28. Chapter 28
Consciousness returned when metal dented in around her, disturbing her resting spot. Still terrified, Ava screamed again, even though the haunting of her mind was no longer present. Soothing waves came instead, but she was not capable of being soothed. Instead, she rejected them soundly. Like a pom herself, Ava flew into flight mode and leaped up the vent, climbing upward as fast as she could, not thinking. Her only thought was to get away. To hide. She curled up as small as she could in the vent.
She felt another touch on her mind, more insistent, which she shied away from further. Words were projected, again not absorbed. It took her being completely broken, it seemed, for her to learn how to block mental intrusions out.
Ava sat there, rocking, holding her biologics in her blood-coated hands. She rocked them in her arms like she did her baby sisters long ago in the nursery. Soon after, tears started to flow. The words from her nightmare echoed in her mind. Worthless. Worthless.
Only then, when she started to feel again, after the crying came strong and hard, was she receptive to the humming that was happening from beneath her.
“We need to leave, Ava.” Vox spoke from below. His rumbling voice reached her ears instead of projecting in her mind. Her ears worked, even if her mind did not. Vox. He was here.
Still she did not move, frozen in the vents from the aftershocks. Her muscles were still twitching.
“Ava!” Vox said louder. Again. He smacked the side of the vent, metal reverberating up to her where she was slipping back into unconsciousness. She startled back awake with a jolt, head hitting the side of the vent.
“Ava! You need to come down. Please. For the love of everything sacred, Ava. Please move!” He slammed the side of the vent in frustration, beginning to tear the sides apart to try to get to where she lay nearly comatose. “I will take care of everything. I will take care of you.” His voice broke as the metal squealed. “Just return to me. You belong with me. Come down. Please.” He let out a mournful yelp, a desperate tone, as he continued grasping at the vent sides.
Where she was and what she was doing rushed back to fill her upon hearing his mournful wail. I need to get down. She turned and stumbled down the vent she had just climbed, clumsily bracing herself to reach the bottom. She banged on the sides, not feeling the pain her rough descent caused.
“I have you. I have you. I have you,” he said calmly, repeatedly, breathing out raggedly in relief, grabbing her under her arm and pulling her out of the metal he had ripped a hole into when she got close. His eyes were possessive and focused, riveted on her face.
Ava grazed her arm on the exposed, sharp edges as Vox helped her out the rest of the way. The metal ripped a hole in her suit and left a jagged wound that leaked blood. The pain brought her consciousness into sharp focus as she grasped her arm with her other hand.
“Ava . . .” Vox picked her up like she was weightless, cradling her in his arms, eyes mournful. His hand ran down her face, lightly tracing it. He grasped her close to his chest, his arms easily encircling her. They were alone except for several Tuxa who stood mindless at attention as their broken guards.
Vox turned with her in his arms and bolted. She did not ask about the other females as he carried her out of the small, closed room. She turned her head into his chest. She heard the females once they cleared the entrance to the room they were held in. She buried her head, burrowing into him, and didn’t turn to see any remaining fighting as they walked as a group. Her mind couldn’t even form thoughts to herself.
Her consciousness slipped as they traveled, coming back to awareness as Vox’s gait shifted, and then slipping back out into dissociation.
The journey took a long time, crossing several of the domes that looked very different on the ground level than they did from up above in the vents. Pauses happened, which was when she raised her head, frightened, only to bury it again as more blood spilled around her. Unlike earlier, when Ava was eager to see something new, she had only indifference now, even when the path was clear.
Ava didn’t attempt to communicate with Vox other than asking once to be put down to walk during a lull in the fighting.
“No,” was his simple answer, gripping her harder to him. Ava didn’t argue further. She discovered that if she rubbed her fingers over the cut in her arm, the pain kept her alert and centered. She didn’t want to be unconscious any longer.
“Ava, your mind . . .” Lirell was in front of her suddenly. Ava blinked up, looking at his worried expression, before turning to see the Phor ship, her R526, open and welcoming for them. The lights were on, the thrusters already warmed up. It was waiting. They’d made it back. She let go of her bloodied arm to grip Vox on the shoulder.
