Manipulating Mikey (First Wave Book 8) (9 page)

“We’ve got jets on our tail!
They’re using heat seekers, and I’m betting they found us by that damn
tracker!” the pilot called out.

“We’ve got engine damage! I’m
trying to reroute power!” the copilot called out.

Grai turned to Mikey as he tried to
stand back up.

“Someone, I don’t care who, get
that damn tracker out of him now!” Grai roared, knowing the combat medtechs
would take care of it.

“Wait! No! I’ll do it! Just knock
him out!” Lauren called as she tried to unbuckle her harness.

She was stopped just in time as the
craft took another powerful hit and Mikey was again thrown into a wall. This
time he was thankfully knocked out.

Lauren was held in her seat by
Simya and Crator as the medtechs began the minor operation to remove the tracker.
The craft continued to shake, a telltale sign that the craft sustained too many
hits.

“Damn!” one of the techs called
out, scaring Lauren.

“What’s wrong?” she called out,
trying to slap away the hands keeping her in her seat.

“It’s fine! He’s OK. It’s just hard
to make a clean cut in a rocking craft,” the tech called back.

“Grai! We’re not going to make it!”
the pilot called out.

“Where are we going down?” Grai
asked, immediately calling out to Dillon for backup to come.

“The mountains past Alamo, Mexico.
It’s the closest land I can make,” the pilot called out.

Grai relayed the information to
backup and prayed they could get the craft down without any injuries. They
would need to be on the move the minute they hit the ground; Grai had no doubt
the military would be on their trail pretty quickly.

“We got it!” the tech called out,
holding up a small, bloody plastic-like disc.

“Destroy that damn thing!” Grai
called out as the craft was struck by another impact.

Lauren watched as a small spark
erupted from the disc as it was destroyed. It was too late though; the craft
had sustained too much damage, and the smoking trail spitting out of the
damaged engines was giving the military an excellent trail to follow.

“Strap in! We’re going down!” the
pilot called.

Grai reached Traze and threw him
into a seat, strapping him in as they hit the tops of the trees, the impact
throwing Grai, Mikey, and the two techs around the cabin as the strapped in
personnel tried to catch them.

The next explosion ripped a hole in
the lower right hull of the craft as Grai grabbed an unconscious Mikey and
wrapped his arms and legs around him to keep him from being battered as the
ship blazed a path through the jungle.

Moments later, there was a loud
crunching sound and everyone was thrown forward as the craft came to a
shuddering stop.

“Get out, get out, get out!
Medics!” Grai ordered as he let go of Mikey and rolled him over to check him.

Grai stepped away as the medtechs
ran back to Mikey to seal the wound in his groin where they’d removed the
tracker.

“Get him up as quick as you can!
Everyone out!” Grai ordered again, knowing they only had minutes before the
military started shooting at the ship with heavier artillery.

Lauren quickly unstrapped herself
and ran across the oddly tilted floor to Mikey’s side just as the techs
finished sealing the wound. She ran scans while they put a mediband on the area
and pulled his pants back up.

Although the incision was a little
ragged, Lauren saw that it was healing properly, and she sent medicine through
the band to wake him up.

Mikey’s eyes popped open, and he
turned his head slowly, watching the others filing out of the craft, fully
geared. He took in the odd way the floor of the craft was tilted and the pain
in his groin before he saw the tear in the hull.

“We’re down,” he said, looking
worriedly at Lauren.

“We need to get out of here. Can
you stand?” Lauren asked, knowing he could physically; she was asking if he was
mentally ready.

Mikey took a quick assessment of
himself, and while he felt like he’d been kicked in the balls, he knew he could
walk, and he nodded. Mikey looked up as Grai held his hand out to him, and he
took it, letting the large man help him to his feet.

“Thanks,” Mikey said, a little embarrassed
at the way he’d lost it in the ship.

“We need to move; they’re coming
back,” Grai said simply, forcing a rifle into Mikey’s hands before gesturing to
the open hatch.

