Niklosi's Nightmare (First Wave Book 10) (14 page)

Tori put her arm around BJ and hugged
her close to her side.

“But in this case, that won’t be
true. I wouldn’t let you go if I didn’t know that you and Mojo would be happy,”
Tori admitted.

“What about you? And all the
others? I need to be here,” BJ said without conviction, knowing they’d be fine
without her.

“Beeg, you know better than that.
It’ll be no different than when you went to St. Louis, only you’ll get to come
home more often because you and Mojo can borrow one of those ships,” Tori
countered.

“You really see Mojo coming with me?”
BJ asked, hoping Tori was right.

She hated the thought of being by
herself if the other Valendrans and hybrids treated her the way that Nik did
when they found out she was different.

“They are going to need both of you
for the coming battles that face us all. We’ll be fine here, you know that,”
Tori replied gently, hugging her cousin close.

Something isn’t right here
, BJ
thought suddenly and turned accusing eyes to her cousin.

“What has Momma done?” she asked as
Tori laughed.

“Aunt Bess only invited Nik and the
young one to dinner again. A chance to do it right this time,” Tori admitted
with a grin.

“Oh no,” BJ said worriedly. “What
is she planning?”

“Nothing but dinner that I know
of,” Tori said until she saw BJ’s suspicious look. “I swear. I know of nothing
but dinner.”

BJ continued to stare accusingly at
her cousin until Tori finally looked away.

“OK, OK, she also mentioned
something about introducing them to our people,” Tori added with a blush.

BJ erupted from the bed and stood
at the side as she pointed her finger at Tori.

“And you agreed to this? The
council agreed to this? What the hell are you thinking?” BJ asked as she began
pacing the room in agitation. “And what of Nik and Traze? Why would any of you
even consider this after how they’ve already reacted?”

Even without her abilities, BJ saw
disaster written all over the plan. If what they’d learned already had
frightened Nik and Traze, then what her mother had planned who ensure that Nik
and the Valendrans would never return. Despite all her protestations to the
contrary, she didn’t want Nik to fear them or her. She certainly didn’t want to
push him away forever.

“Beeg,” Tori began as she stood and
moved to the other side of the bed to hug her resistant cousin. “It’s not going
to happen that way. Trust in yourself and in us. I would never be a part of
anything that would hurt you or Mojo. Now rest.”

Tori waved her hand behind BJ’s
back and propelled her towards the bed. She pushed her to sit and helped put
her legs on the bed before pulling the covers up over BJ.

“Sleep, and when you awaken, you
will see things more clearly,” Tori promised.

She laid a kiss on BJ’s cheek and
watched as her cousin’s eyes fluttered closed. When she knew BJ was finally
sleeping peacefully, she closed her eyes and disappeared in a flash of light.

*****

Kyle sighed in absolute relief that
they were almost ready to leave without spending a third day in the god-forsaken
place. If it wasn’t for the door handle, he’d be convinced the hillbillies
never saw one of the aliens. Whether he believed they had been in that hellhole
or not, he figured they were long gone.

He stood from the desk and
stretched out his cramped back muscles as his men looked at him with desperate,
hungry eyes. He couldn’t blame them. They’d spent another crowded night in the
station, and he was hot, tired, and so hungry even the possum stew at the diner
was starting to sound good. He knew it was time to go.

“Alright, men. Do one more pass
around this place and make sure we’re leaving nothing behind,” Kyle ordered,
and the men whooped and hollered as they scrambled outside.

He took one more look around the
station, happy to see the last of it when he saw Greg sitting in a corner with
ear buds in his ears.

Kyle headed over to him and tapped
him on the shoulder to get his attention, surprised that the men running for
the doors hadn’t pulled him from his music or whatever he was listening to.

“We’re getting ready to leave,”
Kyle told him when Greg pulled the buds out of his ears.

“Oh?” Greg asked with a furrowed
brow.

“Yeah. What’s the deal? I thought
you’d be just as glad as everyone else to get out of here,” Kyle said, crossing
his arms over his chest.

Greg sighed heavily and nodded his
head as he stood.

“Yeah, I’m definitely interested in
some real food and a real bed,” Greg said, not looking at the major.

Kyle couldn’t shake the feeling
that something was wrong.

“What were you listening to?” he
asked.

“Oh, nothing. Just the interviews
we did with the cop and the others. For the report,” Greg answered as he
continued to keep his eyes averted and headed for the door.

The captain’s evasiveness only
peaked Kyle’s curiosity and his suspicions.

“What did you hear?” he demanded.

