Chapter 16 #2
I continue mussing his hair, looking into hollow eyes—grey, a colour I was taught to hate, that I was given permission freely to loathe until my last breath.
“He had the biggest brown eyes and a scar on his left cheek.” I rub a thumb over his week-old beard.
Melek waits for me to continue. “That fence by the parking lot, the one that borders the fields and the factory. It used to hold a stage with a giant X.” Melek frowns, and I trace the indent between his eyebrows.
“They had just found out I was half Halo. Hell, I’d just found out I was half Halo.
And he tried to get me out, but they found him, and then they found me. ”
Any of the other times I’ve shared this grief with him, it’s never come out fluently, calm, though I’m far from that on the inside.
In the beginning, I could never get past the part where I would shout, “You killed them,” over and over until my voice was so hoarse he was forced to put me in bed.
He knew I was referring to my family, but my husband, the commander, never provided relief in the way of salvation for them. He never wanted to talk about them.
Melek was my family. Halo. Anything beyond that was meant to be forgotten.
I never forgot. Grief hasn’t left because of time. Time hasn’t stopped my body from crumbling to the floor. It hasn’t changed the love in my heart. If anything, it has made it worse. Agony. For all the things I know Mam and Nix are missing.
I cringe at the absurdity of telling my captor this, anguish waiting for its chance to take hold and leave me a broken mess.
“They put him on that X, and I watched as he was left to rot. And do you know what he did?” It’s a question that doesn’t need an answer.
Melek replies with a simple nod regardless.
“He spent his last moments trying to comfort me. My brother saw how much seeing him like that killed me. And it did. That moment took everything from me. When they made me leave him, they ripped out half of my soul. He was my strength, and they took him away from me. You took him away from me. And now, every time I see our son, I see my brother with your eyes, and it is an agony I’d never known could exist.”
The cascade of heartbreak running down my face barely registers. All my effort goes into keeping my words steady and my back upright.
Melek stands and lifts my face to his, wedging himself between my legs.
“I’m sorry.” That doesn’t help. It makes it worse, and salty liquid continues to stream down my cheeks.
No falsities can cure me. So, my commander plasters his body to mine in a firm hug, soothing my worn and broken soul with steady heartbeats and the comforting smell of his vices.
There’s nothing else to say. I could continue to hate him at this moment.
I’m so weary—on the brink of emotional destruction.
He rubs my back, unable to come up with the answers I need.
Instead, I take the comfort and strength he offers, letting my heart open for him for the first time in twelve years.
He’s seen the hurt his kind has placed on mine, the gaping wound I walk around with every day.
The one that grates on my resistance. The one that had me begging for escape in those early days, when Melek would find me with his razors poised to cut over my skin until he banned all sharp objects in the house until Sunny was born, and he knew I had something to live for again.
That kid literally pulled me out of the grave.
“Look at me, wife.” His command cuts deep, and through wet lashes, I angle my face to meet his. “I shouldn’t have brought you to that place. I apologise. It was a poor choice that I regret.”
“Yet you did.” I can’t help myself. I poke the bear. It’s in my nature. Since when does this man have regrets?
His eyes gloss over, dark black clouds rolling through them. “Storm,” he murmurs, deep in his chest. “What can I do? All I want is for you to be happy here with me.”
This place will never make me happy. Raising our children here will only foster more anger and resentment. I can’t bring myself to say that and wound him further. He steals the air from my lungs with his sadness—a sight reserved only for me.
Resting my head on his chest, I take in woodsy spice. I don’t want to bruise him any further. It’s a hard pill to swallow.
“Ouch,” I whine, gripping my stomach.
Melek instantly drops to the ground, crouching before me, trying to lift my face. “What is it? Is it the baby?”
I lie.
I lie for my babies.
I lie for Melek.
And I lie, most importantly, for me and what I have become.
“I…Whoa, oww.” Leaning back on his desk, I push at my upper stomach for emphasis.
Melek goes to pick me up, as I expected, always trying to control the situation. I wave a hand at him. “No. Don’t. I need icy water.”
“Are you sure that’s all you need? I should call the doctor.”
A hand, unsure, hovers before me, and I take it. “It’s just indigestion, and the only thing that fixes that is icy water. Please.”
The commander stands, now set on a task. Worry slices his features, but he nods. “At least let me put you in bed.”
“No. If I move, it’ll get worse. Just get me the water, please.” My eyes plead with him to leave me, to do as I ask. Releasing my hand, he stalks out of his office, a man on a mission. His determination is to be admired.
It worked. I didn’t think it would be so easy. I thought he’d see right through my falsehood.
When I hear footsteps descending the stairs, I slide as stealthily as possible off his desk and mouth “What the fuck am I doing?” at the computer screen, my reflection mirroring me back.
I’ve seen Melek use this thing hundreds of times.
It can’t be that hard. Jiggling the clicking contraption, the screen opens, asking for a p-a-s-s-w-o-r-d.
This is where my lack of reading over the past twelve years stumps me. It takes me a few moments for the word to fully click. Password.
Shit, what could his password be? Sunny’s birthday? From what I know of the commander now, I have no doubt he would use something sentimental. I type in every date of some significance, coming up empty. Sunny’s birth date. Our wedding date. Some obscure name combinations. None of it works.
What could this man possibly have as his password?
The only thing I know he loves more than Halo is Sunny.
On that thought, one word endures at the forefront of my mind, and I give it a try.
“S-T-O-R-M.” Saying the letters aloud feels like I’m imprinting them in my memory.
Playing the alphabet game in the dirt outside with Sunny is different from seeing them here, highlighted by a luminosity.
The computer springs to life. I stiffen, the screen opening page after page. My mind wants to focus on the fact that Melek used my real name as his password—what the hell—but I don’t have time.
Instead, I quickly scan the documents my husband already has open on his screen.
Some words are unfamiliar to me, however, one catches my eye, with the title O-p-er-a—tion New Halo.
A diagram sits underneath the title with an accompaniment of numbers I don’t understand, followed by a title, bolded in red.
“Nu… Nu—clear f—all—out.” It only serves to confuse me. This isn’t a familiar word to me. I store it away for later, sensing it might be important.
From outside the study comes a creak—a sound well known in our household, a signal someone has stepped onto the wooden boards on the halfway mark of the stairs.
My eyes dart from the screen to the door, terror gripping me as I realise my mistake.
I have no idea how to get back to the password screen. Idiot, I scold myself.
Clicking back on the first page that had originally popped up, I leave behind the computer, rushing over to the doorframe, plastering my hand to the wall, pretending to hold myself up. For added effect, I bend over my knees. “Melek.” I wheeze.
Coming up the last stair, he spots me. “Do you need the doctor?”
Raising my head, I place my whole form in the doorframe so he can’t see that his computer is very much awake. “Do you have the water?”
My husband rushes over, and I grip onto his forearm as he hands me the water. I scull the cool liquid.