Chapter 4: Missing Harper

  Rowan   

I lay on an empty mattress in an abandoned house on an open freeway bypass in the middle of North Carolina. The face I wear now doesn't matter. It is not my own; none of them are. Not really. Only she knows my most authentic look, and she is there in the darkroom. I am cold. Not just because there are no windows in this home, but because I have lost my soulmate. We have been side by side for centuries, wearing many faces together, and now she is lost to me. How they found me, I'll never figure it out. Why she gave herself up for me, I'll never forgive myself for her sacrifice. But I know I will fight to get her out, to get her back, to get back at them. I will die without her, and we still have so much work to do. So many others to meet and so many others to awaken. Life is pointless without love, without meaning.  I wandered like so many do for 30 years until she found me. I was so lost. I only cared about partying and having fun.

I was into the material things cars, fantasy wrists watch like Movado, getting my most relaxed hair cuts, buying the fragrances that blended well with me, wearing one-hundred-dollar jeans and bragging about wearing expensive jeans, and dating around. I pretended to be happy on social media when deep down, I was miserable. I craved something, anything more, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what it was. Until I found her, and she opened my eyes to the light, into the vector. I’ve been alive now for nine-one years. Not that you would ever guess that by this body I am held up in. I am currently twenty-eight, and my driver's license says my name is Elizabeth Parker from Arizona. My real name is Rowan Mackenzie. Only Harper knows my real name as I only know her actual name. 

     Maybe the black suits found me because I stayed too long in Elizabeth. Even so, how do they know we even exist. I blended we’ll enough. None of it makes any sense. Why did they want Harper so severely? Because she is older? If only I could reach her. I miss her vibrations. Her smell. Her taste. Her soft skin. I miss when our lips would softly caress one another. I miss talking to her most of all, laughing about the most random of things. You know you've indeed met the one when you grow to love them more than yourself. When they become your lovers, best friends, and crush, it is nice to finally live in a generation where it is okay for two women to hold hands in public. I mean, you still get stares of disapproval which blows my mind because it's like, "why do you care about someone else sex life." Luckily for us "jumpers," we were able to wear the faces of a man and a woman in the times when it meant death for homosexuality. 

      In the morning, I will head back to one of the safe houses and let some of our connections know what happened to Harper. I'll also let them know that her Vector has been compromised, and she won't use it. We will have to get her. There is no way we are leaving her behind like we have others.