Mutual Trust

by Lea Linnett

  “Yumin shekra!” Urek spat, glaring up at her. He signaled with his hand as he rose from the floor, and before Noe could react, three of the security team had grabbed her.

  “Noe!” Marek’s grip had relaxed, and Bree shot forward, but then his arm wrapped around her chest. “Let go of me, Marek!”

  The hybrid only squeezed tighter, anchoring her to him. His jaw ran along her own to keep her from squirming, and with their bodies joined from head to toe, she couldn’t move. She fought his grip, but her body remembered how close they had been just a short while earlier, and a shiver ran up her spine when his hot breath fanned along her cheek, her core sparking. “I cannot let you go, Bree.”

  “She needs my help! I won’t abandon her, and I’ll fight you if you try to force me to,” she hissed, and Marek’s lips brushed her ear.

  “Please, trust me,” he whispered. “I said I would keep you safe. I can help you both, but not if you anger him.”

  Bree froze. “What are you saying?”

  “Marek!” Urek was staring at them, his eyes narrowed. “Kinik yumin tihira, mak lisiratekk ce, sheleira ve.”

  “Salak yumin shalairasara ve!” Marek replied, his words vibrating against her back.

  “Miyumin saketh. Lisiratekk ce, sheleira ve.”

  “Yumin lisira ve, salak tessik miira?”

  Bree’s stomach turned as the conversation drew on. She and Noe were being talked about as if they weren’t there, in a language that neither of them could understand. It was a lonely feeling, even with Marek’s familiar hand splayed across her stomach.

  “He says if you continue to fight, you will not be fed,” Marek finally said, loud enough for Noe to hear, and the words sent a trickle of ice down Bree’s back. Still struggling against her captors’ grip, Noe sneered.

  “Well, you know what you can tell him?” She turned back to Urek, puffing out her chest, and then she spit in the levekk’s face. “Tell him he can go fuck himself.”

  The entire room went silent as Urek stared at her, unblinking. He wiped his face slowly, shaking the drops from his hand with open disgust while Noe bared her teeth in challenge. That was one thing Bree had always admired in her—she never backed down.

  But she wished she would as Urek leaned in close, his alien eyes predatory.

  “Lara toshik ve. Toci yumin sini.” Marek didn’t translate, just gently nudged Bree along while the others marched Noe from the cafeteria. Silas had disappeared, the small crowd gathering around the cafeteria’s entrances somehow hiding his massive bulk. “Lairesk en citeira!” Urek bellowed. “Te Marek, kerna, mi’ik lairaar en yassira.”

  Their journey back to Bree’s room was a noisy one. Noe fought her captors’ hold the entire way, yelling obscenities at them in English and French, but Bree was quiet. Marek’s hands were firm yet gentle on her arms as he led her. A soft cage, as they had always been.

  When they reached her room, he squeezed her arm before releasing her. “I cannot stay,” he muttered quietly while the guards were busy with Noe. “Try to calm her.”

  “Why should I?” Bree asked, frowning at him. He looked guilty, and somehow that stoked the angry flame that had been growing in her belly. “She’s right to want to leave.”

  “I know.”

  They stared at each other, silently. A standoff.

  “I will do what I can to keep you both safe,” he promised, and his fingers flitted along her own in a touch so discrete she barely felt it. “To get you out of here.”

  “Marek…” She didn’t know what she wanted to say, and part of her wanted to pull him close, but she pushed the impulse down as the guards filed from the room. Marek glanced at them once as they passed, before looking Bree in the eye.

  “Please, trust me,” he said again, and then he was gone, the door sliding shut between them.

  Bree touched the door, her heart aching. She did trust him. She trusted him more than anyone else in this place.

  But a wave of dread crept through her as she remembered the alien words issuing from his mouth, the band of his arm across her shoulders. What if she was wrong? What if trusting Marek wasn’t the right choice?

  What if, in the end, Marek would always be more levekk than human?

  19

  “What was your human doing outside her room?” Urek snarled when Marek entered his office.

