by Webster, K
“We have a deal,” I agree, understanding her meaning. I try her name on my tongue again. “Molly.”
A smile tugs at her lips on one corner, drawing my attention there. “You can call me mate in front of the others if that, you know, helps them understand I’m yours.”
Heat wraps around my heart and clenches it tight in a way that actually feels good.
I’m yours.
My mate. My Molly. Mine.
5
Molly
My hands still tremble, but I hide them in the pockets of my suit, so Draven can’t see. For all my bravery so far, it had only taken the thought of hearing the alien baby to bring me back to the shivering thing I’d been when I’d woken up in the cryotube. I’m beyond grateful to Draven for bringing me to his quarters, away from the prying eyes of the others.
I don’t even mind the rust-colored blood smeared all over the large windows that cover one wall. It removes some of the light coming in, but it makes the space feel cave-like, cozy. That’s not the only thing different about his place.
A nest of pillows and threadbare blankets are piled atop the bedding area, and what look like claw marks mar the walls. Had he done those, or had some sort of wild animal gotten loose? Considering their extreme germaphobia, I’d put money on the former. The marks go almost from ceiling to floor, the ragged edges punctuated by blossoms of dark, red blood.
His rooms remind me of the den of some rabid animal. One who’d attack with the slightest provocation.
Oh, darlin’, what happened to you?
I erase those thoughts from my mind. I didn’t choose Draven because I wanted to be closer to him, I chose him because of all the morts, he’s the one who won’t want to be closer. He’s got more walls than a prison, and I have no interest in scaling them.
“Is there a bathroom?” I ask, gesturing down to my clothes. “Do you have somewhere I can get cleaned up?”
He nods toward the wall opposite the windows. “The bathing facilities are through there.”
Draven moves when I do, as though he’s going to offer to wash me, and I cut him off with a raised arm and a laugh. “Thanks, sugar, but I think I can handle it.”
I close the door behind me after a moment of confusion when I merely find buttons on the walls. My shoulders slump, and I press my face into my hands at the first moment of privacy since I stepped out of the cryotube. Tears want to come. I almost wish they would. A good cry would wring me out like an old wash-rag, but they don’t come. I’m simply too tired. Too hopeless. I may have limited protection linking myself to Draven, but what happens when I don’t immediately get pregnant?
The thought has me stripping out of the suit they provided me as my skin prickles with an uncomfortable heat. The shower is little more than a closet, and it takes me several minutes to figure out the buttons that activate the spray. I step under it and moan in delight as the water cascades over my skin, washing away my fears, if only for a moment.
When I step out, I find clothes waiting for me on a basin. Draven. Touched, I dry off with the thin towel provided and dress in the T-shirt-like apparel. The sleeves have been torn off, and I wonder why as I slip the material over my bare skin. Undergarments must not be one of their priorities.
I find Draven waiting, perched on his nest of blankets, one hand propped on his updrawn knee. A small light buzzes from the ceiling, but it, too, is filmed over with dark, red smears. Whatever had happened to him must have affected his senses. Vision, hearing, touch. The way he held himself separate from the other morts had stood out to me before, but the realization comes back to me now as I watch him watching me.
The others had been so open, friendly. A big family, considering each other is all they have left on this lost planet. But not Draven.
Draven is always apart, other.
An outsider.
And now he’s mine.
I cross the room to sit next to him, and he drops his knee, tensing, his hands in loose fists by his sides. The scars on his arms stand out in sharp relief under the dim light.
“What happened to you?” I ask. I consider touching his scars, wondering what caused them, if they still hurt. He always has this look in his eye, like he’s in constant pain, tortured.
I don’t want to relate to him, to feel the beginnings of affection warming my heart, filling my chest with the soft glow of sympathy, but I do. I, too, know what it feels like to be in pain. To ache with fear.
“The Rades,” he grunts, those squinted, black eyes on me.
Tucking my legs up under my body, I angle toward him. Story time before bed always made me sleepy, but I’m too wired to sleep. “Is that like a disease or something?”
