Chapter 7 | Kara

Chapter 7

Kara

I didn’t think I was a coward. It hadn’t felt like that when I’d thumbed my nose at my captors and walked out of their prison/drug lab like it was nothing. But seeing so many aliens in a giant, confusing, endless city had done a number on me. Everyone was bigger, badder, meaner. And if I were to believe the Kertinal, everyone was out to get me—except for my chef, I hoped.

Standing on trembling legs inside what had to be his home, I felt like I’d either made the biggest mistake yet or done the right thing. I couldn’t make up my mind, but when he gently closed the door behind me, I hoped that I could trust him. He hadn’t done anything that would make me think otherwise yet, but he had me in his home now, behind a locked door with no way out. After this, I would know his true colors.

He didn’t speak as he moved around the space and turned on several soft lights that cast a warm, yellow glow. He turned on a small, box-shaped device, and instantly warmth started radiating around the room. It was a portable heater no bigger than my fist, but it heated the room in minutes to a nice, comfy temperature. My hands and feet responded with pins and needles as I warmed up, and I swayed from the pain and exhaustion.

I needed to sit down before I fell over, but my host didn’t have a single chair in his one-room home. There was a hammock strung from the rafters and a cabinet for clothing, on which sat at least three dozen pots with plants eagerly reaching for the nearest window. That was all the furniture my alien chef appeared to own, the place more spartan than an actual Spartan home.

There was no other option but to sink to the floor on my knees right where I stood, and I hated how weak that made me look. I hated how much of a needy damsel I’d been regardless, but the big, alien-filled city was so scary. When my chef looked up from his tiny space heater and saw me, I knew it was going to be alright. His expression turned alarmed, his mood spots turning white, and he jerked toward me before restraining himself at the last moment. Then came a fluttering of his upper hands as he motioned words in a rapid flurry I had no hope of ever understanding.

It ended with a frustrated grunt, the most sound I’d ever heard him make, followed by a rough thump to his chest with one fist. “Rex!” he snapped, his voice so rough and husky that his name was barely recognizable. I recognized it only because I’d heard his boss call him by name earlier today, and I’d carefully stored that information.

“Rex,” I said, and his spots brightened to yellow. “My name is Kara,” I added when he looked at me expectantly. My eyes went from his face and the intriguing flecks of color that depicted his mood down to the scars that marred his throat—a big knot of them, twisted and cruel. I should have realized sooner that those scars meant serious damage. I guess that in a world with spaceships and stasis pods, I’d expected medical miracles too.

My chef, Rex, scooted closer to me on his knees, his arms open at his sides. I didn’t move out of his way, watching in fascination as his spots turned a pretty shade of pink. When his lower hands lifted to adjust the blanket around my legs, I froze, but I still didn’t tell him to stop.

He hissed when he saw my dirty, bare feet and the blisters that walking on the sun-heated cobblestones had caused. He was on his feet and rummaging in one of his drawers in a flash, moving quickly and fluidly—too fast to be human, and incredibly graceful for someone so big. You’d think that many arms would get in the way, but he moved all of them with purpose and precision.

I was amused when he came back holding breadrolls as well as medical supplies. This guy was always feeding me. My belly hadn’t even rumbled this time, but I still took the food. I couldn’t be sure yet that I’d have steady meals in the future, so I’d take anything I could get.

He knelt in front of me, watching for a second until I’d crunched into the first roll. When I gave an appreciative noise over the sweet-tasting bread, he smiled, his spots going yellow. I was going to assume yellow meant happiness; it seemed like feeding me and caring for me made this guy happy. That made two of us.

When he carefully drew one of my feet into his lap, I froze but didn’t pull back. His hands were big and a little calloused, but they were warm and steady too. When he pulled a warm, fragrant cloth from a sealed package and began cleaning my feet, I forgot about the food. Even against my blisters and the few cuts and scabs, it felt good.

He swiped the fabric over my sole, my toes, around my ankle, and up my calf beneath the frayed edge of my pajama pants. Then, he did the same for the other foot before applying a cool, thick gel to each blister, cut, and scrape. That felt much better, and I watched in astonishment as the gel was absorbed by my skin at a rapid pace, leaving only clean, unblemished skin behind. That was some fancy ointment.

