Chapter Four—The Knowing

The next morning, Riley knocked on my door. Again. But this time, I was dressed and ready to meet him, contrite. When I opened my door, I was suddenly very aware that I was inside of a mountain: the air was heavy and stagnant, and I realized it had been days since I had seen the sun.

“Good morning,” he said, and he smiled, but it was clear that he was either trying too hard or I was strangely sensitive to any change in mood.

“Good morning,” I replied, and he turned on his heel to head toward the lift. I followed close. “About last night—”

“Yeah, I’m really sorry about that,” he said, walking onto the lift. I followed him in and down we went. “That never should have happened. I feel like such an asshole.”

“No, please, don’t apologize to me,” I insisted. “I should be the one apologizing. I’m so embarrassed, you have no idea…”

“Please don’t be.” He turned to face me fully then and put his hand awkwardly on my shoulder. “Let’s just forget that the whole thing ever happened.”

“Really?” I asked, the relief positively radiating from me.

“Yeah,” he confirmed. “Really.” He paused, looking straight ahead, and added: “The thing is, I went in knowing I wasn’t a first choice.”

“Riley…”

“No, and that’s ok. Honestly, it is. But it’s still way too raw for you. And I should have known that. Maybe some part of me did, and I ignored it, but…” he looked at me then, intent, with his warm, kind eyes. “This is on me.”

We got in line at the cafeteria, and I allowed my gaze to rove idly around the expanse of the room as we pushed our trays along the countertop, acquiring our scoops of eggs and grits. But no sooner had the bacon been spooned onto my plate did I feel that sudden burst of queasiness that I’d felt yesterday morning. I darted over to a trash can on the far side of the room and proceeded to vomit profusely into it.

Thankfully the room was still about a third as full as it had been that first morning, so I didn’t disrupt the breakfasts of altogether too many people. But Riley did come over, a bottle of water in his hand and a stack of napkins in the other, wearing an expression of pointed concern.

“Are you ok?” He asked, and I nodded, taking the offered items and wiping my mouth before rinsing it with water. “Are you sure?”

“I think so,” I said. “But…yeah, it’s weird. I’ve felt queasy for the last couple of mornings—” And then realization like dread washed over me and I worried that I was at risk of fainting again. But this time I knew why. “What day is it?” But he didn’t have to tell me. I knew.

“It’s—”

“Oh, God…” I moved to the nearest chair and dropped unceremoniously down into it, cradling my head in my hands. “Oh, God.”

“Why don’t we skip breakfast today,” Riley offered, tugging me up by the elbow, “and go see Doc Earnshaw. How does that sound?” The pragmatic approach. And my last shred of hope: I needed Doctor Earnshaw to tell me that I had a stomach flu, not that I was pregnant.

~ * ~

“Yep, you’re pregnant, all right,” Dr. Earnshaw said, her hair swept back into an elegant French twist. She was looking at the results of a simple urine test, and we were waiting on the results from the blood she’d drawn to confirm. But I didn’t need her to look at my blood, I knew. I knew in that way instincts can tell you anything at all: I was carrying Kaz’s child. It was a primal sensation, the kind of feeling that connected you to the greater network of the cosmos, in a tradition as old as the sky itself. But then beyond all of that, I was mostly just terrified.

“When was the date of your last menstrual cycle?” Dr. Earnshaw asked, holding a clipboard in hand and making a few notes thereon.

“Uh…God. I honestly don’t remember.” We locked eyes, and I felt somewhat abashed. “I usually keep track, it’s just—”

“No judgement, Jane,” she said, and smiled a warm sort of smile. “I know how much you’ve been through.”

She took my vitals, did a quick pelvic exam, and other than an elevated heart rate and blood pressure just a smidge higher than usual, I was in perfect health. “But this is to be expected,” she said of the heart rate and pressure. “What, with all the stress.” And I couldn’t even drink to alleviate it. Oh—

“I had a lot of whiskey yesterday,” I confessed in a sudden panic. “Will it harm the baby?”

But Dr. Earnshaw just smiled again. “They’re usually shockingly robust. I would be surprised if it had any adverse effect whatsoever. That being said, best to cut out the vast majority of alcohol for the time being.”

