Chapter 12 #2
Not fifty feet from the window, a herd of massive, lumbering creatures grazed on purple grass.
They had gray fur, elephant-like bodies, and were twice the size, with heads like oxen.
Some lay on their sides, bathed in the light of two setting suns under blue-pink skies.
One turned to them lazily, chewing unbothered.
It blinked all three sets of its eyes before turning back to its meal.
Beyond them lay a thick forest, with trees so high she couldn’t see the canopy.
This wasn’t Mars. And because of how many hundreds of hours of wildlife documentaries she’d watched, she knew this wasn’t Earth, either.
“I think I need to go,” she said, trying to push out of the bed. Her limbs tangled in the sheets. She flailed, screaming, as she tried to get free.
“Be calm, Shawnora.” Airik rushed over. He untwisted the blankets but kept them tight around her legs. “Where go?”
Nora whipped her head toward the door. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him follow her gaze.
He growled—a predator sensing its prey was about to flee.
Before she could try, Airik leaped onto the bed, stretching the entire sheet over her.
The cot sank under his weight. He pressed her flat, pulling the sheet taut, his fists on either side of her shoulders.
His knees were planted outside her thighs, his entire body curled to keep her caged beneath him.
No part of him touched her. He didn’t have to because she’d succumbed to him in less than a second. “No going from me. Or you die.”
“D-Die?” She stared again at her wide-eyed reflection. Something turquoise flickered behind the glass. His helmet fogged with her rapid breath.
“Calm,” he said. “I need it from you.”
Heat rolled off him in heavy waves. She didn’t know if it was the suit or him or if any of it even mattered because this man was not just an alien but a killer who had the confidence to warn his target.
“O-Okay,” she breathed. Just please don’t use your teeth. But she didn’t say it, not wanting to give him any ideas. “I won’t go.”
“Me—not hurt you. Believe?”
“Yes,” she whispered, fresh tears burning in her eyes.
He made a small huff. “You—stop hurting you.”
“I won’t. I’ll stop.”
When she managed to stay still, he loosened tension across her shoulders, but only a little.
“Safe, Shawnora. You are safe—with me.”
She let out a sob. “Airik…this can’t happen.”
“It happened.”
“Airik, please. I need to be on Mars. Can you take me there?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You crashed. Your machine…die. Broken.”
She opened her mouth, then shut it before she started crying again.
Airik remained unmoving. Patient. Quiet.
“How did I get here? Did you do this? Did you bring me here?”
His shoulders rose and fell with a heavy sigh. “No.” He looked to the side, as if searching for more words to say.
Nora’s ears rang so loudly now that even if he spoke, she wouldn’t hear. A horrible thought struck her.
“How am I understanding you?” She jerked her arms free of the sheets, clawing at her ears. “Did you fucking implant something in me?”
One large hand caught both of her wrists, pinning them above her head.
“Stop hurting!” Airik dropped a little of his weight over her, keeping her from kicking.
“I said—you safe. I did nothing to you. I found you, but your life—almost gone. I keep the rest of it with me.” Whatever mechanism let her hear him from inside his helmet also conveyed his own rapid breathing.
He tightened his grip. “I know English. Letters, too.” He jerked his head toward the wall, where he’d written his name. “I can’t make your eyes see what’s not.”
His name remained on the wall, written with overly curled tails, by someone who knew the letters but not well. “Okay. I understand. I’m…sorry.”
“I free you now. You stop hurting.”
Nora gulped, nodding.
“Say yes.”
“Y-Yes.”
His hand twitched once, then twice. He let her go but kept his knees straddling her hips.
She pushed the blankets off her, gasping for breath.
He stiffened. “Stop with being scared,” he said, his voice softer. “I am not the…angel.”
“What?”
“Your…” Not finding the word, he pointed at her chest.
Joe’s cross glinted in the middle of her chest, in all its garish glory.
Nora’s chin trembled. Every word this man had told her was true, no matter how improbable.
She hadn’t died. Maybe she’d dreamed of the beautiful angel who was now gone, likely an apparition of her mind’s last-ditch attempt to calm her.
She’d almost been killed several times over.
Joe had nearly killed her with that sedative.
He’d given her too much—or not enough, evidently.
Even now, her mind bulged and warped as she realized he was probably dead.
As was Loretta. As was everyone else on the Abeona.
Proof of it all was Airik—an alien!—speaking to her in clipped words, revealing to her a world she had no right to see.
She ripped the necklace off, throwing it as far as she could.
It didn’t get far, landing somewhere next to her food stacks.
“I don’t believe in that,” she said, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes. “Someone gave that to me to keep me safe, I think. It didn’t work. Now he’s probably dead.”
And yet she didn’t want to believe that either.
She lay in an alien man’s room, hoping her uncle was still somehow okay.
Even though Joe had nearly killed her in a misguided attempt to absolve himself of his own sense of sin, she imagined him, at that very moment, sitting on his stool in the crew shuttle airlock, tapping away, trying to figure out where the hell she’d gone.
Maybe by now security had rounded up the intruders and restored order.
Loretta would have fresh gossip, eager to fill Nora in when she next got the chance.
Airik got off the cot and stood beside her for a long time. The room cooled, but it could have just been the loss of his heat over her. “You are safe,” he said, touching his own heart to indicate her necklace. His voice sounded almost tender. “It worked. I think.”
She turned to him, feeling hot again. “What?”
He tapped at the left side of his face—a quirk, she realized—then turned away. “I return,” he said hurriedly.
A dire panic took hold of Nora. “You’re going to leave me alone?”
“Small time. Rest now…think.” He gestured around them. “A lot to think of.”
He pointed at a water bottle beside her bed, and she took a small drink, rinsing the acrid taste from her mouth. “Warm? Cold? Hungry?” he asked.
I’m scared out of my fucking mind, she wanted to scream.
Instead, she said, “I’m okay. Are you coming back?
” She felt her lips smile, forcing herself to forget that he’d pinned her beneath him.
She told herself it wasn’t because she was a fucking idiot but that the drugs were still messing with her mind.
And he’d done it to save her from herself.
He considered her for a moment, then nodded. “Yes. Rest.”
Then he left her.
She wanted him to stay. She wanted him to leave her forever, deposit her in the forest and let her die so this nightmare would be over. She wanted him to pin her beneath him again, forcing her still and quiet so the tremors that began the moment he’d left would stop.
Nora eyed the bottle but couldn’t bring herself to drink more or do much of anything other than fight her mind’s pull toward despair.
I’m not alone, she tried to remind herself. Airik is here. And he seems…not so bad, aside from that one death threat, which might be a language barrier thing. He was a soldier of some kind—she’d seen his gun, and his things all had similar wing marks on them. A patch for his company or something.
Despite everything that had gone wrong, someone had found her. Someone who hadn’t killed her, beaten her, cuffed her, yelled at her, or locked her in his room. In fact, he’d left the door wide open. Not that she could get very far.
Nora settled into the bed, unable to fight the medicine’s pull any longer. She let herself sink into the sheets, still warm from him.
Her thoughts sank deeper. Into that tar pit bubbling in her chest, where every bad thought she ever had went to fester.
What difference did her new predicament make? Not much, except that she was on a different planet. She was still the same person—useless, selfish, and now a burden to someone new.