He nods. “It took the lives of many morts.”
“And that’s why there’s only ten of you left,” I clarify.
“That is correct.”
That must have been awful. Probably still is. I guess neither of our lives have exactly been a pile of roses. “How did you survive?”
“If it hadn’t been for my commander, I wouldn’t have. The disease, it devastated our race. Better morts than me had succumbed to the delirium, the madness. The fever, it’s unendurable. Breccan had to lock me in a reform cell to keep me from harming myself or others.”
I reach out to take his hand, but he dodges my touch.
At my hurt expression Draven explains, “It’s from The Rades. It leaves my skin incredibly sensitive.” He fingers the material of my sleep shirt, causing my skin to tingle. “Even the material from my minnasuit irritates my flesh.”
I’m only half listening. His fingers are still rubbing the material of my shirt, but his eyes are on my bare skin. Nostrils flaring, his eyes even more shuttered closed than normal, Draven looks crazed, but the heat in his gaze is a look I recognize.
“Well!” I say with false cheerfulness. “I’m beat. I think it’s time to hit the hay. Do you have somewhere I can crash for the night?”
“Crash?” he asks, perplexed. “Are you hurt?”
He looks so perfectly, adorably confused—which should be hard considering how severe he looks most of the time—that I laugh. “No, I mean I’m tired. Do you have a chair or a couch or something I can sleep on?”
“You will share my bed,” he answers. “You are my mate. I will protect you.”
“I think you can protect me just fine from across the room, big guy.”
“I will keep my space. I do not sleep well at night.”
Well, that stifles my protests. “Fine,” I huff out. “But you stay on your side, and I’ll stay on mine.”
“As you wish.”
He offers me a blanket and tucks me in. It’s the first time in recent memory that someone else has taken care of me.
Despite everything that’s happened, despite all my fears and worries, I fall into a deep and dreamless sleep with Draven next to me keeping watch.
* * *
The sound of the baby squalling echoes throughout the facility. My feet carry me from end to end, but I can’t escape the sound. Draven is out hunting and glowering at people or else I’d find him to distract me. The other morts are with the commander and his wife. For a bunch of alpha males, they all sure were overjoyed at the opportunity to visit the new bundle of joy.
I begged off with the excuse that I didn’t want to intrude, that I needed time to acclimate to my new environment. Sayer and Jareth didn’t seem convinced when I told them, but they left me to my own devices to join the others. I’d been fine in Draven’s rooms, for a while. Then the baby had started crying, and I could hear it, even behind the closed doors.
Most of the doors I encounter are locked. I assume they’re the living quarters of the other aliens and wouldn’t offer me any reprieve regardless. I trek all the way across the facility to the sub-faction and back to Draven’s before I find a stairwell leading down into darkness. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t step blithely into the gloom it offers, but I’m willing to do anything to escape the sounds, the torment.
The darkness lasts for what feels like forever. It’s only my probing steps and the vice-like grip I have on the railing that keep me grounded. When I reach the bottom, I search blindly for one of those wall sensors that turn on the lights and manage to find one after a few minutes. The light flicks on with a blinding glow. When my eyes adjust, I gasp.
In front of me are rows of cells on either side of a narrow hallway. I must be in the reform cell place Draven had mentioned. The place where he’d been locked away while he endured the madness caused by The Rades. Without thinking, I walk forward, my head swiveling from side to side as I study the cells and recall my conversation with Draven.
His was the last cell. I know the moment my eyes fall on the destruction inside. Despite the passage of time and the thorough cleaning I imagine it received, shadows of blood still paint the interior. Visions of Draven clawing at his own skin, trying to deafen his own ears, tearing out his own eyes, fill my mind.
Rivets cut into the metal underneath the brown-red stains are twins of those in Draven’s room. Based on the extent, I have to wonder if he tried to simply dig his way out of the cell with his own hands. Tortured by delusions, fever, and unimaginable pain, had he tried to escape to end it all? It would be enough to drive anyone to madness.
