Her Alien Savior (6 page)

He nosed the car up to the hill that housed the compound they’d set up for the procedures to be conducting on the women, took 42 out and carried her to the tunnel that was well disguised by a thicket.

Another car pulled up. A different soldier, Merk, carrying another unconscious woman.

Finn nodded to him. “Your first?”

Merk frowned, then looked at 42. “No. My second. This one is your first?”

He didn’t want to answer. He didn’t need the attention, but now it was out. And here he’d thought he wasn’t doing too badly. “Yes, my first was out of town.”

“Perhaps our Reconnaissance and Surveillance Team isn’t quite up to par. You should write it up.”

Sure. And get caught lying. “Good idea.” The lie slipped off of his tongue way too easily.

Two scientists accompanied by three soldiers came out to greet them. One of the soldiers was Kal. He had a look in his eyes. “Take the subject.” Kal pointed to 42.

When Finn was relieved of his burden, Kal put a hand on his shoulder. “A moment, cousin?”

Curses on the shadow of fire. He didn’t want to stay for a talk. The others slipped through the opening and shut the compound off. Kal started to walk away from the entrance. “Follow me, please.”

As soon as they were more than a few paces away, Kal stopped. “I’m concerned.” This was mild. That would mean that Kal was worried. Extremely worried.

“Don’t be. Everything is well. I’ll be on track before the third subject is due.”

“I’m wondering if this was a good idea. Putting you on this assignment.”

“Why?”

“I wondered what it would do to you. I know you went through a lot with Nana.”

Finn drew his shoulders up, stood straighter. “People die. Asazi die. It’s part of the cycle of life.”

“I wasn’t simply referring to her death. I’m actually thinking of your whole life. Of all the struggles you’ve had.”

“What do you know about my struggles?” Finn fought to keep from reverting to his Asazi form as strongly as he fought the urge to strike at Kal.

“You’ve been closer to me than my own brothers. I’ve seen you, watched you go through levels of hell.”

“I don’t need you in my head, I don’t need a practicioner, not for my body and definitely not for my mind. And you are not studied in the art of practitioning.”

“I’ll say no more.” Kal turned toward the hilly entrance. “No. I’ll say one more thing. I’m willing to support you in any decision you make.”

Whatever that meant, Finn wasn’t sure. And also he wasn’t sure why Kal felt the need to state it. “Thank you.”

Kal stepped toward him, put his hands on Finn’s shoulders, and looked him in the eyes. “Any. I mean it. Anything you choose to do, any decision. I’m here for you.”

Finn didn’t know why Kal said what he said, he didn’t know what extreme Kal was willing to go through when he made a proclamation of that sort, but he knew that if Kal made a decision that was rash and extreme, it could cost him dearly. “Why would you do that?”

Kal turned and walked away. Finn didn’t allow him more than a few paces before he called his name. “Kal, I have a few questions for you.”

“I assumed you would. And you know that there is danger in the questions you will pose.”

“Questions don’t pose danger. Actions do.” He argued but knew he was lying to himself. The thing was, he was certain Kal knew too, from the look in his eyes.

“Ask them. But then I will ask you one question, in return.”

“The women, nothing happens to them? We do not kill them?”

“We do not kill them. But there are always things that happen in medical procedures, even when the utmost care is taken.”

“And what will happen to 42?”

“She will be home in four hours.”

Finn nodded, but wasn’t completely convinced, though he didn’t know why. And he didn’t think that Kal was lying to him, but something made him wonder, gave him pause. Even concerned him.

“My turn.” Kal rubbed his jaw. “41—she wasn’t out of town was she?”

He wanted to lie. He truly did. But he didn’t lie to Kal. He never had. They’d always been too close. He wouldn’t start now. “Not exactly.”

Kal flipped a one-eighty, sharp and an on his heel and marched toward the entrance. “Go get your next target. If you need anything, let me know.”

