by Seth Eden
“I’m just tired.”
“Mm. Get some sleep. I’m sure you’ll feel better in the morning.”
But sleep was the last thing on her mind. Nor would getting any make her feel better.
She waited a few long agonizing hours, listening to Ethan’s breathing slow. She was too afraid to move for fear of waking him up. During that time, she tried to concoct a plan. She couldn’t go to Jen and Dominic; she didn’t feel like they were on her side. Could she storm into the meeting hall and demand they let Zen go? Or could she break into the prison itself and get him out? A sound plan, except she didn’t know where the prison was at all. Or how to sneak in. Or how to even find him. The more she leaned into that plan, the more impossible it became. All she knew was that she had to try something.
... there was also Julie. Perhaps she and her shifters didn’t have the right connections to change anything, but there was the hope they could provide her with some kind of help.
Soon, Ethan rolled onto his other side and tucked the sheets up under his chin. His absence felt like a blessing against her skin. She knew she needed to wait this out a little longer, just in case. A few minutes more, just to make sure he was asleep, and then she would slip away.
When her feet touched the cold floor, it dawned on her that Torfan was still nearby. Was he staying in the house or patrolling outside? She tiptoed over to the nearest window and discovered five more of his men guarding the perimeter with guns.
She felt her stomach bottom out. There was no way she could sneak past them without them raising the alarm. And then what would she tell Ethan?
Not wanting to wake him up, she stumbled quickly out and into the adjoining bathroom. She shut the door behind her and smothered her face into her hands to stifle her crying.
She sobbed for a good while and she sobbed pretty hard, almost to the point of making herself sick. And when she could take no more, she washed her face and slipped back into bed. There was no hope of getting out of here now, not with the place so heavily guarded.
Sleep evaded her the entire night. She would feel the edges of it begin to creep in before she nodded awake again. Afraid that Ethan would read her mind somehow and discover what she’d planned. Afraid that he would roll over and put his arm around her again. As much as her eyes burned, lying in the bed gave her time to think.
If Torfan’s men were here, what was Ethan planning? Did Dominic know the same ones he’d fired were here once more? And if he did, did he intend to carry out his threat when he’d ordered them to leave? Or was Ethan disobeying all of that right under Dominic’s nose for his own benefit?
Dawn approached and she felt Ethan stir beside her. She quickly shut her eyes and pretended to be asleep. She couldn’t let him know that she’d stayed up half the night, that she didn’t feel comfortable at his side. She was going to have to pretend as if everything was alright so that he wouldn’t catch wind of what her true intentions.
He rolled over and kissed her shoulder once more, peering over it to get a look at her face. She could feel his breath against her cheek and didn’t dare recoil.
“Morning, love. Slept well?”
Samantha groaned and pulled the pillow over her head. Whatever kept the charade going.
Ethan chuckled but let her be. He could afford to let her sleep in just this once, after everything she’d been through. Then his real work would start.
Unexpectedly, without him in the bed beside her, she did manage to fall asleep for a few hours, when the smells of cooking food finally awoke her. They teased at her empty stomach first, the rumblings of which pulled her from her bed. She fought to rub the sleep out of her eyes as she staggered towards the smells. Damn her plans for the moment, she was too hungry to care.
“Look who’s woken up from the dead.”
Ethan was turning over some slabs of meat with one hand and fetching some toast from the oven with another. Samantha plopped herself onto a chair and pulled one of the plates from the stack.
“Mornin’,” she slurred. What she wouldn’t do for some coffee right now.
“Slept well?” he asked cheerfully. He carried over a few slabs of meat and slipped them onto her plate, along with a few slices of golden-brown toast.
“Mmmfff.” The food was already stuffed into her mouth before she could answer, threatening to choke her if she wasn’t careful.
“Ha! Hungry too, I see.” Ethan beamed with pride as he continued preparing the rest of the meal.
But Samantha knew she couldn’t look this gift horse in the mouth. She wasn’t going to pretend as if everything was okay just because he’d made her a nice meal. Ethan wasn’t going to be let off the hook that easily.
“Torfan and his crew... hiring them was your idea.”
“Well, yes. I mean, who else would-” he started to answer as he turned around.
“No. I’m talking about before. It was your idea to steal women from other planets to ‘thin your blood,’ as you called it. It was your idea to hire them to do it.”
Ethan’s mirth faded. A smile became agape shock became thin-lipped ire.
“And what of it? What did that bastard tell you?”
“This is between you and me. Answer the question. Did you hire them to bring me and the others here?”
“What does it matter?” He threw his hands up in the air. He didn’t see the point of all of this.
“It matters to me.” She stood from her seat and prodded him on the chest, her meal forgotten. “It matters to me because my home is gone. It matters because your decision cost all of the people on my planet their lives. It matters because I want you to tell me the truth!” With each word, she prodded harder and harder at his chest. He would recoil and she would follow, determined to get the answer she wanted out of him.
