“Hungry? Are you kidding?” I ask.
He walks over to a crate and pulls out a few Twinkies. My stomach betrays me.
Turin wags the bags in front of my face. “You sure you’re not hungry?”
I grab both of them and tear open the bags. Within seconds, my mouth is stuffed.
He chuckles. “It’s fun to watch you eat those,” he says.
I stop chewing. “Shit. I should have saved some for you,” I say, mouth full of the treat.
He sits. “Don’t worry. I do not eat. I absorb,” he says.
I remember the bodies we found. They didn’t have stomachs like we did.
“Absorb? You mean like...” I try to find the words, but I quickly realize that I have no reference point to start on. He’s anthropomorphic, has huge muscles, and a similar system to ours. How can someone like him not eat?
He cracks his neck. “I am a highly adaptable organism built to be advantageous over most foes. If I hunger, I can absorb another life-form’s cells.”
“So… when you touch something, you take a part of them,” I say.
“I become a part of them,” he corrects me. “It does not hurt the other. It simply gives me a benefit.”
His body is as strong as a tank, but he is built for more than killing. He is built for understanding. It might be the only thing we can rely on.
As I stare at him, he glows. I know what that glow means.
/> He wants me. It’s no secret. But it’s more than strange lust. It’s a real tenderness.
Odd, coming from a predator.
“What about me?” I ask. “Are you going to absorb me, too?”
He now looks over my body. His finger curls around my collar bone.
“Only if you want me to,” he says.
I know it’s bat-shit-crazy.
I understand how illogical and stupid, and terribly wrong it is. I know all of this.
But I do want him…
I want him to absorb, real bad.
Eight
Naomi
There’s only one thing on my mind. I’ve been thinking about it for hours. “Why did you tell Zakar you would… breed me?”
My lower lip twitches. It’s not a question I ever expected asking anyone, let alone a six foot tall alien.
“I was telling him what he wanted to hear,” he says with a dull smile. “Maybe it’s what you wanted to hear, as well?”
I turn my head and stare at the metal floor of the facility. If I avoid eye contact, all of the awkwardness will go away. Right?
Wrong.