Oden (10 page)

“We’re here!” I yell back, letting Hannah sit up away from me, then we both struggle to our feet.

I’m barely standing before Marduke is hugging me to his chest, his hands roaming over me, checking again for any injuries. This is becoming a regular thing for us.

“Are you all right? Are you hurt? Is Riley fine?” he bombards me, pulling me away in order to check me over with his gaze. Deciding after a moment that I’m okay, he pulls me back against his chest.

“I’m fine, the baby is fine. I’m just cold,” I admit. “Where is Logan?”

“I left him with Lisa when I came searching for you. I wasn’t sure if…” His voice hitches. “I wasn’t sure if I’d find you alive, and I didn’t want him to see that.”

I feel him shiver in my arms, therefore I tighten my arms around him.

“I’m okay, I promise. That was a close call.”

“I know. Ival must have made it back in time, which means we must not have been too far when the water hit. Unfortunately, you guys travelled back a fair distance. It’s going to be another long walk.”

I groan, wanting to never have to walk another step ever again.

“Are you okay?” he asks Hannah.

Even though I’m freezing, his words bring warmth to me. I absolutely love the fact that he is concerned about Hannah, too.

“Yeah, I’d been dying for a wash, but almost drowning hadn’t been exactly what I’d hoped for,” she jokes, yet we both hear the slight shake in her voice.

He releases one hand from around me and holds it out to Hannah, gripping her shoulder and squeezing it, offering her some comfort.

That small gesture completely melts my heart, and I use precious energy to lift myself up straight and kiss Marduke on the lips. The intimate touch lights a fire inside me, one that I know won’t be put out for too long. He steps into me, wrapping both arms around me as he dominates me, taking control and consuming my lips and mouth. His touch takes the chill out of my body and replaces it with warmth and a burning need for him.

I grip at his wet shirt, my hands almost moving without thought as they pull his shirt upwards, baring his stomach before Hannah clearing her throat slowly filters through to my foggy brain.

“Get a room, dorks.” As Hannah rolls her eyes, unenthusiastically moving past us, Marduke’s longing gaze makes it so much harder to follow her lead.

***

We eventually make it back to Logan, Lisa, and Hope where there are more tears and hugs. Everyone is feeling scared and no one more than the kids.

Logan won’t leave my arms again, his body shaking as he cries into my shoulder. I fear he’s been put through too much and the young boy he was before so much happened to him won’t ever get the chance to return. There has to be a breaking point somewhere, and I hope he hasn’t reached his.

This is almost over for him. If what Marduke and Ival were saying about the tunnels under their home is correct, then there are rooms set up there. It was created years ago as a hiding place for the leader and his family to go if they ever needed the sanctuary. He’s not sure if there will be any food, but there are bathroom facilities and a tap that will have running water. Perhaps even better than that, there will be a bed and blankets.

I might never want to leave.

When the ground begins to shift upwards at an angle, I feel excited that we might almost be there. We’re led up a ramp, which above has a large oval grate and a seal over it.

“That is where the water comes in from,” Marduke explains, his gaze following mine.

“Why is it even there?”

“I don’t know. I suppose as a way to keep the tunnels clean and maybe even a defence mechanism in case anything ever happened and a threat to us discovers them.”

I nod, shifting Logan’s heavy weight in my arms, and stare ahead to what looks like a dead end. I know better than that now.

I watch Marduke hold his hand to the wall, and after a moment, a door that looks solid and sturdy appears before it swings ajar. Marduke opens it fully and we all step in.

There is a large puddle of water along the ground, no doubt from when Ival had to open the door while the water was piling high out here. Other than that, the walls appear untouched. Marduke leaves the door open and the water slowly begins to trickle down the ramp.

“Ival?” Marduke calls out, only to get no response. He turns to me, his hands gripping onto mine. “I’m going to go and find Ival. There are rooms that run along this passage, and eventually, an open area where there will hopefully be some food. Your touch will be enough to open the doors. We don’t have a monit for this area.”

I nod that I understand, and after a quick kiss, he leaves me to search for Ival. Right now, my priority is to get everyone out of these wet clothes and maybe try to find some food and water.

I walk along the hallway and hold my hands out to reach either side of me, scraping my hands along the walls. Invisible doors light up and open as I move along and I peek inside each one. A light turns on as I walk in, and when I leave the room, the light shuts off with it. Thankfully, the one in the hallway doesn’t appear to need me to be there for it to stay on.

All the rooms so far seem to be bedrooms, although there is only ever a single sized mattress in there along with shelves that have towels, blankets, and clothing on them. The rooms radiate heat. When I step into one, I feel heat emanating from the walls. It’s not hot enough to be uncomfortable, but in our chilled states, it is very noticeable.

I find clothing that are all too big for us, and practically blankets over Logan and Hope. They definitely look like they were all made for well-built men.

When we change out of our damp clothes, the new material feeling thin, I wonder if we should consider putting on several layers to keep warm. My vest appears to keep my chest area warm at all times, but the chill in my arms and legs is still dominating. Consequently, the others must feel worse.

I give Lisa and Hannah extra clothes and then give Lisa another set to try to figure out how to work them for Hope. For Logan, I use the shirt as an almost dress, rolling the arms up until his hands are seen, and then do the same for the pants. There is no way to keep them on, but I lay him down in the single bed and tuck him under the sheets.

Lisa moves into the room opposite and does the same for Hope. We’re incredibly quiet, probably because of how exhausted and overwhelmed we all are.

Hannah leaves the room to use the attached bathroom. When she asks for my help, I leave a sleeping Logan to find a bathroom that doesn’t look very familiar to our own back on Earth. Mercifully, the toilet is mostly the same, just nothing else is.

