Naomi, mouth full, “Oh my god, are we covering the baby’s eyes? We’re covering the baby’s eyes.”
Trunk does not stop walking.
He does not even pause.
He walks straight through the ruckus in the kitchen with me wrapped in his shredded shirt in his arms and growls, “Later, brothers. My Bride needs her alone time.”
Cannibal, gleefully, shouting after us, “See you in a week!”
Leah, a beat too late, “Ines, wait, I need details?—”
“Later, Leah!” I call back over Trunk’s shoulder, laughing into his chest.
He carries me down the hallway and kicks open the door to his room and kicks it shut behind us. Texon sets me down gently on the edge of the bed.
I sit there in his torn shirt, dirt in my hair, aching everywhere, and look up at him standing in the middle of our bedroom and I cannot believe this is my life now.
How lucky am I?
My tablet is on the nightstand. I pick it up. It’s been over twelve hours since I’ve looked at a screen. There are two hundred and forty-seven messages. I scroll.
“The story transmitted,” I tell him. “It went out exactly when I programmed it to, right when the Green Horns were emerging from the jungle. It’s published. It’s running in Singapore. It’s running in the four sectors. It’s running on New Earth.”
My editor has sent me twelve messages, each more delighted than the last.
“Oh wow,” I say. “The other outlets are lining up for follow-ups. Two offers for exclusive interview series. One offer for a book deal.” I look up. “This means Grytel’s credential-revocation threat is publicly, comprehensively dead. He tried to silence me and I exposed him before he could. He cannot touch me now.”
There is also a message from Grytel himself. “There’s a message from Grytel.”
I open it with some trepidation. It is not what I expected.
“What does he say?”
“He’s asking me — not demanding,asking— for a conversation. He says there are things he did not know. Things he wants to understand. He says the story I ran has made him look at his own administration differently and he does not like what he sees.”
“Heh.”
“Right? That’s unexpected. It makes me think Kryzon was telling the truth when he said Grytel didn’t know.”
I lower the tablet slowly.
Trunk sits down next to me on the bed and trails one claw down my spine. “What will you write about now, my Bride?”
“I’m going to start with Timbur. The miners. The real story, not the one the four sectors think they know. Your family. This place. I’m going to write the truth about who you are.”
His slow, proud smile spreads across his face.
“That is a worthy story.”
“It’s the best one I’ve ever been given.”
He reaches over and gently takes the tablet out of my hand and sets it on the nightstand, face down.
“Later,” he growls. “Cleansing unit first.”
“Yes, sir.”
The cleansing unitin his bathroom is enormous. It’s built for a Xylan, which means I could practically live in it. He programs it and steam begins to billow immediately, the warm Timbur water hissing out of a dozen jets.
