Page 53 of Rok's Captive
But a stubborn little voice inside me—one that sounds suspiciously like Jacqui’s—refuses to let me quit. So I keep going, packing sand, building my little platform inch by miserable inch.
Tears start flowing again—I fucking hate them. Tears not just for my situation, but for him. For Rok. For the alien who, for reasons I can’t begin to understand, chose to sacrifice himself for me. Who said my name like it was something precious. Who tried to smile just because I was smiling.
“Jus-teen.”
I freeze, my head snapping toward the hole above me.
That voice. That rough, gravelly voice that’s only ever said one word to me.
“Rok?” I whisper, afraid to hope. “ROK!”
The faint light filtering in from above suddenly dims as something—someone—blocks the opening.
“Jus-teen!” Louder this time, more urgent.
Relief crashes through me, so powerful it makes me dizzy. “I’m here! I’m down here! Rok!”
He’s alive. He’s ALIVE.
And then, strangely, I hear something else. Not just my name, but words. Actual words, clear as day:
“Wait. I will not let you perish.”
So the bastardcantalk. And I mean really talk.
“I’ll wait!” I call back, too giddy, too relieved to really care. “I’m not going anywhere, trust me. Just…please be careful. The sand isn’t stable.”
But even as I say this, I realize the absurdity. There were no actual words. I saw an image of him digging for me in my head. An image of intense persistence and the sensation that he would get to me.
I didn’t hear his voice say those things. It was my imagination. My yearning to understand him, to be understood.
The light shifts again, growing brighter. I hear the sound of digging, of sand being moved. He’s trying to reach me.
Gratitude swells in my chest, so intense it feels like a physical ache. I’ve never been so happy to see anyone in my life.
I start digging upward again, more carefully this time, conscious of the unstable walls around me. But I can’t not try to reach him. I need to see him, to touch him, to make sure he’s really there and not just a hallucination born of fear and exhaustion.
After what feels like hours but is probably only minutes, I catch a glimpse of golden eyes peering down at me through the widening hole. Then a clawed hand reaches down, stretching toward me.
I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life.
I strain upward, extending my arm as far as it will go. Our fingers are inches apart, then centimeters, and then?—
Contact.
His hand closes around mine with gentle strength, and then I’m being pulled upward, out of the sand trap in one smooth motion. The sunlight is blinding after the dimness below, and I squint against it as I’m suddenly pressed against a familiar chest.
We collapse backward onto the sand, me sprawled across him, his arms wrapped tightly around me. The warmth of the sun feels like a shock against my sand-chilled skin, but it’s nothing compared to the heat of his body beneath mine. Warm this time, not cool like before.
Warm when I’m cold. Cool when I’m hot.
For a long moment, we just lie there, both of us breathing hard. I can feel his heart hammering against my cheek, almost as fast as my own.
“You’re alive,” I whisper, gripping the front of his chest like I’m afraid he might disappear if I let go. “You’re actually alive.”
He doesn’t answer, not with words. Instead, his grip on me tightens, and his chest rises and falls beneath me in ragged, uneven gasps. I close my eyes, letting the sound of his breathing ground me, letting the steady thrum of his heartbeat convince me that this is real.
The adrenaline is still coursing through me, making my limbs tremble, but slowly—too slowly—it starts to ebb. My breathing slows to match his.
