Six

Remember?  How could I not?  However, all the world offered lately was death or misery.  Why should I keep fighting so hard to live?

“No, Eden,” Ghua said, jostling me again.

I felt him moving, but I had closed my eyes again and couldn’t see where he was taking me.  Not that I cared.

He sat, settling me in his lap, before he unwrapped the blankets from around me and began to briskly rub my arms.

“Leave m-me alone.”  I mumbled the words and weakly lifted my hand to bat him away.

He caught my hand and rubbed some heat into my fingers.  How could his hands be so warm?  I stopped fighting his hold and sighed, relaxing against his chest.

“Humans do not heat as well as we do,” he said as he focused on the other hand.  “You need thicker clothing and more blankets.  Drav told me that Mya sometimes still gets cold even with both.”

He released my hand and set his palm against my cold cheek.  Everywhere he touched warmed, but as soon as he lifted his hand, my skin immediately cooled.

“You are not heating yourself at all.”  His hand left my cheek and slipped under my sweatshirt to lay against my belly.  He grunted when he touched my cold skin.  I should have tried batting him away again, but his warmth felt too good.

“Children and the old ones are more fragile.  I should have been more careful with you.”

He leaned me forward, gripped the bottom of my sweatshirt, and tugged it up and over my head before I could squawk in protest.  The bulky steel bands he called arms wrapped around me and pulled me against him once more.  The heat of his chest branded my back.  I started to shiver again.

“W-what are you doing?”

“This is how Drav warms Mya.  Well, he does other things, but I cannot do those things with you until you’re eighteen.”

I almost couldn’t think after that statement.  He sure made it sound like they weren’t interested in humans as a food source.  The alternative almost scared me more.

“Are you saying they have s-sex?”

“Yes, but children are not supposed to talk about that.”

He tucked my head under his chin and held me close.  Other than the skin to skin contact of his chest to my back, he kept to himself as he continued to smooth his hands down my arms.  After what he’d just revealed and his comments about “off limits” until eighteen, I knew he truly believed I was a kid.  But how?

“Are human children that different from yours?  Are yours hatched fully grown or something?”

He chuckled.

“No.  We do not hatch children.  We have no children.  None that we can remember.  No females or elderly, either.”

“So there’s just a bunch of guys like you?”

“Yes.”

That made my stomach clench with worry.

“How many?”

“Mya thinks about two hundred.”

Whoever this Mya was, she seemed to talk to these guys a lot.  Not that I blamed her.  If given the choice between talking and having sex with one of them, I’d talk his damn ears off about anything and everything.

“Turn so I can warm your feet,” he said.

I moved on his lap and sighed at the contact of his chest and my side.  He reached down and peeled the two layers of socks off my feet.  The feel of his warm fingers on my cold toes would have been enough to make me moan, but then he started massaging them.  I couldn’t stop the noise that came out of me as I snuggled closer.

His fingers stilled momentarily, then he resumed without comment.

As I warmed, my head began to hurt.  I gingerly touched the spot where the butt of the gun had connected and felt a small egg.  Asshole Ty.  My anger at being hit shifted to worry as I recalled the way Ty had disappeared out the window.  Not worry for Ty but for myself.

“Can I ask you some questions?” I asked Ghua.

“You wouldn’t be a child if you didn’t.”

I could hear the humor in his voice, but the statement still worried me.  What would happen if he found out I’d lied?

“Why did you come for me after Steve and Ty took me?”

“I thought you’d wandered off and was looking for you when I heard the gunfire.”

If only those two wouldn’t have found me, I might have managed to get away.  Instead, their stupidity had likely gotten them killed.  Another thought interrupted that line of thinking.  Ghua hadn’t left me.  At least not with the intent of never returning.  Given his comment about sex, which I didn’t want to think about, it made sense that he’d been looking for me.  His reaction, when he found me, puzzled me though.  Had he been protecting me?

“Why did you attack the guys who took me?”

“They shot at me.”

I couldn’t help but feel a small stab of disappointment.

“So did I.”  I wanted to kick myself for reminding him of that fact when his hand stilled on my foot.

“You didn’t know any better, but you do now, right?”

I nodded quickly, and he resumed warming me while I internally freaked out more.  His response had answered any question I had about what would happen when he found out I lied.

“Can I get up?”

“You’re still cold.”  His hand continued to knead my foot.

“I know.  But I’m hungry too.”

