Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

Nina

T he cell door closes with a click, and I turn to stare at Venn. He looks back at me. The Hov have returned me to my usual cell. The only difference is that Venn is in here with me. He stalks from one side to the other. Then he grips the door (I now know for a fact that cells do in fact have doors) and pulls. The lock stays firmly in place, despite the strain Venn exerts against it. No doubt his powerful muscles are enough to break a Human lock but evidently not a Hov lock.

“This isn’t normal either, right?” Judging by the way Venn keeps looking between me and the closed door, I’m guessing the Hov haven’t locked him in a cell with another alien before.

I survey our surroundings. The dead guy has finally been cleaned away. So too has my discarded sweater. Normally, I’d be furious about having another one of my things stolen. Right now, I’m more focused on Venn .

“No,” he confirms slowly.

All the other cells and the dais are empty, but that’s completely normal for this time of day, especially considering all the fights were canceled because of the Ambassador’s visit. The guards who deposited us in my cell have also left.

The lights switch off, and the darkness covers everything.

I can just about see his outline.

“Maybe they made a mistake.” Before, I would have sworn this was a large cell. Now, with Venn in here with me, I’m reassessing what I think of as large.

Venn is large.

Correction. Venn is MASSIVE . The top of his head nearly reaches the ceiling, and it only takes him two steps to cross from one side of the cell to the other.

“The Hov never do anything by mistake.” He glances at the ceiling, and I guess he’s looking at the camera. Even in the dark, I bet it’s recording us; it’s probably got the alien equivalent of night vision. My imagination presents me with the image of two Hov guards, their feet resting on the control panel before them, their attention on the screens where they’re watching Venn and me.

“No, they don’t,” I reluctantly agree. They can probably see Venn more clearly than I can, and that thought has me grinding my teeth. Fuck all the Hov. They don’t deserve to be in the same room as Venn. They certainly don’t deserve to see his worry and confusion, all of which they’ve caused.

“Give me a boost, would you?” I point at the ceiling. I’ve been wanting a closer look for ages now. This is just the first time I’ve gotten the chance.

Without asking what I’m doing, he carefully takes me by the waist and lifts. It’s like being raised by a crane—effortlessly, smoothly and I’m suddenly very high with my face much closer to the ceiling than I’d been expecting.

“Umm … ”

He lowers me a few inches, until I can straighten my neck again.

“Thanks.” I reach overhead, trying to push my fingers into the seamless crack running along the ceiling of my cell where it must open to reveal the Arena. I can’t get any grip on the too-smooth surface, and the gap is way too small for me to fit my fingers into. It’s completely sealed closed, as tight as an airlock on an areophane.

There’s no way for me to manually open it, so I turn my attention to the camera. Up close it looks like half black marble, the kind kids used to play with before computer games. I can cover the entire thing with the pad of my thumb, and we stay like that for a moment—Venn’s hands on my waist, the camera covered. Blissful silence.

Of course, there’s a camera in the ceiling of every cell, so it’s not like Venn and I aren’t still being recorded.

“You can put me down now.” As my feet touch solid ground, I slide my way across the cell kind of like if I were ice staking, but without the stakes, and I sink to the floor, resting my back against the smooth back wall.

“I would tear the ceiling open, if I could.” Venn’s soft voice is a low rumble.

“I know. ”

He’s pacing the length of our tiny cell, his bare feet practically soundless.

“Please, sit down,” I beg, patting the ground beside me. “You stressing out is making me stress out.”

He freezes as if I’ve somehow said something to upset him, but after a moment of complete stillness, he comes to sit beside me. I’m slowly beginning to realize that Venn never rushes into any decision, and getting impatient or jumping to conclusions about how he’s going to react to whatever it is I’ve just said doesn’t achieve anything. It’s a hard habit to break—jumping to conclusions, but I can understand why Venn doesn’t rush. When most decisions you must make can mean the difference between life and death, making the wrong decision can have some seriously drastic consequences.

Stretching his long, thick legs out before him, Venn leaves a narrow slither of space between us. It would be so easy for me to close the distance and rest my head against his solid arm. I’m so close to doing so that I can almost feel the ghost of his arm against my cheek even now. Instead, I press my knees to my chest and wrap my arms around my legs.

Venn has never been the one to initiate touch. It’s always been me, and I can’t help but listen to the niggling little voice in the back of my head that’s saying maybe he doesn’t want to touch me. Maybe it’s because we’re always being watched. Maybe it’s because he’s spent the last two years only killing those he touches.

I shudder at the thought and hug myself closer.

“Nina?” His voice is hoarse.

“I’m fine.” I force a laugh. “Just thinking.”

Back on Earth, if I’d wanted to let a guy know I was interested in him, I wouldn’t have thought twice about kissing him. If he wasn’t interested, the worst that could happen was he’d tell me to fuck off. And if he was interested … Well, I’ve loved sex since the moment I survived puberty.

