by Sophie Stern
The man keeps running, but I run faster. He’s gaining momentum and for some reason, no one else steps forward to stop him. I don’t blame them. Most of the people milling about are either tired from long journeys or completely new to the planet and don’t know how to behave here yet. For all they know, running through terminal buildings is a normal occurrence.
It’s not.
None of this is normal.
Lana continues to walk while the man runs, but he’s almost reached her.
“Lana!” I yell suddenly. “Run!” Her body stiffens at my voice, but she doesn’t turn around. She just drops her bag and starts to run as fast as she can. Her friend steps aside and looks back, but doesn’t take off running. Apparently she’s not worried about her own safety. The man doesn’t seem to care about her, though. His eyes are focused on Lana. He growls in frustration, but her quick take-off is enough to slow him down momentarily because he didn’t expect that. He turns, attempting to follow her change of direction. It’s now that I know I’m ready. It’s time to make my move.
It’s time for me to leap.
It’s time for me to save the girl.
I dive forward, throwing myself against the man’s body. He cries out as I ram my body into him and the two of us tumble to the ground. It’s not surprising that this hurts. I’m huge and muscular, after all, and him? He’s practically emaciated. He looks like he’s been starved.
Then I realize that’s exactly the situation.
He’s not Sapphiran.
He’s definitely not blue.
No, this man is pale from years of being in the darkness. He’s thin like he hasn’t gotten enough food. He’s Alipoiaen. He’s from her planet. He’s from Lana’s world.
“What do you want?” I pin him to the ground with a growl. “What do you want?” My hand is on his throat, pushing down, but the man just glares at me.
No response.
“What do you want!?” I yell this time, screaming into his face. I’m completely losing my cool, but I can’t help it. He was going to get her. Attack her. He wanted Lana: there’s no doubt about that. Maybe he was after her friend, too, but I don’t think so. Something tells me he wanted her and no one else.
Something tells me this isn’t the kind of guy who fails a mission.
A hand lands on my shoulder.
“Station security can take it from here,” a deep voice says. I turn to see Axel looking at me with a questioning glance. “You did well,” he says, lowering his voice, and I allow Axel to pull me away from the man. Instantly, a group of heavily armed men and women surround the suspect and pull him to his feet.
Axel motions for them to take him away, and they do. Then he turns to me.
“What the hell?” He raises an eyebrow.
“What do you mean, ‘what the hell?’ He was going to attack her.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes,” a quiet voice sounds, and we both turn to see Lana standing beside me with a horrified expression on her face.
“Lana?” I look at her, and she’s shaking. Frightened. I can smell the fear rolling off her in waves, and I do something I’m not supposed to do. I grab Lana, and I pull her into my arms, and I wrap my arms around her. “Tell me,” I murmur, and she relaxes against my body.
If Axel is judging me for my change of heart, he’s smart enough not to say anything.
“He’s the man who killed my father,” she whispers. “And he wants to kill me, too.”
“Why?” Axel growls. He reaches for Lana, but stops before he touches her. This is good because I consider Axel a friend and I’d hate to have to be the one who rips his arms off.
“Because we hid the senator,” she whispers. Her face is buried in my chest and I can barely hear her mumbling through her tears. “They wanted to kill him, but they couldn’t find where we’d hidden him, so they killed my father instead. They killed Bapatrialea. They killed him and they didn’t even care.”
So that’s what happened.
I look up and see the shocked expression on Axel’s face. My father is beside me now.
“Lana?” He asks. “Are you all right, dear?”
She looks up from my chest and makes eye contact with my father. Then Lana shakes her head, but she doesn’t go to him. I think, for a second, that she’s going to, but she seems to be comfortable in my arms for some reason.
“He came for me, Gerald,” she says. “Harper came for me.”
Then she faints, and chaos erupts.
***
Harper, as it turns out, is one of the leaders of the rebel group who destroyed the planet. He hated Lana’s father with a passion: almost as much as he hated outsiders. My father fills us in while we’re waiting for Lana to regain consciousness.
“I should wait for her,” Kitty, her friend, says.
“It’s all right, dear,” Gerald says gently. “You need to go with the others to your planet orientation. It’s how you’ll learn your way around the city and the planet.”
“But-”
“He’s right,” I say. “I don’t want to separate you from your friend, but there’s nothing you can do right now. The best thing for you is to go with the other people from your planet and get settled in your new home. Lana will stay with me and my father tonight.” Father looks me a surprised look, but stays silent. “We’ll be in touch.”
Kitty’s eyes narrow. She seems irritated and perhaps even a little angry, but the look vanishes from her face almost as quickly as it appeared. Strange.
“All right,” she says with a smile. “But please let her know I’m thinking of her.”
“Of course,” I say coolly. I can’t quite put a finger on why I don’t like this woman. Perhaps it’s because she stepped aside while her friend was running for her life. Who does that? Still, I’m not making the best judgments about people today, so I avoid saying anything further.
“Miss, if you’ll follow me,” a Sapphiran guard motions for her to follow him out of the room, and she does. I breathe a sigh of relief when she leaves, and my father shoots me a strange look.
