Dawn by S. J. West Page A

I'm immortal.”
    “No,” I told her, actually feeling pity that she thought herself a god. “You can die just like everyone else. It just takes a little more effort to kill you.”
    The woman looked me up and down one more time before she turned her back to me and walked away.
    “Take the child,” she said over her shoulder, putting as much distance between us as she could. “One won't make a difference. We have others to replace her with.”
    I let myself take a moment to really look at the room full of babies, and I realized she was absolutely right. The Harvesters would rape this world of its future leaders. The babies in this room were just a small fraction of the lives they would destroy in their quest for immortality. I had no way to save them all, but I knew I could save at least one of them.
    Lux and I ran over to the group of babies where Rose was supposed to be. There had to be at least a hundred babies just in this group alone. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the cries. I heard her clearly then. It was a cry I had become intimately familiar with in the past couple of months. I opened my eyes and ran up the aisle I was standing in until I found my Rose.
    She was crying for all she was worth as if knowing it would draw me to her. I picked her up and her cries ceased almost immediately. Our eyes met and I felt my heart swell with not only a need to protect her but total love, not because she would become a savior for the world one day, but because she was my daughter. I knew in that moment, without a shadow of a doubt, that I would die for her if it ever came to that because I loved her-- not because it would be expected.
    “Come on,” Lux said heading back towards the exit. “We need to get out of here before they send reinforcements.”
    “Wait,” I said, walking up to Lux and handing Rose to her. “I need my hands free to fight off whatever we run into. You keep her safe, no matter what. If we get in a situation I don’t think I can handle and I tell you to leave, you run as fast as you can with her. Understand?”
    Lux nodded. “I will. I’ll protect her.”
    “Let’s go then.”
    We went back to the stairwell and made it to the third floor before we saw them. An unending stream of Harvesters flowed through the door leading from the first floor racing up the stairs towards us. They were armed to the teeth with guns.
    “Back,” I told Lux, turning around and pushing her back up the stairs. “There are too many of them.”
    We went up the stairs until we reached the fifth floor again. The female Harvester was nowhere to be seen now. I assumed she didn’t want to be involved in the fight that was heading her way. I scanned the room praying there was another exit off the floor. I knew if we were forced to go to the roof we were, in effect, screwed. There was nowhere to go but down from there. I would survive the fall but Rose and Lux wouldn’t. There was no escape unless I could take both of them with me.
    In the wall to the right, there was another door.
    “Over there,” I said to Lux, pointing to the door.
    Before we even made it half way there, the door we were heading towards burst open and a line of Harvesters flowed into the room. There were at least twenty of them and I had to assume about the same number was coming up the stairwell behind us. We were trapped.
    Corporal Dax came out to the fore front of the group.
    “You have nowhere else to go,” he said. “You can either come with us quietly or we can kill you where you stand.”
    “We’re dead either way,” I told him, seeing no means of escape.
    “True but the baby will live.”
    “Until she’s old enough for you to harvest her organs,” I replied. “I would rather have her die now than live that type of life.”
    “Then you leave me no choice,” Corporal Dax turned to face the men behind him. “Open fire.”
    As the Harvesters lifted their guns and aimed, I wrapped Lux, who was still holding Rose, in my arms and