystical voices of fate are expedient laundresses," Mara muttered to herself as she dressed, watching as Nick yawned and stretched himself into the land of the living. She'd be worried this slow waking was an effect of Eli's magic if this wasn't how her son woke up every morning. He took after her in that regard. Davy was a morning person, quick to wake, chipper and clear-eyed. Mara's mind was slower to warm up, and though she and Davy usually woke together, she'd often spend long minutes blinking, stretching, and breathing her way into wakefulness while he sprang up like he'd been catapulted from the bed, ready to go about his morning.

Tears pricked her eyes, and she used the sleeve of her shirt to wipe them away. It would be best, she decided, not to think of Davy for the foreseeable future. Not until she and Nick were safe.

"Mama?" Nick's voice was groggy as he pulled himself into a sitting position amidst the rumpled sheets.

"Right here, baby," she said, setting aside her boots and joining him on the bed. He slumped into her chest, rubbing his eyes, and she squeezed him to her, pressing her nose to the crown of his head. He smelled a little like damp wool, his hair matted on top from wearing that cap all night long. But he also smelled like her baby, sweet and clean.

"Where?" he asked, turning his face sideways against her chest so he could peer with one eye at the unfamiliar room. The single word made her wince. Nick wasn't much of a talker. He'd been slow even with his first words, but Davy swore he had been as well. "Didn't make a peep until I was three, and then full sentences," he'd proclaimed proudly.

More tears, blurring her vision and the mental image of her husband's cocky grin, the gentle love in his eyes as he soothed her fears.

Curse it.

She wiped her eyes again, surreptitiously.

"We're visiting friends, my love," she crooned, cradling Nick to her and rocking from side to side the way he liked. He sank a little heavier against her.

"Dada?"

To her surprise, no tears came in response to his question. Instead, a sickly pressure built inside her head, pressing outward. How could she explain to a child so young when death was too complex for most adults to confront? How could she explain to her son that his father was dead when she herself had to turn her face from it just to cope?

Tell the truth, urged a voice in the back of her mind. It will be hard, but tell the truth.

"Dada's not here," she said, the rest of the words congealing in her throat. She swallowed hard, cleared her throat, but the truth refused to break free. So instead she told a lie she knew, she knew, would haunt her. "He'll meet us where we're going."

Nick's little shoulders twitched in a shrug of mild acceptance. Davy was often away for days and weeks at a time. As long as Nick had Mara, little was amiss in his world. Did she prefer that, she wondered? Was it more painful to imagine him missing his father, or to imagine that he wouldn't?

Mara knew she didn't have time for all this maudlin rumination. They were on borrowed time. The gates to the Hive only opened at dawn, but they opened without fail. Whatever help the Keepers were to offer, the quicker she went about acquiring it the better. Already, they had less than a day before Order officers no doubt took advantage of the dawn clause and came looking.

Nonetheless, she took a moment to simply sit with her son in her arms, rocking gently and telling herself the same lie she'd just told Nick. He'll meet us where we're going.