Page 62 of Rok's Captive
“What have you done?” My voice rises, breaking. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”
Rok stands motionless, watching me with those unreadable alien eyes, his posture still tense but no longer poised to attack. His claws are still visible, though, and the set of his jaw is still tight.
“You had no right!” I scream, my hands balling into fists at my sides. “No right! That wasmine! Do you have any idea what you just destroyed? Any idea at all?”
He tilts his head slightly, and the gesture—that same goddamn head tilt he’s done since we met, like I’m some curious specimen he’s trying to catalog—only enrages me further.
“Stop looking at me like that!” I shout, taking a step toward him. “Like you’re so superior, like you know what’s best for me! You don’t know anything about me! You don’t know where I’m from, what I need, who I am!”
My emotions are a hurricane, tearing through me with such force I can barely stay upright. I’m shaking, my whole body trembling with a cocktail of rage, helplessness, and a soul-deep despair that threatens to drown me.
“That was my only chance to understand you!” I yell, gesturing at the destroyed earpiece. “My only chance to tell you what I need, to ask for help finding my people! And you just…crushed it! Like it was nothing!”
Rok remains still, his expression unreadable. Is he even capable of regret? Of understanding what he’s done? Or am I just a pet to him, some strange creature to be managed and controlled?
“You primitive, controlling, arrogant alien!” My voice breaks on the last word, and I hate it—hate the weakness, hate the tears that are now threatening to stream down my face, hate how utterly, completely powerless I feel.
My only hope. Crushed by a fist that could just as easily crush me.
“I don’t even know why I’m screaming at you,” I say, my voice dropping to a bitter, choked whisper. “You can’t understand a word I’m saying, can you? And I can’t understand you. You made sure of that.”
I turn away from him, unable to bear the weight of his gaze anymore. My eyes fall on the remains of the translator, scattered like stardust across the stone floor. With trembling fingers, I kneel and begin to gather the pieces, though I know it’s futile. The technology is far beyond anything we have on Earth—I couldn’t repair it even if I had all the tools and knowledge in the world.
But I can’t just leave it there, these fragments of my last hope.
“You don’t get it,” I whisper, not looking at him as I collect the tiny pieces. “I’m lost. I’m stranded on an alien planet with no way to contact my people, no way to get home. That translator was my only link to understanding anything about this place. About you.”
My hand closes around the last shard, a jagged piece of crystal that cuts into my palm. I barely feel it. The physical pain is nothing compared to the hollowness spreading through my chest.
“I was starting to trust you,” I whisper, still not turning to face him. “I thought…I don’t know what I thought. That maybe we could figure this out together. That maybe you weren’t just some mindless brute who found me in the desert.”
I stand slowly, the pieces of the translator clutched in my hand, blood from the cut mixing with the broken technology. When I finally turn to look at him again, my anger has crystallized into something colder, more bitter.
“I was wrong,” I say flatly. “You’re just like every other man I’ve ever met. Thinking you know best. Thinking you have the right to control everything. Making decisions for me without even asking what I want.”
I know he can’t understand the words. But he understands the tone—I can see it in the way his posture shifts, in the subtle movement at his throat, the clenching of his jaw.
“I survived before I met you,” I tell him, raising my chin. “I survived the crash, the desert, the heat. I can survive without you, too.”
But even as I say it, a small, traitorous voice in the back of my mind whispers:Can you, really?
Can I really survive alone in this desert, with no water, no shelter, no protection against those shadow creatures? Without Rok, who fought them all to save me? Who carried me for miles, covering ground I couldn’t possibly cover on my own? Who’s treated my wounds and shared his water and shelter?
The thought sends a cold ripple of fear through me, momentarily dampening the heat of my anger. But I push it aside. I can’t afford to think like that right now. Can’t afford to acknowledge how much I’ve come to rely on this alien in such a short time.
“Just…stay away from me,” I say, the fight suddenly draining out of me. I’m exhausted and I feel like a headache is coming on. Probably more heat exhaustion. “I need to think.”
I move to the far side of the cave, as far from him as I can get while still remaining in the shelter’s relative safety. My back against the cool stone wall, I slide down until I’m sitting, knees drawn up to my chest, the broken translator still clutched in my hand.
Rok makes no move to follow me. He remains where he is, watching me with those unnervingly perceptive eyes, his face a mask I can’t read.
The silence between us stretches. I close my eyes, too drained to maintain the glaring contest, and let my head fall back against the stone.
My head is starting to pound.
What now? What the hell am I supposed to do now?
We’re back to square one, but somehow it feels worse than before. Before, I had nothing, knew nothing—there was no loss because there was no expectation. Now I’ve had a tantalizing glimpse of communication, only to have it ripped away before it could truly begin.
