Chapter 7 #2
The admission broke her heart. She wanted to pull the girl into her arms and promise that everything would be okay, that they’d get through this together, that she’d never let anything hurt her again. But Anya didn’t want empty promises. She wanted honesty.
“Me too,” she admitted.
“Really?”
“Really. I’m terrified. I don’t know where we are or what’s going to happen to us or who to trust.”
“But you’re acting like everything’s fine.”
“Because one of us has to.” She offered a sad smile. “And between the two of us, I’m supposed to be the adult. Even if I feel about as competent as a toddler right now.”
That earned her a ghost of a smile from Anya.
“You’re not that bad.”
“High praise coming from you.”
They sat in companionable silence for a moment, both of them processing the impossible situation they’d found themselves in. She watched Mikoz sleep, his tiny chest rising and falling with each breath, and wondered what his mother would think of the promises she’d made.
“Can I ask you something?” Anya’s voice was tentative, uncertain in a way she had rarely heard from the girl.
“Of course.”
“Are we going home?”
The question she’d been dreading. “I don’t know. I want to get you home. You deserve to finish school, see your friends, and have a normal life.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Don’t you want to go home too?”
Did she? The question stopped her cold. A month ago, the answer would have been an immediate yes.
She’d had a job she loved, a house she’d painstakingly decorated, a routine that was comfortable and familiar.
She’d had book club on Tuesdays and yoga on Thursdays and Sunday brunch with colleagues. She’d had a life.
But that life had also been lonely. Ever since David’s death she’d been marking time more than living, going through the motions of normalcy while feeling increasingly disconnected from the world around her.
She’d existed in a state of pleasant numbness, telling herself it was enough because she didn’t know anything else was possible.
And then she’d been abducted, and everything had gone to hell, but somewhere in that hell she’d found Mikoz and Anya and Selik and the terrifying possibility that maybe she could have more than just pleasant numbness.
“I want you to be happy,” she finally said. “I want you to have choices and opportunities and a chance at the life your father wanted for you.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Smart girl. Too smart for her own good sometimes.
“I don’t know what I want anymore,” she admitted. “A month ago, I would have said I wanted to go back to teaching and our quiet house and our routine. But now…”
“Now you have the baby.”
“Yes.”
“And the alien.”
Heat flooded her cheeks. “Selik has been very kind to us.”
“He looks at you funny.”
“Funny how?”
“Like…” Anya’s nose scrunched up in thought. “Like you’re a puzzle he’s trying to solve. Or like he wants to eat you. I can’t tell which.”
Despite everything, she had to suppress a laugh. Out of the mouths of babes. Or teenagers. Whatever.
“I think he’s just being protective.”
“Right. Protective.” Anya’s voice dripped with skepticism. “That’s why he was in bed with you.”
“He was worried—”
“I heard you talking last night. Before I fell asleep.” Anya’s gaze was uncomfortably direct. “He offered to keep Mikoz.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re thinking about it.”
“I’m thinking about a lot of things.”
“Including staying here.”
It wasn’t a question. She wanted to deny it, wanted to insist that of course they were going home, that this was just a temporary detour before they returned to Earth and normalcy. But she’d promised Anya honesty, and the girl deserved that much.
“Maybe,” she admitted quietly. “I don’t know. It’s complicated.”
“Because of him.”
“Because of a lot of things.” She turned to face Anya fully. “But you’re my priority. You and Mikoz. If going home is what’s best for you, then that’s what we’ll do.”
“Even if you don’t want to?”
“Even then.”
Anya studied her for a long moment, her expression cycling through emotions too complex for Corinne to read. Finally, she spoke.
“What if I don’t want to go back?”
She blinked. “What?”
“To Earth. What if I don’t want to go back?”
“Anya, you have your whole life ahead of you. School and friends and—”
“I don’t have friends.” The words came out flat and matter-of-fact. “I’m the weird girl who’s too smart for my own good.” She shrugged. “I just have a few people I sit with at lunch sometimes.”
“But your education—”
“Can probably happen anywhere that has books and teachers.” Anya picked at the blanket.
“I’m not stupid. I know we can’t really go back.
Even if we made it to Earth, even if everything somehow worked out, people would ask questions.
They’d want to know what happened to us, where we’ve been.
And we can’t exactly tell them we were abducted by aliens and sold to slavers. ”
“We could lie. Say we were in an accident, lost our memories—”
“For more than a month?” Anya shook her head. “It wouldn’t work. There’d be investigations and social services and people poking into our lives. And they’d take me away from you, even though there’s no one else to take me in.”
The blunt assessment hurt because it was true.
David’s parents were dead, and he’d been an only child.
Her own family was limited to a sister she hadn’t spoken to in five years after a spectacular falling out over their mother’s estate.
Anya would end up in foster care, shuttled between homes, waiting for some stranger to decide she was worth keeping.
“I wouldn’t let that happen,” she said fiercely. “I’d fight for custody—”
“As my stepmother who I’ve known for less than three years? Who can’t explain what happened to us?” Anya shook her head. “Be realistic. They’d separate us and put me in the system. Heck, they might even put you in jail. Or we could stay here.”
