Guardian Alien: a sci-fi alien romance (OtherWorldly Men Book 1) Page 14

  He was suffocating her. Her vision was going gray. Blood rang in her ears.

  She tried to scream. The other teen was getting something out of his pocket now. What? A gun? A knife? What were they going to do to her? Where were they going to take her?

  In one jarring, composure-ripping, soul-crushing moment, it hit her, the realization of how much was on the line.

  She thought of Cavin, her family—of Earth.

  She was going to fucking die before Mahoney could call her back.

  “No!” She drove her boot heel into her assailant’s instep so hard that it jarred her entire body. He shrieked in pain. Some women lifted cars off their kids, driven to superhuman strength in an emergency. Her? She twisted around, wrenching free of him while screaming like a martial arts star, and kicked him in the balls.

  He bent over. Something clattered to the ground. The knife in his hand? No, a cell phone. The man came at her again. She got a crazy, desperate idea that she’d kick the knife out of his hand, and she would have too, if someone hadn’t grabbed her by the collar from behind, pulling her backward.

  She fought for balance. The hand on her collar was strong and held her upright. Something white and hot zinged past her ear. There was a crack, like the sound of a bug zapper, amplified. The mugger’s scream was cut short as the elevator door erupted in a green-white flash.

  Jana’s eyes burned from the acrid stench. Where had she smelled that distinctive odor before?

  The parking lot at Safeway.

  She spun around and came face-to-face with the REEF.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The REEF grabbed her shoulder and shoved her up against the wall. Her head snapped with whiplash. Now she finally knew what people meant when they said they saw stars.

  Sucking in great gasps of air, Jana forced herself to meet his eyes. Don’t show fear. The REEF had disguised himself with a hooded sweatshirt with the sleeves hiked up and baggy pants, but he had that lean, mean, musculature common to prisoners serving life sentences. He was taller, larger than she expected, with intense blue eyes as frigid and clear as an arctic night. He holstered one rifle, but the other, the one aimed at her head, wobbled.

  He looks ill.

  His skin was pale, practically greenish, and covered with a film of perspiration. Cold sweats? His aim seemed true enough, though. “Jana Jasper,” he said in a flat voice.

  His eyes looked so cold he sent chills spinning down her spine. This was a super soldier, a weapon. Yet one look at his exhausted face, his short black hair dampened with sweat, and the tension lines around his mouth told her there was more human in him than machine.

  Remind him of his mercy. Her attackers were lying in a smoking heap.

  Not a selfless act —a selfish one. He needed her to bring him to Cavin. He needed her alive. He needed a hostage. Remind him of his mercy anyway.

  “You saved my life.” To her shock, genuine gratitude leaked from her heart to her voice. “Thank you.”

  “Caydinn is with you.” The assassin’s voice sent chills spinning down her spine.

  “I don’t know what you mean.” Not only was her voice quivering, she was the worst liar in the world.

  “Room 304,” he said.

  Fuck.

  Weren’t there security cameras? The REEF had probably disabled them. She had to warn Cavin before he sensed something and came looking for her. But how?

  “You were hired by mistake,” she blurted out. “Hired by mistake because he’s never coming back—ever. He’s one of us now—a Terran. The people who hired you don’t need him killed anymore. They don’t need you anymore.”

  His forehead was shiny with sweat. He was in pain, physical pain, and hiding it. This human had been raised from a very young age to be a machine, according to Cavin. He killed because he’d had no other choice. She felt sorry for him. It must have come through on some level because he brought his gaze back around to hers. He seemed almost hungry for kindness. There, that was the weakness. “Are you breaking down?”

  I don’t know, his eyes said. Growing paler still, he brought his hand to his eyes and grimaced.

  She lured him closer, hoping to melt his distrust. Years of caring for frightened wounded animals had taught her what to do.

  “What if your own people are doing this to you? Did you ever consider that? That they may have rigged you to self-destruct.” Good one, Jana. She was grabbing at straws now, using the imagination that had gotten her into so much trouble as a child.

