Текст книги "Arrival"

Автор книги: A.G. Wilde

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

Chapter Sixteen

ADIRA

The darkness comes in quite quickly.

One moment, we’re trying to get Mina to a safe spot in the forest and the next I can hardly see my hand as it moves in front of my face.

I struggle through the woods, an arm gripping my stomach as I walk alone.

I left Sam guarding Mina as I headed back to camp. Hopefully, I can get a knife or something and talk to Fer’ro.

Hopefully, they haven’t all turned against us.

My body aches as I walk and though the fish I’d eaten has given me some energy, that energy is fast waning.

I worry I will collapse before I reach my destination.

As I pause to lean against a tree, I remind myself that I’m not doing this for myself.

This is for Mina.

She is counting on me.

I’m just about to lean off the tree again when the darkness moves at my side.

Terror tears through me like a spike of ice up my spine and I freeze just before lava eyes come into my view.

Fer’ro.

My shoulders relax a little but my breathing is still coming hard.

He doesn’t say a word, he simply approaches me and I freeze again for a whole other reason.

This isn’t like the first time that he came after me in the woods.

He’s not keeping his distance, watching for my reaction anymore.

He comes right up to me till there’s no space between us and I suddenly forget to breathe.

I hear him sniff, his gaze moving down my face, and although I can hardly see a thing, I’m once again reminded that he is different.

It feels like he can see every line on my face. Every detail, even with the darkness around us.

I do not dare to blink.

“You are…” His voice vibrates the air around me, and at the back of my mind, some small thought says I should be afraid. But I am not. “…not afraid anymore.”

I swallow hard at that but I do not respond.

“Where are the others?” he rasps.

He towers over me.

My head is well below his chin, yet he leans down and I can feel his breath brush over my forehead.

“If I tell you…what are you going to do to Mina?”

He’s so close I can feel the heat radiating off his skin…his suit.

“Mee’na?”

“Oh…you don’t know their names.”

I stare straight ahead as I force myself to breathe normally, and I’m staring straight into his chest.

“You speak of the infested one.”

I swallow hard at that.

He’s too close.

It’s hard to focus on what he’s saying, what we’re discussing when I’m becoming more and more aware of him.

“She’s not infested,” I manage to get out. “That thing, the Gryken, it forced itself…”

At the sound of the creature’s name, Fer’ro growls, but he is so close to me, I feel the vibration move down my skin.

I never considered it till now, but he is male. Not just an alien, but a big strong male one.

One that could force us just like the Gryken had.

“The Gryken bred her.” His voice is so harsh, it pulls me from my thoughts. “She is infested with its spawn.”

I gulp again at his words. “There’s still a chance we can save her. She was only bred over a day ago.”

“Even as we speak, the Gryken is growing. Its former is dead. There is no longer a neural link. The life cycle has been disturbed.” His growl sends another shiver through me. “It will grow speedily to take its former’s place and continue its role in its species.”

I do not understand a word he is saying. I want to ask more.

He obviously knows a lot about them.

“Tell me where she is.”

I tilt my head back finally and his lava eyes meet mine.

Why is he asking me this when something tells me he could find Sam and Mina on his own if he wanted to?

“She’s scared. Terrified. But I think I can help. I can take the thing out of her.”

He freezes at this, his gaze boring into mine.

“You have no idea what the Gryken are.”

I can’t stand for much longer and my knees buckle as he says those words. Without thinking, I reach out and grab his arm and pain shoots through my hand.

I’ve grabbed him with the wrist that’s broken.

Pain makes tears swell in my eyes but I couldn’t move my hand now even if I wanted to.

I can feel his muscles flex underneath my touch, but Fer’ro doesn’t move.

So I hang on to him for a little while as I gather enough strength to straighten my back.

“What do you mean?” I breathe through the pain in my hand.

That’s when I feel it.

It’s like a tickle, almost a whisper, moving up my arm. Like water—and for a moment, I’m fighting against the pain and sudden dizziness to focus on the sensation crawling up my skin.

It’s at my wrist now, moving higher and I cast a confused glance in Fer’ro’s direction.

“What—what’s happening?”

Releasing him, I slip to the ground as I bring my arm up to look at it.

I can hardly see anything, but what alarms me the most is that I can’t see my arm either.

It’s like it’s…melded into the darkness.

“What’s happening to my arm?” There’s urgency in my voice, fear, and I am dimly aware that Fer’ro is now crouching beside me.

