by Lizzy Ford
Silence followed, and then Tomtom groaned.
Opening my eyes, I stood. The robots were lifeless and still. Tomtom was on his side, straining to get up. I raced towards him.
Blood was everywhere.
“No!” I cried as he strained once more to stand. Blood gushed from his wounds when he did. “Stay down!”
He relented and lay still, his low grumbling purr one of pain and his tail twitching.
I stared at the damage, the gashes in his side and the blood everywhere, and froze, recalling the night of the incident when I’d been surrounded by blood and the day I met Teyan. Blood smelled horrible, and I was crippled by the memories, helpless to aid the creature that had saved my life on more than one occasion.
I couldn’t lose Tomtom, but I was trapped in my mind, on the verge of a meltdown.
Help him, Gianna. The tiny instinct was a persistent whisper. The words kept repeating in my mind, and I slowly moved away from my impotent panic when I realized I had to do something, or Tomtom was going to die.
My sweet protector was whining.
“It’s okay,” I whispered and touched his fur with shaking hands. “It’s okay, Tomtom.”
It wasn’t, but I didn’t know what else to say. I tugged off my tunic and balled it up then pressed it to Tomtom’s side.
“Five,” the Woli said. “A small scouting party. We must ensure it was only five and not the first wave of –”
“You have to fix him!” I all but shouted and reached up, dragging her down beside me. “You have to save him!”
The Woli looked over Tomtom with some disapproval. At the moment I didn’t care if they had or liked animals on her planet.
“Please,” I added. “He saved our lives.”
The Woli glanced around us uneasily.
“Use your magic parasites,” I urged her and pulled her bag off her shoulder.
“You do not understand them well enough to use them,” she said and tugged it back. “We may need these if there are more monsters.”
“I don’t care,” I snapped. “Save him.”
She sighed. “Very well. I’ll save him. You go make sure there aren’t more of these monsters in your home! I do not wish to die here, on some other world.”
I waited to make sure she was getting out the parasites before I released the hand pressed to Tomtom’s side. I was covered in his blood, and I swallowed hard, not about to cry when he needed me and we were in danger.
“It will take all of my supply,” the Woli healer said and glanced up at me. “He alone may survive.”
“Do it,” I whispered. “Save him.”
She sighed. “I have secondary medicine with me. He will live. Go scout the house.”
I was the least prepared of anyone to confront a monster, but I’d do it for Tomtom. Wiping my face on my arm, I stood and gripped the baton.
Tomtom needed me to be brave, but it wasn’t just him. It was everyone in the world.
“No pressure, Gi,” I whispered.
I left Tomtom in the Woli’s hands and tiptoed down the hallway leading to the guest wings. My heart slammed into my chest, and it took every bit of my strength not to vomit from a combination of stress and disgust at being covered in blood. Adrenaline and the parasite kept me from feeling much pain, though it was a struggle not to end up panting from the restriction of my chest.
I explored the guest quarters as quietly as I could, leery of any flashes of metal or sudden movements. I wasn’t going to look twice or hesitate – I’d slam the baton into the wall or floor or anything else within reach at a second’s notice.
Glass from windows and mirrors littered the floors and crunched beneath my sneakers as I tried unsuccessfully to move silently as I tracked monsters that may or may not have been present. The damage done by the baton was pretty extensive. Every door in the house had snapped open, breaking the locks in some cases, and the tile flooring was cracked in multiple places. Pillows had exploded in the guest bedrooms, leaving the floors a combination of glittering glass and white fluff.
The guest wings were clear of monsters, and I paused to center myself before I entered the wing belonging to my mom and me. I heard nothing, and the sense of distant pain that was Tomtom’s had lessened. Afraid that meant the worst, I pushed myself to hurry, despite fear that left me shaking from head to foot.
Ten minutes later, I confirmed there were no monsters in my room, either, before I ventured into the final wing of the house containing the common gathering areas and kitchen. I dreaded seeing the state of my mom’s favorite place in the house and was not wrong to believe everything would be destroyed.
Pausing in the doorway, I hesitated to enter when I saw the open cupboards and shattered remains of glassware, windows, appliances, and china all over the place. Even the skylights had exploded and rained glass everywhere.
I was ready to move on, when I saw the back door was open. Not off its hinges like the other doors – but open, as if someone had entered after the explosion.
I caught movement from my peripheral and whirled.
At the far end, in the pantry, was a glimmer of moving metal. The robotic monster was in the pantry.
I grabbed the baton with both hands, my breath stuck in my throat, and placed one foot then the next on the glass strewn flooring. I saw only one of the monsters ahead of me and risked a look behind me, not about to be ambushed. Nothing else moved in the kitchen and dining areas.
Returning to face the robot, I took another step. Glass crunched against the stone flooring at my feet. I froze.
The monster paused in its movements.
I cursed myself and very carefully lowered myself towards the ground. I’d seen how fast these things could move. I didn’t know for certain if it was in range – it was farther from the baton than any other charge I’d seen set off – but I wasn’t about to wait for it to notice me.
