Striker

by Charmaine Ross

  “...but you’ve got to get up and keep going on...”

  “But how can you do that when life is never the same?” Speaking it out loud made the memories swarm back. She’d worked hard to keep them at bay, but that was before. This was now, and that had irrevocably changed her.

  “...you’ve just got to find a way...”

  “There is no way.” If there had been a way, she would have found it. Scratch that; she’d always found a way in the past, but she didn’t deserve to find a way out of this. “My actions alone were unforgivable.”

  “You did not pull that trigger. You weren’t responsible for your team’s choice. They made a decision they wanted to make. You know all of that, soldier,” Striker said.

  She blinked her eyes open, looked around. Nothing there. She heard his voice. It must be her imagination. “I’m going insane.”

  “You are most definitely not going insane.”

  She bolted upright. Striker stood on the other side of the tunnel of light. Impossible. “You. How. What. Why.” Her heart pounded ten rounds against her rib cage. Her mouth worked wordlessly. She scrambled to her feet.

  “I can answer all those questions, but first we need to get you out of here. The Callisteans are going to kill you if we take too long.”

  “But wha… Callisteans? Who...” Her feet were rooted in place. Legs refused to work. Mind spinning.

  He pressed his hand against the side of the light, palm sinking in only so far, but not through, “I’ll explain later. Reach for me, Vivien. I can’t get through.”

  She lifted her hand towards him, her fingertips pressed against the barrier. Her heart sank. She was still locked in this prison. “I can’t. I tried for so long. I can’t get out of here.”

  “You couldn’t hear me either, until just now. You can get through. You just have to find a way.” He looked so serious, so concerned. He looked at her just like her team had done when...

  She stepped back, away from him. Maybe this prison was her penance. If she gave in now, her sins would never be forgiven. “You shouldn’t have come for me.”

  “I wanted to.” He was so sincere. Just like he’d come to rescue her from the Reptiles from another planet away when she didn’t deserve anyone to rescue her at all.

  “You need to go. Leave me here, wherever here is.” She gazed at the inky blackness. If there was one thing she knew, it was that he didn’t deserve this.

  “I’m not going anywhere without you, Vivien.”

  A jagged pain sliced through her skull, bringing her to her knees. Her hands came to her head, as though that might take the agony away.

  “Vivien!”

  She peered up at him through tears and narrowed eyes. “Save. Yourself. Go.”

  It was all she could manage before another bolt of electricity ripped through her.

  “Vivien!”

  She couldn’t reply. The pain was too great.

  This was it. The final end. She’d faced the relative quiet of purgatory before the fiery pain of hell.

  If it was finally here, all she deserved was to embrace it, because if it was one thing her father had taught her, it was that mistakes built debt and had to be paid for. But Striker hadn’t made any mistakes. He was innocent. He didn’t deserve to be brought down with her. She had to make him leave.

  “Striker! Go. Please. Go.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “There is no more time. We need to end this one’s life.”

  The Callisteans' tug in his mind were synonymous with their words. Flashes of dark blood red pulsed through the darkness.

  Boom. Boom.

  A pulse vibrated once, twice shaking his balance. He pounded on the wall of light. “Vivien!”

  Even though Vivien was so close – an arm’s length away – she’d never been more distant. She was balled on the ground, hands splayed over her head, fingers dipping into her skull as if she might peel her head apart.

  She uttered the most desolate, whimpering noise, “Go.”

  He pounded again, anger fuelling the action. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”

  Another double pulse/boom rocked him. He used both hands against the light to balance himself. His hands sunk into the wall a little, electric heat prickling his skin. Despair like none he’d felt before poured through him.

  She peered up at him. Her eyes were bloodshot, face contorted with pain. Whatever the Callisteans were doing to her, she really didn’t have long. “You didn’t do it. You don’t have to pay.”

  The despair he felt was the same despair mirrored on her face. With a jolt, he realized through the light, he felt her emotions.

  “Come, Hexonian. The entity has almost breached this dimension.”

  He slid to the floor so he could look straight at Vivien. “See my hands, Vivien? You see them?” When she didn’t move, he barked out the one thing he knew would motivate her. Even though he’d not yet officially commanded the Starlight, he had been responsible for troops, and he put the full force of his second on command voice into effect. “Put your hands on the wall over mine. Do it now, soldier, or there will be hell to pay!”

  She shuddered, and just like the good soldier she’d been trained to be her whole life, she lifted her head and her arm and placed a shaking palm to his. Sparks prickled through the thin barrier, and her dark emotions rocked through him unchecked, so intense that he had to work hard to keep his hand over hers.

  The barrier transmitted her emotions. Not just transmitted. Electrified them. Blasted them. Raw and dark and desolate.

  She didn’t just hate herself.

  She detested herself.

  And if he didn’t get through to her how wrong she was, she’d die thinking that was the truth.

  That man with the stern grey eyes had a lot to answer for.

  “Father. He’s my father.”

  She whispered so quietly, he almost didn’t hear, except her emotions pulsed through him. Her eyes were narrowed, tears streamed down her cheeks, skin pale, lips chapped.

