by V. K. Ludwig
I ignored the way she rolled her eyes and pointed a finger up. “Priority one: we need to fix that knee of yours before it reaches a point where my skills won’t be enough anymore. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
She stared right at me, nothing but a pile of bruises and injuries cowering on the ground, and yet she faked as much strength as she could. Where the healer in me expected diminished alertness, anxiety, or perhaps even hysteria in Katie, she appeared rather competent. Scared, but somehow managing to process her changed circumstances with a clarity and determination uncommon for trauma patients.
“Last night, after we arrived, I went straight to get the medical nanites I need to fix your knee.” I slowly got up and pulled the injector from my healer pack, getting her accustomed to the look of it. “It’ll heal within a day. Two tops. But getting them deep into the joint will be excruciatingly painful. Now, I could sedate —”
“No sedation.”
I nodded, not truly approving of her choice, but if I came with a sedation pin after her now, this would only end in another fight. It slowly dawned on me how she managed to kill a mature warrior. Her plump lips and slender frame hid that ferocity she harbored well.
Grabbing my healer pack, I slowly walked over to them. “Grace, I’ll need you to sit behind your mom. Hook your arms underneath her armpits and keep her down.”
At her mother’s nod, Grace did as told, and I prepared the things I needed beside me. Katie watched my every move, her pupils darting at top speed while her features remained otherwise sober. A maladaptive coping mechanism? More basic counseling training would have come in handy right about now.
But the moment I dipped my hand into a salve to ease the pain and approached her knee, she trembled. Her breathing turned short and labored, until she held it.
“I had you sedated in front of me for hours before we arrived,” I said. “Who do you think who changed you into that dress? Cleaned you up?”
She stared down at herself for less than a breath before her eyes pinned on me again. “Just get it over with.”
With circular motions, I rubbed a salve onto her bruised skin, my heart aching at the way she squeezed her eyes shut until her eyelids quivered.
I grabbed the injector from my bag, a canister of nanites already attached, and adjusted to wrap around her knee. “You’ll feel a tiny poke and hear a few clicks as it distributes the nanites.”
With each click, the injector pumped medical nanites into her busted knee. There they would wander to the area of the most recent damage, which was where the pain came in.
“It’s not so bad,” Katie murmured, more in her own and Grace’s reassurance.
Fuck, how I hated this part.
“Nope, the injection is almost painless.” I grabbed above her knee and around her calf, immediately meeting fight and struggle as she tried to pull back. “This is where it gets ugly.”
I twisted the leg before I gave one sharp tug on it.
Cartilage crunched.
Bones cracked.
Her scream overshadowed most of it while her muscle fibers twitched underneath the skin. Thin, red veins popped all over her cheeks, leaving her face blotchy once she’d screeched her lungs empty. Her eyelids fluttered, showing more and more white each time they twitched up.
“The nanites travel to the location of the most damage and inflammation,” I explained. “They’re more effective if there’s fresh bleeding, so sometimes we healers have to make something worse for it to get better.”
She probably didn’t even register that part, given the way she lay passed out in her daughter’s lap.
“What happened?” Grace asked, staring up and down between her mother and me. “Is she okay?”
“She’s unconscious, but she’ll be alright. How’s your head doing?”
She let go of her mother, one hand rubbing over the back of her head. “I’ve got a headache.”
“It’s normal,” I said. “I can give you something for it. Then I’ll have to carry your mom back to bed. I also have to check on her chip since I couldn’t cut her hair. Make sure it won’t get infected.” I let out a grave sigh. “This didn’t go as planned at all.”
What was it with these Earth females reacting so differently to our sedatives? One slept through an entire sun and came back with memory loss. This one woke too early and went straight into attacking me.
“Is my wound bleeding again?” I asked.
“Yeah. Not much, but you should probably have a look.”
“Did you ever place sutures on someone?” When Grace only stared at me wide-eyed, I forced a smile onto my face. “Now is a good time for you to learn, because I won’t be able to stitch that thing up without help.”
I grabbed my healer pack and searched for good old-fashioned thread and needle. The moment I clasped it between my fingers, my hand stalled all on its own. As if something told me to hold back for now. As if something told me, this fight with Katie was only a foretaste.
Six
Katie
* * *
I didn’t expect to wake up.
A bone-penetrating chill registered across my body, sending me into a shiver that had my limbs tossing. A purple hue reflected from the water-stained ceiling.
Something warm settled on my arm. “You’re okay, Mom.”
Grace’s voice floated around me; my pupils too stiff, too focused to search for her face. “Melek! She’s awake, and she’s shivering all over!”
“What the hell happened? Did I pass out?”
“Melek said it’s called a fainting episode because of the pain from the procedure, and the decreased blood flow to your brain.”
A stiff breeze flowed around me, followed by weight collapsing on top of me, warmth spreading, and Melek’s voice. “Might still be traces of the sedative leaving your body as well, considering you took another long nap.”
My hand lifted toward the stabbing headache above my temple, but something stalled the movement, gripped against it.
“Uh-uh,” Grace said. “Melek put your language chip in, remember? Can’t touch it for a few days, or it might get infected.”
