"I know," he muttered as he focused on his shoes and his face started to flush. "I just... ah... I just don't want you to get hurt."
"I know," I assured him as I tried to regain control of my indignation. He wasn't trying to be nosy, he wasn't trying to be mean; he was simply trying to care about me. "He loves me."
"I'm sure you think he does." He held up a hand to stall my angry retort. "Hear me out. You're young Bethy, and you're trusting. I don't know if mom ever talked to you..."
"I had the sex talk with mom Aiden."
"Uh... ah... yeah, yeah sure." He nervously ran a hand through his disordered hair again as he shifted uncomfortably. "I mean... um yeah. I'm sure mom told you things, but she wouldn't have understood how men are."
I folded my arms over my chest as I stared at him. If I wasn't so annoyed I probably would have laughed at the look on his face. "Is that how you are with Molly?" I retorted.
His eyes came back to me as some of the color drained from his face. "No, absolutely not. Molly and I are just friends."
"I have eyes Aiden."
His shoulders slumped as he nodded. "Yeah, ok you're right. I like her, a lot, and she likes me." I couldn't help but melt at the smile that tugged at his lips. "She's a good person."
"She is," I agreed.
"But we're not as serious as you and Cade..."
"Yet."
"Ok, yet, but Molly is a lot more open and easier to trust than Cade."
"We've known Cade since we were kids," I protested.
His eyes were so forceful that I felt pinned to the spot. "We don't know him though, or at least I don't. I still don't even know where he was or what happened to him when the aliens took him."
"I do."
I could sense his growing frustration with me as he inhaled deeply and let it out in a low rush. "Ok, but..."
"If you can't trust him than trust me. He would never do anything to hurt me or anyone I love, please believe me. I love him Aiden and he loves me."
"Then where is he?" Aiden demanded. "Where did he go? What did he do to you!?"
"He didn't do anything to me Aid," I assured him.
"You're young, you're innocent, you don't even know..."
"Stop it Aiden! Just stop! You don't know what you're talking about."
"I know that he took advantage of you!"
I shook my head as I tried to figure out how to proceed. He was completely wrong but to stand here and butt heads with him would only irritate the situation more. We were both stubborn and bull headed, this would only spiral into both of us not talking to each other, and him resenting Cade even more if I wasn't careful. However he couldn't continue on in his beliefs when they were so wrong.
"I'm not as weak or gullible as you insist on believing. I survived watching dad die; I lived through losing mom, and this whole awful mess. My heart was broken when I thought I'd lost Cade, but I still managed to pull myself together and continue on. I'm stronger than you think Aiden and no one is taking advantage of me."
I was worried he would continue to fight me but he finally gave a grudging nod. "You're right," he admitted. "It's difficult for me not to see you as a little girl, but then you haven't been a little girl in years. Not like Abby."
I smiled at him. "Abby's not a little girl anymore either."
"No she's not," he said sadly. "Are you sleeping with him Bethany?" I couldn't look at him. This wasn't a conversation I'd ever expected to have with my brother, just as I knew it wasn't one he wanted to have with me but for some reason he felt like he had to. "I know you love him, but you have to be careful. The world may be upside down but there is still the risk of pregnancy..."
"I'm well aware of the consequences Aiden, I won't get pregnant," I interrupted briskly.
"Diseases." Jesus, he was determined to have this big brother, protective speech with me no matter how red the two of us turned. "We don't have the medicine that we used to have, or the tests."
"There's been no one else," I said before he could steer this conversation into even more embarrassing waters.
"I know there hasn't been, for you," he gushed.
"For either of us," I whispered around the lump in my throat. I felt like I had the worst sunburn of my life as sweat began to bead on my forehead and my cheeks felt like they were on fire.
Aiden did a double take as his mouth opened and closed and he tried to assimilate what I'd just told him with everything we'd always believed about Cade. In school, Cade had been rumored to be unruly and dangerous and all the girls had chased him around. His air of mystery and aloof persona had only fueled the gossip that had run rampant through the halls. Rumors of Cade having lurid affairs with everyone from college girls to married women had been spread around but none of them had been true.
