Bride Games: (Alien's Bride) (14 page)

Lenora felt like crying again.
 
She stared at the blankets and tried to find an answer.
 

“This is a really fancy world,” she said, forcing the words past a lump in her throat, “And, in every practical sense, you’re a king.
 
What doesn’t fit in this puzzle is me.
 
Oh, sure, I could play along for a while.
 
I could act like I was meant to be here with someone like you.
 
But that’s all it would be.
 
An act.
 
Things would come apart eventually.
 
Sometimes people get broken beyond repair.
 
I’ll be miserable.
 
You’ll be miserable.
 
And the worse thing is, I don’t think you’d ever divorce me.
 
You’d just keep trying.
 
Trying and failing and wondering why.”
 
She shook her head.
 
“No, Lysanter.
 
This isn’t the place for me.
 
I need to go back to the woods.
 
Survival.
 
That’s what I know.
 
That’s where my safe place is.
 
Where I can’t hurt anyone and no one can hurt me.”
 
She made a long, shuddering sigh.
 
“I’m poison, Lysanter.
 
The kindest thing I could do for you is walk away.”

When she looked at him she saw his eyes gleaming with burgeoning tears.

“I’m not enough for you?” he said.

Lenora looked at him in disbelief.
 
“That’s not it at all.
 
Didn’t you hear me?
 
I’m the one—“

“You think I’m not enough to help you overcome the horrors you suffered at the hands of Sergeant Hastings?”

The name caused a shiver down her spine
.
 
Her spit became as thick as mud.
 
She had to cough in order to speak again.

“What do you know about that?”

“He was obsessed with you.
 
When the Instajants invaded he made certain he ran with you.
 
You hid in the sewers with him for months.
 
He abused you, didn’t he?
 
And raped you.”

Lenora gave a tearful laugh.
 
“Is that all you know?
 
You think you really have any idea?”

“Tell me, Lenora.”

She considered this.
 
She’d never told anyone in her life, but if he knew he would let her go.
 
That’s what she wanted, right?
 
To leave him.
 
To struggle on her own.

She grimaced.
 
Of course not.
 
She wanted to be an innocent princess like Vivian, and get to marry her Prince Charming.
 
To be happy without any of the poison inside her ever bubbling up.

She was a fool.

“
Hastings
was a lunatic.
 
At first we were cordial and I had to accept the special treatment he was giving me because he was my commanding officer.
 
It didn’t take long for me to despise him.
 
He was driving a truck in our convoy.
 
I was in the front seat.
 
A cat ran across the road in front of us.
 
He swerved the damn truck in order to hit it.
 
Then he turned and laughed and said, ‘I hate cats.’
 
I was so disgusted I wanted nothing to do with him.
 
This only made him want me.
 
He showed up in the barracks and tried to drag me into an office with him.
 
When I actually got sexual harassment charges to stick on him our vendetta became personal.
 
He badmouthed me to every officer he could to try and keep me from being promoted.
 
Then he started orchestrated transfers to get me back into his unit.
 
Every time I got a transfer order I knew he was behind it.
 
I fought, and fought, and the war just got worse.
 
I finally gave up and let myself get transferred because there were bigger things to worry about.
 
As far as
Hastings
was concerned the only issue was that I wasn’t sleeping with him.
 
It was as if he’d gone completely insane since I last saw him.
 
He put me in the front line to fight the Instajants with him, even though this was prohibited with women.
 
Everything had fallen apart by then.
 
No one was there to check him.
 
When he saw that the Instajants were impervious to our weapons and moved faster than the eye could see, he handcuffed me to him and ran into a rain gutter.
 
He had a pack of provisions with him.
 
It had been his plan all along.

“We found a mother and her toddler and I made him take them with us into the sewers.
 
The child was constantly screaming.
 
She didn’t last more than two nights before
Hastings
…smothered her.”
 
Lenora grimaced.
 
“He claimed he had to do it.
 
The Instajants would hear her and find us otherwise.
 
The mother railed against him.
 
He almost shot her, but I pushed up his gun.
 
After that we were on our own.

“Yes he raped me.
 
He raped me until—until he didn’t have to anymore.
 
Until I was his mindless subordinate soldier.
 
Yes, sir.
 
No, sir.
 
Our wrists were bloody messes due to the cuffs.
 
I kept having to fight infection.
 
He wouldn’t take them off us, even for a second.
 

“He started ranting about survival.
 
Survival.
 
That’s all that mattered.
 
It didn’t matter what you ate, who you killed, or what you endured.
 
Survival was the only thing.
 
‘Kill that rat.
 
Break its neck.
 
Its life don’t matter.
 
You want to survive, don’t you?’
 
That was his mantra and it infected my brain.
 
If I could make myself an animal that really did only care about base things like survival then things would be easier.
 
I ate garbage and slept in filth.
 
It didn’t matter.
 
