Merrick's Maiden

by S. E. Smith

  He knew that the humans would not think twice about hurting Addie if she was caught. Frustration ate at him that he didn’t know if the guard he had taken a chance on would truly help him or not . The after effects of the drug used on him and the continued lack of rest wore on him.

  Breathing deeply, he closed his eyes. He would gather what rest he could before tonight. It took a while, but he finally felt the easing of the pounding in his head and slipped into a light doze.

  *.*.*

  Merrick blinked and turned his head when the door opened almost three hours later. He watched as Crawford stepped into the room. The male was pale as he glanced nervously toward the door he just closed.

  “Listen, I… I have my girl making the call,” Crawford said in a low, urgent tone as he stepped just close enough to the bars that Merrick wouldn’t be able to reach him should he try. “It was too dangerous for me to make it. Becky is going to buy a disposal cell phone at the grocery store. I had to… I had to tell her a little of what was going on so she would be careful. She’s going to get some cash and go to a place outside of town until your friends come and take us away, but she’ll make the call tonight.”

  Merrick rolled off the bunk and to his feet. Stepping closer to the bars, he watched in silence as Crawford glanced uneasily behind him again. There was something the male wasn’t telling him. He was too tense.

  “What is happening?” Merrick demanded, wrapping his fingers around the bar.

  “I’m not sure,” Crawford replied. “I came in late to work this afternoon. Listen, I want you to know I didn’t know what was going on here.”

  “You said that before,” Merrick retorted in a low voice. “What are you not telling me?”

  Crawford swallowed, glancing over his shoulder. “I got notice…”

  Crawford turned and paled when the door suddenly opened behind him. Weston and Markham stood in the doorway. Merrick’s eyes darkened and his lip curled back in a snarl as Weston raised the pistol in his hand and fired it.

  Merrick reached out, grabbing Crawford as he fell back against the bars of the cage. He slowly lowered the male to the floor as Crawford’s eyes glazed with pain, fear, and resignation. Rage and regret poured through him as the dying man turned to look at him.

  “You promised,” Crawford whispered. “Becky… You prom…”

  Merrick drew in a deep breath before turning his blazing eyes on the two men standing in the doorway. Rising to his feet, he straightened his shoulders and clenched his fists as Weston and Markham stepped into the room. He watched and waited to see what would happen next.

  “So, you speak,” Markham observed calmly. “I suspected that you understood what was being said.”

  Merrick refused to respond. There was nothing to say to either male. He could only hope that whatever was to happen did so quickly, before Addie was endangered.

  Addie, you must stay away from here, Merrick pushed out as a sense of panic began to build in him.

  Too late, came her soft reply. I’m already upstairs cleaning.

  You need to leave NOW! Merrick ordered.

  Why? Came her hesitant response. Merrick, what’s wrong?

  Weston and Markham are here, he replied. Weston just killed the guard who was to help me.

  Oh my god, Addie responded in horror after a few, long seconds of silence. I’m leaving. I have to call for help, Merrick. You said he was going to help you. You have to let me do that now.

  There is a human called Cosmos Raines, Merrick said urgently. Tell him what has happened. His number is… His voice died as he jerked back in shock.

  Merrick? Merrick! Please… Merrick?

  Merrick tried to answer, but the impact of the tranquilizers striking him in the chest and shoulder knocked him backwards. The painful burning from the new sedative they were using on him exploded like fire in his veins. The powerful drug took his breath away for a moment as it swept through him. He crumbled when another dart embedded into his upper left thigh and his leg went numb.

  Addie… run, he pushed out before the drug overpowered him.

  Chapter 8

  Addie pushed her hair back from her face and stood frozen in front of one of the windows overlooking the parking lot far below. She waited impatiently for Merrick to finish giving her the information she needed. She jerked in surprise when a flash of pain exploded through her before it disappeared.

  Addie… run!

  Fear made her clumsy as she twisted around. Pulling her cell phone out of her back pocket, she pushed it down the front of her bra. A precautionary trick she had learned from a safety class at school.