Mikey took the weapon in his right
hand and gently pressed the other against Lauren’s back, urging her to the
door. They moved to the door, and Mikey looked out on a jungle terrain before
he had to shield his eyes from the sun.

He helped Lauren down to Traze
before jumping out to the jungle floor. Mikey could see that everyone was spread
out in the jungle around them, hiding in the foliage from the three helicopters
circling above them. He could hear the jets in the distance and knew what had
happened while he was knocked out.

He quickly moved Lauren away from
the wrecked craft while the pilots and Grai jumped out and headed towards them.

“We’re on our own for a while,
guys. There’s no way to safely get an evacuation craft in here without going
head to head with the military. Any other time that wouldn’t be a problem, but
we’re in the middle of an occupied area, and the debris could endanger
thousands of innocent people,” Grai said, making sure everyone understood
before continuing.

“We need to get away from the ship
so we can dec charge it, and we need to get to an extraction point 32 miles
north where our people will meet us. Between us and them is a drug cartel, the
Mexican military, and the US government. It may be difficult to tell who’s good
and who isn’t, but you’re the best for a reason, so try. Now move out,” Grai
ordered.

Lauren was surrounded and led
deeper into the jungle while Grai grabbed hold of Mikey and turned him to face
him.

“I don’t care what your issues are
with bonding, your government, or you and your mate. But the objective is to
get Lauren and my people out of here alive. I suggest you figure out really
quick if you want to live or not, because we could use your gift to make that
happen,” Grai said, giving Mikey a hard look before he followed after the
others disappearing into the heavy jungle foliage.

Mikey stood there for a moment as
he watched the military helicopters flying around them. He knew Lt. Col.
Ballard would be in contact with the Mexican government to get permission to
rappel from the choppers so they could give chase. They didn’t have long before
that would happen.

“You’re an asshole, and I’m liking
you less and less. So if you don’t get up there and protect our mate, I will
take over again. The leader, Grai, is right; I can help make that happen since
all you want to do is whine about being different,
” his beast
roared in his head, the disgust clear.

Moments later, gunfire erupted from
the helicopters, and Mikey began running towards the others as the 50 caliber
bullets ricocheted off the downed craft. He would have returned fire on the
bastards if Grai hadn’t already warned them that there were innocents in the
area.

With every step he took and every
ping of bullets he heard against the metal of the craft, the more he realized
what an ass he’d been. How wrong he’d been about so many things. Like the rest
of the world, he’d been blinded by the lies and illusions fed to him by the
governments and those in charge.

It wasn’t only what they’d done to
him, it was the fact that the aliens, the supposed bad guys, were the only ones
thinking about the innocent while the helicopters sprayed bullets into the
craft and a wide area around it.

He looked up as he heard the jets
fly overhead, and he felt a ripple in the air around him moments before his
beast called out a warning in his head.

“Grai said the dec charge is going
to blow. Brace yourself,”
his beast said.

Mikey grabbed a tree as the
explosion of the craft became a deafening sound behind him before the
percussion wave roared through and past him. He stood there for a moment, his
mind in shock as the blast not only didn’t hurt him, but the energy caused his
eyes to look through the jungle foliage enabling him to see the others.

He heard and felt the secondary
explosion as one of the helicopters was caught in the blast. He looked up in
time to see the chopper coming at the ground right at him, and he took off
towards the others, surprised at his strength and speed.

He slowed as he caught up to the
two men protecting the rear of the group heading deeper into the jungle to the
extraction point.

“Glad you got out of there. You
should head up front; we’ll cover our rear,” Simya said, encouraging the kid to
go up to Lauren.

Mikey tried his best not to think
of Lauren, who the voyeur in his mind called his mate. He couldn’t deny he was
drawn to her and had feelings for her, but he needed to better understand who
he was. What he was. And more importantly, how to gain control of his
abilities. He needed a crash course from someone other than Lauren or Grai.
Besides, he wasn’t too sure that Lauren even wanted him.

