I hope she got away. I hope that my being stupid didn’t doom her.
I pass around the grand cafeteria to my chamber.
This is a big fancy ship. We had to pay a lot to be on it. And everyone has their own bedroom, like a real old-fashioned human cruise, back when we had those in the oceans and everyone had cabins.
Here’s mine.
It’s compact but nice, like my old grad school dorm, and I even got to outfit it with the things we put in storage: teak dresser, matching night table, overstuffed reading chair. On the dresser is a framed picture of my family. Me and my mom anyway. Because that’s safe.
He pokes in the closet, under the night table, and then peers into the inch-wide gap between the floor and the bed. He rises again and hovers his hand over the fuzzy white comforter. “What is this?”
“My bed? It’s for sleeping.”
He looks into the stall behind the dresser. “And this?”
“The shower. For washing off.”
“Why?”
“It’s normal. We don’t have space suits like yours on Humana.”
He continues his search.
I hold the cat ears and unclip the tail. My breasts hang out of my torn nightclothes. The ears need a delicate wash, and I don’t want to set everything, still bloodstained, on the white bed.
He passes me and lifts the picture, looks behind it.
“What are you looking for?” I ask.
He presses a button on the frame.
The picture flips to my college graduation, my mom on one side of me, my father on the other. On my father’s other side is the prime minister of Malaysia.
I brace to…
Oh.
I have no urge to attack.
My father beams, one arm around my shoulders, an impossible grin splitting his tan-olive face. My mom must have hidden it inside the frame, knowing that after my brain cleared, I was going to be able to look at us and feel happy.
And I can actually look. For the first time in four years. I don’t go blank. I feel…
Oh, sad. I really hope someday I can see him again.
The hooded assassin studies the picture like he’s trying to figure out what it means.
My legs start shaking again. I’m so tired, exhausted, like my tendons are unknitting and I’m a puppet about to collapse. Everything stings.
I never feel like this after my fix. The fog, the numbness, the insatiable craving rolls in before the liquids have dried.
But now they’re sticky and gross all down my legs.
I feel beaten inside.
And still I have this wonderful, horrifying clarity.
Maybe it’s because I’m just so scared. I know that I’m about to die.
But maybe something else has changed. “That’s my family.”
“Lesser families…” He looks at my rattling knees. “You’re sick.”
Again, it’s not a question, but I feel compelled to answer. “It’s shock. After a shower, I’ll be fine.”
“You’re blooded.”
I’m really sure the blood—which is orange—isn’t mine. “I have a medical kit in the bottom drawer.”
The concept of drawers seems strange to him, which opens up all sorts of other questions, but he finds the kit and takes it back to the bed. He sorts the contents, studying their labels, opening tubes, sniffing the contents. They’re all basically new. This is my after-sex kit. My mom packed a new one.
He holds up the only ointment that’s half emptied. “It’s Arrisan.”
“Yeah, it’s the best stuff we have.”
He looks back at the tube in, what, surprise?
But he doesn’t know much about us if he doesn’t know about families or beds or anything like that.
I’m about to collapse, and if I hit the floor, I’m not getting up again. “Do you mind if I take a shower?”
His cowl twitches.
He doesn’t mind…probably.
I end up dropping everything on the carpet and stagger into the narrow stall. We’re supposed to close the stateroom door before we shower to make sure the moisture-collectors funnel all the liquid back into the system, but I can’t summon the will to risk walking past him again. I just can’t.
I flip on the water, which automatically starts the roaring suction fans. They dry my skin almost before the tepid drops hits me. The biggest planet-side luxury we lack is a bath. The ace and the kingmaker complained about it a lot.
This drizzle feels rapturous.
I lather on dry soap, shampoo, and conditioner, and massage my scalp between rinses. The hose extends to access every part of my body. As it cascades a few inches across my skin, it doesn’t just wash away the last half hour. It washes away the last four years of my life. Everything I saw, everything I did, everything that happened. It’s all rolling off and disappearing up to the ceiling drain.
The stinging gets a lot worse.
Cuts appear all over, but something sizzles with waves of discomfort down there, which is so weird. I haven’t felt anything in my body, especially in my body, in a really long time. The water makes it worse, but I feel like I have to rinse it clear. What exactly happened? I can’t get a good look. Contorting to the front, to the back…no. I need a mirror. There’s one in my—
He stands right outside the shower.
Watching me.
I flinch, nearly dropping the hose, and it sprays my inner cut again. Ouch, ouch, ouch.
His hood has fallen back very slightly. I can see the outline of his chin. His lips part.
I flip off the shower and retract the hose, wait for the fans to dry me, then limp cautiously past him to the bed and the open medical kit. On the small cuts, I can use regular pain cream, but inside…well, there’s a reason I have this half tube of Arrisan ointment. I put it up where I think are the edges of the wound. It turns warm and then numb, but there’s still a lot of pain. I didn’t get it quite right, but it’s going to have to do. The ointment is really too precious to use.
He holds out his hand.
But I need it.
The words never leave my mouth. He can have whatever he wants. His face has receded into the cowl again, nothing but shadow. I drop the tube in his palm.
He motions for me to turn around.
The tip of the blade flashes against his wrist.
He’s going to kill me now.
Oh.
No.
Please.
I had dreams.
My heart thumps like a drum.
Please.
I face the bed.
“Bend down.”
Like the guillotine.
I rest on shaking palms.
Why did he let me have a shower if he was only going to bloody my bedroom?
The air coasts over my bare backside as he approaches.
If he wants sex, that’s fine, I can do sex, that’s not a problem, but he isn’t giving me any vibes for sex, his hood means instant death, and I really want to live, I want to see my parents, I want to—
Is that hiss the sound of his blade sliding out?
I clench the fuzzy blanket and squeeze my eyes shut.
Something very softly brushes me down there.
Huh?
Another delicate brush, and then my folds are gently parted and his finger dips into me. A sensation of tiny brush strokes paint my bruised canal. The area warms and then numbs.
He isn’t killing me.
He’s…healing me?
Down there?
I don’t know how to feel about this.