Page 33 of Storm

DESTRUCTION SCATTERED ON THE KITCHEN FLOOR

“How about here?” Mary stands on a stool as she hangs lights around the window frame in the downstairs lounge room. I’ve been forbidden to put up any decorations for the holidays by both Melek and our housekeeper. My hand absentmindedly rubs at the five-month-old grapefruit housing itself in my body, having officially passed the halfway point in this pregnancy.

“That looks great. Thank you.”

Sunny comes barrelling in carrying a pile of tinsel. “What about these, Mama? I found them in one of Mary’s boxes.”

“I think those would look wonderful.” He beams up at me as I tuck a strand of unruly brunette hair behind his ear. “I just need a drink of water,” I add, heading for the kitchen.

“Let me get that for you, Alor…”

Stopping at the arched threshold into the main hall, I swivel slightly to face her. “Don’t be silly. I can get it. Can you help Eli with the tinsel, please?” I push away Mary’s insistence on doing everything for me. She and Melek have been quite insufferable when it comes to day-to-day tasks—apparently, I resemble a fragile vase about to shatter at any moment.

“Of course.” Mary helps Sunny with the gold decorations for the Foundling Week holidays. Pointless, if you ask me, though nobody does. Only Halo celebrates.

Back at the factory, we only knew of such celebrations because the market vendors would bring occasional festering pastries made especially for the event. The stuff the hollow couldn’t eat quickly enough. Lightning farmers would use their valuable credits for those mouldy sweet breads. Mam, Nix, and I never did. It bothered us that our fellow farmers didn’t notice we only got such “gifts” because they had an abundance of food, whereas we did not.

Continuing down the hall to the kitchen, my fingers graze the slight bump under my dress. I’m surprised I’ve made it this far in the pregnancy. It’s my longest-running pregnancy since Sunny, so hopes are high in the household. I suppose the fuss is to be expected. Having the constant attention of my husband is new to me. Melek has been showing a lot more “hands-on” interest than my pregnancy with Sunny. Back in those days, we kept our distance except ‌in the bedroom and the odd explosive emotional episode I had.

You don’t go from serond to Halo housewife without repercussions.

His attention back in my first pregnancy was mainly centred around making sure I was staying healthy. Nothing between us had changed from a coupling standpoint. Not in my eyes. He was still the gruff commander that I’d been forced to give myself to, even though he gave me an ultimatum and I demanded he fuck me until I felt nothing but numbness.

Then Sunny was born. The only good to come from both of us.

In the beginning, I used to imagine him as this tyrant father who would boss our children around. However, something unexplainable happened. He was the complete opposite of every picture I’d created within my head, and it was the ultimate mindfuck.

He saves all his bossing around for me and gives our child free access to the playful, almost joyful Melek. It was unexpected, and I still don’t know how to compartmentalise the different versions of my commander husband.

After finding a glass draining on the dish rack, I pour some water while overlooking the garden that is now frostbitten with the colder weather. This year, for some idiotic reason, Melek has decided we will host the grand foundling holiday party. A place for all hollow council members to come together with their families, eat lavish food, and talk shit. It was all the grandeur I’d never been privy to when I was but a mere farm girl.

If Nix were here, he would call them greedy and insane. And I would agree because this life I live is nothing if not wildly ridiculous.

The waterworks begin at the thought of him. Tears roll down my face while I stare out the window over the sink, the trees beyond the flowerbeds, icicles dripping off branches—a mirror to my own sorrow. It’s mesmerising.

Suddenly, two strong arms come around me from behind, heating me. My heart rate kicks, and I spin, falling into a hard chest. Melek doesn’t say a word. He just holds me tight as I snuffle into his black button-down jacket. Another side effect of pregnancy: the bouts of crying.

A few days ago, I cried because I was craving peaches, and all we had were dried figs, which reminded me that Mam and Nix had never tried either. Trivial, small world problems, but the hormones within me rioted and found a way to bring me back to my brother and Mam, and everything they would miss, and I was a blubbering mess on the floorboards for Sunny to find and alert his father. Melek was, well, Melek. He kept his composure. He said nothing, and he picked me up and brought me to the couch.

Together, we sat as Sunny told me an elaborate story about a prince who saves a princess from an army of giant garden “wriggly suckers.” That made not only me, but Melek laugh. Not his usual chuckles at my attempts to knock him off kilter in the bedroom. This one was real and raw, his eyes alight with wonder over our child. And because we’d never done anything even remotely like that before as a family, I once again broke down. Poor Sunny thought it was his story until his father explained to him that it was the baby making me cry, which also wasn’t a great deflection.

Eventually, Melek had to get Mary to play with Sunny while he put us in the shower and gave me two heartbreaking orgasms that left me bone dry. After that, I slept the rest of the day and night away.

“We really have to stop meeting like this.” Melek goes for humour, which is new for him. Arms trapped between our bodies, I shove him with my elbow.

“It’s not like I want to be crying all the time. It’s really letting down my bad wife image.” My crying turns into hiccups.

Chest rumbling, he pushes a strand of ebony hair from my face. “I’ll let Eli know you only want to be known for your bad mama reputation.”

Looking up, I focus on the man who is meant to be my oppressor. The man who makes inconsequential jokes and hugs my tears away is a mirage. He has to be. Blinking wildly, Melek takes his thumb, running it delicately below my right eye and then my left eye.

With my heart in my throat, I ask softly, “Su… Eli is not who I’m concerned about.” Crap. Blue eyes bulging, I hope he didn’t catch my name slip-up. Sunny is just for Eli and me. He is my sun in the darkness of this Halo-controlled world. Resting my head on his hard chest, I pray he didn’t hear my screw up.

The silence between us is deafening, and I almost start crying again.

Capable hands come to rest on either side of my jaw, pulling it up to find his serious expression taking me in. My breath stills, fingers gripping tightly in the fabric of his shirt. “I wouldn’t be too concerned about the other guy.” His lips come to graze my forehead. “I hear he’s just as taken by you as Sunny is.”

My jaw is on the floor. Melek, giant commander of the Halo Army, drops a bombshell in my heart, releases me, and walks out of the kitchen. Fucking saunters out, unbothered by the destruction he’s left behind.