by M. J. Haag
“Come, Eden.”
When I looked back at Ghua, he’d removed his gory shirt and had his upper body completely bare.
I started shivering harder just at the sight of him.
“Why aren’t you wearing your shirt?”
“Infected blood is dangerous to you. It’s safer to carry you like this.”
“Carry me? Why? Where are you taking me?” I asked. “Back to the house?”
My string of questions made me want to cringe, but he didn’t seem upset by them like Steve and Ty would have been.
“No,” Ghua answered. “That house is not safe.”
Before I could ask something else, he scooped me up into his arms and took off at a jog. I ducked my head against his bare chest and used the wind breaker as best I could to stay warm. It didn’t help much. While the water-shedding material did keep my head and face dry, rain soaked my jeans and numbed my skin within minutes. I shivered hard in his arms and wondered if I’d die of hypothermia instead of something far more gruesome, like I’d figured.
The rain eased after another few minutes then tapered off to nothing. I stayed tucked in the windbreaker, my cheek pressed against his shoulder, the only source of warmth. Lifting my freezing hands, I set them against his chest. He grunted but kept running.
Exhaustion pulled at me, and I fought to keep my eyes open. I hadn’t slept enough in the last few days. Between that and my dropping body temperature, I knew I was in trouble.
“I need dry clothes,” I said, my lips struggling to form the words. “I’m too cold. I need to warm up or I might die. Please.”
The wind grew stronger, chilling me further. I blinked slowly and turned my face further into Ghua’s chest.
“I see a house, Eden. I will find you dry clothes.”
His steps slowed, and I heard the echo of his tread on the porch a moment before he leaned over and set me down.
“Stay here, Eden. Do not wander. You need to warm up.”
I managed to nod and listened to him break into the house. A head went flying out the door, followed by another. I closed my eyes, not wanting to see him clear out the infected. However, my eyes refused to open again when I tried, and I felt myself drawn toward the compelling need to sleep. To let go.
“Come, Eden.” The rough, deep voice paused my descent into darkness.
Arms wrapped around me before I was gently lifted and cradled against a warm chest. I listened to the door close and his footsteps as he moved around in the house.
Ghua set me down on something soft, and his hands immediately went to the zipper of my jacket. As he worked it down, I struggled to remember why I should tell him to stop. Sure, he had grey skin and eyes that freaked me the hell out. And, he also liked to rip off heads and had very sharp teeth. He probably wasn’t the most likely source of help. But, in that moment, I couldn’t recall why anything mattered more than how cold and tired I was. Did it really hurt to accept help every once in a while?
His hands pushed the jacket wide and gently worked my arms from the sleeves. Then, he stopped touching me.
“You do not look like the children at Whiteman.”
Those words gave me the reason I should have undressed myself and started my heart beating harder. Ghua thought I was a child, and that belief was keeping me “off limits” in his mind. From what? I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to find out. However, I might not have a choice now. He’d removed my jacket and could see that I had breasts because of the way I was laying on my back.
I strove to open my eyes and won the battle after a moment. He was staring down at my chest, a confused look on his face.
“T-twelve is-s between ch-child and adult,” I managed to say.
He grunted and turned away from me to start looking through drawers. I exhaled in relief when he found some pajama pants and a sweatshirt that looked like they would fit me.
I tried to sit up but couldn’t manage on my own because of the shivering. Ghua noticed my struggles and put an arm under my shoulders to help me up.
“I c-can t-take it from here,” I said.
He nodded, set the clothes next to me, and with one last look, left the room. I kicked off my boots, wondering what I would find when I peeled off my socks. The toes weren’t black like I’d suspected, just really pale. After a moment rubbing them, I stood and fought my way out of my wet jeans. By the time they landed on the floor, I collapsed on the bed, ready to sleep. The shivering had slowed but not because I was warm.
“Are you done changing, Eden?”
Ghua’s voice sounded much too close.
“I need just a second.”
Not daring to remove my wet underwear, I worked the pajama pants on an inch at a time. The damp shirt came off next, quickly replaced by the dry sweatshirt.
“I’m done.” I wasn’t sure if I said it to him or myself because I had no strength left to put on anything else. I lay back down and closed my eyes.
“We cannot stay here, Eden,” Ghua said as soon as he walked in. “There is no second floor and no electricity.” I listened to another drawer open. His warm hands picked up my feet. “You are still too cold.”
“I know.”
He grunted and continued to hold my feet, slowly warming them. Once they no longer felt like blocks of ice, he put two layers of fluffy socks on. Then, he flipped the edges of all the bedding over me and wrapped me up like a taco. I didn’t protest when he picked me up like that and walked out of the house.
The rain hadn’t started again, but the dark skies didn’t bode well for me staying dry for long. Ghua immediately started running again. I burrowed my head under the blankets and, against my better judgement, closed my eyes.
He didn’t let me sleep, though. Over the next hour, he tortured me in various ways. Sometimes he would start talking to me and wouldn’t stop until I answered. Other times, he would uncover my face and jostle me while whispering my name. The only way to make him stop was to open my eyes and glare at him. His response to that was to touch his forehead to mine briefly and then bury my face in blankets again.
