Reclamation (The Ravening #3)(47)
Author: Erica Stevens

I couldn’t help but share the sentiment. It was difficult to imagine that at one point I would have stood within this room and felt nothing but excitement at the spectacle spread out before me. I’d always been glad that Bethany had appeared in my life, but now I was so unbelievably thankful for it that I could barely breathe.

She’d saved me from a lifetime of nothing. She’d given me a gift and even if my life ended today, that gift made it completely worthwhile.

"This way," Jessica said.

She led the way through the barrels to the human side of the ship. The thought of touching them made my skin crawl but they were impossible to avoid as we wound through the thousands upon thousands of bodies crammed within the room. I was repulsed by the feel of them and though I knew they were unaware of us, I could almost hear their voiceless pleas to be free of their arctic state.

Relief filled me, and I was finally able to inhale deeply again, when we finally found the end of the people. Jessica moved to the right and a doorway that almost blended in with the rest of the room. The only distinguishing difference between the door and the wall was the simple gold square in the center of the door. Jessica slipped her index and middle finger into the center and pulled the rectangle handle up.

The door slid silently to the side to reveal a dull gray shower room within. There were ten nozzles lining the walls but only one drain. "Won’t they hear the water?" Steve asked.

"They didn’t last time and honestly it doesn’t matter, we can’t go out there with blood all over us," Jessica answered.

"We can’t leave a wet trail everywhere we go either," Betty said.

"We have to stay in here for a bit after," Jessica informed her. "It sucks, but it doesn’t take as much time as you would think to dry off in that main room."

The last thing I wanted was to sit around here with the greenhouse humans for any longer than we had to, but I wasn’t willing to do anything to jeopardize our secrecy upon this ship. Stepping into the room, I twisted the knob at the end until a clear stream shot out. The spray was room temperature and unlike earth water there was the subtle taste of fruit and an almost coppery blood tang to it. The taste brought back memories of my infancy and a memory of being bathed in the sweet water tickled at the edges of my mind. I recalled the name of the fruit that had given the water this taste, the olinade. It grew within the water and added its flavor to the supply that was recycled throughout the ship.

My head bowed as the water rushed over me and I tried to shut out the memory. I didn’t want to remember anything about this place, it wasn’t a part of me but even as I thought that I knew that it was. This place was as much a part of me as Bethany was. It was engrained into the fabric of my being; I had been conceived on this ship and kept alive here for the first two years of my life. This was my beginning and I was willing to destroy my beginning to ensure her future.

I wondered what she was doing now, how she was. Yesterday had been amazing, the only day we’d ever gotten to share with just the two of us; I would have given anything for just one more of those days. I closed my eyes as the water poured over me and I rested my hands against the wall before me. I could almost taste her again, so much sweeter than the water.

My fingers curled into fists as I tilted my head back so that the water was hitting me full in the face. The needlelike spray helped to turn my thoughts off of Bethany and back to where it belonged, on the mission now facing us. The water swirling down the drain became entirely red before it began to finally run clear.

I tried to ignore the thousands upon thousands of frozen humans surrounding us as I stepped from the shower room. My foot tapped and my gaze ran constantly around the room as I waited for the water to stop dripping from my hair and body onto the floor. The heat of the room was helping the drying process but it was nowhere near fast enough as far as I was concerned.

My hair was still damp but the rest of me was dry when I bent down and began to pull the clothes from my bag. The girl’s hair was still wet but I didn’t have the patience to wait for that right now. I shrugged the shirt back on and slid the buttons into place. "Everyone ready?" Jessica asked as she stepped in front of the door next to the shower room.

"What if someone is out there?" Betty asked.

"We take them out," Jessica answered. "If we can," she added in a muttered aside I was certain only I heard.

I shifted back on my heels as I braced myself for what was on the other side of that door. If anything was out there I was going to destroy it. The door slid back as soundlessly as the shower door had. I spotted the male on the other side of it before it was even completely open. His hand went to the weapon at his side but his posture relaxed when he recognized his own kind emerging.

It was that relaxation that was his downfall as I leapt forward, grabbed hold of his head and snapped his neck before he could put up any kind of a defense. From the corner of my eye I saw Jessica and Steve rushing to take down the other Tintagelian that had been in the hall. Jessica dodged the shards of ice that noiselessly burst from his weapon in a blue cloud, but Cory wasn’t as fast.

Lifted off his feet, Cory was thrown back a good ten feet by the impact of the shards. I ducked his body as it soared over my head and crashed into the wall behind me. I didn’t have to look; I knew he was dead before his body hit the wall. No one survived a direct hit from a frost gun. Jessica slammed the guard’s arm down with her fist before he could fire off another round and drove her fist into his nose. She twisted the man’s hands around, pressed the gun against his chest and pulled the trigger.

The force of it was hard enough to thrust the guard back, but Jessica had kept hold of his hands and jerked him down before he could hit the wall. His body slumped to the floor when she released him. I stayed low as I studied the hall and waited for more of them to emerge, but it remained still and I sensed no one else out there.

When I was certain it was safe, I lifted Cory’s prone body over my shoulder and placed him back into the storage room we had just exited. It may not be possible, but if we were able to escape this place I was going to make sure he made it back to earth where the human he loved, Blanche, could have some sort of goodbye.

Craig and Steve dropped the bodies of the Tintagelians unceremoniously into the room and closed the door. I knew it wouldn’t be long before someone came to look for them or to relieve them. "Why are there guards posted?" Steve asked.

"I don’t know," Jessica said. "No one was here last time but there was nowhere near as much blood and no humans inside before."