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Page 28
“While that happens, your body will expand outward in all directions like one of your earthly balloons being filled with air.”
It’s too quiet in the isolation ward. Did everyone leave? Am I really all alone, left to face Pious without any help? I try to sidestep him and run back into the isolation ward, but he thrusts his body into mine and I fall back again.
I scream for Rune. I scream and curse at Jex and Tore. There’s no one coming to save me, is there? How the fuck am I supposed to save myself?
Pious shoves his prod at me again and I stumble past a glass tube with a small red lever that reads SLEEVE. Sleeve yourself and throw her out the isolation ward’s airlock, that’s what Jex said. This is the sleeve, but Pious would already know that, wouldn’t he?
So why did Jex tell him what to do?
“Your lungs would burst. Your entire body paralyzed. It will be quick, but so excruciatingly painful and—” he cuts off into a fit of loud laughter, “quite fun to watch.”
I’ve love to see her find her way out an airlock, that’s what Jex said. He wasn’t talking to Pious! Jex was talking to me, he was telling me what to do.
At least I think he was. It doesn’t matter now, now I just have to get the hell out of here and into that sleeve.
I pretend to fall into the lever, gripping my hand over it. Pious is too busy laughing maniacally at me to even notice. I rise up on my toes and press my weight down on it. The door slides open instantly, and I hurl myself inside, slamming myself into the steel wall on the opposite side. There’s a bright red button on the top, and without thinking about what it is, I crash my fist into it and whirl around to face Pious. The sleeve swooshes shut and Pious is left outside in the small hallway.
I flip him the middle finger.
He bangs on the glass and pushes down on the lever, but I lock it back in place.
I flip him two middle fingers.
To my left, from the way he just came, a steel door slides closed. To my right the dark steel walls of the ship open and Pious’s expression goes slack, his face pale white. I wish I had a camera to capture what his horror really looks like. He fumbles with the helmet that’s strapped to the waist of his armor and attempts to lift it over his face.
Then he’s gone, just like that.
And it is almost just like he said: His body turns gaunt and colorless for a few seconds before he’s sucked completely out of the ship.
I wonder if he got his faceplate on.
God forgive me, but I hope he didn’t. I hope the life gets squeeze out of him and he floats forever in space, alone.
Behind me, the steel wall slides open and on the other side is a wide-eyed frenzied-looking Rune.
“He’s gone,” I say and lunge forward into his arms. “I don’t think he got his faceplate back on in time.”
Rune tilts his head away and murmurs to someone behind us to locate Pious and run a scan on his vitals from inside the ship.
I take a small step away and untangle myself from Rune’s embrace. He’s giving the orders to Jex, who stands ramrod straight in front of us like he didn’t just offer me up to Pious on a silver airlock platter.
Drawing back my hand, I slap Jex across the face with all the strength I can muster. The impact snaps his head away and leaves my bright red handprint to stain his cheek. “Go ahead, slit my throat or throw me out the isolation ward’s airlock. Either way, you don’t care. You’re not Rune, and I mean nothing to you.”
I slap him again, for effect.
Slowly he raises his hand to his cheek, his eyes gleaming maddeningly at mine. “You understood I was giving you clues to use the sleeve. I never doubted your ability to outsmart him, but strike me again and I will strike back.”
Losing all my temper, I sling my hand back again, this time with a closed fist, intending to punch him square in his face. Rune steps forward, catching my wrist and stopping my hand, easily and laughing. I struggle for a moment, but he’s wearing the armor I put on him and saved him with. I’m bare and weak without it. Just some powerless grounder to them, with no thought as to what emotions they just put me through.
I give up fighting back and step away. “Take me back down to Earth. Now.”
54
Kate
It’s a warm, sunny day outside. Golden rays land in brilliant designs along the walls of the building we have occupied for the last few weeks. Maps are strewn about the floor and hung by whatever sharp objects we could find to use as nails.
Rune stands in front of a New York subway map, marking off the places we’ve searched for Claire and my father. We haven’t seen many people left, but those still alive have been hiding underground, away from the carnage they witnessed under Pious’s rule. Most are sick and dying, since underground the rats and roaches seem to outnumber the humans. He hasn’t told me, but I think he’s losing hope. I’m not sure we’ll ever find them, or if they are even still alive to find, but there’s one thing I know for sure: I will never give up looking.