Vox grunted forcefully at Lirell, who fell back, before looking down at Ava. His eyes gentled briefly before he hiked her up higher in his arms. The women all collapsed in a heap in the cargo bay as they entered.
Rhutg closed the doors as Vox came in, last. Ava looked at him as they passed, making eye contact. His eyes were consumed by sadness as he dutifully fulfilled his duties tending to the other women. The other Vorbax women. Not his Violie.
Ava registered all of this as she was carried by, Vox not stopping his stride.
They left the rest of the women in the cargo bay. Vox carried her into the engine room, not slowing down until he reached the little alcove that was her room for so many years. There he lay her down on her small, familiar pallet bed. He stood over her, chest heaving, body shaking. He was breathing deep to catch his breath.
Lirell trailed in a minute later. He’d fetched her patchwork blanket from the crew member room she had used before. He looked at Ava sadly while fingering the fabric before handing it over to Vox. “Ava. You’re safe now,” he said haltingly.
Vox grunted his thanks before motioning for Lirell to leave. Lirell left after one more backward glance at Ava.
Vox shut the curtain behind him, closing off the room. He took the blanket and put it carefully over Ava’s shoulders. He wrapped her in the blanket exactly the same way she had when he initially broke the barriers between them. The same way she was covered when he held her gently to him for the first time.
He cautiously moved to gather her in his arms now, pulling her onto his lap while they both sat on the pallet bed. Ava did not resist, but was not as malleable as the first time he held her like this.
Her mind was becoming clearer, and his soothing touch helped, but it felt like a scar was across her entire being that wasn’t there before.
There was no easy mental box to put this in like she did for all her other losses. The box she had constructed previously was crushed and destroyed, the memories in it still swirling before her. They no longer had a hallucinated form, but Ava could see them every time she closed her eyes. She stroked the wound on her arm, the pain banishing the memories away for a moment.
Fresh tears finally came for her, and Vox sighed. “I do not understand your tears, but when you have them, the pressure inside you becomes looser,” he stated, then hesitantly added, “I have to think that is a sign you are returning to me.”
Ava pushed against him to sit up, and his arms looped around her more loosely. He was a mess himself, covered in blood. Some of the blood was from the fighting, but there was a lot that was fresher from the wound on her arm. He paid it no attention as he regarded her possessively with his eyes, his posture still tense.
With her senses returning to her, she looked at the wound. It would need to be heat sealed. She let out a shuddering breath. Everything seemed to just take so much effort. Even breathing.
She pointed to the wound with her other hand. “I need this closed.”
Vox nodded, shining. “Erox is coming down to heal you. He needed to tend to one of the women first.” He stroked her head from top to bottom, undoing the bun to let her hair down. They sat there silently while he combed through it with his fingers, before he spoke again. “You were so brave, little bird.”
That caused fresh tears to stream, sparkling as they fell on her lap. I was not. I hid. Ava wiped them away impatiently, tired of crying. Now she was feeling too much, when she was numb before. Nothing physically bad happened to her, other than what she’d inflicted on herself in her horror. Why was she reacting this way? What’s wrong with me?
A clatter outside the alcove made Ava freeze up, visibly jumping as she startled. Vox growled, “Erox.”
Erox came in a second later, grin sheepish as he opened the curtains. He had knocked the clipboard to the ground from where Ebel had it placed on the navigation table cycles ago, as if awaiting her to fill it up again with tasks. Ava hesitantly walked to pick it up, placing it back on the table before coming back into the room.
A second later, she needed to leave the alcove again, the wound sealer too big to maneuver properly in her small room with both Vox and Erox in there with her.
She sat at the navigation console while he worked, only feeling the pinching as it closed. The wound healed quickly, zippering shut with every pass Erox did slowly. The large biologics tank served as a backdrop to Erox’s motions, with her arm lying across the navigation panel. Ava gazed at the tank while Erox worked, zoning out while watching the patterns the biologics made as they moved. Smooth skin followed in the heat seal’s wake as he pressed it carefully over her arm.
