Chapter 9
NINE
NICOLE
He's such an asshole. The only thing worse than that, is he's found one of my weak spots.
I wash without any water, only using soaps and see-through robes to wipe off all the grime of Gerharm's ship. It’s not pleasant, but I need to feel clean and prepare for the days ahead.
At least my stomach’s full, and we'll need to refuel the ship before Arture can take me anywhere. A small improvement.
I have a hard time sleeping, only catching snatches in between shivering my ass off.
Not even pulling out all the see-through gowns and sashes from the wardrobes and piling them on the bed can save me from freezing, and my jaw and cheek start to ache.
They only do that when it's really cold, freeze the balls off a brass monkey cold.
Monkey. I hope my boy is doing okay. He'll have Minty for company, and Dallas will be a calming influence. Lettuce will look after them all, but I bet she'll be pissed at me for being gone so long.
And what about the girls? They’ll be worried about me, too, but they're all pragmatic about it. They've been to Oloria, but they might not know that's where we're headed. Arture took off rather precipitously.
They'll be fine without me. I worried about them when they were each jaunting across the stars, but I had to get on with my day to day. I hope they're doing the same, because there's no way they can follow.
Arture’s right. I'm on my own now. I curl tighter in the bed.
I give up trying to sleep after a while and glare at the mountain of what passes for clothes on this ship.
Layering them on so I'm not flashing my nipples to a new planet, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror: bulky shoulders, grim face, hair a bird's nest and stragglers escaping my braid like I've been electrocuted.
Looking away from the mirror, I fight back the surge of revulsion. It's not coming from me; I don't care what I look like. These are patterns trained into me, conditioning me to behave a certain way.
To please someone else.
Taking a deep breath, I throw back my shoulders—strong, not bulky—and face myself again. “You're strong. You're capable. You've got inner beauty,” I tell myself.
I touch the dark circles under my eyes, allowing my exhaustion to come to the fore. Not just from the last few days, but the last few months. Maybe even years.
Ever since the break-up.
“Enough,” I announce out loud. “Let’s go do something useful.”
The ship is eerily quiet, the usual hum of its systems replaced by utter quiet that seems to amplify every soft footstep I take. The dim emergency lights cast long, uneven shadows along the walls, and as I pass through the main living area, my eyes fall on Arture.
I stop to watch the slow rise and fall of his chest. He's deeply asleep, stretched out on a nest of cushions on the floor. His face looks younger, vulnerable, as if sleep strips him of all the weight he carries, and his usually sharp-looking scales on his chest and shoulders have rounded.
There’s more to him than a heartless spy. Last night he definitely lashed out, and hurt people hurt others. He's got a shit ton of trauma he’s struggling to keep a lid on, and I suspect it’s Augean stables levels of shit gunking up his mentals.
So, almost as much as me, then.
Maybe I could… I shake my head. I shouldn't be trying to help him with his demons, he's an enemy. Sort of. He doesn’t even know what the purpose is, but he’s set on delivering me to his planet. Plus, he's a full semaphore set of walking red flags.
The only way to convince him otherwise is to get him to open up, help him see how ridiculous it is. Maybe… if I unlock some of his memories, he can at least tell me what Oloria wants with someone like me, and we can talk about it like rational adults.
Fortunately, I have lots of experience working with large creatures suffering from deep scars no one else can see. By helping him, I’ll help myself, so even though I can see he’ll need to be dragged kicking and screaming toward therapy, it’s time for an intervention.
Great. Now that's settled, I want to look outside.
I don't want to wake him up accidentally, but I don't want to stay here bored.
I'm a grown woman, I understand risks of new places, and I don't need an escort. Maybe I can find that water he mentioned; we need to power the ship enough to get it heating up at nighttime, even though I don’t want to refuel it completely.
Not until I can change his mind about his orders, or at least get him to be open to the idea of going back.
My stomach snarls again. Now there's food I can eat nearby, it wants to make up for lost time. I tiptoe into the kitchen and grab a hunk of the seedcake Arture made. It's as if a brownie and a granola bar had a love child; thick, chewy, and gooey.
There's a lingering thought that I should abstain. I've probably lost a bit of weight over the last few days. I could keep that up… no. I bite deep, a rebellion and a celebration of how far I've come.