Riley was waiting for me outside, but I couldn’t expect to lie to him. So it was really only a matter of time before everyone knew. Was my life, then, at risk? And the life of the child? Did I want to keep it? My head was swimming.

Doctor Earnshaw removed her latex gloves and patted my hand. “If it’s any consolation to you,” she said, “you have options. If morning sickness has only just started, you’re still very early.”

“Options?”

“Abortion, if that’s what you want.” But did I?

“You’re set up to do that here?”

“We have everything any standard hospital has. We’re not equipped to do cutting edge medical procedures, but abortions have been around for a long time now. But please know that you have some time to think—and no one here needs to find out, if you need the space to do your thinking on your own.”

I didn’t need time or space. My heart already knew what it wanted: it wanted the baby, come hell or high water. But I just nodded my head anyway. “Are there any…special considerations for someone like me?”

“Someone like you?” she echoed back, her eyes wide and round. But then she understood: someone who’d fucked an Ivaldan and was knocked up with one of their bastard babies. “Ah. No. Not insofar as I am aware. We haven’t had a…hybrid come to term yet. But I promise you that I will give you the best care that I can.”

“I thought there had been a few?” I asked, remembering Riley’s story. I related to her what I knew, about the babies and their mothers dying in childbirth. How the women had been ripped apart, how the babies had been asphyxiated by foreign anatomy. Doctor Earnshaw furrowed her brow as she listened.

“It’s possible that was before I arrived here,” she said cautiously, “but I’ve been awake for six years, and came here almost immediately after I was released from the Ivaldan sleeping cell. And I have never heard this story, let alone seen it for myself.”

That was strange—all I could do was nod vaguely and sit up on the table.

“Thanks, Dr. Earnshaw,” I said.

“No need to thank me, dear,” she said. “Just doing my job. Now, let’s get you on a course of prenatal vitamins.”

Pill bottle in hand, I rejoined Riley, who had been waiting for me in the lobby of the makeshift hospital. I shoot the bottle and it rattled pleasantly. “Prenatal vitamins,” I explained, and he took me by the hand and led me fast out of the hospital.

“You have to keep this quiet,” he said in a harsh whisper. “Don’t let anybody know of your condition.”

I tugged my arm free, and he turned to face me. “Well, after a certain point, it’s going to be pretty difficult to keep it a secret.”

Riley nodded his head. “But hopefully we’ll have a plan for you by then.”

“We?” I asked. “That means you’ll help me?”

“Of course,” he said. “We’re allies, aren’t we?”

“Yes,” I confirmed. “We’re allies.”

A tense silence built up between us as we made our way back to the lift, back to our little corner of the stronghold, and I didn’t hesitate to walk right into Riley’s room, and hold my tongue until the door was shut safely behind us.

I sat cross-legged on his mussed bed, and watched him move about the space, pouring himself a drink, and fetching me a bottle of water, which I took and drank down in an attempt to fill my empty stomach.

“So,” he began tentatively. He was a very intimidating figure in that low light. And I knew what he had beneath the thin fabric of his black tee shirt. His beard mostly hid the thin line of his mouth, but his eyes were swimming with such concern that it almost broke my heart. “Are you ok?”

I had to chuckle a little: how many time had he asked me that over the course of our comparatively short acquaintanceship? I lifted a hand to tuck an errant curl behind my ear and thought for a moment. “Yes, actually,” I said at length. “I think I’m fine.”

He quirked a brow and came to sit beside me, not so close that our legs were touching, but close enough that he could get a good look at the expression on my face. “I could help you,” he said, his voice hovering just above a whisper.

“What do you mean?” I asked, setting my empty water bottle on the floor.

“We could leave this place, you and me. Find a house somewhere, and…”

“What,” I interjected. “Raise the child as both of ours?”

“Precisely.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Why do you like me, Riley?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why have you consistently gone above and beyond—you don’t know me. Not really. I’m not beautiful like Blanche Ingram. I’m…a schoolteacher who is way out of her depths in a resistance stronghold, trying to do right by her own conscience. And now you find out I’m pregnant with another man’s—no, not just another man: another species’ baby, and you want to step in and be the big man.”

