by Ava Castle
“There now, you steady?”
“Y-yes. At least I think so.”
“Good. Then let’s go. We need to get a move on. There will be others here soon enough, and I don’t think this is how you’ll want to be discovered.”
“Where are we going?”
“To my house.”
“Oh!” Alecia broke in, her voice hoarse and full of scorn, “Oh, HELL no. What makes you think we’re gonna just go with you to your house? We don’t even know you!”
“Fine. My name is Radon. Now you know who I am. Now, either come with me or don’t. If you want to stay in the desert, be my guest. If you don’t, you better come now. I’m not staying. Not a moment longer.”
And he wasn’t. He released me from his arms and without looking at either one of us, began to walk in the opposite direction. I looked to Alecia, looking to see if she would go or stay, and she shrugged and raised her eyebrows. Apparently, this one was on me, which was a terrifying feeling. I had never been one for making decisions, and this one seemed monumental. It felt like it was life or death.
“Come on,” I answered her unspoken question softly, “let’s go. I don’t see that we have much of a choice, do you?”
Alecia shook her head, and we were off. I was afraid we would lose him in the dark, but the light coming off of his skin was enough to keep him in view until we could catch up with him. He walked so quickly! I had to move at a steady trot just to halfway keep up with him. From behind me, I could hear Alecia huffing and puffing, doing her best to keep up as well. By the time we followed Radon through the door of a smallish hut, both of us were wildly out of breath. But we were indoors, which was a relief, finally protected from the wild wind and the chill it instilled. It was a small home, a humble home, with broken glass strewn across the floor. I gaped down at it in shock. It looked like some kind of massive bar brawl had just taken place here! Not exactly the kind of place to inspire feelings of safety.
“What the hell happened here?” Alecia asked in an incredulous voice, expressing the very thing I badly wanted to know. Radon looked at her with a blank expression, then looked down at the floor to see what she was talking about.
“The glass? That’s nothing. I was in a bad mood. Here, I’ll show you where you can sleep. From the looks of the two of you, I’m thinking you’re exhausted.”
“And you think we should trust you enough to sleep in your house? Just because we know your name?”
“Alecia,” I answered softly, “come on. He’s trying to help us. You can see that, can’t you?”
Alecia shrugged, looking suspiciously at her surroundings. Radon stepped around her, arranging a set of large floor pillows in something that resembled a bed. He motioned with his head from Alecia to the new arrangement.
“Here, you can sleep here. You, follow me.”
I did as I was told. He led me down a dim hallway towards the back of his hut and into a small room that was clearly his bedroom. It was messy, like it hadn’t been properly taken care of in a while, and I smiled at myself despite my fatigue and my fear for the future. It was a bedroom that clearly belonged to a bachelor, and it reminded me of the rooms of boys I has been friends with when I was still college aged and carefree. It gave me a feeling of nostalgia, which could only have been made worse by my recent exhausting ordeal. Despite my best efforts, my eyes began to well up with tears. I was helpless to keep them from spilling down my cheeks, and before I knew it I was standing there in this strange being’s room bawling like a baby. He shuffled towards be uncertainly, looking every bit as uncomfortable as the men from earth did when women began to cry.
“Hey, I’m sorry. I know this isn’t much. I can make up something out of pillows for you, too, if you like. If you think that would be better.”
“No,” I answered quickly, my throat thick and every word a new struggle for composure, “no, it isn’t that. Looking at this just reminded me of old friends, that’s all. And I’m tired. I’m very tired. Add onto that the fact that I’m pretty sure I’ve never been this afraid in my life, and the result is tears. I’ll get a handle on myself. Really, I promise.”
Radon nodded slowly, looking like he wanted to say something else and didn’t know what that something might be. Instead of speaking, he took me gingerly by the hand, leading me towards his lumpy bed. I wasn’t sure what he was going to do and knew that it could have been just about anything, but that didn’t keep me from being shocked when he actually tucked me into bed, pulling his scratchy woolen blanket up to my chin like I was a child.