I wasn’t a human anymore.
 
I was just the dog who belonged to Sergeant Hastings.
 
That’s what he turned me into.
 

“We would hear those things’ legs scraping over the sewer caps.
 
They prowled everywhere looking for bodies to infect.
 
People to turn into zombies.
 
Never dying, just retaining consciousness while no longer having control over your own body.
 
It was a fate worse than death.
 
Giving up to them wouldn’t end your misery.
 
It would extend it for the rest of your life.
 
Anything was better than that, even becoming a subhuman.
 

“The scratching stopped eventually.
 
When your robots opened all the manholes and none of the Instajants fell down we knew for sure they were gone.
 
I wanted to give up and get the vaccine.
 
That way I could escape him.
 
I couldn’t imagine an existence worse than what I’d had then.
 
Hastings
still wouldn’t let me go.
 
He said now we were running from the Dak-Hiliah.
 
We would be running forever.
 
I couldn’t handle that.
 
I felt the last bit of my sanity slip away.”

Lenora’s voice turned trance-like.
 
“That first night, when we knew for sure the Instajants were gone,
Hastings
slept with his gun in his holster instead of clutching it to his chest.
 
What I did next—it wasn’t me.
 
I felt like I’d left my body and had become a spectator.
 
I worked the gun out of his holster.
 
Slowly, carefully.
 
Then I clicked off the safety as quietly as I could, pointed it to his temple, and…”
 
Tears streaked down her face.
 
She thought she could say it.
 
The words remained choked inside her.

Lysanter brought an arm around her shoulder and pulled her against him.
 
Now the tears came in earnest.
 
Her body became wracked with sobs.
 
Lysanter held her tight and soothed her trembling back.

“Good for you, Lenora.”

“No…I…I killed a man in cold blood.
 
I blew his brains out.
 
I didn’t even…didn’t even hesitate.
 
It was for survival.
 
Fucking survival.”

“You should never have suffered like that.
 
You didn’t deserve it, Lenora.
 
But that man—he deserved to die.
 
He killed a child and almost killed a woman.
 
He would have killed you in the end if you hadn’t freed yourself.
 
Don’t you see that now?
 
Now that you can look back with a clear head?
 
Stop punishing yourself.”
 
He pulled her back and looked into her eyes.
 
“Lenora—you deserve to be happy.”
     
 

She snuffled.
 
“I don’t even deserve to be around civilized people.
 
Not after what I did—what he turned me into.”

“That’s not true and you know it.
 
All I’ve seen is a loving caring woman willing to do anything to protect her friend.”

Lenora’s brow furrowed.

“You’re not broken or poisonous.
 
You were wounded and you need help to recover.
 
I knew this before we met.
 
I want to help you, Lenora.
 
I want this more than anything.”
 
He drew her against him again.
 
“Don’t throw yourself away, Lenora.
 
Give yourself a chance.
 
Stop running.
 
Stop merely surviving.
 
It’s time for you to live.”

She clung to him, but her anguished expression remained conflicted.
 
“I don’t know if I can.”

“Then I must go back on my word.”
 

He released her and edged himself to the side of the bed.
 
Lenora stared at his broad back.

“If you lose today I will assert my right to keep you as my bride.
 
I’m no longer giving you a choice.”

He rose and went into one of the two bathrooms.

Lenora lingered in the bed.
 
The emotion still raged in her chest.
 
She wanted to lie down and think.
 
There was no luxury of time.
 
She forced herself to rise and go into the other bathroom.

***

When Lenora and Vivian entered the arena curtain the pyramid looked strangely innocuous.
 
The lights were on.
 
The site was familiar.

Danfet started announcing.
 
Lenora tuned him out.

“There’s nothing to climb,” she said to Vivian.
 
“They took down the restraining wall, the blocks, the chain ladders.”

“What are we going to use to climb up?” Vivian said.

Lenora squared her jaw.
 
“Each other.”
 
She grabbed her hand and ran to the first tier.
 
“Look, the ladders are folded up.
 
You just need to flip them down for me once you get up.”

“Me?”

The robot alarm started chirping.
 
Lenora knelt down to give Vivian a boost.

“Would you rather be running from the robot down here?”

Vivian put her foot on Lenora’s hand and let herself be hoisted.
 
The lanky girl easily got the top half of her body over the edge.
 
She scampered up and kicked down the ladder.
 
Lenora skirted up the chain while the robot headed for her.
 
Its extendable pincher banged into the ladder just as she cleared it.

“There,” Lenora said while getting in position again.
 
“Just four more tiers.
 
We can do this.”

“Fuck, I hope so!”
 
Vivian scampered up yet again.

The next tier was taken without incident, on the third the alarm chirped and the robot came out of a dangerously close door.
 
Lenora darted up the ladder, but this time a pincher hand caught her shoe.
 
She kicked her foot out of it.
 
The crowd gasped and then thumped their scepters.