Chapter 7 #3
Gemma ordered a pair of slip-on shoes in black, three pairs of skirts, one in every color because a dealing with the boot on her foot sounded easier in a skirt, both short and long sleeve shirts, tanks in all the colors, the necessary undergarments, and a loose and flowy cardigan in an alleged universal design meant to be worn by various species.
There were no sleeves, just slits along the sides.
That was the universal design. It resembled a ruana or poncho more than a cardigan, in Gemma’s opinion, but she wasn’t in charge of product descriptions.
A quick step onto the scanning bed and the computer had her measurements to start printing.
While waiting for the clothes, she ordered toiletries.
Soap, lotions, moisturizer, razors, a scrubby-net thing, toenail clippers, toothbrush, and deodorant.
She almost forgot to request a hairbrush.
There were so many little things that went into making her feel like a person.
Gemma tried to picture the clutter on her bathroom vanity, but her mind went frustratingly blank.
Outfitting the kitchen was far easier. Dishes and cutlery came in one style, so there was no dithering over choices.
She ordered two of everything, along with a full set of pots, pans, baking sheets, and utensils.
She could order the more specialized equipment as the need arose.
Chances were she wouldn’t be able to create much with the tiny kitchen in the apartment, but lack of space wouldn’t stop her from trying.
She was exhausted. The day had been a lot. The past few days had been a lot, physically and emotionally. The past month had been so much. She really needed to self-soothe with a baking program and a tub of ice cream, stat.
The orientation finished, Mercy released them to find lunch.
“Want to be nosy about that café?” Emry asked.
Gemma did, but her energy had vanished. Despite using the chair and only being on her feet a few times, she was tired. “I think I’ll take a nap.”
“Are you sure?” Emry squinted her eyes, as if she didn’t trust the words coming out of Gemma’s mouth. Gemma had never been a nap type person.
“I’m repairing bones. My body needs rest,” she said, perilously close to repeating Dr. Kalen’s words.
“Sure, sounds good. Ren is moving stuff from his old cabin to our new place. I’ll see how he’s getting on.”
Emry and Ren’s newly assigned cabin was two doors down from Gemma’s. Convenient. While she fully accepted how clingy and codependent it sounded, she felt better knowing Emry was nearby. Especially since an empty apartment waited for her.
No note. Not even a text message. Gemma checked the setting on her comm unit. She was connected to the network. Zalis just ghosted her. She had no idea where he was but it wasn’t there. Moving his stuff over? She doubted it. The apartment was exactly as empty as it had been when she left.
Gemma took two acetaminophen for her aching foot and tried her best to nap.
Sleep wouldn’t come. The silent apartment…
wasn’t. Forced air through the vent had a rattle.
Muffled voices from the corridor drifted in as people passed by.
The appliances had an electric hum. Gemma swore she could hear the thrum of the ship’s engines.
Worse, there was this odd sensation that someone else was in the room.
Blame it on the caffeine. She was too wired to sleep. Her first coffee since being abducted and she didn’t even savor it. Too much had been going on.
Too much was still going on, at least in her head. She kept replaying every conversation she had with Zalis, every interaction. That was not the coffee’s fault. It was hers. This was guilt.
She did to Zalis the exact thing she raged against being done to her. She took his choice away.
She was a hypocrite. Being scared and traumatized wasn’t an excuse, but it’s all she had to explain her motivations.
Returning to Earth terrified her, so she clung to the closest thing that looked like safety: Zalis.
And much like a drowning person would drag their rescuer under water while panicking, Gemma dragged Zalis into her problem.
A headache emerged, an aching at the back of her head that said the pain was from tension. She didn’t want to take another pill. Instead, she took a hot shower, hoping the heat and team would relax her muscles. It did, somewhat. She just wanted to feel like herself again.
A chime at the door interrupted her spiraling thoughts. Maybe it was Zalis with an explanation or at least a message that work kept him away. Imagining that he was out chasing down the bad guys was much better than admitting he was hiding from her.
Because she was a selfish monster and he was too nice to call her out on her own bullshit.
“I’m sorry,” Gemma said, pressing a button to open the door.
An automated cart delivered her earlier order. Emry followed. “I thought you might want help unpacking.”
“No. I appreciate the help.” Doing something productive would help pull her out of this deep dive into despair. “Come in.”
It didn’t take Emry long to unload the cart. While her sister put clothes away in the dresser, Gemma unpacked the kitchenware. Sitting at the table, she unloaded boxes. The items were simple in design, without frills, but seemed decent quality.
“Clothes are done. I left the bathroom stuff on the counter,” Emry said, returning to the table. She picked up a set of plates. “Where do you want these?”
“An upper cabinet. Don’t care which one. The kitchen is small. It won’t take me long to find stuff.” Honestly, Gemma hadn’t requested that much. There was more than enough space.
“Exactly like my layout. Got it.”
When the last fork, cup, and dish was put away, Gemma declared that she needed a sugary coffee. “Whipped cream, caramel, all the syrup. Everything.”
What came out of the coffeemaker wasn’t close to the same quality as a frothy, sugary latte, but it was good.
The whipped cream tasted like whipped cream.
The caramel smelled like caramel. Did the coffee taste like coffee?
Gemma had no idea. Any actual coffee flavor was buried under a mountain of sugar.
She closed her eyes as she took a slow sip, letting the whipped cream melt on her tongue.
“You need to be alone with that latte?” Emry asked, clearly amused.
“I’m savoring.” Gemma sank back into her chair.
She scratched at the injection site behind her ear.
Catching herself, she flexed her fingers and wiggled them, like she could shake off the compulsion.
