k_a_webb | Kim’s Earth: Lauren: A Change of Ownership (part 5) (Reply)

This entry is part 36 of 36 in the Kim's Earth collection

I studied Fenwick. Woody wasn’t the sort of person to turn down help, even if it was from someone he didn’t know, so I wasn’t certain that I believed what I was hearing. At the same time I didn’t think Fenwick was lying, unless he happened to be very good at it, because there was something about lying that, to me, would change the way the speaker’s voice sounded. Biting hard on my lip I waited for him to continue, not wanting to express my doubts when I couldn’t help thinking that I might not know Woody as well as I thought I did. That wasn’t really a surprise. The new world had changed everything and everyone.

“The only thing I asked Woody for was help. He had more people than I did, people who could help at the farms, and I needed all the help I could get if I was going to get everything done before winter.” Fenwick glanced out of the window. “Without him I would have wasted at least half of what I’d grown, which was something I really didn’t want to do, so I offered him everything that his people harvested, in order to keep everyone here alive through the winter, as payment for the help. Maybe after that we could work out something long term. I remember the way he looked at me when I asked him for the help – it was as though I was nothing more than a bug he wanted to squash beneath his shoe, even though I was offering him food. One of his people came to me when I was leaving. If it hadn’t been for her I would have walked away.”

A sound from the door made me turn. Anastasia stepped through it, a key in her hand, and our eyes met. “We didn’t know when you were coming again, otherwise I would have been waiting for you.”

“Stasia was the one who stopped me, told me the Woody had changed, he was becoming more difficult to deal with – more dictator than the leader than they’d once looked up to.”

“Next time you visited he was going to make you stay, even though you said that you didn’t want to, because he thought it was important that we had plenty of people here for when the World Government came.” Anastasia shook her head. “He was paranoid, kept thinking that people were watching us, waiting for the time when we let down our guard, because then they could grab everyone here and take us to to the place they’d got ready for us, in order to repopulate the world.” She sighed. “When Fenwick came to offer us food it was something he shouldn’t have turned down, but his paranoia made him certain that all Fenwick had come for was to see what we had, if we’d be able to fight, whether we were worth taking. I went after him because I knew we needed the food, otherwise we were all going to die.”

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.