“That’s Lana’s best friend,” Gerald says. “She should have been allowed to stay.”
“No, he’s right,” Doctor Sarah says, looking up at us, and I appreciate her supporting me. “The less people here when she wakes up, the better. She’s already going to feel overwhelmed.”
“Shouldn’t she have a familiar face here when she wakes up?” Father asks.
“She’ll have one. You. Come here.”
My father moves to sit beside Sarah, who is at Lana’s side.
“There’s nothing wrong with her. She just got scared. Her heart rate is normalizing now and in a few minutes, the potaliam fluids will kick in and she should wake up.”
“Is fainting like this normal for someone from Alipoiaen?” I ask, not sure why I’m suddenly so worried about her. Sarah looks up at me and nods.
“Each planet is unique and each group of people from those planets is different. I’m not as familiar with the Alipoiaen people as I am, say, Martians, but I can tell you that Lana’s body was overwhelmed and essentially shut down.”
“Don’t most people wake up right away when this happens?” Gerald asks, and I nod.
“Yes, that’s what I thought, too,” I add.
Sarah smiles. “Many people only faint for a few minutes,” she says. “People like me, for example. When we’re knocked out, we bounce right back. Lana seems to need a little more time, but that’s okay. She may feel weak later when she’s up, so make sure you stay close to her at all times. She won’t have any permanent damage, though.”
“Good,” a quiet voice says, and we all hurry over to look down at Lana. “I’d hate to think I’d feel like this forever.”
“Hey there, sleepyhead,” Sarah says gently, tucking a strand of Lana’s hair back. “How are you feeling?”
“Bad,” Lana says.
“She feels bad,” my father and I say at the same time. Then he adds, �
�Can you do anything, doctor?”
Sarah just chuckles. “Well, she did take quite a tumble when she passed out. Give her a little bit of time to recover.” She moves a device over Lana’s body that looks like a sort of wand. It sends readings into the holograph chart about Lana’s head, and I start trying to decipher what they’re saying.
I must look nervous, because Sarah looks over at me and smiles gently.
“She’s going to be just fine, Cody,” she says.
I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
Lana’s going to be fine, and everything’s going to be okay.
Chapter Five
Lana
When I’m released from the medical ward, I have to answer questions about the rebels on my planet. I give the people questioning me as much information as I can, but the truth is that I don’t know why Harper followed me here. He’s in custody now, but Cody and Gerald couldn’t really tell me what happens next. Maybe they just didn’t want to. I’m not sure.
From what I can tell, there’s not exactly a planet to go home to. Will they just send Harper to prison? Will they send him to another planet? I don’t know. I’m not sure how many more of these questions I can handle, anyway, before I go crazy.
Cody seems to notice my distress before the guards questioning me do because he places his hand on my back and tells the guard that it’s time for us to leave.
“This young woman has been through a lot,” he says. “And while I can understand your need for information, it’s my prerogative to ensure she receives the care she needs to fully recover.”
“What does that even mean?” One of the guards says. She sets her hands on the table and leans forward angrily. Her blue eyes flash darker and darker until they’re almost black.
“It means,” Cody glares at her, and his eyes, too, begin to grow dark. “That the senator and I are taking her home so she can recover. If you have any more questions, send a hologram or ask me tomorrow. Come on, Lana.” He carefully helps me up and guides me out of the room. The other guards don’t say anything else.
“Wow,” I whisper. “That was incredible.”
“What was?” He looks down at me. He’s so much taller than me that I suddenly feel very, very small.
“You just told them it was over, and then it was.” I shake my head. “I’ve never…I don’t know how to…well, I don’t think anyone would listen if I tried to say something like that.”
“Lana, listen to me.” He reaches for my chin and tilts it up so I’m looking directly at him. Cody doesn’t seem to mind that his father is there or that there are other people lurking around. His attention is fully focused on me. “You are brave and you are strong, okay?”
“Okay,” I whisper, but I’m not sure that I believe it.
He sighs. “We’re going to work on your confidence, love, because you are much stronger than you give yourself credit for. You’ve been through a lot and now we’re going to get you out of here, okay?”
“All right,” I whisper, and we walk quietly through the terminal and out to a waiting hover vehicle. Cody, Gerald, and I all climb in the backseat. There’s actually a driver waiting in the car. He doesn’t ask where to go. He just starts driving, and I find myself leaning against Cody during the ride.
I shouldn’t.
Even I know that this much physical contact between strangers is uncalled for and wrong. I should keep my hands and my body to myself, at least until I get to know him a little better because the truth is that this guy was pretty rude to me earlier. Maybe he was just feeling stressed because of his father. I’m not sure. I do know that I feel more comfortable with Cody than I ought to.
“How’s your head?” Gerald asks. He keeps his voice low, which I appreciate.
“Still throbbing,” I ask.
“It won’t be too much longer,” Cody offers. “And then we’ll get you to bed, all right?”
I look up at him sharply, but he just chuckles.
“Not like that, love, although I certainly wouldn’t be one to complain.”
