His to Save

by Selina Coffey

  He hadn’t been found in the sector, obviously, but he had been seen. Now he was gone, and so was Ann. It was easy to put the two together. Rager could only hope it was the right assumption to make.

  “I’ll get some soldiers down here,” Rager said and went outside to wait after he made the calls.

  There was an oppressive air in the house, as if the people inside already mourned the child they had lost. Rager hoped he’d brought a spark of hope back to the place, but it wasn’t enough. Not yet. Not until Ann was back home.

  John followed him out and spoke as they waited. “In the old world, people went missing all the time. We blamed you guys. Well, little green versions of you guys.”

  “Not a bad theory.” Rager had to agree.

  “No. But most of the time, it was just a matter of people didn’t want to think about the truth. Children, adults, all were slaughtered by the hands of other people. Most of the time the people were sick, mentally, you know? The kind of sick that made them do really bad things. We hoped that wouldn’t bleed over to this new world you all made for us. Now, well, Mary’s up there, in that room of hers, holed up with the babies, because the truth is, that sickness did follow us to this world. It’s not your fault,” John quickly amended, “it’s not something you can do anything about. It’s something in us, evil some people like to call it.”

  “I understand.” Rager nodded. “My own world hasn’t found a cure for that either.”

  “It’s in you guys too, then?” John asked, his face down, his shoulders slumped.

  “I think it’s in all life, even in the animal world. It’s not something we can stop, it would seem,” Rager responded, his eyes on the horizon, waiting for that transporter that would bring his soldiers.

  “No. It doesn’t seem we can. Except isolate it and keep it away from the rest of the world.”

  “When it’s as bad as this, yes. It has to be isolated, dealt with, by whatever means necessary.”

  “You’re right.”

  The two men stepped down from the steps as the transporter came down to the ground. They both got into Rager’s transporter and John sat down in the passenger seat. Rager took the driver’s seat, and they headed out, both full of hope that this would be the last time they’d have to go out.

  It took a while, longer than Rager remembered, but they made it back to the remains of the highway that headed in the direction of the bunker. He became nauseous about an hour after they started, but he pushed it down. The sensation became stronger the longer he drove, and John took over.

  “I think it’s her. This feels strange, like it’s someone’s sickness, not mine. But I can feel it.” He pushed his head down between his knees, and breathed in deeply, gently.

  “She’s ill then,” John surmised. “Skye is with your troops, right?”

  “Yeah, she’s recovered enough, so she came with them.”

  “Good,” Ann’s father said, and steered the transporter off the road. “It’s up this hill, and then there should be a little shack. The entrance is in there.”

  “Alright. Set it down. Is that your vehicle there?” Rager asked when the truck came into view.

  “No, ours is that old SUV over there. I don’t know who that truck belongs to.”

  “Someone’s here then. Set it down.”

  John did as instructed and then put on some armor that one of the soldiers handed to him once they made it outside.

  “You stay at the back, until it’s clear, understand?” Rager barked at John, already in battle mode.

  “Yes, I do.” John nodded, the helmet bobbed on his head in a way that almost made Rager laugh, but he just gave a curt nod instead.

  “Let’s go.” Two of the soldiers moved in, set some explosives on the hatch when they determined it would open, and came out.

  A moment later the shack blew apart and the hatch was open.

  “Come down here, you alien scum. Let me show you what I’ve got for you.” Yes, that was definitely Rex’s voice, Rager thought.

  “Send the drone down,” he ordered, and the soldiers went to the hatch, a small drone in one’s hands. The other one took a set of controls from a patch on their pant leg and began to move the droid down into the hatch. A screen appeared, and they could all see Rex stood there, a psychotic grin on his face as he stared down the barrel of a rifle at the droid.

  “Tag him,” Rager ordered and Rex fell. He knew the droid had sent out a tranquilizer. “Let me in.”

  Rager quickly made his way down the rungs and looked around. He couldn’t see Ann or anyone else for that matter.

