Malachi

by Ashley West

  They got to the ship (an actual spaceship, and she'd flinched when they arrived, her memories of the last ships that had come down from the sky still stark and painful in her mind) with little hassle. Emma had to crane her neck to see the top of it. It was all shiny silver metal, shaped like a torpedo, but thicker, smooth with windows lining the sides and a bunch of wheels at the bottom. There were no wings to it that she could see, but then, there hadn't been a door either, until the man had pressed his hand to the side of the ship and one appeared to fold out of the metal side and fold out and down to the ground, forming stairs for them to climb.

  This man was some kind of alien, obviously. He didn't seem to want to hurt her, though, and after speaking with a few of the others on board, he handed her off to a female.

  Priya, she said her name was.

  "Are you alright?" Priya asked her, speaking slowly, clearly so Emma would understand.

  "I...don't know," Emma replied, speaking for the first time. Her voice was scratchy because it didn't get much use, and she remembered how it used to sound, soaring as she sang songs from musicals and operas, high, clear notes lifting to the rafters and the sky.

  There wouldn't be any more of that.

  "Let's get you something to wear, yes?" Priya said. "And cleaned up? And food?"

  Emma just nodded, allowing herself to be led as she looked around the ship.

  It was nicer than she would have expected. Everything was purple and green, like the colors the man who had bought her was wearing. The seats looked plush and comfortable, and the metal was shiny and bright, neon dials and meters in some of the walls, barely there doors in others.

  The ceiling was curved overhead, echoing the cylindrical shape of the vessel itself, and the whole thing was long, but not narrow.

  In the back, there were little bathing cubicles. Strange showers that had jets that came from all angles. Priya showed her how to adjust the water temperature with the sensors, smiling when she explained that pressing her hand to the sensor would calibrate the water to the perfect temperature for her current state.

  It sounded like something out of a sci-fi show, but Emma supposed that was the life she was living now, and when she pressed her hand to the sensor, the whole shower hummed before sending out jets of water that was the perfect heat to warm her through.

  Emma stayed in there for longer than was strictly necessary, washing her body and her hair over and over again, wanting to get out any lingering grime from her cage. Now that she was clean, her bruises showed up better, and she sighed, trying not to remember the way she'd been handled when she was caught.

  Priya had left clothes out for her, so she tugged them on, laughing softly at how they dwarfed her. But then, even Priya was a good foot taller than her, so it made sense.

  She was given a plate of warm food, meat and vegetables she couldn't recognize, but she ate anyway. How long had it been since she'd had properly hot food?

  While she ate, she eavesdropped on the conversations going on around her. Not that it did a lot of good, since she couldn't understand the language they were using. She sighed and drank her water.

  "Will you take this to the Champion?" Priya asked once she'd cleared her plate.

  Emma looked up, startled. The female was holding out another plate, this one piled even higher with meat and sauce.

  "I don't know who that is," she said.

  "The one who brought you here," Priya explained. "Malachi. Did he not say?"

  Emma shook her head. "No. He didn't say much of anything."

  Priya sighed. "He is our Champion. He has also neglected his dinner. Please?"

  She supposed she owed him that much. He'd gotten her out of that cage and hadn't immediately killed or hurt her. She still didn't know what his plans for her were, but for the moment, she didn't have any real reason to think he meant her harm. So she found herself with the plate in her hands, being pushed gently in the direction of the Champion's room.

  All manner of useful things to say ran through her head as she walked to the room and then knocked on the door. Of course, when the door opened and she stepped inside, the only thing that came out of her mouth was “You can’t send me away.”

  It wasn’t neat, and it didn’t even really make sense, judging from the way Malachi blinked at her, the plate of food in his hands.

  “I’m not sending you away,” he said finally. “I’m sending you back to where you belong.”

  “I don’t belong anywhere anymore,” Emma replied, and the truth of that statement hurt more than she had been expecting. Her parents were somewhere, but by now they probably thought she was dead. Two dead children, then. They’d probably mourned for her, blamed themselves. Maybe by now they had moved on.