“Yes,” he said, raising his voice. “Yes, I want to help, I want—”

“And my question is why?”

Riley hesitated, but there was something there. I’d hit upon something, and now it was up to him whether or not he wanted to reveal it. He stood, took to pacing, glanced at me now and again, and finally spoke. “You’re right, you aren’t like the other women with whom I surround myself,” he said. “They’re great, Blanche and Doc Earnshaw and my sisters. They’re these fierce, strong—”

“Unlike me,” I moped somewhat.

“No, you’re that, too. You just express it differently.” He paused in front of me like he was about to give a presentation. “You are smart and kind, you want to expect the best from the world. But you’re also soft and naive. You need protecting. I want to protect you.”

And there it was. Riley was surrounded by self-sufficient women who didn’t need him to fight their battles for them. But then he met me, and I was a little wounded lamb whom he wanted to scoop into his arms and nurture back to health. He wants a woman he can influence efficiently and retain absolutely. Well, fuck that.

“You do me a great disservice,” I said, “assuming that I need anything from you.”

“Jane—”

“No, hear me.” I stood, leaving the bottle of vitamins on the mattress, and made myself as tall as I could. “You and your ilk plucked me out of a life I loved, exploded my reality, and brought me to the heart of a mountain. It’s been barely a week since all of this transpired, and I feel I’ve held up rather well.”

“Of course, but—”

“Stop interrupting me. To feel shaken, to express emotion, this is not a display of weakness; this is a display of my humanity. I do not need your nurturing, I do not need your condescension, and I do not need your well-intentioned but misguided protection. And furthermore, I don’t want it.” I took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly in an attempt to calm myself. “But what I would like, Riley, is your friendship.”

He let out a dry laugh, his hands propped up on his narrow hips, serving to highlight just how broad his shoulders were. “Friendship,” he echoed. “Nothing more?”

“I would be lying if I denied the attraction,” I said, since we were being so honest. “But I do not love you.”

“But perhaps you could,” he quietly urged, “in time.”

I shook my head, arched one shoulder in a shrug. “Kazimir’s voice is in my mind,” I said, trying to get him to understand. “I hear him speaking to me, and I know that I am his.”

“God, Jane,” Riley said on a sharp exhale, “then what on earth are you doing here?”

Just then, a great rumble made the entire room tremble, and I shook where I stood, my attention averted from the conversation at hand. “What was that?” I asked.

“The gate,” Riley explained. “They’ve returned.”

Without further discussion, Riley and I left the confines of his quarters and moved to the railing, just as everyone else who remained in the stronghold had done. I could see people dotted along the railings of each floor, leaning forward to get a look at the people returning from their mission. The gate itself is what made the whole place shake like a great earthquake had gone through it, but the caravan returning made a considerable amount of noise as well. They had taken a series of vehicles, small and low to the ground, I imagine for speed. As they got out of the cars, I couldn’t tell who anyone was, except for Blanche Ingram, who shrugged out of her leather jacket and looked directly up at me and Riley when she climbed out of the driver’s seat. With one cant of her head, Riley had pushed away from the railing. “Come on,” he said to me, and I followed.

Down we went, and when the lift open, we were once more immersed in the hustle and bustle I had come to expect. We weaved our way in and out of people who had returned, and the stronghold felt full again. I wondered what they could have possibly needed all these people for, if it was just a little fact-finding mission. But as we crossed the hangar, more cars arrived, and more people spilled out of them. More cars, more people, more cars, more people: and some of these people arrived in chains. “What’s going on?” I asked Riley, as we wended our way around a group of people whose wrists had been bound together with handcuffs or zip ties. They all looked exhausted. There were Ivaldans among them as well, and I scanned the crowd for any sign of Kaz but found none.

“I don’t know,” Riley said, and we cut through the cafeteria, heading toward the back, behind the raised table that Blanche, Mary, and Diana had sat at that first morning. There was a door behind it, and Riley pushed his way in, with me close behind.

Inside was a small office, like a conference room, well-appointed and official-looking. Blanche was alone at the head of a large, oak table, a cup of coffee steaming and untouched in front of her. Truth be told, she looked exhausted: her blond hair was collected in a messy bun at the nape of her neck; she was pale and had dark circles under her dim blue eyes.