“Are you still cold, Katie?”
Melek here. Melek there.
An all-surrounding stranger.
I lifted my eyes, blinking the Vetusian into sharpness. He stood with his shoulder leaning against the wall, the nail of his thumb popping over his incisors. He was young. Younger than me, with clean-shaven skin sitting taught against the edges of his jaw.
He cocked his head and wrestled up a smile, saying, “Hey.”
My head throbbed.
Those eyes.
They gleamed as they did on every Vetusian but more subtle, those light-blue trails among green as pale as if something had sucked the color right out. I had seen him before he’d fixed my knee.
Where? When?
Shreds of memories pushed before my eyes, so distorted I couldn’t place him. Each time I tried, a stabbing headache shot through my skull, making nausea sweep up my throat.
“I think I’m going to get sick.”
“There’s a bucket by your bed for exactly that,” Melek said. “Just try not to get anything on the carpet, or Adora will have me scrub it, and I’d rather not.”
A glance over the edge of the mattress brought the bucket into vision, but my nausea had already ebbed away again. I rolled myself onto my side, taking in the room around me. A mattress lay on the floor beside the bed, sheets a mess. The corner had a small dresser standing crooked on three legs. Beside me, magazines with swirly letters stacked almost as high as the lamp beside it.
Heat replaced the cold.
Searing and itchy, the scratches on the inside of my thighs flooded my nerve ends with input. But I ignored it. I didn’t still smell Kidan’s sweat on my right shoulder when I turned my head. I didn’t still feel his moist moans sticking to the skin along my neck. And I didn’t still hear his apologies reverberating my skull while he violated me.
<
br /> My hands wandered down my thighs, but Melek’s voice stalled the motion before I reached the crawling sensation, like ants underneath my skin.
“Don’t touch the scratches,” he barked. “It’s itchy, yes, but it was the only salve I had available. Nails carry a lot of germs. It’s a high friction area and could get infected quickly.”
My fingers wandered between my legs anyway, touching my thighs, feeling myself. Was I still me? Ragged and wild, the scratches bulged against my fingertips. I rubbed my palms over them, satisfied that itch on my skin as if caked in filth.
“Please stop touching.”
Shut up! Shut up!
My pulse jumped at each of Melek’s steps toward me, his frame slowly appearing beside Grace. “Your knee is much better already. How about you come downstairs together with Grace and me? Breakfast is already waiting for us, and there’s no point in holding up the inevitable.”
Grace and him?
He’d said it so casually as if telling him that he had no part in our lives would have been pointless. I stared at him, my ribs shrinking around my lungs. The attack made no sense. Why he helped us even less.
“Who are you?”
He chomped down on his upper lip before he said, just as casually, “Melek.”
“I already know your name,” I snarled. “Now I want you to tell me who the hell you are. Why would I trust you? Why would you be any different than him?”
“Mom, please…”
His nostrils flared, and his intense stare pinned me down. “How about I’m the Vetusian who saved your ass from execution? The Healer who fixed that shattered knee of yours? The male who took care of Grace while you slept?”
His reprimand made me want to scrunch myself into a fetal position. As much as I hated how he’d called me out, Melek had a point. Three, actually. And yet I clasped to my skepticism since it remained one of the few things Kidan hadn’t stolen.
“Thank you for saving my ass, fixing my knee, and taking care of Grace. But I still don’t know who you are. Why would a Vetusian we’ve never met before even help us?”
“Kidan and I might be of the same species, but that doesn’t mean we’re of the same kind.”
“He tried to rape me!”
“And that’s exclusive to Vetusians? Earth males don’t rape?” At that, I pulled my knees into my chest, which made him take a step back, his voice turning softer. “I have no clue why Kidan did what he did, but I am not him. Which is why I decided to bring you to safety.”
Melek wiped the back of his hand faster down my cheeks than I could dodge it. I hadn’t even realized I’d cried. Tear after tear, a tickle ran along my skin, over the edge of my jaw, and then down along my neck.
Grace swung her palms onto her mouth, her eyes mirroring the insanity of this situation. I couldn’t even begin to guess at her mental ramblings over seeing me like this. Weakness wasn’t something a single mom could afford. Not back then, and certainly not now.
Eighteen hours of labor. Hundreds of sleepless nights. Fifteen years of raising Grace without help, and now she had to see me like this? Watch how weak I was? How stupid I’d been?
I should have let him rape me.
Melek knelt. “You are experiencing trauma, and that’s completely normal and expected.”
Trauma.
That word sunk in.
Sunk in deep and stuck.
Could I even afford that?
Deep inhales crackled through my lungs, reminding me of Kidan’s grunts. Frames of pictures replayed in front of my eyes like a slideshow. The blood gushing from his skull. The deserted white in his eyes. The broken ceramic lid beside him.
I have to pull myself together.
For Grace. For us.
One deep exhale, and I let my lungs expand until they ached, driving the fear from my ribcage. I pushed myself up to sit, forcing my muscles into obedience, no matter their tension. “I need to use the bathroom before I can go anywhere.”