  She knocked against the cleaning cart as she pulled open the door to the office she was in and stepped into the narrow hallway. Her lips parted in surprise when she saw the elevator doors open through the clear glass double doors in front of the office at the same time the guard that had been with Crawford last night stepped out of it.

  Their eyes connected and Addie knew that it wasn’t a coincidence that he had suddenly decided to check this floor. Turning, she began running in the opposite direction as fast as she could. The knowledge that she was in danger, and the fact the guard had to use his security card to open the doors, gave her a slight edge as she rounded the corner. There was another door leading out into the main section of the floor further up the corridor. Her fear made her clumsy and it took several tries before her key card disengaged the lock on the door.

  Addie had just pushed open the door when a cry escaped her as the guard’s hard body hit her from behind. The force of the impact drove her through the open door and into the outside hallway. The breath was knocked out of her when the guard landed on top of her. Pure panic drove her to push him up enough that she could roll beneath him. Bringing her knee up, she connected with his groin in a savage blow.

  “Shit!” The guard hissed out as he rolled onto his back away from her and grabbed his crotch. “Son-of-a-bitch!”

  Addie scrambled to her feet and took off down the hallway to the stairwell exit. With a shaking hand, she swiped her keycard across the access point, so the alarm wouldn’t sound. Shoving the door open, she gripped the handrail to keep herself from falling as she missed the first step in her hurry to escape.

  Her eyes flew to the wall after several floors. She was almost to the seventh floor. She had just turned onto the landing when the door next to her opened. A man she had never seen before stood in the doorway. Her eyes flew from his face to his hand.

  Adrenaline burst through her when she saw the gun in it. Slamming her body against the door, she knocked him back into the hallway. The force and surprise of her attack knocked the gun from his hand and it fell to the floor in front of her.

  Addie cursed when her right foot caught it and it went bouncing down the steps in front of her. She scrambled down after it as it skidded to a stop against the wall on the lower landing. Reaching for it, she fell to her hands and knees and slightly turned toward the upper landing when she felt the vibration of the door behind her as it banged open against the wall.

  The gun fell limply from her fingers when she felt the touch of cold metal against her left temple. Shaking, she froze on the cold, hard concrete floor. Her eyes moved up the stairs to the face of the furious man coming down the steps toward her. Still, she didn’t move for fear the man holding the gun at her temple would pull the trigger.

  She focused on the man’s mouth as he spoke to the man next to her. He appeared to be arguing with him. Pushing against the overwhelming fright, she forced her mind to concentrate on the words he was forming.

  “You should just fucking kill her!” The man was saying. “I thought you were planning on killing the bastard when we got to the next location.” His lips still for a moment as he listened to whatever the other man was saying. “Fine, but he’ll probably just kill her too.”

  Addie cried out in surprise when the man suddenly stepped forward and grabbed her forearms in a crushing grip. Jerking her to her feet, he savagely shook
her before pushing her back against the wall and bent to pick up his gun. Checking it, he looked back at her again.

  “You fucking blink wrong and you are dead, do you understand me?” The man asked.

  “She can’t hear you,” the guard from behind him said. “The bitch is deaf.”

  “Then let’s see if she understands this,” the man said before he pressed the end of the gun to her forehead.

  Addie closed her eyes and whimpered as she waited. It was only when she felt a stinging tap to her chin that her eyelashes fluttered open. Turning her gaze to the man who originally held the gun on her, she looked at him in confusion and terror.

  She wished she hadn’t when she suddenly felt like fainting. The cold, dead look was enough to make her want to. Unfortunately, the man refused to release her from his intense gaze so she could.

  “Nod if you want to live,” the man said.

  Addie wasn’t even aware that her head moved. The man’s eyes narrowed as he held her gaze. A slow, menacing smile curved his lips as he studied her terrified face.

  “He might not kill this one,” he remarked. “Bring her and notify Rockman we have her another plaything to use for her experiments.”

