“Hm.” I guess that made sense.
Nolan looked at Orrean and asked, “Won’t they notice you missing and come back to look for you?”
Orrean gave Nolan what I could only describe as a half-smile. Only one side of his mouth lifted up. “I told them I was staying behind to ensure we do not miss any humans. They will not come looking for me until tomorrow midday.” His speech was a little stilted, but he was easy to understand.
Nolan nodded and I yawned. I had so many more questions, but my mind and body were so worn out from such an emotional day, and all the fighting to top it off, that I was completely drained.
Orrean must’ve noticed because he said, “You can all go to sleep. I will not let anyone else in the house.”
Cal snorted again. “We’re not all sleeping and leaving you awake by yourself. You must think we’re insane.”
Orrean looked at him with a serious expression. “If I wanted to hurt you, I would have done it already. I could have killed you in seconds, or just let the Ferals do it.”
Cal narrowed his eyes. “I do not trust you.”
“Then do not sleep.” Orrean waved him off, then turned to me. “I promise I will protect you and your friends.”
“They’re my family,” I corrected him.
He looked me up and down. “Fair enough.”
Ignoring our exchange, Colt asked, “Why now? Why have the Taoree attacked now when they could have done so two years ago when you first got here?”
Orrean opened his mouth to speak, but it was Nolan who answered, “They wanted to diminish our numbers and use humans to take out the rest of us, so they would have less casualties.”
Colt grimaced and looked at Orrean, eyeing him like it was all his fault.
Orrean nodded. “That is true.”
“Why now, though? What’s changed compared to a year ago?” Cal asked.
Orrean sighed. “Your government started making more demands and the emperor decided he did not want to deal with them anymore. The original plan was to wait five years before attack. So the Independents were taken by surprise as well. I do not know the details of the emperor’s dealings.”
The guys asked him a few more questions, but my mind wandered. Honestly, I was over it. I somehow knew he wasn’t going to hurt us. I knew he would keep us as safe as possible, so I just wanted to go to sleep. I leaned behind Colt and absently rubbed Wes’s back, since he was shaking next to Colt and holding Mandy to his chest. Those two obviously had a connection now after spending so much time together, just surviving. I yawned again.
“Jeremy, are you okay?” Orrean’s voice snapped my attention to him, but I didn’t answer him. He looked at me and I felt like he was looking into my soul. It made me shiver. Then he looked away, but I knew he was still addressing me, “You should sleep.”
“Yeah.” I looked at Colt who raised his brows in question, so I said, “We can still watch in shifts, but I need to sleep.”
“Okay,” he said quietly while brushing my hair off my forehead. “You should go change to get some of the blood off. We’ll find somewhere to bathe tomorrow, okay?”
I looked down at my clothes and was reminded of how much blood and guts I had on me. I grimaced, but said, “Okay.” Then I looked around Colt to make eye contact with Wes. “Come up with me. I’ll help you clean up some.”
Wes just nodded and stood. I got up after kissing Colt on the lips—I thought I heard a small combination of a hiss and a growl, but when I looked around no one was looking at me—and I led my brother upstairs. He didn’t talk the entire time we cleaned up. He only answered my questions by nodding or shaking his head. We came back downstairs and I was happy to see that they had already gotten rid of the bloody blankets and bodies, so we were able to lie back down.
I nodded at Orrean, who kept glancing at me, then I curled up in Colt’s arms with my brother right behind me and closed my eyes. It was only as I drifted off to sleep that I realized Orrean had called them Ferals and none of us had told him that was our name for them. Of all the humans we’d run into since this all began, not one of them had been calling them the same thing as us… I fell asleep before I could analyze it anymore.
When Cal woke me some time later, I sat up right where I was, staying under the blankets and keeping Colt against my side and Wes right beside me. Orrean kept looking over at me, but he would only look for a second at a time before staring off into the distance again. He didn’t say anything to me, and I didn’t ask him any of the questions that were begging to fly off of my tongue.
