by Ines Johnson
Shanti looked up at him. "Will it hurt?"
Chen looked into her eyes. He nodded his head. "Yes, it will hurt very much."
Shanti knew he wasn't speaking of the teleporting journey.
"See it clear in your mind," he said.
Shanti closed her eyes and tried to picture her home. But her nose was surrounded by the smell of Chen. She breathed in, and his scent went into her mouth. Thoughts of their first kiss, of her taking him into her mouth, of him entering her body, they all swelled in her mind.
"Focus on home, Shanti."
Shanti tried to bring up her small house in her mind. She tried to see the brick, the lawn, and her street. It was all hazy in the cocoon of Chen's strong arms.
"I see it," he said.
Disappointment swelled in her heart. She felt the earth fall away from her feet. But no, that was Chen teleporting her.
She opened her eyes, or she thought she did. All around her she saw the same yellow mist of energy she'd seen inside the ship, in the energy mines. But the energy was so familiar to her. She knew it was Chen and herself. She watched as their essence mingled, unable to tell herself from him.
We are one. He'd said that to her, and it was true.
Shanti blinked. And when she opened her eyes, she saw her brick house, her lawn, her door, her car.
Her feet felt wobbly underneath her. Chen held her strong. He took a step away from her, but stopped. Shanti realized the reason he stopped was because her fingers dug into his robes. Her body and mind warred with what to do. Her mind dictated that she could not go with him. Her body insisted that she could not be without him.
She stared up into his eyes. His head was covered in a hood, but his large eyes were locked on her.
"Get out of the middle of the street! You're blocking the road."
Shanti looked over Chen's shoulder to see one of her neighbors. His fishing gear poked out the back of his pick up. The engine revved in time with his heavy breathing.
"First she tries to block me going to work with her hair-brained fungus idea. Now she's trying to block me getting home."
Chen turned to the man. The fisherman's eyes went wide at the sight of Chen. The man put his foot on the pedal and swerved around, speeding down the street.
Shanti gave Chen a tug onto the sidewalk. From across the street she heard a screen door shut. Another neighbor's face disappeared behind their blinds. Their door slammed shut.
Everything was as she’d left it. No one had missed her.
Shanti felt Chen pull away from her. She dug her fingers into his robe again. Chen stopped and peered down at her hands, then into her eyes.
"I just remembered," she said, panting as though she'd just run a marathon. "I have some blueberries in the freezer. Would you like to come inside?"
Shanti unlocked her door and then shut them both inside. Everything was as she'd left it. The house was empty with no one there to miss her. Her recliner sat next to her bookshelf beneath a soft lamp. Her desk was cleared of all paperwork since she'd been released from working with the Bay Restoration Project. She looked around her home, unsure of what she'd come back here for?
She felt Chen at her back. Her body went in motion, as though on autopilot, to the kitchen. She went to the freezer and grabbed the bag of berries. They were covered in frostbite.
"I'm sorry they're not fresh."
Chen removed his hood and took the bag from her. He emptied a few berries into his hand. Instantly the water fell from them and the berries plumped to life.
Chen smiled and popped a few into his mouth. His eyes closed in ecstasy. When he opened them, he handed the remaining berries to her.
Shanti took a few from his hand and popped them into her mouth. They were delicious. She opened her eyes to watch Chen chew. Berry juices burst in the corner of his mouth. Shanti reached up and wiped the juice away. Her hand stayed at the corner of his mouth.
She stared at his lips as they moved, chewing the berries, and then swallowing. "I'm never going to see you again," she whispered. "Am I?"
He didn't answer.
"Can't you come back?"
Chen shook his head no.
"What will you do now? Will you leave and choose another female to be your mate? The first one you see?"
"I made a mistake," Chen said.
Those words made Shanti's heart sink. “Don't choose from this neighborhood. None of these women would suit you.”
Chen wrapped his hand around her waist. He brought his forehead down against hers. But he went no further.