The words hung between them, impossible and tempting in equal measure.
“Anya…”
“I’m just saying,” the girl said carefully, like she was testing the waters. “Maybe Earth isn’t the only option. Maybe we could find somewhere else. Somewhere safe.”
“With Selik?”
“He did offer to help. And he seems… I don’t know. Less terrible than the alternatives.”
“That’s a ringing endorsement.”
“I’m serious.” Anya leaned forward slightly. “I know you think I don’t notice things, but I do. I saw how he looked when he held Mikoz. Like it mattered. Like the baby mattered.”
“Of course Mikoz matters—”
“Not to the people who took us.” Anya’s voice hardened. “They looked at us like we were cargo. Products to be sold. But Selik… he looked at Mikoz like he was a person. Someone worth protecting.”
Her throat tightened. She’d seen the same thing, the way Selik had cradled Mikoz with such careful tenderness.
The way his entire demeanor had softened when the infant had grabbed his finger.
The fierce protectiveness that had flashed across his face when she’d mentioned finding a home for the baby.
“He also looks at you like that,” Anya added quietly. “Like you matter.”
“Anya—”
“I’m not saying you should marry him or anything.” The girl’s face scrunched up in disgust. “That would be weird. He’s an alien. But maybe… maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing if we stayed a little longer. Just to make sure Mikoz is okay. To make sure Selik is really who he seems to be.”
Hope bloomed in her chest, dangerous and bright. “You’d be willing to stay?”
“For now. To watch out for Mikoz.” Anya’s expression turned stubborn. “Someone has to make sure he gets a good home. And you promised his mom you’d take care of him. We can’t just dump him with the first alien who offers and hope for the best.”
“No. We can’t.”
“So we stay a little longer. Learn more about this place, about Selik, about what options we actually have.” Anya shrugged. “And if it turns out he’s secretly evil or planning to sell us or whatever, then we find another way. But if he’s actually a good guy…”
“Then maybe we have a chance at something better than what we left behind.”
“Maybe.”
She wanted to grab Anya and hug her tight, but she knew the girl would bristle at such open affection. Instead, she reached out and squeezed her hand quickly before letting go.
“It’s a big risk,” she warned.
“Everything’s a risk.” Anya gestured around the room. “Going back to Earth is a risk. Staying here is a risk. Trusting Selik is a risk. But at least if we stay, we’re together. All three of us.”
All four of us, she thought but didn’t say. Because Selik felt like part of this strange little family already, even if she had no right to claim him.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “We’ll stay for now. To make sure Mikoz has a good home.”
“And to see if Selik is as honorable as he seems.”
“And to figure out what we actually want instead of just reacting to what other people think we should want.”
Anya nodded, looking simultaneously relieved and terrified. “So we’re really doing this? Just… staying on an alien ship with a guy we met yesterday?”
“Apparently.”
“Dad would have a heart attack.”
“Your father had a heart attack every time I suggested ordering takeout instead of cooking.” She stood and stretched, her back protesting the movement. “I think he’d understand that desperate times call for desperate measures.”
“He’d say you were being naive again.”
“Probably. But we have to make the best decisions we can with the information we have.” She bent over to check on Mikoz, who was still sleeping peacefully. “And right now, the information we have suggests that Selik is our best chance at keeping all three of us safe.”
“Or our biggest mistake.”
“Also possible.”
Anya joined her, both of them looking down at the sleeping infant.
“He’s pretty cute,” the girl admitted grudgingly. “For a lizard baby.”
“Don’t let Selik hear you call him that.”
“Why? Is it offensive?”
“I have no idea. But it seems rude.”
They stood there in silence, watching Mikoz sleep, and she felt something settle in her chest. Not peace exactly—she was too aware of all the ways this could go wrong for peace.
But maybe… purpose. Direction. A sense that they were making a choice rather than just being carried along by events beyond their control.
“So what now?” Anya asked.
“Now we find Selik and tell him we’d like to stay a while longer. And we start figuring out what life on this ship actually looks like.”
“And if he says no?”
“Then we’ll figure out plan B.”
“Do we have a plan B?”
“Not even remotely.”
Anya snorted, a sound that was almost a laugh. “Great. Love that for us.”
“Welcome to adulthood, sweetheart. Where we make it up as we go and hope for the best.”
“That’s terrifying.”
“Yep.”
“But we’re doing it anyway.”
“Yep.”
Anya was quiet for a moment, then said softly, “Thanks.”
“For what?”
“For not lying to me. For treating me like I’m old enough to have opinions about this.” She paused. “Dad never did that. He always made decisions and expected me to just go along with them.”
“You’re thirteen, not three. You deserve to have a say in what happens to your life.”
“Even if my say is that we should stay with an alien warrior on a spaceship instead of going home?”
“Especially then.”
Anya’s smile was small but genuine. “Okay. Then let’s do this. Let’s stay and see what happens.”
“Together?”
“Together.”