  As frigid as his eyes were, in them she saw uncertainty flicker. She’d hit on something. A weakness. A doubt.

  “If you lose your computers, you’ll be useless. Obsolete. Nothing.”

  Mistake. A tic started up in his cheek. She’d hit a sore point. He lifted the rifle. For an instant she thought he’d blow a hole in her head. Then he spun around as a doughy looking security officer lumbered down the pathway from the lobby.

  “Freeze!” The guard pointed his gun at the REEF.

  The REEF sighed and swung a gauntlet similar to Cavin’s in the man’s direction. The officer lifted off the floor.

  He yelped and dropped his gun. It clattered to the floor, red-hot. It fired off all its rounds. They ricocheted off the walls. Jana screamed. Car alarms went off. She heard guest doors slamming.

  So much for keeping the presence of aliens on Earth secret.

  ***

  Thunder erupted outside, flashing outside the window. Cavin threw on his clothes, grabbed his triple, and ran to the stairwell, scanning his gauntlet for the REEF’s location. Where it was, Jana was, he was certain.

  He was a fool, a blind, careless fool, to not know she’d slipped out of the room. He’d let down his guard, and it could very well cost Jana her life.

  A shout from below, three floors down, a male voice—“Freeze!”—then gunshots rang out.

  A warden floated up to eye level like a Terran party balloon, his legs peddling, his eyes wide.

  Cavin’s blood turned to ice. His focus tunneled to one thing and one thing only—seeing Jana to safety.

  He shouldered open the stairwell door. To the sounds of his pounding heart, he raced down the stairs to the first floor.

  ***

  The REEF’s facial muscles clenched with the effort he expended to keep the guard in the air. He took a step backward as if thrown off balance. His eyes had glazed over. He holstered one rifle, but the other, the one aimed at Jana’s head, wobbled. He looked as if he was about to pass out. Whatever he’d done to float the guard had taken a terrible toll.

  Cavin would be out of the shower by now. He would have heard the commotion. He could be sneaking up on them at that very moment.

  She fought to keep the thought from appearing on her face.

  “You’re ill. You’re sick. What if your own people are doing this to you? They don’t need you so they rigged you to self-destruct.” She was grabbing at straws now, using the imagination that had gotten her into so much trouble as a child.

  For a heartbeat, she thought she saw shock and real fear in the REEF’s stare but his eyes turned so glacial, so fast, it blew that theory out of the water. His gaze filled with malice, he extended his arm toward the stairwell.

  Her chest contracted in terror. Cavin was about to walk into the jaws of his killer.

  ***

  Something invisible slammed Cavin against the wall inside the stairwell. Agony exploded inside his forearm, beneath where he wore his gauntlet. As the pain spread, it nearly brought him to his knees.

  He’d been wounded in combat many times; he knew how to manage it, how to fight through it. But this was worse—much worse. It was as if he were coming apart from the inside out.

  Jana. Panting, in agony, he brushed his fingers over the little frog. Goddess, don’t let her die. Then he kicked open the door.

  ***

  Cavin burst out of the stairwell, firing nonstop.

  Jana ducked, covering her head. The blasts deafened her. It was loud, painfull
y so, cracks of thunder like when lightning hit too close during a storm.

  Under the barrage from Cavin’s weapon, the REEF’s street clothes shredded, revealing the armor underneath. It sparked and sizzled. Without having fired a shot, the assassin slid to the floor and landed in a sitting position. The rifles fell from his hands, clattered to the floor. His chin sagged to his chest.

  Cavin turned to Jana, took a step toward her as if he meant to run to her, but his body jerked backward, a hand going to his head. His neck corded. He grimaced and fell to his knees, hunched over and convulsing.

  “Cavin!” she cried.

  Cavin’s body went rigid, his back arching, as if he’d been shot through with a bolt of electricity.

  The half-conscious REEF wasn’t even touching him, but he was doing something to Cavin.

  She swung her head around, searching for a weapon. She needed to kill the REEF before he killed Cavin. A discarded rifle sat near the wall. She lunged for it. The REEF blocked her, startling her. She’d thought he was too far gone to react that fast.

