"Do you want me to take you home?"
Chen didn't look at her as he spoke. Shanti couldn't look in his eyes, so she shut hers. She couldn't find her voice, so she nodded.
With her eyes still closed, she felt him reach out his arms to her. Without thinking Shanti went into them. He wrapped her up tight. She fit so perfectly into the mold of his body.
"Show me." He said into her ear.
"Show you what?" Her voice was so low that maybe it was just a thought. Shanti rested her head against his chest.
"Show me your home and I will take you there."
“How?"
"I told you, we are energy. From the short time you have been with us, the water in your body has been transforming to pure energy. I can teleport you to your home if you show it to me."
Shanti looked up at him. "Will it hurt?"
Chen looked into her eyes. He nodded his head. "Yes, it will hurt very much."
Shanti knew he wasn't speaking of the teleporting journey.
"See it clear in your mind," he said.
Shanti closed her eyes and tried to picture her home. But her nose was surrounded by the smell of Chen. She breathed in, and his scent went into her mouth. Thoughts of their first kiss, of her taking him into her mouth, of him entering her body, they all swelled in her mind.
"Focus on home, Shanti."
Shanti tried to bring up her small house in her mind. She tried to see the brick, the lawn, and her street. It was all hazy in the cocoon of Chen's strong arms.
"I see it," he said.
Disappointment swelled in her heart. She felt the earth fall away from her feet. But no, that was Chen teleporting her.
She opened her eyes, or she thought she did. All around her she saw the same yellow mist of energy she'd seen inside the ship, in the energy mines. But the energy was so familiar to her. She knew it was Chen and herself. She watched as their essence mingled, unable to tell herself from him.
We are one. He'd said that to her, and it was true.
Shanti blinked. And when she opened her eyes, she saw her brick house, her lawn, her door, her car.
Her feet felt wobbly underneath her. Chen held her strong. He took a step away from her, but stopped. Shanti realized the reason he stopped was because her fingers dug into his robes. Her body and mind warred with what to do. Her mind dictated that she could not go with him. Her body insisted that she could not be without him.
She stared up into his eyes. His head was covered in a hood, but his large eyes were locked on her.
"Get out of the middle of the street! You're blocking the road."
Shanti looked over Chen's shoulder to see one of her neighbors. His fishing gear poked out the back of his pick up. The engine revved in time with his heavy breathing.
"First she tries to block me going to work with her hair-brained fungus idea. Now she's trying to block me getting home."
Chen turned to the man. The fisherman's eyes went wide at the sight of Chen. The man put his foot on the pedal and swerved around, speeding down the street.
Shanti gave Chen a tug onto the sidewalk. From across the street she heard a screen door shut. Another neighbor's face disappeared behind their blinds. Their door slammed shut.
Everything was as she’d left it. No one had missed her.
Shanti felt Chen pull away from her. She dug her fingers into his robe again. Chen stopped and peered down at her hands, then into her eyes.
"I just remembered," she said, panting as though she'd just run a marathon. "I have some blueberries in the freezer. Would you like to come inside?"
Shanti unlocked her door and then shut them both inside. Everything was as she'd left it. The house was empty with no one there to miss her. Her recliner sat next to her bookshelf beneath a soft lamp. Her desk was cleared of all paperwork since she'd been released from working with the Bay Restoration Project. She looked around her home, unsure of what she'd come back here for?
She felt Chen at her back. Her body went in motion, as though on autopilot, to the kitchen. She went to the freezer and grabbed the bag of berries. They were covered in frostbite.
"I'm sorry they're not fresh."
Chen removed his hood and took the bag from her. He emptied a few berries into his hand. Instantly the water fell from them and the berries plumped to life.
Chen smiled and popped a few into his mouth. His eyes closed in ecstasy. When he opened them, he handed the remaining berries to her.
Shanti took a few from his hand and popped them into her mouth. They were delicious. She opened her eyes to watch Chen chew. Berry juices burst in the corner of his mouth. Shanti reached up and wiped the juice away. Her hand stayed at the corner of his mouth.
She stared at his lips as they moved, chewing the berries, and then swallowing. "I'm never going to see you again," she whispered. "Am I?"
He didn't answer.
"Can't you come back?"
Chen shook his head no.
"What will you do now? Will you leave and choose another female to be your mate? The first one you see?"
"I made a mistake," Chen said.
Those words made Shanti's heart sink. “Don't choose from this neighborhood. None of these women would suit you.”
Chen wrapped his hand around her waist. He brought his forehead down against hers. But he went no further.
"It is not in my nature to take what is not freely offered," he said. "I am sorry that I was not clear with you. I am sorry that I caused you stress. It was never my intention to make you feel anything but happiness.”
Chen released her and headed for the door. He turned the knob. Shanti's heart raced as the door creaked open. Chen turned and stood in the doorway, facing her. Shanti's palms sweat. She was breathing so shallowly she thought she might hyperventilate and pass out.
Chen's heel was at the threshold. "There is no other choice. There will never be another you. You are my one and only."
Shanti grasped the doorjamb. "Are you going to go crazy, like the Marred Ones?"
"I will be sad without you. But Hsing and I will still have each other. We can balance each other out. And the ship will help us. We will be fine."
In all their time together, Shanti knew with certainty that Chen had never lied to her. Until this very moment.
"I wanted to...to be with you, Chen." Shanti noted that it was the tense of the verb that made her stutter. "I just can't leave. I..."
Why couldn't she leave?
What was here for her?
Her parents were gone. She was so used to traveling so much that she had no deep-connected friendships. And when she'd tried to settle down in this community, they'd rejected her.