Rune’s deep in thought, bare-chested and dressed in grounder jeans that hang deliciously low on his waist.
“Rune?” I call as I walk up behind him. “I found some food,” I smile, raising a bottle of green olives.
“Will that taste like, what did you once call it—ass? Like all the other food you bring me to try?”
I shrug and slide the bottle onto a small table covered with even more maps and plans. “I’m sorry you don’t approve of Earth’s great delicacies. You could always pack up and head back to your ship, alien boy.”
His eyes snap to mine, full of bewilderment. Thick dark lashes frame beautiful blue eyes. He closes the small distance between us and stops me from saying more by placing his hand along my cheek.
“Are you really so eager for me to leave?” He says the words seriously, with the smallest hint of a smirk. He knows I don’t want him to leave. But I know he really shouldn’t stay. There’s nothing more here for him. I’m the only thing. After we eliminated Pious as general, while we descended back into Earth’s atmosphere, I made sure that every one of the women in the preservation lab was woken and brought to optimal health. Then Rune assembled them all in the real arboretum and relayed to them what had taken place between the Caelum and our planet. He gave them the choice to either return home unharmed, or stay aboard his ship and help repopulate the future world. There were three hundred and fifty-six women aboard; only nineteen wanted to go back to Earth. I was number twenty.
But here on Earth there’s not much left.
Rune gives me a crooked smile and runs the tips of his fingers down my cheek and lowers them slowly over my throat. He bends his head close and meets his lips to mine. “Right now, I’m too greedy for the taste of you to think of leaving,” he says breathlessly.
I love that he says that, I just don’t know how long this can last. The thing is, I don’t want this to end.
I run my hands up and over his chest, circling his nipples with my index fingers. They peak and harden. A soft moan slips past his lips and his kiss becomes deeper, harder—like he’s afraid if he’s too gentle I’ll just float away. Who knows, maybe that’s what his nightmares are made of, me not finding the sleeve in the airlock, me floating away into the darkness of space. I know it’s what wakes me up, screaming and sweating and clutching my chest in the middle of the night.
“Don’t hold back on me, Kate. Get him out of your head,” he says, breaking our kiss to slide his lips over my neck.
“How do you know what I’m thinking?” I say, panting. He no longer wears his armor, there’s no way he can read my emotions any longer. There’s no way for him to know the turmoil and desperate fear that muddle my every thought.
Right?
He draws back slightly and pulls the hem of my shirt up and over my head. “Because I know you and I always know what you’re thinking.” He slips the thin straps of my bra down over my shoulder and gently presses his lips across my collarbone. The sensation sends goose bumps over my skin.
“You always know what I’m thinking?” I murmur as he unclasps and pulls down the cups of my bra, so now I’m just as bare-chested as him. “What am I thinking, then?” I don’t know why I really ask the question; I don’t want to talk, but I do. Which is confusing. I’m enjoying his touch too much, his lips, why should I want to have some stupid conversation with him right now? Especially one that could potentially shift us away from this.
He cups my breast, caressing my nipples softly with his thumbs. He tilts his head away to look at them, and the way his eyes devour my skin, the expression he wears when he sees me naked with his hands touching me, sends a throbbing ache between my legs.
I fumble with the button of his jeans and rip down the zipper. His hands do the same to my jeans, but more precise and fluid. He pushes the denim down my hips and thighs, until they fall around my feet. Even though he’s never been with other women, he’s so much better at this than me—it’s just primal instinct to him. Raw and perfect.
Suddenly he scoops me in his arms, lifting me into the air and carrying me over to our makeshift bed. He lays me down and crawls over me, slowly. When he speaks, his voice is hoarse and low. “You don’t want whatever this is between us to stop.” He lowers his head and kisses my breasts, taking his slow, gentle time with each of them. He should write a book for the rest of mankind on how to do this.
“Tell me if I’m right, or tell me to shut up and you don’t want this to last,” he says, moving his mouth and his tongue over the expanse of my stomach, spending quite a few moments at my bellybutton. He’s drawing it out so long my panties are soaked through and I’m almost embarrassed for him to see them. Almost. Until I remember his first reaction to it and the multiple orgasms it led to for me.
