Once Kit and Oliver were heading down the building, Colt grabbed Orion and told her to go with them as she could help patch the man up. He also growled something to her about stabbing them if they tried anything weird.
“Kat?! Damn girl, is that really you?” Axel yelled in the commotion as Katya and Colt fought their way into the room. Axel and Seth were currently guarding Leonora who was tinkering with the armoury machines to break them and hopefully stop more being made for a while.
“Course! Didn’t think I’d really miss all this did you?” Katya laughed a little, her clothes growing more and more splattered with blue and pink liquids as she made her way over to them. “You guys decided to up the game since I’ve been away huh?”
“Call it extreme training!” Axel laughed a little; ignoring the shake of Seth’s head.
It was definitely extreme training though, they had all been up against so many of these now that they had picked up more little things that made the fight turn in their favour. When there were multiples of them, it meant they were less able to pounce and use that springy speed. They were bigger and less agile than humans which meant if they kept close to the alien bodies, they had more chances of dodging and successfully slicing into the weak spots of the legs to bring the necks down to their heights.
Of course, for Katya, there was still the problem of her Addison’s disease. She had practised a lot on the way down, increasing her stamina and her agility at a slower pace. Doing this meant she could keep her body calmer for longer, but there was still that ever building exhaustion in her muscles and the constant fear of failing in her mind, threatening to increase her stress.
As she stumbled back against the machine to the left of the room, near Leonora, the red-head attempted to catch her breath and calm herself while trying to focus on the Nerushi which moved towards her.
In an instant, Seth had moved to throw his knife into the alien’s neck before walking over to retrieve it from the dead body. “Take five, calm yourself… there’s not many left” He hadn’t greeted her like Axel, but his words made her chuckle a little.
“Aye Captain” Katya could see the change in him, she had been there to witness the beginning of that change, but it appeared the past month had only helped to pry him from that defensive shell of PTSD.
Soon enough, the five were the only ones left standing. All panting and sweating from the amount of fight they had had to put up to do so. They couldn’t relax yet though.
“We need to get the people out of here” Axel commented as he tried to catch his breath.
“But what about the people on the machines? We can’t carry that many and it’ll take too long to get them off the machines. There’s a whole room of Hiko over there… and I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted” Leonora grumbled with a sigh. “And we’ve not checked the top floor.”
Silence fell for a moment, there was so much at risk here.
“We get those not on machines out of here and to safety” Seth stated glancing around at those there, he had made tough decisions like this before as lieutenant, but he made them as logically as he could. “The Hiko and whatever might be upstairs haven’t come out here during all this. So, stands to reason they wouldn’t hear us move that many people. Once they are safe, we can regroup and come back for the ones on the machines.”
Everyone hesitated, the idea of leaving some behind obviously didn’t sit well with them. But eventually, Axel nodded “Yeah, that’s a better plan that risking everyone’s life by taking longer right now.”
Despite having come up with that plan, Seth looked to Katya as though giving her the job of handing out roles. She had always done it before, and right now she was the one who knew the added stranger in the group. Her blue eyes blinked at the male for a moment, his face was as stoic as ever, but it wasn’t as cold as it faced her.
Nodding slowly, Katya glanced around “Ok, Colt, you stay at the stairwell and keep an eye out. Stop anyone going down if you see movement up here. Seth and Axel go down to the entrance, so you can take the lead to the sub-terrain; Axel, you lead the first floor we send down, Seth you take the second. Leonora and I will explain the situation to the people and attempt to keep them calm. Leonora, you go down with the last of the first floor and go with Axel, then Colt and I will follow the next floor down and back up Seth.”
The three soldiers nodded and moved to the door to take their positions. Colt, however, looked at Katya in mild surprise. He had not seen this from her before, he had only seen the small-time hunts with one or two enemies and no one to get to safety. She was more on the ball than he had given her credit for.
“What?” Katya asked, noticing him looking at her without moving.
“Nothing” he shook his sandy head and followed the soldiers out of the room and down to the floors with the people held captive. While he had been told of everything the group had found before, Colt’s first experience of the number of people kept in these rooms ready for farming, and the efficiency of the move to get them to safety was enlightening for him. He kept watch as he was meant to, but he was quietly horrified by the number of men, women and children that filtered out through the doors under the guidance of the military and Katya Devaroux. The stench that came from the rooms was worse than the stink bombs he had gotten used to, and the level of panic was infuriatingly stressful.
“So, you do this in every town?” He asked, biting his tongue before he snapped at a woman at the back of the group panicking and winding up the child she was paired with.
Katya nodded lightly as she glanced behind them at the entrance to make sure that there was still no movement from everything else still in that building. “Yeah, couldn’t just walk past knowing what goes on with them” she shrugged lightly as though it was an easy decision. It wasn’t, it still weighed on her just how long they were taking to get to her home town. If a member of her family was the first put on one of those machines, they would be a lost cause by the time she got there.