  Your human… The words shouldn’t have sparked satisfaction in Marek, especially coming from his brother, but they did nonetheless. Not an hour earlier, she’d been in his arms, and he had been able to forget that there was a world outside that cared about his blood and his status.

  Urek leaned against his desk, vibrating with an energy that Marek had seldom seen since his brother’s days as a soldier. He almost seemed excited, his claws digging into the metal edge of the desk and his eyes lighting up with fury.

  “I decided the human needed more exer—”

  “Needed? Or wanted?” Urek spat. “It hardly seems necessary after you took the human outside against direct orders. And that’s after the countless excursions and tours and your time in the gym.”

  Marek fought to keep his composure, his jaw locked as he said, “You agreed that we would do this my way. I still believe that the best way to get results from the humans is to give them allowances. To make them feel like we could be allies.”

  “And what results would those be?” Urek surged up from the desk, advancing on Marek. “What have your theories and your hypotheses really gotten me, little brother? Because so far, I know that the humans live to the north and build their shacks out of wood and not much else.”

  “I need time.”

  “You’ve had time! You’ve had hours and hours alone with her, speaking in that ancient, backward tongue of hers, and she has told you nothing.”

  “It is not so simple to secure trust when—”

  “Trust!” Urek said disbelievingly. He leaned in close, his dark eyes blazing. “Does she trust you, Marek? Or has this all been for nothing?”

  Marek swallowed the lump in his throat, his pulse hammering. Did Bree trust him? He couldn’t answer that, but a part of him thought that maybe she did. She had been so vulnerable with him so often, even if their parting had been tense.

  But did he want Urek to know that?

  “Because if it’s nothing,” Urek went on, “then I fail to see how you are of use, anymore.”

  “She trusts me.” Grinding out the words was like trying to break rock with a claw trimmer, but he managed it. “She will still be receptive to me, even after you attacked her friend.”

  “The intruder?” Urek’s lip curled in a way that Marek didn’t like. “You make a good point. It is obvious that she came here looking for your human. Maybe their tongues will loosen now that they have each other’s safety to worry about, if the new one doesn’t crack from hunger, that is.”

  “You will not harm them!” Marek snapped before he could think better of it. “They are soldiers, Urek. Threatening them will do nothing. You should know that, of all people.”

  But Urek’s eyes had narrowed. “Again, I do not know if your advice comes from logic or emotion. Why do you defend them?”

  Anger boiled in Marek’s stomach, loosening his tongue. “Maybe because it confuses me that you can act as if they are lesser than us when that human put you on your ass mere minutes ago.”

  “You forget, Marek,” Urek growled. “They are sub-species. They will always be lesser.”

  Marek’s nostrils flared, unable to keep down the fire that scorched through him as he pushed Urek back. His brother stared at him, his eyes full of that excitement they’d had when the human had fought him.

  “You are volatile like them,” he said, his teeth flashing. “Maybe you don’t want what I offer, anymore. Maybe you’d rather follow them back to their freezing utopia. Maybe you would prefer to give that human everything while you neglect your duty to the Constellation.”

  “I have dedicated my life to the Constellation! Just as you have,�
�� Marek said, valiantly holding onto the shred of control he still had left. This was not the time to lose himself to his anger. If he wanted to help Bree and her friend, he needed to still have access to them. He couldn’t get himself thrown into a cell. “I have never strayed.”

  “Was that your choice, or did you simply go along with our mother’s plans to keep you from the slums because that benefited you?”

  “I know my place,” Marek said, meeting his brother’s eye. “And it is not with them.”

  Urek considered him in silence, and Marek tried not to show how those words raked at his insides, burning his tongue like bile. Didn’t he know his place? Hadn’t he relished his position in the university, and the freedom he’d had there? What had he been working towards all this time, if not the prospect of getting his old life back?

  And yet, somehow the dream felt duller now. He had spent many years trapped down in the dark thanks to the Constellation and their prejudices against him—against things he couldn’t change, even if he somehow managed to replace all the blood in his body. For years, levekk and sub-species alike had looked at him with disgust and fear, shunning him.