"It is not in my nature to take what is not freely offered," he said. "I am sorry that I was not clear with you. I am sorry that I caused you stress. It was never my intention to make you feel anything but happiness.”
Chen released her and headed for the door. He turned the knob. Shanti's heart raced as the door creaked open. Chen turned and stood in the doorway, facing her. Shanti's palms sweat. She was breathing so shallowly she thought she might hyperventilate and pass out.
Chen's heel was at the threshold. "There is no other choice. There will never be another you. You are my one and only."
Shanti grasped the doorjamb. "Are you going to go crazy, like the Marred Ones?"
"I will be sad without you. But Hsing and I will still have each other. We can balance each other out. And the ship will help us. We will be fine."
In all their time together, Shanti knew with certainty that Chen had never lied to her. Until this very moment.
"I wanted to...to be with you, Chen." Shanti noted that it was the tense of the verb that made her stutter. "I just can't leave. I..."
Why couldn't she leave?
What was here for her?
Her parents were gone. She was so used to traveling so much that she had no deep-connected friendships. And when she'd tried to settle down in this community, they'd rejected her.
Chen touched the place in his robes where he'd stashed the coral algae. "You have saved our lives, Shanti. You will live in all of our hearts." Chen took a step backwards over the threshold.
Shanti reached out and grasped his robes. "No," she said.
"No?"
"I don't want you to go." She wrapped her arms around his neck.
Chen rested his lips at her brow. "I cannot stay, my only."
Shanti's foot edged closer to the threshold of the door. She pressed her body into Chen's. It still fit perfectly. He felt like home.
Behind him Shanti saw dark shadows move along the sidewalk. Her nosey neighbors, there to judge her love life now. Once Chen stepped over the threshold, she wouldn't have a love life any longer.
She saw it clearly; her heart was entwined with his. They'd worked well together. He listened to her. She'd never find someone else like him in this world, or the next.
"I'm coming with you,” she said.
Chen tilted up her chin. His eyes looked down at her full of brightness and love. "You will come home?"
Shanti nodded.
Chen leaned in to kiss her. His lips against hers felt like sitting by a warm fire, curled up in her favorite chair, covered in a patchwork quilt. He tasted of saltwater, of blueberries, and Chen.
He fit.
They fit.
Together.
His lips against hers felt like home.
Shanti opened her eyes and stared into his. She'd traveled around her whole life, never quite fitting in, never feeling truly welcome. Yet in the eyes of this being who'd known her less time than most, in his arms, against his lips, Shanti knew belonging for the first time in her life.
A light breeze had the screen door tapping her backside as though she were a house pet being shooed from the home. She'd felt such a sense of urgency to return to this place. She couldn't remember why?
There was nothing here for her. Nothing she felt compelled to toss into a suitcase. Nothing she felt the need to even shove into her pocket.
Everything told her to leave this place; to step into the embrace of the man sh
e would spend eternity with. Her mind shook at the vastness of eternity, but calm and rightness flooded her heart and shot up to her head.
She knew for certain, this was right. This was the way of things. This was as it should be, for an eternity. Inside Chen's arms, pressed against his chest, tasting blueberries on his lips.
Shanti stepped across the threshold and closer into Chen. Only Chen was moving away from her. It happened in slow motion.
At first he smiled down at her, recognition dawning in his blue face that she was coming with him.
And then the tug.
First his torso jerked back.
Then his hands released her.
The confusion on his face melded into dread, and then terror. Shanti only had a moment before she saw a pair of dark gray and dark yellow hands grab Chen. The Eloheems’ faces were uncovered, their eyes dark. Chen looked up at them, true horror and fear traveled from his eyes to her gut.
"Stay back," he shouted into her head.
How could she stay back when she was supposed to be with him for an eternity? Shanti leaped over the threshold, but it was too late. Chen was sailing through the air and into the clutches of two Eloheem.
For a second, relief flooded through her as she thought these must be the Eloheem stationed on this planet by the ones in charge; the Neterians, Chen had called them.