  She believed him.

  Boom. Boom.

  The pulse weakening. Spaced further apart. The deep, blood red pulsed sluggishly, driving away the darkness. White edged the red. The malice retreated with the black, but with the white there was just – nothing.

  “You see? I deserve this,” Vivien whispered.

  He came up on his knees, gaze tearing into her. “Soldier, if I say you deserve it, you know I mean it, but I’ve never heard a bigger load of sula crap in all my life.”

  Her face registered shock and surprise. Good. That’s what he intended. Then he did something his very soul – and numerous one-night stands - did its best to forget. The one thing he would only do for her.

  Poured through images of battle, loss, carnage. Years spent of his life fighting endless battles in a war no one thought they could win. Brothers in arms, dead for no good reason than the selfishness of another species. The destruction of planets, where standing back and letting invasions happen was the best course of action because it meant the least loss of life.

  Then the thin hope, that through Lauren, the scourge of the universe might be beaten.

  And the fact that Vivien had been chosen by the Reptiles for some reason, and that could only mean that somehow, some way Vivien had the power to free planets. Lost societies. Billions of people mind-enslaved.

  They now had a chance.

  That this all rested on her shoulders.

  He also knew the call for the greater good was stronger than the will to die.

  Her face went slack as the power of his conviction hit her. He knew it had to, that the wall of light that amplified her emotions also amplified his.

  Boom. Boom.

  Sluggish red was burnt out by the annihilation of the white nothingness.

  It was hard to breathe, as though the air was being starved of oxygen. His head pounded in time with the slowing pulses of fading red. Knew that when he stopped breathing here, his life would end with Vivien's
.

  He also knew living life as he’d done – skirting on the outskirts – was no life to go back to. Not without Vivien. If she didn’t come, he would die with her.

  “You stubborn bastard.” Vivien’s voice shook.

  He felt the moment she made up her mind. The moment she agreed with him.

  The barrier disintegrated. She fell into his arms, and he scooped her up. Pressed his lips to his, gratitude unlike he’d felt before poured through him. He surrounded her with his arms, stroked his hands along her back, into her hair. Caressed her mouth with his, traced her lips with his tongue, shaking with relief.

  A thunderous roar, filled with rage and anger, exploded around him. Acid claws stabbed into his back. Vivien gasped, back aching, mouth open in agony. Dark, seething power surged through him.

  He clutched Vivien’s shoulders and called to the Callisteans, “I have her. Get us out!”

  Immediately, he was propelled backwards, through a winding dark tunnel at break-neck speed. His body jerked violently as he was slammed back into his physical form. He tugged free from the vines covering him, surged to his feet, slammed open the door and sprinted down the corridor towards Vivien.

  He could only hope he was in time.

  * * *

  There was a rope around her neck. No air. She opened her eyes to bright lights, screaming, hissing and clacking, pain and chocking. She clawed at whatever was around her neck, and to her surprise, it fell away. She gasped a deep breath into aching lungs, oxygen never before tasting so sweet.

  It took several breaths before she became aware of the terrified screams piercing her consciousness. Blinking her vision clear, she wished she was trapped in that small spotlight again. Almost.

  She was sitting in some type of uncomfortable stone throne, high up on a plinth. Steps led down to a massive room. Women strapped to trolleys were scattered around the room, struggling, crying out, yelling obscenities.

  Then she noticed the Reptiles, moving awkwardly in their uniforms and clunky boots as they fought with – she rubbed her eyes – vines? Her brain had officially shut down. Whatever was happening the vines seemed to be – winning. If a creature was struck, it fell away in a tangle of vines to the ground, to re-form behind the Reptile. Several of the monsters were restrained with vines that entangled them like writhing snakes.

  Her body was swallowed by an icy cold. A shadow loomed over her head, curving over her like a malevolent wave, waiting to suck her back into the darkness. That thing was still here. The thing that had taken over her mind and body. She was not going back there. Not to that place that magnified the darkest places in her mind. There was no way she was ever going to go back to that hell again.

  She was through with those memories. Her childhood. Her father. Everything she’d done to make him accept her. But he never would. Nothing would bring back her mother, and her father wasn't capable of understanding that. And she’d simply – had enough.

  In her father’s eyes, she'd never be enough, and that was all right. It was his shortcoming. Not hers. Never hers.

  Instead of loving her, treating her with the basic needs a child who’d lost a mother required, talking to her, allowing her to grow into the young woman with the world at her feet – he’d blamed her.

  She just hadn’t seen she’d taken on a young child’s confused guilt until it was all laid out, bloody and raw. Lived through it again with the perspective of an adult.

  She wasn’t going to live by those rules anymore.

  Striker had made her see. Understand. He knew because he’d experienced the same hell she had.

  With a roar, she willed her body to move. She drew herself to her feet, against trembling muscles that felt like they were going to collapse. She pushed the darkness back with every ounce of will power she possessed.

  She wasn’t.

  Going.

  Back.

  She screamed as the pressure peaked. Her chest constrained, lungs expired, and still she screamed. She screamed against her team’s death. Her abduction. Her terror, and finally – she screamed at her father.