  “Don’t you have a family?” Malachi asked. “People to be with?”

  Emma shook her head. “No. Not anymore.”

  Malachi frowned. “Were they...killed? By the Alva?”

  “The Alva? Is that...them?” She waved a hand, gesturing to outside the ship, sure that Malachi would take her meaning.

  He inclined his head, looking annoyed. "Of course they didn't even introduce themselves first," Malachi muttered under his breath, and to her surprise, Emma laughed softly.

  "I don't think that was a priority," she said. "But no, they aren't the reason I don't have a family anymore." Part of it, yes, but she didn't really want to get into the details of that with some alien champion she had never met before.

  Malachi sighed. "Alright, but that doesn't mean you should stay here."

  "You bought me," she pointed out.

  It wasn't surprising when he looked indignant, given how reluctant he’d been to do it in the first place. "Because I didn't have a choice!" he insisted.

  "You did, though. You could have said no, and they would have thrown me back in the cage."

  "Is that what you wanted?" he demanded.

  Emma shook her head, looking back down at the floor. "No," she said softly. "I...wanted to get away from them. I want them gone. I just...it's not safe out there. Nowhere is safe."

  His expression seemed to soften at that, and he sighed, seeming to pay attention to the food in his hands for the first time. She kept standing there, watching him as he started to eat, refusing to leave until he'd said something. Emma was grateful to him for what he'd done, there was no doubt about that, but she didn't have anywhere to go if he made her leave. And there was no guarantee that the Alva wouldn't just snatch her up again. New people showed up in the cages every day, after all.

  So she stood there stubbornly, arms crossed over her chest as she waited, taking in the sight of him. He wasn't any smaller sitting down, not really. His shoulders were broad, and his chest and torso narrowed to a trim waist. The braids that hung around his face had been pulled back into a knot now, and the imposing outfit from before had been replaced with something similar to what she had been given to wear: a simple linen tunic and soft pants. Of course, it fit him well, where the tunic itself fell to her knees.

  He seemed to be thinking it over while he ate, and Emma didn’t interrupt. There was something thoughtful about his face, the cut of his cheekbones and the strength of his jaw as he sat there, and she couldn’t take her eyes off of him.

  Maybe he needed a reason to keep her?

  She was loathe to do it, but she didn’t want to be alone. The thought of it, of trying to find her way out there in a world she hadn’t really been a part of for ten months (longer if you counted how much time she had lost to grief when her brother died) was terrifying. What would she do? Where would she go? Emma would have no one, essentially, and the likelihood of getting caught again was high.

  “I can do things for you,” she said suddenly, wanting to clap her hands over her mouth and take that sentiment back.

  Malachi’s head jerked up. “Excuse me?”

  “I can be useful,” Emma amended. “In...a lot of ways.”

  He put the mostly empty plate on the bedside table and frowned at her
, his eyebrows drawn down and brow furrowed. "I don't think I know what you mean," Malachi said.

  And of course he didn't. Apparently he didn't think humans could be useful at all. Or at least not useful to him and his advanced species, whatever it was. Emma huffed and took a step forward. With him sitting on the bed, they were roughly the same height, and it was easy to walk up to him, stand between his legs and lower her mouth to his.

  Honestly, she didn't know what to expect from this. If he took this offer and wanted to use her this way, then...she'd be disappointed. From the way Priya had talked about it, she would have thought he was better than that. But if he didn't take the offer and sent her away, she'd be disappointed, too. There was no way to win. But then, it had been like that since the ships had shown up, so Emma didn't really know why she had expected anything else.

  Malachi allowed their mouths to linger together for all of three seconds before he was gripping her upper arms in a tight grip and pushing her away.

  His strong fingers pressed down on some of her bruises, and she winced, looking at him defiantly.

