by Mikayla Lane
“Good morning, Joey,” Koda heard Emily say in a happy voice.
As he watched the beautiful child come out rubbing her tired eyes and shuffling her feet, he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d saved one woman and child only to sacrifice the two that were burrowing deeper into his heart by the second.
Everyone watched as Joey made her morning trek from her bed to Koda’s side where she would lay one small hand on his chest while the other danced in the air around her. As if on a predetermined schedule in her own mind, she would periodically rock as well.
Gibly made his way from the fireplace to Joey and waited until she grabbed him and scrunched him close to her side. Emily was still in awe of the spectacle the pair made as Joey erected a golden wall around herself and the cat.
Emily could feel a perk in her energy and knew that Gibly and Joey were doing their daily sharing of energy. As much as she knew they needed the boost, it bothered her a lot that they were abusing Gibly’s generosity and sweet nature.
When the golden wall dropped, Joey let go of the cat, and Emily reached out a hand to help Gibly as he stumbled away from the child.
“I fine,” Gibly said, quickly dodging Emily’s hands. He looked up at her with a furry smile. “Joey wants deer today. I go hunt.”
“Gibly . . . thank you,” Emily said as the cat headed out of the door.
He turned at the door, his sparkling eyes and furry grin making her smile.
“You are good woman and Joey special; this is all as it is meant to be,” Gibly left before anyone could question his cryptic reply.
“I’m thinking your gods and mine don’t like us very much if this is all meant to be,” Emily told Koda with a teasing smile before heading to the fireplace to get some stew for Joey.
Koda sat down near Joey and leaned against the wall.
“I know why this would be happening to me, but you and Joey? I just can’t figure that out. You’re completely innocent,” he said, still not understanding why she and Joey would have been thrown into his nightmare.
Emily chuckled, sat down beside her sister, and blew on a spoon of the same stew she’d fed his body earlier.
“You tell me why you think you deserve this, and I’ll tell you why me and Joey do too,” she offered.
Koda’s eyes shot to her face as he tried to figure out if she was teasing him or not.
“Don’t joke like that,” he countered.
Emily shook her head and blew on another spoon of stew.
“I’m not kidding at all.”
Koda snorted and shook his head.
“I don’t think hunting for your food or trading with other outcasts of society qualifies anyone for this,” he argued.
“Oh, you gotta think bigger than that. But if you’re not interested in a little quid pro quo, then you’ll just have to keep wondering.”
Emily’s look told Koda she wasn’t joking with him.
“Oh, that was well played, Emily,” Granala said with an impressed smile. “You may get him to talk after all.”
Emily nodded slightly to let Gran know that she’d heard her but didn’t want Koda to know they were speaking.
“I’m not buying it,” Koda said, shaking his head in doubt. “There isn’t anything you could have done to deserve this and certainly not baby Joey.”
Emily fed the last spoon of stew into Joey’s mouth and stood, looking down at Koda with a dead serious expression.
“We killed a man. Now, until you decide to share, I’m done saying anything else.”
Emily turned away from Koda’s stunned expression and set the bowl on top of the cabinet.
“Joey?” Koda whispered in shock.
Emily leaned down to dig through the cabinet for the herbs Gibly collected almost daily for Koda’s wounds. She was glad she had something to keep her busy for the moment.
“She’s much more powerful than even you realize. Now, let’s get your wounds cleaned,” she said, trying to change the subject.
“You can’t drop a bomb like that and think I’m going to let it go,” Koda replied, stunned that she’d think he could.
Emily peeked at him over the top of the cabinet.
“You can’t possibly think you’re fighting as hard as you can when you’re still consumed with the thought that you deserve to die, so we’re even,” she countered before ducking back down behind the cabinet.
Koda shook his fists in frustration as he growled.
That damn woman can be so maddening! he thought in exasperation.
Not so much because she always found a way to drive him crazy, but because she was right. He flung himself back to the floor and banged his head against the wall before turning narrowed eyes to the cabinet she was hiding behind.
“You’re working with my mother on this, aren’t you? What has she told you?” Koda asked as a myriad of emotions swamped him at the thought.
Emily ignored Gran’s sharp intake of breath and slowly stood from behind the cabinet, her face reflecting her anger.
“Let me tell you something, buddy,” Emily began as she stomped from behind the cabinet towards him. “That woman hasn’t told me a damn thing about you except that you’re a wonderful and loving man. She constantly talks about how proud she is of you . . . going on and on about how you were always so brave and kind.”
Koda stared at her with his mouth hanging open in shock.
It can’t be true, he thought, turning angry that Emily would lie to him.
“You’re lying,” he accused as he stood to face her. “That’s the last damn thing she’d ever say about me!”
Emily pointed her finger at his large, ethereal chest.
“You aren’t calling me a liar, you bastard. You’re calling your own mother a liar. I have no dog in this fight; I have no damn reason to lie to you. Suck on that sour thought for a while!” Emily said before she turned and walked out of the cabin door.
Koda’s emotions were too raw, his pain, rage, and embarrassment so overwhelming that he couldn’t let it go. He couldn’t let her walk away without admitting she was lying to him.