  He saw a few doors and went to them as the other soldiers came down. Rex was knocked out on the floor, and Rager didn’t miss the not so gentle kick John gave him before he rushed to one door in particular. Rager could see there was a bar blocking that door.

  “Bring Skye down!” Rager called out and rushed to push the bar off the door for John.

  “Ann!” his mate’s father cried and ran into the room.

  There was a woman, large with child, on the bed, but she didn’t respond. Rager knew it was his mate, he could feel her now, the fever that raged in her system, and it nearly knocked him to his knees. He had to steady himself and leaned into the wall as Skye rushed in, medical kit in hand.

  She took one look at Ann and turned to Rager. “We need a hospital. Now. And Meg too. I don’t know that I can do this on my own.”

  “We’ve brought some of our medical robots. Let’s get her out of here and in a hospital. Even dusty will be better than this place,” Rager said and went to pick up his mate to carry her up.

  “Take him to the mothership and lock him in one of the high-security cages.” Rager gave Rex his own kick as he walked by him. Then he walked back and kicked him again. It wasn’t as satisfying as a punch to the head, but the man was passed out.

  He carried Ann up and sat her down on the seat. John stood behind Rager and guided him in the direction of the hospital. Skye was in the other transporter with some soldiers. The others would wait for a new transporter. They had orders to kill Rex if he so much as looked like he thought about escaping. He was not to make it out of their sight.

  Ann was in bad shape, and Rager wanted nothing more than to hold her, but he could feel how sick she was. He could tell they were running out of time. Just hold on, he whispered to himself, over and over.

  It took twenty minutes, but they finally found a hospital and landed on the top of the building. Rager picked her up, carried her out, and they ran through the door his soldier kicked open. They ran down dark halls until they found the labor ward.

  “Down here,” the soldier called, and they all followed her. Another soldier had one robot in hand, while the other carried a box that contained the larger one.

  Rager followed along, with John behind them, until they came to a room that looked right. Skye was right, it was dusty, but it was good enough for now. He put Ann down on the bed, just as she scrunched up. He thought she was awake, but he could see she wasn’t.

  “I need power in here. Who can get me that?” Skye looked at Rager, and he nodded at a soldier bringing lines down from the transporters. “He can, plug whatever you need into that. The transporter can handle it.

  “Awesome,” Skye said and went to wash her hands. “Get her clothes off and let’s have a look at her.”

  Rager began to undress his mate and took the blanket a soldier found in a cupboard. There were people everywhere, but somehow it was all still orderly and ran without a hitch. Good training, he supposed.

  “She’s in labor, I think,” Skye said from her place beside Ann. “Her clothes were soaked, and I can feel her pulling into herself, even though she’s unconscious. Her body is working to do what it needs to do. But right now, from the smell of her, it’s the last thing she needs to do.”

  “Deploy that small robot. It will start to administer whatever she needs.” If it’s not too late were words he refused to say. He could feel she was close to death, and
he used every ounce of will he had to reach out to her, to bring her back to the land of the living.

  The soldier set the smallest of the two robots on a table beside Ann and an arm came out. It scanned her entire body, then administered two injections.

  “Pain medicine and something that must be an antibiotic?” Skye looked at Rager for confirmation.

  “Looks like it.” He frowned, then spoke. “Let’s clean her up, find out what her injuries are.”

  Rager hadn’t seen it when he undressed her, he’d been too busy protecting her from the view of the soldiers, but the second he turned her over to swipe at her back with a cloth doused in alcohol, he saw the angry red and black wound in her back. “Fuck, Skye, look at this!”

  “Fucking hell. I need to clean that, maybe even remove some of the skin. I need scalpels, people. Look in the drawers, see what you can find.”

  The small robot moved back into life, and a new arm came out, this one with a scalpel in hand. The first arm came out with a small nozzle on the end, and the wound was washed, dead skin cut away, then filled with an ointment that Rager knew would start to work immediately. Still, Ann was just out of reach, but the fever started to slowly fade. He didn’t feel so hot, or ill.