I attacked my pesky hormones as I’d attacked all my other problems—head on and with little thought to societal expectations or conventional Christian values. Whenever I had urges, it was also easy enough to find a partner to satiate them.

My grandma, bless her, bought me my first packet of condoms and an illustrated book on safe sex when I was fifteen. Clearly, she was under no false pretenses as to my virtue. Then again, who was she to judge? She’d been a teen mom, and back in a time when most unmarried mothers in Australia were coerced into giving up their babies. Instead, she’d fought tooth and nail to keep her daughter, and when her daughter died, she fought tooth and nail to become my legal guardian.

Never let anyone tell you want to do, she used to say to me. And I’ve followed her advice ever since I was twelve and utterly heartbroken.

Still, nothing about those experiences has prepared me for today.

“What are you thinking about?” Venn asks in another hoarse whisper, this time spoken so quietly I could pretend I hadn’t heard.

“I can’t seem to wrap my head around how my life can possibly go back to normal after all of this. I mean, I want to go home, and … Well, let’s just pretend for a moment th at’s even possible. How am I going to explain to everyone where I’ve been? I’ll have lost my job. I’ll have lost my apartment. I’ll be lucky if all my stuff hasn’t been sold off or … or whatever it is they do with missing people’s stuff. What will I say to the police? They’ll be searching for me, and I’ll just suddenly reappear and say s orry for all your trouble, but I was abducted by aliens . Nobody will believe me.”

Venn blinks, maybe surprised by the tirade that fell out of my mouth, but it’s something that’s been worrying me for a while now, and I can’t seem able to answer any of these questions myself.

“When I’m back on Earth I’ll know that all this exists, but I won’t be able to tell anyone. I certainly won’t be able to go to therapy. If I tried telling a psychologist about all this, they'd have me committed, and I wouldn’t blame them. I’d have done the same thing, if one of my elderly patients had started talking about aliens and gladiators and death matches in a sports stadium.” It’s something you have to experience to believe.

With a small, dull thump, Venn rests the back of his head against the wall. Even this close, I can’t make out the finer features of his face in the darkness, just the general shape of him, silhouetted against the shadows. Again, I can see the imagined Hov guards watching the CCTV footage of Venn and I more clearly than I can see Venn himself. I rub my closed eyes, trying to clear my thoughts of the Hov. I spend way too much of my time thinking about those losers. They don’t deserve space in my head, and any they do have is space they’ve stolen.

“It is a common understanding among the Ves’os that every individual is the sum of all their memories. We cannot be what we have not experienced, and so parents spend much time creating foundational memories in an attempt to shape the person they wish their youngling to become.”

With a jolt, I realize he’s answering the question I asked him days ago, about his life before he was abducted. I hold still, not wanting to distract him.

“Now, my memories from that time are faint, and when I close my eyes, I do not see them. Rather I see the Arena painted in the blood of all those I have killed. And I see the medical bay where I have been stitched back together countless times.” He raises his arms as if to say look at my scars. “I worry that if I were ever to return, my clan would not recognise me. I am not the Ves’os I was when the Hov abducted me.”

“You’re not a bad person. You haven’t been fighting in the Arena because you want to or because you enjoy killing. You’ve been forced into an impossible situation that’s completely beyond your control.”

“I did have a choice. I could have chosen not to fight.”

“You—”

“I am the memory of my first fight and my first kill,” he says, and there’s a sense of distance to his voice, as though he’s lost in his own thoughts and can’t hear me. “I am the memory of the gladiator whose head I decapitated just a few days ago. I am the memory of their pain and my own pain, of their fear and my own fear. I am everything I never wanted to be, and everything my parents tried so hard to keep me from being.”

He blinks and looks down at me.

“I don’t think that’s right, you know.” Every cell in my body is screaming at me to offer him physical comfort, but I still feel uneasy touching him when he hasn’t initiated contact, so I slide my hands under my ass to keep from reaching for him. “We’re not just our memories. We’re also our intentions and our hopes and our aspirations. I don’t think you give yourself enough credit.”

He doesn’t answer. Maybe he doesn’t believe me.

“After the accident that killed my parents, my grandma started getting these terrible nightmares. She used to dream she was back in Bristol during the war and an incendiary bomb had just crashed through the roof of her house and landed on her sister’s bed. Which is a true story, by the way. That did happen, and her nightmares were really just her memories.

“Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that sometimes when she had these nightmares her screams would wake me up and I’d climb into bed with her, and she’d tell me stories until I’d fall asleep again. The stories she told me were never about how her sister died. Instead, she liked to tell me about the games they used to play together and the time Grandma broke her arm and her sister had to basically carry her home.”

More silence.