Melek turned and offered me his shoulder. “It might still pinch a little, but you should be able to move around on your own. Might need some help at the stairs for today.”
I ignored his offer and got up, the pain in my knee more than tolerable. “Grace, would you…”
“Sure.”
She opened the door and guided me into a bathroom, odd even for a hospital, the sink made of carved stone, and the toilet reminding me of granny’s egg cups. A concave metal disc hung at the center of the ceiling, water dripping from it at a slow trickle.
Grace stayed in the room with me and leaned against the door, her shoulders slumped. “I’m so sorry for what I said when you came into my room that day.”
“What do you mean?”
“That you can close the door from the outside if you didn’t like my mess. I just cranked the volume up and…” Her first tear came with a snort, everything on her face seemingly melting to the ground. “I’m so sorry that I wasn’t there to help you.”
Each of her tears pounded my nerves, a fissure growing at my core. It expanded there, pushing against my organs, making all this feel too real, too honest, too hard to pretend it never happened.
“It’s not your fault.” What intended to offer comfort came out much too sharp, and she immediately wiped her tears. “It happened. It’s done. We need to concentrate on this mess now, Grace. Melek might have helped us, but we can’t rely on him. It’s just you and me.”
It’s just you and me.
Those words had been the first ones I’d spoken after the nurse placed a wet Grace against my chest. Even now, they remained faithful.
We made our way downstairs with Grace supporting my left side while I pressed my palm against the wall to the right. The embroidery of the wallpaper seemed too extravagant for a hospital, the carpet lining the hallways nothing but impractical. Unhygienic too!
The moment we reached the lower level and turned toward voices in conversation, the scents of foreign spices and exotic herbs had my stomach churn in hungry complaint.
“They’re all very nice,” Grace said just before we turned the corner. “They’ve got horns, though. And, um, scaled skin, tails…”
Her voice faded into the background at tails, panic pumping into my veins. But I pushed through the wall of paralyzing fear and stepped into the room. Then I turned to stone.
“Good morning,” Melek said and flung himself onto a chair, the way he didn’t even glance back at me, almost like a punishment for how we’d gotten into each other's hair up there. “Give it to me straight. How busy was last night? Think I will have a lot of work today?”
A female with green scales stood by the stone fireplace and let out a snort, tossing something inside a skillet over the flames. “A Jal’zar brigade arrived unannounced.”
Melek groaned.
The female walked over and placed the skillet on the table, the contents sizzling away underneath a puff of steam. Then she turned toward us, holding one hand, two, three… My legs turned to Jell-O.
“I’m Adora,” she said with a smile forming underneath slitted nostrils. “We’re all very excited to meet you.”
Frozen in indecision, my pupils darted between Grace’s encouraging nods and all those hands. Fuck it. The planet might have been a different one, but my responsibilities as a mom remained unchanged.
I forced a smile onto my face and shook one of her too-many hands. “I’m Katie. You, um, work at this… hospital?”
If she had brows, she would probably have lifted one, and the way Grace nervously shifted her weight didn’t make this moment any less awkward.
“How about we eat?” Melek blurted, then pointed at the horned female sitting across with her legs folded on the table. “That over there is K’terra, a Jal’zar and very good friend of mine.”
K’terra bit back a grin. “It’s nice to meet you, Katie.”
Pulling myself the chair farthest away from the only male in the room, Melek, I sat down across from him. Right now, we had to rely on him. I got th
at. But trust him, I would not.
He sighed and shook his head, grabbed one of the many bowls from the center of the table, and served himself breakfast.
“You need to get yourself new uniforms, Melek,” K’terra said. “Want me to go to the tailor for you?”
“Can’t afford it,” Melek said, then let his voice grow louder when he added, “Because this job pays shit.”
Adora walked up behind him and tousled his hair, pouring a ladle of that sizzling stuff onto his plate. “But the food’s delicious, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, that’s true.”
“I love your cooking, Adora,” Grace said, rounding up her statement by loading her plate, acting as if we were all old friends here.
I took a bit of everything and started eating, not allowing a moment of hesitation. The life of two female humans living in exile had no room for it, and my energy would be better invested in making ourselves a new life here.
Priorities. I had to get them sorted.
Roof over our heads.
Food on the table.
Job to pay for it all.
“Grace is such a sweet thing,” Adora said to me and sat down on the chair next to Melek. “You’ve done so well raising her, Katie. Kokkonian’s lay eggs once a sun cycle. Thousands of them. We bury them in the ashes for our star to warm, never to see them again. When they hatch, they immediately start attacking each other, leaving behind a nest of torn limbs. That is how we ensure only the strongest survive.”
My body froze over, but only until Melek blurted, “Jal’zar give birth much like humans.”
“Did you ever see a Jal’zar baby being born?” Grace asked. “Just wondering how that goes with the tail claw and the horns and stuff. And why do some females have horns while others only have nubs?”
K’terra leaned back into her chair, pulled a foot up, and braced her sole against the edge. “We’re all born with horns and are proud of them. But the Vetusians cut them off on most slaves they took after the war.”