Vox ran his fingers over the wound afterward, inspecting. “There are other areas of discomfort I can feel, but it is hard to assess you completely under this suit.”
The suit. Now that he mentioned it, Ava felt disgusting. She didn’t feel motivated to shower though. She didn’t feel motivated to do anything.
Vox moved her hair behind her ear, staring at her as she continued to space out, looking at the tank.
Erox stood next to him, arms crossed, a worried expression on his face as he regarded her. “We can run a few tests . . .” he started to say.
That got a reaction from Ava. Her insides boiled over in fury. Even now she was a test. A puzzle. Rage filled her blood. The rage of years of holding back.
She covered her ears and shouted, stamping her feet, pulling on her hair. “No tests! No more prodding me!” She got up and yelled, voice echoing across the engine hall, straining her vocal cords as she let out a screech that echoed in the room. “I want to be left alone!” She covered her head with her hands and sank to the ground, curling up. “I am not an experiment,” she said a second later in a hoarse voice.
Vox sat next to her. She felt his heat from where his leg pressed against hers. She looked up a few moments later, after her rage had burned itself out of her chest, to see that Erox had left and she and Vox were alone. Only the hollow feeling of nothingness was left with the rage gone.
She lashed out at Vox as well, feeling polluted. “I said alone,” she grumbled toward him, without feeling. She pushed on his leg that was in contact with her, shoving it away.
“Hmm . . .” Vox answered, eyes fixed on her, as he moved his leg out of her reach. “When you hurt, it is easier to push away. Do you wish that, Ava? Do you truly wish for me to leave?”
Ava looked at him sitting there. She ran her fingers through her hair, not making eye contact. She leaned away from him against the biologics tank, pressing her face into the side until she felt like one of the bubbles within. Popping and swirling.
“No. I don’t want that,” she said softly. “I don’t know what I want anymore. I don’t want to talk.”
Vox turned forward, sitting still, like he did in the prison when she first met him.
“I do want some time alone, though,” she said finally. Vox hesitated before nodding and standing in a brisk motion.
“I will be back,” he said, walking toward the engine door.
Ava didn’t watch him leave. She was too engrossed in pretending she was one of the bubbles.
Once he was gone, Ava breathed in deep, soothed by the smells of grease and the sound of the engine. It caused a fresh wave of tears. She was alone and comforted by an engine more than anything else. An engine. Not anything living. How pathetic.
Well . . . that statement wasn’t entirely true. She was not completely alone.
She looked down at her small container of swirling biologics. They most definitely were alive. And with her. Although, they probably want to rejoin their friends instead of remaining tied down to me.
Ava put her hair back in its bun, tying the greasy strands overly tight against her scalp, before climbing to the top with a bag of their feed in hand. She unscrewed the top of the container to tip the biologics from her jar back in. None left. Not even when she turned the container completely upside down. She shook it slightly, then dipped it in the tank to help dislodge them. When she pulled the container back out, it remained full. Swirling. Swirling.
A fresh wave of sobs came over Ava as she put their food powder in the container and recapped it, placing it around her neck once more and hugging it. She threw more feed into the tank as well before climbing down. Her feet climbed down easily from the top from muscle memory despite her soreness. Her body ached. Now that she was feeling calmer, she felt those aches more acutely.
Ava walked over to the control room and powered on Ebel’s computer and her own. The computers had been restored, the internal ship communications back online. The ship was no longer linked up to the Phor mainframe however, which was odd.
Ava didn”t have the curiosity to explore further. She sat at her little desk, card game on the screen in front of her, and mindlessly played a few rounds. She sat there until she put her head on her arms over the keyboard and dozed to a light sleep.
In the back of her mind, she heard Vox come into the control room and felt him lift her. She didn’t resist, pretending to be in a deeper sleep than she was, as he carried her to her bed in the engine room.
There, she didn’t have to pretend to sleep. Between him stroking her hair and soothing her, she fell into a deep slumber.