“Sleep now. You’ll be safe while you sleep.”
It was beyond crazy, but something about the soothing tone of his voice made me believe him. Even as he spoke the words, I could feel my lids growing heavier and heavier. Before I knew it, sleep was over taking me. The last thought I had before I lost consciousness entirely was of cedar. I could smell the cedar coming off of him and it felt like home.
Chapter Eight
Becca Cross
“Wake up! You’ve got to wake up now. They’re here!”
I was deeply asleep, so deeply that it felt like I would never be able to wake up again. I wanted to wake up, that was for sure. I wanted to wake up but it was like something wouldn’t let me. My body felt frozen where I lay so that no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t move a muscle. That didn’t keep the part of my brain that was aware from hearing the knocking on the front door. It was more than a knocking. It was a pounding, and it made my heart freeze with fear. That kind of pounding was never a good thing. It was the kind of pounding I had heard before we opened the shuttle’s door and were yanked out and put on our knees by Shaley. It was the kind of pounding I had heard on my apartment door before the police showed up and hauled me off to jail.
“Come on now. I know you’re still tired, but you’ve got to wake up.”
I could feel my body being lifted into a seated position and smelled the warm cedar again. With what felt like an enormous amount of strength, I forced my eyes to open. When they did, I was staring into the eerily blue eyes of Radon. He was holding me in his arms, struggling to get me to wake up. For a moment, I was struck by the overwhelming urge to kiss him. Because it came out of nowhere, and maybe because it had been so long since a man had touched me with any kind of tenderness, it was an urge I couldn’t resist. I raised my head and touched my lips to his. At first, there was nothing but hesitation on his end. But then, miraculously, he was kissing me back. His lips were warm and sure, his kiss deepening quickly until I felt like I was falling into him. His tongue gently pried my lips open and slid deliciously into my mouth. He tasted like spices.
“Seriously? Great, this is just great. Now is not the time, Radon. Besides, I thought you didn’t want any part of this.”
Radon broke away from me and I saw a man I didn’t know standing in the doorframe (not that I knew anyone, I reminded myself, not anyone aside from Alecia). He had a similar look to Radon except that his skin was green and his frame considerably smaller. He had a look on his face like he simply couldn’t believe what was happening. Behind him, I could see Alecia peering down the hallway, a very similar expression splashed across her face.
“We’re coming, Petering. I was just waking her up.”
“It’s a funny way to wake a person up,” the one called Petering muttered as he turned and stalked back down the hall, “but I guess I can’t say I’m surprised.”
“Come on,” Radon spoke to me, all trace of the passion of our kiss long gone, “you’ve got to get up. They’re here.”
“Who's here?”
“The Authority. The Masters must know. My guess is that everyone knows.”
“Wait!” I scrambled down the hall after him, struggling to move in my still sluggish sleepiness, “I don’t understand! You aren’t making any sense.”
But he wasn’t listening to me anymore. He shrugged a linen jacket on over a plain cotton shirt and joined Petering by the front door. Whoever was pounding on the other sid
e of it sure was persistent, because the booming sound of a fist against wood hadn’t stopped for even a second since I had first become aware of it. This was not someone who was going to get discouraged and go away. This was not someone who would be ignored.
Alecia grabbed at my arm, pulling me in towards her and wrapping one arm around my shoulders. She was warm and alert, beautiful in her clear will to survive. When she turned her face towards mine, I could see that her eyes were afraid but also clear. There was no panic there. Whatever was coming, she was as ready for it as a person could be.
“Ok, baby girl, get ready.”
“Get ready for what?” I asked with a trembling voice, feeling very close to crying again, “how am I supposed to get ready for something when I don’t even know what it is?”
