Ajos: The Restitution - A Sci-fi Alien Romance, Book 1, стр. 14
For a moment, she couldn’t hear anything—there was a high pitch ringing in her ears and all she could feel was Ajos holding her against him as he brought them to the floor.
Realization slowly hit as his heavy body pinned down hers.
Another explosion seemed to hit close by because the ground shook once more.
This was all strangely familiar.
Suddenly, her grandfather’s stories didn’t feel like old war tales anymore.
They’d been hit by something big, and there was only one thing it could be.
They’d been bombed.
6
Staring wide-eyed, she saw Ajos’ mouth move. He was shouting something, but she couldn’t hear any words.
Her ears were still ringing, and she wasn’t sure if he was speaking to her or to everyone else in the room.
He was still covering her, his body pressed against hers, shielding her, but despite the ringing in her ears, she was vaguely aware that chaos had erupted all around them.
Women were screaming and clamoring behind and between the stasis pods for cover, everyone trying to save themselves.
A fear she’d never known crept deep inside her.
Her grandfather had talked about it so many times—of being a young man who’d been sent out to Christmas Island, being told nothing except that they were going to test bombs. He’d said they’d been told to shield their eyes with their hands or to bury their face in the crook of their arm.
And then the light.
A bright light that made him see his bones through his flesh. Then the heat. A heat that felt like someone on fire had walked right through him.
It was all too similar.
“What’s happening?!” she screamed, but her words were not answered as another explosion hit the hold.
The entire structure tilted, and the world went topsy-turvy. In the back of her mind, she knew the building was flipping over—either that or gravity had shifted and the planet had turned on its axis.
Strong arms gripped her as Ajos pulled her toward his chest and secured her there. With the entire structure falling over on its side, she didn’t know in which direction they went, only that their bodies were thrown as if they were dolls.
In front of her, some women were still trying to find cover, but without the strength of someone holding them down, they flew effortlessly across the room.
Some of them hit the hard stasis pods lined up against the wall, and Kerena was sure she saw blood.
Behind her, she heard Ajos grunt as his back collided with something hard. He’d taken the brunt of the impact, saving her from injury.
Her heart felt like a brick hitting against her chest as the huge stasis hold stopped moving and the ringing of her ears subsided enough that she fully heard the screaming occurring around her.
There was dust in the room now, coming through the hole that was in the wall, and Kerena coughed as she covered her nose, her eyes watering as she searched for any survivors nearby.
Her eyes landed on the body of someone about a foot away. In the dust that was now circulating in the room, she could hardly see, but she was sure it was the curly-haired woman who’d spoken up earlier.
There was blood on the woman’s forehead and her eyes were closed.
Wriggling, she tried to free herself from the Ajos’ arms, but he held her even tighter.
“I have to help her.” She turned her brown eyes to gold ones.
“It is not safe. We might get hit again.”
She didn’t even have to think about it. She could never live with herself if that woman died and she didn’t help when she had the chance to.
“I don’t care,” she said. “Let me help her.”
Ajos searched her gaze for a moment before he released her enough for her to slip from his arms.
Screams, cries, groans of pain—she could hear it all now, as clear as she could see the dust that choked the air.
Coughing, she covered her nose and mouth with one hand as she crawled over to the woman.
Her legs couldn’t carry her, they were too weak from the shock of it all, but luckily, the woman wasn’t too far away.
She checked the woman’s pulse, and relief flooded her when she felt the faint movement in the woman’s neck.
“We have to get to safety,” a deep voice said over her shoulder.
She hadn’t realized Ajos had followed her over to the woman.
“I have to move her. Can you help me?”
Ajos jerked his head before grasping the woman as if she weighed nothing.
He looked around the hold—apparently he could see better than she could in the dust because she couldn’t see shit. Everywhere else must be chaos, because he moved the woman to the spot where he and Kerena had just moved from.
He turned to look at her then, and in the lessening dust, she saw there was a sort of film over his eyes.
A nictitating membrane.
Mild shock made her stare at him for a few beats. She wished she had one of those. It felt like there were grains of sand trying to get into her eyes and she was squinting so hard, she could hardly see her hand in front of her face now.
Nodding to him, she kept her nose and mouth covered as she scrambled over to where he’d placed the woman.
As she touched the woman’s cheek, noting the thin line of blood running from the woman’s forehead, Kerena was sure she saw the lady’s eyelids move.
“Hey! Can you hear me?”
The woman frowned and groaned, her eyes opening a little.
“I can’t see…” the woman groaned.
“Hey! You’re ok. We’re going to be all right.” Fuck her if she was lying to herself as well.
Her heart was still hammering in her chest and she was frickin’ terrified. But she needed to surpass her fear.