39. Dirty, Damaged Ship
THIRTY-NINE
DIRTY, DAMAGED SHIP
Vivian
“Fuck it, I’m done.” Someone heaves at our back. “I retire. I can’t believe I fucking made it. Goddamn it, where was Muffin? He better fucking be on board somewhere.”
Syasku turns, and the man, Kyle, drops his hands on his knees. Bruised, battered, and with his shaggy brown hair obscuring his face, he takes another couple of breaths before peering up at us.
Syasku moves closer to the wall and Kyle joins us, pulling out a bottle of water from the pack on his back. We huddle together and pass the water around, catching our breaths and looking around. People cluster the passage ahead, and those closest watch us with horror and fear crowding their expressions. Deeper in the freighter somewhere, there’s shouting as someone tries to herd people elsewhere in the ship. Behind us, and in front of the closed hatch, are two large armed men, covered in tattoos. One of them is shaking, his brow against the hatch, leaning into it while the other watches Syasku with narrowed eyes, clearly undecided whether he should do something about him—us—or to leave us be.
It doesn’t matter who’s in charge when it comes to Syasku. Whoever saw what happened outside will avoid him and his wrath like the plague.
When the male notices the crying baby in my arms, his suspicion morphs into a frown and then to wariness as he notices all the blood, and the tail coming out from it.
“Please,” I rasp at him, shaking wildly, my body so rigid, I’m nervous I’ll remain stiff with stress forever. “We need help.” I’m feeling faint, anxious, frightened, knowing there’s only a single wall of metal between me and Father’s soldiers. There’s blood on me, on my baby, all over Syasku, and it’s growing cold, sticky, and increasingly disturbing.
“I’ll… find Omari,” the guard says, coughing his words, staring at my baby’s tail. Shaking his head, he disappears into the people clogging the hallways ahead.
My gaze flicks back to the closed hatch, and a sadness fills me, knowing not everyone made it on.
Syasku winds his tail around me, stealing my attention away. Shuddering, I focus on our baby, momentarily content just having a moment of peace with them. Mewling and crying, their squishy red face scrunches as its little fingers clutch my shirt. Adjusting them in my arms, I slide my shirt up and push aside my bra, hoping they’ll latch.
“Here. For the baby.” Kyle pulls off his shirt and hands it to me, leaving him bare from the waist up. “It’s dirty but at least it’s not wet and covered in blood.”
Taking the shirt from him, I thank him softly.
I cushion it around the baby and reposition them at my nipple.
My eyes go back to the hatch, wishing the freighter would take off already.
As I stare at it and the baby fumbles with my nipple, a sweet sound encompasses me to vibrate my flesh and soothe my emotions. Syasku’s lulling hiss courses through and over me, and the tears brimming my eyes finally fall. The arm banded around me pulls me closer against him and I look up, meeting his eyes.
Drenched in blood, he’s barely recognizable. Staring down at me, his gaze slowly drifts to the baby whimpering against my nipple.
“A male,” he says.
My brows furrow. “How can you tell?” When I glanced earlier, the baby was smooth without a slit.
“By the way he smells.”
“You can smell him even with all that blood?”
“Yessss, and he smells healthy.”
Shoulders sagging, and hearing him say that, my relief hits hard and more tears trickle down my cheeks. “He’s beautiful, isn’t he?” Wiping my face with the back of my hand, I look down at our son.
“And he is ours,” he rasps. “Mine.”
I nod shakily and rest my head against him. Helping the baby, I use my free hand to wiggle my nipple between his lips. Latching for a moment, he suckles and when he pops off, I do the same maneuver again until he’s got the hang of it. For a few minutes, we rest in silence, overcome by all that has happened.
I close my eyes and fear reopening them, terrified that this might be a dream and I’ll wake back up in father’s quarters, mindlessly drugged with Lena standing over me.
“You were something else out there,” Kyle says to Syasku, forcing my eyes open.
Syasku grumbles in response.
“Who are you?” I ask him. “You look… familiar.” I scan his face, trying to recall where I know him from.
He sits and leans back with Syasku against the wall. “I’m your cousin, Kyle. Your mom’s side.”
I frown. “I don’t have an aunt or uncle.”
But as I say it, I remember where I’ve seen him before—with my mother.
Kyle shrugs. “You do. On The Liberty .” He closes his eyes like he’s remembering it. “My father transferred when I was eight, and I had just been accepted into The Dreadnaut’s military academy. This was several years before you were born.”
“I had no idea.” My eyes trail over him and the equipment attached to his frame. None of it is of military design. “You’re not… in the medical field?”
“I hate medicine. So, no, I chose to become a soldier.”
“No one tried to stop you?” I ask, confused. I thought every Yulen went into the family business.