There is a tube shower, the same that Marduke and I hid in to survive his spaceship plummeting to Roth. There doesn’t appear to be a sink to wash your hands except when I step into a tiled area and suddenly water pools in front of me. There is no visible sink or reason for the water to not be falling everywhere, but it doesn’t. It just stays in front and I dip my hands in, testing it out. The water instantly whitens and bubbles. It doesn’t hurt, but it freaks me out. I quickly remove my hands, watching as the water moves back towards the wall and disappears just as a warm breeze hits my hands. Within seconds, they are dry.

“That is so weird,” Hannah murmurs.

“Tell me about it.”

“Back where we were before, they had rooms that looked like this in the houses they stuck us in, but they had built bathrooms and showers like what we had on Earth.”

Marduke said he was on Earth for six months before he attacked. If they knew they’d be taking people, then they might have been able to begin setting up part of Oden to accommodate for them.

“Can I try?” Hannah asks, but as soon as I leave the area, it won’t work for her.

“How did you do that?”

“It’s Riley, I think. The DNA from the baby works for their technology.”

“Freaky. What else can you do now because of the baby? Can you fly? Can you read my mind?”

“No, but I can vomit and cry on demand and for no reason.”

“Sounds boring,” Hannah teases.

I roll my eyes, stepping into the area with her and letting her wash her hands.

“Are you scared about having a baby?”

“Terrified,” I admit.

“I think you’ll make a great mother. Just look at how attached Logan is to you. And that’s after only knowing you for a couple months back on Earth. I’ve had him for months here, and he still talks about you, Dude, and his daddy.”

“He’s a good kid. I’m worried about how messed up he’s going to be with all of this, though. I mean, at least we’re adults in this situation, right? How is a five-year-old meant to handle any of this?”

“I don’t know. I might be over ten years older than him, but I’m struggling with it all. I’m so glad you’re here. I was losing it before, almost at my breaking point. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.” As Hannah’s voice cracks at the end, I pull her forward to give her a hug.

“I was worried about you, too. From now on, we do this together.”

She nods, wiping quickly at her eyes. I take her back into the room with Logan and tell her I’ll get us some food.

My feet ache, my legs protest every step, and my eyelids fight me, wanting to close shut along the way, but I finally make it to the area Marduke has spoken about.

Sadly, there is no food to be found. There are empty bottles that I am able to fill from the water that comes out of a sink area, even though I see no taps to tell me where it’s coming from. Everything feels foreign, and it gives me the worse wave of homesickness I’ve felt in a long time.

The bottles are easily a litre each, so after filling one up, I drink as much as I can before I begin to feel sick, and then fill it back up. There are four empty bottles, and I struggle to carry them all back to the rooms.

When I enter the room Lisa and Hope are in, I find them both sleeping on top of the bed. I stare over Lisa, worried about how she will react to me being pregnant. She’s my best friend, but she’s also suffered at the hands of Marduke’s people. She’s lost the man she loves, and she’s now separated from her family, with no easy way to return to them. Not with the only entrance there now buried.

What if I have lost her friendship forever?

I leave two bottles with them, deciding to leave the door ajar in case they can’t open them later, or if they want the light in there. I appear to be the only one able to turn the lights in the room on, and the heat only comes from the walls when I enter.

When I go in the opposite room, I find Logan is still asleep, and Hannah is lying next to him, her eyes open.

She accepts the bottle when I hand it to her and greedily drinks from it. She’s pulled her hair up into a bun so the wet curls don’t touch her new, dry clothes.

“So what is that vest thing I saw on you earlier? You didn’t take it off even though it’s wet.”

“I can’t actually take it off. It only works for Marduke’s touch.”

“So he can get you naked when he wants and you have no choice if you want to shower naked and he’s not around to take it off for you?” When she raises her eyebrow, I can see her suspicion behind her eyes. She’s wondering if Marduke is some controlling, dominating man who is perhaps taking advantage of me.

“It’s more a protection thing. This is like a bullet-proof vest, but better. It’s protecting me and Riley. It’s a big deal for Marduke to give me this. He’s making himself vulnerable, just so I’m safer.”

Hannah stares at me; her eyes glazed over as she thinks about what I’ve just said.

“I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that you’ve fallen for an alien. That you’re carrying an alien in your stomach.”

My hands automatically wrap around my abdomen. I feel like I need to shield the baby from Hannah’s words. I know she’s not trying to be mean by what she’s saying, but I want to scream at her that there is nothing wrong with Marduke and me loving each other, that Riley isn’t some weird alien baby, but
my
baby.

I don’t scream at her, though, because there is part of me that knows she is right. It’s both weird that I have fallen for Marduke, and that I am carrying inside me an unborn, half-breed child. If my own sister can’t accept it, then I have no hope in Lisa or anyone else being tolerant.

“Still, I can understand your attraction to him. Man, you guys had some serious sexual chemistry pouring off you earlier. I thought, for a second there, you were going to jump his bones right in front of me!”

“Hannah,” I groan, already anticipating the next question she’s going to ask.

“So, what is the sex like?”

“I can’t explain it to you because one, it’s none of your business, and two, you’ve never had sex, so it won’t mean anything since you’ll have nothing to compare it to.”

“Well, actually…” She trails off and my mouth drops open.

“No way, when?” I gasp.

“I went to a party during school holidays, and Jayden Hooper was there. And you know,” she shrugs, “things happened.”

“No-freaking-way! Jayden Hooper!” I try to keep my voice down so I don’t wake Logan, yet it still comes out like a loud squeal.