He turned to Simya and Crator as he
kept pace with them.

“I need help understanding what I
am. I read all the stuff you tell the kids, but I need a little more than that.
Can you guys answer some questions for me?” he asked quietly, hoping no one else
would hear.

Simya looked to Crator and
shrugged.

“Yeah, if we can answer we will. We
got nothing to hide,” Simya agreed, wondering what the kid would want to know
that he hadn’t already learned from Lauren or one of the others.

Mikey took a deep breath.

“How do I turn the super powers on
and off?” he asked.

Mikey blushed a deep red when he
heard the laughter filtering back to him from those further up. The two
Valendrans just grinned at him.

“Man, we had a hard time figuring
that out when we first bonded with our beasts too. That’s why everyone is
laughing; we all had the same question at one point or another,” Crator
explained.

Mikey began to feel better the
longer he spoke to the two aliens.

Chapter
Nine

They’d been moving for several
hours, the heat and humidity wearing on everyone and their nerves. It didn’t
help that they’d seen the military personnel rappelling from the helicopters an
hour earlier, and they knew they were back to being hunted.

Mikey had stayed behind with Simya
and Crator, who helped him fine tune his ability to speak on the Shengari’. It
made him feel a lot better to not hear the laughter of the others over his many
questions.

He’d learned a lot. Mostly that if
he wanted any control over his unique abilities, he’d have to bond with the
parasite in his head to make that happen. He wasn’t the least bit happy to hear
it since he, and the creature hadn’t spoken since it warned him that the ship
was going to detonate.

Obviously the creature didn’t hate
him enough to want them both dead, but it didn’t bode well for Mikey making
amends with the thing. Especially when Simya and Crator told him that the
creatures have thoughts and feelings, and that Mikey’s repeated rejection had
probably offended it.

Mikey sighed heavily as he caught a
glimpse of Lauren’s blond hair through the jungle ahead.

I think I’ve managed to offend
everyone at this point
, he thought.
Damn, if she is my mate then I
can understand why she wouldn’t have brought it up
.

She was beautiful, smart, and had
been so kind to him. And he’d acted like a petulant ass. Not only to her, but
also with everyone else—including the thing in his head. Mikey shook his head
at his own thoughts.

Not gonna make friends by
continuing to offend the people I’m trying to make friends with
, he
thought.

“Crea . . . uh, beast. I’m sorry
for offending you and being such an ass. I know you don’t like me too much
right now, and I don’t much like myself either, but I hope you can learn to
forgive me,”
he said in his head, hoping to begin making amends.

Silence hung in his mind for so
long he didn’t think the beast was going to respond, which is why he jumped
when he heard the voice in his head.

“I will believe you mean that only
when you allow the bond between us. Until then, it’s more bullshit coming out
of your mouth,”
the beast responded.

Mikey sighed again. The beast was
asking the one thing that he was still having a problem with. Although Simya
and Crator talked glowingly of having a bond with their beast and how easy
things were for them after the bond, Mikey was still hesitant to allow it.

He knew it was stupid, but he
likened it to allowing a vampire in your house or a horror movie where
something bad always happens when you let the wrong person in. He didn’t even
have a best friend because he never felt he could truly trust someone else, but
he was expected to form the closest bond he’d ever have with a beast that has
an attitude and didn’t like him.

Yeah, that’s a real incentive to
make this thing happen
, he thought sarcastically.

Form an intimate bond for life with
someone who hates me—just what every guy wants. If I wanted that, I could have
married any number of exes.
Hell, good thing I never did want to marry
anyone since I’m technically already married and never knew it,
he thought.

Mikey knew that it required a
physical bonding with Lauren as well to make that official, and he was still a
little floored that was all it took for them to be considered married in their
societies. And there was no such thing as divorce among the beast species
either. So once he made that bond, it would be for life as well. Which
according to everything he’d heard and read, would be a very long time since
the beast also gave them an extended life on top of their already extended life
span.