  Then the robot pushed Ann further onto her side, and the saw the other wound. It was deeper, and went straight into her spine, from the looks of it. They might be too late, that wound said. The infection might be too deep to save her.

  18

  She could feel Rager now. For so long he felt as if he was far away, but now, she felt him near her. He gave her strength, though it felt like a futile effort. She was so far gone, she and the baby.

  She felt pain like it was a flare that remained after a bright flash. The linger of odd shadows, once the light is gone. It was there, she knew she felt it, but it was distanced from her. She felt the fever though, it raged around her, this fire that burned in cycle, over and over, without end.

  She thought she heard the baby, a small voice, a cry, but she wasn’t sure. Maybe she was only delirious, maybe this wasn’t real. Maybe she was dead already and didn’t know.

  “Stay with me, Ann. Don’t leave me.”

  She could hear Rager’s voice, and she tried to open her eyes, but her eyelids felt as if they’d been taped down. She tried to lift her hand, to reach for him, but something held it down. Or so it felt like.

  Ann distanced herself from it all, drew back into the darkness, where the pain didn’t nag at her, where the fire didn’t burn so hot through her body and brain.

  “She’s not responding.”

  Skye’s voice drew her out of the darkness, but even that couldn’t keep her fully awake.

  “Are there more powerful drugs?” she heard Skye ask.

  “The robot will give her what she needs.”

  Ann drew back as the fire came again, melting away her resistance to the darkness. She wanted to wake up, to be a part of the world again, but the fire hurt so much.

  “It’s cleaning the wound in her back, that one I think goes right into her spine.”

  “That can’t be good,” Ann tried to say, but her lips wouldn’t move. She realized she’d responded to Skye’s voice, but again, the darkness called to her.

  A pain pierced through even the numbing darkness, a pain that felt like a needle had just punctured her spinal cord, and in the darkness she screamed. It was loud, it rang around the empty space, and came back at her, just as pain gripped her down below. Pain that felt as if it wanted to rip her hips apart and leave her split right up the middle.

  Ann clutched at… nothing. There was nothing to hold onto, nothing to push against as pain and fire consumed her. This was not supposed to happen. This was not what she wanted. She wanted her mate, her baby, her parents. Her mom.

  “Momma!” she called the word out into the darkness as the pain in her lower abdomen subsided. “Momma, I can’t do this alone!”

  But her mother wasn’t there.

  “I’m here, Ann, I won’t leave you, sweetheart.” Rager’s voice again, his finger on her cheek to dry the tear she didn’t know had fallen. “Come back to us, baby, please.”

  “Her blood pressure is too high, I think she’s diving into eclampsia.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “The baby will have to come out. Can the robot do surgery?”

  Ann wanted to scream, to tell them to wait, she could do this, but she couldn’t even wake up, so how could she give birth to her baby? She’d wanted to go through the whole experience, to feel it all, after she’d watched her mother do it.

  “Fuck, it’s too high! Get that machine ready now!” Skye shouted at someone, and Ann felt the pressure of a cuff around her arm. She heard the beep as the machines measured her heart rate, her blood pressure, and oxygen levels. “Somebody get Meg here now!”

  Ann could hear the panic in Skye’s voice, she wanted to tell her to stay calm, it would be alright, but the darkness called just as the pain began again, and then the fire swarmed back into life.

  Ann retreated, far away, to escape the agony that invaded her, that pervaded her body. She retreated back into the past, to a time when she had best friends, and a crush on the hottie next door, to a time when her Mom was her main best friend, above everyone else.

  “What are you reading?” Ann asked her mother, who was curled up in the window seat of their house. Sunlight turned her hair into a halo that dazzled Ann. She’d always wanted her mother’s beautiful blond hair, but she had her father’s dark hair instead.

  “A romance novel, my love. Something light and fun. What do you have?”

