Seven
“Are you all right?” Finn whispered to me, his mouth close to my ear.
It felt weird to be in Finn’s arms. I tried to hold myself rigid, but ended up relaxing into his hold. When I first arrived here after escaping the E’mani, I’d wandered around trying to find shelter, water and food. I ran across the mines and Finn instead. At first, he thought I was the enemy. I’d been wearing the shivat, and he’d held a knife to my throat. He was seconds from killing me, but he couldn’t. Finn swore the land, the source of our power, told him not to. Not in words, but in feelings. He took me under his wing instead.
“I’m okay. I was just a little dizzy,” I replied. “And you can put me down now.”
Finn’s strides ate up the distances to Ute’s house. “Not until we get to Ute’s.”
“I’m fine,” I protested.
“You always say that, but I want to be sure.”
I bucked in his arms. He tightened his grip. “I like that. Keep fighting.”
Of course, I stopped wiggling. My cheeks burned.
Finn winked at me as we approached Ute’s. Ute’s house was typical of Groos, a small square building made out of rough wood. Bas relief symbols decorated the door jamb. Smoke drifted from the chimney to hang in the air. This was the first place I stayed when I arrived in Groos. Ute’s smile the first I’d seen.
Finn didn’t bother knocking. He barged right in with me in his arms. Ute jumped up from the table and the book he’d been reading. Finn deposited me onto the cot in the corner. The guards went to follow me inside, but Finn waved them out and closed the door in their faces.
The room hadn’t changed since I last stayed here. It was still a box, four walls, one taken up by a large firepit and some shelves, along with a sturdy oaken table. Along the opposite wall was the cot and a nightstand. A nubby rug covered the wooden floor in a Neolithic design and the rest of the room was buried under the books, piles and piles of handwritten tomes. Ute loved to read. Being the clan historian, that made sense.
I used the nightstand to pull myself up. Finn and Ute peered at me like an interesting bug. I shifted under their regard, disconcerted.
“Is everything all right, Finn, Beta?” Ute asked. I cannot tell you how much I have heard those words in the past few months.
“She is ill,” Finn said.
“No, I’m not.” I patted my stomach. “I’m good. I am not sure what happened, I felt sick for a minute there. Guess I shouldn’t have eaten on the run.”
Finn came and knelt next to me on the floor. He grabbed my hands and squeezed them. “You sure that is all?”
He stared at me like he was memorizing my features. His gaze skimmed my face. Finn had white eyes, but not totally white. There was this thin rim of blue that grew around his irises when he got excited. Long black hair, thicker and somewhat ratty, fell to his waist, with streaks of white throughout. In his dark brown leather vest and pants and with his jatua, he appeared a little bit dangerous. All he needed was a piercing or two and he would hit all my bad boy buttons. His face was rough-hewn, and concern etched it at the moment.
We’d been lovers once. I still cared for him, which was why Marin made sure to keep the two of us apart. We split when I found Finn with another woman. To this day, he insisted nothing would have happened but he admitted at the time to hesitation about being with me. The Fost didn’t believe in monogamy and I insisted on it. Since he was the only one left of his family, it rested on him to maintain the family line. And well, I was human. Neither of us knew if I could get pregnant. He didn’t want to take the risk, and it still hurt to think about.. His words from the last time we fought lingered in the air between us, “I don’t know...maybe,” when I asked if he planned to sleep with Lara.
Ute popped up in my field of vision to Finn’s left, breaking our eye contact, dragging me from the memories.
“Are you sure it was something you ate?” Ute asked, watching me close.
I blinked. I hadn’t answered either of them. I’d been too busy staring at Finn, which he’d noticed, if the smile on his face was anything to go by.
“I’m fine, like I said. I ate and ran. Bad idea. I need to get to the greenhouse. It’s my shift.” I brushed both of them off as I stood up. My legs buckled beneath me. They grabbed my arms when I swayed. Damn it. Way to ruin an exit.
“I think you should remain lying down for now,” Ute insisted, his hand under my elbow.
If I didn’t know they weren’t related, I would have thought he was Finn’s father. They had the same fighter’s build though Ute tended to wear robes. Ute’s thick salt and pepper hair was shaggy with no colorful streaks. His eyes twinkled. That twinkle had been the first thing I noted. He was getting older, his age showed in the lines on his face, but his eyes were always kind.
I plopped back down on the cot. Finn sat next to me and cradled me into his side. My head rested on his shoulder. Heat curled around me and my stomach settled. I would have to push him away in a second. No cuddling with exes allowed, even if we were still friends, sort of.
Ute glanced at Finn. “Go get some tea and bring it back.”
Finn looked up, startled. “I want to stay here and make sure she is all right.”
“It would be best if you go get her some tea.” Ute pointedly glanced at Finn’s arm wrapped around my waist.
“And you do not have any tea here?” Finn raised his eyebrows.
“Ran out.”
Finn grumbled, but he stood up. Ute took his place at my side.
I scooted back in the cot so my back was against the wall. “Tea would be good. No food. Not sure my stomach could handle it.”
