Roth (9 page)

“It’s okay, he’s cool.” Hank pushes both Marduke and Kane apart until he’s standing between them.

“How do you know? We’re in the fucking middle of nowhere and what? He just walks up and he’s cool?”

“He didn’t just walk up. He was on the spaceship when we crashed
,” I explain heatedly, my anger fast disappearing, allowing my fear to take over.

“So he was on an alien spaceship, but he’s
cool
?” Kane steps forward, knocking into Hank.

“We know him
. He’s a friend. We knew him on Earth. I’ve known him for years!” I lie, my fear making me blurt out things before I can properly think them through. “He was being transported here as a prisoner. He was fighting them!” I finish, feeling Marduke’s eyes on me. I’m too afraid to break eye contact with Kane, though, in case he sees it as an omission of my lie.

“She’s right
; we know him. So just back off, okay?” Hank shoves Kane lightly, and thankfully, he appears to listen.

Hank leads Kane away from us to let him cool down.

“Who was that?”

“That’s Kane; he’s one of the guys who is going to help us. He’s a bit of an angry guy
,” I pointlessly tell him. I’m sure Marduke came to that conclusion very quickly all by himself.

“I guessed as much. He came at you
.” He wraps his arm around my shoulder, holding me close to him.

“He’s not that bad, not really. He saw his girlfriend killed right before he was taken here. He’s just upset.”

“That doesn’t give him the right to—”

“Just leave it, Marduke. It doesn’t matter.
What does matter is that you need to be careful around him. He’s looking for blood.”

“I don’t want you being around him on your own.”

I hold in my eye roll at his overprotective-ness, part of me actually enjoying hearing how much he cares. “I won’t be because I have you.”

He smiles at my words, and I swear my heart
skips a beat. I haven’t seen his smile in a long time. It makes him look even hotter. I have missed that smile and those delicious dimples.

“So what are we going to do now?” Hank asks, Kane trailing slowly behind him. He’s watching us carefully
with suspicion in his eyes.

“We should check the other tubes, see if anyone else survived
,” I suggest.

“Rob was as good as dead after all that blood loss, and John
is
dead,” Kane states angrily.

“Yes
, but there were also those two brainwashed humans on board,” I say, cringing as I wonder if they were Marduke’s friends. Has he lost more people, too?

“Who gives a shit about them?”

“They might know things. Maybe they’ll know why this spaceship crashed.”

Hank sighs at me. “Does it really matter why
it crashed? It doesn’t change our position.”

“What if it was something more than just a weird fault or accident? What if humans brought it down?” I don’t r
eally believe that since I doubt we could do it, but I know this is an easy way to convince them we need to take a look. If Marduke’s friends survived, they deserve to be found and helped, too. We’ll just have to try to keep Kane away from them.

“Hank told me about what newbie over here heard
. Is that true? Is there a rebellion happening?” Kane watches Marduke, no doubt searching for any sign of a lie.

“I don’t know, but there might be.”

Kane’s eyes narrow at him. “You know, you sound like one of those brainwashed freaks. Is that what you are? Are you spying on us right now?”

This time
, I pull Marduke away as Hank holds Kane back, quickly trying to calm him down again. “He’s good. I swear. He saved our lives back on Earth.”

“Yeah
, he might have been a good guy, but that was before those fuckers took him and brainwashed him—”

“No, it wasn’t. They tried to change him, but it failed.” Hank explains his completely wrong theory. A theory I never dissuaded because I never thought it would matter.

“What is he talking about?” Marduke whispers quietly to me.

I just as quietly explain,
“Your accent is a giveaway to everyone on this planet. They think your people are humans who have been brainwashed. They think the machines are the true aliens.”

“My accent?”

“Yeah, you all sort of sound French. It’s a little weird.” I wonder if the other people have come to the same conclusion as us. If they’re going by accents, I fear the French are likely having an awful time right now.

“How did they brainwash you? What tests did they do?” Kane demands, his body
taut and ready to lunge at Marduke.

“I… I don’t know. But I am human
, and I am on the side of Earth.” He speaks carefully while I reach down and hold his hand, squeezing it.

“Listen
, Kane, Marduke is as human as you or I. Now, let’s just drop this and search the area for those humans. Then we need to head back to camp. If a rebellion is really happening, we need to start preparing everyone. This isn’t just five of us against every machine out there anymore. It’s all of us against those machines now. We might actually win this,
if
we’re ready.”

Kane considers
what I’ve said, but from the way his body relaxes, I guess he’s accepted my words, at least for now.

“Fine, let’s get a move on then.”

Kane stomps forward and Hank hangs back with us.

“What was with saying you’ve known Marduke for years?” Hank sounds suspicious now
. I want to groan from the scrutiny we’re being placed under. This is not good.

“You know what Kane’s like
. I just wanted there to be no question of Marduke’s loyalty. He saved my life, Hank, many times. He doesn’t deserve Kane trying to kill him.”

“I know that, and I trust you,”
he says this to Marduke. “I just don’t know why you had to lie about it. Lying will only lead to him finding a hole, which will make him more suspicious.”

“He won’t be suspicious because
, as soon as we make it back to camp, he’ll have better things to do than poke holes at my story. Now let’s start searching, please,” I plead with Hank, and he finally nods his agreement and moves after Kane.

Since
Marduke mentioned to me there had been four tubes, we all search the debris, finding both of the other ones empty. Although, we can’t very well tell them we know that’s all there are, so we continue looking. When we eventually begin to find body parts, both Marduke’s people and parts of Rob and John, we decide to give up.