When I could no longer stay awake, I woke Colt, who sat up against the couch and let me use his lap as a pillow. I loved his smell, even when he was all gross from walking, running, and fighting Ferals. His scent calmed me and made me feel safe. His body felt so amazing and just so right up against me, like we were made for each other. He played with my hair until I fell back asleep, making me feel peaceful and cared for, despite the shitstorm we were in the middle of.
Chapter Twelve
“Explain it to me again,” Nolan’s voice woke me, but I didn’t open my eyes because I wanted to go back to sleep.
“Enimus,” Orrean said something in Taoree.
“Did you just curse at me?” Nolan actually sounded amused.
“Maybe,” he mumbled. “I already explained three times.” Orrean was obviously complaining.
“Explain it again,” Nolan insisted. “Just once more.” I kept my eyes closed, but I was curious to hear what was said, so I shamelessly eavesdropped.
I heard Orrean sigh, but he started talking, “The ships hover using a natural element from my home planet of Orlia. My planet has an outer ring wrapped all the way around—”
“Like Saturn,” Nolan interrupted.
“Sort of. This outer ring is more of a second layer of the planet itself. There are different pieces all over the planet that simply look like they are floating in the air.”
“I don’t understand.”
Orrean sighed again. “It is solid, it grows plants and animals, some Taoree inhabit it. It is like having a second story in your home without having anything visible holding it up, but it covers about fifty percent of the planet. Does that make sense?”
“It’s another level of habitable earth.”
“Yes.”
“Okay, so what does that have to do with your ships?” Nolan asked.
“The outer ring—Oreslum—has a natural element in it that works against gravity. This element—Neilia—pushes against the planet’s gravity to keep itself afloat,” Orrean explained.
“Like a magnet?”
“That is probably close to accurate,” Orrean admitted.
“So your people collected this element and used it to build your ships?” Nolan asked.
“Yes, but the Oreslum—outer ring—could not reproduce it fast enough. That is why our planet is dying. Everything on both the outer and inner rings have been affected. Much of the Oreslum has fallen and crumbled. Most plants and animals have died off…” he stated sadly. “Our… scientists have created, uh,” he was clearly searching for the correct word, “artificial Neilia, but it is not the same. It works for flying ships, but it could not save our planet.” There was a deep sorrow in his voice.
“Wow,” Nolan mumbled.
It was quiet for a moment, and I was thinking about finally opening my eyes, but then Nolan started speaking again, “Do Taoree really have a third eye on their chests?”
“Yes,” Orrean answered, making me furrow my brows. I had never heard of that before.
“And you have tails?”
Huh?
“Yes,” Orrean said, and I knew my eyebrows shot up even though my eyes remained closed.
“And two dicks?”
Orrean answered, “Yes.”
I snapped my eyes open to see both of them looking right at me, but then they both burst out laughing. I rolled my eyes at them and mumbled, “Nice to know you two are having fun.” I had to admit that I was
surprised that Nolan was speaking so freely in front of Orrean, and I decided I would ask him about it later.
“That’s what you get for eavesdropping,” Nolan said through his laughter.
I couldn’t help but ask, “You were kidding about the two dicks thing, right?”
Orrean made a sound that I swore was a giggle, “I only have one, thank you. And no tail or third eye, before you ask.” He continued to giggle, a sound I never could’ve even imagined coming from a Taoree.
“Oh… good,” I said for lack of anything else. I sat up and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. I blinked around, seeing that the sun was starting to peek through the sky. “Were you making up all that stuff about your planet and the ships using that element or whatever?”
“No, that was completely true,” Orrean answered.
I nodded and yawned, then noticed the map spread out on the floor between Nolan and Orrean, who were both sitting on the floor in front of the door facing one another, so I asked, “What are you doing?”