I could easily be stuck in both
relationships for a thousand damn years, and these people can’t figure out why
I’m a little hesitant!
he thought with irritation as he kicked a
small plant in passing.

Mikey stopped short when Simya and
Crator motioned for him to be still. He looked around the two large men, but
didn’t see anything ahead.

“What’s going on?” he asked through
the Shengari’. 

“Grai said there’s a few small
shacks up ahead that will be hard to get around because of the terrain. He’s
trying to figure out if they’re friendlies or an outpost for the drug cartel’s
territory,” Simya responded.

Mikey sighed, knowing that was
exactly what Grai had meant when he said his gift could help them get out of
there. He moved up towards Grai, feeling a little like a sacrificial victim
heading towards his own death.

No one looked at him oddly or with
any surprise when he stood beside Grai and looked down in the valley at the
scattered buildings spread beneath them.

“We’ve counted 10, and there’s
children,” Grai said to him through the Shengari’ without taking his eyes off
the activity below.

Mikey peered into the valley below
while a part of him hoped that the ability would just happen, but after several
minutes he knew he was hoping in vain. He glanced behind him and saw that
Lauren was avoiding his gaze, and he turned back to the group of buildings.

“Will you please help me see if
it’s safe for us to continue this way?”
Mikey asked in his head, hoping
the beast would comply.

Again there was no reply, but suddenly
he could see colors surrounding the people below. When Grai started to move
down, Mikey grabbed his arm and shook his head.

“Don’t do it. There are two men,
one in the shack on the right; the other is two down from it. They are way too
heavily armed to be just farmers. It looks like they are using the others as
cover,” Mikey warned as he watched the two figures surrounded in varying shades
of black through the building walls.

“Can you see another way around?”
Grai asked, squinting his eyes as if to try and see what Mikey could.

Mikey scanned the area, thankful
that his beast was being nice and helping him to use his gift. He knew the
beast’s survival was at stake with his own, but he hoped that wasn’t the only
reason leading the beast to help him. He was really hoping it was a promising
step forward for them.

He was brought out of his thoughts
by what he saw around them.

“Grai, there’s four more in the
surrounding area. Not the warm and fuzzy kind either. There’s two on either
side we take; the first one is 30 yards to the left, the other 20 yards to the
right,” Mikey warned.

Grai looked at him and nodded his
head in thanks while he considered how they were going to get around. Mikey was
also thinking about how they would get around, and he looked carefully around
the area before he turned back to Grai.

“If we go back about 20 yards,
there’s a rock outcropping that can get us around this place completely,” he
suggested.

Grai called out to Simya and Crator
who were still taking up the rear and asked one of them to check out Mikey’s
suggestion. A few minutes later, Grai nodded.

“Can you go back to Simya and
Crator and take the lead?” Grai asked, preferring to take the rear if the
biggest danger would be the military on their asses.

Mikey nodded, grateful to feel
useful in protecting Lauren and the others—especially after all they’d tried to
do to help him. He made his way back to the end of the line and couldn’t help
but feel a little crushed when Lauren avoided his gaze and moved farther away
than necessary to avoid him.

He reached the end of the line and
accepted the hand that Simya held out to help him get over the rock outcropping.
In turn, Mikey helped Crator up before he took the lead.

He’d just led them around the armed
men when he heard through the Shengari’ that the US government promised the
Mexican government a lot of money if they delivered anyone who had been in their
craft—dead or alive. Which in turn meant that those in the corrupt Mexican
government notified the cartel in the area of the bounty on their heads.

Great
, Mikey
thought,
there are no friendlies around us now
. Every human in the area
would be after them, either because they worked for the cartel or feared the
cartel enough to do what they wanted.