  "No," he said firmly. "There will not be any of that."

  "Why not?" Emma snapped. "Have an alien girlfriend, do you?"

  He narrowed his eyes at her. "That's not the point! I didn't bring you here to use you. It...wouldn't be right."

  "Let me go," Emma said, and wiggled out of his grasp when he obeyed and released her. She took a step back and sighed, hugging her arms around her body and turning away from him.

  Her cheeks were red with shame, and she couldn't quite believe she'd just done that. And been turned down. Stupid, honorable...whatever he was.

  "You don't understand," Emma said softly. "I can't go back out there. I can't. Please don't make me."

  The room was silent but for the sound of their breathing, and Emma tried hard not to cry. She didn't want to seem that weak. But everything was wrong, and she didn't know what to do anymore. It was one thing when she'd just assumed she was going to die in that cage, but now that she had her freedom, it barely meant anything.

  Before Malachi had a chance to get a word in edgewise, she spoke again. "Why did you come here? Where did you come from?"

  He sighed. "We are the Randoran. From the planet Dorn. We've come here to remove the Alva."

  "Can you do that?"

  Malachi snorted. "We've been fighting the Alva for decades."

  "You do know that didn't answer my question, right?" Emma said, still not looking at him. "You've been fighting for a long time, but you haven't won?"

  "It's not that simple."

  She huffed again. "Can you get rid of them?"

  "We're going to try. What's happening here is wrong, and it shouldn't be going on. First, though, we have to figure out just how deep their influence runs here."

  Now she laughed, but it wasn't a happy sound. Finally she turned to face him. "You'll need humans for that," she said. "We've been here dealing with it for a whole year. We can tell you what they've taken from us."

  He watched her for a moment and then inclined his head. "Alright. If you're willing to help us, then you can stay."

  She sucked in a breath, barely daring to believe it would be that easy. “You promise?” she asked. “You’re not going to say that and then turn around and put me to sleep and drop me somewhere, are you?”

  Malachi laughed, looking confused. “Is that what you think people from other planets do?”

  “It’s not like I’ve had the best experience with aliens, is it?” Emma asked. “Before you, all I knew was the Alva, and yeah, that sounds like something they’d do.”

  “Fair point,” Malachi allowed. “You have my word that I won’t do that to you. When you leave us, it will be because you want to and of your own volition.”

  “You know a lot of fancy words for an alien.”

  He gave her a flat look. “I’m not stupid.”

  “Of course not.” With that decided, whatever nervous adrenaline that had been keeping her on her feet seemed to fade, letting exhaustion slip in, strong and unignorable. She barely managed to smother a yawn before it split her jaw, and she swayed a bit on her feet.

  “Go to bed,” Malachi said softly. “You’ve been through a lot.”

  “Dunno where to sleep,” she mumbled back.

  He sighed and got up, taking the plate with him. With his free hand, he gave her a gentle nudge in the direction of his bed. “Sleep,” Malachi said again, and then left her to it.

  The bed was softer than she had been expecting, but of course that could have just been because she’d spent the last ten months in a cage. Anything was better than that, and she pulled soft blankets up around her chin and was asleep within minutes of her head hitting the pillow.

  Chapter Six: Exploration

  She woke slowly and in stages. It was the first time in months that the sound of breakfast plates being rattled against the bars of her cage wasn't the first thing she woke up to, and given the chance to sleep in, it seemed her body was going to do it.

  Emma stretched under the covers, aware that she felt warmer than usual, and that the bed was softer than usual, but she was still trapped in that sleepy haze and her eyes weren't open.

  A few minutes later, she smothered a yawn with her hand, making a content sound as she buried her face in the pillow and stretched again.

  When she finally opened her eyes, it hit her that she had no clue where she was. Her eyes blinked slowly as she took in the unfamiliar setting, ten months of waking up in the same place, in the same way taking over before her memory of the night before could kick in.