Colt didn’t say anything to her, he wasn’t sure if he had known the truth, he would have done the same thing. He would have probably still just kept into that safe space with Orion. Heck, it had been her who had wanted to go out and check the commotion that day that they have saved Katya. Colt only ever went out when he knew it was quiet.
Mishka bounded over to Katya as they moved to the first street, having waited like she was told to this time. “Good girl!” Katya chimed giving the puppy a pat on the head before calling her to heel and follow.
“Katya! It’s true!” The red-head was engulfed in another hug as she finally entered the sub-terrain city, this was larger than any of the other ones which she had seen so far. She didn’t need to guess who it was, she recognised the soft yet deep voice and the strong workman’s arms that hugged her like a daughter.
“Hey Zen, yeah I made it. Can’t get rid of me that easily” She laughed, lifting her good arm to hug him back, noticing a nervous and shy looking ginger teen behind him. “Oh, and who’s this?” She smiled gently pulling back from Zen.
“Ah, this is Laelia.” Zen explained as he moved to put his arm around the young teen’s shoulders “Lae, this is Katya, the girl that saved us back in Leicester”
Katya blinked in confusion, suddenly remembering the mess of ginger hair she had seen over with Zen and Oliver when she had got all those Nerushi to chase her. So, this was who that had been? The girl mumbled a very quiet thank you to Katya, who found herself smiling brightly at the sight of her.
“I’m just glad that you are safe” Katya brushed her growing hair back from her face as she glanced to look around. “Is Kit ok? They got back here alright?”
Zen smiled and nodded, motioning to guide Katya and the others to where their wounded friend was. “Yeah, he’s going to be just fine, your new friend Orion seems to be doing wonders for his wound” he explained, his eyes obviously looking to Katya’s scarf supported arm “Though, I guess that’s why you had her come with them?”
�
�Actually, she insisted in coming along. She treated my leg, arm and ribs when she and Colt saved my ass. She also treated all the cuts and bruises” Katya added as she motioned to the scarring slash on her right cheek, it was low on her cheek, crossing over the very edge of the right crease of her lips. “She knows what she is doing for sure.”
“Well, you should all sit and rest… there was someone who wanted to speak to us all when you got back, so I’ll go and get them. Lae, can you stay here with everyone?” Zen smiled down at the nervous teen, her eyes looking nervous behind her glasses. But quietly, she nodded and let go of his shirt.
Katya looked down at her before holding the door they had been led to open for her after everyone else had walked inside the marble and cool building. Inside, Kit was laying on the floor with Oliver by his side, lightly holding his hand as the long-haired man slept.
“Ah, you guys made it!” The high voice of Orion chimed out happily as she skipped over to reach up and hug Colt and Katya happily. “No one else got hurt right?”
Katya shook her head as she embraced the girl back “Nope, all safe. Just exhausted… oh, before I forget. Orion and Colt, this is Axel, Leonora, Seth, Oliver, Kit, and Laelia… the grey-haired guy who’ll be back in a bit was Zen” She motioned to everyone settling down one by one “Guys, this is Orion and Colt, they saved my ass and helped get me back.”
Despite their worn-out bodies, both sides of the group wanted to know what had happened to the other. Katya filled the others in about the three weeks of her recovery and the way they had followed the original plan, popping their heads into factories to see if it had been raided, so they knew if the others had been there. She told them about the stink bomb discovery of Colt’s while they told her they had tried out similar things with things like petrol which was still clinging to their hair even as they changed out of their clothes into new ones they had looted.
It was after that when the conversation reached the more ominous scene they had just been a part of; the giant factory with more creatures than they had ever seen.
“If those doors hadn’t acted like a bottleneck for them, there’s no way we would have survived that” Axel commented with a sigh.
“Tch, speak for yourself” Colt grunted stubbornly.
“Yeah, they’d have run screaming like girls in the face of your mug” Seth shot across the younger male gaining a laugh from most of the others while Colt scowled at the male.
“Perhaps we could use him as a barrier to hold them back while we get the slower people out in future” Axel chortled.
“Screw you; I’m not a meat shield for the old and the brats”
“Only brats, I’ve not seen any elderly” Orion added with a cheeky smile on her lips.
Colt was almost sulking by now as he turned his glare to his best friend whom he didn’t expect to join in.
“That sulk there, that’ll do it!”
The group seemed to descend into a teasing session directed to Colt. Katya though was beginning to realise something.
Those liquids, and no elderly. What didn’t the elderly produce in such quantities that the rest of humanity did?? Hormones. Sex hormones. Growth hormones. Everything seemed to fit into the information they already had.