“Nothing you didn’t hear, sir,”
Greg said without turning from the door.

“Captain, get back here now!” Kyle
ordered, angry at the captain’s evasiveness.

Greg trudged over to him and stood
at attention, still avoiding Kyle’s eyes.

“Tell me what you know,” Kyle said,
and when Greg looked ready to lie again, he added, “that’s an order.”

“Sir, it’s probably nothing,” Kyle
began. When he saw Kyle clench his fists he decided to tell him what he knew.
“It’s just something strange I heard while listening to the interviews.”

“Go on,” Kyle ordered.

“Every time you talked to the cop,
it was the same thing. Irritating accent, terrible dialect, and a seemingly
barely functioning hillbilly,” Greg said, getting more animated now that he was
explaining it. “Until today.”

Greg pulled the ear bud jack out of
his hand held recorder and hit the rewind button. He pressed play and BJ’s
voice came on loud and clear.

“What now?” BJ yelled out, then
said, “I’m sorry. I’m just tired and need more coffee.”

“Yes, dear, you can go home and get
some rest later,” Kyle heard Bess say.

“What did you ask?” Kyle remembered
when the cop asked him that, as he heard it on the playback.

“Oh, I was wondering why you hadn’t
taken any pictures of the suspects,” Kyle asked.

“I couldn’t get the camera to work.
Mojo was supposed to fix it, but he’s not been himself lately,” BJ said.

Greg hit the stop button and looked
up at the major.

“She spoke in perfect English, no
accent. Just like her mother,” Greg explained.

Kyle’s eyes narrowed as he
considered it, and he waved his hand at the captain.

“Play it again,” he ordered.

They both listened to it again, and
Kyle grew angrier by the second.

“Play some of the first interview,”
he ordered and watched as Greg grabbed a small case of tapes from his side
pants pocket and flipped through them.

Just as Greg was getting ready to
hit play, one of the other men came into the office.

“We’re ready and just waiting on
you guys,” the lieutenant said, trying to keep the impatience out of his voice.

Kyle looked at the soldier and
dearly wanted to call their time in Missouri’s fucked up center of hell done,
but he had a duty, and he was livid at the thought that the hillbillies may
have almost got one over on him.

“Lieutenant, I want your men to
find out where the nearest grocery store is. I mean a real one that will take
our government credit cards,” Kyle ordered. When the lieutenant just stared at
him blankly, he added, “Now, damn it!”

He watched the man run from the
office and slam the door behind him before he turned back to Greg.

“Play it,” he ordered as he sat down
in one of the desk chairs and listened carefully to the butchered English of BJ
Markson.

Chapter
Thirteen

BJ awakened to the chatter going
through the shengari’ and she sat up quickly. She was out of her room and
running down the hallway to the kitchen before sliding to a stop in the
doorway.

“What happened?” she asked to
anyone who would answer.

“Honey, it wasn’t your fault,”
Irwin said with a sad shake of his head before Dennis sent him a glare.

“It’s nothing that can’t be fixed,”
Bess assured her.

She took BJ’s hand, led her to an
empty chair at the table, and sat her down.

“Someone tell me what happened!” BJ
demanded.

“Beeg, they recorded the interviews,
and that captain caught you talking normally. They know it was a ruse. They
sent some of their men to Springfield for food and supplies, and they’re
staying at the station,” Mojo told her.

“What? When did I do that?” BJ
asked incredulously as her mind tried to remember when she’d screwed up.

“This morning. You were tired,
honey. They got lucky catching it,” Bess reassured, confident that they’d still
prevail over the military unit.

“Oh, no,” BJ whispered as she put
her head in her hands.

“It’s fixable, BJ. We’ll just get
to play a little longer,” Dennis said with a chuckle.

“It would be a good time to flex
our claws,” Gibly offered with a grin as he jumped up into an empty chair
beside Mojo.

A mischievous smile slowly came
over Bess’s face, and those at the table who saw it grinned in anticipation at
whatever she was thinking.

“I think Gibly is right,” Bess
agreed. “We need to flex something.”

BJ slowly raised her head and
looked at her mother a little nervously.

“What are you thinking, Momma?” she
asked, wondering if it would be as bad as the last time.

“They want aliens. I think we should
give them much more than they ever expected,” Bess suggested with a devilish
twinkle in her eyes.

BJ sucked in a sharp breath and
looked around the table to see if anyone else would protest. When she saw only
grinning faces, she knew she had to be the sanity amongst the chaos getting
ready to erupt.

