Oden (9 page)

“Mattie isn’t a slut,” I bark at her, unsure of how to handle this, either.

“Oh!” Her eyes widen. “No, I didn’t mean it like
that.
I just meant it like… you know,
you go girl
type thing. My sister might as well have been a nun before she met you.”

I nod, but my temper still feels frayed. I’m tired, and I fear that I might not pass this test if we keep talking because I am bound to snap soon.

“Okay, I suppose you’re all right. I will give you my approval
for now.
However, mess with her, upset her, do
anything
wrong, and I swear I’ll kill you. I might not get along with my sister much, but I do love her. You keep her happy, keep her safe, and don’t ever think about taking her away from me. Got it?”

I nod that I agree, feeling the weight of her words hanging over me. I have already decided to take care of Mattie and protect her with my life, but this feels like added pressure to make sure I don’t fail.

“Good. Now I can sleep.” She stands up, wobbling a little on her feet, but quickly collapses next to Mattie and Logan, her back resting against my arm that is around them. I know, with the way her body relaxes onto the ground, she instantly falls asleep.

My mind goes back over our conversation, replaying what was said to make sure I didn’t mess anything up. I fear that my worry over the conversation will keep me from falling asleep and resting properly, however I don’t have that concern for long. It only takes a few moments before I fall into a deep sleep.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t last long enough. Too soon, I’m waking up to panic and find myself surrounded by water.

The tunnel is beginning to flood.

Chapter 6

Mattie

I am drifting in-between dozing and sleeping. My body and mind want me to desperately fall into that deep sleep that is just within reach of me, however something keeps me from fully moving into it.

When I become aware enough to feel water around me, I imagine myself at the beach. I’m standing in the water, looking out along the sand and seeing children and couples doing various activities; building sandcastles, throwing a Frisbee, and some are sunbaking in the sun. The sun is blinding, but I don’t feel its warmth. In fact, I feel cold. Why is it so cold?

“Mattie!”

Marduke’s voice pulls me away from the beach, although I don’t want to go. I want to stay in the water and see the normalcy of the people relaxing along the beach.

When I drag my eyes open, I realise the water is, in fact, real. I’m sitting on the ground with Logan, and already, the water is resting over my legs.

Ival yells out something to Marduke in his own language, and then he starts sprinting. Within seconds, I lose sight of him. I can’t believe he actually just ran off like that. What a coward.

I stand, feeling stiff and shaky. My arms ache already from the effort of carrying Logan. Marduke stands next to me as I look back to find Hannah in the process of groggily standing, and Lisa and Hope are both awake and appear terrified.

“How much farther do we have to go?” I ask Marduke, hugging Logan to me tighter.

“I don’t know, but we need to hurry,” he says, his arm moving around my back where he then nudges me forward.

My sore arms are only second to my throbbing legs and feet. When will this nightmare end?

I push forward, afraid when I notice the water is already speeding along to my knees.

“Where is Ival?” I call back to Marduke, water splashing up around us as we run.

“He said he thinks in the tunnels below our house there is a way to manually stop the water from filling the tunnel. He ran ahead to try to get to the controls in time.”

“How high will this water rise?”

“To the very top.”

I gulp down the fear that we might drown in here. Maybe we can hold our breath long enough for it to clear out? His next words crush that hope, however.

“Ival said it will stay like that for a day or so.”

“Are there any exits along the way? A way for us to escape?”

“No, there is only the ocean between Edael and Jyin. My house is the first stop, so making it there is our only hope.”

My heart sinks and the water rises past my knees, moving partway up my thighs.

“Can you take him?” I ask Marduke, not because my arms are too sore to hold him any longer, but because Marduke is taller.

“Sure.” As he nods, holding out his hands, I move Logan across to Marduke, mid jog, and tell him to sit Logan across his shoulders.

“I’m scared, Mattie,” Logan cries, gripping Marduke’s face and almost poking out his eye.

“It’s going to be okay. Do you remember when I was teaching you how to swim? This is just another swimming lesson,” I huff out, already losing my breath.

Lisa overtakes us, her energy and determination motivating me to keep pushing forward. I reach out and take Hannah’s hand since she is lagging behind. She’s never been one for exercise. When she decided to join in on a run or go to the gym with me in the past, she was always the first to give up.