“Torfan and his men are idiots! How was I supposed to know he-”
“You hired them before too! To kill Zen’s wife and children! You knew what they were capable of!” The fog of drowsiness was gone from her mind now, her anger taking over her actions and her words. She didn’t care about hiding what she knew anymore. She wasn’t going to beat around the bush to keep him comfortable. She wanted to know the bold-faced truth, no matter what cost it came at.
Ethan grabbed her wrist and pulled her prodding finger away from his chest. It was the angriest she’d ever seen him but that wasn’t enough to make her back down. She’d stared down a dragon, after all.
“Is that what he told you.” It was less of a question and more of a demand, a test to see which side she was really on. Samantha cared less about taking sides and more about the truth because she was tired of the veil constantly being pulled over her eyes.
“That’s one of the things he told me, yes. I want to hear your side of the story before I make up my mind.”
“Ha...” Ethan pressed a hand to his brow, shook his head, and broke out cackling. The sound of it was cold and echoed around the room, surrounding her in its jeers and teasing.
“You make it sound so simple. His side and my side. Like you can piece the two together to get a coherent picture. So naive.”
“Don’t say that.” She shoved him back again. She was supposed to be in control of the situation, not him. He was supposed to be giving her answers, not running around the issue.
“Oh, but you are. You and your pitiful life span, while I and my brethren have been alive for centuries. You can’t even fathom how long that is, you can’t begin to comprehend what it’s like to make the hard decisions that will keep your people thriving. I did what I thought was right!” Ethan shoved her back, and she almost tripped over the chair behind her. She’d never seen him like before, had never thought him capable of reacting this way.
And still, she wasn’t afraid of him.
“What’s six in relation to a hundred? A thousand? It’s a drop in the bucket to ensure our continued survival as a species. What do you think would have happened had his wife and children continued to have offspring? Hm? What do you think wo
uld have happened to the rest of us? They would have conquered and wiped us out, declared themselves the true rulers because of their evolution. Is that what you’re suggesting I should have done?”
The kitchen soon filled with the smell of burning. The meat in the pan was beginning to char, the wet sizzle of meat becoming dryer and dryer, like the crack of hot bones in a fire.
“And what did you do to my people, Ethan? What do you think you’re achieving by taking women from other planets to become your wives? How is that any different? You’re taking humans and turning them into your kind, how is that any fair?”
“We give you a choice, dammit! If you wanted to leave, you could! If you said no, we wouldn’t force anything upon you! We’re not like that anymore, and you declare me to be a savage! You think Zen’s wife would have seen reason?! No, she would have wiped us out like ants! That’s the natural order of things!”
“You don’t know that, you never gave her a chance!”
“I didn’t need to! She... said things! She had that look in her eye whenever she looked at you and made you feel so small! How could I take that risk!? My own brother wouldn’t listen, he was so wrapped around her finger, he couldn’t see the sense for the lies. He would have gone along with anything she wanted.” Annoyed with the smell of burning, Ethan rescued the pan from the fire and threw the whole mess into the sink. The impending steam billowed out from the moisture still inside, popping and hissing against the hot metal. It soon filled the kitchen, leaving them both in a hazy fog that burned their eyes.
“I gave my brother a choice and he told me no. There was no other option, I’m telling you.” He stood over the sink with hunched shoulders, his fists gripping the edges of the counter.
“There had to be. You could have given them the choice to leave and never come back.”
“And you think Senna would have taken that decision lightly? To be exiled from the only place she’s ever called home? Her children? My nieces and nephews?”
“From what Zen told me, she was capable of a lot of things. She could fly on her own to the next system and back within a week.”
“... two weeks. It was two weeks. The fact is she left and came back. She didn’t want to leave.”
Silence remained between them, save for the complaining hiss of the pain in the sink. He soon turned the water on it to choke off the rest of the steam.
And still, the silence remained.
“... so where does this leave us?” she asked.
He didn’t dare to turn around again. Samantha didn’t blame him.
“It just means I need to fix you. It will make things go back to the way they were.” His tone turned cold and his knuckles were growing whiter by the second.
“Fix... me? There’s nothing wrong with me.”
“There is. There is if you’re taking his side.”
“I’m not taking-”
Ethan was on her before she realized what was going on. He had her pinned against the back wall, his fingers digging into her shoulders until they started to bruise. The look in his eye was wild and she could tell that he’d finally snapped.
“Torfan... I have him here for other reasons. It’s not just because they make good bodyguards.” He gathered her at his side and led her out the door. The wolf-aliens stood to attention and parted, allowing him to pass.
“He has ways of making people talk. Ways that my people wouldn’t exactly approve of. I just need to get those silly thoughts out of your head.”
“Ethan, you don’t have to do this.” She clawed her fingers into his hand but he completely ignored it.
“Yes. Yes, I do. Because if I can make those thoughts of yours go away, everything else will go away. My brother will rot in that prison where no one will see him and I won’t have to think about any of this nonsense anymore.”
He was taking the coward’s way out He was trying to wipe everything under the rug so that he wouldn’t have to face the consequences of his actions.
“I thought by letting my brother live, he would leave all of this alone. Instead, he had to come here. He made me burn our house down.”