“Katya?” She blinked as Seth spoke, her eyes refocusing and realising she was being looked towards by everyone there.
“What?” She asked blankly, causing a small snicker from Colt to sound behind her.
“Come on, Space-Ace… we’re in the middle of a conversation” Colt commented, though he probably didn’t expect the red-head to switch the conversation to her unspoken train of thought.
“Hormones. I think they are farming us for hormones”
Silence fell over the previously jovial atmosphere; “what do you mean?” Axel asked, finding his tongue first.
“Well, think about what we know, they are draining something from us, but they keep females and males separated for different levels of sex hormones as well as adults separated from children for growth hormones,” Katya explained. “They must all have a different thing that the aliens want; which means it can’t be something like blood or other bodily tissue. It also makes sense why covering ourselves with overpowering scents works to mask us as they would be looking for a specific scent and not petrol or stink bombs.”
“Why the hell would they want hormones though?” Leonora chimed.
“Doubt it’s to enhance a sex drive…” Seth muttered dryly, gaining a snicker from Axel.
“That guess is as good as mine” Katya chuckled lightly. “I’ll be back in a little while, I want to think this through.” Things seemed to fit together, but there was still that question as to why they would need the hormones from humans, and there was nothing that could keep Katya sat still while that questions whirled around in her mind.
It was difficult to find peace in the safe zone beneath the city; there was movement everywhere with people trying to find their loved ones, others mourning that they hadn’t been able to find their most precious people. Katya found herself sitting by the edge of the filtered stream at the edge of the underground town, legs crossed with her eyes closed.
She was scared of what had happened that day, it came back to her in those moments; how close Kit had come to being killed. When it had been her injuries, it had been relatively easy to deal with, but this time it was too much to handle. Her mind was moving too quickly, but more importantly, it was disturbed by the image that maybe there was a chance her family back home had suffered worse…
Suddenly, a cold feeling on her neck caused the redhead to yelp and spin around.
“Sorry… you’ve been out a while, thought you might want a drink” It was Seth, holding a canned orange flavoured drink.
Katya’s face softened from the surprise and with a soft thanks, she took the drink offered to her and motioned for him to sit down.
For a while, they simply sat in silence. Katya didn’t expect to get much from Seth and Seth knew that if Katya wanted to talk, then she would. Though, it seemed that Seth had something to say this time around.
“Nice one, by the way,” Seth grunted.
Katya cast him a curious look with a raised eyebrow, clearly asking him to continue.
“I meant making your way back to us, fighting with only one good arm, helping save our asses… and figuring out more about the aliens while you were at it”
Katya paused in her walk to look over at Seth with a small smirk on her lips. “Since when were you this talkative?” If she could see better, she would have sworn she saw his cheeks dust softly in embarrassment at her comment. She definitely saw his lips twitch into a smirk as he turned to look down at her from his tall height from which he never slouched.
“Since I actually have human emotion and am happy to see you” It was Katya’s turn to flush dark, she hadn’t expected that response! She had expected something grumpy; something growled at her, telling her to stop being childish. Seth let out a laugh at her face; his laugh wasn’t something heard often, maybe the occasional dark chuckle, but this one was deep and soothing. God, that sound suited him.
“Shut up…” Katya grumbled back at him feeling too taken aback to come up with a witty retort. She batted away his hand as he moved to ruffle her hair before they fell into a comfortable silence while walking back to their friends. The kind of comfortable silence that could only be achieved when both parties neither expected nor demanded anything but the company from each other.
Katya had almost forgotten that she only had experienced that with Oliver and Seth.
When they reached the room they were all in, Seth motioned for her to take the small bundle of blankets, his hand absently moving out to trace the scarring wound on her face. “You should stay here tomorrow” He commented in a slight whisper “We did well today but going up against the Hiko and whatever else is there with one arm isn’t clever.”
He walked away before she could protest. But as Katya lay down feeling the full brunt of the d
ay’s events, she knew he was right. She would just be a burden no matter how much she wanted to help.
Damn… Her arm sure as hell better mend soon.
Chapter 18
Kit awoke the following day after Seth had rounded up a few more military survivors and had roped them into a mission out to the hub. Colt had been dragged along by Axel, alongside Oliver who had been grumbling something about wanting to gut these creatures who had hurt the gentle long-haired male.
Turi and Mishka were asleep by Kit, having tired themselves out playing that morning. The male groaned a little as he sat himself up, alerting Katya to his presence.
“Hey, take it easy” She soothed while moving over to him and placing a hand on his shoulder “If you move too suddenly, you’ll reopen your wound.”
“Kat? It was you!” Kit smiled gently, his brown eyes soft. “Thank you, for saving us back there.”
Silence of the Apocalypse- Journey Home Page 15