He released my toes, stood, and set me on my feet in one fluid move.  He didn’t step back as he looked down at me.  Eyes wide, I crossed my arms over my bra and met his gaze.

“I can only keep you safe if you stay close to me.  Do you understand?”

I nodded, and he bent to pick up my sweatshirt.  I didn’t miss the way his gaze darted to my crossed arms before he handed the shirt to me.

“Come.  We’ll search the kitchen for food.  Make sure you do not go near the windows.”

He turned away, giving me a moment to yank the sweatshirt over my head.

“Ready,” I said when I was covered.

He glanced back at me then led the way out of the cozy, clean living room to the kitchen.  This house appeared untouched by scavengers.  I itched to search through the cabinets for myself, but my shaky legs demanded I sit at the center island instead.

Ghua opened cupboard after cupboard.  He found dishes, counter appliances, spices, but no food.

“Try that long cabinet by the fridge.  It’ll either hold the broom, mop, and garbage or—”

I grinned at the sight of cans and cans of food.

“Which one should I open?” he asked, glancing at me.

“Pick one of the ones with the red and white label.”  I was so hungry I wasn’t hungry, if that made sense, and I was afraid anything heavier than soup would make me sick.

Ghua pulled the tab on top of the can and poured the chicken noodle soup into a pot on the stove.  Without me having to tell him, he added a can of water and correctly turned on the burner.

“You know how to cook?”

“Yes.  Mom and Mya are teaching us.”

“Why?”

“So when we leave to search for survivors, we know how to feed the ones we find.”

I considered him for a moment.  The way Ghua had worded it, he made it sound like he was willing to “rescue” any guy or girl he found.  Yet, his interest in my age and glances at my chest had me wondering if he was just another version of Oscar’s men.  A scarier version.

“If you’re wandering around looking for people to save, why didn’t you take Steve and Ty, too?”

“They were too afraid.  They would have kept trying to shoot me.”

“Like me?”

He grunted and stirred the soup. In my mind, his response confirmed my suspicion.  He was after women.  He already talked about Mya and her mom a lot.  Deciding not to push, I changed the subject.

“Did you kill Ty?”

“No.  Mya doesn’t like it when we kill humans.  She says they only shoot at us because we scare them.  They don’t mean to challenge us.”

“Challenge?”

“Yes.  A challenge is a fight to prove our strength.  Now that we are on the surface, we can no longer remove heads during a challenge.  Mya and Molev agreed we should arm wrestle while we are here.  It’s not as enjoyable, but it is entertaining to watch the humans try to move our hands to the table.”

“Um, okay.”  He made it sound like he’d been around a lot of humans.  How many had he already found?  I recalled him mentioning a place where the humans he rescued stayed.  He’d called it Whiteman.

“What’s Whiteman like?”

“It is like a city but with tents instead of houses.  The humans live in them.  The base has some electricity.  Enough for the lights that keep the hellhounds away.”

“Base?  You mean a military base?”

“Yes.”

He turned off the soup and poured it into two bowls while I tried to figure out what it meant that these grey guys were interacting with people at a military base.  Maybe there was more out there than raiders fighting over supplies.  Maybe these grey guys actually were on our side and really were helping people like Ghua said.  Or maybe not.  Maybe he meant they’d taken over the base and now used it as some kind of harem camp for the female survivors they were collecting.

Given everything Ghua had told me so far, the latter seemed more likely.

“How long will it take to get to Whiteman?”

“I’m not sure.  If I ran with you straight through, maybe a day.  But you get too cold when I run, so, two, maybe three, days.”

“What will happen to me when I get there?”

He set my bowl before me and tilted his head as he studied me.

“Happen?” he asked.

“Yeah.  Am I going to be put to work?  Auctioned off to whichever male has the most money.”

The vertical slits in his eyes narrowed sharply, making my heart thump harder.

“You will not work, and you will not be auctioned.  I found you.  I will take care of you.”

“And when I turn eighteen?”

He turned away from me to grab a spoon from the drawer.

“It is not a subject for children.”

Well, that pretty much answered my question.  My stomach churned.  When I turned eighteen, I would no longer be off-limits to Ghua.  How had I managed to escape one sex-on-the-mind guy just to be found by another?

I took my first spoonful of soup and tried to ignore the panic attempting to consume me.  Swallow by swallow, I ate and considered my options.  I’d almost gotten away once.  I needed to try to run again.