“Why would you-”
“Because! I need people to think he’s responsible!” Ethan shook his head, realizing he misspoke. “He is responsible, okay? For everything! He has no one else to blame but himself for the mess he’s in. And you! You weren’t supposed to be there. Why did you-”
“I was looking for you, you idiot!” She swung at his chest with her other fist then took a swing at his face. She clocked him right across the nose. She was sure it was broken, but he showed no signs of pain or injury.
“Our house blows up, and you think I’m not supposed to care?! You think I’m not going to come looking for you! What kind of person do you take me for, I cared about you!”
Ethan seemed surprised by that but that didn’t slow his pace. He continued away from the temporary home and towards the edge of the city.
“I was hoping you would think I was dead and move on with your life. You would have been better for it. Now I’m stuck with cleaning up this mess.”
“Is that why you didn’t come looking for me? Because you wanted everyone to think you were dead? You just... expected me to live out the rest of my life in that forest with my captor?”
“No, I was expecting my brother to kill you when he didn’t get what he wanted.”
“You...” Samantha’s breath was stolen. He’d put it so callously, so bluntly, that she was left with no retort. She’d been afraid all that while that he’d given up on her but she hadn’t expected he’d wanted her to die in the middle of this turmoil.
Ethan continued forward, ignoring her state of shock. She, on the other hand, felt like her world was coming to an end. To think that she’d been elated at once point to find him again, to be in his arms and see his face. To get out of that cave so that she could be in the safety of the city. Instead, their reunion had devolved into a nightmare.
They continued out of the city and towards the edges of the forest. The warm smell of earth and undergrowth greeted her once more, reminding her of the place she’d left just earlier today. What smells during the rain had comforted her now only made her sick to her stomach.
A screech overhead startled them both, their heads snapping up to find its source. Ethan, out of fear; Samantha, out of hope. A hope that was unfounded, remembering that Zen was imprisoned. And neither Jen nor Dominic had stood up for her, so there was no reason to count on them either.
A long, large bird meandered across the treetops, likely in search of some meal or looking for a better perch. Even Samantha willed its friendship in some respect, for it to spy the injustice taking place on the ground and doing something about it.
The air grew cooler around them as they continued forward, deeper into the dense jungle until they came to a clearing quite suddenly. There, clustered beneath the trees, were three ships. Three of Torfan’s ships, hidden out of sight of the city.
“You fly that thing, you’ll never get past the atmosphere. Dominic will know you’re here and-”
“I didn’t say I was leaving.” He tightened his grip around her and quickened his pace.
“Don’t... do this.” Samantha struggled in his grasp, desperate to get away. She was starting to feel the tendrils of another panic attack clawing at her psyche. She didn’t want to be in those hallways anymore. She didn’t want to recall that smell of being in that ship, the memories of being held as a prisoner until she was dumped onto this planet. She would prefer being anywhere else but here.
Ethan remained silent, determined to see his mystery plan through. The door of the nearest hip opened and the gangplank lowered on its own, granting them entry. The black gaping maw beckoned them both in, like a hungry mouth waiting to be fed. Samantha knew that if she went inside, there was no coming back out.
The air was still musty, recycled. She went stiff against him and was led forward like a wooden doll with no strings. It was still filled with the smell
of those wolf-aliens. The stink of their fur made her sneeze. Ethan, quizzically, muttered a bless you. The absurdity of it wrenched a weak laugh from Samantha’s chest, though she found no levity about the situation.
Still, the question remained what he was going to do to her and why they were on this ship. If he wasn’t planning on flying away, what was he going to do with her exactly? And what did these “correction” measures entail?
It didn’t dawn on her until, after they’d gone from one corridor to the next, the hallways stopped at a circular room with a single chair in the middle. It wasn’t that different from a dentist’s chair, as far as she could tell.
The sight felt like a sharp spike through her mind. It jumpstarted her adrenaline in a fight or flight response. Her pulse pounded in her ears. This kind of room never amounted to anything good, if popular media back on Earth had been right.
“So we can either do this the easy way or the hard way. Or the even harder way.” The door slid closed behind them and Ethan finally released his grip on her. He adjusted his clothes around him, as if he was afraid to get them dirty in these sparse surroundings.
“You can tell me right now what I want to know. The truth. Or...” He gestured at the chair with a sweeping motion of his arm, as if he was presenting something marvelous to her. She remained in place close to the door, unable to get her feet to move. She didn’t want to know what the harder way entailed.
“I told you everything, Ethan. I told you what I know. I don’t know what else you want me to say.”
“The hard way it is, then.” he crossed the room to take her arm and shoved her into the chair. His hand felt so hot against her skin, almost like it was burning. She retrieved enough of her senses to kick at his ankle, knowing that nothing good could come from him putting her into that chair.
“You’re insane! What happened to you?!” She kicked and kicked again, making every attempt she could to get him off of her. But he was much stronger, much more persistent than she’d ever given him credit for.
“I... am not insane.” He grabbed both her wrists this time and wrestled her into the chair. “You are the one buying into his propaganda and I can’t have that. I can’t have you spouting lies about me to the rest of the city and turning everyone against me.”