It feels suddenly urgent that Venn understands. When I look at him, yes, I see his scars. But I also see someone who has survived two years in hell and who remains caring and thoughtful and entirely himself. When I look at Venn, I don’t see the Hov, not even in the shadows that cling to his near-constant expressionless eyes.

“Did that make sense? Grandma’s nightmares were her worst memories, but she didn’t let them have control over her when she was awake. And, yes, I know from brutal experience that’s a lot easier said than done. I was in the car when it crashed and my parents were killed. The firefighters had to cut me out.”

He shifts slightly.

“What?” I ask.

“Ca-ar does not translate.”

“Oh, right. Umm. It’s like a spaceship, I guess. But it doesn’t fly.”

I glance up at him. He’s leaning toward me, the space between us shrinking.

“You were in this ca-ar when it crashed?”

“Yep.” I just hope like hell the camera watching us isn’t also listening to us. I don’t want the Hov knowing anything more about me than they already do; I certainly don’t want them knowing about the worst day of my entire life, worse even than the day they abducted me. “It wasn’t my dad’s fault. Some idiot thought it would be funny to swerve into our lane, but he didn’t swerve back out fast enough. His car clipped the front corner of our car, and we did a full three-sixty turn in the air.”

I was twelve when it happened. I’m now twenty-eight. A lot of time has passed, and I can talk about the accident without crying. I can talk about the accident without feeling much of anything but sadness. The rage, the anger, the fury has all taken a backseat to my sadness.

Just one moment of someone else's stupidity and my parents’ whole future was stolen from them. My grandma’s future was stolen from her too (although she’d have argued otherwise).

It took me a long time to regain myself after the accident, to stop having nightmares, to stop being terrified of every car and truck and bicycle on the road, to remember what it felt like to wake up every morning and not already be crying.

“The Hov kidnapped me. The Hov might be the death of me. But I’ve absolutely no intention of giving myself up without a fight.” I uncurl, stretching my legs out before me and twisting around so I’m facing Venn. “You’re my inspiration. When I look at you, I see all the horrific scars that must have hurt like a bitch, but I also see you, Vennkor. I see the way you keep your thoughts to yourself because you don’t want to voluntarily share any piece of who you are with the Hov. I see the way you always think before you act because every action has such dramatic consequences. You always talk about how dangerous Reke is. Well, I’ve got a pretty good idea of how dangerous you are. And not just dangerous. You’re resilient and intelligent. You must be to have survived two years."

He cups my cheek with one of his massive hands and bows his head, lightly resting his forehead against mine. He smells like antibacterial soap, sand and warm comfort in the middle of a freezing winter.

His eyes are closed, and he’s breathing deep. His whole body is shuddering. If he isn’t crying, then he must be close to tears.

I kneel, making myself a little taller. My jean-clad legs immediately slide out from under me, and I’ve got to grab hold of Venn’s shoulders to keep myself still. He’s so immovably solid I wish I could tie myself to him, like sailors used to tie themselves to the mast of their sinking ship.

I have a feeling that aliens don’t kiss. At least I tell myself that’s the reason Venn hasn’t kissed me yet. Still, I don’t let it stop me from kissing him, now that he's initiated touch. It’s just the gentle brush of lips, nothing beyond chaste.

His lips are soft and warm, and I lean against his chest as Venn settles me onto his lap, my legs on either side of his hips. Even like this, there’s still a considerable height difference. If I leaned forward, I could easily tuck my head under his chin.

“Can I keep kissing you?” Despite the closeness, it’s still too dark to communicate with gestures or expressions, which leaves only words and touches. And so I whisper my question. I wish I was whispering because I was being romantic and because we’re pressed so close together I don’t need to speak loudly. But I really whispered because if there’s a chance the Hov are listening, I really, really don’t want them to hear.

To make my intentions as clear as possible, I trace his lips with one finger.

“Yes.” His breath catches, and he grabs my hand, holding it against his mouth. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t seem to know what to do next.

My heart melts in my chest, and I trace along the line between his lips until, with an intake of breath, he parts them. I slip my finger into his mouth, just barely, just enough to touch the front of his teeth and to feel the tip of his probing tongue.

“Just like that,” I encourage him, “but with my lips and tongue also.” I tug my hand free of his hold and kiss him again.

He remains unresponsive, for all that I can feel a distinct hardness growing between us, pressing against my belly. Knowing he’s finding this pleasurable even though he’s sitting as still as a statue, gives me the courage to nip at his bottom lip and then to lick where I nipped, following the memory of where my fingers touched.

Everything about this feels so right, and I realize with a jolt that I’d been waiting for something to feel wrong, or shameful or traitorous. He is an alien, after all. But then I suppose I’m an alien too.