He makes a sound I’ve never heard him make before.

It’s a different kind of purr from the others.

“They like you,” is all he says.

They? “Who is they?”

I swing my arm in front of me.

I can feel it, but I can’t see it, and I realize slowly, my eyes widening with each second, the reason why.

My arm melds into the night like Fer’ro does, as if he is a part of the darkness itself.

His suit is on me.

FER’RO

Adee’ra shrieks and the sound hurts my ears as she flashes her arm in front of her face.

“What’s happening?”

My ba’clan writhe against me and I sense their distress at her reaction.

“Do not be afraid. They will not harm you.”

I hope the last sentence is true.

I have never seen them do what they are doing now.

Never have they left my being since I was birthed.

They are as much a part of myself as my eyes, my ears, my limbs.

But Adee’ra is becoming more panicked.

I can hear her blood organ thumping in her chest.

“Tell me I’m not imagining this,” her words are shaky. Disturbed. “Part of your suit is on me.” She glances up at me and I scent her fear rising. “How?”

She is scrambling away from me now and I can feel the shroud of her fear surrounding me.

“What are you doing to me?”

The accusation in her tone stings.

I want to tell her that I’m not doing anything. That we, the Vullan, would never harm a female, regardless of her species. But with San’ten’s recent lack of control, I doubt she will see my words as truth.

And…I do not know what the ba’clan are doing.

I did not even consider that they could connect with her species.

Hyu’mans.

Maybe they are more similar to us Vullan than I first realized.

“Do not move,” I say as I close the distance she has put between us.

Her eyes are wide but at the sound of my voice she stops throwing her arm about. Instead, now she is staring at it as if she cannot see it and her fear scent intensifies.

I clench my teeth and stifle a growl, closing off my nostrils to her scent.

After engaging with San’ten, my instincts are still in fight mode.

I told Ga’Var these beings are not our prey, but my body isn’t listening.

Adee’ra is still staring at her arm and her blood organ continues to hammer hard.

She is completely unaware of my state and I am thankful for the darkness.

She has no idea that her instincts to protect herself make me want to chase her.

But not to kill…or to eat…

At least…not in the way a predator would deal with its prey.

I have never seen another being like her before.

I want to know more about her species. More about her.

There was another scent earlier. Before my ba’clan decided to migrate unto her skin.

The scent had been faint, but there nonetheless.

A scent that made me want to…taste her.

The thought registers and my cells constrict.

I have to stop myself from thrumming.

If she knew what was crossing my mind, would she fear me again?

“Fer’ro…what is it?” Panic is rising in her voice, reminding me of why I approached her. “What’s happening to my arm?”

Moving closer, I take her arm in my hand, ignoring the way she flinches from me.

“Do you feel pain?”

She is shaking her head but I do not know whether that means the affirmative.

“No pain,” she says, her breaths coming fast. “It’s the arm that’s hurt. My wrist is broken. I hit it too hard while trying to break free from the orb. It was hurting really bad earlier, but now it’s just…tingling.”

Her eyes flash to mine and I can still see the panic there.

“What’s happening?”

My gaze falls back to the ba’clan that have transferred to her arm.

They are a stark contrast to the paleness of her skin.

“I do not know.”

Wrong answer, for her blood organ picks up pace.

“But you need not worry. I believe my ba’clan are…mending you.”

She blinks at me. “Your what? What?”

I meet her gaze again. I do not know how to explain it.

She probably has no idea what ba’clan are.

“Your suit…” Her gaze moves over me. “You put part of it on my arm, right?”

I pause, contemplating how much I should reveal to her.

“I did not.” I wait for her panic to rise more, but it is stable. “They ventured to you of their own volition.”

She gulps. It is audible and I watch her throat move.

The skin there is so thin, I can see her skeleton beneath.

She needs more sustenance. I will catch more sea creatures before we leave.

“It…ventured to me…?” She’s repeating my words as if she did not just hear them and I do not know how to respond to this, so I wait for her to continue.

“Your suit…is alive?”

“The ba’clan are…sentient…yes.”

Her arm jerks in my hand and her chest is heaving now.

“You mean…it’s not like some cool technology you’re wearing. Your suits are…they’re aliens too?”

I think for a moment. She is right, I suppose. But no Vullan thinks of the ba’clan as that.

They are us.

We are them.

“They are not parasitic. Our symbiosis is…mutual. We provide a host and nutrients. They protect us…among other things.” I glance at her arm once more. “Right now, they are healing you.”