I blush brightly, but no one says anything else, so I just close my eyes as we drive through Diamond. I don’t need to see the big, towering buildings to know this city is very different from the place I came from. I don’t need to look out of the hover car’s windows to realize that I’m in a completely new world, a place that’s nothing like the planet I came from.
How long will it take me to grow comfortable here?
How long until I’m satisfied with this place?
Although I lived on Alipoiaen my entire life, I never considered myself to be awkward or strange until I landed here. Home felt comfortable and safe. Now the world feels big or strange. I don’t feel safe at all except when Cody touches me, and I don’t think I should feel that way. I can’t explain why his touch manages to calm me.
I just know that it does.
Eventually, the vehicle slows and we climb out of the hovercar. It leaves quickly, and I wonder where it’s going. Perhaps it’s a professional driver who has to take someone else somewhere, or maybe the driver is just going to park the vehicle. Either way, the car leaves silently, and I am once again alone with Cody and Gerald.
This is it.
The next part of my life.
Am I ready for what lies ahead?
I turn, and when I see the house in front of me, every reasonable, coherent thought flees from my mind.
“Where are we?” The house we’re standing in front of is bigger than my entire village back on Alipoiaen. It’s huge, really. It’s four stories tall with windows from top to bottom and side to side. There are balconies and porches and trimmings. I bet a hundred people could live in this place, but I get the feeling that’s not the case. It’s like an enormous palace and I’m standing in front of it.
“This is my home, Lana,” Gerald says gently.
“And what about you?” I look at his son, Cody. “Do you live here, too?” I kind of want him to say yes. I shouldn’t, but I sort of love the idea of staying under the same roof as the sexy alien man. He’s big and strong, and even though I get the impression he doesn’t like me much, I think there’s something more to it than him just being cranky. He did stand up for me, after all. He protected me. Saved me.
There must be more to Cody than what meets the eye. I think he’s been hurt before or he’s scared of something. None of that has anything to do with me, but I suddenly find myself wanting to help him instead of wanting to run away from this awful planet. Maybe Sapphira isn’t so bad after all.
“This is also my dwelling,” Cody says gruffly.
“It’s huge.” Bigger than any home I’ve ever seen before.
“I’m glad you’re impressed, love,” he murmurs, and I step away. He shouldn’t call me that, and I shouldn’t want him to. I don’t know much about propriety on Sapphira, but on Alipoiaen, that sort of closeness wouldn’t be acceptable. On Alipoiaen, that sort of intimate gesture or title would be reserved for couples.
But Alipoiaen is gone now, I remind myself. And you’re alone on Sapphira.
“It’ll be just fine,” Gerald says kindly, and he offers his elbow to me. I know this custom. I know he expects me to hold onto him, although I’m not sure why. He wants to make some sort of welcoming gesture, perhaps. Maybe he wants me to think he’s being a good host. I’m not sure. I’ll go with it, though. I can do that much.
“Where are you taking me?” I ask Gerald, but the answer is obvious. We’re going inside that huge house now. I’m not sure why. Am I supposed to live here now? Will I be a prisoner? I don’t know.
Cody turns me toward himself, and I let him. I let this man, this stranger, touch me. It doesn’t feel wrong. “Lana,” he says. “We’re going to protect you. There could be more rebels who sneaked onto the planet.”
“Hidden Planet my ass,” I roll my eyes. “You know, for a planet that prides itself on being isolated from the rest of the universe, you sure suck at security.” I shouldn’t be so hard on th
em. They are taking me in, after all. I suppose I just thought that here I’d be safe, happy. I thought that with the destruction of my planet and the loss of my father, I had nothing else that could be stolen away.
I didn’t think the rebels would follow me here.
“I know,” he says, and this admission surprises me. “We’re trying to change things.”
“Okay,” I say slowly, looking back at the house. “So I’ll stay with you for awhile, and then I’ll…move out?”
It’s a question.
Am I asking permission?
Am I asking the alien man whether or not I’m allowed to go live on my own?
Oh, I should not be asking for permission, but I am.
Cody reaches for my cheek and strokes it softly: another intimate gesture. Is this a casual way of touching someone you’ve just met? Is this a Sapphiran thing? On my planet, this would never happen unless I was in a relationship with the person, and Cody and I are not in any sort of relationship. He doesn’t seem uncomfortable or shy around me, though. Touching me doesn’t seem to make him uncomfortable or nervous.
I pull away, and he doesn’t frown or respond. Instead, he guides me toward the house.
“You are not a prisoner, Lana,” he tells me. “My father wanted you to stay with us from the beginning, but I didn’t think it was a good idea.”
That makes me stop.
“Why not? Were you worried I would hurt your father?” I would never do anything to hurt anyone, but especially not Gerald. Not after all it took to actually get him to my village. He had reached out to my father ahead of time and we knew he was coming. We were expecting him. Why would we invite Gerald to our village, only to push him away? Only to hurt him?
“Yes,” he says simply, and I don’t try to hide the disappointment and pain on my face.
“You don’t even know me,” I hiss. “Why the fuck would you think that of me? Do you truly think so lowly of me? Is this how you treat every woman you’ve just met? Like she’s a thief or a murderer? Or perhaps you only think this way about people from planets other than your own.”