Barbarian Alien(63)

“This is wrong,” I say to Kira, who stands next to me. Someone’s always at my side, or lurking around. I’m never alone here, and it’s driving me nuts. We’ve only been back for a day and all chaos has set in. I stare at Raahosh’s lonely figure up on the rise and my throat clenches around a knot. “His heart was in the right place.”

“No, it wasn’t.” Her voice is gentle, but firm. Kira’s always quietly strong. She doesn’t have the determined grit of Georgie, or my irreverent commentary, or Josie’s sunny smiles. Kira’s the solemn, all-business one. “His heart wasn’t in the right place and you know it.”

“Okay, so he’s a dick,” I say irritably. “What do you want from me? He’s my dick, though, and I want to keep him.”

“Come on.” Her voice is soothing as she steers me gently away from the cave mouth. “You’re just torturing yourself with this, and it’s not good for you.”

“What about what’s good for him?” I fight against the knot in my throat again. “Why does no one care what happens to him?”

“People are angry.” Kira puts an arm around my waist and leads me back to the ‘bachelorette’ cave. “They need some time for tempers to cool.”

“I don’t care if their tempers cool as long as their minds change,” I grumble, but let her lead me back toward the others.

The bachelorette cave almost feels like the alien ship’s hold, back when we were captured by the Little Green Men. Megan’s there, and Josie, and Kira. Tiffany’s out helping Maylak with her children – the two have already become close friends, according to Kira, despite the language barrier. The only difference is that now instead of Georgie here, we have Harlow, the only tube girl that didn’t resonate to someone.

Well, okay, it’s not the only difference. We’re warm and fed and no one’s trying to sell us as cattle, and we don’t have to poop in an overflowing bucket. There’s heated water and soap for when we want to bathe. The people are friendly. We’ve been welcomed.

I should be pleased as punch.

Instead, I’m still stewing over Raahosh’s treatment. I don’t understand how a people that were so gung-ho about us mating are ready to just separate us that quickly. Don’t they care that he loves me and I love him and we made a baby together? Isn’t that all part of their master plan? But here we are once more, and I’m fighting to hold back my misery. Georgie may be happy as can be, and maybe whiny Ariana has stopped crying all the damn time, but if they think they’re done with tears around here, they haven’t seen anything yet.

Kira steers me toward the fire pit at the center of the cave and sits me down on a carved rock seat that is lined with furs and pillows. “Why don’t I get you some hot tea?”

Josie touches my knee as I sit, and her small, round face is sympathetic. “You doing okay, Lizzie?”

Am I doing okay? I suppose that’s the million dollar question. I’m not sure I’ve been okay for a long time. I’d say maybe I haven’t been okay for the last month, ever since the Little Green Men kidnapped me while I was sleeping and stuck me in a dirty hold with a bunch of strangers. But maybe I wasn’t okay even before then, because I was lonely and unhappy, with aafather that I missed every day since his death and a job that sucked my soul out.

So yeah. I’m not okay. Now that I have found someone that I love and care about and want to be happy with? Someone that I can see myself spending time with? And he’s exiled and I’m here alone with his baby in my stomach? I don’t think I’m okay, no.

But I’m also pretty sure that Josie’s hopeful expression will crumple if I say otherwise, and it’s not fair to the other girls to rage in their faces. They didn’t make the decision. So I just pat her hand. “Ducky. Just ducky.”

“You’re a terrible liar,” Megan says in a soft voice.

I give her a thin smile. So I am.

“You can help me with this,” Kira says, and puts a soft pelt in my hands. “I’m making a hooded poncho. We have the khui but it’s still not quite warm enough for us if we leave the caves, so we’re making winter gear for all the human girls.”

“I’m glad it’s the cold season now,” Harlow comments, and I see she has sewing in her lap, too.

Sewing. Someone kill me now.

“Actually this is the warm season,” I point out as I pick up the sewing and stare at it with something like horror. Turning my skirt into pants was necessity. Sewing for fun is just…ugh.