~*~

Finn drove the distance back to Houston. Kal’s questions and assurances heavy on his mind. He brought the car rental to a parking spot at a truck stop and studied the files for 43. Downtown Houston. He drove the distance and parked outside her gym. He waited. Five hours he waited, but no sign of her. She should have arrived four hours ago. He drove by her apartment. Her car was nowhere in sight. Her job, the same, no sign of her.

Should he contact the team and tell them she wasn’t around? After telling them that Marissa was gone—which Kal knew the truth about but Finn was sure Kal wouldn’t tell, even if his life depended on it—after saying Marissa was out of town, Finn didn’t think it would look so good for him to have another missed target. Maybe he should move on to 44.

He planned to move on to 44, but for some reason, some cursed reason, he drove to 42’s apartment. It had been more than four hours. It had been seven. No. Eight.

Her car wasn’t in her parking spot, it was empty. The lights were off in her apartment. This could be nothing. Probably was. But he wanted to be sure.

He parked down the street and decided to walk by her place.

He didn’t get halfway down the block toward her apartment complex when he walked by an appliance store with televisions in the window front. Televisions with 42’s picture on them.

Finn stopped. He tried to hear the news story through the glass, but couldn’t. He didn’t really need to though. He could see what it was about when her picture flashed again and above it the word: MISSING.

Kal wouldn’t have lied. Finn believed this with all he held to be true. But something had happened. And until he knew what—

He tapped out a message to Kal on his phone.

What happened to 42?

Two minutes later a reply from Kal.

What do you mean? The Installment team returned her hours ago.

Chapter 11

Marissa

Marissa picked up the package of chewing tobacco from the corner store. Her father had never liked flowers. He thought they were a waste of money. And he never saw the point of putting flowers on graves. So she wasn’t going to take him flowers. She put the chewing tobacco in the same bag that had the fishing lures she’d taken out of Dad’s tackle box. She’d also taken a moment to use a pair of snips to clip the hooks off. Couldn’t have a stupid bird or mammal seeing the lures and deciding they were lunch, only to be hooked. Now the lures were rendered useless. At least at hooking.

Along with the tobacco, the lures seemed like the perfect thing to put on Dad’s gravesite.

The drive was long, he’d asked to be buried near the coast he liked to fish so much. So she’d found the cemetery closest to his fishing spot, off the jetties in Port O’Connor and gotten him a plot there. It was the best she could do at the time. But little did she know it would have the cotton fields right next to it. Dad loved cotton fields. Said they reminded him of his childhood.

She parked her car and jumped out. The sky looked like rain in the horizon, across the cotton fields and pastures. It smelled like rain, too. Just what she needed, to be caught in a summer thunderstorm on the Texas Gulf Coast.

What she needed was time to talk to Dad about what she was going through, about what she was thinking. She put the tributes beside his headstone, traced his name with her finger, the stone rough and yet warm against her fingertips. Just like Dad. Rough on the outside, but always warm.

She sat by the stone—no way could she sit on the gravesite. That seemed just—wrong.

“Dad.” She bit her lip, unsure where to start. “So, Dad, it’s not looking so good at
Two West Two
. I don’t think I can keep the restaurant much longer.”

Marissa picked at a blade of grass, folding it’s symmetry in half, lengthwise. “I know you said I should pursue my dreams. I guess that makes me a loser. I thought I was. I thought pursuing your dream would be mine.”

She hugged her knees to her body. “I know you said not to. You said to do what made me happy. But I don’t know what the hell that is. I wish I did. I wish I knew what I was meant to do.”

A rustle came from behind her.

Marissa jumped up, not sure if she should fight or flee.

“Marissa?”

“Joey. What the hell. You could have given me a heart attack.” She put her hand over her chest. Her heart was beating faster than her pet rabbit’s did that one day when a dog chased it. Marissa held it in her hands, trying to comfort it while the rabbit’s heartbeat raced against her palm. “What the—what are you doing here?”

“I came to talk to you.”

“You followed me?” She would have been nervous but Joey wasn’t the kind that ever made her doubt her safety when he was around.

He had the decency to look sheepish, and cast his eyes away. “I guess.”