He found her sitting on the front porch and appeared in front of her as Tom and Elmer scattered out of sight, not wanting to get caught between the soul executioner and the angry alien.
“You have the biggest reason of all to lie to me!” he immediately accused. “You and your sister’s lives depend on mine right now!”
Emily stood toe to toe with him, her green eyes blazing with fury.
“You really think so? Tell me, would you enjoy living like this?” she asked, holding her arms out to the forest. “Would you like being so alone that you feel completely hollow inside? Twenty-four seven? No one to call, no one to care, nothing. You really think this is living?”
Koda was taken aback by her vehemence and the implication of what she was saying.
“Joey?” he asked.
Emily snorted and sat back on the porch with a bone deep weariness that grew worse each day as she tended to Koda.
“I wonder daily if I’m doing the right thing with her.” Emily looked up at him with pain filled eyes. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to wonder if you’re both better off dead? If maybe this isn’t your punishment but my own? Like I said, I have no reason to lie to you.”
Her soul wrenching admission knocked the wind and anger right out of Koda, and he sat next to her on the porch, wishing he could hold her, but they couldn’t spare the energy.
“I know how you feel,” Koda admitted.
“I doubt that,” Emily said with a soft snort, refusing to look at him.
“No, I actually do. I used to think the same thing about my brother, Traze, sometimes. Whether it was worth the things we had to do in order to keep him alive when he was a baby. I still look at him now as an adult and can’t help but feel guilt at the things I did,” Koda said, staring into the forest.
“You said he turned into a man you’re proud of,” Emily countered. “You had to have done a lot of thing
s right with him.”
“That had nothing to do with me and everything to do with Grai,” Koda admitted with a sad smile. “Grai is like no one else. Even when we were little, it was he who kept us fed, clothed, and cared for.”
“You said before that he was also punished more severely than the rest of you, and he’d be gone for days every week, healing or being punished. Who took care of Traze then?” Emily asked, encouraging him to talk.
“I don’t think you could call it taking care of him,” Koda said with a shake of his head. “It was more like a nightmare where each choice I made hurt someone I loved. If I hadn’t feared letting Grai down, Traze would have never lived beyond a few months.”
“I pictured things on a space ship a lot differently,” Emily admitted. “Was it really so horrible?”
Koda nodded his head, still keeping his gaze averted from her.
“My father was what you’d call evil. He knew no love or mercy for anyone, not even his infant son,” he admitted. “Dear old Dad brutalized my mother and spent his time thinking up new and horrible ways to turn us boys into real warriors.”
“How did you all survive?” Emily asked, hoping to keep him talking.
She wanted to know what was tearing him up inside, not just because her and Joey depended on him fighting the infection ravaging his body, but because she cared very deeply for him and hated to see the pain inside of him. And the defeat.
“Grai,” Koda said with a smile.
“And yet you somehow kept Traze alive when Grai was gone,” Emily prompted.
Koda rubbed a hand over his face and nodded his head.
“Barely. Every time Grai was taken away to be punished, I would wonder if that was the day that Traze would die.”
“Was your father so brutal to an infant?” she asked in horror.
“My father never even touched Traze until he was at least five or six,” Koda said with a shake of his head.
“I don’t understand,” Emily admitted, unsure why Traze had been in danger if his father never harmed him.
Koda stood and paced the small clearing in front of the cabin.
“My father kept my mother chained and wouldn’t allow us to be around her very often.”
He ignored Emily’s gasp and continued.
“When Traze was born, it was up to other mothers on the ship to provide him with milk. Grai would go around and collect the donated milk and make sure Traze was fed, changed, and hidden from my father as much as possible. Only Dagog and I knew where Grai hid him.”
“But—” Emily began, but Koda continued as if he hadn’t heard her.
“The second my father got rid of Grai, usually for stealing food or blankets for us, he would come find me and make me get Traze. At first, I was so excited that he took us to see our mom. Traze was crying because he was hungry, and my father held a bottle over my head as he dragged my mother into the bathroom,” Koda said, his eyes glassy as he looked off into the distance without seeing.
Emily put a hand over her stomach and one over her mouth, terrified for him to finish what he was going to say, but she more afraid of letting him keep it inside.
“The bathtub was full of water and my mom just looked at me so sad. She told me, ‘You do what you have to do to keep you and Traze safe. No matter what, baby, I love you.’ I don’t know if she knew what my father had planned, but I’m sure she knew it wouldn’t be good. It never was.
“By now, Traze was so hungry; he was screaming so loud and fighting in my arms. All I wanted was that bottle so I could shut him up and talk to my mom. Then my father laughed and told me I had to choose. My brother or my mother. For every second that I fed Traze, he’d be holding my mother’s head under the water,” Koda said, reliving the horror in his head.
“Oh my God,” Emily whispered, fighting the urge to throw up the stew she’d eaten earlier.
“He was barely more than a baby himself,” Granala whispered sadly, sitting beside Emily on the porch.