I forced myself to meet Aiden's astonished gaze in the hopes that he would finally believe what I was saying. "He's loved me since the first time he came to our house, loved me years before I even realized how much I loved him. There's never been anyone else, for either of us."
Cade had first appeared in our home as Aiden's friend, but he had continued to come back because of me. I hadn't known the true depth of his feelings for me until all hell broke loose with the aliens though. Feelings he hadn't even known he could be capable of experiencing until he met me all those years ago.
He would be back soon, I told myself fiercely.
"I see," Aiden said after a lengthy pause.
"I hope so."
"There is still pregnancy Bethy," he pressed. "You have to be careful; a pregnancy now could be devastating."
"I know Aiden."
There were more extenuating reasons why I couldn't get pregnant but there was no way I could go into those with him right now. He couldn't possibly know that Cade wasn't human, and I couldn't bring myself to think about what a baby we created might look like. Cade didn't have scales, but it was suddenly all I could picture covering our child and I shuddered at the thought.
"He scares me Bethany."
I tilted my head to study Aiden. "Why?"
Aiden shook his head. "There's just something about him that frightens me. I'm concerned about you."
"He would never hurt me."
"Maybe not you, but I can't shake the feeling that he would hurt someone else, especially if they were a threat to you."
I couldn't bring myself to lie to him by denying that. Cade would hurt anyone he thought was a threat to me, he would kill them. I had already seen that, and Cade was far more treacherous than Aiden could even begin to imagine.
"You wouldn't be a great big brother if you didn't worry." I tried to sound light and airy, but I could hear the tension in my voice.
He snorted softly and managed a small smile. "I suppose not. Do you think you two will get married?"
I laughed as I gestured around the tunnel. "I don't think marriage has much place in this world anymore, do you?"
"No," he admitted. "I suppose it doesn't."
I nodded as I turned my attention back to the tunnel. I'd never really thought about marriage to Cade. To me, our bond was solid and impenetrable already and I didn't need the added bond of being married on top of it. Until a few months ago though it was always something that I had pictured in my life, always something I'd assumed would happen one day. I didn't feel like we needed to be married, but I'd also like it if we were. It would be something so normal and wonderful in a world that was neither anymore.
"I would marry him though," I told him. "But I don't feel like we need it. We are committed to each other."
His smile was small and fleeting. "That's good to know. Do you mind if I join you or would you prefer to be alone?"
I had come here in order to be alone, but I found that it was the last thing I wanted now. It had been awhile since we'd spent any time alone together. "I'd really like it if you stayed."
We settled onto the ground beside each other, our shoulders touching and our heads bent close as we stared into the impenetrable gloom.
Chapter 9
Aiden's shoulder was warm beneath my head and his breathing was even when I woke later. I couldn't see him, but I knew that he was awake as he shifted against me. There was a tension in him that hadn't been there before I'd fallen asleep. "Beth..."
"I'm awake," I whispered so low that I was sure it was my breath he felt more than my words he heard.
He lifted his arm and pointed down the tunnel. My eyes narrowed as I strained to see. One of the changes Cade's blood had rendered in me was better eyesight, but sleep was still making my lids heavy as I tried to pick out whatever it was that had caught Aiden's attention.
Then something skittered from one side of the tunnel to the other. My breath froze; I bit my bottom lip as I lifted my pistol from my lap and adjusted my position. I was afraid if I moved too fast I would draw the attention of whatever was out there. A muted rattling noise rolled off the walls as something else skittered through the shadows. It sounded like hundreds of legs skittering over the walls but the concrete threw the noise off and caused it to echo.
Aiden's rifle was still against the wall but he was holding two pistols before him. His breathing was faint but rapid in the close confines. I couldn't move as another creature skittered forth. They were small ones; they had to be in order to make it into the tunnel. They would be easier to kill than the larger ones, but a horde of them would overpower us in an instant. I grabbed hold of Aiden's arm as the hair on the nape of my neck stood up and a cold sweat broke out on my body.