  But Bree hadn’t. She’d looked at him like he was her only chance at salvation when they first met, and just a short time ago she’d touched him with a reverence he didn’t think he deserved.

  She saw him. Not his levekk half, or even his human half. Him.

  He didn’t know if he would ever belong amongst her people, but suddenly, a tiny part of him wished he could, if it meant staying at her side.

  “Fine,” Urek said, jarring Marek back to himself.

  “Fine? That’s it?”

  “Of course not,” he sneered. “Your clearance is revoked. You will not be allowed in the humans’ presence without my supervision, not Peris’. I will ask the questions from now on, and you will translate every word. But I do not want to punish you. I think you are confused. I think that human blood in your veins has made you question yourself.”

  He stepped closer and grasped Marek by the shoulder, his claws pressing through the thin fabric of his bodysuit. “I need you on my side, Marek. You’re my brother. You belong up here with me, with your work. I just need you to prove that you still know what’s important. That you know what our mother would have wanted for you.”

  “I do know,” Marek said hoarsely.

  “Good.” Urek smiled, the flash of his teeth more genuine than Marek had ever seen it, and pulled away. “We will keep them hungry for a while. Then, we will try again to talk. Since I assume that’s still what you recommend?”

  “It is,” he croaked.

  Urek looked him up and down one last time, his expression unreadable. “Then you may go and prepare.”

  Marek turned for the door, his insides roiling, but he froze at Urek’s next words.

  “I know we’ve often fought, but… I’m happy to have my brother back at my side.”

  “Me too, Urek.” He didn’t turn to see Urek’s expression, just slammed his hand against the door panel and staggered out into the hall, trying to keep his stomach from climbing up his throat.

  He had to come up with a plan, and if he wanted to make sure Bree and her friend didn’t starve, he would have to come up with it quickly.

  ---

  Bree sat on the bed while Noe paced. Her friend had started with the window, checking every edge for a tiny crack or an open seam she could exploit just as Bree had, before moving into the bathroom and investigating the plumbing. Now, she moved from wall to wall, cursing Urek with every spare breath.

  “So, he’s in charge here? Great fucking choice. A megalomaniac with violent tendencies is definitely who you want running the place.”

  “Marek told me he’s only responsible for the day-to-day. He does answer to someone, they’re just never here,” Bree mumbled, and Noe stopped to stare at her.

  “Marek, huh? He the one that couldn’t stop touching you?”

  Bree tensed. Had it been that obvious? “He’s the only one here who can understand us,” she explained. “Urek’s been using him to communicate, but he doesn’t always follow his orders.”

  “He followed them today.”

  “He also let me go outside. He arranged it right under Urek’s nose.” Bree thought back to the sehela pen. “Was it you who cut through the cage? Is that how you got in?”

  “Yeah. I didn’t love the idea of crawling in through the top where those big aliens could spot me, but I nearly broke my friggin’ shears trying to cut a hole in the bottom. Whatever they used to fix that hole was crap compared to the rest of the fence.” Noe shrugged. “Guess I should count myself lucky that their repair crew is as useless as their security, though, huh?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She grinned, looking pleased with herself. “I came in and out of this place three times before they caught me. Luis would have sniffed out any intruder at the Barracks within an hour, tops.”

  “But why did you come at all?” Bree asked. “Why put yourself in danger?”

  “Are you kidding me?” Noe’s blond brows dipped fiercely, and she stared at Bree in disbelief. “Why the hell do you think? I came here for you. I got worried when you never came back after that storm came through. Then I found your bag up on the ridge.”

  Bree’s breath caught in her chest. “So you came barreling in here looking for me? Why would you do that?”

  “Because you’re my friend! What the fuck, Bree?”

  “No, I mean—Luis has never approved of me coming to the mine, and half the Barracks thinks I’m crazy. They probably think I got what I deserved. Something was bound to go wrong at some point, right? Like with…” Bree swallowed. “Like with my mom.”