She gulps and looks down at her arm again.

“Okay.” She swallows again. “Okay, but…why? What do they want from me?”

I study her. She is still terrified. I keep my nostrils closed.

“What do they want?”

“Yeah, like…they’re not trying to get inside me or anything, are they?”

The tips of my ears twitch. What she says is humorous but it also tells me that though her species is not as evolved as ours, they are intelligent.

She is still thinking of them as parasites.

The ba’clan are nothing like the Gryken.

“No. They will not enter your being.”

My ba’clan are fused with my being, but I do not tell her that. It is a more complicated process than something invading the body.

Though…this is new territory. Ba’clan have never transferred from one Vullan to another.

At birth, a spore is chosen for the young. A single symbiote that will multiply as the spawn grows. They will share experiences, memories, life, all together. Just as my ba’clan have done with me.

For them to transfer of their own volition to Adee’ra…a fully grown female of an alien species…it is something I will have to discuss with Ga’Var and our medic on board the ship.

I know they will not harm Adee’ra, because I know myself, and they are me. But I do not know what they are doing.

I’m focused on my arm when the ba’clan on her skin begin to writhe.

Adee’ras breaths pick up immediately. “What—what’s happening now?”

Her arm is shaking. “What are they doing?!”

She’s shaking so hard, I know it is a conscious effort of hers to keep from waving her arm in the air again.

But nothing she does will get them to remove themselves from her.

Like a wave, they writhe on Adee’ra’s arm.

“They are trying to communicate with you.”

“Wh—what? They talk?!”

“Not with words.”

I place a palm over where the symbiotes are writhing and they calm a little.

I know what they want to do, but I am positive Adee’ra will not oblige.

“They want to heal your whole being,” I say.

She is shaking her head again almost immediately.

No.

“I’m not comfortable with this,” she pants. “Can you take them off?”

The ba’clan across my body bristle at her request.

They do not like Adee’ra’s suggestion.

They do not like rejection.

I decide to try anyway.

Chapter Seventeen

ADIRA

He can’t get the suit off my arm.

I know even before he raises his gaze to mine, studying me.

It’s been at least an hour of him trying to no avail to call the ba’clan back.

They refuse to move back to him.

Sharp clicks leave his lips every now and then.

Nothing.

“Can’t you just tear them off?”

“No,” he replies.

I want to ask why, but I get the sense these things are stuck to me and that forcing them to move will be a painful experience.

What’s worse, and even partly terrifying, is the fact that my hand already feels better.

I can flex my fingers now without feeling that jabbing pain.

Don’t get me wrong, it still hurts like a motherfucker, but it’s more of a steady pain now.

They are healing me.

What worries me is what they might want in return for their assistance.

Nothing is ever free.

I let out a breath as my shoulders sag and my mind flashes back to Mina and Sam.

Except for a slight tingle every now and then, I hardly feel the…ba’clan on my skin.

My situation isn’t an emergency. At least, not yet.

I need to focus on Mina.

“I need to go.”

Fer’ro eases back a little and rises as I do.

God, he’s so big.

As soon as he’s standing again, I feel…vulnerable.

I glance at my arm once more.

I still can hardly see it in the star light, but if I don’t look down at it, it will feel normal, as if I don’t have an alien sentient liquid thing on my skin.

“Where are the other females?”

Of course, he hasn’t forgotten about them.

“They’re safe.” I hope. It would be bad for the first wild animal we come across to be a starving bear or something. That’s why I need to hurry back to where I left them.

“Not for long.”

His words chill me and I jerk my head back as I search his gaze.

It is as it usually is—revealing no thoughts. No emotion.

“What do you mean by that?” I force myself to stand still but everything within me wants to take a step back from him. “Not safe from who? You? That dark-eyed one?”

For the first time, I see a flicker of emotion pass through his eyes.

“I would never harm a female,” he almost growls. “San’ten would never harm a female either.”

I do not believe him.

I saw what I saw.

I heard what this, San’ten, said.

He’d transformed into something terrifying right before our eyes. His body…no, his suit, the same thing on my arm right now, completely distorted. His whole body had spikes all over it and he was ready to come at us if Fer’ro hadn’t intervened.

“I do not believe that.”

There’s a flicker across Fer’ro’s flaming gaze.

The first I’ve seen.

“We are not like the Gryken.” He almost spits the word. “We have never and will never hurt females.”

I swallow as I stare up at him.