Nolan answered, “I was sick of sitting around, so I went to get the map a few hours ago, even though I couldn’t really see it. Orrean asked me about it, so once it was light enough, we set it up and started talking.” He shrugged. “Orrean marked all the Taoree camps on every map we found yesterday and circled where the Independent camp is, so we’ll know where we’re heading.”
“Where is the camp?”
“In Colorado,” Orrean told me.
“How far away is that?” I asked.
Nolan answered, “We’ll have to avoid Ohio because that’s where the Taoree Legion base is, so we figured we’ll have to walk about seventeen hundred fifty miles, give or take.”
My eyes went wide at the overwhelming number. “How long is that going to take?”
Orrean looked over at me, saying, “Probably close to six weeks,” then he turned away.
“We can’t just take a car?” The thought of walking that far did not sound appealing. At. All.
Still looking away, he said, “No. The Taoree ships know how to track vehicles. It would not be safe.”
I nodded and glanced at the alien who was looking out the window and away from me. I raised my brows at Nolan in question, who just shrugged again, like he wasn’t sure exactly how he ended up in a conversation with a Taoree.
“Hey there, Pudding Pie,” Colt startled me by saying.
I turned to him and when he opened his arms, I went happily into them. I kissed his neck a few times before leaning back to look at him. “Morning.”
He smiled at me, grabbed my cheeks and kissed me thoroughly, and I swore I heard that hissing grunt again, but like everything weird, I just ignored it and concentrated on my boyfriend. We both had morning breath, but at that point, neither of us cared, or could even rectify the breath situation half the time anyway. He still tasted good, like Colt. And that was a flavor I could never get sick of.
He pulled away and whispered, “Let’s find something for everyone to eat, Muffin.”
I wrinkled my nose at him. “Now I want a muffin.”
He laughed as he pulled me to my feet. We grabbed the backpacks on the way to the kitchen since all the food was already inside them, then we dug around for something we could heat up, knowing that it could be our last hot meal for a long time. We decided on oatmeal… not a gourmet meal, but it would be warm going down, and we had a ton of it. Plus, the thought of fixing cold oatmeal while we were traveling was, quite frankly, disgusting.
The others soon woke up and joined us in the kitchen. Well, everyone but Orrean. When breakfast was ready, I ventured into the living room to find him and give him a bowl. He was still sitting on the floor by the front door, so I walked over, holding the bowl out to him.
“You need to eat too, right?” I said when he looked at the bowl, but didn’t take it.
He looked into my eyes as he finally took the stupid thing out of my hand and whispered, “Thank you, Jeremy.”
I nodded and turned to walk away, but thought better of it and turned back to him. “How did you know my name?” I didn’t have to clarify that I was talking about the night at the fence. I knew he understood that.
He stared for a long moment before answering, “I could…” he tilted his head back and forth as if searching for the right word, “sense it.”
“What does that mean? Do you… did you read my mind?” I asked warily.
He tilted his head to the side as he looked up at me. “No, I cannot read your mind, I simply sensed the name when you looked at me.”
He kept staring at me and I decided that there was no way I was going to fully understand what that even meant, so I turned around and walked away before his eyes could become any more intense.
When I got back into the kitchen Colt asked, “You wanna tell us how you know a Taoree?”
I blew out a breath. I had known it was coming, but I didn’t want to tell them because they would be pissed at me for keeping it a secret for so long. I reluctantly began by looking at Cal and Nolan. “Remember when I wanted to check out the Taoree camp when it was first built, but you guys didn’t want to go with me?”
“Yeah,” they both said after a second.
“Well, when I went, I ended up going all the way up to the fence—”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Colt interrupted, looking at his brother and Nolan. “You two let him go to a Taoree camp by himself?”
“You didn’t go with him, either,” Cal argued.
“He didn’t ask me! I didn’t even know he was going,” Colt said in a loud and angry voice.
I put my hand on his arm. “It’s okay Colt. Nothing happened.”
