21. Chapter 21 #2
The moment I said her name, I knew I’d messed up. We were trying so hard to keep my baby girl a secret, and here I was, blurting out her name.
Apparently there was no need to torture me for information; just give me a friendly face and I’d spew out everything.
“Nadia?” Iris asked, her voice soft and her expression suddenly intense. “Who’s Nadia?”
“Um, well, uh,” I looked around, trying hard to figure out what to say or how to deflect when Mia suddenly let out a pained wail.
“Owwwwie!”
Iris and I turned to see her curled up next to the pile of rocks, clutching her right leg. We rushed to the little girl. No sooner had we knelt on either side of her than I heard thundering footsteps running at us.
Looking up I saw Damascus sprinting toward us. Maz was right behind him.
What was going on?
Iris either didn’t notice or didn’t care because her entire focus was on calming Mia down enough to figure out how badly she was injured.
When Damascus got to us, he looked so menacing I put myself between him and my new friends.
“They didn’t do anything wrong,” I said, talking fast, scared this Talin might decide to arbitrarily punish my new friends.
Damascus didn’t respond to my words. He grabbed me, turned, and tossed me into Maz’s arms.
“See to your human,” he grumbled, then knelt next to Iris.
Maz was quick to set me down and run his eyes and hands over me. “I’m fine,” assured him. “Mia’s injured, not me.”
“Injured?” Maz repeated, sounding a worried rumble.
“What happened?” Damascus asked, purring loudly. I turned around to see the little girl look up at him with no fear on her face.
“Owwwwie!” Mia said through her tears and held her arms out to Damascus. The giant Talin picked her up, patting her back as she clung to him crying.
“I think she tripped and skinned her knee,” Iris said. “There's a basic med kit in the shuttle. We just need some sanitizer and a few skin patches.”
“We need to check her for damage to her joint,” Damascus argued.
“I have a human calibration scanner in my lab,” Maz offered.
Damascus didn’t hesitate. “Yes, we’ll use that.” Without further conversation, he turned and walked back to our ship with long, smooth strides.
“We better catch up,” Iris said with a grin. “Damascus will give Mia anything when she’s like this, and the next thing you know, she’ll be going home with every rock in your lab.”
“She can have them all,” Maz said as we followed Damascus.
Iris made a hushing sound. “Don’t say that. I don’t know what to do with everything she’s already collected!”
“Damascus was really worried about her,” I said.
“He’d die to protect us,” Iris said with total confidence. We hit the ramp to the ship and heard both Mia talking loudly and the faint sound of Nadia fussing.
Maz and I exchanged a look, unsure what to do.
Iris came to a stop. “That sounds like a baby.” She turned to me and grabbed my hands. “Is that your baby? Is that Nadia?”
“Yes,” I admitted.
A look of complete relief relaxed her features. “That’s so good! We found records of you being sold with an infant, but there was a note that you were both sickly. When we got here and didn’t see her with you, I was scared she hadn’t made it.”
“But I want it!” Mia’s loud demand drew our attention to the lab where Damascus answered her in an inaudible voice.
During our short conversation Nadia had stopped fussing, indicating she’d fallen back to sleep.
I looked back at Iris, her concern making me feel more comfortable. “My baby is alive and thriving. Let’s help Mia.”
Iris nodded with a happy smile, let go of my hands, and hooked her arm in mine to walk the two of us into the lab. Maz walked silently behind us.
When we got there, Mia was sitting on a countertop next to one of Maz’s complex machines, holding a red rock large enough she had to use both hands. All her earlier tears were gone, replaced with an absolutely brilliant smile.
“Looks at this, Iris!” she said, holding up the rock. “Isn’t it bweautiful?”
I had to grin at such a kid moment. One second she was screaming and in clear distress, the next it was all forgotten.
“That is beautiful,” Iris agreed.
Mia’s smile faded a little. “I lost my other pretties.”
“But this one is even better,” Iris said, stepping away from me to lean over and get a closer look at Mia’s knee. I followed her gaze to see that there was a scrape and a little blood that was already drying.
Knowing what was needed, I walked over to the rack full of human-specific medical items. It didn’t take me long to pull out the few things Iris would need, but by the time I turned around, everyone had changed positions.
Maz was digging through a box of samples. Damascus had sat down with Mia on his lap. She was talking animatedly, and if she paused, he asked her another question. Iris was sitting on the floor, facing Damascus and Mia, gently pulling bits of clothing out of the minor abrasion.
I walked over and sat next to her. She glanced at me then saw what I was holding and grabbed the sanitizing spray. “Perfect, thanks.”
She sprayed it over Mia’s injury, and the little girl didn’t even pause her conversation with Damascus to notice.
“Here, these are notable samples,” Maz said, bringing over a rock with blue streaks and another one with silver flecks.
Mia let out an excited squeal. “Pretties!”
Then she looked down at the rock in her hand and realized she couldn’t hold everything at once. Her lower lip started quivering, but before she could start crying again, I got up and grabbed a little carrier.
“Do you want to put all your treasure in here?” I asked, holding it up. “That way you can keep them all together.”
“Yes!” she agreed and gently set the red rock into it, then she emptied her pockets one rock at a time. It took so long Iris was long done doctoring her knee by the time everything was transferred.
With her hands now free, she made a grabbing motion at Maz, who handed her the two new rocks. It was all so cute I couldn’t help but chuckle.
“She’s adorable, isn’t she?” Iris murmured, getting back to her feet.
“I bet she’s a handful,” I said. “Mom always said healthy kids are always a little obnoxious, and she’d remind herself of that whenever I was acting out.”
Iris snorted. “You do realize that Mia’s going to feel like she’s allowed to fill that entire container with rocks? I swear, we have entire storage containers full of rocks back on the ship already.”
I gave her an unrepentant grin. “Oh well.”
“Remind me to give Nadia the loudest toy I can find,” Iris said. “Maybe an Ugarian fulk-horn!”
I didn’t know what that was, but I was sure I didn't want Nadia to ever have one. “You’re really pretty, did you know that? And you have such a nice voice.”
Iris barked out a laugh at the same time Nadia decided she wanted to be fully awake. The noise she made had everyone turning to look in the direction of our bedroom.
“I’ll get her,” I murmured, giving Maz a helpless shrug. It wasn’t like we could pretend Damascus hadn’t heard that. “Um, I’ll be right back.”
“Tea?” Iris suggested. “We could all sit down and have some tea while we meet Nadia and chat.”
“I haven’t finished showing Damascus the maps,” Maz protested.
I think I was the only one who noticed that Damascus shuddered slightly. “That’s fine. We can view more of your maps later. My human wants tea now.”
My curiosity was aroused. If Damascus didn’t want to find out about what Maz had discovered, then why was he here?
It couldn’t be to buy or steal me, he already had Iris and Mia.
If he wanted to add me to his collection, I’d think he’d pay more attention to me, but so far it was almost as if I didn’t exist. He was far more preoccupied with Iris and Mia.
What was the real reason for his sudden investment and visit?