Chapter 8 #2
“Don’t get offended, but…” Am I pushing my luck with this line of questioning? “Why didn’t C tell you what you could eat in all these biodomes?”
He coughed and looked away. “The plantbot housed all the information on the biodomes, and it was giving a presentation on the aboveground floors when all hell broke loose. C doesn’t volunteer information. You need to ask her direct questions.”
“And you never asked?” I thought I knew stubborn.
“I figured it out,” he muttered before moving two rows over. His eyes darted everywhere but to mine while he dug his hands into the gravel substrate. “It didn’t feel right eating all this food from other planets when everyone it was grown for in the first place was dead.”
My stomach clenched, and bile crept up my throat at my thoughtlessness. Though I ached to give him a hug, I feared it might send him running.
Instead, I changed the topic. “Tell me more about your mata? Do you get your beautiful hair from her or your fata?”
Silver’s eyes hardened on me. He shoved all his hair down the back of his coveralls. “It’s just fucking hair.” Then he stormed off to the other side of the biodome.
What had I said this time? My shoulders slumped. All the progress we’d made this rotation, snatched away in the blink of an eye.
Before I knew it, I’d harvested the last ripe sala leaf and stacked the new crates in a dim corner with the others. I pulled off my gloves and pressed my knuckles into my tired eyes.
Head hanging, Silver trudged back toward me. “Listen, maybe you can wait a day or two before you go out again.” Silver rubbed his eyebrow before his apologetic gaze darted to mine, then away again. “Just till you get some rest.”
His concern teased my wanting heart, and the lingering frustration from his fiery temper fell away. I wanted to bounce on my tiptoes, but kept my feet planted flat on the ground. If I’d learned anything about Silver this rotation, it was that an exuberant show of emotion would drive him away.
“With all this to work with…” I waved at the rows upon rows of climbing and creeping vegetables. “We can manage without meat for a few more days.”
Delaying my hunt for a few days to rest turned into three weeks in the blink of an eye.
Each morning, I secretly nursed the Earther dome back to life, while Silver spent the day running around completing whatever maintenance and repairs C threw at him.
In between daydreaming about Silver warming up to me, I worried about our rescue.
Surely, my brother must have sent a search party by now.
Inevitably, Silver would find some task that had to be completed in the early afternoon wherever I happened to be. He’d gone from popping in to grab something and rushing out again to gradually working alongside me, helping, for longer and longer.
As much as I loved breaking through Silver’s thick shell and getting to know him, the new moon was coming, and it had been nearly a month since I’d tasted his blood. Jerky hadn’t been cutting it for a long time.
Silver leaned against the black volcanic rock the biodomes were built into, a tool belt angled over one slim hip.
My mouth watered at the sight. I forced my tongue back from the fang it had been playing with while I ogled the tuft of hair peeking out from the top of his jumpsuit. The zipper was lower than usual.
“Well, do you?”
Silver had a way of standing where he spread his legs and crossed his arms over his wide chest that sent goose bumps prickling over my skin.
This rotation, my heightened need for blood meant it distracted me even more.
I had no idea what he’d asked, but when he looked at me like that the answer would always be yes. “Yes…?”
He pushed off the wall, tools clinking as they rattled, drawing my eyes to the base of the zipper I wanted to lower. “So, I’ll see you in three suns?”
“Sounds good.” I stood, brushing my hands free of the seeds I’d been opening, and forced myself not to step between his powerful legs and dip my fangs into the pulsing vein at his neck, my willpower fading by the moment.
Tonight, I’d tell him I couldn’t postpone the hunt any longer.
Though I had my doubts that fresh meat would stave off the craving at this point.
“Ah…where will I see you?”
He laughed, the low, liquid rumble shooting sparks to the base of my spine. “I knew you weren’t listening.” His throaty voice did things to my insides. “I asked you if you wanted to eat in my pod again? I’ll set up the viewscreen with something out of C’s info package for us to watch.”
His stride loose and long, Silver sauntered to the biodome’s door and swiped his palm over the panel. My eyes tracked every step, and when he paused at the scanner, chin dipped and ears flushing red, it took every ounce of my willpower not to rush over and erase his doubts.
