Chapter 2 #2
Teddy barreled into me, his small body warm and solid. His tan-colored pelt was damp with sweat, and his blonde mane—so much darker than my own hair—stuck up in wild tufts around his face.
"Did you see me? I went so high the chains went loose!" He tilted his head back, and those honey-brown eyes found mine, bright with excitement and pride.
My heart clenched. Those eyes. Not mine. Mine were hazel, flecked with green. Not my grandfather's either, though Teddy carried his name. Theodore.
Every time my son looked at me, I saw the stranger who'd given him those eyes. A stranger whose name I never knew, whose touch had saved me when I'd lost all hope.
I'd spent eight long days with those frog-like bastards, the Kwado—though at the time I didn't know what they were called. Just that hairless cat-looking aliens had snatched me from a parking lot in Portland, thrown me in a cage, and sold me to them like I was nothing more than merchandise.
The male was cold, businesslike. He fed me, hosed me down, kept me alive. But the female—God, the female was vicious. She'd slap me for looking at her wrong, yank my hair when I didn't move fast enough, spit insults in a language that came through my translator guttural and watery.
They were preparing for something. I could tell by the way they kept grooming me, how the female would inspect me like livestock, pinching my skin, checking my teeth. Important visitors, I pieced together from the little information I managed to overhear.
And I was going to be the entertainment.
One of the guards explained the event to me, his voice matter-of-fact. Dozens of males. A breeding display for their guests. I would be the centerpiece of their twisted celebration. He said it like he was telling me the weather, like my terror meant nothing.
I screamed. I fought. The female hit me so hard my ears rang for hours, and still I didn't stop fighting.
The next day, they drugged me. The guards held me down while the female injected something that made the world go soft and hazy and made my skin feel like it was on fire in the worst and best ways.
Everything became need. Desperate, clawing need.
My body betrayed me, responding to the drug with a hunger I'd never felt before.
A desire so overwhelming it drowned out thought, reason, and self-preservation.
I remembered fragments. Being led into a larger room. Being told to make myself ready.
I ran.
I don't know how. The drug made me stupid but also fearless, and when someone opened the wrong door at the wrong time, I bolted. Through corridors that tilted and swayed, my body screaming with need and terror in equal measure. I stumbled through a garden, fell, scraped my knees. Got up. Ran more.
Then there were different hands. Gentler. A voice that didn't sound like croaking or clicking—a voice that wrapped around me like safety itself.
I looked up into honey-brown eyes.
He was tall, covered in tan-colored pelt, with a mane that reminded me of a lion. Not human, but not like the Kwado either. His voice was so soft, so careful, like he was afraid of breaking me.
You're safe. I've got you. You're safe.
The drug was still burning through me, making every nerve ending scream for touch, for relief.
I grabbed at him, desperately, and he didn't push me away.
He helped me and after he just... held me.
Stroked my hair. Made these low, rumbling sounds in his chest that somehow made the fire in my blood ease just enough that I could breathe.
I remember crying. I remember him wrapping something around me—his jacket, maybe—something that smelled like safety and warmth. I remember feeling safe for the first time in days, cradled against his chest as the world spun around me.
And then nothing.
When I woke up, I was in a medi-bay on a space station, and he was gone. The doctors told me I'd been drugged with a Kwado breeding stimulant, that I was lucky to be alive. That the male who'd found me had brought me straight to them and then disappeared before they could get his name.
They also told me, three weeks later, that I was pregnant.
I never saw him again. Never learned his name or where he came from.
Just those eyes—kind and honey-brown—and the memory of gentleness when I'd expected only cruelty.
The memory of being held like I mattered, like I was precious, even when I'd been reduced to nothing more than an object in someone else's twisted game.
"Mama, you're not listening."
I blinked, focusing back on my son, pushing away the ghosts that still haunted me. "Sorry, baby. I was listening. You went super high, right?"
"The highest ever." He grabbed my hand, tugging. "Come push me again. Please?"
"Alright." I let him drag me back to the swings, unable to resist that gap-toothed grin. "But just for a little while longer, okay? Then we need to head home for dinner."
"Spaghetti?" His eyes lit up with hope.
"Spaghetti," I confirmed, and he pumped his fist in the air before scrambling back onto the swing.
We played for a little while longer, until Teddy's stomach grumbled—a sure sign it was time for dinner. Holding hands, we waved goodbye to the construction crew and headed home.
It still felt surreal sometimes, having this life. The bakery, our cozy apartment above it, a community that had welcomed us without asking too many questions about where we'd come from or why a human woman had a son who was clearly only half-human.
As wonderful as Tau Ceti was, though, it wasn't perfect.
I felt the weight of a stare and glanced up to see Farris Clegg standing down the street, his face twisted in a familiar scowl.
He was tall and lean, with greasy light brown hair that hung limp around his shoulders.
Whatever muscles he'd once had—maybe from his days on Earth, or wherever he'd been before ending up here—had gone to pot.
Now he just looked wiry and mean, all sharp angles and resentment.
My stomach tightened, but I kept walking and kept my chin up.
For every Craig, Bartholomeus, and Mei, there was a Clegg.
People who hated aliens—all aliens, no matter what.
No matter that most of us had been saved by aliens and given a second chance at life.
Clegg and his group lived on the edge of town, kept mostly to themselves, but they were vocal enough about their views.
Vocal about their disgust for women like me and Mei who'd had children with other species.
The rumors about what had happened to some of them were whispered in dark corners.
Bodies so broken they'd needed a Garoot Healer just to survive.
The irony wasn't lost on any of us. The very alien technology that had saved their lives was what trapped them in space forever.
Once you went through the Garoot Healer, you could never go home to Earth.
Maybe that's what made them so bitter.
I met Clegg's gaze head-on, refusing to look away, refusing to hide. Teddy's small hand was warm in mine, and I squeezed it gently. My son was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to me. I felt no shame for having him. Not one single ounce.
Clegg could scowl all he wanted.
Teddy chattered beside me about something Mei's youngest had said, and I squeezed his hand gently, letting his voice anchor me in the present instead of drifting back to those honey-brown eyes that still haunted my dreams. Eyes that had shown me kindness when I'd needed it most, eyes I'd never see again but would never forget.