Just as the robot turned, I slammed the baton into the stone floor. Glass sliced through the meat of my fist, and pain flared through my hand.
Nothing happened.
I shook the baton frantically, recalling Hiko’s warning about how unpredictable the technology could be. I tried again.
Nothing.
Glancing up, I began to wonder why I wasn’t dead when I saw the robot staggering. It ran into the kitchen counter between us, fell, and then struggled to its feet with none of the agility or form changing ability I’d witnessed before. If anything, it appeared disoriented, if it were possible for a machine to be confused. Blood trickled from between metal scales to the floor.
It staggered once more. The huge shock wave from earlier had to have damaged it. I dashed farther away and shook the baton once more before looking over it quickly to ensure I had used it correctly.
What did I do if the baton didn’t work? Looking around wildly, I spotted the block of knives on the floor. Only two steak knives remained in the wooden block while the rest were scattered around it.
My stomach roiled at the memory of when I’d killed the man who wanted to hurt me. I often asked myself, if I’d had that night to do over, what would I have done? Let him hurt or murder me, like he did in my nightmares, in order to escape the guilt I’d born since that night? Would I have tried to reason with him, knowing he was so high on drugs, he was beyond logic or compassion and likely didn’t even know what he was doing?
Teyan once told me no one on his world would be in trouble for taking a life in self-defense, and the rational side of me understood I’d had little choice. Every time I played the night through my head, I returned to the same conclusion. Either I lived or my attacker did. Either I took his life or allowed him to take mine. There was no scenario where we both survived, and the starkness of what occurred that night, of how fated it seemed to be for one of us to die, was as much a source of nightmares for me as waking up covered in the blood of a dead man, staring into his vacant eyes.
I felt that way now, as if this moment, too, were fated, and either I or the robot had to di
e. In fact, I began to see my entire life as being a series of major events meant to bring me to this moment. It was, quite possibly, the worst time ever for such introspection, but a floodgate of thoughts had opened and demanded to be acknowledged.
As I eyed the robot inching its way towards me, I thought back on the string of events that had led me here and how they all seemed to be linked.
My father’s death had placed me on this path. I had been walking from the graveyard to the train station, through a shady borough, after visiting my father’s grave, as I used to do often. It was in an alley nearby where the drugged up man attacked me after chasing me down and there where we were fated for one of us to die. I survived and, after a harrowing experience in the court system, ended up in Arizona where I was unknowingly being groomed to become a Caretaker.
And … met Teyan. No part of me was able to deny we were destined to know one another. I had no way of predicting how our relationship would play out, but without ever having met him, I wouldn’t be here right now. The death of my former Caretaker … a hard lesson in what happened when I didn’t take my Caretaker duty seriously … returning to Arizona … my mom being kidnapped … venturing to other planets …
Every major, life-altering milestone flashed through my mind and created a path with one destination: here. Was this part of the time loop equation Hiko had discussed? A point in time where maybe, one person could make a difference and stop the monsters that destroyed my planet? I had the power to lock the door and eliminate the scouting party sent by the monsters.
It didn’t seem possible I could be that person who made a difference. I had never been important at any point in my life, never stood out as particularly smart or pretty or brave. I tended to avoid confrontation in general and shied away from people. What kind of heroine did I make in Hiko’s equation?
Yet if this time and place were those that determined whether or not the monsters overtook my world, how could I let my personal feelings interfere with my Caretaker duty? I had done that once when I locked the door and almost lost Teyan forever. Carey had done it and would see his world, and mine, destroyed as a result of allowing his emotions and loyalties to trump what was right.
If my presence here, now, was all that stood between the survival of my planet and the monsters, then there was no question about what I had to do, no matter how sick it made me. Similar to when I was seventeen, I had to be the one who walked away from this confrontation. Something much bigger than me was at stake.
I drew as deep of a breath as my tight chest would allow and then circled the monster rather than approaching it directly. With its sight incapacitated, it continued moving towards the last place it heard my voice. It was hard to sneak closer with all the glass, and I focused hard on not alerting it to my presence while also trying to figure out where I was supposed to stab it.
Blood leaked from several points where I assumed there was damage to the suit. I gripped the knife with both hands and willed myself not to hyperventilate.
Something grazed my calf, and I jumped, expecting the robot’s tail to try to grab me.
Blood splattered my cheeks and forehead, and I closed my eyes, disgusted. Wiping my face, I peered down at the robot and saw the machete sticking out of its back. Its movement had stopped, and it lay still, dead.
“What were you doing?” the Woli warrior asked from the doorway.
I lowered the steak knife and twisted to face her. “I was getting ready to uh, you know. Do my duty,” I replied.
“With that?” A smile crossed her dark features as she looked at the knife in my hand. “It would not pierce the metal.”
I didn’t know what to say. I’d been prepared to do something I never thought I would and was feeling a little proud of myself for once.
“If you are so disappointed, you can strike him with my knife,” the Woli said and held out a second machete.
“No, thanks. I just thought maybe I was going to save the world,” I said. “That maybe, my whole life was leading up to this moment, and I was special.”