“Momma, you know that’s not a good
idea. The last time we did something like that . . . they were never the same
again. Do we really want to take that chance with this group of people? They’re
military; someone will notice something is wrong with them,” BJ said, imploring
her mother to rethink this.

Bess turned swirling hazel eyes to
her daughter, and BJ shook her head and stood, holding her hands out in front
of her.

“Momma! No! Don’t do it!” BJ
warned.

Mojo snickered and BJ shot him a
warning glare.

Moments later, BJ sank into her
chair as the council of elders arrived in flashes of light until the kitchen
was filled with them.

“We’ve heard your call, Bess,”
Rolantro said with a bow of respect.

Bess smiled at the leader of their
council and took his hand in one of her own as they bowed their heads together
until their foreheads touched. There was a small spark and they separated, a
huge grin on Rolantro’s face.

“I agree with Bess. More extreme
measures are necessary to deal with the threat to our land and our brethren,”
Rolantro decided.

BJ shook her head in disbelief.
She’d been so sure that the ranking council leader would see the risks involved
in such a plan. She used the council’s potential ignorance of the situation to
make a final plea for sanity. BJ stood slowly and faced Rolantro.

“Sir, I don’t know if you’re aware
of the enemy we’re dealing with this time. It’s not some poachers looking to
kill indiscriminately for fur and wealth. These are highly trained killers who
have hunted and brutally murdered our hybrid kin,” BJ explained, her fear and
concern bleeding from her.

Tori placed a comforting hand on BJ’s
shoulder and shook her head.

“That’s exactly why this needs to
be done,” Tori said softly. “We must ensure that this place is protected and
that they do not return again.”

BJ felt outnumbered and
outmaneuvered.

“At least let Mojo and I look at
it?” she asked.

She was hoping for one last piece
of information to derail the crazy train about to pull into the station. It was
one thing to use the hateful stereotypes to keep their community protected, but
revealing the truth to the military unit hunting their kin was the most
dangerous thing the council had ever considered.

“Your vision will not dissuade the
ruling of the council,” Rolantro warned.

“I’m merely trying to make sure you
have all the information you need to make an educated decision,” BJ argued.

Rolantro solemnly nodded his head,
and BJ glared at Mojo, daring him not to do it with the council right there.
Mojo just smirked and closed his eyes. BJ joined him in the vision, and they
proceeded to put forth the different scenarios they knew would be associated
with the new plan.

BJ was the first to emerge from the
vision and didn’t hesitate to tell them what she’d seen.

“Each of the scenarios have serious
repercussions to our people,” BJ told them, confident it would change their
minds.

Mojo emerged next and scoffed at
her dire statement.

“Every problem we saw could be
easily resolved using the hybrid, Blade. In fact, if we bring the Valendrans
and hybrids in on this, I think the outcome would be drastically different,”
Mojo countered his sister, crossing his arms over his chest.

Rolantro looked between the
siblings and steepled his fingers while he closed his eyes.

BJ shifted nervously, knowing the
elder was sifting their energy and memories. She knew he’d discover that she’d
been a little over dramatic in her assessment and awaited the chastising she
deserved.

“Bessemiah,” Rolantro began, “our
community appreciates your commitment to protecting us. However, this time has
been foreseen, and we cannot ignore our responsibility. We will defer to the
path that Mojo believes we can succeed upon.”

BJ was thrilled the elder wasn’t ripping
into her, but she still felt compelled to try and dissuade them.

“Sir, we don’t even know if they’re
willing to do this. They fear us and who we are even though they don’t even
know us,” BJ argued, thinking of how Nik had reacted to what little he’d
discovered.

“Then it is up to us to show them
they’ve no reason to fear,” Rolantro countered. “I do not believe that such
over caution is necessary in this situation when your own fear comes from the
rejection of your mate.”

BJ sucked in an embarrassed gasp
while her mother stepped forward angrily, ready to defend her daughter, when
Rolantro held up a hand.

“I felt his energy while he was in
the grotto, and he is blinded only by the same fear you are displaying,”
Rolantro added.

BJ flinched at his words, but his
next had her speechless.

“Bess, you need to contact Grai
T’Alq. It is time we meet your brethren.”

Bess nodded her head solemnly and
immediately contacted Grai through the shengari’ before training her steady
gaze on the elder.

“They will be here shortly,” she
assured their leader.

Rolantro looked around the small
home and shook his head.

“I fear your comfortable home is
not going to be large enough for all of us, and changes cannot be made in time.
We shall await you and your people in the grotto,” Rolantro ordered. “It will
be interesting to see what appears to them.”

