Dawn by S. J. West

wounds.
    “You’re like a one woman army,” Lux commented, staring in awe at the carnage I had just wrecked. I retrieved the stun batons the two guards were carrying and handed one to Lux.
    “They have my daughter,” I said, feeling something inside me ignite with grim determination. “I swear I’ll kill every last one of them if I find a hair on her little head missing.”
    “Go for it, Momma Bear,” Lux encouraged with a smile. “I’m right behind you.”
    Once we got to the door leading to the fifth floor, I didn’t even bother to look to see if the coast was clear. Harvesters were arrogant in their own sense of superiority. Considering there had only been two to three guards on the floors I had already been on, I doubted there was more than three on this floor.
    When we stepped through the door, I came to a complete stop.
    This floor had been cleared of walls to make one large open space. Row after row of babies in clear acrylic bassinets on stainless steel roll away carts filled the floor space. Their cries echoed within the cavernous space and my heart sank.
    How the hell was I supposed to find Rose in the sea of babies before me?
    There were three Harvesters, one male and two females, in pink scrubs walking up and down the aisles separating the infants. When we entered the room, their eyes homed in on us immediately.
    “Who are you?” One of the females demanded, striding up to us seeming intent to make us leave.
    “Where is the baby they just brought in here?” I asked, assuming Rose couldn’t have been here very long and was probably one of the few new arrivals to the baby farm.
    “What business is it of yours?” The woman demanded, daring in her arrogance to stand in front of me.
    I tossed my stun baton to Lux who immediately grabbed it, now holding one in each hand. She stood with them both outstretched in front of her to ward off any attempt by the others to come closer as they stood and cautiously watched the proceedings.
    “I’m going to ask you one more time,” I said to the woman, not even attempting to hold in my rage. “Where is the baby that was just brought in here?”
    I watched as the woman’s eyes darted between me and Lux, not as confident as she once was with my show of no fear.
    “Are you the reason why the alarms went off a few minutes ago?” The woman asked me.
    I reached out and grabbed the woman by the throat with one hand, spun around and pinned her to the wall behind me.
    “Where is my daughter?” I screamed at her, squeezing her throat and then forcing myself to let it go just enough for the woman to speak.
    I heard the running of feet across the cement floor and knew I didn’t have much time before the other two Harvesters were on me. Lux was brave and stood her ground, but she wasn’t any match for them even with two stun batons to fend them off with.
    Whether subconsciously or not, the woman looked off to the left and I knew that’s where Rose was.
    I broke the woman’s neck, letting her body fall to the floor and turned to meet my two new attackers.
    “Lux!” I called, holding out both my hands.
    She immediately tossed the batons to me knowing I would be able to do more damage with them than she could.
    I kept my back towards the wall as I faced the man and woman approaching me. The man was the most arrogant and just came barreling at me with his shoulders hunched like he was going to tackle me. I almost laughed at his stupidity. All I had to do was step out of the way right before he reached me and he did the rest to himself by plowing his head against the cinder block wall at my back knocking himself unconscious.
    The woman was more cautious, smarter. She stopped halfway to me and looked me up and down.
    “What are you?” She asked me. “You have our strength and agility but you act like a human.”
    “I am human,” I told her. “You're human too. You've simply been brainwashed to think you're something different, something more.”
    “I am more.