  She yelped in fear and flailed in the bed, trying to figure out where she was and what had happened, and just as the memories started trickling back in, she rolled right off the bed and onto the floor.

  "Brilliant job, Em," she muttered to herself, rubbing her hip where it had hit the floor and rolling onto her back.

  She was on the ship. The spaceship brought here by the Randorans. Who were aliens. Honestly, how had this become her life? One minute the hardest thing she had to deal with was trying to make sure she got out of bed every morning (which, admittedly, was pretty hard sometimes), and the next she was wrapped up in a world of aliens and being a hostage and being sold and...

  It was enough to make her head ache.

  Before she could force herself upright and get back in the bed, the door slid open. Emma had a lovely upside down view of Malachi, who looked like he was trying to enter quietly, but then blinked in confusion to see her on the floor.

  He tilted his head to the side and peered down at her. "Is this...a human thing?" he asked.

  Emma sighed. "Falling out of bed? Maybe."

  "Do you need help?"

  She shook her head and hauled herself to her feet with a groan, stretching languidly once more. Emma was aware of Malachi watching her, but it was a luxury to be able to stretch, after being in a cramped cage for so long, and she couldn't help the little smile that spread over her face as she went to sit down on the bed. "Did you need something?" she asked and then winced, remembering where she was. "Other than your room back, I guess?"

  He laughed softly. "Don't worry about that. This is a diplomatic vessel."

  "Meaning?"

  "Meaning there are more rooms on it than we could ever fill. You needed the rest."

  "Yeah." She turned her head to look out the window at the sunlight that was streaming through. How long had it been since she'd been allowed to go stand in the sun.

  "I wanted to talk to you," Malachi said.

  "Okay," she said, trying not to look as worried as she felt.

  Was he going to take back his promise that she could stay? Maybe something had changed in the night. Maybe he'd talked to the rest of them and they'd all voted to throw her to the wolves again. Maybe they were leaving, having decided the Earth and its humans weren't worth saving.

  "You were here when the Alva arrived, weren't you?" Malachi asked. "You saw it?"

  Em
ma nodded, folding her hands in her lap and staring down at them. "Yeah. I was. I remember it like it was yesterday. Hard to forget a sight like that. Unless you can repress it somehow, but I've never been that lucky."

  "Can you take us to where it happened? Where they first touched down?"

  A wellspring of relief blossomed in her chest for a second because thank goodness he wasn't asking her to leave, but then she realized that it meant she had to go back there to where it had all started, and she didn't know how she felt about that. Well. She knew she didn't want to, but she supposed she had promised him that she would help.

  “Why do you want to go there?” she asked, still not looking at him.

  Malachi didn’t answer at first, and when she chanced a glance up, he was looking out the window, brow furrowed. “It… We didn’t know the Alva were here. They’ve been here for months, and we didn’t know it. They’re our main enemy, and it took us this long to figure out they had gone somewhere and hunt them down. I feel like we failed you.”

  That was startling because before yesterday, Emma hadn’t even known his kind existed. “What do you mean?” she wanted to know. “It wasn’t your job to protect us...was it?”

  “No, it wasn’t. My planet is too far from this one for us to have been any use to you, but…” He frowned. “We got complacent and arrogant. We thought we knew everything they were doing, and we thought if they weren’t attacking us then it was because they were afraid, not because they had moved on to easier prey. I need to understand what happened.”

  “So you can get rid of them?”

  “That is the hope.”

  It was a surprisingly candid conversation. She didn’t know if his kind were naturally open about things like this or if this was special for her or the situation, but Malachi really did look distressed, and she realized that it was up to her to help.

  "I don't have good memories of that place," she murmured. "Or...of any of it, really."

  "That's understandable." Malachi didn't push her, just stood there placidly, his hands clasped behind his back. He watched her with calm, dark eyes, and she wondered how a man who seemed so gentle and peaceful had become Champion of an entire race. Maybe it was just a symbolic name and had nothing to do with battle.