I can’t give her the chance to give up today.

When the water reaches my waist, I find it hard to move faster than a brisk walk. My calf muscles ache while the speed of the water is trying its hardest to push me backwards. Why couldn’t we be moving with the current? Why must everything go wrong for us?

“Mattie, I can’t go on,” Hannah cries, trying to pull her hand from my grip. I only grip harder.

“Yes, you can. Don’t make me carry you!” I scream at her.

“No, I really can’t.” She pulls on her hand harder, and I lose her grip.

I stop moving, knowing I could never leave her behind, as Marduke and Logan keep moving forward, having no idea we’ve stopped.

“Hannah, get your ass moving,
now
!” I hiss, grabbing her arm and squeezing it tightly.

“I can’t. I’m too tired, Mattie.
I can’t
…” she cries.

“We’re almost there. Don’t give up now. Remember Mum and Dad are gone now, so we are all the family that is left.
You
are
my only family left.”

She shakes her head, the familiar stubborn expression crossing her features as she crosses her arms over her chest. The water is midway up my stomach now.

“If you don’t go, then I’m not going anywhere, either,” I threaten.

“Don’t do this, just leave me!” Hannah screams at me, tears falling faster down her face.

“I’m not ever going to leave you, and if you don’t move, not only will we drown, but Riley will, too.”

“Who?” She stares at me in confusion.

“I’m pregnant, Hannah,” I say, not caring at this moment if it’s the right thing to admit. If it gets her moving, whatever consequences happen afterwards won’t matter.

“What?” Her despair and surrender falter as her expression changes to one of shock.

“Marduke and I are going to have a baby and decided on the name Riley. So you’re going to be an auntie, although you have to move if you want it to happen.”

“Mattie, are you… Oh, my God!” She leaps forward, hugging me tightly and sloshing water around us. She touches her lips by my ear and speaks loudly just to be heard properly over the rushing water. “When we get out of here, I want every piece of detail you have. I want to know what alien sex exactly entails.”

Before I can blush or get the chance to feel embarrassed by her words, she takes her renewed motivation, grabs my hand, and pulls me forward. With a speed we haven’t shown in a long time, we rush back towards the others.

Our determination isn’t enough against the strong current that is bashing into us, though. It tries to hold us back and occasionally take us with it. It’s only when the water is up to my neck that I see Marduke and Logan ahead. As Lisa and Hope struggle, I see Marduke take hold of Hope and hold her high in the air so she and Logan are almost touching the ceiling. Lisa is shorter than me, and once her feet can’t touch the ground, she’s hopeless against the current. She crashes into Marduke, and he uses his body to keep hold of them all.

“Mattie!” Logan cries out my name, his arm reaching out for me even though I’m still several feet away from them, but then Hannah’s hand slips from mine and she is carried away by the current, heading back the way we came.

“No!” I cry, looking back one last time at Marduke and Logan before I let the current push me away, too.

It’s disheartening to see all the ground we’ve covered fly past us. Every step has been an accomplishment, and now it is rushing us by.

“Hannah!” I scream out her name, watching as she dips under the water but quickly pushes her way back up again, her head bobbing up and down. When the water rises even higher, I even lose my own footing, falling under the water. Thankfully, I don’t get turned around, and I know which way to push upwards.

Gasping for breath, I hate that there is only a headspace between the top of the water and the ceiling now.

My heart pounds heavily in my chest while I acknowledge this might be it. We might all be about to die. Although I know this is better than the horror and terror of dying by one of those machines or creatures, it doesn’t lessen my devastation any.

I’m angry that, after all we’ve been through, after all the fighting back we’ve done, it was all for nothing. We’re all about to die pointlessly. We haven’t accomplished anything we wanted to do. Earth is still not ours, Marduke’s people are still under attack, and humans are scattered amongst planets that we will never be able to get to. Our bravery has caused us nothing other than an anonymous death.

And Riley…

I hug my stomach, letting my head dip back under the water. I can’t believe this child won’t even be given a chance at life.

How can everything be so unfair? Why can’t we simply catch a break?