“I’ll be damned if I know, but you’re gonna have to do your best. Crying isn’t gonna help us now. You’ve got to do your best to look like you aren’t afraid, you got me? We don’t want them to see that we’re afraid.”
I wanted to ask her how I was supposed to do that, but our time to talk was done. Apparently, the people on the other side of Radon’s door were tired of waiting, because the knocking stopped. For a split second there was silence, followed by the sound of splintering wood. Someone had literally kicked the door down. Where it had stood only moments before there was nothing. Just open space and dark sky and several uniformed figures rushing inside of Radon’s home. All at once, the room was feeling very crowded. I wanted to shrink back against Alecia, but her words to me kept ringing in my head. We don’t want them to see that we’re afraid. We don’t want them to see that we’re afraid. That meant that it wasn’t just me. It meant that she was afraid too, and look at how good of a job she was doing of hiding it. I could do that, too. I could, and I would.
“Hello, boys,” Radon spoke nonchalantly, as if they had knocked politely and waited to be let in instead of busting down his door, “brisk night, wouldn’t you say? Or should I say early morning? I suppose that would be more correct. I can see the suns starting to come up.”
“Where is she, Radon? The note said that you would know something about it.”
Radon paused, shooting Petering a sideways glance. From the expression on Petering’s face, I had a feeling the two men were just as confused by this last question as I was. Where was who? And what note? There was definitely another piece to the puzzle here, and none of us had it.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to be more specific, boys. I have two ‘she’s’ here. Which one are you talking about.”
“Neither! Shaley, Radon. Where the devil is Shaley?”
“Ok, I have to admit, you’ve caught me off guard with that one. I don’t have a clue where Shaley is. For what it’s worth, I don’t know what note you’re talking about, either.”
The guards, there were six of them now, exchanged grim looks before moving forward. It didn’t take a genius to see what was going to happen next. The guards all rushed forward, grabbing us up like we were lost property that needed to be returned to the appropriate owners. Alecia and I were split up, guards taking us roughly by the arms and binding them behind our backs so tightly that I lost the feeling in my fingers almost immediately. A third guard approached Petering, who held his wrists out in front of him without so much as a peep of protest. And the rest of the guards? Those three approached Radon, and they did so cautiously. I was sort of floored to see that. Those guards weren’t exactly small guys. They looked pretty capable of taking care of themselves and I doubted they were very accustomed to being cautious about much of anything. So why then did they look so nervous about getting near Radon? What exactly was this guy?
“What’s the matter, guys? Afraid I won’t come quietly?”
“Yes, actually, that’s exactly what we’re afraid of. Were you planning on coming quietly?”
“I was thinking about it. In fact, yes, I will. On one condition.”
“And what condition might that be?” The one who seemed to be in charge asked. He had the weary tone and harried look of one who had believed he might actually get away with something and now realized it had always been too good to be true.
“The girls. I want to know what you’re going to do with them, where you’re going to take them.”
“That’s not your concern.”
“Alright, that’s fine. Just don’t expect much of anything from me in the way of being polite.”
“OK! Ok, just wait a minute. Nothing bad is going to happen to them, ok? We’re taking them to Morigon. He wants to see them, to make sure they’re ok.”
“To make sure they’re ok?” Radon repeated with a doubtful look on his face, “That all?”
“Of course not! He wants to question them, ok? He wants to know where the hell the rest of them are. There are only two of them, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Don’t worry. I had.”
“Well then you know this isn’t how it was supposed to go. He’ll want to see about that.”
“Fine. But you should know, if they wind up getting hurt or anything like that, you’re going to have to answer to me.”
The guards glanced at each other again, obviously not excited by even the hint of that scenario playing out. It looked to me like they were considering just pretending they hadn’t been able to find him and going on about their merry ways, but a sharp look from the one who was holding me told them that wasn’t an option, either. Reluctantly, they came closer to Radon, flinching as they took hold of him despite the fact that he never moved a muscle. That was when I was ushered out of the room roughly, back out into the night air.