BJ wanted to crawl under the floor.
She wanted no part of the plan or the use of Nik and his people. Pride and duty
were the only things keeping her from finding a place to hide until it was all
over. She also knew she’d be facing the major again in the morning.

BJ had no intention of letting Major
Morris tear apart her town looking for her, which meant she had to be a part of
whatever plan everyone decided upon. With a heavy sigh, she collapsed back into
one of the chairs and put her head in her hands as the elders removed
themselves to the grotto.  

My whole damn life has gone to hell
since I met that damn jerk
, she thought angrily.

“Be strong. It is all as it is
meant to be,” Tori whispered in her ear before she disappeared in a flash of
light.

*****

Nik, Traze, Disc, and Grai were
watching the video in the station when they all realized that BJ and the others
had been outed by the recordings the captain had made during the interviews.

Nik turned to Grai.

“The second they leave for
supplies, we need to get down there and kill the major and the others. We can
get the rest when they come back from the store,” he said, confident Grai would
agree.

“Damn straight!” Traze echoed. “We
need to be done with these bastards already, and now is the perfect time.”

Grai slowly shook his head, wishing
like hell they could do just that.

“We can’t. If they lose that entire
unit in this town, they’ll destroy the damn place looking for clues. The valley
in Fiorn’s Folly is still trying to recover from the damage left behind, and it
wasn’t inhabited by humans . . . and whatever BJ and her people are,” Grai
argued. “We can’t risk their lives like that. It’s too dangerous.”

Nik and Traze growled in
frustration, knowing Grai was right.

“What the hell are we going to do?”
Nik asked, throwing his hands up in frustration. “We can’t keep doing nothing!”

“I hate to say it, but we need to
go down there and do something,” Traze admitted. “The crazy witch might scare
the shit out of me, but I’m not going to let anything happen to her either.”

Grai, Disc, and Nik turned shocked
faces towards him, and Traze blushed and shrugged.

“Don’t give me shit! Just because
she scares me . . . and we agree on nothing, doesn’t mean she isn’t nice . . .
in her own really fucked up way . . .” Traze just shut up when he realized he
wasn’t making any sense.

“Grai . . .” Disc said, not needing
to finish the sentence for Grai to know he agreed with Nik and Traze.

Grai also agreed that they needed
to do something, but at the moment he wasn’t sure what, and he was as hesitant
as Traze about going on the ground in this place. The problem was solved
moments later when he heard Bess’s invitation in his mind.

“I think they agree that they need
our help. Bess has just requested us below. It appears their council of elders
wishes to speak with us,” Grai told them before he went to the sleeping area to
wake Blade.

“Did they say what for?” Nik asked
a little nervously.

He was hoping that BJ’s family
wasn’t looking for some kind of revenge against him for hurting her feelings.

“They know we’ve been watching the
vids, Nik. I would assume they realize we need each other in this if we’re
going to keep everyone safe,” Grai told him as Blade came in.

“Come on,” Traze said with a heavy
sigh. “We’ll lead you to the house.”

Grai was surprised when his brother
jumped out of the craft on his own. He shrugged as he looked at the others and
followed Nik to the ground, closely followed by Blade.

“Good luck,” Disc whispered in
their minds before closing the door to the craft.

Grai had expected to see at least
some part of the home now they were on the ground and was surprised that he
couldn’t see any of it in the early evening light.

“This way,” Traze said with a wave
as he headed towards a large tree.

Nik and Traze led them towards the
tree, and a few minutes later Grai and Blade were staring up in awe as they
walked under the natural overhang towards a door hidden within.

Nik raised his hand to knock when
it was opened by a smiling Mojo.

“Come on in, guys,” he invited and
stepped aside so they could enter.

Grai and Blade raptly stared at the
living house and its details as Mojo led them to the kitchen.

Nik had been expecting to see BJ by
now and was surprised that the place was empty. He was getting ready to ask
where everyone was when Mojo turned to them with a sheepish smile.

“Sorry, but we don’t have enough
room in here for everyone, so Rolantro, the leader of our council, suggested we
meet in the grotto. That OK?” Mojo asked, not expecting anyone to complain.

Since Nik was the only one who’d
been to the grotto, Grai, Blade, and Traze turned to him.

“It’s one of the most unique places
I’ve seen on this planet,” Nik assured them as he followed Mojo out of the
kitchen door and down the path to the cavern.

Traze looked nervous, and Grai put
his hand on his shoulder as he pushed him towards the door.

“It’s going to be fine,” Grai told
his brother as he tamped down his own nervousness when they entered the cave
system.