“So that’s why you’re interested. Did you see one you liked?”
Our teasing continues while we finish chopping the meat into small pieces and then shredding it into a fairly unappetizing mash. How Avrell kept down the huge chucks we’d fed him, I’ll never know. Even the charred hunks he used to eat look more palatable than this mess. I’ll worry about Julie’s crusade once we have everyone cured. Maybe I can convince Avrell to lock her in a padded room instead.
Discover another alien race my ass.
We spend the next few hours feeding those who we’re able to rouse into consciousness. Many of them can barely stomach the meat, but Avrell thought it would be best to get whatever immunity we could coerce into them. Those who are left with us are the worst off and need whatever immune-boosting properties they can get.
It’s not a pleasant process. The meat is foul-smelling and probably tastes worse. Some vomit up their bites as soon as they swallow and let me tell you, it smells about as good as it sounds.
But it feels good to have a direction now. It feels good knowing there may be hope on the horizon. I cling to it, knowing it’s all we have until Avrell gets better and he will get better.
As Julie and I go from patient to patient, it’s hard not to be reminded of those I killed in the terminal ward. There’s no way to sugarcoat it. I took their lives. They were mercy killings, but that doesn’t mean I had the right to play God. I’ve come to accept it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not hard to stare into the faces of these patients with it on my conscience.
I have to tell Avrell at some point. He believes in healing…then again, he did try to impregnate someone without their consent, so maybe he’d understand. Maybe we’re two fucked-up peas in the same pod. We both believe we know what’s best.
I throw myself into the task at hand so I don’t have to think about the future—it’s easier this way. I don’t have to think about Avrell finding the cure, the Kevins coming to annihilate the morts, or what’ll happen afterward.
Avrell seems to think I’m his mate, but is it only because we’ve been thrust together by circumstance? What will happen to us after the Kevins arrive? After we cure all the other humans? He’ll have his pick of any of the human prisoners.
Will he still pick me when he knows the truth?
Will he still call me his sweet mate, his stormy one when he knows I’ve taken lives?
When we’re done, Julie and I haul ourselves back to Avrell’s makeshift bed where we find him sleeping.
“I’m going to go pass out now,” she says, and I realize she has dark circles underneath her eyes. She seems so indestructible sometimes, it’s always a shock when the vulnerabilities shine through. “But first I’m going to find a shower.”
“I’m not far behind you. Thank you. For everything. Even if I think you’re crazy.”
Julie pulls me into a one-armed hug. “It’s okay. I think you’re kinda crazy, too.”
After she leaves, I take a shower in the decontamination closet and drag on a new sleeping suit. I pull a cot next to Avrell, and after checking his pulse and breathing, fall into a deep, dreamless sleep holding his hand.
8
Avrell
One Solar Until Kevins Arrive…
I tap away at my tablet, making a list of all my improvements. And there are plenty. Enough so that I wobbled around in the wee hours of this solar, taking note of everyone’s progress.
There is progress.
The ones whose charts notated they were beyond help have regained consciousness. It seems the raw rabbawolf meat Julie and Zoe fed them has helped. Only time will give us real answers, but hope fuels me now. Once I figure out how to isolate the mutated proteins in the beast blood, I can work with Calix to figure out a way to create an immunity. While eating raw meat is a quick fix, I want something in a manageable form we can give to each mortling after birth and all of our people.
Soon.
We’re too weak to travel as a group and we don’t have a ship. That means we’ll have to rely on Theron to return to fetch us. With the Kevins’ anticipated arrival tomorrow, we can’t afford for them to come back. Plus, I want to be absolutely certain this works and that we won’t infect the well ones or mortlings at the Facility.
“You act like we didn’t just get our asses chewed out by that guy,” Zoe says, entering my workspace.
When she woke to find me working, she tried to bite my rekking nog off, but I wasn’t having it. I’m feeling better, so I will work. End of story. I told her as much. Earned me a smack to the arm, a middle finger, and then a colorful insult all the female aliens enjoy using. Fuck you.