Page 103 of Evan and the Alpha

31

Evan

Here.”

I wake up to a baby—my baby—being rudely shoved into my face. I blink, then take the baby anyway, even though I want to complain. I squint. Baby’s eyes are open now. They’re green, but they’ve got Sobek’s dagger-style pupil. Weird.

“What am I gonna do with him?” I glance up at Sobek, who gestures vaguely.

“He’s hungry. Feed him.”

I stare at him to a moment, then look down at Baby, who peers back up at me and opens his little, toothless mouth.

Ah,fuck.

“Um. All right, but, like, I don’t know …”

I wrestle myself out of my t-shirt, pulling it down over my shoulder. I have … well, I guess you’d say I have breasts now, and like my nipples got bigger and darker, but …

I thought it was supposed to be more than this. And, like, I don’t think I have any milk. Min said I should, but then again, I guess I also kinda gave birth two months early or something, so I don’t know. I don’t know when any of this is supposed to happen.

Baby has zero reservations. He sticks his mouth to me and sucks, then pulls away and tries again. He does it over and over, getting more and more frustrated, until he’s basically screeching.

Sobek stares at me. “Why aren’t you feeding him?”

“I’m trying!” I’m frustrated too. And nervous.

And really fucking tired. I flop back against the pillows. Baby agrees, dropping his head against my chest with a long-suffering sigh. I fluff his hair—it’s not really hair, more like the long crest-like thing Sobek’s got going—absently. “Tell me about it, little dude,” I mutter, and Baby huffs another big sigh.

Poor guy. Two days old and life sucks a lot already.

He’s gotta be hungry, I figure. I definitely didn’t feed him yesterday, unless Min stuck him on my tit or something. I don’t remember a lot. I think I kept blacking out. Probably from blood loss.

I turn his head to my nipple again, then try to like … turn my nipple into his mouth. It’s awkward. And weird.

Baby must agree, because he spits it out. He looks offended, which would be hilarious if I wasn’t so damn frustrated. “Just suck on it,” I mutter, then shove it back in his little mouth.

He screws up his face, like he’s going to spit it out again. He licks me too. Weird. This is so weird. It’s a good thing he doesn’t have teeth; he basically chomps down on me, and I’m gonna protest—it doesn’t really hurt, more just surprising and I don’t really like it—but liquid comes gushing out of me. It sprays fucking everywhere, and I just stare at my kid, who stares back at me and does it again.

Min bustles back into the tent. “Little help here?” I ask here, and she looks over at me, looks us up and down.

“Sorry,” she says, “I’m not a lactation consultant.” She pauses over us, peering down. “Although it looks like he’s getting something. That’s good.”

“Yeah,” I grumble, then try to rearrange Baby so he’s actually got, like, my whole nipple in his mouth. Not half of it or the side of it or whatever.

Baby makes a happy little grunting noise, so I guess that’s good. “Any chance the ship’s got, like, bottles and formula on it?” Not many ships have baby supplies; scientists still aren’t sure space travel is good for developing brains.

“Uh,” Min says.

I look up at her and Sobek. “The ship blew up,” Sobek says.

I blink. “Oh.” I let my arms go slack, and Baby nearly rolls right off me. Sobek dives for him at the same time I heft him back up. “Like, the whole thing?”

Sobek nods. I blink again. “It’s all gone. All of it.”

“Yes,” Sobek replies.

I nod. So we’re back to being stuck here until theColumbiashows up. I mean, not that I particularly mind. I’m not going back to the station. Or to Earth.