Page 89 of Riv's Sanctuary
"Thank you.” Her voice was low in the din around them. “This means a lot.” She paused. “I'll pay you back somehow, I promise.”
She smiled at him then and his frown disappeared.
No reply came forth.
Her smile had him transfixed for a bit and he didn’t look away.
Couldn’t.
…didn’t want to.
20
To her surprise, Riv actually let her shop.
Whatever she picked up and asked if she could get, he only shrugged.
To test him, she even picked up what looked like a very expensive garment based on the trimmings and the golden material. When she turned it to him, his gaze flicked to the thing only briefly before returning to her, and all he did was shrug.
She wished she could see his face because the shades and face covering hid a lot, but as they moved through the market she could feel his attention on her and on her only.
He was like a rock. Unmoving and dangerous if you pushed too hard.
Whenever she moved to a stall, picked up something, and turned to glance his way, he was always hovering there like her personal guard.
He had no idea, but this little shopping trip, this little sense of normalcy, was rescuing her from a terror she hadn’t known she’d been running from.
She didn’t say it to him, but it felt good having him there.
After she’d seen that alien slug hovering on the light-blue ring, it had brought back memories she thought she’d overcome.
It was the same race of aliens that had abducted her from Earth and seeing one again so close had made all her systems set to FLEE.
It had taken everything within her not to dash across the market and keep running.
She hadn’t seen one of those aliens since the ship had crashed and a part of her had naively believed she would never see a hint of them again.
So much for wishing to ignore her past.
She glanced at Riv nervously as he paid for some hygiene products.
He wanted to know why she’d reacted the way she had.
She wanted to tell him, but not here, and not before she accepted the reality that she’d have to talk about it.
She hadn’t spoken about it to anyone since it’d happened.
She hadn’t had anyone to speak with about it.
Glancing down to the hamper in her arms, she looked at the items there. A set of two shirts, or tunics as they called them, two pairs of trousers, boots, and the hygiene products. That’s all she needed for now and she was about to tell him this when an exclamation further down the street caught her attention.
It took her a few moments for her to see what was happening but even then, she couldn’t quite understand it.
It seemed like a procession, as if a dignitary of some kind was passing through.
Whoever it was must be important because all the aliens around them were moving out of the way, plastering themselves to the side of the street as the procession came through.
But something didn’t seem right, and she realized what that was when she looked more closely at the aliens moving out of the way.