“You shouldn’t be here,” comes his voice.
I whirl around and find Draven, his spine straightened to his full, intimidating height, standing at the foot of the stairs. My heart hammers in my throat. I can still hear the baby crying above the sound of blood rushing in my ears. Or am I, too, going mad?
“I’m sorry, I was just…” The baby’s screams increase an octave, and I begin to pant. The walls seem to close in around me. I wonder if madness is catching, because clawing my way out of this tin can is starting to seem like a great idea.
“Mate—Molly. What’s wrong? Did someone hurt you? Is that why you’re hiding?”
The desperation in his voice calms me. “No, I’m fine. I’m just feeling a little…shut in. I wish I could go outside.”
Draven studies me, his neck cracking as he reverts back to his normal height. “You wish to see the outside?” he asks.
My thoughts clear. “Can we do that? Go outside. Isn’t it dangerous?”
“The winds aren’t as violent now that the geostorm is weakening. I will keep you safe, Molly my mate.” He lifts a hand for me. “Come with me.”
I place my hand in his, comforted by his touch as he is by mine, and follow him back up the stairs, leaving the darkness behind us.
“Where are we going?” I ask when we reach the top. “I thought we weren’t allowed.”
He tugs me along, passing his quarters, then Avrell’s lab where the doctor had examined me the day before, down a hallway to a door I hadn’t yet been through. The tunnel-like walls don’t give any hint about where he’s leading me, but the volume of the baby’s cries begin to decrease and the squeezing sensation around my heart lessens.
Maybe Draven isn’t the only one who’s a little mad.
He stops when he reaches an outer door and motions for me to wait. He suits up in another of those strange exoskeleton-like suits and fits a mask over his face. Draven does the same for me, extinguishing my hysteria as he carefully helps me into the suit and hooks me into a mask that smells a little strange, but must operate like some sort of breathing apparatus. I don’t even care that it makes me feel a little claustrophobic like I did when I was in the cryotube. All I care about is going outside. Being free.
When I’m suited up, he holds a hand out to me.
I take it and he leads me through the doorway and up an endless flight of stairs. I’m shocked at how the urge to follow this broody alien is one that comes easily to me. I’m starting to think I’d follow him anywhere. And that scares the ever-loving fire out of me.
6
Draven
Her eyes are wide behind the glass of her mask, and I almost wonder if she is afraid of going to The Tower with me. These alien females seem so fragile and delicate. It’s difficult to recall the mort females from long ago. Even when The Rades was destroying them, they were tall and fierce and strong. They were fanged and clawed like the remaining morts. It makes me wonder how these strange aliens manage to exist without proper teeth and claws for defense.
I tap the door and get her attention. “There are dangers outside of this door. You must keep your mask and zu-gear on at all times.” I shudder simply thinking about The Rades somehow getting in through a puncture in her suit. Calix has assured me in the past that it’s not that simple, but I worry nonetheless. “Also, we must be mindful of armworms.”
“Armworms?” she asks, her eyes flicking to the door then back to me.
I show her with my hands how big they are. “They’re feral. Sharp teeth. Quick. Territorial. They like to nest up high, away from predators.” I unsheathe my magknife. “I will kill them if they try to attack.”
Her nog bobs quickly. She clutches my arm over my suit, and for once I don’t recoil. The other morts typically don’t touch me and respect my…issues. But it’s not like it doesn’t occasionally happen on accident. Normally, I bolt at such incidents, but with Molly—my mate—I don’t feel the pressing need to escape. If anything, I have the urge to reassure her everything will be okay.
“Come, my mate,” I grunt.
She gives me a small smile and a nod. I open the door, and she follows behind me. The winds aren’t as harsh and unforgiving now that the massive geostorm is finally beginning to move from the area. We won’t need harnesses. It makes me wonder if Calix and Emery will travel back to the facility once Emery has given birth to their mortling.
