C.J. leaned against the doorway. “I’d listen to him. When he makes speeches, he tends to be right.”
I nodded. “Thank you, Dane.”
Wade lifted his head. “I never had anyone in my life ever talk to me like that.”
C.J. patted him on the back. “Stick around this crew and stop hiding in your room. Someone is bound to say something profound to you eventually. We can’t seem to help ourselves.”
I leaned on the ottoman, a medical tablet in my hand, and tried to read about Evander diseases without wanting to throw up.
Kelton entered the med bay and came up to me. He knelt. “I wanted to get your opinion on some things. I’m sending instructions back to Chen to start rebuilding. If we don’t have your husbands for maybe up to a year, we have to get started without them. I’m trying to see things as they would. So of course we need to rebuild the mansion.”
I hated that place. The ostentatious mansion that housed my mother-in-law, her ilk, and the beatings I’d taken. The whole of Chen Empire needed a makeover. I blinked. Yes, it did. A big old changeover.
I was in charge. Could I… fix things?
“Kelton.” I stopped him. “I’m going to disagree with you. And I know it may not be how my husbands would see things. I know that makes it complicated for you, but here is how I see it. We don’t need that mansion. Why bother? It’s taking up space better used for other things. Build us a house. A big enough one for me, the kids, my husbands, and guests. Let’s assume a few more kids. We can always use the space for something else if we want later. A big house, not a mansion. Put it on the outskirts of the living area for Chen Central. A nice view.” There were some things I’d splurge on. The Masters Chens deserved some perks for the things they did.
He rapidly blinked. “What do you propose to do with the space the mansion took up?”
“We need to rebuild Earth. Right now, I see a three-fold problem. First, the orphans. There have to be a ton of them all over Earth. They need to be housed and fed and cared for. Take half the space of the mansion and build an orphanage. The goal is to find them good homes. I want an extreme screening process. We can get to that later.”
Kelton grinned. “I love that. What else?”
“We need to update the medical facilities. I want a real hospital. Not just because I want it for me. I want it for all of us. We shouldn’t have to go elsewhere for medical help and should we find ourselves in another war I don’t want anything makeshift.”
Kelton nodded so I continued.
“Oceania is gone. Chen Empire needs to be the center of commerce. Build us a place for that. And let it be known that whoever wants to build their business in Chen will find us very accommodating to new businesses. I think if Amari were here, he’d agree with that. How can he be the best businessman alive if there is nowhere to do that? All of this as we preserve the water and leave space for Hunter to impose his own designs.”
Kelton rose. “We’re all lucky to have you, Amber. I didn’t think of any of this.”
“Kelton, a fourth problem. I don’t ever want another fucking attack. Get Hunter’s team working on it. It won’t be ready until he can design it himself, but damn it, I want Earth to be so protected that assholes like Evander wouldn’t fucking dare.”
He grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”
11 Finally Home
Why was it whenever I wanted time to speed up, it dragged, and when I wanted it to slow down, it flew? These were the kind of thoughts plaguing me in the endless days of waiting. My blood pressure normalized, and by the time the Z finished construction on our non-palace-y house, there was snow on the ground. I’d forgotten how beautiful the snow could be in the Chen Empire.
My breath fogged up the window, and I sipped my tea, feeling my babies move inside of me. Twins almost always came early. I probably didn’t have much time left until they joined us. As it was, I had come to discover that one of them was a lot more active than the other. I wondered if that would translate outside of the womb.
“I think we’ve gotten everything we can get from him,” Kelton told me, and I turned around. “It might be time to finish with Todd.”
He said his name with derision, and I smiled. “Send him on his way. Drop him somewhere in the middle of space, on a reforming station, and let him tell the entire world what treatment you get if you fuck with the Chen Empire.”
Kelton’s eyes widened. “I thought we’d just kill him, but that works, too.”
I sighed and walked up to him. “Leave him alone for a few weeks. Deal with it after your honeymoon. “I grinned at him. It was going to be a wonderful day for him. “Your tie isn’t straight.”
Dane had let me off bed rest weeks earlier and it was nice to be up and moving. I adjusted Kelton’s tie. It was purple, like the sash the Z always carried with them. If Amari had been well, he’d have been doing this ceremony. As it was, they’d ask Cooper to perform it. He was stunned, but the entire Z Warriors had taken to him over the last few months as he’d helped them redesign the entire agricultural set up in the fifth quadrant.
Everyone would be leaving soon.
Evander wasn’t gone, but they were hidden in the Dark Planets. That meant that my friends and family would head in that direction. Rebuilding The Farm was a smart move since its location was so much closer to the Dark Planets. The unmarried Super Soldiers headed into the Dark Planet area to search. Blaze had taken Artemis and continued to hide Sienna with the same shipmates who had been with him before.
We heard nothing from them, which Melissa said was a good sign.
Brenden and Chrissy had gotten married the week before. At all of these things I put on my best fake smile and pretended to be joyful while in my head there was a constant countdown. The fifty percent was playing out. So far, of the twenty-five people rescued, twelve still lived, including my three guys.