“I took the bottle and fed my brother for a few minutes while that bastard held her head under the water. The seconds seemed like hours, and my mother didn’t fight him so I never knew how close she was to losing consciousness. I was always so scared that I wouldn’t remove the bottle fast enough, and he’d bring her head up . . .” Koda’s voice began to crack and he shook his head to clear it.
“My father thought that the game was such great fun, the only way he’d allow Traze to be fed while Grai was being punished was if I did it while he drowned my mother,” Koda admitted, sorrow and pain pouring from him.
“Koda, you can’t blame yourself; you were just a child,” Emily said, trying to console him.
Koda laughed bitterly and shook his head.
“No, that’s where you’re wrong. I was so ashamed it took me a month to tell Grai what was happening. I couldn’t take it anymore; I was cracking. He found a way to keep the milk stocked, so when he was punished I could feed Traze without relying on my father to give me the milk. He tortured my mother for a month before my brother rescued us again because I couldn’t think things through on my own and find a solution,” Koda said then threw his hands in the air.
“What’s changed? Nothing. Here I am, waiting for my brother to come to the rescue again because I probably didn’t think things through in the folly either. I’m a failure. Without my brother I’m useless, and you and Joey are going to pay the price for my failure this time.”
Chapter Ten
Emily was horrified and speechless, but not for the reasons that Koda was probably thinking. She couldn’t imagine being put in the position of having to choose between her sister and her mother like that, and it killed her to think he was forced to do such a thing.
“Koda, you know that wasn’t your fault. Your father was one sick bastard, and you can’t take the burden of that on yourself. You did exactly what your mom wanted you to do—you took care of your brother. You have to know she’s proud of you and loves you,” Emily argued, trying to take away some of the pain he felt.
Koda laughed and kicked a small stick into the forest.
“Really? She tell you that? So she didn’t tell you what he planned after that? Or after that? The only difference the next times were that I would tell Grai the second he was released from punishment so he could find another way around it. That still left her suffering—sometimes for days—while I waited for Grai to fix it again!” he growled in anger and self-hatred.
“His father preyed on his loving nature,” Granala whispered to Emily. “He was trying to break Koda and make him a hateful bastard like he was. But my baby couldn’t be like that; it would stress him so badly he would make himself sick.”
“Koda, no, your mother never blamed you. She blamed him. Just like you should. She loves you; it’s why she won’t leave me the hell alone about you. You have to put the blame where it belongs,” Emily argued, seeing the situation for what it was.
She’d helped enough soldiers cross over to know that Koda was dealing with post-traumatic stress. Because the abuse happened so consistently and at such an early age, it probably contributed to his self-doubts and created an environment of guilt inside of him that he couldn’t shake.
“How can she forgive me when I can’t forgive myself?” he growled.
Emily laughed, surprising Koda and herself.
“I’m the wrong person to ask. I’m a fraud too. I’m supposed to sit here and give you great advice to make you fight, but I’m kind of in the same boat as you,” she admitted.
Koda moved to sit next to her on the porch, not knowing his mother had to pop herself onto the other side so he wouldn’t sit on her.
“Because of what you and Joey did?”
Emily looked at him and nodded.
“I know how you feel. I know what it’s like to doubt everything you did, wondering if you’d thought faster or harder that maybe things would have been different. But, Koda, you were a kid. A kid’s brain doesn’t think faster or harder; it sees such
a horrific experience and doesn’t understand how to process it. You can’t blame yourself,” Emily said.
She wasn’t really sure what to tell him that could help him. She was caught trying to help him through what happened as a child when as an adult she couldn’t help herself through what she’d been forced to do.
“Is she still here?” Koda asked, quietly hoping his mother wasn’t while another part of him was glad she was.
Emily smiled and nodded her head.
“I told you; she loves you, and she doesn’t think you did anything wrong. She’s proud of you. She makes it sound like you’re some kind of superhero, saving the world from the bad guys.”
Emily had to admit curiosity about Koda and the things he’d done and seen in his life. Not just because Granala had filled her head with what a wonderful man he’d become, but because she really liked him—more than she wanted to admit, even to herself.
“The superhero she’s talking about is Grai. He was always the one with plans on top of plans—on top of more plans. The one who took care of us all. This time I’m the one who needs to step up and fix the situation, but I’m stuck being a burden again, waiting on Grai to come and fix things for me,” Koda said with a shake of his head, disgusted with himself.
“You’re such an idiot,” Emily muttered.
“What?” Koda and Granala asked at the same time.
Emily ignored Granala as she turned to Koda.
“Seriously? You have to ask? You’re almost dead. I don’t even know how you’re still alive. You saw your body, right?” Emily asked as she gestured inside the cabin.
Koda quirked an eyebrow and nodded.
“I fail to see how that qualifies me as an idiot.”
“I fail to see how you can blame yourself for not doing enough when you can’t even feed yourself!” Emily said in frustration. “If you’re going to be your own whipping boy, at least do it over something more realistic because even in your futuristic, weird world, that’s just stupid thinking.”
Koda ran a hand through his spectral hair and growled in exasperation.