The double digit miles they still
had to trek might as well be hundreds with so many people looking for them.
Mikey shook his head to clear the negative thoughts.

“No, me and this beast are going to
help us get out of here, aren’t we?”
he asked in his mind.

He sighed heavily when there was
still silence from the beast.

“Well, thanks for helping with the
eyesight thing anyway,”
Mikey said to his beast, not expecting a
response.

He heard movement behind him and
turned as Grai came up to him while Lauren was escorted closer to the front of
the line. Mikey looked to Grai for what he wanted them to do now.

“We need to stay closer together,
and you’re the only one who can see where the potential dangers are, so you’re
going to have to lead us out of here, or we’re going to end up in an all-out
war,” Grai said, his eyes conveying the seriousness of the situation they were
in.

The weight of the responsibility
sat heavily on Mikey’s mind for a moment before he looked at Lauren and saw the
fear reflected in her eyes. He wanted nothing more than to take that away and
make her feel safe again.

Mikey turned to Grai and made one
sharp nod of his head before he faced the path ahead of them. He scanned the
area, grateful that his beast was just as determined as he was to get Lauren
out of there.

He saw nothing in the immediate
vicinity and began leading the group forward, constantly scanning the area for
potential dangers to them.

Lauren watched Mikey while his back
was turned and couldn’t help but feel a pang of regret at how this whole thing
had worked out for them. If she hadn’t been so determined to prove to him that
they weren’t going to keep him locked up like the military had, they wouldn’t
be here at all. This was her fault, her mistake, and if anyone got hurt trying
to get them out of the jungle, she’d never forgive herself.

She looked up startled when she
felt the hand on her shoulder and looked into Blade’s face.

“I wouldn’t worry too much. He’s
confused, a little afraid, and an ass sometimes. But he really does care for
you a great deal. He’s just letting everything else cloud that right now; he’ll
come around,” Blade said reassuringly in her mind as he gently squeezed her
shoulder in support.

Lauren forced a small smile and
nodded at Blade.

“Thanks, Blade. I really hope
you’re right,” she responded as she looked away from his gaze and continued
picking her way through the jungle.

They’d moved in silence for another
hour before Mikey held up a hand and everyone stopped. Lauren looked up and saw
Mikey having a conversation with Grai through the Shengari’, and she wondered
if they were fighting. Neither man looked very happy.

Grai ran through a string of curses
in his mind as he looked at Mikey again, hoping he was wrong. The slight shake
of Mikey’s head told him differently.

Traze walked up to the two and
looked curiously at Grai, waiting for him to tell him why they were stopped.
Mikey looked at the young guy with renewed respect after what happened between
them in the craft and tried to use the skills Simya and Crator taught him to
talk to him.

“There’s a group of seven up ahead;
five of them look like little kids with rifles in their hands,” Mikey told
Traze.

He would have cheered when Traze
turned his head to him and nodded once to acknowledge that he heard him if the
situation wasn’t so serious.

Mikey appreciated the fact that the
aliens—
my people,
he mentally corrected—were extremely hesitant to do
anything that could harm children. Even if they were armed. He’d been in
Afghanistan; he’d seen more than his fair share of small kids being used as
human bombs or shields, and it sickened him to think that they’d have to face
the same hard choices here.

No one wanted to hurt a kid. No one
except the heartless, disgusting parents who put the guns in their hands or
allowed the bombs to be strapped to their little bodies in the first place. It
was the parents who deserved a merciless death, but sadly it was the children
who ended up dying horribly while the parents cheered and bred more little
victims for their cause.

In his mind, every child killed
before they could detonate the bombs on their bodies or with a gun in their hands
was a child murdered by his or her own parents—not by whoever was forced to end
the threat they posed to others. Mikey felt that it was the parents of those
children who should have been hunted down, tried for murder, and executed. He
felt no differently now.

Even animals tried to protect their
young, and anyone who allowed their children to be used as cannon fodder was
less than an animal and deserved to be treated as such.