She laughed and yanked her first knife out of the robot.
Or maybe not. I rolled my eyes, embarrassed by my train of thought.
“You are special, Caretaker. Did you not notice four enemies setting aside their differences to help you?” she asked, grinning. “And the Tili war leader, who might save us all, willing to negotiate with his enemies because he loves you?”
My cheeks grew warm. There was some truth in this. My eyes lingered on the dead robot. Just the fact I’d had a choice this time about who survived a terrible encounter such as this seemed to soften the negative emotions I’d carried around since the night that changed my life.
I had survived the incident, because I needed to. Whether or not I was meant to play a part in the grand scheming of the universe, I chose to survive that night and again today. And that really was okay.
“How’s Tomtom?” I asked, a little afraid of her answer.
“Good. He will need a day of rest. How are you, Caretaker?”
I touched my ribs without feeling pain. “Fine, I think. Still stiff but no pain.”
“No more exertion,” she chided. “You need rest as well.”
I grimaced and gazed around the kitchen. I had a disaster to clean up, assuming we weren’t invaded by monsters.
“Did you check around the outside of the house for any monsters?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“Forgive me, Caretaker, but I will feel safe only when I see for myself.”
I didn’t try to dissuade her. I held out the baton, and she took it with a smile.
“The Tili will not sell these for any price,” she murmured. “Tell your Tili prince, if he wishes the coalition to form again, he must stop refusing to sell these. Woli will happily fight with them and heal all the war wounded in exchange for fifty of these.”
“It may not work right,” I admitted. “I think these things are prone to issues.”
“They are, but when they work, they do what nothing else can to stop the monsters. This is how the Tili will save us all.” She waved the baton.
Their politics weren’t my business, and I was never going to say anything of the sort to Teyan, even if I saw him again, which was doubtful.
“I’ll drag the monsters behind the house for now. We can bury them later,” the Woli said. She tucked the baton into her belt.
“I thought you all burned your dead.”
“Not the undeserving. We leave them to rot beneath the ground,” she said firmly. “Go and rest, Caretaker.”
I nodded and left her in the kitchen. I returned to Tomtom’s side. He was breathing deeply, asleep. His wounds had not yet begun to heal, but he seemed at ease.
The Woli had placed the five parasites in his open wound. Already, the blood flow was nearly stopped. After checking on him, I went to wash my hands and change from the Tili garb into my usual clothing before I returned and knelt beside his head. Stroking his cheek and forehead, I wasn’t about to move from this spot until dusk, no matter what.
“Thank you for saving me,” I said to the great cat. “I’m so sorry you were hurt.”
Tomtom purred in his sleep, which I took to be a good sign. I glanced around at the dead robots. It seemed careless or perhaps, desperate, that these things had ever been created. The sense of futility returned, and I stopped trying to think about tomorrow. All that mattered right now was Tomtom. When dark fell, I’d have another decision to make.
For once, I almost felt prepared to make it. Standing in the kitchen, pondering my existence, I’d managed to walk away with some insight, even if I wasn’t destined to save the world that moment as I thought. The major events of my life were all things that happened to me. They weren’t choices. At least, it felt that way, as if life beat me down and I struggled to adapt before being blindsided by something else.
In the kitchen, I’d been ready to take the life of someone with my bare hands. I’d been ready to set aside m
y emotions and take control of my fate instead of letting someone or something else determine how I reacted. It was this that sent my mind racing as I sat beside Tomtom.
I knew what I wanted in my life. I wanted my mom, Teyan and Tomtom to become part of my world – permanently. I wanted to live for today instead of being stuck in the past. I wanted to be more like my mom and recognize the blessings in my life instead of always fearing the worst. I didn’t want Teyan to remember me as the girl who was always scared but as the woman strong enough to help him beat an army of robots and save our worlds. I didn’t know how, or if, this was even possible, but for once in my life, I knew who I wanted to be.
I’d been ready to kill a man. If I’d come that far, then I was ready to choose how I lived the rest of my life.
“I trust you, Teyan,” I said to myself. “Please return to me.”
I felt ready for him for the first time since we’d met.
Trailing my fingers through Tomtom’s fur, I could do nothing but wait and watch him heal.
Chapter Twenty Five
How I could possibly fall asleep on the floor, next to a bloodied Tomtom and feet from dead robots, I didn’t know. But I did and awoke some time later with my head resting on Tomtom’s neck and a blanket draped over me. The monsters were gone, and the garden had begun to regrow after being destroyed by the fight from earlier.
My chest was less stiff, though I slept heavy enough it was hard to wake up completely. I sat up with effort and wiped my eyes before checking Tomtom’s wounds. They’d begun to heal over. The parasites were now trapped inside him, beneath a layer of tender, pink skin.
I released a breath, relieved my protector was going to survive. Scratching his forehead, I smiled when his eyes opened.
“How you feeling?” I asked.
He purred in response and then rolled onto his stomach. I shifted around him on my knees to make sure he wasn’t reopening his wounds. No sign of tearing or strain was visible to my untrained eyes.