  He clamped his hand around her wrist so she couldn’t aim. His body sputtered in and out of view like a picture on an old TV. And then he was gone.

  She felt his hand release her, felt his fingers slip away. “Where did he go? Where did he go?” She spun, searching high and low. The body was gone.

  The guard plunged to Earth. He hit hard, rolled onto his side. “Are you okay?” Jana yelled.

  “Yeah. Fine.” He got up stiffly.

  Jana dropped to Cavin’s side. He was still conscious, but barely. The arm with his gauntlet seemed to be paralyzed as it hung at his side.

  Sweat glistened on his cheeks and jaw. The arm with his gauntlet seemed to be paralyzed as it hung at his side. “What happened? Where are you hurt?” She ran her hands over his body, looking for blood and broken bones, and praying she didn’t find any.

  Cavin sat up and ran questioning fingers over her bruised jaw. She winced at that gentlest of touches, and murder flashed in his eyes. He looked as though he wanted to hunt down the REEF and finish the fight.

  She grabbed the material at his collar and forced him to look at her. “You have bigger things to conquer than him, spaceman. You came here to save the world, not to fight that monster!” She gave him a hard kiss so full of desperation and passion that in seconds she’d dragged his focus from the assassin back to her. “Listen to me. He did something to you. It’s what’s making you sick.”

  Nodding, he squeezed out hoarsely, “Cyber attack. Via my gauntlet.”

  She heard the security officer calling for reinforcements.

  Cavin struggled to his feet. “Must go now,” he urged.

  The security officer yelled into a radio. “Got two DOAs in the elevator, and a perp…hell, the perp’s gone. Six-two. Caucasian, black, blue.”

  A burst of static. “Gone?”

  “He, ah, disappeared. I mean, literally. And he…” He struggled to come up with words to explain what the REEF had done to him and gave up. “Weird shit going on.”

  They jumped in the truck. If her heart pounded any harder, it was going to register on the Richter scale. The security guard banged a fist on the hood. “Hey! Hey! You can’t leave.”

  She started the truck the old-fashioned way. Jamming her foot on the accelerator, she jerked the wheel around. Skidding, she fishtailed out of the parking lot and roared away from the Dewy Doe Inn.

  “Where did you go?” Cavin demanded. “I got out of the shower and you were gone.”

  “I wanted to get us some snacks from the lobby. I thought you heard me. Then I got mugged—two punks jumped me in the elevator.”

  “Not the REEF?”

  “No. In fact, he probably saved my life.” She started to shake, post-traumatic stress. “The REEF used me to find you. How did he do that? I thought we were careful.”

  “Terran social media, tagging. No privacy,” Cavin gasped, grimacing in pain. “Photos of you. The aqua farm.”

  Once in Nevada, she headed south. “We’re five hours from Las Vegas. General ‘Baloney’ Mahoney might not want to return our phone calls, but it’s going to be harder turning away an alien at his doorstep.”

  Cavin kept reassuring her, but he had sight in only one eye, and the full use of only one arm. They stopped once, at a truck stop as the sun rose over the bleak landscape of the high desert.

  For Cavin, they bought a large container of chicken noodle soup and a quart of milk. For her, an extra large coffee and a box of doughnuts.

  “Cavin, try to eat something.” His good hand shook as he lifted the spoon to his mouth. He looked awful. His nano-bots were engaged in an internal battle with the poison.

  She checked her phone for calls and messages. Her family was safe, her father was exploring options in Washington, and Mahoney still had not called back.

  The incident at the Dewy Doe was all over social media. It was going to be a field day for the Men In Black.

  Healed By Alien. Homeless Vet Claims Miracle. She broke into a weary grin. “You’re a religious figure now.”

  He tried to laugh then groaned.

  She started up the truck and rolled back onto the highway. He was deteriorating before her eyes. What if he didn’t make it to the ship? “Maybe we should find a doctor, Cavin.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine.”

  Something dragged her attention to the rearview mirror. A black sedan with tinted windows followed them on the deserted highway. If she sped up, it did too. She slowed, and so did the sedan. “Great. We have company.”

