“Because one of us has to.” She offered a sad smile. “And between the two of us, I’m supposed to be the adult. Even if I feel about as competent as a toddler right now.”
That earned her a ghost of a smile from Anya.
“You’re not that bad.”
“High praise coming from you.”
They sat in companionable silence for a moment, both of them processing the impossible situation they’d found themselves in. She watched Mikoz sleep, his tiny chest rising and falling with each breath, and wondered what his mother would think of the promises she’d made.
“Can I ask you something?” Anya’s voice was tentative, uncertain in a way she had rarely heard from the girl.
“Of course.”
“Are we going home?”
The question she’d been dreading. “I don’t know. I want to get you home. You deserve to finish school, see your friends, and have a normal life.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Don’t you want to go home too?”
Did she? The question stopped her cold. A month ago, the answer would have been an immediate yes. She’d had a job she loved, a house she’d painstakingly decorated, a routine that was comfortable and familiar. She’d had book club on Tuesdays and yoga on Thursdays and Sunday brunch with colleagues. She’d had a life.
But that life had also been lonely. Ever since David’s death she’d been marking time more than living, going through the motions of normalcy while feeling increasingly disconnected from the world around her. She’d existed in a state of pleasant numbness, telling herself it was enough because she didn’t know anything else was possible.
And then she’d been abducted, and everything had gone to hell, but somewhere in that hell she’d found Mikoz and Anya and Selik and the terrifying possibility that maybe she could have more than just pleasant numbness.
“I want you to be happy,” she finally said. “I want you to have choices and opportunities and a chance at the life your father wanted for you.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Smart girl. Too smart for her own good sometimes.
“I don’t know what I want anymore,” she admitted. “A month ago, I would have said I wanted to go back to teaching and our quiet house and our routine. But now…”
“Now you have the baby.”
“Yes.”
“And the alien.”
Heat flooded her cheeks. “Selik has been very kind to us.”
“He looks at you funny.”
“Funny how?”
“Like…” Anya’s nose scrunched up in thought. “Like you’re a puzzle he’s trying to solve. Or like he wants to eat you. I can’t tell which.”
Despite everything, she had to suppress a laugh. Out of the mouths of babes. Or teenagers. Whatever.
“I think he’s just being protective.”
“Right. Protective.” Anya’s voice dripped with skepticism. “That’s why he was in bed with you.”
“He was worried?—”
