Taken By Terror by Lolita Lopez

Chapter Twenty-Seven

With a snip of her clippers, Maisie freed the perfectly ripe orange from its branch. She checked it over for imperfections and obvious signs of rot or insect problems before placing it into the cloth sack draped across her torso. The bag was three-quarters full, and soon she would turn it in for another empty one.

As far as work went, orange harvesting wasn’t the worst job she could have taken. Walking the rows of lush trees and enjoying the citrus scent on the cool, crisp wind was nice. The pay wasn’t half bad, and her room and board were provided by the farm owners. She shared a dormitory with eleven other women, all of them kind and looking for privacy, just like her. No one asked questions. No one wanted to get close.

That was just fine by her. She never wanted to get close to anyone ever again. Getting close meant pain, unimaginable, unending pain.

Maisie swallowed hard as the painful lump of grief tried to choke the breath right out of her body. Five months, and no word from him. Nothing but silence. She had been forced to accept that he had either died before Hazard had gotten him to the Valiant for treatment, or he had died in an attack or some other act of war. Death was the only reason he wouldn’t have come for her.

Sometimes, late at night, alone in her small bed, the agony of those thoughts left her trembling and heartbroken. She had abandoned him, left him to die with his fellow soldiers. She should have been at his side, holding his hand, kissing his forehead. He deserved to pass knowing that he was loved so very much.

In the early days of her escape, she had questioned her decision to continue soldiering on, prolonging her suffering and exhaustion. And then, one morning, only days after finally reaching Agro-714, she had realized that she did have a reason to live. It was a very important one, and she had sworn then that no matter what happened, she wasn’t going to stop fighting.

Maisie eyed the thick branches in front of her and picked another ripe orange. She moved left to right, top to bottom, to clear the tree. When her sack was full, she slipped her clippers into the holster on her apron and started her trek to the waiting truck at the end of the row. She joined the line of harvesters and adjusted the strap of the sack as it cut into her neck.

She shifted her weight from foot to foot. Her back had been bothering her lately. It was to be expected, all things considered. All that climbing up ladders, stretching to reach oranges and stooping low to find fruit was hell on her body. She had handled the physicality of the job well until the last couple of days when it seemed as though her body was struggling a bit more.

I need to make a plan. I’ll have to find other work and a different housing situation at the end of the season.

Agro-714 was nice enough. She figured staying here would be best. It was beyond Alliance control, and the Splinter forces had no interest in the planet. There were other, smaller farming operations where she could work. The produce processing plants were supposed to be fairly safe. They didn’t offer housing, but the hours were regular. Plus, they had some on-site employee perks she was going to need.

When it was her turn, Maisie handed over the sack and watched the scale. Sometimes the grizzled foreman tried to shave a little weight off the tickets. Two or three oranges in a sack didn’t seem like much, but over the day, those small amounts added up to larger amounts of money, especially if the weight caused her to miss a picking bonus. He marked the correct weight, printed and tore off the shiny plastic ticket.

At the end of her shift, she would feed the tickets into a counting machine to get her daily wage. For now, she tucked it safely into the clip she had fashioned from a broken bit of metal wire and slipped it into one of the secure pockets of her apron. With her empty sack in hand, she turned toward the nearby water station. After a drink that quenched her thirst, she joined another line for the hygiene trailer that slowly moved through the orchard. It wasn’t heated or air conditioned, but the facilities were always clean.

Ready to start picking her next bag of oranges, Maisie returned to her assigned row in Block 218. She found the tree she had finished stripping and moved to the one right next to it. She pushed the ladder into position, adjusted her sack and climbed nearly to the top. Up this high, she noticed how unbalanced she felt. It was an unwelcome reminder she might have to push forward her plans to find different work.

By the time she had picked the upper half of the tree clean, Maisie was sweating despite the cold weather. She wanted to blame it on the efficiency of her hooded sweatshirt and work pants at holding in her body heat, but she had been having similar bouts of sweating and feeling overheated more and more these days. When she reached the ground, she took a few moments to fan herself and lift up the sweatshirt to get some bracing, cold air on her damp undershirt.

