Page 40 of Rebels Rising

‘When I went to see him he was practically catatonic. I think he was having a flashback or something, but he didn’t even register that I was there for a long time,’ she said sadly.

‘That’s why you stayed with him last night,’ he surmised.

‘Yeah. When he finally came-to he asked me to stay. I didn’t want to leave him alone so…’

‘He’s been through a lot,’ I said, the statement obvious but needed to be spoken out into the world, nonetheless. ‘He’s going to have a response to that trauma. I caught him in the gym today, which is a good sign. It means he’s not giving up. I wouldn’t worry too much about him.’

‘I can’tnotworry. Not after…’ Addy trailed off, her eyes glazing over as she got sucked into her own memories.

I jostled her to bring her back to the present, and she sent me a small, grateful smile in response.

‘You’ve been doing better than most would be after everything you’ve endured,’ I told her gently. ‘He’s suffered for longer and through things you haven’t, so he’s got a lot more to sort through to heal.’

‘Solitary confinement,’ Xander said gruffly. ‘He was stuck in a cell on his own for an entire solar and then tortured alongside you.’

‘He needs help,’ she said.

I held up a hand to stop her before she could get too carried away. ‘Let him try on his own first. Make yourself available in case he needs assistance with the healing process, but Reece has always struck me as independent. He took strength from it before. He needs to find that again.’

Neither of them looked convinced, but my gut was telling me that Reece needed time to process before he was bombarded with well-meaning worriers. The determination in their gazes told me that I wasn’t going to win this argument, however, so I decided to change tactics and move away from the conversation.

‘I’m heading back to the cockpit. I left Bal and Dave Junior to nap with Eloria, and I don’t want to know what hell they’ll unleash if I’m not there when one or both of them wake up. Are you coming?’

Xander was staring at me like I’d randomly grown a second head, but Addy rolled with it and took my outstretched hand.

‘Lead on, Captain,’ she said, her mood switching just as quickly as the subject change and befuddling Xander even more. He followed behind us regardless.

‘Women,’ he muttered under his breath. Addy caught it too, and we shared an amused look between us feeling lighter than before we’d entered their room.

Our lives had gone to shit, but at least we had each other. That fact bolstered my resolve to lead these people to safety and fed the demon that hungered for The Program’s destruction.

With these incredibly resilient people by my side, I felt more confidence and hope than ever before. I could do this. We could get through this. I could feel it.

CHAPTER 12

Alexander

Iwas so lost. I didn’t know what had happened between Addy and Artemis, but they were suddenly attached at the hip again and it was beyond concerning. What was even more alarming was that Eloria was joining in, the three of them behaving as if the rest of us didn’t exist.

I was sitting beside Julius, the pair of us watching the women in stunned, flabbergasted silence as they laughed and petted the oversized monster of a pet that Artemis had somehow acquired while they took turns pulling the child – Baldr – away from danger. The boy kept trying to fly away (what the fuck) or touch buttons (stars help us all) or ride the blatantly short-tempered Kikshrut (was hetryingto die?).

‘Are we safe?’ Julius whispered to me from my right.

‘I don’t know,’ I answered honestly, whispering out the corner of my mouth.

Dave Junior’s head snapped towards us, his eyes narrowing on us as though he’d heard and understood our whispered interaction. Julius inched closer to me as if I could protect him from the monstrous creature, but my eyes stayed on Dave Junior. It was never a good idea to look away from a predator when it had its sights set on you, and despite my attempts to pretend I wasn’t afraid of him it was obvious that he knew I was still wary.

Okay, fine. I was shitting myself every time he was in the room. He was a living, breathing horror story come to life that was currently getting belly scratches from my girlfriend. Red venom was seeping from the tips of his fangs as his tongue lolled out of his mouth, for star’s sake. There was nothing ‘cute’ about him.

Right now I was terrified of her, too, and I wasn’t ashamed to admit it. Was I going to? No, of course not. I still had my pride, stars damn it. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t sit in my excrement in the corner while the women turned into beast tamers right in front of my eyes.

Remind me toneverget on their bad sides. Ever.

Still, I couldn’t help but smile as I sat back and watched the woman I loved build friendships with people besides me. And they were other women, too, which was a bonus. I’d always been concerned over Addy’s inability to makes female friends. They usually only wanted to talk about sex. Their favourite positions, the sizes of the dicks they’d encountered, the weight of the breasts they’d fondled, how they were planning on seducing their victims for the night. All the things that Addy had never been interested in. It also made those women view her as some sort of strange, otherworldly creature that simply didn’t make any sense to them. She’d been bullied far too much over her lack of sexual urges, especially considering her race and their overtly sexual culture. It made making friends hard for her, and it was so nice to see the three of them getting along so well without any of that nonsense tainting the process.

I was warming up to Artemis, too. Just a little bit, but she’d saved Addy from those scientist bastards so I was grateful to her in spite of everything else.

When Colonel Granger had first shown me the security footage of Artemis, and then when the footage from the facility on the Forbidden Planet had been played for all of us, I’d been beyond nervous of what Artemis was capable of. If she ever decided to turn on us we were screwed. I didn’t even think there was a way to kill her. She simply regenerated within clicks as if it were nothing. I’d never even seen her flinch in pain, even when she burned the flesh off her hands, she reacted the same way as if I’d told her it was a Tuesday.

---