“Just keep walking, girlie, ok? Don’t stop, not for anything. Don’t try anything funny.”
“I don’t understand. Have I done something wrong? Are we criminals or something?”
“Why would you think something like that?”
“Because that’s the way you’re treating us.”
I felt a strange pang of guilt when I said that. Here I was, acting completely indignant to have someone treat me like a criminal, when that was exactly what I was. Did I really think that being belted into a shuttle and slung across the universe had absolved me of all of my sins? Whether I liked it or not, I had killed a man. I had done it in self-defense and I was one hundred percent sure that I would be dead if I hadn’t done it, but in the end, that didn’t change the fact that I had taken a life. In the eyes of the law, at least the law on earth, I was absolutely a criminal. That was why I was on this strange new planet.
“It’s just precautions, miss. You’re very important to the future of Valmore. Surely you know that.”
“Yes…” I answered hesitantly. I had no idea why Alecia and I would be important to the future of anything, let alone a whole planet, but I wasn’t keen on making that known to the guard currently dragging me down the dusty main road of this odd little village. I didn’t think that an obvious deficit of information would work in my favor here.
“Well then you realize why the Masters need to play this one by the books. Don’t worry, you aren’t in any danger. They’ll ask you their questions and then you’ll be free to go to whoever your assignments wind up being. Just a precaution.”
Whoever my assignment would be? And just what the hell was that supposed to mean? They were making me sound like I was military or something, which couldn’t have been further away from the truth. And speaking of military, were we going to be able to talk to anyone from earth any time soon? I wanted to ask, to see if there was some kind of communication system set up that nobody had thought to tell us about in all of the fuss, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was too busy looking at all of the people of Valmore, who were pouring out of their homes and into the street. Everyone, every single citizen I saw, was staring at me. I supposed that wasn’t too strange, considering the fact that I had only just crashed in their desert from a different planet, but what did strike me as odd was that almost all of the women were looking at me like they wanted to k
ill me. The amount of hostility coming off of them was so thick it felt like I could reach out and touch it.
“Um, is there a reason they’re all looking at me like that?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
I could see that the guard was trying to maintain a business-like demeanor, but there was no way I was going to let that happen. If he was going to parade me down the street for everyone to look at, I was going to ask my questions. I figured answering them was the least he could do. It was about as close to hospitality as I was going to get.
“Sure you do. Look at them. All of the women, they’re looking at me like they hate me.”
“A lot of them probably do.”
“But how? Why? They don’t even know me!”
“Just keep walking. This is it, right in front of us. This is the house of the Masters.”
I didn’t intend to stop my line of questioning, but when I looked up at the building he was indicating I couldn’t help it. The place was massive and incredibly regal looking. The whole thing appeared to be carved out of marble, with murals lining all of the walls. The whole building was a work of art and served as a stark contrast to the modest looking homes I had already passed. This was where they wanted me to go? No way! Nuh uh. No way was I going in there. Except that I was. I didn’t have a choice. Whether I was a prisoner or not, I was no longer in charge of making decisions for myself. I was at the mercy of the whims of others.
“Come on. He’ll be waiting right through that door.”
“Who will be waiting?”
“Morigon. He’s the head of the Masters. He’s the one who will be wanting to question you.”
I was led through to massive, ornately carved wooden doors and through a marble hallway. The hallway seemed to go on for eternity, which only gave me more time to think about what was going to happen to me and who this guy “Morigon” really was. Then we were stepping from the hallway into a large, humid courtyard full of exotic plants the likes of which I had never seen. In the middle of the greenery, in front of a tiny little waterfall ending in a pond full of brightly colored fish, sat a gilded throne. Atop the throne, was a man. A man like Petering and the guard and Radon. He was the same color as Radon, too, although his eyes were nowhere as pretty. At the moment, he was looking at me intently, his breathing noticeably fast and his eyes growing larger by the second.