He’s all darkness before me.

Again, I’m faced with trusting what’s before me or going with my instincts.

It’s hard trusting something that looks like a demon from hell.

“Can you…can I see you?” For some reason, my heart kicks in my chest and I feel a shiver of anticipation. “Can you retract the suit? Is that even possible?”

Fer’ro blinks at me in the strangest way. His eyes are open, but that inner eye-lid slides across his eyes. It happens in a split second. I would have missed it if I wasn’t staring into his eyes.

Nictitating eyelids.

I’m in awe just like the first time he did it.

I’m almost holding my breath as the darkness moves from him in a smooth wave.

Down his head, his shoulders, and my eyes widen as I notice it slipping lower.

I didn’t expect him to take it all off but curiosity has me silent. I don’t stop him.

Not when the suit melts away to reveal a sculpted chest and arms or when it goes lower, passing his waist.

There are ridges everywhere.

All across his dark skin they run, giving him a strange textured appearance.

I find my throat going dry as the suit slips over his torso, his pelvis, his…

There’s a bulge. A large one underneath what I assume is his genital flap.

My cheeks grow warm when I can’t pull my eyes away.

It’s still dark. I can’t see much but I can see enough and that “enough” is making me feel strange inside.

“Um,” my lips are dry and I have to flick my tongue over them to wet them. Fer’ro’s gaze is locked on everything I do and my heart skips a beat again. “Um, I didn’t know you could do that.”

“We rarely do. Like this, we are vulnerable.”

My eyebrows shoot up as my gaze moves over him, trying my best not to look at his crotch. Nothing about him looks vulnerable to me.

He still looks like he can bench press a tiger without sweating.

My lips are so dry, I have to lick them again, and the way he is looking at me makes my cheeks blaze.

“You are naked now, aren’t you?”

“Naked?”

“Yeah, you don’t wear clothes.” I grip what’s left of mine. The dress is ripped in several places, the threads hardly hanging on.

It’s not a great example of clothes at all.

“There is no need to wear garments. Underneath the ba’clan, all Vullan are bare.”

“Vullan,” I whisper, my gaze moving down him again. His people are called the Vullan.

They are magnificent.

He is magnificent.

I have to blink to get out of the trance I’ve fallen in.

I’d told him to remove the suit so I could relate to him better.

But seeing his true form isn’t helping with that.

He’s something carved by the gods themselves.

Something forbidden.

I clear my throat in an effort to clear my thoughts.

I don’t know where my head’s going but the thoughts are clearly inappropriate.

“Okay, talk to me now. If you’re not going to harm Mina, what are you going to do to her if I take you to her?”

His ears twitch. “We will extract the Gryken.”

I blink at him. “Can you do that? Without harming Mina, can you do that?”

“Our med bay will have to learn about your species before the operation, but that should not take too long. You appear similar enough to the Vullan.”

“Med bay?”

He glances to the dark sky.

“Our ship waits. As we speak, my brethren are returning to it.”

Ship?

I look up into the sky as well, but I can’t see anything.

I’d thought their ship had sunk or something, but now that I think about it, that’s a stupid thought.

I hadn’t seen them bringing up anything except the machine from the water. Surely, they’d have tried to retrieve their vessel too, if that was the case.

“You have a med bay,” I whisper, hope making my heart beat fast again.

But Fer’ro doesn’t reply.

He doesn’t get the chance to.

There is a sharp high-pitched sound, one that makes me jump and almost immediately, Fer’ro’s suit slips over his entire form.

I realize in the next second that one of the others is nearby—has been nearby the entire time!—and I hadn’t realized, but before I can even ask what the hell is happening, Fer’ro grips me.

Chapter Eighteen

ADIRA

My legs are wrapped around his waist, my arms around his neck as he runs.

He’s moving so fast, the darkness itself is a blur.

“What’s happening?! What’s wrong?”

He clicks in response and I want to tell him I don’t understand, but that’s when the darkness moves to my left and I realize he’s not clicking at me.

I only get a glimpse of burgundy-eyes as we move through the trees and when I look to the other side, I get the sense someone else is running with us as well.

I have no idea where we’re going but they’re not slowing down.

If anything, they are starting to go faster.

Not human.

Definitely not human.

No human can move this fast.

Fuck, I don’t even think a cheetah can.

We break through a clearing, one of the areas the machine had trampled, and cool night air presses against my face.

That’s when I see it.

It’s only a glimpse as we dash across the clearing, but nothing could have prepared me for the sight.