While I finished what remained in my bowl, Ghua searched the drawers until he found a washcloth.  Keeping in mind his warning to stay close, I stood and brought my dishes to the sink while he wet the cloth.  Before I turned to go back to my seat, he caught my chin in his hand and gave my face a quick swipe.

Stunned, I could only stare as he shifted his attention to washing my fingers.

“You’re clean.”  He set the cloth aside and scooped me up in his arms.

“How many kids are at Whiteman?” I asked as he carried me back to the living room and sat in the overstuffed chair.

He tucked the blankets around us before settling back.  Pinned against his chest, this time with my sweatshirt on, I waited for his answer.

“Not many.  There are a few boys your age.  Some girls a little older—but they don’t look like you—and some very small children, who fall down a lot.”

“Only the ones who fall a lot need their faces washed for them.  The rest usually manage on their own.”

“I know.”

“Then why did you wash my face?”

“Because I like taking care of you.”

That’s what I’d been afraid of.  Not knowing what to say or do, I held still on his lap while he rubbed my arm through the blanket.

The heat of his bare chest and the soup in my belly gradually warmed me.  It was unsettling, cuddling in his lap like that, but if I were honest with myself, I hadn’t been so comfortable in a very long time.  The slow sweep of his hand lulled me, and my eyelids began to droop.  I gave in and closed my eyes, knowing that I was safe enough…for now.

I didn’t sleep too long.  I never did.  Even back in the bunker, sleep left a person too vulnerable.  So, when I opened my eyes again, the light in the room had only faded a bit.

Ghua reclined beneath me, his hand no longer petting my arm through the blankets.  The steady beat of his heart under my head had slowed, as had his breathing.  I moved a little and waited to see if he’d wake up.  His heartbeat and breathing remained steady.

Careful not to wake him, I eased out of the blankets and off his lap.

This was my chance to run again.  But I couldn’t run out of the house like I was.  I’d lost all my supplies when he’d stripped me in order to get me into dry clothes.  Even my boots.

Tiptoeing, I went to the front closet by the door.  Luck was finally on my side.  Not only did the door open noiselessly, I also saw winter coats and boots close to my size.  I did an internal happy dance and pulled out what I would need.  On the top shelf, I also found a backpack.  This house was the jackpot for supplies.  I’d walk out fully clothed so I wouldn’t freeze, and I’d also be able to cram the backpack full of food and grab a knife from the kitchen.

With a grin on my lips, I slipped on the jacket and placed the boots in the pack.  It would be safer to put them on once I was outside.  I didn’t want to make noise walking around while I gathered the rest of what I needed.

I turned, ready to creep into the kitchen, and discovered my luck had only been an illusion.

Ghua studied me from his relaxed position on the chair.  His gaze dipped to the backpack in my hands, and my stomach twisted.  He’d caught me once and only scolded me.  I prayed he’d take it easy on me again since he thought me a child.

He stood slowly and stalked toward me, his gaze never leaving mine.  I could see it in his eyes.  He knew what I’d been about to do.

He stopped before me and lightly ran his fingers along the furred edge of the coat’s hood, from forehead to jaw.  The palms of his hands brushed my cheek, and I suppressed a shiver at the sensation, terrified of moving.

When he reached my neck, he spread his hands wide and brushed the coat off my shoulders.  The sleeve of my left hand caught on my fist.  His steady gaze held mine as he waited for me to decide what to do about the horded supplies gripped in my hand.  I dropped the bag with a thud.  He finished removing the jacket and placed it back in the closet, along with the bag and boots.

Facing me, he held out his hand.

“Are you hungry?”

I looked down at his offering.  I wasn’t stupid.  He was giving me a chance to pretend that I hadn’t been about to leave him.  Again.  But why?  I glanced up at him, meeting his pale green gaze.  I couldn’t read anything in his expression.  No anger.  No amusement, either.

Swallowing hard, I managed a nod and slipped my hand in his.

“You’ll learn to trust me,” he said.  “I know you’re afraid.  I can hear the way your heart beats so hard every time you look at me.  To you, I look like a monster.  To me, you are the most wonderful thing I’ve seen.”

The heart he could apparently hear went into overtime at his admission.

He exhaled heavily and gripped the back of my neck with his free hand.  Slowly, he leaned down until his forehead touched mine.

“I will protect you, Eden.  Even from yourself.”

After a moment, he released me and pointed to the kitchen.  Without needing to be told twice, I scurried ahead of him and plopped down on the same stool as before.