As she got closer she saw that these beings possessed none of the calm, self-possession of all the Eloheem she'd encountered on the Mothership. Their eyes were dark; a flickering light danced mad circles inside their pupils.
One glanced at her and sneered. He raised his hands towards her. Chen caught his hand between his elbows in a locking motion. The sneering Eloh turned all of his attention to Chen, working to subdue him. And then in a flash, they were all gone.
By the time Shanti reached the spot where they had stood on the sidewalk, there was nothing left. Chen was gone. His arms. His smile. His smell. His very essence. All gone.
Her heart sank to her feet. Her head could not comprehend the emptiness without and within her. He was gone.
She looked up to the sky, searching for a beam of light. But there was none. Where had they come from? Where did they take him? They must've teleported as she and Chen had done earlier. Maybe Chen would send her a visual picture of where he was, so that she could come to him.
Shanti backed into her small yard. She closed her eyes, quieted her mind and reached out to him. He wasn't gone. Not entirely. She still felt him. And now she heard him. He still chanted to her to stay back, to run.
But she couldn't stay back. She had to run. Run towards him, to find him. To bring him back to her.
"Go home, my only."
Shanti shook her head. He was her home. Where would she go without her home?
"Sing, my only."
What the hell was he thinking? Crazy, murderous Eloheem had abducted him and he wanted her to sing.
Wait -Hsing.
Chen wanted her to find Hsing. He would know what to do, how to find Chen and bring him back. Shanti turned away from her house, leaving the door wide open.
How was she going to get to Hsing? She was a continent away from the heliopad that could beam her up to the Mothership. She was certain she didn't have time to get another passport, board a plane, and then travel out into the middle of nowhere. Chen didn't have that time.
Shanti stopped. She took a deep breath. She had to think. She wasn't just connected to Chen; she was connected to Hsing too. They all three shared a bond. It’s just that Shanti never paid much attention to Hsing's leg of the bond -outside of the time when his legs were spreading hers wider.
Now she had to focus. She had to connect to Hsing, up there, somewhere in outer space.
Shanti turned around. She went back into her house and shut the door. She took a seat in her big comfortable chair. Without the assistance of her hands, she folded herself into a lotus pose. She closed her eyes. She took a deep, cleansing, centering breath and cleared her mind.
She pushed aside all of her animosity towards Hsing. She filled her heart with love for Chen. Then she reached out. She reached out for something she never had before.
"Hsing...help me."
The room was dead silent for long moments. Then there was a loud crash as the door burst open. Shanti opened her eyes, nearly toppling over in the pretzel of her lotus position.
Hsing stood in the doorway like a giant, avenging blue angel.
Chapter Twenty-One
Pain radiated through Chen's shoulder and torso as he hit the metal floor. His first and only concern was to shield Shanti and Hsing from the feeling. He didn't want Shanti to be frightened, and he didn't want Hsing to feel any more burden or stress than what he was already under. From his place on the ground, Chen looked up into the distorted face that he'd known since he was a youngling.
Niao and Nse's father, Ngai, towered over him. The male had survived the debris field, but his body had not come out unscathed. An ugly gash tore across Ngai’s chest. There was a limp to his walk. He wasn't healing for some reason. He looked as though he'd been sick for many cycles.
"Ngai, you are wounded. Let me heal you." Chen came to his knees.
"You will try to kill me."
Chen shook his head. "You know that is not my nature."
"Outside of the binding of Eloh law, you do not understand what your true nature is." Ngai paced, scratching at his heart. "If I can just sever the link between us, then I will be whole."
Chen couldn't understand whom he meant. Ngai’s female mate and Yang brother were long dead, by Ngai’s own hands.
"It is unnatural to bound your life to another living thing. We are born into this world alone. My life should not be dependent on another."
"I can feel your pain, Ngai." Chen didn't reach out too far. Whatever substance ran through Ngai’s veins Chen sensed it was toxic. "Come home. Let us tend to you."
