Page 150 of Homebound
Simon.
Her eyes snapped open to a calm blue of recessed lighting. She flailed her arms to rotate her body in zero-gravity but something was restricting her movements. Soft cushioning embraced her, canceling her flight. And why was everything blue?
Her mind exploded with panic. She thrashed, suffocating despite the plentiful air, falling, drowning in the stifling softness. Her arms were too heavy, she couldn't lift them. She was paralyzed! A pitiful hoarse moan left her lips, mixing with the hiss of a door sliding open.
Gemma watched in helpless horror as a figure approached, dressed in a slick bodysuit, hands folded in quiet consolation. A female.
And she was walking.
Reality slammed into Gemma with the force of an oncoming train, and all she was able to do was fall back onto the foam mattress and take it all in: the super soft bed that contorted to her body, the music, the blue lights. Gravity.
She was in a room, and it wasn’t on Butan.
The woman approached her bed, and Gemma didn’t need pointers to know she was Rix. Her huge eyes, luminescent despite their inky black color, revealed nothing, but Gemma sensed no threat. The Rix woman uttered something in her language, her voice low and soothing. Reaching out with slim hands sporting six slender fingers tipped with golden claws, she adjusted Gemma’s pillow and tucked in her covers. After a slight hesitation, she gently touched her forehead, brushing the hair off to the side with the gentlest of strokes. Her hands were cool.
“Where is Simon?” Gemma’s voice came out an octave lower than usual.
The Rix woman cocked her head.
“Simon. The man I was with?”
Instead of answering, the woman fetched a bowl full of small meat chunks and offered to feed Gemma with a skinny long-stemmed spoon.
Gemma waived the dinner away. She couldn't even think of food. She attempted to get her question across in several different ways, but the woman wouldn't understand. Not knowing if Simon was here, if he was alive, was the torture of the worst kind.
Gemma gave up questioning when tears of frustration threatened to spill from her eyes and the woman’s expression turned crestfallen. She shook her head and left Gemma’s bedside to approach the wall where she tapped on the textured designs as if they were piano keys and she was performing Beethoven Sonata No.5 in C minor.
Gathering up strength, Gemma sat up. Despite exercising on Butan, her body felt wooden and weak in full gravity.
The woman registered alarm and rattled off a series of sentences that Gemma ignored as she pushed away the covers with the intent to get up. But before she could get any further and no doubt fall face-down on the floor, the door hissed again, opening to reveal a group of men. They filed in without a sound, their tread a mere whisper of soles touching the matte planks.
They were dressed in the same sleek body-hugging suits as the woman with the necks cut low enough to reveal their tattoos. And the men were massive. Their bodies became a solid wall as they surrounded Gemma’s bed in a semi-circle. Several pairs of soulless black eyes dominating their angular faces stared at her, revealing nothing of the thought processes beneath their stony expressions. They were here to give her more meat chunks. Or they were here to make her into meat chunks. It could go either way.
But if they intended to intimidate, the effort was wasted on Gemma.
“I’m glad you came,” she addressed the delegation. “This nice lady and I were making no headway. Where’s Simon?”
The semi-circle rippled allowing one more male to slide in.
“I’m here.”
Gemma covered her face with her hands and dissolved into tears.
Aware of making a spectacle, she tried to stop and couldn't. Great belly-deep sobs wracked her body, and her eyes overflowed with a seemingly endless torrent of tears. Her nose ran and became clogged. She grew hoarse, her throat swollen, her mouth filled with stringy saliva. At this moment, she was more fragile than a vintage porcelain doll: one poke, and she’d break into a million tiny pieces.
Eventually, her outpouring of emotions slowed down to occasional sobs and dry heaves. Grasping a corner of her covers, she blotted her face without looking up. While she had been fully prepared to take all of Rix men on minutes ago, now she refused to face them.
Giving one last hiccuping sob, she raised her eyes.
The room was empty of everyone except Simon sitting at the foot of her bed. He was holding a bowl that, after seeing her look up, he extended to her.
“What is it? More meat?” she could barely articulate the words with her tongue twice its normal size from crying.
A brief show of amber teeth told her he found her aversion to their food amusing. “Water.”
Grateful, she took the bowl and greedily slurped the contents. She gave the bowl back to him. He took it from her hands, let it drop to the floor. He moved then, and she was in his arms, lifted off the mattress and placed in his lap, surrounded by his strength, his smell, his taste when he kissed her, licked inside her stupidly wet, swollen mouth.
They didn’t say anything. There was no need, and frankly, no desire to rehash the last several years of each of their lives.
