7 Thilar
I hated losing time. When I woke up to the blue lights of my cell above me, I knew I’d been unconscious. It was quiet. I was on my floor, my back against the metal.
But I wasn’t alone.
The scent of my cell had changed drastically, but it wasn’t the scent that really caught me off guard.
It was the weight of another body pressing against me under layers of my bedding.
Slowly, I turned my head and found my chin brushing over threads of fine, silky hair.
I breathed in and I smelled her. The female.
They’d put her in my cell with me. Whether it was because they were too lazy to put her somewhere else or if it was Pek-Tol’s idle attempt at making up for overriding my request—something I’d earned through many won battles—I didn’t know, but she was there.
Her form was flush against my side, the blankets pulled halfway over her head. She’d gone as far as putting some furs underneath her to separate her from the metal floor.
I didn’t know much about humans outside of basic physiology, but it was obvious that the frigid temperatures that I found comfortable in my environment did not suit her.
In fact, I could hardly hear her breathing.
I reached over with my other arm, gently pushing the hair out of her face.
She was sound asleep, but alive. She stirred a little when I touched her, her knee riding up along my leg as she adjusted.
She was a very light sleeper.
She slowly opened her eyes, craning her head back to look at me. They were a dark, rich brown surrounded by white, so unlike my own. When she realized I was awake, she rose up with a gasp, snatching the blanket off me and wrapping it around herself as she scooted up against the bed.
I groaned as I pushed up on my hands. My body was stiff and needed to move. Stretching my head from side to side, I relieved some tension in my neck before standing.
Once I was on my feet, the woman seemed no more eager to stay on the floor than I had been. She rose quickly and retreated toward the far wall, putting as much distance between us as the cell allowed. Her wary gaze tracked me as I rolled my shoulders and worked the stiffness from my limbs.
When my muscles finally cooperated, I crossed to the water runoff. Cupping my hands beneath the thin stream, I splashed the icy water over my face. The shock cut through the lingering haze in my head and sharpened my senses.
As I reached for a drying cloth, I noticed the one hanging beside it was damp.
My gaze drifted back to the woman.
Slowly, I took her in, from her bare feet to her exhausted eyes. She looked worn down to the bone. Shadows darkened the delicate skin beneath her eyes, and a quiet heaviness lingered in her expression.
A human had no business being on Mekah Prime.
Whatever chain of events had brought her here, I doubted she'd chosen any of it.
I straightened and used the dry cloth to wipe the water from my hands. The woman's attention never left me. Every movement I made, she followed with a cautious stare, as though waiting to determine whether I was a threat or not.
“I won’t hurt you,” I said, knowing she wouldn’t understand my language.
I barely knew enough words in any human tongue to form a broken sentence. I could learn quickly, but only if she talked to me. She seemed reluctant to do that, so I lifted my hand to my mouth, trying to motion to her.
“Can you talk to me?”
Her brows pulled together in the middle, making two inquisitive lines between them.
“Iduno wutyer saying,” she answered.
I nodded. “Good. Keep talking.”
I moved to the bed, unbuckling the sides of my boots to pull them off, but she hadn’t gotten the hint. Sighing, I looked up at her, perching my elbows on my knees.
“I need to learn your words,” I said. Everything I said seemed to make her more timid, so I tapped my fingers to my chest. “Thilar. My name is Thilar.”
She adjusted her weight to one leg as if she was relaxing a bit.
“Thatsyer naym?” She thought for a moment before pointing a finger at herself. “Penny. M’naym is Penny.”
I repeated her words in my head, memorizing them and then said them back. “M’name is Thilar.”
Her eyes lit up a bit when she heard words she could understand. “Y’lurn fast.”
“Lurn fast,” I mimicked, nodding.
Penny
“M’name is Thilar,” he spoke to me.
I blinked at the sound of familiar words, but the slow way he said them made it seem like he was only copying me. Perhaps he didn’t understand what the words meant. Perhaps he was trying to learn.
“You learn fast,” I said.
“Lurn fast,” he nodded.
He gestured with his hand as if asking me to continue. I wasn’t sure what use it was if he couldn’t understand, but if I was being honest with myself, I was in desperate need of a listening ear. Even if that ear couldn’t process anything I was saying.
“I would ask how you ended up here, but I can’t understand you,” I began, my back sliding down the wall until I was sitting on the floor again.
He watched me when I talked, his eyes following the motion of my mouth.
I swallowed nervously. “If you spoke my language, I’d ask what you are, too.
I’m human. I’m from Earth.” I copied him and tapped my hand to my chest. “Human.” Then I pointed at the ceiling, hoping he understood that I was indicating space. “From Earth.”
He was so focused on my lips, and when he nodded, I was beginning to think my rambling was exactly what he wanted.
“Human,” he repeated, pointing a finger at the middle of his chest. “Monrian.”
“Monrian? Is that what you are?”
I searched my memories for the name. I didn’t have my Buddy on me, but I wished I did.
Every human that worked on the Nexus had one.
It was a companion. A small wrist cuff packed full of so much information.
Communications. Logs. It even had a tracker.
It likely wouldn’t have worked wherever we were, but it would have been worth a try.
“I might have heard the name. But humans have only interacted with the valerians since we built the Nexus.”
“Valerians,” he said, his accent twisting the word into what sounded like two words with an emphasis on the “e.”
