Jonah & Aubrey's Story (Uoria Mates IV Book 8) Page 3

  The next morning Jonah paced through the lab nervously, trying to come up with some excuse that would prevent him from having to go the library with Aubrey. Though he knew that it was a good idea to do some digging into the history of the medical building and the University itself, as well as trying to identify the chemical that they had found, the idea of leaving the laboratory building to go to the library was more intimidating than he expected it to be. He knew that he was going to be anxious leaving the building. It was too real. It was too much of an acknowledgement of everything that he had gone through. As soon as he heard her suggest that they go to the library, however, the reality of it came crashing down on him and he felt like the world was closing in around him.

  He had taken one of the empty bottles from the boxes in the examination room and he kept sweeping it off of the surface of the brushed metal table so that he could look at the label, trying to bring forward any memories of the mention of this particular chemical and its purpose, then setting it back down. He had specifically chosen the table that he had shared with Aubrey, hoping that he would be able to fill his mind with thoughts of this new piece of the puzzle rather than memories of her delectable naked body writhing and eager beneath him.

  As if the thoughts of her had lured her to him, the door opened and Aubrey stepped inside. He noticed that she had a bag across her chest and was carrying a bundle of cloth beneath her arm.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  She smiled and held the bundle out to him.

  “Good morning,” he said back, but didn’t reach for the cloth.

  She pressed it closer to him and Jonah finally took it out of her hands.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “Well,” Aubrey said, “it’s just that it is pretty obvious that you have spent some time on another planet.” She gestured toward the clothes that he was wearing. “Unless you want everyone to notice you and start asking questions that you might not be ready to answer right this second, you might want to put these on so that you blend in a little bit better. Besides, I’m guessing that living in a basement hasn’t given you much opportunity to freshen up. These will probably feel pretty good.”

  Jonah smiled as he unrolled the bundle to reveal two sets of fresh clothing. He selected one and set it aside, then tucked the other into his bag. He had no way of knowing how long he was going to be staying in the basement and it would be nice to know that he had an extra set of fresh clothes when he needed them.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I really appreciate it.”

  Aubrey nodded and he headed for the back room of the lab to change, knowing that they were not in a place that would make dressing in front of her appropriate. When he emerged from the back room wearing the contemporary clothes, he saw a small smile of appreciation curve her full lips.

  “Are you ready?” she asked.

  He drew in a breath. She had no idea just how poignant that question really was. He gave a single nod that he hoped was convincing and crossed toward the door. They walked along the corridor and down the steps toward the main hallway. Jonah felt a shudder roll through him when he stepped into the space, the sight of a man walking casually along the polished floor, unaware that he was stepping where there were pools of blood just a short time before, seeming to underscore the brutality of what he had experienced there.

  “Are you alright?” Aubrey said to him quietly, drawing slightly closer to him.

  He had spared her many of the details of the battle, but she knew enough to understand that it was difficult for him to simply pass through this space as if nothing had occurred. But it was what he had to do. He couldn’t let that continue to control him or stop him from doing what he needed to do. He forced out a breath and looked at her.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’m fine.”

  Finally, they reached the front door to the building and Aubrey pushed it open. Reminding himself that he had been outside the laboratory building when they were coming from the vehicle, Jonah followed her out into the sunlight. The warmth of the light fell on his skin and he turned his face toward it, giving himself a moment to just enjoy it. This was the first time that the Earth’s sun had touched his skin in more than 115 years. Though he knew it was essentially the same as the sun of Uoria, it was somehow different and he felt it invigorate him. He let himself look around, taking in the world surrounding him. The differences were blatant and he felt a hint of the mourning feeling settle into his chest. He wondered if he had known when he stepped onto the StarCity what was going to happen, what he would have done in those last moments on Earth. What would he have wanted to look at one more time? What would he have wanted to remember the most?

  When he was at the University the library was in the center of the grounds, and now as Aubrey led him, it seemed that it was in essentially the same position. As they approached he could see that the building was several times larger than the one that he had frequented during his time here. Then he felt like the library was tremendous, but the new monolithic structure in front of him dwarfed it. The sight was both exciting and humbling as he contemplated the incredible increase in knowledge that went into the growth of the institution.

  Aubrey touched her new access chip to the keypad outside of the library and they walked inside. Jonah wanted to explore everything that he saw, but Aubrey immediately grabbed onto his elbow and guided him across the large atrium at the center of the library toward a stairwell leading down. They followed it quickly and then went through a door to another set of stairs that led further down into the building.

  “Great,” Jonah said. “Back into the basement.”

  Aubrey gave a short laugh.

  “The best stuff is always in there,” she said.

  Jonah smiled and there was a brief moment of energy between them, but Aubrey looked away, breaking it. She led him across a small room dotted with chairs and tables, and stopped in front of a desk beside a closed door. A severe-looking woman looked at her over the rim of her glasses and Aubrey offered a wide smile.

  “Hello, Cecilia,” she said cheerfully. “I just need to do a bit of research.”

