Thirty-four
DR. E IS DECEASED. I killed him.” X leaned against a column, his arms crossed over his chest. He was still tall, still muscled.
Solo could hear him, but his voice—and all sounds, really—had been turned to a lower volume. “I wish you had done it sooner.”
“Had you told me to do so sooner, I would have. You had accepted him into your life, and I was never to interfere with your free will. But the moment you rejected him, I was able to act.”
All these years . . . all the torment . . . and the fault was all his own.
He was outside, lying atop an alabaster dais. A sheet was draped over his lower body, but the rest of him was bare, allowing rays from the three suns glowing in the white sky to stroke over him. Rays that were actually healing him. The cuffs were gone, thank the Lord.
He wanted to rise, but he didn’t yet have the energy. The three gaping holes in his chest were still in the process of closing.
“How are you so big?” he asked.
“In this realm, I am big. In your realm, I am small.”
“You were big in my realm, too. For a little while.”
“No. You saw into my realm.”
“Why haven’t I changed, then, now that I’m in yours?”
“You are not like me. And besides, this might be my realm, but it is not my world. It is yours. Alloris.”
He looked around with new eyes. Fresh green grass surrounded him. Flowers of every color bloomed in lush gardens, sweetly scenting the air. Men and women just like him strolled down a cobbled road. Each wore white. Each was smiling.
And behind every person was an even taller being with translucent skin.
No one seemed to care that Solo was out in the open, half-covered.
X grinned. “You will love it here, I promise you.”
“Not without Vika.” His sweet, darling Vika. With every second that passed, he was more determined to return to her.
Where was she? Not on the farm; he’d given that to the Targon. Or maybe she
Did she think Solo was dead?
Had she cried?
He hated the thought of her tears. He wanted her happy. Only ever happy.
“Why did you never tell me you could bring me here?” Solo asked.
“Because you would have wanted to return,” X said, “and you would not have been welcome.”
“Why?”
“Your temper. Your job. Dr. E. Many other reasons.”
“Am I the reason my parents left and went to earth?”
“No. That was your father’s doing. He took your mother from another man and hid with her so that she could not be taken away.”
“So the husband traveled to earth and shot them?”
“No! Of course not.” X spun around and faced him. He closed the distance and eased down at the edge of the dais. “Your father got into trouble while on earth. He . . . Are you sure you want these details?”
“Yes.”
“He again stole another man’s wife, a man of the worst sort. Your mother didn’t know he was planning to leave her.”
And me, Solo realized. He thought back, and realized he mostly only remembered his mother standing over his crib, singing to him. He didn’t have many mental pictures of his father. “You were there the night they were shot. Why didn’t you save them?” There wasn’t an ounce of accusation in his tone. He was simply curious.
“Everything happened so quickly. The next thing I knew, you were terribly injured, and I had to use my energy to save you.”
“Is that why I didn’t see you until years later? You were healing?”
“That, and you somehow blocked me. But I was always there, always doing my best to protect, whispering suggestions for better choices into your ear, suggestions you always assumed stemmed from your own mind. But then you fought that child at school and you were so upset. The intensity of your emotions must have broken through whatever barriers you had built.”
“I’m glad I was able to see you.”
“Me too.”
“But . . .”
“But you want to go back.”
“Yes.”
There was sadness in X’s eyes as he said, “I do not travel by solar flare. I was merely tugged between this world—and you. I could bring you here, because I’m still bound here, but I can’t take you back to Earth.”
“No,” Solo said, shaking his head.
“You were the only thing that bound me, and you are no longer there. I . . . hoped you would be pleased, despite losing Vika. It was the only way to save you.”
Losing Vika. Losing. Vika. No. Never. He needed her. Had to have her. “I have nothing without her. I’m bound to her, to Earth. I should be able to travel to her.”
X’s shoulders drooped. “You can’t. I’m sorry, Solo. I really am.”
Thirty-five
THE TARGON REMAINED AT the farm for several days. He helped Vika pay and dismiss the ranch hands Solo had hired, and finally left her with a promise to return in a few weeks to check on her. She liked him, appreciated his help, but she was glad for the solitude.
She didn’t want an audience when Solo returned. She wanted to run into his arms, kiss him, hug him, strip him, and tumble to the floor and make love to him. And she would. One day.
Yes, one day.
But a few more days passed, and Solo never appeared. Her hope began to wane.
A few more weeks passed, and Solo never appeared. Her hope crashed and burned.
He was never coming back, was he? Her one day wasn’t ever going to come.
The horror of it hit her while she was inside the kitchen, peering out the window and remembering their time in Siberia, and she collapsed, sobbing uncontrollably, sobbing until her tear ducts swelled shut, sobbed until she was choking, barely able to breathe. What was she supposed to do without him?
But if he were alive, he would be here.