  “Yeah, and maybe the elders and some other idiots said we should give up on you, but not Luis,” Noe said. “When I said I was worried about you, he’s the one who told me to come after you. You really think he’d abandon you like that?”

  “I…”

  Noe smiled sadly. “Your dad fought your case too, you know. I think he might have even tried to come with me if I’d let on about my plan.”

  Bree shook her head. “He never would have left the kids and Sinead like that.”

  “I don’t know about that. He was really cut up. Maybe he was thinking of… y’know.” Noe went quiet, watching her carefully.

  Bree sighed. “My mother was here,” she found herself saying. “Got caught, just like me.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “Yeah. Like mother, like daughter, as Dad always said. That’s all that Marek could find out for me, though. I still don’t know what happened to her. She could have been taken somewhere. She could have died here.” Her gaze dropped to the floor, her stomach turning, but the idea didn’t cut as deeply as it had before. Her mom had been gone a long time. If she was dead, then it would just mean that what everyone had been telling her was true all along.

  “Maybe not, though. You seem like you’re surviving this place pretty well.” Noe paused, cocking her head in thought. “It got something to do with this Marek guy?”

  “If by ‘surviving,’ you mean staying sane,” Bree said. “He’s literally the only person I’ve been able to hold a full conversation with while I’ve been here.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What?”

  Noe raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms over the scuffed leather of her armored shirt. “Nothing. Just noticed how you two were whispering to each other when you thought no one could see. And what’s with these clothes? I barely recognized you.”

  “I was trying to blend in,” Bree said. “Thought I’d have a better chance of slipping away if they mistook me for one of them. The Constellation humans.”

  Noe’s face slackened in surprise. “There are humans here?”

  “You didn’t see them?”

  “No. I saw weird insects and a guy with a pig’s snout, and some big fuckers with a hell of a lot of hair.” Her brow pinched. “But humans?”

  “Yea
h. Turns out the stories were less detailed than they could have been. The levekk didn’t just obliterate everything they found when they invaded. They put the species they conquer to work, make them a part of their society, but not. They call them ‘sub-species.’”

  “Sub-species?” Noe asked incredulously. “So slaves, basically?”

  Bree grimaced. “Marek says it’s different, but… yeah.”

  “I bet he does.”

  “He’s not like them,” she snapped, scowling at Noe.

  “He’s got yellow scales and a sour look on his face. Seems no different to me.”

  Bree looked down at her hands. “He is different. They don’t treat him like a levekk. He was living below the ground with all the other sub-species before I came along, digging up dirt all day and night.”

  “But why?” asked Noe.

  “It’s… complicated,” Bree found herself saying, before she realized that’s exactly what he’d said. “He’s half-human.” At Noe’s stunned expression, she explained, “His dad was a human who wasn’t even born on Earth. He grew up levekk, but now he has nothing. Humanity’s changed a lot since the Invasion, Noe.”

  Noe was still blinking, stunned to a rare silence. “I think I’m gonna need a moment to process that,” she mumbled, leaning against the desk with her head down. “So a human and a levekk…? But who the hell would wanna bang one of those things, anyway? They’ve got claws.”

  Bree shrugged, trying to keep the heat from creeping up to her cheeks. “Someone, I guess.”

  They slipped into a brooding silence, until Noe broke it with a quiet, “So, you two seem… close.”

  This time, Bree’s cheeks did turn hot, and she ducked her head to hide her blush. “He’s helped me out a lot,” she hedged. “I don’t know what Urek would have done to me by now without him defending me. I’d probably be tearing my hair out in a cell with no window.”

  “Yeah, but… you’ve seen the way he looks at you, right?”

  Her heart pounding, lips shut tight, Bree tried to speak past the suffocating lump in her throat. How did she describe the bond that had developed between her and Marek without sounding insane? How did she explain that the scales and the eyes and the sheer alien-ness of him had stopped bothering her—that it was even something she found intriguing?