The Clone’s Mate by Susan Trombley

Epilogue

The hardware store had been demolished even before the Menops invasion, but I still decided to visit the spot where it had once stood. I thought about the two young women who had been taken with me that day when I was abducted and felt a great sadness that they’d yet to be found by any of the organizations out there in the wider galaxy that worked to find and free slaves.

Even the creepy Iriduan pirate bitch and her equally creepy mates were never found, though Nirgal had given as much information as he could about them. They’d worked for the Iriduan government, a job that was apparently compulsory after the pirate woman was taken prisoner for crimes she’d committed previously. The empire had no intention of aiding the Akrellians or humans in locating their own agents.

I hoped those women had found the same kind of happiness I had, or at least some situation where they were content and safe. I feared that they hadn’t, but there wasn’t much I could do about it, other than continue to donate paintings to Akrellian organizations for their fundraisers in the hopes that the money they earned would someday go towards the operation that brought those women home.

The entire block where the hardware store had once stood had been demolished as well, so it was now little more than an empty debris field. A lot of places on Earth looked like this now, but humanity was slowly rebuilding, with help from the Akrellians and even the Bigfoot-looking aliens called Ultimen. We didn’t have those in our settlement, since their governments didn’t typically persecute political dissidents.

Despite the condition of the buildings, vehicles still skimmed past above the road at my back as I walked from one end of the hardware store’s old foundation to the other. The road condition was terrible, but the flying cars were now a thing, so it didn’t matter anymore.

One of those cars turned around after zooming past me, then sped back in my direction. I looked up in concern as it came closer, but it didn’t leave the boundaries of the road. It came to a standstill, hovering several feet off the ground, and the top of the vehicle lifted.

“Ronnie?” Michael said, his mouth an O of surprise, his eyes nearly as round and wide open. “Is that really you?”

He looked his age, though he had probably had at least one rejuv treatment, and I didn’t think the past years had been all that kind to him. Like my parents, he had been through a lot while living on Earth during the dark times. I supposed I had some sympathy for him on that. His family had survived, and I was thankful for that. I didn’t want anyone to lose a loved one, not even someone who’d hurt me so deeply in the past. Far too many people on Earth had endured that already.

I waved. “Hey, Mike. How you been?”

“How…?” He blinked stupidly at me. “Is that all you can say, Ronnie? After all this time?”

It was my turn to look surprised. “Excuse me?”

He climbed out of his vehicle and approached me, and I noted with some satisfaction that his body had grown far fluffier than mine had been when he’d bitched about it during our marriage. Stress was a bitch, and so was karma.

“You just disappear on us, you’re gone for ten years, while all hell breaks loose on Earth. Only after things calm down, do you show up again, out of the blue, happy as a clam, looking like you’ve gone back in time ten years instead of getting older, and all you can say when you see me is, ‘how you been?’”

I regarded him speechlessly as he poked his own chest. “I worried about you every day, Ronnie. I wondered where you’d been taken. What had happened to you? My guilt ate at me, and it caused a rift in my marriage. My wife even left me and took the girls. All because I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened to you!” He gestured to me. “And now you’re here, looking better than you’ve ever looked before, and you act like nothing ever happened.”

I pursed my lips tightly, my gaze raking from his feet to his thinning hair. “Oh, something definitely happened, Michael. You dumped me after I spent twenty years taking care of you as a loyal and devoted wife so that you could move in with your side chick who didn’t have to put up with your dirty socks and skid-marked underwear and lackluster bedroom performance. Then, I got abducted and tortured and held captive, and you have the nerve to act like I’ve been away on a freakin’ vacation this whole time?”

I lifted my chin, feeling like I was channeling my Iriduans with all their arrogance as I looked down my nose at Michael, even though he was taller than me. “Don’t you dare put the blame for your life falling to shit at my feet, Mike. I’ve been your excuse for far too long. It’s time to start blaming yourself for your life’s failures.”

“Ronnie!” Mike cried as I turned my back on him to make my way towards the pile of debris where my vehicle was parked out of sight of the road. “Wait!”

He grabbed my shoulder to spin me back around, and I quickly jerked out of his grasp, my heart pounding as I shook my head. “Don’t touch me, Mike.” I glanced towards where my vehicle was hidden, studying the shadows formed by debris and toppled walls. “For your own sake.”

Then I smiled grimly at Michael. “I didn’t come here alone. I suggest you leave now. My mate doesn’t usually give a warning before he strikes.”

I know it’s petty, but I enjoyed the way his face paled as he glanced around quickly, then he shot one last look at me before rushing to his vehicle, his belly jiggling as he clumsily ran.

“Rhonda sure I can’t kill him?” 34 asked as the vehicle sped away.

My heart lifted as I turned to see my mate appear from a cluster of shadows nearby, his hard black eyes regarding the vehicle as if he considered giving chase.

“I would rather you didn’t.” I met him midway to stroke my hand over the chitin plates covering his chest. “He’s not worth the paperwork we’d have to fill out in the event of an ‘incident’.”

He shifted his gaze to me, his forbidding expression lightening. “Nirgal and Ilyan can track him. 34 can kill him quietly. No one will know.”

I laughed, shaking my head firmly. “What am I going to do with you, 34?”

His eyes took on a different look as his gaze trailed down my body. “34 has suggestions.”