  Cavin convinced her to pull over. “We will talk with them.”

  “What if they want to arrest you?” she argued.

  “Continuing to drive won’t change that. This is our chance, our chance to convince them to give us access to the ship through legal means, so we don’t have to go to Plan C.”

  Cavin, using his tech to shoulder open Dreamland, and doing it while his body battled malware. He’d be dead in ten minutes. “No. No Plan C.”

  She pulled over to the shoulder. The sedan drove up behind them with an ominous popping of gravel under its tires. And then it was quiet, very quiet. For miles around them stretched empty desert. In the distance were the snowy peaks of the White Mountains. The area was riddled with tiny towns and mines. Somewhere to the east was Nellis Air Force Base.

  They weren’t far from Area 51. These men might be their ticket onto that base—if she could convince them to take them there. But what would she say to them?

  She scraped a hand over her face. “I can’t screw this up. I have to convince the world to get behind us. To keep these men from killing you.”

  Cavin pressed his thumb to her chin and turned her to face him. Her body tingled from the simple touch. Never far from her mind, memories of last night came roaring back. “You will. You have the only qualifications needed—your heart and smarts, and your dreams. And your killer ability for public speaking.”

  “Killer?” She cracked a smile.

  The cell phone rang. Her eyes tracked to the phone number. Finally. “It’s the general!” She answered the call. “Jana Jasper.”

  “Hold on, Jana. I have Colonel Connick on the line…”

  “Senator, this is Tom Connick. I’m the commander of the base that contains the hangar known as Area 51.”

  “Yes, I know who you are.” We’re getting in.

  “I wanted you to hear it from me. There’s no ship hidden there.”

  She frowned. “Yes, there is. I know there is.”

  “No, there’s not.”

  They sounded like petulant four-year-olds fighting over a teddy bear rather than adults debating the fate of the world.

  “Really, Colonel? We’re about to be invaded by a military force intent on evicting all seven-plus billion of us from this planet, and you can’t cough up the truth? No ship at Area 51? Total bullshit! Even in our darkest hour, you and your associates insist on perpetuating the lie.
How shameful is that? We’re going to be invaded. If this isn’t an example of a threat to national security, I don’t know what is. Maybe we Earth citizens deserve to lose our home. We certainly aren’t fighting very hard to keep it.”

  Boiling with fury, she hung up.

  Cavin gaped at her. “What did you just do, Jana?”

  “I used Grandpa’s brand of diplomacy.” She glared at the sedan in the mirror. It just sat there, doors closed. What were the thugs doing—waiting for Connick’s kill order? “Men like Connick, the ones who won’t bend the rules, they’re going to allow the invasion. I can’t wrap my mind around the unimaginable horror of that. I know you told me that Coalition policy discourages civilian casualties when acquiring populated worlds, but death and destruction are inevitable. Inevitable when it doesn’t have to be. Inevitable because no one has the backbone to make a fucking decision!”

  The phone rang again. Jana smiled. Oh, yeah. The boys are eating out of my hand.

  She exchanged a smug look with Cavin.

  She took the call. Connick said, “Perhaps we can talk about this, senator. In person.”

  “We don’t have a lot of time, Colonel.”

  “We’re closer than you think.”

  The sedan honked. Jana jumped and glanced in the rearview mirror. “It’s them, Cavin. They’re in that car, the general and the colonel.”

  The sedan pulled up beside them. The window slid down. Behind the wheel was a handsome, silver-haired air force officer sporting a pair of Oakley sunglasses. In the passenger seat was an elderly man dressed in a pale denim shirt and crisp Dockers. His smile revealed perfect teeth. She remembered that Hollywood smile. “General Mahoney,” she said. “Or should I call you Baloney?”

  The old man ignored her sarcasm. “Let me introduce you to Colonel Tom Connick.”

  She shook both men’s hands. But it was Cavin they seemed eager to see, staring across the seat at him. “I’ll go meet them,” he said, taking off his seat belt and opening the door.