A machine.

Off in the distance is a machine, the orb reflecting the starlight.

My heart stops beating.

It was just a glimpse, but I know it is heading this way.

They always head toward water.

Shit!

I grip Fer’ro tighter. Now I know why they are running.

It had only been a matter of time before we faced another machine, but I’d hoped we’d had more time.

More than a few days at least.

And then I hear it.

That sickening sound that makes the air vibrate. The one I’ve learned the machine does before it is going to attack.

I don’t realize how tight I’m gripping on to Fer’ro until I feel his suit move against my fingers.

My face is buried against it and I can feel it against my skin.

And even though I now know it’s sentient, it doesn’t scare me half as much as that orb does.

The night is so silent, I hear the distant thump as one of its metal legs slams into the ground and the trees splitting and falling beneath its weight.

It’s going to catch us. I’m terrified that it will.

No matter where you hide, it’s like it can sense you.

I thought we had more time!

Fer’ro is suddenly slowing down and I grip him tighter.

“Mina,” I say. “We have to go get Mina and Sam.”

“Done,” he replies and his words don’t connect till I hear Sam’s voice.

“Adira? Is that you?” Sam sounds hesitant, scared, and as Fer’ro puts me down, I realize that he and the others have run directly to where Sam was hiding with Mina.

So I was right.

He’d known how to find them even without me telling him.

Why had he asked me anyway?

I scramble away from him and through the little group of bushes I left Sam and Mina behind.

“It’s me,” I whisper. “And we’ve got company.”

“I heard it,” Sam’s voice shudders and when I part the bushes, I see the utter terror in her eyes. It shines through even the darkness around us.

She’s referring to the machine and even as understanding passes between us in that second, we hear another distant thump.

Trees split and fall.

It is far away. We might have a chance.

I hope we do.

I do not feel strong or capable.

As a matter of fact, my insides are jelly and my legs are rubber.

Still, I try to keep my voice level as my gaze slips to Mina.

“They’re here too,” I whisper. “Fer’ro and two others.”

Fuck. Mina looks even worse than when I’d left her not long before.

“She’s unconscious,” Sam whispers and I nod.

We can survive this.

We’ll be fine.

I try to believe in those words as I somehow sense Fer’ro behind me.

I don’t know how, but when I turn and look up, there he is and behind him is the burgundy-eyed one and San’ten.

San’ten.

“What’s he doing here?” My voice quivers a little as I glance from San’ten to Fer’ro.

Fer’ro clicks something at him and San’ten steps forward. His gaze is not on me…it is on Mina.

“I will not harm the female,” he says, but even as he speaks, the darkness spikes around him a little as his suit reacts. He growls in his throat and his suit flattens again. “I give you my oath.”

I gulp as I glance back at Fer’ro. He’s the only one I trust, but there’s no time for deliberation on this.

There’s another distant thump and I know the orb is one step closer to our location.

If it finds us…I know we are dead.

Fer’ro is clicking again…but it sounds different.

Lower.

Deeper.

He’s not looking at us either. His gaze is focused somewhere in the darkness ahead.

Burgundy Eyes replies and so does San’ten.

What follows is a sharp series of clicks and Fer’ro’s lips pull back as his gaze suddenly shoots to me.

His anger isn’t directed at me though, somehow I can sense that, but whatever they are talking about obviously has all their emotions rising.

Fer’ro ends the conversation with a sharp click and I’m left glancing from one to the other.

I have no idea what’s about to happen now.

“Ga’Var will take the tiny one,” he finally says.

“Who?”

“They are all tiny,” Burgundy Eyes says, but he moves toward Sam.

“Oh, you’re talking about m—me?” There’s a tremor in Sam’s voice and we hear another distant thump that makes her shiver beside me. “My name is Sam.”

Ga’Var doesn’t respond. He simply reaches down and grasps her. Sam stifles a yelp as she’s lifted as if she weighs nothing.

Fer’ro reaches for me at the same time.

“Take her where? Where are we going?” As I ask this, my eyes are on Mina.

San’ten reaches for her and alarm goes through me. But he simply lifts her limp body toward his chest.

He’s all darkness but there’s a snarl on his face. I can see his white teeth in the dark.

I hesitate as Fer’ro lifts me.

“He will not harm her,” Fer’ro speaks low near my ear before lifting his head once more.

“We go away from here,” Fer’ro says before clicking a command to his friends. “We leave. We hide.”