Page 79 of Elanie & the Empath
“Of course I do.”
“Right, of course.” I laughed, tight and nervy. “Who wouldn’t? It’s like paradise.” This was not going the way I wanted it to.
“Sem.” Her brow creased the way it did when she realized something was wrong. “What is it? What’s going on?”
There were moments in a person’s life when they knew the next few words out of their mouths would change everything. They might not know whether the change would be good or bad, but they knew it was coming. “I think we should talk about whether we should stay here. Because I think, maybe, it’s not a good idea.”
Her silence was an acoustic black hole as she stared at me.
“I think we should try to get back to theIgnisar,” I went on. Someone had to. “We should try to go home.”
“Why?”
I recoiled at the snap in her voice, but at least she was speaking. “Because it’s too easy here. Too…good.” I lowered my voice. “There’s something off about this place. Don’t you feel it?”
“No, I don’t feel it” was her sharp reply as she rose to her feet. “I only feel happy here. Why aren’t you happy here too? I don’t understand.”
I reached out for her. She backed away.
“I am happy,” I insisted. “I’m happy with you. I’ll be happy with you anywhere. But Elanie, this isn’t our home. We don’t belong here.” I knew it was the wrong thing to say the second her jaw clenched tight. “Wait. I mean?—”
“This is a commune of bionics, Sem. This is the first place I have ever felt like I belonged at all. And you think I should leave? You think this isn’t my home?”
“No,” I said. “You’re taking this the wrong way. I justmean we have lives, friends, opportunities waiting for us that aren’t”—I waved an arm around in a grand, futile gesture—“here.”
Her laughter was the opposite of amused. “What opportunities? Working fifteen hours a day? Sitting in the dark in my pod alone, wondering if I would ever feel an inkling of the freedom I’ve felt here in Thura?” Her voice broke. “Or the happiness I’d felt with you?”
Dread unfurled inside me when I caught the past tense. Nothing was an accident with a bionic. “I’ve felt happier here than I ever have before too. With you.Becauseof you.”
She flung her hands into the air. “Then why would you want to leave? You said you wanted to be wherever I was. Were you lying to me? Did you not mean it?”
“I did mean it. I do,” I corrected. “But there is more to life than happiness.”
“Like what?”
“Like having a purpose.” I could see us settling into a life here, lounging all day, eating until we were so full we had to nap all afternoon, making love all night. It sounded like a dream, and it would be. But that was the problem. Dreams weren’t real life. Dreams were meant to end when you woke up.
Maybe I was being selfish. Maybe she would find a purpose here. But I knew that I never would. Bionics didn’t need medical care. There was nothing for me to do. Nothing but make love to Elanie until she bored of me, which, I knew with a bone-deep certainty, she would. Because as I grew lazier and more restless, desperate for a life of meaning, she would realize that I had nothing to offer her.
I was literally trapped in paradise. And with no single other non-bionic in Thura, I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen to me when Elanie lost interest. Would Gollet me stay? Because no matter what he’d said about no bionic being held here against their will, I was absolutely certain the big man would never willingly let either of us leave. Not with the way this place and how he’d lured bionics here had remained a secret for so long.
Nobody escaped Thura.
“You really want to stay here?” I asked, knowing that if she did, I’d do my best to make it work for as long as I could. Because I hadn’t been lying. I wanted to be with her more than anything. Even if it meant staying here. Even if it meant losing her, losing myself. I’d do it. I’d take whatever I could get of her. But if she really wanted to stay, there was something she needed to know.
It went against my oath as a physician, but I couldn’t keep this from her. She needed to know what she’d be missing if we never returned to our ship.
“There is nowhere else for me to go,” she said. “I’m not going back to a life of servitude and loneliness.”
When I reached for her hand this time, she let me take it. “But that wasn’t what it was,” I said, hoping this was the truth. “Not entirely. I was lonely on theIgnisartoo. But I think it was because I hadn’t met you yet. Even so, there were things there that mattered to me. People who mattered to me. And I know you had people who mattered to you. People you’ll miss.”
“Of course I have people who matter to me. Of course I’ll miss them. But I don’t?—”
“Sunny is pregnant,” I said. She pulled out of my grip, and I let her go. “She’s having a son.”
It was like a solar eclipse, the change in her, the way her expression fell as her eyes misted. “She’s…pregnant?” she whispered. “She’s going to have a family again? A son?”
“I’m sorry, Elanie. I should have told you sooner, butthey didn’t want anyone to know yet. He’s due just after New Year’s.”