We don’t find any useful weapons
, either. The guns we had were empty by the time we made it to Marduke’s spaceship, and currently, they are nowhere to be found. There aren’t even any clothes or blankets salvageable.

Once we realise we’re not going to find anything us
eful, we decide to head back to camp. Kane and Hank lead the way, their heads close together as they strategize their next plan of attack once we arrive there. I only hear whispers of their words, but they clearly don’t want us to overhear. Or, more likely, Kane doesn’t want Marduke to hear their words. I wonder if that is going to be a future problem.

Kane is a patriotic guy,
though to be honest, any goodness that was in him is likely buried under his anger and hatred. I have seen him attacking several “brainwashed” humans. He’s been lucky to avoid being shot by the machines. They usually guard Marduke’s people, however there have been times where they are alone, and Kane has exploited those brief moments. He hasn’t killed anyone
yet
, but he absolutely has it in him.

What will happen if he finds himself alone with Ma
rduke? Does he really believe Marduke is on our side?

I swallow down those worries, my legs beginning to burn from the long walk. I haven’t done a lot of exercise since arriving here. Before the invasion
, I was always running and exercising as part of my training. When the invasion came, I was running for my life, walking what felt like hundreds of miles every day. I lost a lot of weight but was able to keep a little of my muscle on me. Now, I’ve not had the energy to run or walk much at all. The muscle that I maintained throughout the attack is all gone. I used to walk sometimes with Hank into the forest, however we stayed close to the camps and a stroll hardly gets the heart pumping.

I was aware
I would need my strength if I was going to actually make it to Oden and attack Marduke’s brother; however I assumed it would be a quick attack with only an adrenaline rush needed. With the lack of proper food being given to us, I wasn’t likely to be able to build up any strength anyway.

N
ow that we’re walking long distances with no end in sight, I’m struggling. Nothing looks familiar in these forests and everything looks identical. How could we know we aren’t walking in circles? Kane appeared to be following the line of the brightest sun, so I suppose that should prevent that, but what if we were heading in the wrong direction?

“Marduke, are we heading the right way to camp?”

“I think we are.”

“If we’re in the middle of the forest, how long will this take to get back?”

“A few days. If we’re unlucky, it might be weeks. Luckily, this planet is nowhere near as large as Earth. We’ll need to find food and water to survive in here, though.”

“I guess it’s a good thing I lost my appetite since I’ve been here, and after seeing those awful creatures, I’m pretty sure I’ll never want to eat again.” I pull a face as I recall that vile smell.

“You must eat.” He pulls on my arm to stop me and stands in my way, releasing my hand to place both of his hands against my face, forcing me to look into his eyes. “You have to keep your strength up. It’s important.”

“I know, I just meant that I’ve had a lot on my mind. Eating hasn’t been one of them, especially not with what they’ve been serving us.” I grimace
, thinking about the strange white mush we’ve been given every day since we arrived.

“What have they been serving you?”

“I have no idea, and that’s the point. Come on, we’re falling behind.”

I take back his hand, happy to be touching him and we walk in silence.

“Those two people on your spaceship, were they your friends?”

“No, they were with me because they were loyal to my mother.”

“Your mother? What does she have to do with this?”

“It’s a long story
.” His hand twitches in mine and I get the distinct feeling he’s nervous. “I’ll tell you about it another time.”

“Okay.” I think about what Marduke’s words mean. I thought his family were against us
, so why would his mother give two friends to travel here with him to find me?

I soon let go of that mystery as my mind drifts from all that has happened in the past few days to what Marduke
has told me about my parents. I try to linger on the fact that Lisa, Hannah and Logan are all alive, but I can’t help thinking of my parents. They were two strong, loving and amazing parents. They were perfect, and I can’t imagine life without them. In every hopeful, imagined scenario that I’ve had, I wished for Earth to be returned to us.

In my imaginary fantasy
, I’ve seen myself back home, safe in the house I grew up in, surrounded by Hannah and my parents. Even when I imagined others joining us, like Logan, Marduke, Lisa and Hank, my parents were always there. I never gave thought to a hope that didn’t include them. And while I always feared the worst for my family, I still didn’t know for sure. Seeing that image of them in our kitchen, moving around each other with ease and grace while Hannah and I pulled faces at each other over our breakfast, was still possible.

Now
, I know that will never happen. I’ll never see them again. Never be held by them or hear their voices. The last time I spoke to them before the invasion is all I have now.

The loss I feel weighs
me down, almost suffocating me. I think I actually stop breathing for a minute. I might even have fallen into that dark hole growing inside me if I hadn’t crashed into Hank’s still back.

“What—”

“Look!” he hisses, poking his head past a tree and over a small bush.

Marduke and I follow his gaze, noticing Kane is a
lready glancing at whatever it is Hank has seen.

I’m not sure what I expect. I knew it wasn’t going to be good
since there is fear laced in Hank’s voice. The fact that Kane looks furious isn’t helping ease my fear, either.

I poke my head over the bushes covering us and almost faint at what I see there.

It’s not just the torn down trees or the ripped bushes. It’s not just the three clawed creatures that are circling the area, eyeing off the middle of their unnatural clearing. No, I nearly faint because, in the middle of that clearing they’ve created, snuggled up against the destroyed bushes are large, off-brown coloured, oval-shaped eggs. And as I take in the scene before me, I realise we’re looking at a nest being guarded by angry, feral creatures. A nest of more of these hostile and terrifying creatures, ones which have protective monsters guarding them, looking for the slightest reason to attack any threat they perceive.