“That,” he gestured toward the living room where Orrean still was, “doesn’t seem like ‘nothing.’”
“Okay,” I relented, “just calm down and I’ll tell you.” I got nods all around, even from Mandy, who was aptly paying attention. “I went all the way to the fence and there was a little hole, so I looked through it. Orrean,” I pointed toward the living room—I had no doubt he could hear everything we were saying, “ended up catching me. He didn’t tell anyone or anything, he just stared. Then he said my name and I ran away.”
“That’s it?” Colt asked.
“That’s it,” I agreed.
“That’s… anticlimactic,” Nolan decided.
“I told you nothing really happened.”
After a while, Colt asked, “Why did you say ‘he’s the eye’ when he first got here?”
“All I could see was his eye through the hole,” I answered easily. They were all staring at me with high eyebrows, so I asked, “What?”
Wes answered, “How did you know it was him if you only saw his eye before?”
I shrugged in answer. I couldn’t tell them I had just somehow—instinctively—known it was him. Or that I dreamt of that night often over the years. I also couldn’t tell them that he looked exactly like the alien in my dreams. That all just sounded crazy, so I shrugged and hoped they wouldn’t ask for further details. It didn’t make sense to me either, so it wasn’t like I was lying… I was just omitting some information. Information that couldn’t possibly be relevant anyway.
“Are you all ready to go?” Orrean suddenly appeared in the doorway, scaring the crap out of us.
I looked around, “Uh… I think so?” Everyone nodded, so I said, “Yeah, we’re ready.”
Orrean said, “I think we need to stop at the camp before we get on the way.”
“The Taoree camp?” I asked him.
“Yes. I have some things that could help us,” he said before turning around and walking back into the living room.
We all followed, grabbing the packs on the way.
***
We had walked through the woods, almost the exact path I had taken the night I met Orrean, but when we reached the fence, we walked along the perimeter until we came to a large electronic gate. Orrean pressed a bunch of buttons and the gate swung open. Apparently the aliens still had electr
icity.
He led us through several rows of those hut-like buildings I had seen through the fence. He made so many turns I started losing track, but I still tried to remember… just in case. He started to slow down as we approached a large building. It was the same shape as the huts—round—and made mostly of wood with a metal pointed roof, only this building was at least five times as big as the huts that surrounded it. It also seemed to be in the center of the camp, if I were to guess. I glanced around and noticed an alien spaceship on the ground behind it. The ship was bigger than my and Colt’s homes combined.
Orrean headed toward the door of the giant hut, but before he reached it, another Taoree stepped out of the door, holding up one of those stick things Orrean had used last night on the Ferals. He was pointing it right at me and yelling in Taoree, “Renum demano Eo shoccite.”
Orrean half stepped in front of me and grabbed my arm, pushing me completely behind him. I shoved Wes behind me. I glanced back and saw that Colt, Cal, and Nolan had surrounded both Wes and Mandy.
Orrean shouted, “Renum demano bo zun shoccite. Emm nilvus tami yiy.” Humans do not kill. My slaves they are.
Holy fuck. I understood that? Oh fuck, fuck, fuck. He called us slaves. His slaves.
The other alien responded, “Uoy met tam?” All of them?
Orrean answered as I tried to pull away, but he held on even tighter, “Zin… yu uncui.” Yes… for now. Holy shit. I tried to pull out of Orrean’s grip, but he held me so tightly, I would probably have bruises.
I peeked around Orrean’s tall frame and saw the other alien nodding, but he had lowered his weapon. In Taoree he continued talking to Orrean, but I understood every word he said, “The cleanup crew, I am in charge. I was to head out, do you need me first, Commander?”
I glanced over at my family behind me, terrified that I had led them into this trap. They were all standing there with wide frightened eyes, but I didn’t think they could understand what was being said. Only I had that freaking pleasure.
Taoree: Taoree Trilogy #1 Page 17