A sudden burst of wind overhead surprised her. She glanced at the wind machines located nearby. They were only supposed to come on when the temperature was close to freezing. They blew air through the orchard to raise the ambient temperature to save the fruit. Sprinklers tied into the system rose from the ground to add a spray of water to help keep the trees safe.

The machines didn’t appear to be turned on, and the sprinklers were still hidden away in the ground. Was it a ship? Surely not. The landing zone was far on the other side of the orchard where the oranges were washed and packed into crates.

Deciding it was only a random gust of wind, she adjusted the strap on her sack and studied the tree. The bottom wasn’t as heavy with fruit as the top had been. She peeked in her sack and decided she could fit the remaining oranges before turning it in to the foreman. Squatting down, she clipped, inspected and stored the fruit she could reach.

Standing, she stretched her arms toward the sky before moving to the back side of the tree to pick the last few oranges from the bottom. Crouched low, she placed her clippers along the branch where a fat juicy orange was hiding and snipped it free. She marveled at the pristine fruit. It was easily the biggest orange she had ever picked, and she felt almost guilty for having plucked it.

Brushing aside her silly thought, she moved on to the next cluster of oranges. She had her hand wrapped around one of the last fruits on the tree when she felt the unmistakable closeness of another person. Everyone who worked in her block knew about her deafness. They all knew to be careful when approaching her, especially if she had something sharp in her hand or had climbed up a ladder.

She grabbed the last orange before standing, dropping both of them in the heavy sack. When she turned to see what her coworker needed, she dropped her clippers and staggered back in shock. There, so close she could almost touch him, stood Terror.

“Hi,” he said. Only, he didn’t just say it. He signed it.

“Hi,” she said, her hands trembling.

He glanced around and smiled. “I should have known to look in an orange orchard first.”

Taken aback by the ease with which he communicated, she said, “You learned sign language.”

“Of course,” he replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I lost the glasses, remember? And I’m sure you haven’t got your tablet anymore?”

“No,” she admitted, enjoying the teasing. Feeling tears rising, she said, “You look good, Terror. Healthy. Strong.”

“I’m only healthy and strong because you saved me, Maisie.”

“You would have done the same for me.”

“Yes,” he agreed.

Still feeling guilty about leaving him, she pleaded, “Can you ever forgive me?”

“Forgive you?” he asked, clearly confused. “Forgive you for what?”

“For leaving you,” she explained, feeling so ashamed. “I promised you so many times that I wasn’t ever going to leave you, and I did. I left you and ran.”

“Maisie.” He spoke her name, his mouth shaping the sounds in a way she had dreamed about so many times. He closed the distance between them in powerful strides and cupped her face in both hands. Leaning into his touch, she focused on his lips as he said, “I never blamed you for that. You did the right thing. You saved me and yourself.”

The moment she had fantasized about sharing with him had finally arrived. She had to correct him, but she wanted to do it right. She clasped his wrists and carefully lowered his hands. He frowned, and she held up a hand to ask him to wait. Stepping back, she removed her picking sack and set it aside before grabbing the bottom of her oversized hooded sweatshirt. She lifted it overhead and let it dangle from her fingers.

Terror’s frown remained in place until his gaze traveled from her face to her chest to the undershirt stretched tight across her stomach. Shock filtered across his features, and she reached for his hand, drawing it across the space between them and placing it on her round belly. His hand shook underneath hers, and she watched as the shock etched into his face changed into something more profound—joy.

“Us,” she corrected. “I saved us.”

“Maisie.” He looked completely astounded. “We’re having a baby.”

“Yes.” She lost the battle to hold back her tears. “We’re having a baby.”

What happened next left her head spinning. Terror swept her up in his arms and claimed her mouth in an ecstatic kiss. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and held tight as she returned his passionate kisses. When he finally realized they were making a spectacle, he put her down and brushed his thumb over her lower lip. “You ready to go home, Maisie?”

Overcome with relief and happiness, she grinned through her tears. “Yes.” She rose on tiptoes to kiss him. “Take me home, Terror.”