Amongst the shadows there was something hidden as it watched us, and I was gripped by the certainty that it was focused on the back of my neck.
Ever so slowly I tilted my head back. I could almost hear the world grinding to a halt as I fixated on the creature perched above us. Every horror movie I'd ever seen, and there had been many, flashed through my mind; not the horror movies that had a maniacal villain or ghost, or even the ones with aliens, but the movies that contained bugs and creatures far too awful to exist in this world.
A repugnant creature with spiderlike legs and a compact black body was perched above us. Black eyes stuck a good foot off the top of its head, like a crab's eyes, but the eyes at the end of the stalks were segmented into a hundred different pieces, like that of a flies. Even though it was dark I could see hundreds of me, staring back at me, with a dropped mouth and the cornered look of one who was about to die. Its mouth, if that's what it could be called, was two sharp stinger looking things that jutted out from the sides of what I assumed were its cheeks. As I watched they pulsated and a drop of some milky substance appeared at the end of each stinger.
It took everything I had to force my mouth closed again. I couldn't stand the sight of my slack jaw and bulging eyes reflecting back at me in the creature's own beady eyes. Aiden jerked me out of the way as the thing launched itself at us with a strange hissing pop, the likes of which I'd never heard before and knew I'd never forget. I expected something to shoot out of it, webbing, acid or some other abysmal thing that would melt the skin off our bones and leave us a goopy, screaming mess on the floor. Thankfully, none of those things happened as it landed with surprisingly little noise on the tunnel floor. Those stingers seemed to pulse and throb with more eagerness as its eyes twisted on top of the stalks to face us.
I pressed closer against Aiden as the eight legged monstrosity eyed us from those awful, segmented eyeballs. I'd never seen anything like it and I'd seen some weird and grotesque things over the past couple of months. I'd seen creatures morph from humans into blood sucking monsters that could destroy the human body in an instant. I'd seen giant creatures that could demolish trees in their relentless pursuit of us. I'd seen my own boyfriend turn into something that could explain nearly every horror legend out there, but this thing had me gawking like an idiot and virtually on the edge of pissing my pants.
What was it!?
Was it simply a smaller version of the larger monsters that hunted us and drained us dry? Is this what they looked like when they were newborn or something? Or was this some new monster that was just waiting to unleash a new host of disasters upon us? Either way I didn't want to be this close to it.
In an instant it launched at us. It didn't hunch down, didn't gather momentum, it simply sprang forward with the speed of a springing mouse trap. My eyes latched onto the jagged points of its mouth as drops of the milky liquid fell off of them in eager anticipation of the kill. A kill that was imminent if my immobile body had anything to do with it.
Cade's blood had made me faster, had honed my senses and my instincts, but faced with this thing I was suddenly the awkward girl I'd been most of my life. Faced with this thing, I found my muscles useless and my body a shaking mass of nerve endings.
Thankfully, my instincts didn't feel the same way. Seconds before that thing could smash into me, stab me with that tusk-like mouth, dig its razor-sharp legs in, tear off my face, and rip out my heart (because I knew that was what it had in mind to do), I swung my gun upward forcefully. An awful noise that reminded me of water bubbling over on a hot stove escaped the creature as my brisk thrust knocked it away. The thing bounced off the wall and staggered drunkenly on its legs before scurrying toward us once more.
"Move Bethany! Move!" Aiden shouted.
I spun and lifted my pistol up, but the thing wasn't rushing down the floor of the tunnel toward us. It was running up the walls at a diagonal angle that was taking it back toward the ceiling. I tried to train my gun on it but it was fast, far faster than I had expected as it reached the roof. It was scurrying over our heads when I finally got a shot off.
