Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Lydia
“He wouldn’t have sent us back inside for no reason,” Harlee is saying as she and Briar return to the mudroom.
“What’s happening?” I cover my nose and mouth with cupped hands for as long as it takes the door to slide closed.
“No idea,” Briar grumbles, peering around me and out the window to where Killan is heading back toward the spaceship, Sorin and Roan close behind. “Killan ordered us back inside.”
“I got the feeling he was worried about something,” Harlee explains. “You know him better than us, Lydia. What do you think?”
“Oh, umm…” There’s an alien standing partway down the ramp. He claps Sorin and Roan on their backs. The three brothers pass him, ducking into the ship and out of my sight. The other alien watches them go. Then, right at the last second, he looks in our direction.
He’s got an elongated jaw, more like a snout than a mouth, with jagged teeth. He’s also got six eyes, and it’s impossible to tell if he’s seen me or not, because no two eyes are looking in the same direction.
Still, I get the chills. Sure, he’s a bit strange looking, but that’s not what’s freaking me out. It’s his expression. I’ve seen that expression before…if only I could remember where.
I shudder, even as Harlee drags Briar and me away from the window and downstairs into Killan’s kitchen.
It’s as clean as always. It’s also kind of familiar feeling. Friendly, even. And some of my nervousness fades. Which is seriously alarming.
This kitchen shouldn’t feel familiar. It’s an alien kitchen, on an alien planet, in an alien galaxy. I’m far, far from home, and I absolutely shouldn’t be getting comfortable.
I pinch the inside of my elbow, trying to pinch some sense into myself.
Chair legs scrape against the flagstone floor as the others pull out kitchen chairs and sit, with all appearances of settling down for a long wait. I follow suit, perching on the edge of my chair. I shouldn’t be sitting here. I should be doing…something. Something to progress my plan to escape.
So far, my research hasn’t yielded any helpful results, despite the fact I must have listened to eighty hours of interviews, news articles and chat forum posts.
“Killan, er…” What had Harlee asked me? Oh, right. “He wouldn’t have sent you guys away for no reason. He’s a prick who takes himself way too seriously, but he also takes keeping his family safe seriously, and he wouldn’t want anything to happen to you two.”
“Or to you,” Harlee adds, always so easily convinced of everyone’s good intentions.
I roll my eyes.
“What?” Leaning across the large table, Harlee hits my arm, not hard enough to hurt but enough to admonish me. “You can’t tell me that the two of you are still fighting all the time. You haven’t said a nasty word to each other since the first day of the harvest.”
“That’s because we haven’t spoken for eight days.
” I can tell Killan has been avoiding me as much as I’ve been avoiding him, and the few times we were forced together, tension has hung heavy in the air, just like the feeling of an anvil waiting to drop.
I’ve been sleeping poorly and eating poorly, and my thoughts keep running in circles around my head.
Sometimes, when I glance up or when I turn around quickly, I accidentally catch Killan watching me.
His expression is never super friendly, but…
what if I have been misinterpreting his expressions all this time?
What if he isn’t actually as grumpy as he looks?
Sounds impossible, right? Then why can’t I stop thinking about him?
I swear the less we talk in real life, the louder he is in my thoughts. One minute I’m thinking about how much he must resent me taking up space in his home and how pleased he’ll be when I finally leave. The next moment I’m worrying about him possibly having feelings for me.
Internally, I flinch away from the idea. But that doesn’t stop it swirling around my head.
What if Killan’s got a crush on me? What if Killan secretly likes me? What if Killan is falling in love with me?
I can’t pinpoint an exact reason I think that.
It’s a combination of the way he watches me when he thinks I’m not looking and the way he carried me up and down the ladder, keeping me safe in his arms. It’s the way he gets angry whenever someone mentions Smith or LOVE GALAXY or our abduction from Earth, and it’s the way he tries not to argue with me, even when I’m being a contrarian and picking a fight.
Not once has he mentioned being disappointed that his younger brothers found love when all he got was me. Not once has he made me feel obligated to him, and he certainly never assumed he and I would be in a relationship just because LOVE GALAXY threw us together.