  Ann looked down at the book, unsure all of a sudden. “Oh, it’s a horror novel. Something I found in the school library. Teenaged werewolves and vampires, you know?”

  “We all need our escapes, don’t we dear. Come up here and sit with me.” Mary moved over and Ann, barely 13, moved to snuggle at her mom’s side. “Shall we go to the movies later? It’s Saturday, and you know what that means.”

  “We can do whatever we want.” Ann grinned. She didn’t care what they did, she just liked to spend time with her mom.

  “Want to invite your friends?” Mary asked, and tilted her head. Ann noticed there were flames in her eyes but ignored the twin flares of orange. It wasn’t weird at all that orange had appeared in those light blue eyes.

  “No, just us tonight, I think. And Dad if he wants to come.”

  “I think he’ll be at work, but we can go by ourselves. We’ll see that new romantic comedy. The one with that actor you like so much.”

  “Evan Andrews. He’s so gorgeous!” Ann giggled and her mom tickled her abdomen. The tickle became painful for a moment, but Ann frowned and moved away.

  “Sorry, honey. Why don’t you go change and I’ll get ready too? We can go eat after we go to the pool.”

  “Sure,” Ann said without even blinking over the mention of the pool. It all made sense here, even when it didn’t.

  It was better than that other world. Ann screamed as fire burned her all over again, and then pushed it back, drew even further back into herself, into the darkness. There was no Mom here, no Dad, and definitely no Rager.

  This was a cold world, an ice age of mammoths and bears so large they could kill a man with the swipe of a paw. She was cold, naked, and people stood on a hill to look at her. She pulled her arms around herself, to hide her nudity, to try and ward off the cold. It didn’t work, it was still cold.

  “Help me!” she called to the people on the hill, but they left her. Turned away, wrapped in their furs and leather, and left her.

  She was naked, alone, in the cold and snow. She tried to move, to find somewhere to hide, but the skin of her feet was frozen to the ground. She looked down in horror and screamed all over again. Her feet were fused to the ground!

  “Help me! Rager, please! Get me out of here!” Her brain screamed the words, but he wasn’t there, not in that cold place.

  She could see, in the distance
, an orange glow that reminded her of just how cold she was. She sank to the ground, unable to move, unable to fight her way out of this place.

  “Momma,” she muttered again, and in an instant, she was back in the living room, cradled in her mother’s arm in the window seat.

  “What movie do you want to see?”

  Ann looked at her mother and thought. She’d already forgotten she’d answered the question.

  A feeling took over, a sensation of being pulled down a drain as she sank into herself, made her close her eyes. Then pain ripped her apart.

  “Rager!” she screamed his name as she came back to life, fully back to life, if for only a moment. There were bright lights and darkness. Faces that she couldn’t make out stared down at her, and she was in an unfamiliar place. Where was she? What was happening? “Rager?”

  The name came out pitifully, full of the fear and anxiety she felt.

  “I’m here, honey. Skye’s here, and Meg. They’re doing their best, Ann. Stay with us baby.” He looked down at her, his orange eyes aflame as he smiled. “Don’t go, Ann, please don’t go.”

  But a searing pain across her lower abdomen spun her back into the darkness, away from the light, away from the face she adored the most. His face.

  She didn’t go so far away this time. She drifted in the darkness, able to hear the people in the real world, but not able to respond.

  “Her blood pressure is rising again.” Skye’s voice drifted away, and Ann fell into soft nothingness.

  She wasn’t aware of anything, and finally the pain was gone. Voices were a background noise as she walked in her garden, at her home with Rager, a place where she felt at peace and quiet. The noise was gone, as was the pain, the deep burn that came with the flames, and the fear. She heard a baby cry, and turned to see her child, in a crib, over by a tall rose bush.

  She went to the baby and looked down. The child with a light fuzz of dark hair, smiled up at her, happy as it stretched in the crib. It was dressed all in white, and for a moment, she was confused because she didn’t know its gender or name. She was the child’s mother, surely she should know?