Venn makes a sound at the back of his throat and starts kissing me in earnest. His movements are clumsy and urgent, like it’s really him who’s trying to tie himself to me instead of the other way round.

I sink into our kiss, running my hands through his thick hair and grasping one horn so I can angle his head a little more to one side. He molds his massive body against mine; only his cock trapped between us remains inflexible under the fabric of his breeches.

Tempted, I glide a hand down his chest toward his waistband, just as he lowers me to the ground, cradling my head so I don’t hit the hard floor. His body is over mine, his hips thrusting in small desperate movements, even as he tries to keep himself still. He’s also trying hard to keep most of his weight off me, probably afraid of squashing me, but I want to be squashed. I want him to squeeze all the thoughts from my head until I forget everything about the last few horrific days.

I pull him down, wanting some sense of control over my life and my body and my thoughts.

Or maybe what I really want is to simply be Nina Huntley again, instead of a doomed Hov gladiator, abducted from her home and separated from the last of her family. And what better way to find myself in all this fucking mess than to lose a piece of myself to Venn?

I arch into his body, closing the last of the space between us, rubbing against his covered cock, gasping as he trails kisses down my throat.

Overhead, there’s a small hole in the ceiling, no bigger than my thumbnail. The center glows lightly in the darkness, an eye watching and recording and remembering everything Venn and I do together.

Hands to his chest, I shove him off me, panting like I’ve run a marathon.

“I can’t … ” I heave, pulling deep breaths into my lungs. “I can’t … Venn … ”

Maybe he can see better in the darkness than I can, or maybe he can hear the panic in my voice. Whatever alerts him to my feelings, he wraps me in his arms, holding my face against his chest so I can’t see anything. I’m a horse wearing blinkers, and I count to ten again and again.

“We will do nothing more,” he promises.

I wish I could have ignored the cameras. I wish I could have ignored the idea of the Hov watching. I wish I’d been brave enough to keep kissing Venn. Because he deserves kisses and touch and comfort. Except now he’s the one comforting me.

I feel like a coward, starting something I couldn’t finish, and a fresh wave of hatred for the Hov nearly blinds me. I’m gritting my teeth so hard that my jaw is aching, and a headache is threatening at my temples.

I lie down, pulling Venn down too. He settles against my side, large and warm and perfect. I don’t think I’ve ever trusted someone as much as I trust Venn. And I hate the fact I feel like I can trust him to save me, because we shouldn’t be living in a world where I need saving.

“If you could leave here tomorrow, where would you go?” I ask, wanting a distraction.

He doesn’t answer for so long that I think he’s fallen asleep, then he says: “Not home. I can’t go home.”

“Why not? Surely your family misses you. Your … mate?” It’s the most unsubtle do you have a girlfriend question I’ve ever asked, and I squirm with embarrassment.

He stiffens.

I’ve said the wrong thing. “Sorry, I shouldn’t?—”

“I do not have a paired partner.”

“Really?” I’m genuinely surprised. I’d kind of thought there’d be some woman back on Venn’s home planet waiting for him to return or trying her darndest to rescue him.

Cupping my hands under one cheek, I turn to face him. We’re so close, I could lean forward and keep kissing him. When he exhales, his soft breath tickles my face.

“I cannot return home. I would not put my family at such a risk. The Hov ensure those who defy them are punished.” He slips an arm under my head like a pillow, closing the last of the distance between us, but his unspoken words still hang uncomfortably between us. You cannot go home either, Nina. You cannot risk the Hov retaliating against your family and friends.

“We would have to go somewhere they cannot reach us,” he continues after a pause. “Somewhere they cannot track us. But it is an impossible task. The Hov have the largest fleet in the explored universe. And where they do not want to go themselves, they send Cartel bounty hunters in their stead.”

I close my eyes, counting my breaths as his unspoken words run circles around the inside of my head. You can’t go home. You can’t go home. You can’t go home.

“Nina?”

They ensure all those who defy them are punished.

“Nina, I do not want to upset you with the truth.”

I keep still, pretending to have fallen asleep. It’s a shitty thing to do, but I can feel panic welling up inside, and if I open my mouth I’m afraid it will all escape. And so I clamp my mouth shut and close my eyes.

I’ve got to return home. I can’t abandon my grandma, not after everything she sacrificed to care for me, not now she needs me more than ever before.

Venn kisses the top of my head, his movements slow and gentle so as not to disturb me. I’m filled with both warmth and dread. How can he be so sweet after everything that’s happened to him? I honestly don’t deserve Venn’s friendship. He tells me the truth, even when he knows it will hurt me. He treats me like an independent person, who can decide for herself what she thinks and feels.

I snuggle closer, completely ruining the effect of pretending to be sleeping. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“I know what it is like to be without you,” he answers, and for someone who never lets his face wear his feelings, there’s so much sadness in his voice it nearly breaks my already broken heart.