“How are you going to watch over the whole place?” Jess asked, gesturing to the rifle. “That doesn’t seem like enough. I still think it’d be better if you let me sit up in the loft of the barn. The window up there would be a good lookout.”
“We’ll be okay.” Kavish jutted his chin out toward the buildings in the distance. “Paul is meeting me at the barn. We’ll be keeping in contact with some two-way radios I found. Did he tell you that he used to be a police officer? It was over twenty years ago, but the guy still knows what he’s doing when it comes to patrolling and handling a weapon.”
“You and I need to get our sleep, so we can get the work on the preserve done tomorrow,” Akuba said to Jess before turning to Kavish. “We’re going to need more people. She’s right, that we can’t keep up this pace with just the few of us.”
Jess scrutinized Akuba, concerned with the hollowness in her voice. She was always the positive one, but since the jaguars showed up two nights before, she’d been distracted. Distant, like she wasn’t as confident anymore about what they were doing.
Kavish was nodding. “Yes, I agree. Slaider will go to his village tomorrow to see if anyone went back, but there is too much unrest in town to do more than that. Eventually, we’ll go out and bring more survivors to the preserve. Together, with the right people, we can work on expanding the gardens. We’ll collect more livestock from other abandoned farms, and cultivate all of it while protecting ourselves.”
The bad feeling swimming around in Jess’s stomach was growing. “When you say the right people, are you talking about the ones who are immune? What about anyone who’s gotten better?”
Kavish shifted so that he was staring out at the darkening jungle, and not at Jess. “Those who have suffered the Kra Puru won’t choose to be with us.”
“How do you know that?” Jess insisted. She turned to Akuba, and was dismayed to see that she wouldn’t make eye contact with her, either. “I know you believe they don’t—that they don’t have souls.” Her voice hitched, but Jess was determined to get the words out. “If we start doing the same stuff as them, and don’t help everyone that we can, aren’t we the ones acting like our souls are gone?”
Akuba and Kavish exchanged a look before he shook his head and walked away. The first of the stars twinkled to life far above his head as Jess watched him leave, and crickets began their serenade in the gathering shadows.
“We will always welcome anyone who seeks refuge here,” Akuba said, after he was far enough away not to hear her. Reaching out to take Jess’s hand, she looked more like her old self when her eyes scrunched up with a smile. “Kavish may think he is right, but I still have hope that he isn’t.”
Feeling somewhat reassured, Jess smiled back before taking the last swallow of her lemonade. She debated whether to bring up the brewing question about what killed the chickens, or the fact that they were already running low on some supplies. Instead, she surprised herself by asking the one thing that scared her most. “Did you know?”
Akuba pulled her hand back, and stared silently at Jess for a moment. She opened her mouth as if to ask what she was talking about, but then closed it. There was really only one topic that hung unanswered between them.
Jess leaned toward her, her desire for the truth building since she’d said the words aloud. “Do you know if he’s my dad or not?”
If Akuba had tried to make up excuses for why he said he wasn’t her father, or attempted to brush her off, Jess might have been able to make herself believe it wasn’t true. Except the silence dragged out for too long, and Akuba held her stare for a fraction of a second before looking away.
The bad feeling she’d made some progress against blossomed again, bringing some nausea along with it. Jess set her empty glass down, already regretting the acidic drink. Her mouth watered, and she opened her mouth as she tried to gulp in a bigger breath of air to clear her head. “How—I don’t understand.”
Akuba grimaced as she stood, and then began pacing the open space between the chairs on the deck, wringing her hands together. “I was only sixteen when your dad came home with his new bride,” she began, and then plopped back onto the lounge so that they were at eye-level. “Since your father had seen to it that I was schooled properly, I was able to do the math.”
Jess watched as the last of the fiery orange tendrils faded from the sky, to be replaced by more stars. She could have guessed what Akuba was going to say, but she needed to hear it. So, she kept her face tilted up, out of fear that meeting Akuba’s eyes would make her stop.
Akuba pulled her legs up onto the lounge and hugged her knees to her chest. “They’d met just four months before getting married, during the first week your dad was in California. You were born less than three months after they returned. At nine pounds and healthy, you were obviously full-term.”
Jess sat stoically listening, not sure how she should feel. She was numb, and briefly wondered if that was what it was like to be one of the Cured.
“It never mattered to him, Jess,” Akuba urged. She scooted to the edge of the chair and pointed a finger at her. “He always treated you like his daughter. You are his daughter, in every way that matters.”
“Do you—” her voice cracked,