With all that flushing skin, the memory of the rich flavor of his blood played over my tongue. “Blant…” I dug my nails into my palms to sharpen my senses and shake off the bloodlust. He’d been standing there waiting for my response. “Of course I want to come.”
He turned to face me, and the smile he aimed at me made my head spin. Handsome didn’t come close to describing this beautiful male. “You think you can bring that pie that tastes like apples?”
“Yes. One hanyan pie coming up.” I nodded, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from saying, ‘I’ll make you anything you ask for.’
He left with a shy smile that kept me floating as I cleaned up my gardening equipment and collected the fruit for dessert, placing it in a basket alongside the starchy beans I’d been shucking and the container of graneth seed.
They’d make a hearty porridge when combined with the mantu jerky.
But the pie would be better with eggs. At the last moment, I grabbed a d’ew.
Silver loved the sweet melon, and I had a salad in mind.
“C?” I walked toward the hovertube.
“Yes, D’alton of Clan Lasting.” C’s cheery voice filled the chamber as it rose from level thirty-one.
“Do you think any of the floors might have dehydrated eggs?”
“Let’s see…” She hummed while searching. “Flory, the Tig who occupied room seventy-six, had a standing order for eggs from Tern’s capital region. You could try there.”
“Thanks, C.”
Tapping level seven into the panel, I mentally prepared for what I might find there. Over the last few weeks, C had been guiding me to likely sources for ingredients, and every floor had been a nightmare of decomposing bodies.
As I stepped into level seven’s dim corridor, I swallowed the lump in my throat and mentally thanked Silver for fixing the air recyclers throughout the Thermal Station.
Without the fresh air, the scent of decay would’ve knocked me off my feet, though another odor competed with the fetid rot this time.
One that smelled disturbingly like shit.
Shrugging it off as my senses playing tricks on me as the new moon approached, I wrapped a scarf around my mouth, tugged on gloves and carried on.
As I’d done on each new floor I’d encountered, I selected a room and dragged all the bodies from the corridor and common areas into it.
I didn’t want Silver to have to deal with them.
He had known these people. Many of their name tags began with D, marking them as Boola, and I couldn’t help the tears that tracked my cheeks by the time I was done.
The first time I’d cleared a floor, the guilt over sending these victims to their gods without a ceremony had been so heavy I couldn’t carry on.
But C and Silver had explained that even if my brother hadn’t totally blown the delivery date and the replacement part had arrived on time, a new containment unit wouldn’t have been enough to stop the spore from spreading the way it had.
One sun later, the remains of twenty-three bodies were neatly lined up and covered with sheets. Less than I’d expected.
“May the goddess Sola watch over you in your life’s sleep and guide you to solace.” The simple prayer lifted my heart. I tossed a handful of graneth seeds over the bodies—a Boola funeral ritual to foster a fruitful life for their next embodiment.
Tucking my gloves into my pocket, I followed the floor lights along the corridor to room seventy-six, washed my hands in the corner sink and quickly found the envelopes of eggs. A glance at my wristport told me I had two suns to shower and make dinner.
Once in a fresh uniform, I pulled the fragrant pie from the oven and gave the graneth and mantu porridge a final stir.
After rifling through the drawers in the communal kitchen on my level, I produced a couple of sealed containers.
I’d made plenty, so Silver wouldn’t have to revert to kale smoothies while I was out hunting.
After stacking everything in a neat pile, I made the short trip to level thirty-one.
“Holy shit, that smells good.” Silver jumped from his curved pod where the bed was nestled and scooped the pie from my arms. His hair was still wet and twisted into a long tail, the collar soaking his clean coveralls.
My fangs itched at his rare show of excitement, and I wanted to rub them against the pulsing vein above his collarbone. I wondered if they had apple-pie-scented cologne on Earth. Maybe that would be what it took to get Silver to kiss me.
Or maybe my surprise would do it? Shuffling my feet, I started to question whether all the work I’d put in in the last three weeks would amount to anything. Inhaling deeply to bolster my nerves, I spit it out before he sidetracked me again. “I have something to show you.”
“Right now?” Silver stared longingly at the food he’d started to plate.
“It will only take a second. C’mon.”
He shoveled a scoop of the mantu porridge into his mouth, talking around it. “Just to tide me over.”
Why did he have to be so blanting cute?