Finn grunted and shrugged on his overcoat. He threw me one last look before leaving.
After the door closed, Ute asked without preamble, “Are you pregnant?”
Holy shit. My world shifted. Thank god I was sitting down.
My hand covered my belly as I peered up at Ute. “I can’t be.”
Ute regarded me. “Well, we know you have done the activity that could lead to pregnancy.” He flushed and cleared his throat. “So when was the last time, you know, you, er…”
I counted back. The time here had been hectic. “Um, not since I’ve…Oh god. I can not be pregnant. I’m just a college student, or I was. I don’t even know what I was going to study. This can’t be right, Ute.”
This was crazy. This was too much. My head swam. My belly flipped. So many things happening in such a short time, I couldn’t take it. And all because of one day. I remembered that day well, the day the E’mani came, those fuckers. I saw it in my mind’s eye.
I raced into the quad out of breath.
Huh.
I slowed and turned in a complete circle. No one around. Unease skittered through me on soft paws. The courtyard was always busy. Not now. I pulled my headphones out of my ears.
The unnatural silence pressed in on me for a second as the echoes of my steps faded.
Then screams―men’s and women’s―poured from Main Street. I broke into a run and shot between the buildings toward the sound.
Cars littered the intersection. Some guy rear-ended someone else, causing a chain reaction down the road. A horn blared nearby, and a faint breeze blew the smell of gasoline, smoke, and copper my way. Clusters of people stood among the wreckage.
In the closest group, a short dude around my own age, nineteen, twenty maybe, bellowed at a huge, hairy bear of a man, looked like a trucker. The little guy wore a ton of bling, pants hanging low. He darted toward his opponent with his fists out. The trucker didn’t hesitate. He hammered a punch to the dude’s temple and knocked him out cold. One hit. Bam.
Holy shit! My stomach dropped. I covered my mouth and backed up until my butt hit brick.
The trucker looked up and stared at me. His eyes showed no emotion. No exultation, no pleasure, no pain. That made it worse, somehow. They were fighting—shouldn’t he be pissed? Annoyed at the very least? Anything would have been better than nothing.
I held my breath, growing dizzy, while the trucker panted and cracked his knuckles.
“Guy stepped up on me,” he mumbled and staggered back toward his F150.
My hand fell to my side and I took a deep breath, before I pivoted to take in the rest of the scene.
To my left, two men exchanged sloppy blows. To my right, a young couple shoved each other, screaming. I recognized them from calculus class. They were dating and all over each other last I knew. This didn’t make sense.
Not everybody was fighting. A businesswoman power-walked up and down the sidewalk, smiling. One guy wore exercise clothes, a pedometer hung from his belt, and blood dripped down his face onto his chest. He walked, slack-jawed and silent, around the debris on the road. Luck must have been on his side because no one hit him. Not that there was much traffic. Why wasn’t there any traffic?
As if I’d called it, a car screeched around the corner fast, rolled up over the curb and slammed into a telephone pole nearby.
It just missed an old lady who wrestled with a young punk who’d apparently tried to steal her purse. The old broad beat the punk with said handbag. He cringed, trying to get away. Go, Grandma.
The E’mani gave us something and the effects were devastating. Like Alzheimer’s on steroids, it affected most of the population over the same twenty-four-hour period. Some people fell quicker than others, but for the most part, the world was a different place after a single day. Cities still stood, but the world as we knew it had ended. It still boggled my mind to think of it.
Billions dead, my mom dead, Sarah, my friends, all gone. They were the lucky ones.
I panted. My hands curled into fists. But I forced it down. Control was imperative. It was not optional. There was nothing I could do for them now except avenge them. The E’mani wouldn’t get away with what they had done. I wouldn’t let them.
It took me a few minutes, but I calmed. Thinking about the E’mani always did that to me. Ute shifted foot to foot nearby watching me.
I couldn’t be pregnant. That would be awful and wonderful all at the same time. My hand kept skirting along my waist. A baby. Marin would be thrilled, ecstatic. Oh god, my stomach rolled again and my heart thumped. It could be Finn’s. I didn’t know when I got pregnant. It just depended on how far along I was.
Ute’s gripped my hand. “Beta, are you all right? You went pale.”
I was getting ahead of myself. I squared my shoulders. “How can I find out if I am pregnant?” At home, we had EPTs. Pretty sure those weren’t available here, given there no drug stores.
“There is a test we can do. You need to provide us with, err….” Ute trailed off. His hands moved in the air in an arc from his waist.
“Pee?”
“Yes. We mix it with a weed. If you are pregnant, the leaves will form spots.”
I took in a deep breath. “Okay, I need that test.”
Right after I said that, Finn opened the door and a bitter draft followed him into the room. His arms were full of tea. At least ten jars of the stuff.
Ute turned to Finn after he entered. “I need to get some sugar.”
“You do not have sugar?” Finn asked, dropping his items on the table.
“Ran out.”
Finn raised his eyebrows. Ute darted outside.
When the door closed, Finn and I were alone for the first time in months.