I rubbed the back of my neck. This morning, they had strong brain waves, even Shane, who I’d obsessed over for weeks because of his head injuries, and their vitals were good. But for how much longer?
Still, I smiled. This was Kelton’s wedding day, and I was the Chen wife. I would be what everyone needed me to be: happy.
“Don’t rework the map of Earth while I’m on Saturn’s rings. You don’t have to fix everything yourself.”
I cleared my throat. “The babies move around all night, I can’t sleep. I need something to do with my time. Why not alter everything at the same time?”
“Funny.”
I straightened his tie again. “Go get married, Master Kelton. I won’t change a thing while you and Matt are away.”
He nodded. “They’ll be up soon. They’re strong, hanging on, and Dane said their vitals are steady. It’s working.”
“True.” Except they all looked that way, every patient in there seemed fine. Until the day they died.
I sat with my tablet in my hand, reading about nursing strategies while Dane checked on all of the patients. Lewis and Cash would be leaving today, now that the wedding festivities were over.
“Dane,” I caught his attention as Ari entered the room. “Are you leaving?”
He shook his head. “Not until everyone here is okay. They’re my patients.”
Ari pointed at me. “And I’m delivering those babies. So… you’re stuck with me, too.”
I should have expected the tears that came. “Thank you.”
I wiped them away and no one commented, which I appreciated. There were very good doctors on Earth, but I didn’t know them like I did these men. I would have to figure it out, and as for my own career, it was pretty much stalled since I wasn’t allowed on my feet the amount I needed to be. Funny enough, at the moment, I didn’t miss it. I was sure there would come a time I would. But managing my constant anxiety and staying healthy for the babies was about all I could do at the moment.
It wasn’t a great truth but there it was.
“You didn’t think we were going to leave you, did you Amber? Paloma’s not going a
nywhere either. Diana and her crew are just going to get set up. If you needed Cash and Lewis here, they’d stay, too.” Dane turned around to speak to me.
I touched my stomach. “I’m a little off today.”
Dane smirked at me, and I knew what he was going to ask before he did. “Can I scan you?”
I’d finally gotten him to the point where he was asking permission, resentfully. “Sure.”
He hit a button, and I didn’t look up while he read whatever readouts he saw. “You’re doing fine.”
I kind of figured that. “Just the pregnancy hormones, I guess.”
An alarm sounded seconds before a loud bang shot the lid off Amari’s med machine. I jumped up in time to see my oldest husband leap from the machine. His eyes were wild.
I somehow managed to get my eyes to his scanner. His brain waves didn’t show alertness. This was my husband, the greatest Z Warrior, who had been under sedation for seven months, breaking his med machine and basically sleep walking himself into a violent state.
“No one move,” I yelled to the room as three Z rushed in. “I mean it. Not one of you.”
He was lethal, and he wasn’t awake.
I loved this man, and I wasn’t afraid of him, not for me.
He strode toward Dane, and I wondered what he saw, who he saw. The last time he’d been awake he’d been tortured, injected with a poison virus he still battled, and I wasn’t confident he wasn’t about to kill someone in a dream state that showed him he was still there. I’d monitored his brain waves for nightmares but that wasn’t one hundred percent accurate. He might not have been having one, he might have just been seeing what happened over and over. Those readings would be different.
“Amari,” I said his name, and he stopped mid-stride. It should have been impossible to break his machine the way he’d done. I’d heard stories of it happening once in a million times, but even the Super Soldiers stayed under when they were in it. Those Z brain waves were just different. All of that energy training altered things.
I said his name again. “Amari, it’s Amber.”
He stared at me but I wasn’t sure he saw me. Still, something registered.
“Be careful,” Ari called out to me, and I ignored him. The other doctor had a syringe in his hand. He was ready to drive that thing into Amari’s neck and knock him out. I didn’t want to do that. My husband’s body had been through enough.
I took his hand instead, and I squeezed. Amari’s unclear eyes stared down at our linked fingers.
“Amari.” I drew him close to me, and he let me. If he hadn’t wanted to budge, he wouldn’t have. “It’s Amber.”
I put my arms around him and held on. This close to him, I could hear that his breathing was deep, the way he sounded when he slept, not the quick in and out of Amari alert. Yes, this was a waking dream, a nightmare for him. He just needed to be relaxed, and we could put him back under.
“Everyone out,” Dane told the room. “Give her a minute. She’s safe.”
Ari followed Dane out the door, the nurses hustling along with them. The Z were last to leave, and I was glad that they did. I didn’t want them seeing Amari like this. They would tell stories of how he broke the med machine, and they would become legends. What happened after was no one’s business.
I stood there with my husband, listening to him breathe. It was that long, deep sound I craved. For a second I might even have been able to pretend we were alone in a bed, him next to me, with nothing wrong in the world. Of course, we’d never once had that moment. All of my times with my husbands had been rushed. There had been no easy days between us.
I would see to it that changed.