My blanket cocoon hadn’t really warmed me any. I still shivered when I was awake, but that eased up each time I started drifting off. I knew what that meant, just as I knew why, during that hour, he also set me down for a few minutes only to pick me up and start running again.
Finding a warm, safe place to crash for the night no longer mattered to me. Just like getting warm no longer did, either. I was giving up. And, that was okay.
My teeth stopped chattering a few moments after he set me down for the umpteenth time. I was on the cusp of giving into sleep when Ghua grabbed me up again and shook me a bit harder than necessary.
“We will stay here.” Shake. “Do you hear me, Eden? I found a safe house with water and electricity.” Shake. “Open your angry eyes. Now.” Shake.
I gave in and opened my eyes to glare at him.
“Go away.”
“No.” He leaned in and set his forehead to mine. The warmth of his gusty exhale bathed my face.
“Do not close your eyes again. You are too young to die. Remember?”
Six
Remember? How could I not? However, all the world offered lately was death or misery. Why should I keep fighting so hard to live?
“No, Eden,” Ghua said, jostling me again.
I felt him moving, but I had closed my eyes again and couldn’t see where he was taking me. Not that I cared.
He sat, settling me in his lap, before he unwrapped the blankets from around me and began to briskly rub my arms.
“Leave m-me alone.” I mumbled the words and weakly lifted my hand to bat him away.
He caught my hand and rubbed some heat into my fingers. How could his hands be so warm? I stopped fighting his hold and sighed, relaxing against his chest.
“Humans do not heat as well as we do,” he said as he focused on the other hand. “You need thicker clothing and more blankets. Drav told me that Mya sometimes still gets cold even with both.”
He released my hand and set his palm against my cold cheek. Everywhere he touched warmed, but as soon as he lifted his hand, my skin immediately cooled.
“You are not heating yourself at all.” His hand left my cheek and slipped under my sweatshirt to lay against my belly. He grunted when he touched my cold skin. I should have tried batting him away again, but his warmth felt too good.
“Children and the old ones are more fragile. I should have been more careful with you.”
He leaned me forward, gripped the bottom of my sweatshirt, and tugged it up and over my head before I could squawk in protest. The bulky steel bands he called arms wrapped around me and pulled me against him once more. The heat of his chest branded my back. I started to shiver again.
“W-what are you doing?”
“This is how Drav warms Mya. Well, he does other things, but I cannot do those things with you until you’re eighteen.”
I almost couldn’t think after that statement. He sure made it sound like they weren’t interested in humans as a food source. The alternative almost scared me more.
“Are you saying they have s-sex?”
“Yes, but children are not supposed to talk about that.”
He tucked my head under his chin and held me close. Other than the skin to skin contact of his chest to my back, he kept to himself as he continued to smooth his hands down my arms. After what he’d just revealed and his comments about “off limits” until eighteen, I knew he truly believed I was a kid. But how?
“Are human children that different from yours? Are yours hatched fully grown or something?”
He chuckled.
“No. We do not hatch children. We have no children. None that we can remember. No females or elderly, either.”
“So there’s just a bunch of guys like you?”
“Yes.”
That made my stomach clench with worry.
“How many?”
“Mya thinks about two hundred.”
Whoever this Mya was, she seemed to talk to these guys a lot. Not that I blamed her. If given the choice between talking and having sex with one of them, I’d talk his damn ears off about anything and everything.
“Turn so I can warm your feet,” he said.
I moved on his lap and sighed at the contact of his chest and my side. He reached down and peeled the two layers of socks off my feet. The feel of his warm fingers on my cold toes would have been enough to make me moan, but then he started massaging them. I couldn’t stop the noise that came out of me as I snuggled closer.
His fingers stilled momentarily, then he resumed without comment.
As I warmed, my head began to hurt. I gingerly touched the spot where the butt of the gun had connected and felt a small egg. Asshole Ty. My anger at being hit shifted to worry as I recalled the way Ty had disappeared out the window. Not worry for Ty but for myself.
“Can I ask you some questions?” I asked Ghua.
“You wouldn’t be a child if you didn’t.”
I could hear the humor in his voice, but the statement still worried me. What would happen if he found out I’d lied?
“Why did you come for me after Steve and Ty took me?”
“I thought you’d wandered off and was looking for you when I heard the gunfire.”
If only those two wouldn’t have found me, I might have managed to get away. Instead, their stupidity had likely gotten them killed. Another thought interrupted that line of thinking. Ghua hadn’t left me. At least not with the intent of never returning. Given his comment about sex, which I didn’t want to think about, it made sense that he’d been looking for me. His reaction, when he found me, puzzled me though. Had he been protecting me?
“Why did you attack the guys who took me?”
“They shot at me.”
I couldn’t help but feel a small stab of disappointment.
“So did I.” I wanted to kick myself for reminding him of that fact when his hand stilled on my foot.
“You didn’t know any better, but you do now, right?”