Chen touched the place in his robes where he'd stashed the coral algae. "You have saved our lives, Shanti. You will live in all of our hearts." Chen took a step backwards over the threshold.
Shanti reached out and grasped his robes. "No," she said.
"No?"
"I don't want you to go." She wrapped her arms around his neck.
Chen rested his lips at her brow. "I cannot stay, my only."
Shanti's foot edged closer to the threshold of the door. She pressed her body into Chen's. It still fit perfectly. He felt like home.
Behind him Shanti saw dark shadows move along the sidewalk. Her nosey neighbors, there to judge her love life now. Once Chen stepped over the threshold, she wouldn't have a love life any longer.
She saw it clearly; her heart was entwined with his. They'd worked well together. He listened to her. She'd never find someone else like him in this world, or the next.
"I'm coming with you,” she said.
Chen tilted up her chin. His eyes looked down at her full of brightness and love. "You will come home?"
Shanti nodded.
Chen leaned in to kiss her. His lips against hers felt like sitting by a warm fire, curled up in her favorite chair, covered in a patchwork quilt. He tasted of saltwater, of blueberries, and Chen.
He fit.
They fit.
Together.
His lips against hers felt like home.
Shanti opened her eyes and stared into his. She'd traveled around her whole life, never quite fitting in, never feeling truly welcome. Yet in the eyes of this being who'd known her less time than most, in his arms, against his lips, Shanti knew belonging for the first time in her life.
A light breeze had the screen door tapping her backside as though she were a house pet being shooed from the home. She'd felt such a sense of urgency to return to this place. She couldn't remember why?
There was nothing here for her. Nothing she felt compelled to toss into a suitcase. Nothing she felt the need to even shove into her pocket.
Everything told her to leave this place; to step into the embrace of the man she would spend eternity with. Her mind shook at the vastness of eternity, but calm and rightness flooded her heart and shot up to her head.
She knew for certain, this was right. This was the way of things. This was as it should be, for an eternity. Inside Chen's arms, pressed against his chest, tasting blueberries on his lips.
Shanti stepped across the threshold and closer into Chen. Only Chen was moving away from her. It happened in slow motion.
At first he smiled down at her, recognition dawning in his blue face that she was coming with him.
And then the tug.
First his torso jerked back.
Then his hands released her.
The confusion on his face melded into dread, and then terror. Shanti only had a moment before she saw a pair of dark gray and dark yellow hands grab Chen. The Eloheems’ faces were uncovered, their eyes dark. Chen looked up at them, true horror and fear traveled from his eyes to her gut.
"Stay back," he shouted into her head.
How could she stay back when she was supposed to be with him for an eternity? Shanti leaped over the threshold, but it was too late. Chen was sailing through the air and into the clutches of two Eloheem.
For a second, relief flooded through her as she thought these must be the Eloheem stationed on this planet by the ones in charge; the Neterians, Chen had called them.
As she got closer she saw that these beings possessed none of the calm, self-possession of all the Eloheem she'd encountered on the Mothership. Their eyes were dark; a flickering light danced mad circles inside their pupils.
One glanced at her and sneered. He raised his hands towards her. Chen caught his hand between his elbows in a locking motion. The sneering Eloh turned all of his attention to Chen, working to subdue him. And then in a flash, they were all gone.
By the time Shanti reached the spot where they had stood on the sidewalk, there was nothing left. Chen was gone. His arms. His smile. His smell. His very essence. All gone.
Her heart sank to her feet. Her head could not comprehend the emptiness without and within her. He was gone.
She looked up to the sky, searching for a beam of light. But there was none. Where had they come from? Where did they take him? They must've teleported as she and Chen had done earlier. Maybe Chen would send her a visual picture of where he was, so that she could come to him.
Shanti backed into her small yard. She closed her eyes, quieted her mind and reached out to him. He wasn't gone. Not entirely. She still felt him. And now she heard him. He still chanted to her to stay back, to run.
But she couldn't stay back. She had to run. Run towards him, to find him. To bring him back to her.
"Go home, my only."
Shanti shook her head. He was her home. Where would she go without her home?
"Sing, my only."
What the hell was he thinking? Crazy, murderous Eloheem had abducted him and he wanted her to sing.
Wait -Hsing.
Chen wanted her to find Hsing. He would know what to do, how to find Chen and bring him back. Shanti turned away from her house, leaving the door wide open.
How was she going to get to Hsing? She was a continent away from the heliopad that could beam her up to the Mothership. She was certain she didn't have time to get another passport, board a plane, and then travel out into the middle of nowhere. Chen didn't have that time.
Shanti stopped. She took a deep breath. She had to think. She wasn't just connected to Chen; she was connected to Hsing too. They all three shared a bond. It’s just that Shanti never paid much attention to Hsing's leg of the bond -outside of the time when his legs were spreading hers wider.
Now she had to focus. She had to connect to Hsing, up there, somewhere in outer space.
Shanti turned around. She went back into her house and shut the door. She took a seat in her big comfortable chair. Without the assistance of her hands, she folded herself into a lotus pose. She closed her eyes. She took a deep, cleansing, centering breath and cleared her mind.
She pushed aside all of her animosity towards Hsing. She filled her heart with love for Chen. Then she reached out. She reached out for something she never had before.
"Hsing...help me."
The room was dead silent for long moments. Then there was a loud crash as the door burst open. Shanti opened her eyes, nearly toppling over in the pretzel of her lotus position.
Hsing stood in the doorway like a giant, avenging blue angel.