“Amari.” I kept saying his name because it felt nice to do so. He put his head down on my shoulder, and I shuddered. I loved this. He needed to be back in the machine, but I would take this second. “You’re home, and you’re safe.”
He nodded against my shoulder. “Home.”
“That’s right. You’re home. And you’re spending time in the med machine getting better. You just broke out because you’re sleeping.” I kissed his cheek. He was slightly too warm, but we’d known that. They’d all had a little bit of a fever this whole time. “And I’m going to need you to go back in.”
He lifted his head. His eyes weren’t clear. They wouldn’t be during this exchange. People didn’t just wake up from med machines, they had to ease to alertness, from real sleep to being awake outside of the machine. Particularly when they’d been in the machine as long as he had.
“I want to stay with you.”
I kissed his lips gently. He wasn’t contagious. “I want that, too. Only you have to get well first. So come with me.” I squeezed his fingers and led him to a different machine. “You’re home. You’re safe. Everyone is safe. I need you to do something for me. I need you to not fight the machine, I need you to let yourself really sleep. When you wake up again, it’ll all be over, and we can spend some time just being.”
He shuddered. “Okay.”
“Thank you.” I kissed him one more time and helped him climb into the machine. Before I let it shut around him, I ran my hands through his dark hair. “Sleep for me.”
“Love you, Amber.” His voice was low as his eyes drifted shut.
“I love you, too.”
I closed the machine and turned it on. All the med machines in here were coded for this pathogen. It would know what to do for him.
Dane stood in the doorway. “Holy shit.”
I didn’t turn. I needed a second. “They’re very powerful. When I tell people, they don’t really understand until they see it themselves.”
“Have you given any thought to how strong your children are going to be?”
A warm water hit my legs and my feet. I stared down. What was happening? Was I peeing myself?
I turned to face Dane as realization hit me. “My water just broke.”
He nodded. “Okay. Then it’s time. Maybe he knew. That’s why he came out today to speak to you, even if he didn’t know that he knew. If he’s that tuned into things that he can rouse himself from a med machine and destroy it? Add to that he managed to do that so fast the machine never registered that he was getting alert enough to do that? Maybe he knew.”
Maybe he did. I shivered. “I’m pretty terrified right now.”
“All new mothers are.” After saying that, he called over his shoulder to the hallway. “Ari, get in here or I’m saying screw it and I’m delivering the babies.”
Ari rushed through the door. “It’s time?”
“It’s time.”
I was pretty sure that the entirety of the Z Warriors waited outside the door when my daughters wailed into the world. They’d both been breach, premature, and there had never been any chance I was going to try to deliver them naturally.
With my sister chatting nervously by my head, Ari numbed me and cut them from my womb, bringing them into the world.
I had a chance to stare at their faces before we were all put in med machines to get better. They were the most beautiful sight I’d ever beheld. Dark hair like their father and uncles, Shane’s shape of his face, the strong Chen chin. My eyes. I could see that right away. They had the violet blue eyes. The gene I’d inherited that was so rare it didn’t show up every generation in my family. They both had it. The girls weren’t identical, we knew that beforehand, but they resembled each other a great deal.
“What are their names?” Paloma stroked my hair as I stared at them, trying to memorize their faces. We would be away from each other until their bodies were a little bit stronger. I was so sick of losing my loved ones to the machines.
Maybe I wasn’t thinking coherently, but I was too far gone to care.
“Josephine and Katherine. I think they’ll be strong names for later. For now, they can be Josie and Katie.”
Paloma kissed my forehead. “Good names. Who is who?”
“Katie was baby A the whole time she was in my belly. She was born first. Her face is a
little bit longer and…”
Paloma interrupted me. “She looks a little bit more like you.”
I didn’t think either of them outside of their eyes resembled me but I wasn’t going to argue with her.
“They’re beautiful, and I love them.” Paloma sniffed as Ari took them from my view.
I didn’t really remember much that happened after that. It was my own turn in the machine. I decided to just go with it.
There had never been such protected babies in the history of the universe. Katie and Josie had ten guards each. They were constantly outside of the cottage. Not that they could help with the screaming, what I suspected was colic, or the constant state of being awake that happened inside. I didn’t know what day it was or how many weeks old they were anymore. Six? Yes, I thought it was six.
Truth was there was nothing to do but survive this. Katie ate more than Josie but Josie nursed for longer. When one would sleep, which wasn’t very often—they both seemed to want to be alert all the time—the other would wake up. It was like they were on constant watch for me. Maybe they thought that one of them had to be awake for my sake.
My cat, Applesauce, had officially retreated to hiding in the back of the house. He did not care for the screaming and after checking out the girls when they’d first come home he’d wanted next to nothing to do with them. In my few free moments, he rubbed against me to tell me he was home and otherwise left us alone.
I wasn’t sleeping more than two hours a day, and I kind of thought I might have been about to crack.
I hadn’t been to see my husbands in too long. Not that they would know, but I knew. I just couldn’t get out of the house.
Rising Tides Page 13
