Faith

“Let me help you,” I try to tell Rylan as the sun begins to disappear. It’s getting so dark, which is funny because I thought there were still hours to come before nightfall. Nevertheless, I’m veiled in blackness, slipping into another one of my nightmares.

Without logic or warning, I find myself in an altogether different place…one that’s hauntingly familiar. Though I only spent 10 days here, I recognize it immediately, for I see it every night. It’s the stage of all my worst nightmares: Jesek Lahan’s compound.

My stomach clenches and I feel like I could be sick. I don’t want to be back here in this place of nightmares. I want to feel the warmth of Rylan’s arms, but all I feel is cold. It’s a creeping cold, crawling out from somewhere deep inside of me, choking me with its unyielding grip.

I try to tell myself that the worst is over as I stare down at Jesek on the floor. I’m standing in a pool of his blood. Or is it my blood, I wonder? No, I remind myself. I cut him open and watched his guts spill out. It’s his death I’m watching.

“The worst is over,” I say out loud this time, looking into his open eyes, wondering if there’s still life there. When I look up though, the worst isn’t over. There are seventeen faces staring at me. Some are human, some are alien, all are female…all of them Jesek Lahan’s slaves.

The worst isn’t the dead man lying at my feet. It’s the horror on the women’s faces. They look at me in the same way I imagine I looked at Jesek when he first took me out of my cryobag to play with me. The older women pull the younger ones away, shielding them from me, as if I’m some kind of monster.

“We have to go,” I urge them, but they all gasp and jump back when I take half a step toward them. Then they start screaming for the guards.

My stomach burns with an icy heat as I run and it’s so hard to catch my breath. I don’t remember how I got here, but I’m at the doors of the pod. I can hear the guards coming for me, their boots pounding on the metal grates as they run. I’m shaking with the force of it, but still, I can’t remember how to get in the pod. Frantically I work the entry pad, but it makes no sense to me. I want to cry. I want to scream. I want the searing pain in my stomach to stop. Frustrated and panicked, I look down at the pool of blood I’m standing in.

“I cut him open, not the other way around,” I remind myself. Still, his blood followed me here, just the same. Pounding helplessly on the pod doors, I wonder if the guards will catch me, but when I still I realize I can’t hear their boots anymore.

Then, almost magically, the doors to the pod whoosh open and a fresh blast of air hits me. I scramble inside the safety of the ship and the doors close behind me. But for some reason, I’m so weak I collapse against something hard and heavy.

Even though my eyes are closed I recognize the smell of the object I rest my weight against. It’s so damn familiar it makes my eyes prick with tears and I shake my head, refusing to open them. I don’t want to see what this dream has to show me. Mostly though, I’m afraid it’ll turn into a nightmare and I’ll find I’m not really in this safe, old place I used to know so well.

But I smell that wooden counter and hear the hum of the fridge in the corner.

“Get your lazy buns up, girl. Don’t you have some studying to do?” My grandpa’s voice is gravelly and rich, just like it always was.

“Why are you always making me study anyway, Grandpa? Wouldn’t it be more fun to go cast some lines?” I ask him, pushing out of the folding chair behind the counter to go look out the window at the sparkling lake.

“It’s just my way of helping you, girl. It’d break my heart to see a smart thing like you spend your life in a chicken shit town like this one. Kids gotta grow up and move on out in the world.”

“What about Daddy? He doesn’t live but two miles from you and he seems plenty happy.”

“Working in the garage six days a week, breaking his back for you kids. Yeah, he’s happy. It’s easy for a daddy to be happy. But I’m telling you, you’re smart, Faith girl. There’s so much more for you out there. So, let me help you,” he says, shoving a book across the counter at me. A few seconds tick by as I try to stare at it, but my eyes struggle to focus on the words. Nothing makes any sense.

“Tell you what, if you hang on a little longer, I’ll put these bobbers on the lines and we’ll get out on that lake just as soon as you wake up.”

“Wake up?” I question, finally looking over at my grandpa. But we aren’t in the bait shop anymore. I can’t really see where we are. It’s like there’s all this bright light and it’s hard for me to keep my eyes open in the face of it. But I can see my grandpa’s outline and I can feel him holding my hand.

“What happened, Faith girl?”

“I don’t know,” I admit, letting a sob hit me. I clutch my hand to my stomach, worrying that it will hurt, but it feels numb now. “I think…I think I was stabbed,” I tell him, searching my memory. I remember the blood pooling at my feet. I remember it seeping through my fingers.

“No, you weren’t,” he tells me. “You were helping someone. Just like I always tried to help you, just like your daddy always tried to help you kids, because that’s what we do in this family. Isn’t that what I taught you, Faith girl?”  

“Yeah, Grandpa,” I admit. “It’s just…it isn’t always so easy.”

“No, but when it matters it’s the only choice you can make.”

“I’m ready, I am. I just…don’t know how anymore… I don’t know where to start.”

“Cast a wide net and you’ll catch something worthwhile. Anything else you can just throw right on back.”

I nod, knowing the work ahead of me won’t be easy. No one ever promised it would be. I wipe away my tears and blink harder against the light, trying to focus on my grandpa. I want him to know that I get it, that I know he’s right.

“Thank you…” I begin, still blinking, trying to force my eyes open.

Slowly, the figure over me comes into focus. The bright light is still behind him, but it isn’t my grandpa standing there. It’s a massive alien man, with green eyes that seem to shine a little less brightly than they normally do.

“Rylan?” I ask. “Where did he go?”

Rylan breathes a sigh of relief. He clutches my hand harder and his eyes twinkle back to life. “Who? Are you talking about Visakha? You do not have to worry about anything, Faith, I took care of him.”

My memories start to sort themselves out. My grandpa wasn’t here with me. He couldn’t have been. I try to sit up but wince at the pain.

“Stay where you are, Faith, you’re healing.”

“Stay where I am?” I repeat, slowly letting the words sink in. “Rylan! Where are we?” I ask frantically, hoping it isn’t too late.

“I cloaked the ship and moved it to a valley on the far side of the hunting grounds. I had to get you stabilized before we moved on,” he tells me. “Faith,” he chokes, “for a moment there I didn’t think you were—”

“Stop, stop, stop! Not now! Rylan, they’re running out of time! Oh, thank God we’re still here!” I try to sit up again, already forgetting the severity of the pain in my gut, but that stabbing sensation has me dropping right back onto the medical table.

“Careful! Faith, what are you talking—?”

“The others, we have to help them. Anyone else that’s still down there, before it’s too late, before the hunters get to them,” I tell him desperately, clinging to his hand.

“You want to help the others? To bring them aboard?” Rylan asks, shocked. “Just the humans?”

“Everyone. Please hurry, Rylan. I’m sorry I made you wait so long to help them. I was scared. I still am but…” I trail off.

“We have to try,” he finishes for me, and I smile up at him as tears slip down my cheeks. “Anything for you, Faith,” he tells me as he stands, but I keep my grip tight on his hand, pulling him back.

“Rylan?”

“Yes, my Faith.”

“I love you. You know that, right?” I ask him. He looks down at the heavily bandaged wound on my stomach as medical equipment beeps and chimes in the background.

“I don’t know how I ever could have doubted it,” he says, leaning down to kiss me gently.