“I dreamed about sugar. Chocolate. Caramel. I’d just fantasize about shoveling spoonfuls of plain sugar into my mouth. ”
“Oh. I, uh, can’t imagine what you went through…” Emry’s voice trailed off, tears close to the surface. “Do you want to talk about it? With me, or someone like a therapist?”
Probably. An emotionally healthy person would have a good cry and go to therapy; Gemma wasn’t ready yet. One day. Just not today. Instead, she opted to reminisce. “Do you remember eating frosting on saltine crackers?”
“Yes.” Emry groaned at the memory. During the Invasion, their mother found a giant tub of vanilla frosting in the bakery’s storeroom, hidden in a corner. Frosting on crackers was the only sweet thing they had for months. “I can’t stand frosting now.”
“Odd, considering all the cupcakes I’ve seen you demolish.”
“Your cupcakes are an exception, and you don’t use that industrial frosting from a tub.”
“Swiss meringue buttercream,” Gemma said.
The frosting was more laborious than regular buttercream, so she used it exclusively for special orders.
Regular vanilla, chocolate, and the other run-of-the-mill flavors were just fine with buttercream.
Nothing but an exceptional frosting would do for the rainbow unicorn swirl.
“Holds its shape and isn’t so sweet it overpowers the cupcake. ”
“How are you?” Emry asked, sending the conversation in a different direction Gemma wasn’t ready to accept.
“Fine. How’s your apartment?”
“Just like this one. Stop dodging the question. How are you doing with all this? Is Zalis treating you okay? If he doesn’t, I’ll feed him to… to something big with lots of teeth. A crocodile or whatever they have out here,” Emry said.
“It warms me to the bottom of my soul that you’d take him to a space pig farm,” Gemma joked, dodging the question.
Emry narrowed her eyes. Yeah, she knew Gemma was dodging the question.
Using her finger, Gemma scraped up the last of the whipped cream clinging to the lip of the mug. She raised her eyebrows, daring Emry to say anything about being uncouth and gross.
Arms folded over her chest, Emry looked unimpressed.
Whatever. Gemma had seen Emry do far worse and reminded her sister of exactly that with a little waggle of her head.
“It’s a lot,” Gemma said, breaking the silence.
“That’s what you said earlier.”
“Maybe because it’s true. This,” Gemma said, gesturing to the room broadly, “is a lot. I was scared for so long that it didn’t feel like real life and now that I’m safe, I can’t shake the feeling that something terrible is about to happen.
My foot hurts. My head hurts. What I did to Zalis was unforgivable.
” She couldn’t talk to him about it because he vanished on her.
Her desperate need to see him made her feel clingy and she was all sorts of resentful because that wasn’t her.
“He agreed,” Emry said.
“Did he? Or did he feel pressured to say yes because of all the people watching us? Because I was crying?”
Emry looked down at her nearly empty coffee cup. “Ren said—”
“Oh? What does he have to say?”
Gemma’s tone must have sounded some sort of way because Emry’s eyebrows went up.
“Really? Got a problem with Ren, the guy who rescued you?”
Gemma slumped back in her chair. Her attitude was unwarranted. When no one else listened or cared, Ren took Emry seriously when she said something was wrong and Gemma was missing. “No, I don’t. He’s actually not bad.”
“Damned with faint praise,” Emry said dryly.
“I’ve known him for three entire days, but yeah, I like him.”
“I like him too,” she said, grinning.
Ugh. Love was gross. Did Gemma look like that when she got all starry-eyed about someone? She hoped not.
As if Emry could read her mind, “Yes, you look ridiculous when you get all sweet on someone, so I don’t want to hear it.”
This was getting off track.
“What does Ren have to say?” Gemma asked.
“Have you actually talked to Zalis about how you’re feeling?”
Gemma tossed up her hands to gesture again at the empty apartment.
Emry gave her a flat stare, clearly unimpressed with the sarcasm.
Okay, so maybe they did do the creepy twin-silent communication thing.
“Did I tell you the reason why Ren sent me away?” Emry asked.
“He’s a shallow bastard.” When Emry had been returned to Earth less than twenty-four hours after she left, the sisters decided that had to be the reason. He took one look at her face and noped the fuck out.
“That’s what I assumed, but I was wrong.” Emry fidgeted with the mug, rolling it between her hands. “His warlord hated him. Hated Ren. He was a bully. Worse, he was abusive. Said Ren was weak and just generally made his life hell. He feared for my safety if I stayed.”
“But the Mahdfel don’t hurt their mates,” Gemma said and grimaced, horrified to be spouting propaganda. The message that the Mahdfel were gentle and caring partners had been shoved down her throat for so long that apparently she internalized it.
“Ren wouldn’t hurt me,” Emry said, her tone implying that Ren had no control over what a bully warlord might do. “He was trying to protect me, so he sent me away.”
“But he didn’t explain any of that, so he did hurt you.”
Now it was Emry’s turn to toss up her hands. “Yes. That’s the point of the story. Look, I’m just saying that I could have avoided years of feeling like crap if we had just talked.”
“Basically, be an adult,” Gemma said.
“Use your words like a grown up. Talk to the guy. Maybe he’s into the ambush marriage thing.”
Gemma dragged her finger along the rim of the cup, searching for any remnants of whipped cream, and considered Emry’s advice. “You’re not wrong—”
Emry pushed herself back from the table. “Then hop to it.”
“Right now?”
“Yeah, right now.”
“I don’t know where he is.”
The stare again.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Gemma tapped her comm unit, bringing the screen to life. Comm units were so convenient, so connected, so useful. Hardly anyone ever thought about how trackable they were. “Computer, locate Zalis Layneno.”
It only took a few seconds for the computer to return a floor and room number.
There she had it, where her alien husband had been hiding all day.