Read Online Blood Colony by Tananarive Due - Free Book Online Page B

Jessica was surprised Alex could even joke about it. But Alex wasn’t joking; she was offering the man sanctuary. Age must have mellowed her. At fifty-three, Alex’s lifelong Afro was mostly silver, with only a few stray strands of black.
    “I’m not sure what we can do for him,” Jessica said. “He stole from them, Alex. With Caitlin, they would see it as naivete. It’s different with Justin.”
    “Naivete that’s spreading all over the country. And Canada. Getting into the news.” Alex sighed. She suddenly cupped her palm to her ear. “Do you hear that sound, Jess? That’s the sound of the shit hitting the fan,” Alex said. “They found a security breach with Justin, and then Caitlin’s picked up with Glow in Seattle—two hours from here. This is the end of the mission. Me, I’m packing some research I’d rather keep closer to home. Not that it’ll do any good, if someone wants to come take it.”
    “Nobody’s taking anything from anybody,” Jessica said. “I have the blood, too. And so does Fana. Not to mention your own husband, Alex. And Dawit could change yours any time. It’s not just theirs anymore.”
    As usual Alex, as stubborn as their mother, didn’t address the offer for the blood. At least Alex had finally started using herself as a test subject, injecting drops of blood even if she would not agree to Dawit’s Life ceremony. So far, ironically, the blood had not helped heal Alex’s leg.
    “If we have to, Lucas and I can go out on our own,” Alex said. “We’ll find our own way to work with the blood. That’s what we’ve always planned, one day. You have a bigger fish to fry, Jessica. Her name is Fana, and she’s plenty pissed off.”
    Before Jessica could say anything, a voice surprised them from the rear doorway. “I knew I’d find you in here talking foolishness,” their mother said.
    Bea’s cane clack-clack ed across the floor. Perspiration shone on her forehead.
    “Mom, for God’s sake…why did you walk all the way over here?” Jessica said.
    It was a long walk from the Big House to the lab, over a knoll without a paved path, and Beatrice Jacobs Gaines had relied on a cane since breaking her hip on her back porch steps five years ago. A heart attack last year had sapped the last of her spryness, despite Alex’s care. Bea had enough trouble navigating the kitchen nowadays, much less outdoors.
    Her mother’s deterioration pained Jessica. This frail old woman had once been the belle of Gadsden County, Florida, with knockout legs and a face Jessica only saw glimpses of beneath its canopy of wrinkles. Bea was eighty-four now, taking daily pills for everything from arthritis to high blood pressure, and she wouldn’t accept a drop of her own daughter’s blood.
    Sometimes Jessica wondered if her mother had dementia, too. Couldn’t she see she was dying, day by day? Why choose man-made medications above a gift from God?
    “Alex, don’t you even think about going off by yourself,” Bea said.
    Jessica shared a secret glance with her sister. They could not talk freely in front of Bea. She held onto everything tighter since Daddy Gaines died, especially her ideas.
    “Nobody’s going anywhere, Mom,” Jessica said. “We’re just talking.”
    But it was too late to cover for Alex. Their mother had heard enough.
    Leaning hard on her cane, Bea walked six painstaking steps to Alex and stared her eldest daughter earnestly in the eye. “Baby, let them tend to their house. They tend to their house, we tend to ours. That’s what keeps the peace. You’re not going anywhere on your own, you and Lucas. You wouldn’t last. That’s crazy talk.”
    Alex’s face itched for a rebuttal, but Jessica gave her sister a gentle, appeasing smile. Leave it alone. Any arguments sent Bea into a frenzy, and there was enough arguing ahead.
    Jessica still had to talk to Fana, after all, even if she couldn’t think of what to say. How could she condemn in her daughter what she would have done