Still chewing with triumph, I sneak past Arture. His right shoulder is a cap of metal. I wonder whether it hurts in the cold. I touch my own right jaw and cheek as I chew, the pins underneath my skin throbbing under my fingers.
Then I head to the front door. “Come on, Nicole. Let's get going.”
As I approach the door it beeps faintly, and I glance back at Arture.
He doesn't even stir, still sleeping off the excitement of the last few days. The door does the melty thing where it slides back smoothly and then extends to the ground outside, and now I’m looking for them I can see the hundreds of tiny cubes spinning into a new orientation.
Outside there’s a grey edge to the horizon, so it must be close to dawn. And there’s a snuffling, munching sound, followed by the unmistakable sound of a whicker. A sound I know really well.
Holy shit, are there horses out there?
Curbing my excitement, I sit on the ramp. The air is slightly warmer out here than inside the ship and I sit bathed in the potential of the early morning, with the rattle of the grass and that rhythmic munching to keep me company.
As the sky lightens up from iron greys to steel blues, I scan for horses. There's lumps which move just as I'd expect, heads all low as they graze. This must be their patch, and they don't mind the spaceship sat in their midst.
But as the light gets brighter and I can see them, so too can they see me.
I count twelve big horses, thick necks and withers like a draft horse but their faces dished like an Arab. They're bays the same color as Monkey, and my stomach coils with excitement I can't show, or I risk startling them.
Horses. Alien horses! But they look so much like Earth horses.
The lead mare steps forward, her ears swiveling toward me, her nostrils flaring as she takes in my scent. She’s a striking bay with a bold blaze down her face, muscles tense under her glossy coat.
“Hi,” I whisper, getting to my feet, and she immediately comes toward the noise to investigate. Her neck arches, and she lifts her head to study me.
I don’t move. I stand still, breathing softly, letting her decide what comes next.
After a long moment, she takes another step, her lips twitching as if testing the air between us.
Gently, I reach out my hand, palm down, fingers loose. “Hey, girl,” I murmur softly, the same way I’d talk to an old friend.
She hesitates, then stretches her neck to sniff my fingers, and my heart swells at the tiny gesture of trust.
"That’s it. We’ll take it slow, just you and me.”
She nudges my hand, and she reminds me so much of Lettuce my heart both swells and breaks.
“Smelling the seedcake, huh?” I break her off a piece as it's only seeds from around here Arture's artfully put together, and she lips the lot from my palm. I stand slowly and, although her nostrils flare, she doesn't back away.
It's a reward and a thrill to receive such a show of trust. Lettuce, Dallas and Tammy all let me lead them around with no halters, and while it's a long shot, I start moving alongside the ship.
The mare follows, whickering softly, and as I stroke my fingers through her mane, sunlight touches the tops of the trees.
The whole herd looks at me with interest, happy that their lead mare approves of me.
I love horses. The love they give me is so pure, so natural, completely unconditional. There's no caveats to their companionship, no ties or small print. No judgement, either.
Completely the opposite of Logan.
As the cold eases so does the ache in my cheek and chest. There's nothing like stroking an animal to restore my balance.
“Nic-coal!” Arture's shout is pained. The lead mare's head darts up, ears forward and tense.
I turn slowly.
Arture bolts toward me like there's a race, a look of sheer panic carved into his face. His gaze is locked on the horse beside me, his whole body engaged as he charges.
The mare rears, hooves cleaving the air, and I duck away. “Shit.”
“Nic-coal,” Arture shouts, voice tight with urgency as he closes the last few strides. He pulls me against his chest and spins to put his back to the herd.
I'm surrounded by muscle, his hearts thundering in my ears. I expected his scales to be hard as iron but they're soft where he presses me against him, shielding me using his body.
The mare canters away, snorting to the others, who all turn tail and bolt.
“Damn it. What the fuck do you think you’re—”
Arture’s hand cups my cheek and he ducks his head over mine, eyes screwed shut as if preparing for a blow. He waits like that, his breath coming hard and fast, body trembling, his grip on me painful.
He’s really scared.
All thoughts of chewing him out for scaring the horses flee. “Arture, what’s wrong?”
“Have to… to get… protect…”