I make quick work of checking The Tower for armworms. There aren’t any lurking around, so I guide her over to the northeast side. The mountains in the distance are lit up by the magnastrikes in the geostorm, but just before that, Lake Acido remains visible. The waves are tumultuous on the large, dark, red lake. I scan the parts of the lake that are closest for any beasts roaming. Unfortunately, there are none. I’m growing tired of greenbunches and long for some meat.
“The lake is red,” Molly says, pointing. “I thought lakes were supposed to be blue.”
I think about the underground wells deep below the facility. Those miniature lakes are bright blue and shimmer in the dark caves. The water is crystal clear, and you can see small sand swimmers on the bottom. When Hadrian was small, he was always getting his rump swatted by Breccan for jumping in after the sand swimmers. Maybe I’ll take Molly there one solar soon.
“It’s unsuitable for swimming and drinking. The acidic levels are high. Anything that falls into that lake doesn’t come out,” I tell her. “The beasts don’t drink from it but instead find springs that are fed from the underground wells.”
“Beasts…like the armworms?”
She scoots closer to me as though she is frightened. I fist my hand. The urge to place my hand on her back and draw her close is nearly maddening. But I would shame myself the moment I lost myself inside my mind. Like when she touched me the moment she hatched from the pod. I’d succumbed to the fear and melted on the spot. It’s too risky in The Tower. I need to keep my distance and my mind sorted, so I may keep her protected. I edge slightly away from her.
“Sabrevipes are the most predatory creatures in the vicinity. They’re massive, violent, and deadly. Hadrian nearly rekking went to The Eternals from facing off with a young sabrevipe not long ago. They are not to be messed with.”
“Lovely,” she says, her voice tight. “Are there any animals that are nice? Like farm animals?”
I cock my nog to inspect her. Her lips seem puffier than Aria’s and Emery’s. Like they are full of something and squishy. If I weren’t the way I am, I’d ask her if I could see what her bottom lip felt like under the point of my claw. My curiosity of such silly things has a growl of frustration rumbling from me. This is more Hadrian’s area. Curiosity that could get him killed. Something tells me if I go touching this little alie
n, it’d get me killed, too. I don’t know what or why or how, I just get a feeling.
“I do not know these farm animals you speak of.”
“Horses? Pigs? Chickens? Cows?”
I slowly nod at her. “We have rogcows. Heavy beasts. Fine tasting meat.”
“Do they moo?”
“Moo?”
She lets out a snort of laughter. “Mooooooooo.”
My lips twitch. I’m reminded of Hadrian when he was only a few revolutions old running through the facility roaring like a young sabrevipe. He bit Avrell like he was one of those feral beasts. I’d been amused. Our commander, however, was not. Breccan made him wash the entire Facility from top to bottom with a wet cloth, and then he was made to assist Avrell for many solars until he was forgiven. Avrell still has those scars on his forearm.
“They don’t moo,” I tell her with a smirk. “They ronk.”
“Ronk?”
“Ronnnnnnk,” I drawl out, my voice growing deeper to mimic the rogcows. “Ronk-ronnnnk.”
Her giggles seem to filter through my suit and get inside my veins. The rare smile on my lips fades as I ponder too long on the idea of her laughter being something that’s as invasive as The Rades. It’s preposterous, but it unnerves me all the same.
“I want to see one,” she says, and then she sighs. “I guess I’ll never see anything ever again, though. Trapped in this crazy place.”
“We are safe here,” I assure her. I point to the lake and the mountains being ravaged by the geostorm. “It’s not safe out there.” I don’t voice that no matter how safe it is in the facility with my faction of morts, I crave to be free. To be out in the harrowing wilderness where I am not contained.
“I like how quiet it is up here,” she mutters, her voice barely audible through our comms. “Down there…with them…I couldn’t take it.”
I frown at her words. “The morts are too noisy for your alien ears?” And here I thought I was the only one who grows agitated over the constant chatter of the other morts.