“They could’ve tried but wouldn’t have gotten far.” He laughs. “My father was transferring ships, and I wasn’t. There was nothing he could do.”
“You’re not wearing a uniform though.”
He chuckles. “You noticed. Let’s just say I got disenchanted, and now use my skills for hire.”
My brows furrow, continuing to question him, desperately needing a distraction until the ship moves. “Who’s going to hire you on Earth?” Why isn’t the ship moving?
“Everybody.” He chuckles again, his eyes remaining closed. “Who wouldn’t want someone like me watching their back?”
I mull over his words, happy that at least he had a say in his fate.
“How do you and Syasku know each other?” I ask, only half-paying attention as I slide my finger along my baby’s tightly coiled tail, and glance at the closed hatch.
The ship shudders hard, and I wince, grateful and relieved, while also trying not to think about how I’m still bleeding and how exposed I am; and how I can die here just as easily as anywhere else.
“Muffin.”
The shuddering worsens, and a humming fills the air, trembling the walls. Everyone goes quiet as the freighter stutters, and bouts of groaning metal sounds beneath us.
Please.
When the ship jerks forward, the humming grows. Slowly, it moves.
Please go faster. Now that I’m here, I can taste freedom.
Shaking with the ship, I strain my neck and look at Syasku, realizing how quiet he’s being. When his sharp gray eyes meet mine, leaving the baby, I’m unable to stop the rest of my tears from falling. I thought I would never see him again, never feel his body against mine, or hear his soothing hisses. I doubted his death but mourned him anyway, knowing how little power I had to reunite with him.
Part of me still doesn’t fully believe he’s alive even as I’m tucked in his coil with his arms banded around me.
Even bloody and immensely dirty, he’s the most attractive male I have ever laid eyes on, the most otherworldly, intriguing, and strange.
He’s viciously brutal and equally terrifying. And he’s mine. He’s that way for me .
How we found each other at the last second, I have no idea. I don’t know what I did to deserve that.
Because I wasn’t searching for him… I couldn’t. I was fleeing, looking for a place of safety for our unborn baby. Whether that was somewhere on The Dreadnaut, or at the port, I had no idea.
His gaze drifts from me and back to our son and then deeper into the ship.
I turn to see what he’s looking at to discover Muffin and the guard from earlier striding toward us. Kyle claps once and rises, clasping Muffin’s shoulder.
“Follow us, and quickly. Omari has a place where you can rest alone,” the guard says.
Lifting me with him, Syasku rises, but as the guard tries to lead us away, his gaze remains locked with Muffin’s.
Muffin, who is incredibly tense, stiffens under his glare and glances at me and the baby. “I was going to tell?—”
Syasku hisses and, with a swipe of his tail, shoves Muffin to the wall and pins him there.
“But you did not,” he growls, so low I’m not sure if I heard it.
Muffins face blanches as he regains balance, and Kyle tries to intervene. “Syasku, don’t. It wasn’t his decision alone.”
Syasku turns on Kyle, the fury in his expression growing. “You also knew?”
“Of course I did. He told me months ago.”
I glance between them, confused.
“Look, we can hash this out later, but right now Vivian and the baby need taking care of.” Muffin slowly pushes Syasku’s tail off him and moves away from the wall. He backs up toward the guard. “I’ll explain my reasoning afterward. I heard you killed Ursula.”
Syasku’s nostrils flare. “Yessss.”
“Good.”
I press into Syasku’s side.
Syasku strains under me, but after a tense moment, he eases and Kyle exhales. Muffin pivots and briskly walks back down the hallway. After a moment, we follow him, passing huddles of people sitting on the floors and along the walls.
Muffin takes us to a storage room off of the freighter’s cafeteria. With several large rotting crates in the room with us, it’s barely big enough to fit the four of us. Kyle leaves to search for supplies Muffin can use as Syasku lowers the baby and me to the floor, glaring at Muffin the entire time. If I had any more capacity for surprise, I’d wonder how Muffin ended up here.
A voice on the freighter’s intercom system warns everyone to brace for takeoff. It breaks another tense moment as I shift Kyle’s jacket under me so I’m not sitting bare on a dirty floor.
The ship rattles, and for the next several minutes, no one moves or speaks. When it’s over and that same voice tells us we’re clear of The Dreadnaut , a wild, jubilant cheer explodes from the people, so loud and for so long it pierces the walls and sweeps me up. For the first time since I can remember, a tendril of hope blooms in my chest.
Everything is going to be okay.
And as Syasku takes our son and tucks him safely in his arms, I lean back against his tail and open my legs. Muffin crouches between my thighs, readying his tools.
Secure in this hope, I pass out when the first stab of his needle begins stitching my tears closed.