“You’re right,” I whisper.
His fingers deftly rip my panties clean off my body. It stings just a bit, but one of those good stings, when the anticipation of what’s to come after the sting is all you’re thinking about.
His body lowers down mine, kissing a trail of fire until his lips find the slippery valley between my thighs.
“Oh, God,” I cry out from the warm sensation of his mouth moving over me. It’s been weeks now that we’ve been back on Earth, and between our searches we’ve spent our afternoons and nights just like this. Over and over again. His hands never stop touching my body, his desire never tires of wanting me. No talk of babies or mating or repopulating the species, just exquisite mind-blowing sex.
So no, I don’t want this to end.
I reach for him and pull him up my body. We’re both trembling with want and I quickly spread my legs to wrap around him and guide him inside me.
“Ah, Kate,” he says my name as he slowly moves over me. “I really don't know a lot about love. Maybe, I don't even know anything about it. But I know you’ve gotten inside me,” he whispers through his kisses. “You’re every thought in my head, you're what makes the blood course though my veins, and I don’t want this to end either.”
His face is too close to mine for him to see me blush, and I’m glad for it. “Really?” I whisper back.
His body stills inside me, and he reaches up and rubs his fingertip over my lips as his brow furrows. “This shouldn't feel like this. Why does it feel like this? Why do I actually feel the pain when I think of losing you, like you're part of my body?”
My breathing comes faster and that spiraling rush of sensation begins to tease and tingle where our bodies are joined. “You’re right,” I say hoarsely. “It’s never felt like this.” I arch my back and squirm beneath him, desperate for the friction, frantic to fall over the edge.
There are no more words between us, just soft moans and heavy breaths. He doesn’t stop until I’m boneless and crying out his name.
As we lay together afterward, we hear a shuffle of feet just outside our door. A throat clears and a knuckle raps three times. “General, sir.”
Rune groans and lifts himself up on his elbow, staring drowsily down at me. “At least he knocked this time before bursting in.”
“I think the slap to his face when he barged in the last time taught him the lesson,” I giggle and untangle myself from him. “I’ll get dressed, you can tell him to come in. Maybe he has some news from this morning’s search.”
Rune jumps up and grabs his pants. “It might have little to do with the slap and more to do with finding me naked with my manhood pointing right at him.”
“It is a sight to behold,” I smile, pulling up my pants.
When Rune sees I’m fully dressed, he opens the door.
Jex looks disheveled and agitated, making a surge of hot adrenaline spike through my chest.
“What?” I say hastily. “What happened? Did someone find them after we came back this afternoon?”
Jex’s eyes dart from me to Rune and his face breaks into a giant smile, “Come, follow me.”
I don’t listen to anything else he says, of course. I run out ahead of him and down the hallway until I see them. Both of them. My father and Claire.
Dad wears Caelum armor for pants, and he notices me right away. He seems lucid and focused. The armor must be helping him. Claire turns when she hears me running and screams my name when she realizes it’s me. I grab her up in my arms and I never want to let her go. She looks healthier, less placid, even heavier somehow, like she hasn’t had a problem finding food to eat. I can’t wait to find a home for us, to settle her down, and keep her safe and smiling just like she is right now.
A universe of possibilities surrounds us, now it’s up to us to decide where to go from here. I’m so happy I’m crying, but I wipe my tears away fast, before Claire mistakes them for sadness.
“There is another finding, Rune,” I hear Jex murmur low. “We just got word from Tore.”
“And what did he report?” Rune asks, facing away from us and our reunion.
“He discovered how Pious programed the ship to go back in time. Rune, he knows how to do it. Do you know what this could mean? Do you know what we could do?”
I hug my sister and father tighter to my chest. I know what this could mean to the Caelum, but I also know what this could me for me and my family. There is one of us still missing. One of us that died with the virus the Caelum brought to wipe us out when they landed. My mother.
And if I can have it my way, we’ll be going back to get her.
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Christine Zolendz, a USA Today Bestseller, resides in New York City with her favorite NYPD detective and their two beautiful daughters. She
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