  No.

  More.

  The darkness vanished and all that was left was her in her own mind. She gasped in another breath, again and again, like she’d run a marathon and hadn’t realized she’d sank back to the throne until warm, calloused hands smoother than her arms, face, slid through her hair.

  “Striker?”

  Concerned eyes peered down at her in a serious, handsome face. “Are you – you?”

  She cupped her hand over the one on her cheek over his. She’d never seen a sweeter face. Emotion almost overwhelmed her. “Who else would I be?”

  A scream tore her back into the present. A woman toppled over and crashed to the floor, still bound to the cot.

  Points of awareness prickled in her mind. Foreign thoughts prodded her consciousness, like ant’s feet scratching on the ground. It wasn’t dark. Not like the presence. Just...different. She pressed her fingertips to her temple.

  “Vivien? What’s the matter?” If it was possible, Striker looked even more serious.

  “I can hear thoughts. Voices. So different.”

  An awareness became more prominent in her mind. A Reptile lunged up a step towards her. She didn’t want it to come up. The creature turned its beady eyes to her, then stumbled back a little.

  Striker rose towards the Reptile, but she placed a hand on his arm, stopping him. “Can you...wait a moment.”

  “I don’t think we have any moments to wait,” he said.

  She didn’t answer but prodded the awareness to stand back to the floor and drop its weapon. The Reptile immediately did as she’d thought. She wanted them all to stop, lay down their weapons and stop fighting. Metal clanked as guns and weapons were dropped to the floor. Dozens of Reptiles stood still.

  “What just happened?” Striker asked.

  “I think...” She didn’t finish her sentence. All she wanted was the Reptiles to unstrap the women and leave them all alone. She watched in shock as the creatures moved to do her bidding.

  “Frek. What's happening?”

  The women sobbed and cowered, unsure what to do.

  “I don’t… I don’t know. I think…I think I can control them.”

  A scuffle at the top platform had her looking up to see a stream of men running in, weapons drawn. She tensed when Striker made a sound of recognition.

  “Reed!”

  A vine that moved of its own accord trailed around Striker’s ankle. His gaze went distant for a moment before he broke into a smile that had the capacity to take her breath away.

  “They just told me you got through!”

  She peered about, wondering who’d told him that information, but there was no one about. He took her hand, happiness washing over his features. “It’s over. Safe. My crew is here!”

  It felt so good - she couldn’t describe how good it was to have her hand in his, but she tugged out from his grasp. “Your crew?”

  His confused look sent a spear of guilt through her heart. “There’s a lot to explain.”

  “You mean they got though? This… this is over?” The relief was so great, her knees threatened to give out.

  “Yes, Vivien. We’re safe. You’re safe.”

  She stepped back, clutched her hand to her chest when he went to take her hand again. She knew she shouldn’t be doing this. Wanted nothing more but to bury herself back in his arms, just as she’d done in the cave and in her mind, but when it came down to it, she couldn’t. Didn’t even know why. It was totally illogical, but something stopped her from fully accepting what he clearly wanted to give her. She couldn’t accept it. She just couldn’t.

  She knew him unlike any other. She’d connected with him in a way no one should be able to. She’d felt what he felt. His mind, memories, emotions – like an open buffet. She’d feasted and liked what she’d tasted. More than liked – he resonated with her, and she burned for more.

  In return, he’d also
seen everything about her – memories, thoughts, deeds – and still accepted her. She didn’t understand. How could he – how could anyone – still like her after what she’d done? Let alone...let alone feel the way he did about her.

  They'd connected mind and soul in that light tunnel. And now she knew exactly how he felt about her.

  Her father was one issue. Her father had shaped her, ignored her, emotionally abused her, that was a fact – but she was still responsible for the deaths of the only other family she’d known – her team. How could anyone forgive that? And now – now Striker knew her deepest, most private secret.

  Her body went completely numb and felt her mind following closely next.

  Members of the crew were approaching the women as gently as they could, weaving their way through passively standing Reptiles. The women sobbed, not knowing what to do, who to trust. They recoiled away from the Reptiles as well as the men. So much going on. Too much to process.

  There was nothing to protect her. Not even the barrier of an empty soul. Her father ignoring her was easier than being laid bare like that. No one should know the black marks on others' souls.

  Her body trembled, and her lungs constricted to half their capacity. Her legs buckled. The next thing she knew, Striker was helping her sit. “You’re in shock.”

  Two men in uniforms similar to the one Striker wore came up the stairs. She cowered. Even though she was an experienced soldier, she couldn't help reacting to her first instinct. She was just so tired. So damn tired.

  “Vivien. I’m here to help you.”

  “No. Go away. You can’t… I can’t…. you don’t want me. You don’t.”

  “You know how I feel, Vivien. You saw the truth. You felt it. We both did.”

  “It was… a lie. I did it to get out. That’s all.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “I do. Stay away from me. You think you want me, but believe me when I say, you’re better off without me.”

  She ignored the hurt in his voice when she slid away from him. She didn’t want to deal with anything else. It was all too much. She wanted it all to go away. She just wanted peace. Blessed nothingness.