Human Nature (Book 4): Human Nature IV by Borthwick, Finlay (book recommendations website .TXT) 📗

table. “Babe,” he addressed Emile now, “I’ll be back down when she’s asleep, okay?”

Emile nodded understandingly.

Alek swiftly pulled him in for a kiss before making his way towards the stairs.

“She’s a great kid.” Alek spoke sweetly of Tia to Adela.

“I know, she’s wonderful.” Adela complimented her little sister. “If you need my help, just shout down.” She informed Alek that her assistance was at hand.

“Will do.” Alek acknowledged this offer before ascending up the stairs after his apocalyptic niece.

Now, the downstairs of the cottage was totally and completely filled with an awkward silence.

“Are we gonna talk about it?” Emile finally spoke up, though he did not turn from the window to face the soon-to-be mother of his child.

“Underneath your fiancé’s roof? Classy.” Adela commented, beginning to believe that Emile did not in fact love Alek at all.

“It’s killing me having to lie to him.” Emile wanted her to know this. “One drunken mistake is killing me, Adela. I hope you understand that.”

She sneered at him, “If it was hurting you that badly, you wouldn’t have done it in the first place.”

Whilst Emile accepted this, he was beginning to get frustrated at Adela’s refusal to accept her part in this situation. “Just like you said, Adela, it takes two to tango. If I recall rightly, it was you who invited me to your bed, and not the other way around.”

Adela snapped, but out of respect for Alek and Tia, she still kept her voice to a low grumble, “It’s a strong temptation, Emile.” She tried to use natural human instincts as an excuse for her actions. “When you’re drunk, you’re not yourself. I had a need, you were feeling lost, so we both came together for a one-off event.” She didn’t understand what was so immoral about what she had done.

“A one-off event with consequences, might I add.” Emile spoke of Adela’s pregnancy with a tone of disgust.

“Just don’t.” She advised Emile menacingly as she came close to snapping at him once more. Though again, for Alek and Tia’s humility, she knew she had to keep her cool.

‘BOOM!’

A large explosion bellowed from outside of the cottage.

“What the hell was that?!” Emile cried out in a panic.

“Holy shit!” Adela proclaimed in dismay as she covered her mouth; evidently, whatever the explosion was, she had just witnessed it first-hand.

Tia could be heard crying loudly from upstairs, as well as Alek’s muffled voice as he tried to comfort her.

Putting his resentment of Adela aside, Emile rushed over to the window which she was at.

“Oh Christ!” Emile gasped, asserting Adela’s astonishment.

On the other side of the road, across from Alek and Emile’s cottage, there were eight solar panels that had been erected by the survivors at the safe zone in recent months in order to restore power to the place.

But now, only seven of them were operational; a lightning bolt had just struck and destroyed one of the panels.

From the sparky smoke of the destroyed solar panel, a small fire began to arise. Although the rain was keeping it at bay, it quickly grew into a blaze and overcame the flurry of droplets.

Then, within less than a minute, the panel next to the destroyed one had itself caught fire from the scorching specs.

And not so much as another minute, two of the eight solar panels were now being consumed by a rapidly growing inferno.

“We have to do something!” Emile flailed.

“It’s too dangerous!” Alek, who was carrying Tia, called out as he came rushing down the stairs. “The solar farm is finished. Within minutes, the whole thing’s gonna get consumed.”

“What about the rest of the safe zone?” Adela asked in complete dismay, worried about Erica, for she was the only survivor that knew of and could help with pregnancy.

“There’s another farm in the opposite corner,” Alek noted, “As long as the lightning doesn’t strike that one as well, then at least that half of the city will retain power.” The residents had used the terms ‘city’ and ‘safe zone’ interchangeably, despite the safe zone only encompassing a very small portion of London.

“So, what do we do? Run over to the others?” Adela had misunderstood what Alek was suggesting.

“No, quite the opposite, in fact.” He declared. “We have to stay right here, as far away from the rest of the buildings as possible.” Alek, having been raised in towns that were frequently struck by adverse weather all throughout his childhood, knew exactly how to ride this situation out.

“Was England always like this or is this another crazy apocalypse thing?” Emile enquired; after all, all four of the people currently in this cottage had actually been born and lived their entire lives in Europe.

“Well,” Alek grinned at his fiancé, placing Tia down on the floor as he did so, “I had hoped we’d get something like this. English weather, babe. It was an optional extra for the honeymoon package.” He joked with his fiancé.

While Emile initially smiled at Alek’s humour, his face quickly soured again upon remembering that he could see the woman carrying his baby out of the corner of his eye.

Adela, noticing Emile’s fading expression, swallowed guilty and realised that she had to change the subject. “Another one’s just caught fire.” She nodded towards the solar farm upon noticing that three of the eight panels were now alight.

As Emile turned around to witness the blaze carry on growing, Alek bent down and covered Tia’s eyes with his hand.

“Hey!” She cried out. “Uncle Alek!”

“Maybe we should go back upstairs and finish that story, hey?” He suggested to his ‘niece.’

Adela once again nodded at Alek appreciatively; she agreed that there was no need for her little sister to see this.

“It’s quite boring down here, isn’t it?” Cora remarked, having looked around and the basement and found nothing