  Aubrey slid an identification card across the desk toward her and Cecilia picked it up, scrutinizing it as if she had never met Aubrey, though she clearly had.

  “Aubrey,” the woman said in the tone that a disappointed parent usually uses with their misbehaving children. “You know that these stacks are restricted. Authorized faculty only.”

  “I know,” Aubrey said. “I have authorization to access the restricted area.”

  “Yes,” Cecilia said, “but what about your…friend.”

  She said it like she was discussing something decidedly distasteful, but Aubrey broke into a crystalline laugh that was almost startling in its glaring inappropriateness.

  “Oh, Cecilia,” she said through the fake laugh. “This isn’t my friend! This is my husband.”

  Jonah turned toward her in surprise at the sound of the word, but then turned back to Cecilia with a forced smiled, knowing that he needed to go along with it.

  “I didn’t know that you were married,” Cecilia said.

  There was an edge of suspicion in her voice, but Aubrey wasn’t to be bested. She looped her arm around Jonah’s and rested her head on his shoulder.

  “Oh, yes,” she said dreamily. “Newlyweds. We didn’t have a big wedding. We just kind of ran off and did it. We couldn’t wait another minute.”

  She looked up at Jonah and when he looked down at her she pressed a quick kiss to his lips before turning back to the woman whose mouth was now screwed into an expression that said that she was still displeased, but more because she was going to have to let Aubrey through rather than turning her away.

  “Well,” Cecilia said shortly. “Congratulations, then.”

  “Thank you,” Aubrey said.

  “Thank you,” Jonah added.

  “So, we can go on through?” Aubrey asked.

  Cecilia pressed a button on the desk in fr
ont of her that released the locks on the door and waved her through. Aubrey gave another wide smile and grasped Jonah’s arm more firmly so that she could lead him through the door. Jonah’s lips were still tingling with her kiss when the door closed behind them and she released his arm to walk into the slightly musty stacks of aging tomes.

  “There are some computers in the back with scanned files and some books that they don’t have hard copies of, but most of what we want is going to be in these books.”

  “I’m your husband now?” Jonah asked. “Have things changed that much since I was on Earth?” He made sure to put a teasing lilt in the question, but he was genuinely curious about what had just transpired with Cecilia.

  Aubrey looked up at him quizzically as if she didn’t remember what she had said, then jumped slightly.

  “Oh, that. This is a restricted area. Only specific people are allowed to come in here, and Cecilia is a stickler for the rules.”

  “I gathered that,” Jonah said. “Did you know that you say ‘oh’ a lot?”

  “I never noticed that.”

  “So, if this is a restricted area, why did Cecilia let me in?”

  “Did you know that you say ‘so’ a lot?” Aubrey asked.

  Jonah laughed.

  “No, I never noticed that.”

  Aubrey reached up and grabbed a large book from the shelf above her head.

  “Well, you do. Anyway, there is a little bit of a loophole in the rules about the restricted area. Only authorized faculty is allowed in here, but they are allowed to bring spouses with them to help with research.”

  Jonah tilted his head at her.

  “Why is that?” he asked.

  Aubrey lugged the book over to one of the small tables set up in the center of the room and clicked on the green lamp that flooded the surface with light.

  “Because spouses are supportive and encouraging, and far less likely than other people who work in the University to steal the work that you’re doing and sell it to competing groups.”

  “That makes sense,” Jonah said.

  Despite the purely functional explanation behind it, Jonah liked the way that the introduction had sounded, and he couldn’t help but smile as he selected another book from the shelf and settled at the table across from her.

  A few hours had passed and the stacks of books that each had gone through had grown into teetering piles at the edges of the tables when Jonah leaned back and massaged his tired, burning eyes. It had been a long time since he had spent this much time reading.

  “Alright,” he said. “I think that we should take a little bit of a break. I need to go back to check on the others.”

  Aubrey’s eyes snapped up from the book that she was reading.

  “The others?” she asked. “What do you mean?”

  “In the basement,” Jonah said, lowering his voice even though he didn’t think that Cecilia could hear him.

  Aubrey’s lips parted and she leaned toward him conspiratorially.

  “I thought that they all left with the rest of the team and went to the other planet,” Aubrey said.

  “Most of them did,” Jonah said. “But there are some who are still here trying to recover. A couple of the hybrids were in pretty bad condition and there were some of the pregnant women who didn’t want to leave.”

  “I’m going with you,” Aubrey said. “I want to meet them.”

  Jonah started to protest. He didn’t think that it would be a good idea for her to go down into the basement with him. It was too dangerous, and would bring her too close to finding out the secrets that he had been trying to keep. As soon as he started to form the words, however, he stopped. Aubrey had already done so much. He had no choice but to let her continue.

  Chapter Six

  Aubrey drew instinctively closer to Jonah as he led her down through the floors of the old medical ward and into the basement. As eerie as she had found the abandoned hospital when she was only in the waiting room and the first of the examination rooms, these floors were far worse and the chill that had settled into her when she heard that there were still victims of Ryan in the basement sank further into her bones the deeper they went into the building.