“What’s going on?” Riley asked, and Blanche gestured to some chairs; we sat.

“The datapad with which Ms. Lockewood provided us was imminently useful,” Blanche began, taking a cautious sip of her coffee. I remained silent. “So we went back to Thornfield to look into a few leads, specifically what the Ivaldan plan was for interspecies breeding.”

“If they even have a plan,” Riley interjected, eliciting a sly little smile from Blanche.

“Of course they do, Riley,” she rejoined. “And it’s…rather illuminating, actually. Apparently, the Ivaldan scientists have found that no egg is needed for impregnation in a female host. So that means that you can be on as much birth control as your heart desires, but if they get any of their reproductive fluid inside of you, an embryo can implant. Then, the embryo draws DNA from the tissues that surrounds it, thus making it a true hybrid. But doesn’t it make you envy Ivaldan females? They never had to deal with menstrual cycles or any of that nonsense.”

“Yes, I envy them,” I said darkly, “they’re almost all dead.”

“Oh, all dead entirely, now,” Blanche countered. I gave a slight start, locking my wide eyes on her. “There was an accident at Thornfield.”

“What kind of accident?” I demanded. “What happened?”

“A fire,” she said.

I glanced frantically between Riley and Blanche. “Is Kaz ok? Was he hurt?”

“As far as we know, he’s fine,” she said. “But we are, actually, trying to track him down. And that, Ms. Lockewood, is where you come in.” I arched a brow, waiting for her to go on. “We had relatively good relationships with some members of the Ivaldan leadership, but when we burst into his wedding to abscond with his bride, you can imagine how he might be negatively disposed to us now.”

“Imagine that,” I quipped, feeling queasy.

“So, with the death of his wife and sons, he has fled Thornfield, and has gone into hiding somewhere.”

My heart dropped like a stone into the pit of my stomach, and my head began to swim. “Tox and Pim?” I whispered, breathless. “They’re dead?”

At this, Blanche softened somewhat. She’d known them, too; I can’t imagine she would have wished them ill. Could she?

“Yes,” She said. “I’m sorry to report, they didn’t survive the fire.”

My jaw hung agape as my eyes welled, as tears streaked their silent paths over the slopes of my cheeks. “Jane,” Riley murmured, but I pulled away when he reached out to me.

“Who set the fire?” I demanded, surprised by how sturdy my voice was.

“I don’t know,” Blanche said. “But I swear to you, it wasn’t us. We imagine that it was that poor creature he kept locked in the attic.” She looked at me levelly. “Come on, Jane,” she went on. “You remember the last time there was a fire there. It was only a matter of time before it happened again.”

She was right, of course. But my heart ached for those poor children, and for my Kaz who had lost them. I leaned back in my chair and placed a hand on my belly, as though I might protect the fledgling creature there from harm if I could only just shield it.

“In any event,” Blanche went on, all business, “the damage is done.” I heard the door open, and Mary and Diana crept quietly into the room, lingering near the door. “And what we need now, is to lure Kazimir Kain out of hiding, so we can get the information we need on how Ivaldans reproduce. Share in his scientist’s research and determine how big a problem this is going to be for our movement.”

“Problem?” I echoed lamely.

“Yes,” Blanche confirmed. “You know we can’t let people just…reproducing with them willy-nilly. We need order, Jane. So that’s how you’re going to help us.”

“I’m not going to help you deprive women of their choice,” I said. “If they don’t want it, then that’s one thing, but if they do—”

“I’m sorry,” Blanche interjected, holding a hand up to silence me, “you misunderstand. I am not asking you to help us make policy, Jane. I’m using you as bait.”

Everything distilled down to one silent second, and I could hear a voice deep within me, full of fiery urgency, shout to me at the very same moment that Riley did: “Jane,” these voices both said, “run!”

So I ran.

“I have little left in myself—I must have you. The world may laugh—may call me absurd, selfish—but it does not signify. My very soul demands you: it will be satisfied, or it will take deadly vengeance on its frame.”

― , Jane Eyre