Mother ~ The Sequel to Breeder

2

"Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one-hundred," Greyson counted aloud, calloused hands shielding his eyes. "Ready or not, here I come!"

Farrow and Ben could barely contain their giggles as they hid from their father in carefully selected spots around our apartment on the Resistance Base. It was one of many bases- I assumed- because surely the whole operation wasn't run out of this one dingy shelter.

My husband made a big show of struggling to locate Ben, even though his tiny, pink foot poked out from underneath the cloth covering the rusty metal desks we used to as a dinner table.

After about thirty seconds, he announced dramatically, "Oh goodness, where in the Galaxy could Ben be?"

Behind his back, Farrow poked his head out from under the bed, visible struggling not to crack up.

"Ahh, there he is!"

Moving the tablecloth with his amputated arm and scooping Ben up with his right hand, he pinned the four-year-old to his chest, kissing the crown of his head.

"I guess that means you win, Farrow, wherever you are."

"Right here, Daddy!" the just-turned-six-year-old announced, making himself visible, and running to hug his father's leg.

When Ben was still a baby, Greyson could cradle him in his amputated arm since it ended below the elbow- and he still had a lot of strength and agility in it- and scoop up one of his other sons with his right arm. But, since Ben was growing up so fast (he looked at least five rather than barely four), my husband needed his good arm to support his weight.

Soon he'll be as big and strong as...

I shoved the thought out of my brain, along with the memories that still haunted me years after escaping Starkiller Base. I had a new life now, a better life.

"How many times can you possibly play hide and go seek?" Klint said with an eye-roll. Still two months shy of nine, he was already acting like a moody teenager.

"Come on, Klint, let your brothers play, you have arithmetic to do."

"What's the point, I'm never gonna use it."

"That's not true," Greyson said. "You could be an engineer or a code-breaker; they need to know arithmetic."

"I don't want to be an engineer." Klint folded his arms, pouting. "I want to be a soldier."

"No, you don't."

"Why not? You're a soldier, Daddy."

Sliding Ben around so he was sitting on his shoulders, Greyson said, "I fight because I can't do anything else for the Resistance. I barely know how to read and write, but you will. I want something better for you boys."

"I can fight, too, you know," Klint said. "And I can do it twice as well since I have two arms."

He'd taken to making jokes like that, and, at first, it made me fume with anger. But my husband only chuckled, never insecure about his physical form, and we learned that, if we didn't give Klint attention for his naughty behavior, he did it less often.

"Yes, and you'll be able to do calculations twice as fast, too." Greyson made a gesture like he was writing with both hands, making Klint giggle despite himself.

"I want to be soldier too, Daddy," Ben lisped, having recently lost his first baby tooth.

"No!" I shrieked, making everyone in the room jump, startled.

I ducked my head, embarrassed I'd lost control like that, but if they knew what I knew, they'd be terrified too. Allowing Ben to fight in this war- even on the side of the Resistance- laid the path for him to become the Sith I saw in my vision. I didn't escape Starkiller and spend the past four years hiding out all over the galaxy, never seeing my parents, never knowing a stable home, just to let my youngest son slide into darkness.

"It's more than enough to have one member of this family constantly putting his life at risk." I met Greyson's olive-green eyes, watching him tug on his lower lip with his teeth. "None of you are going to fight in this war. With any luck, it'll over before you're old enough to enlist."