  When they reached the basement, Jonah reached into the bag that he carried and pulled out what looked like a narrow tube. An instant later, it began to glow, shedding a faintly green light around them, reminding her of the strange-looking lantern that he’d had in the examination room and the light in the stairwell. She wished that she had her lantern with her at that moment so that they could have illumination that actually cut through the damp darkness rather than just butting up against it as his did.

  “What is this place?” Aubrey asked.

  “Remember in that book about the history of the University it mentioned that some of the older buildings were outfitted with emergency chambers to provide shelter and supplies in the event of a disaster? These are the ones built for the hospital.”

  Aubrey had seen pictures of these chambers only minutes before when they were in the library, but her mind still had a difficult time reconciling those pictures with what she was seeing now. The century that had passed since the medical ward had been shut down in the massive renovation of the University complex had not been kind to the basement. The pictures that were taken of the chambers at the time that the book was written, decades after the building had actually been built, were hopeful and reassuring. Bright lighting and grinning images of the then-president of the University and the head of the department that had designed the emergency chambers standing inside one of them presenting one of the supply kits made them look almost inviting. These pictures could have been in a brochure meant to lure prospective students and faculty by advertising the amenities of the University, including the well-equipped chambers that stood fully prepared for the possibility of an emergency, disaster, or attack.

  When she looked at the basement around her now, though, there was none of that hope. The light was gone and the chambers looked cold and frightening. She couldn’t imagine staying here any longer than a few minutes, much less days on end.

  “Why would you stay here?” she asked. “It’s miserable down here.”

  “We had no choice,” Jonah told her. “The Valdicians and army were ready to attack at any moment and we had nowhere else to go. We were happy to find this place. At least we were protected and had food, water, and clothes.”

  Aubrey felt a wave of guilt at her reaction and quieted, allowing Jonah to guide her the rest of the way through to a partially closed door. He knocked on it and then opened the door the rest of the way. As soon as she stepped into the door, Aubrey felt her heart tighten painfully and her hand came up to cover her mouth. The room was cluttered with makeshift beds and on each was a person who looked at the same time happy to see Jonah and drawn to the point of fragility. Jonah came to her side and gestured at her.

  “Everybody, this is Aubrey. You can trust her. She’s…a friend of mine.”

  One of the women waved at her, but even as she offered a smile, Aubrey could see her cradling her obviously swollen belly a bit tighter. A man with features unlike anything that she had ever seen looked at her for a few long seconds as if he was going to say something to her, and then turned away, walking to a set of shelves in the corner and pulling down a box that he set on a table and started digging through. Aubrey took hold of Jonah’s wrist and pulled him back out of the door into the hallway.

  “They can’t stay here,” she said.

  “What?” Jonah asked.

  “Those people. You. You can’t stay here anymore.”

  “I told you,” Jonah said. “This is our only choice. We don’t have anywhere else to go, and it isn’t safe for us to try to find someplace else.”

  “It isn’t safe for you to stay here,” Aubrey insisted. “I know that you are doing everything that you can for them, and that you want what is best for them, but this isn’t it. They need a safer more comfortable place and better care.”


  She saw Jonah tense and felt the compulsion to reach out to touch him and reassure him.

  “Until Pyra comes back for me, we have to stay here. This is where I can do the research and investigation that I need to do, and where we know that we have what we need to survive.”

  “Jonah, these people have been tortured. The women have been kidnapped and forcibly impregnated. The hybrids have been held against their will. They can’t just stay here and hope that they will survive, or that something else won’t happen. You know that at any minute one of those women could go into labor, or the Valdicians could come up from the facility to find you. Ryan could come back. You should go to the police.”

  “No,” Jonah said swiftly and fiercely. “We can’t do that.”

  “Why?” Aubrey asked. “They could help you. They could help them. What Ryan has done is criminal and he should be held accountable for it.”

  “He is being held accountable for it,” he said. “He is facing exactly what he wanted. He’s getting the war against the Denynso and the Mikana that he has been planning for, and he will get the destruction that he deserves.”

  “The police can prevent any of that from having to happen,” Aubrey said, trying to convince him. “No one has to be hurt. No one has to die. They can take him into custody and handle it so that his victims can move on.”

  “Move on to what?” Jonah asked. “What do they have to move on to? These hybrids have never had anything else but this facility. The human women have their own struggles to deal with and challenging decisions to make. If we call the police, that’s it. The investigation is over and I will never have the opportunity to find the answers that I’ve been looking for. We might never know the truth. Please. Just give us the chance to handle this. You might not understand it, but it is what’s best.”

  Aubrey could see the sincerity and determination in his eyes and knew that she was never going to be able to change his mind. No matter what she thought, she also knew that she couldn’t bring herself to take these answers from him.

  “Alright,” she said. “I won’t call the police.”