Ngai rounded on Chen. His hollow eyes loomed large in his sunken face. "Give them to me and I will release you."
"Who?"
“Once the children are dead, I will be at peace. They are the last things linking me to this wretched existence.”
Everything inside Chen went cold. Ngai meant Niao and Nse. Chen hadn't realized that there was still a link between the three. In his mind’s eye, Chen could just make out the thread of the link. It was faint and fragile. It appeared like an irritation at the forefront of the disturbed male's mind. It was that link that Ngai wanted severed.
“You are bonded now," Ngai said. "Your first thought is not of yourself. It is of her. You are a slave to them. Mates, children, brothers."
Chen shook his head. "No, Ngai. They provide the balance we need. They are a gift."
"They are a shackle. I see you looking into my mind. It goes both ways. The link to your brother, the bond you cherish, it will lead me straight to the Mothership."
Bile rose in Chen’s throat at the threat.
An evil curl tilted Ngai's lips. "Or perhaps I can trace the other thread of the bond, hmmm? Return to the Womb Rock, to the home of your mate."
Chen's fingers clenched, his jaw tightened. The thought of harm coming to Shanti set his essence aflame.
Ngai laughed. The sound grated against Chen's bones.
"Which road do you want me to take, Chen-Na? Shall I blast the Mothership out of the Heavens? Or shall I take your female?"
Chen lunged. Pain ripped through his shoulder, but he ignored it as he crashed into Ngai. Chen landed a fist across the other male's face. A terrible sound came from Ngai’s lips.
Chen froze at the sound of pain. He'd never hurt another living creature in his life. But the thought of harm befalling Shanti was too much.
From behind, Chen’s dark purple hands grabbed him. Manu, Pakua and Yehfe’s father, held Chen fast. In front of him, Chen realized that Ngai's cries were not of pain. They were of maniacal glee.
"What did I tell you?” Ngai's laugh halted abruptly and his face changed to a d
ark sneer. "The bond rules you, not your nature. You will kill to protect it. Do you wonder what you would do if those ties snapped?”
Ngai straightened. He rolled his shoulders. Chen heard the bones in his neck crack back into place.
"No worries, little Yang,” Ngai said. "I have no interest in your mate. But I will find the Mothership. And when I do, I will blast every last one of them out of the Heavens.”
Ngai left the room.
Chen felt something cold and hard on his wrists. Manu shackled him to the wall. Chen pulled against the restraints to no avail. He looked up at Manu. The Yin male's face was without any trace of emotion, but Chen felt something within the male when he reached out.
"Manu, let me take you back to the ship. Let us try to heal you."
"I have my own ship." Manu indicated the surrounding metal. "This is my home."
"But this is not your family."
"I tried to replace them; my family. I tried, but it did not work."
"What are you saying?" Manu's words made even less sense to Chen.
"There is no going home," said Manu. "Not after what we have done."
Chen had to shut his heart and mind to the horror of visions that streamed into him from Manu’s mind. Death, destruction, and suffering by Manu’s own hands. Chen shook the visions off and refocused on the face he’d known since he was born. “There is always redemption."
Manu's eyes connected with Chen. "I watched your mother die."
Chen reared back to the wall as though the chains reeled him in for Manu's protection.
"It was not by my hand," Manu continued.
Chen swallowed. He grit his teeth as though closing his own mouth would prevent Manu from saying the words; the words that would confirm his worst fears to be true.
The metal ship was cold, but Chen felt a warmth rise through his chest. He heard someone calling his name. Not someone. He heard two voices calling out to him.
Shanti and Hsing.
They were tapping into the bond link. They were trying to pinpoint his location. Unlike Ngai who was too shriveled inside to pinpoint the exact location of his sons, Shanti and Hsing, the two of them together, could find Chen. They would find him and then they'd be able to take these two marred souls into the ship. Once inside the Mothership, She could heal them, after She healed herself with the algae.