The bullet reverberated down the tunnel as it completely missed its mark. The thing hissed again and then launched forward with a scream that I was certain was just within range of human hearing. In fact, I wasn't even certain that Aiden had heard it until he winced against the piercing sound. I fired again and caught the thing in what I assumed was its belly. It squealed as the force of the bullet threw it back. It fell to its feet and scuttled into the gloom surrounding us.
"Run!" Aiden grabbed hold of my arm as the sounds of scuttling feet rapidly approached us.
He fired two shots behind him but I could tell by the ricochet that neither bullet hit one of them. The slap of our feet echoed over the metal and pounded around us. I didn't recall the tunnel being this long before, but it suddenly seemed endless. The others had to have heard the shots; they had to be coming for us, but what good could they possibly do?
Abby.
The word was a moan in my head. I had to get to her, we had to save her. Abby was the best of us and there was no way I would let one of these things touch her. If it was the last thing I did, she would never know death by these creatures.
Hands snatched me up, a startled scream half tore from my throat as I was spun around and thrust to the ground. My vision blurred as I tried to get my bearings. Aiden was shoved down beside me, his eyes were just as wide and stricken as I knew mine were.
"Don't move and stay down!"
Though we were trapped in a nightmare, a hot wash of relief filled me as Cade's harsh words and warm breath tickled over me. His hand pressed firmly into my back for a second and then he was gone. Aiden gaped at me for a moment before gathering his arms beneath him and pushing himself up. I took hold of his hand and yanked him back down before he could shove himself to his feet.
"Bethany..."
"You heard what he said," I breathed.
"He needs help." My fingers curled into his wrist as I gulped. Everything in my body was screaming at me to go to Cade, to help him, but he'd told us to stay here and to stay down. He knew what these things were, he knew what he was doing; we would only be a distraction to him. "Bethany!" I closed my eyes against the spine-chilling scream that filled the air from one of those things. Cade grunted loudly, the sound was a mixture of pain and exertion that caused my heart to twist as my fingers dug even further into Aiden's flesh and tears burned my eyes. "Damn it Bethany! What is wrong with you!?" r />
I jerked Aiden back down when he tried to lurch to his feet again. I forced my eyes open; I had to make Aiden understand why we had to stay here, why we couldn't look. Everything in me longed to help Cade, but I had to stay here and make sure that my brother didn't do anything reckless, that he didn't see what was happening back there. There were some things that Cade would always try to keep hidden from me, and whatever was happening in that tunnel was one of them. I could feel the hum of violence, the brutality of the battle within these walls even though it was an eerily silent fight that raged on behind us.
"There are some things that we don't need to see," I whispered.
"What things Bethany?" I shook my head and closed my eyes again as I labored to keep breathing and not bolt to my feet and rush down the tunnel in search of Cade. I didn't care what I would see, what I would find, but Cade did. He was already standing on a perilous precipice when it came to his control and his sanity. I couldn't push him over it. "Bethany..."
"Aiden stop," I moaned.
"What things Bethany?" And then he inhaled a loud breath as his mind finally traversed down pathways I'd hoped it would never travel. "What is he?"
I didn't know what to say or do. I loved Aiden, he was more than a brother, he was my friend, and I had been keeping this huge secret from him. I would love nothing more than to unburden myself to him but it was Cade's secret to tell, or not to tell. Yet Aiden was looking at me as if he didn't know me, looking at me as if I'd just kicked his kitten over a cliff.
I released my death grip on his hand and slid my fingers into his as I tried to reassure him that I loved him. That no matter what secrets I kept from him, he was still my brother and I needed him. He didn't react at first and then his fingers tensed around mine. I was just managing a wan smile for him when I heard the sound of slapping feet.
Releasing Aiden I launched to my feet. The others had heard the shots and they were coming. I had to stop them, or at least slow them down somehow. I was stepping forward when hands seized hold of my arms from behind. Before I knew what was happening I was pulled backwards and pressed against a solid chest. I knew instantly it was Cade that held me as my skin came alive at the feel of him.