As I kick back up, my head hitting the ceiling, I move my mouth to the small gap between the water and the ceiling, having to lay flat to catch any oxygen. My nose grazes the ceiling.

This is it, my one last breath.

The water flows even higher then, and there is nothing left. I hold my breath, keeping my eyes open, even though the water is mostly dark and murky. I can’t see Hannah, and Marduke and Logan won’t be close any longer. I’m all alone, and I know I don’t want to die. Not alone and not now.

In fact, I refuse to give up.

I kick upwards again, hoping that perhaps the ceiling isn’t even and there are points that are higher where the water won’t have reached yet. When my hand touches the ceiling and the water bobs by my wrist, I rush to gasp the air that is there. After a few gasps, I find that I can lift my head out of the water then eventually, my shoulders, too.

The water level is receding!

A few long, torturous minutes later, the water has shifted down to below my shoulders.

“Hannah!” I call out her name, fearful she might not have made it.

“Mattie!” she croaks out, her voice hitting the walls and moving back to me.

I swim her way, my body aching from the effort, but I keep going. When I reach her, I am able to put my feet on the ground. I grab a hold of her, wrapping my arms around her and keeping us still. The current has already backed off and the pressure is slowing down.

While Hannah cries into my shoulder, the shock of what nearly happened to us hitting her, I stay holding her, my neck craning to the side to see if I can catch a glimpse of anyone else.

By the time the water is only around my ankles, Hannah’s legs give out and I move us both into a sitting position. My own legs are shaking, and I think we could both use the rest.

She cries herself out, her head resting over my shoulder as I pat her back gently.

“Remember when Mum used to braid our hair when we were younger and we both hated it?” I whisper, pulling a random memory forward. I brush her soaking hair away from her neck and tug on it gently to get her attention. I can see her drifting into shock, and I don’t want to lose her.

“Yeah, we would run away screaming from her,” she hoarsely replies.

“She used to pull my hair so hard that I swear clumps of it would come out at once,” I recall.

“I screamed at her so loudly once that I lost my voice.” Hannah smiles at me. “Why do you think she wanted to put our hair up like that?”

“I think because we both had such long hair that it was constantly knotty. We both didn’t like getting our hair brushed, so it would have been horrible by the time Mum got to it with a brush.”

She nods, her body shaking from the now chilled clothes.

“I can’t believe you’re pregnant. I thought Dad would give alien boy a hard time before, but he’d probably kill him.”

“I think he’d get over it,” I say, half believing she might actually be right about Dad’s reaction.

“Yeah, right, you’re his golden child. He’d probably want to kill you, too. He knew you’d do well at basketball and make an awesome career out of it.”

“Not much of a career to be had of that now,” I say sadly. Basketball has been a huge part of my life for as long as I can remember, although since the invasion, I’ve barely even thought about it. I’ve only held a basketball once, and that was back when Hank and I were on our own before we found Logan’s dad dying in the street.

“I think, for now, we need to just worry about getting out of here,” she says, her head not lifting off my shoulder. “Then we need to have a talk about the name Riley. I’m not sure I love it.”

“Why, what do you think would be a better name?” I ask, feeling slightly offended. Riley is already set in stone. This baby won’t ever have another name.

“I don’t know, maybe Hannah Jr?” she teases.

“And if it is a boy?”

“Ew, don’t have a boy. I want a niece,” she mock cries.

“I’ll see what I can do.” I roll my eyes, but in my mind, I’m suddenly curious as to what this baby might be. Do I have a preference? Would I care either way?

“Do you think it’ll come out green and have five legs?” Hannah asks, sounding completely serious.

“Well, considering Marduke isn’t green and he has two legs, I’d hope not. I’m just terrified it’ll come ripping out of my stomach,” I admit. That image that came when I first found out I was pregnant is still fresh in my mind.

“Ew! Although, it may be better for it to rip through your stomach then the alternative of it ripping through your va—”

“Mattie?” Marduke’s voice booms down the long tunnel, his voice echoing loudly off the walls.

The water is almost completely gone now, and if it weren’t for the fact that I’m freezing right now and exhausted, I might actually be able to feel relieved and happy that we’re not going to be drowning today.