“Why?” Hostility cast an abruptness to the word.

“I wanted to tell you that I meant it. That I meant every word I said last night. Have you given my options any thought?”

“Yes. And I’ve given a lot of other things a thought. You were right. We don’t belong together. Not even to save
Two West Two.
”

“Wait a minute.” His expression was caring. His golf shirt immaculate. The khaki pants perfectly creased. Nothing out of place. “I never said that. Never said it at all.”

Everything about him was perfect. And at the same time perfectly fake.

“You didn’t have to
say it
. You showed it when you cheated on me. You didn’t even have the—whatever it is—to break up with me before you slept with someone else. And then you thought you’d keep it from me.”

“How long are you going to punish me for that? To keep us apart?”

“Is that what you think I’m doing? I’m not apart from you because I’m punishing you. I’m apart from you because—” She took a deep breath. “We. Are. Not. Together. That’s it. Period.”

He opened his mouth.

She intercepted his statement, protest, whatever it was going to be. “Just go. Please. I’m trying to visit with my father. To sort out my thoughts.”

“I just hope you make one of the things that you’re sorting out my proposal. I want you to give it some serious thought. I’m in a position to help you.”

The sigh was pushed out of her body, almost as if it wasn’t her own doing. It flowed with the words that came out. “I know, Joey.”

Chapter 12

Finn

Finn didn’t know what to reply to Kal’s email that the Installment team returned 42. Anything he said would confirm that he wasn’t doing what he was supposed to be doing. That he was going maverick on them.

Another message came in from Kal.

Why do you ask that? Are you compromising the mission? Are you compromised?

He wasn’t going to reply.

He only had one choice. Return to the hillside and see what the Installment team really did with the human women when they were done with them.

He drove the distance to their temporary Earth compound under the hill, went past it short distance and parked the car behind a barrier made of mesquite trees. He worked his way toward the compound, roaming through pastures and fields, avoiding the highways and unpaved country roads.

His phone buzzed a message in his pocket.

Another email, Kal again.

The commander wants you to come in. Someone else will finish your job.

Too late. He was already in, but he wasn’t about to tell them that. And there was no way in the Sacred Writings he’d ever allow anyone else to take over his mission. They’d bring Marissa in. Not a chance he’d let that happen.

He turned the phone completely off without responding and took up a spot behind a tree. His eyes focused on the entrance, waiting to see what would happen when the Installment team came out. He’d followed them all the way in to Houston to see if they dropped off a live woman or if he’d been lied to.

Finn waited, but didn’t have to wait long to see the Installment team come out carrying a woman. They paused outside the entrance and had a short conversation. But it was long enough for Finn to see one thing. She was breathing. Her chest rose and fell with each breath.

Relief flooded through his body. Kal had not lied. That didn’t explain what happened with 42. But it did tell him that his people weren’t killing the human women. The idea that they might be doing that bothered him, it weighed on his spirit. He could go back to the woman now. To Marissa. To 41.

Chapter 13

Marissa

The lunch rush was a bitch that day. The good kind of bitch. If only every day was like this. Marissa pushed in the till drawer on the register. If only. But she knew better. This used to be the trend, but not lately. Now it was the exception. And since it was an exception, that meant she didn’t staff her restaurant accordingly, which meant she busted her ass waiting tables, washing dishes here and there, and bussing most of the plates.

As she passed the mirror on the wall in the smaller dining room she caught a glimpse of herself. Holy buckets. Oily sheen, no lipstick left over, even her blush had sweated off. No point in making repairs now. It was two in the afternoon. Not likely they’d have any visitors. Not many anyway. An occasional late straggler and then the early-birders around four to four-thirty.

Oh well, as soon as she finished bussing these last few tables and put away some dishes, she’d cut the staff down to bare bones—meaning just her and Belle, and she’d run the kitchen while Belle ran the dining room. Maybe she could slip in a trip to the bank, or her car payment would be two months behind. She’d use the drive-thru so she didn’t have to run into
the jerk
at the bank. She grimaced at herself in the mirror.