All the same…the weight of those expectations grows heavier every day we don’t speak. They’re my anvil. And I need to get off this planet before it drops onto my head.
Briar and Harlee are watching me as if they know I haven’t told them everything.
I force a smile. It’s been a long time since the three of us have sat down together like this and talked. They’ve been too busy with the harvest. And I’ve been too busy avoiding Killan and listening to a million useless search results.
“We don’t get along,” I say. “We never get along.”
“I think the lady doth protest too much.” Briar laughs. “If you’re not careful, you’ll end up wanting to stay.”
“Briar!” Harlee hisses, eyes wide.
A hard knot forms in my chest, and I grit my teeth before I can say something I’ll regret. They’re my friends, I silently remind myself. My friends.
“Oh.” Briar seems to realize her faux pas. “I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did,” I interrupt, despite my conviction that I’m not going to hurt them. Not even though they’ve accidentally hurt me.
“We’re going to miss you, that’s all,” Harlee says, reaching across the table again to take my hand in hers, but I draw back before she can. “But of course we’re still going to help you find a way home.”
“Really?” And there I go again, speaking when I should be keeping my trap shut. “Because lately it’s felt as if you don’t give a fuck if I never get home.” I stand so quickly my chair topples over with a crash that has Harlee wincing.
“I do! I care.”
Briar reaches around me and picks up my chair. She’s watching me like I’m a bomb that might explode at any second. I know if I did, she’d be the first person to leap in front of Harlee, a Human shield against my misplaced aggression.
That thought immediately deflates me.
“I’m sorry. I was being a bitch. Again.” God.
I sigh. After eight days of barely speaking to anyone and spending all my time worrying about Killan and Earth and leaving, my nerves are frayed—more than I’d realized.
“I’m stressed because I keep thinking about how the spaceship outside is my only way home, and I don’t want to miss my one chance.
But that isn’t your fault, and I shouldn’t have yelled. ”
Harlee and Briar share a look.
They’re worried about saying the wrong thing again and setting me off. I drop into my chair, sinking as low as my feelings of shame and regret.
“We’ve gone through some pretty heavy stuff lately,” Harlee says, surprising me.
“Being kidnapped is a huge fucking deal,” Briar agrees. “It’s no wonder you’re on edge. Getting angry all the time is your trauma response.”
“But…” I swallow the first thing I’d been about to say, which would have been way more bitchy than constructive, and instead say, “You guys aren’t grumpy all the time. You aren’t having a”—I try to remember what Briar’d called it—“trauma response.”
“Girl,” Briar says, “I’ve been having nightmares for weeks.”
“You have?” Harlee looks surprised.
“I thought I was fine, and I am. Most of the time. I love Sorin and I love our new life, but lately, well, I’ve been having bad dreams that I’m back on Mr. Smith’s ship.
Sometimes I’m being interviewed by Chloe, and we’re in that gross room with the LOVE GALAXY wallpaper and the heart-shaped chairs.
Other times I’m trying to open a door, but they’re all locked, and there’s no way for me to get out. ”
“That sucks.” I rub Briar’s back, at a loss to understand how I ended up with two such amazing women.
They’re right, of course. So much has happened lately, and I haven’t been feeling myself. How could I be, when I’m trapped on an alien planet?
Sometimes, it’s scarily easy to forget that Killan is an alien, and remembering causes the air to stick in my throat. He’s become…familiar.
It would be simple to give up fighting to return home. It might even be simple to let myself fall in love with him.
The thought is terrifying.
Loving Killan would be a betrayal of Lucas. I can’t have broken up with one man for my bakery to then abandon my bakery for the next man. And I’d be betraying Lucas’s entire family, too, who accepted me as one of their own right up until the moment I broke their son’s heart. For bread.
Award-winning bread, sure. But bread, nonetheless.
And…if I’m being brutally honest, most of all I’d be betraying myself.
“I was fifteen when I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t end up like my mum.” It’s not until I finish the sentence that I realize I’ve spoken out loud.
“What d’you mean?” Harlee asks, biting her cuticles. She catches herself doing it and stuffs her hands into her pockets, but not before I catch sight of how red and raw her fingertips are.
God, have I been stressing her out that much?