Testing to see what he would do, I opened my hand and held it out to him. The cuts caused by the broken glass I had used to saw through my bonds had begun to heal, but they weren’t pretty. There was still a ring of bruising around my wrists from the rope as well. Rex took my hand in one of his, holding it for inspection, his expression growing dark as he noticed the rope burn. Not only did his expression grow angry and moody, but the spots that dotted his face turned as red as his skin.

When he started applying the gel, my cuts and bruises healed, but he didn’t let me off the hook. Gesturing with one hand between us—he had four, so he could do that and treat me at the same time—I didn’t need to know his sign language to understand what he wanted: answers. He wanted an explanation for what had happened to me; he wanted to hear my story.

I swallowed roughly as I flashed back to that disorienting moment when I’d woken up and realized something bad had happened again. Rex had healed my wrists, but they ached with remembered pain as I recalled how incredibly tight the ropes had been—too tight. If I hadn’t cut them when I did, I could have lost a hand due to lack of blood circulation; they had already gone numb.

Flexing my fingers in the space between us, I focused on evening out my rapid breathing, telling myself I was safe. Rex sat on his knees in front of me, still towering and imposingly large, but that made me feel sheltered rather than threatened. My alien chef was taking care of me, and I was starting to trust that it was real—that I had a friend, an ally. Then my breathing hitched again when my gaze flicked over his abs and impressive pectorals. I shouldn’t find my new friend so incredibly sexy, but I did.

“Have you heard of the humans rescued by the Kertinillian Empire?” I asked, and when he jerked his head up and down in a nod, I continued my story. “Well, I’m one of them. I’ve spent the past half year on Ker, at one of the Human Compounds they built to house us. It doesn’t feel much better than a prison most days, but beggars can’t be choosers, right? At least it’s safe. Or it should have been.”

All I had done was leave my shared room to go to the communal kitchen for a midnight snack and a cup of what passed for herbal tea on Ker. That was the last I remembered; it wasn’t even like the freaky shadow nightmares I had of being kidnapped from Earth. Just a big, old blank until I woke up in that weird drug lab storeroom on this planet. I didn’t even know what planet I was on, although I had pieced together that it wasn’t Ker or even in the Kertinillian Empire.

Rex made a soft noise and shifted a little closer, so now our knees were touching. His were big—his thighs bulging, tree-trunk thighs. This guy did not skip leg day. He was also warm, and I realized that I was still chilled, even with the heater warming the room. It was very tempting to crawl into his lap all of a sudden, to find out what a four-armed hug was like. I didn’t think Rex would object if I did, but it felt a little too forward when we were only just starting to get to know each other. Feeding me scraps behind a trash can like a stray dog didn’t count.

“I woke up in a storeroom with purple flasks of liquid. I spilled a bunch of them as I cut my ropes.” I flexed my wrists for emphasis, and that prompted my chef to pick up the bread roll I’d dropped and push it back into my hand. I muffled a surprised laugh. This guy... What was it with him and feeding me? It wasn’t like I was skinny; three days of eating next to nothing didn’t miraculously make me lose ten pounds.

Rex signed something, but I couldn’t understand it. I needed to learn his signs so we could talk. I wanted to understand everything he had to say. I was willing to bet that he was going to be the most interesting person I had ever met. “I don’t really understand it,” I said, just to say something and hope that answered his question. “But the guards in the other room dropped like flies when I booked it. I think they might have passed out from the purple fumes; they made me woozy. And then I just ran for a long time. I think they were warehouses and docks? Until, you know, I found your alley and hid there...”

I didn’t know anything else. No names, nothing about who took me from Ker. I might recognize their faces should I see them again, but that didn’t really help to catch them. “I didn’t know if the police would help me on this planet. I don’t even know where I am. I just know what the Kertinal told me—that every alien out here would want to kidnap me, to use me or sell me...” I shuddered, raising my eyes to his face with a question of my own, one I didn’t really dare to utter out loud.

Rex snarled silently, baring a set of impressively sharp incisors at me, and jerked his head to the side. I knew what he meant. I felt it like a promise: never. I would never do that to you. I believed him.