Chapter 56

chapter 56

ELLE

I bolted the access panel back into place, then hid the multitool up my sleeve, walking back into my room with my shoulders slumped like someone who was upset and crying. I'd left the shower running behind me, like Donna was now taking her turn, and pretended to rifle through a drawer, looking for something I couldn't find.

I made a show of being helpless, because I assumed Hargrave's men were watching via the cameras, and after a while, I wrapped Marcus up as best I could in my sheets, while making sure to act disgusted and sad, before going to the window where I hoped I'd feel Cepharius.

About half an hour later, I did.

"Elle."

"Oh my God," I whispered on our 'qa. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, you?" he asked instantly, although I knew he could feel me. And I could feel him, too, which was why he said, "Do not be disappointed in me."

"What. Are. You. Doing," I thought at him, after grasping that one of the aliens was swimming back alongside him .

"I tried to send him away, Elle. He wouldn't let me. And I tried to out-swim him—I couldn't. Don't ask me how, but he's incredibly fast."

"Cepharius!" I said. "He's a child."

"I know that—but I couldn't very well tie him down to a rock. And the ship said he wanted to come. It is his right."

"You cannot give humans an alien baby!" I thought out the plot to every shitty show I'd ever watched in college on the Discovery channel at him—all the autopsies and conspiracy ones.

"But none of that's real!" he said, in confusion.

"Most of it isn't, but I wouldn't put anything past them!" I thought out at him. "Or us , I mean— goddammit . Just—read my memories and see what happened since you went away!"

I felt his mind brush against mine, and then sensation flowed over me like electricity.

"So she will be bringing a battery to the dock?"

"Yes. But do not give this man an alien baby, Ceph. If you do, I will never forgive you." I made sure to send that thought to him with the appropriate intensity.

"I hear you," he said, just as solemnly back. "Give me five minutes to prepare, and then tell them I've returned."