I nodded quickly, and he resumed warming me while I internally freaked out more. His response had answered any question I had about what would happen when he found out I lied.
“Can I get up?”
“You’re still cold.” His hand continued to knead my foot.
“I know. But I’m hungry too.”
He released my toes, stood, and set me on my feet in one fluid move. He didn’t step back as he looked down at me. Eyes wide, I crossed my arms over my bra and met his gaze.
“I can only keep you safe if you stay close to me. Do you understand?”
I nodded, and he bent to pick up my sweatshirt. I didn’t miss the way his gaze darted to my crossed arms before he handed the shirt to me.
“Come. We’ll search the kitchen for food. Make sure you do not go near the windows.”
He turned away, giving me a moment to yank the sweatshirt over my head.
“Ready,” I said when I was covered.
He glanced back at me then led the way out of the cozy, clean living room to the kitchen. This house appeared untouched by scavengers. I itched to search through the cabinets for myself, but my shaky legs demanded I sit at the center island instead.
Ghua opened cupboard after cupboard. He found dishes, counter appliances, spices, but no food.
“Try that long cabinet by the fridge. It’ll either hold the broom, mop, and garbage or—”
I grinned at the sight of cans and cans of food.
“Which one should I open?” he asked, glancing at me.
“Pick one of the ones with the red and white label.” I was so hungry I wasn’t hungry, if that made sense, and I was afraid anything heavier than soup would make me sick.
Ghua pulled the tab on top of the can and poured the chicken noodle soup into a pot on the stove. Without me having to tell him, he added a can of water and correctly turned on the burner.
“You know how to cook?”
“Yes. Mom and Mya are teaching us.”
“Why?”
“So when we leave to search for survivors, we know how to feed the ones we find.”
I considered him for a moment. The way Ghua had worded it, he made it sound like he was willing to “rescue” any guy or girl he found. Yet, his interest in my age and glances at my chest had me wondering if he was just another version of Oscar’s men. A scarier version.
“If you’re wandering around looking for people to save, why didn’t you take Steve and Ty, too?”
“They were too afraid. They would have kept trying to shoot me.”
“Like me?”
He grunted and stirred the soup. In my mind, his response confirmed my suspicion. He was after women. He already talked about Mya and her mom a lot. Deciding not to push, I changed the subject.
“Did you kill Ty?”
“No. Mya doesn’t like it when we kill humans. She says they only shoot at us because we scare them. They don’t mean to challenge us.”
“Challenge?”
“Yes. A challenge is a fight to prove our strength. Now that we are on the surface, we can no longer remove heads during a challenge. Mya and Molev agreed we should arm wrestle while we are here. It’s not as enjoyable, but it is entertaining to watch the humans try to move our hands to the table.”
“Um, okay.” He made it sound like he’d been around a lot of humans. How many had he already found? I recalled him mentioning a place where the humans he rescued stayed. He’d called it Whiteman.
“What’s Whiteman like?”
“It is like a city but with tents instead of houses. The humans live in them. The base has some electricity. Enough for the lights that keep the hellhounds away.”
“Base? You mean a military base?”
“Yes.”
He turned off the soup and poured it into two bowls while I tried to figure out what it meant that these grey guys were interacting with people at a military base. Maybe there was more out there than raiders fighting
over supplies. Maybe these grey guys actually were on our side and really were helping people like Ghua said. Or maybe not. Maybe he meant they’d taken over the base and now used it as some kind of harem camp for the female survivors they were collecting.
Given everything Ghua had told me so far, the latter seemed more likely.
“How long will it take to get to Whiteman?”
“I’m not sure. If I ran with you straight through, maybe a day. But you get too cold when I run, so, two, maybe three, days.”
“What will happen to me when I get there?”
He set my bowl before me and tilted his head as he studied me.
“Happen?” he asked.
“Yeah. Am I going to be put to work? Auctioned off to whichever male has the most money.”
The vertical slits in his eyes narrowed sharply, making my heart thump harder.
“You will not work, and you will not be auctioned. I found you. I will take care of you.”
“And when I turn eighteen?”
He turned away from me to grab a spoon from the drawer.
“It is not a subject for children.”
Well, that pretty much answered my question. My stomach churned. When I turned eighteen, I would no longer be off-limits to Ghua. How had I managed to escape one sex-on-the-mind guy just to be found by another?
I took my first spoonful of soup and tried to ignore the panic attempting to consume me. Swallow by swallow, I ate and considered my options. I’d almost gotten away once. I needed to try to run again.
While I finished what remained in my bowl, Ghua searched the drawers until he found a washcloth. Keeping in mind his warning to stay close, I stood and brought my dishes to the sink while he wet the cloth. Before I turned to go back to my seat, he caught my chin in his hand and gave my face a quick swipe.
Stunned, I could only stare as he shifted his attention to washing my fingers.
“You’re clean.” He set the cloth aside and scooped me up in his arms.
“How many kids are at Whiteman?” I asked as he carried me back to the living room and sat in the overstuffed chair.
He tucked the blankets around us before settling back. Pinned against his chest, this time with my sweatshirt on, I waited for his answer.