I nodded. “Most of them know more than one human language. They said they’ve been watching Earth for a while. They learn so much faster than we do. Which… I’m hoping is what you’re doing with the way you’re staring like that.”
He nodded again. “Learning.”
“Ok… well…” I cleared my throat, trying to think of more to say.
“We know of the gek’tal, but only because they’re trouble.
I think they’re the ones that attacked the cargo ship I was on.
Which is why I’m here.” I gestured around us, wondering if it might make it easier if I was more emotive.
“In this cell.” I felt ridiculous doing it, but he seemed confident that he was accomplishing something by listening to me.
“I,” I pointed at myself. “Am here.” I pointed at the cell around us. “With you.” I pointed at him.
What the hell was I doing?
“I was on a ship. At least, that’s the last thing I remember before I was here.”
I pulled the blankets around me tighter, folding my legs beneath them.
Looking up at my strange cellmate—Thilar—I truly realized, perhaps for the first time, that I was lost. I was likely presumed dead.
Everyone on that ship was probably gone.
For all I knew, the attack on the cargo ship led to an attack on the Nexus and no one was even there to wonder about me.
I hadn’t panicked in a long time. It was a silly reaction that had no purpose, but when my heart started racing and my skin started to get hot, even in that frigid cell, I knew I was about to lose it.
I tried to remember my breathing exercises.
In the dome, when I was out of my mind worried about the game, it helped.
In the silence of that still cell, it wasn’t doing anything.
It was like the adrenaline was finally wearing off and I was realizing the real hell I was in.
In action, I could solve problems and think.
In silence, I had nothing but my own fear to contend with and it was loud.
Pressing a hand to my chest, I tried taking long, slow breaths, closing my eyes and leaning my head back against the cold wall.
It wasn’t helping. Counting wasn’t helping, either.
Every time I tried, I remembered some big, gray alien was watching me.
I remembered all the other strange aliens staring as they tried to force him on me.
I saw that ape-like monster clawing at me while people cheered.
I felt the lingering burn from the many times that spiked asshole shocked me and the worry I felt when my body had stopped working for a few panic-inducing seconds.
Would we be thrust into another game soon?
Was getting fucked by an alien inevitable?
Was it that or death? And which one would be better?
What. The fuck. Was happening?
I heard someone whimpering nearby. I wondered if perhaps there was another human locked in that place until I realized it was me. Hot tears stung my eyes. I couldn’t breathe. I was trembling and only half of it was because that cell was an ice box.
So much for not letting the stress get to me.
“I… I need to get out of here,” I whispered, a little dazed as I turned to examine the glass barrier beside me.
The blankets slid off my shoulders and the cold air assaulted me.
“This isn’t right,” I muttered to myself, reaching for the glass only to feel a hand coil around my wrist and pull me back.
Thilar was next to me, turning me away from the doors to face him instead.
“I need to get out,” I repeated.
He said something to me I didn’t understand. Not that it would have mattered. Through the sudden ringing in my ears, I could barely hear him.
God, he was so warm. Even in my terror I could recognize that he was the only source of heat in that damn room.
I sucked in a breath and I held it, hanging my head low.
When I did that, all my blood rushed to my brain, and I felt my legs wobble beneath me.
I started to slump to the floor, but strong arms kept me upright.
I grabbed hold of him, my grip so embarrassingly weak.
He kept talking to me, but it was just words.
“I can’t understand you,” I said, shaking my head hopelessly. My skin was freezing. I wanted to sink in on myself. “And it’s so cold in here. Why is it so cold?”
I slapped hot tears off my cheeks, hating that they’d fallen.
Thilar stepped away from me only for a moment to pick up the blankets from the floor where I’d left them.
He wrapped them tightly around my shoulders, still talking like I could understand him.
His language was so strange. Every word melted into the other with an abundance of “ah” and “f” sounds.
“Cold,” he suddenly said. “Me.”
My brows furrowed. “No. No, you’re warm.”
“Warm.”
“Yes. Warm. This cell is cold.”
He nodded as though he actually understood.
Then he pulled me against him.
I stiffened instantly, my arms locked against my body. The unexpected gesture snapped me right out of my panic. I was still a mess, but the heat radiating from his skin seeped into my aching muscles, unraveling some of the tension knotted inside me.
A shaky sigh escaped me.
Before I realized it, I was sinking into him, feeling weaker than I ever had—physically, mentally, emotionally.
His chin rested atop my head, which was saying something considering most of the men in my life had been shorter than me.
I wasn't used to fitting against someone like this, to pressing my cheek against a broad chest and feeling sheltered by it.
Not that Thilar was a man.
He was an alien.
A massive, foreign, strange-looking alien.
And yet his strong arms remained wrapped around me, and the steady heat of his body kept the cold at bay. Alien or not, I felt safer there, tucked against him and enclosed within the strength of his embrace than I had since waking up in this nightmare.
Why was he holding me?
The question flickered through my mind, but I couldn't bring myself to care.
Not yet.
There would be time for questions later, if he ever learned enough of my language to answer them. For now, his warmth chased the fear from my veins and quieted the frantic thoughts spiraling through my head.
I closed my eyes and let myself surrender to comfort, knowing I'd probably hate myself for it once I came to my senses.
He was, after all, the same man who had almost…
I cut the thought off before it could finish.
I didn't want to think about it.
I wanted to believe he was trying to soothe me.
And in my current state, I wasn't strong enough to refuse.