Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 91775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Just as I’m starting to wonder if Rem’eb is going to return, the door opens again. Someone steps in carrying a huge armful of bedding, so tall that his face is concealed, and I step backward automatically to give him space. I glance at the open door, wondering if I should make a break for it, but I’m not entirely sure where I am. For now, I have to stick with the devil I know.
Rem’eb drops the woven basket of bedding down onto the floor with a heavy thud. “This is the first load. Wait here and I will return again.”
“Where do you think I’m going to go?” I call back. Wait here, indeed.
He disappears as quickly as he’d reappeared, so I pull the materials out of the basket to give them a look. Since becoming stranded on the ice planet almost five years ago, I’ve come to expect a different sort of bedding than a plush mattress and feather-down pillows and cotton sheets. The sa-khui that live here are basically hunter-gatherers, and while there’s a computer with the old ship that crashed them here, they’re content to live as they are. We work on introducing small things into our lives here on Not-Hoth. My friend Tiffany loves to do creative works and recently figured out how to spin wool from dvisti into yarn, and she taught me. I’ve gotten pretty good at knitting, but it’s a slow process for sure, especially when nice furry animals are right there and are killed for the meat they provide. It makes sense to just use hides and furs for everything, especially in the cold.
But the bedding that Rem’eb has given me is very different from the furs we use above. There’s a strange mat of some kind, rolled up and made with more of the strange, woody texture that’s a little softer and spongier than the door. I don’t know what it is, only that there seems to be a lot of it down here. It’s woven together with ropes into a thick, heavy mat that has a little give when you lie upon it. Much better than the floor. There’s also a long, slithery-feeling fabric of a vivid gold-yellow and I’m not entirely sure what I’m supposed to do with it. Is it for a dress of some kind? It seems too fancy to be a sheet, too thin to be a blanket. I fold it up again and set it at the foot of the mat.
Rem’eb returns a short time later, this time with a large tray in his arms. He has what looks like a plate full of colorful items that must be food and a large pitcher. He sets the tray down on the floor and then gestures one more time, indicating that I should wait. This is almost like a picnic date…or it would be if the circumstances weren’t so fucked up.
I watch, almost amused, as he returns very quickly for the third time with a large earthenware pot in his arms and puts it in the corner of the room. I frown, trying to figure out what it’s for, and then it hits me as he unfolds a screen made of the same strange yellow-gold cloth.
This is my toilet. Because I’m a captive.
My amusement sours. I’m reminded that I’ve been stolen away and taken from everything I know. I cross my arms over my chest again and eye him.
“I think that is everything for now,” he says, glancing about the tiny room. “Have I forgotten anything?”
“A way out?” I jibe. When he gives me a blank look at my sarcastic words, I gesture at the door.
His face falls.
It immediately sends panic through me, because I should be nice to him. I need him to be on my side. I need him to fall in love with me so he’ll help me escape. I can’t be bitchy and scream at the fact that I’ve been kidnapped, even if that’s how I feel inside.
“Sorry,” I whisper, and put a small smile on my face.
“Now is not the time yet, Tia,” he says, and my name sounds like a caress on his lips. He watches me closely, his eyes full of apology. “I give you my word that I will help you, but we are both being watched.”
I nod, because what else can I do? “Thank you,” I tell him, and tap my chin and extend my hand out in the ASL sign as well, just in case he knows it.
He doesn’t. He gives me a curious look and then moves to stand right in front of me, his tail swishing behind him. “Is there an injury on your chin? Let me see.”
And before I can protest, he carefully cups my face in two of his hands and tilts my head back.