  Addie’s expression turned to confusion when she felt fingers tighten around her forearm. Her head whipped back and forth, trying to understand what was going on. She desperately reached for Merrick, hoping to feel that strange sensation.

  Panic made her briefly resist the tug on her arm. Another husky cry of pain escaped her when the fingers tightened brutally to the point she was afraid the man would snap the bones in her arm. She stumbled into the guard when he stepped down the last step as she was pulled forward.

  “What do you want me to do?” The guard asked.

  “Clean up Crawford’s body,” the man with the icy, cold eyes ordered.

  Merrick? Please… Answer me, Addie thought.

  Her eyes followed the guard as he continued to walk past her. The fingers of her right hand curled into a fist. As long as she was alive, she had a chance of escaping. Pressing her hand to her stomach, she stumbled again as she clutched the prize she had taken from the guard’s belt when he had passed.

  Thank god for older brothers, she thought as she slipped the keys that had dangled loosely from his pocket into the waistband of her jeans.

  *.*.*

  "Rose," Trudy whispered, snapping her fingers to get her friend and partner's attention.

  "How can I help you?" Trudy asked in the headset as Rose gave her a sharp nod.

  "RITA, make sure you lock onto the caller’s location," Rose muttered.

  "No problem, dear. I'm already on it," RITA replied.

  "A… A man named Merrick told my boyfriend if he called this number, you could help us… me," a low, shaky voice whispered. "He... He said you could protect us. Please… Please, help me. They… I think they might have done something to Bradley. He was supposed to call me over an hour ago. He said if he didn’t that I needed to hide until you could help… help me. I think they are after me now. There was a car following me earlier, but I lost whoever it was when I left my car in the parking lot at the grocery store. Please… Help us. I don’t know what is happening. Please… Please."

  "Do you know where Merrick is?" Trudy asked, looking at the screen in front of her as it scrolled through dozens of locations before narrowing on the city of Portland, Oregon. She covered the microphone with her hand and turned to Rose. "Anything?"

  "Just a few more seconds," Rose replied. "RITA, lock into the satellite at the following coordinates.

  "Yes, I’m watching the building now, hoping I will see Bradley," the woman on the other end replied. "He works at Keiser..."

  "Institute of Technology and Research, Portland, Oregon division," Rose finished. "Scanning personnel and security video now. Whatever they have there, they don't want anyone taking a peek. It has some major security coding in it. RITA, can you find us a back door without them knowing we are there?"

  "Of course," RITA, Cosmos' Raines AI software replied in a dry tone. "They may be good, Rose, but I'm somewhat spectacular if you ask me."

  Rose's soft snort echoed in the upper rooms of Cosmos' Enterprises. Spectacular was too mild an adjective to describe RITA. Rose had been shocked when she discovered that RITA wasn't really one of Cosmos Raines' brilliant inventions, but that of his roommate, Jasmine, aka Tinker, Bell and her mother, Tilly. After meeting both women, Rose could appreciate RITA's sense of humor and almost motherly attitude.

  While the computer software and the highly secretive server that contained it might have the technical name 'Really Intelligent Technical Assistant', there was no way RITA could be described as anything else, but futuristic. Her ability to learn, adapt, and process information was mind boggling.

  “I have the location,” Rose whispered, patching an alert through to the advanced team for deployment before alerting Avery. “Avery, we have a location. There is a woman on the phone that says Merrick gave her boyfriend this number. Yes, Team One and Four have been ordered to deploy. We’ll be in the air in ten minutes.”

  “RITA, keep us connected as long as you can,” Rose ordered. “Are there any satellites feeds available?”

  “I have two satellites within range in three minutes,” RITA replied. “I’ve accessed video surveillance cameras around Keiser and am uploading to each Teams command center. I’ll track any incoming and outgoing vehicles within ten blocks and expand the search outward.”

  Trudy turned in her chair and rose, pulling off the headset. “She hung up. All she knew was that her boyfriend, Bradley Crawford, worked as a security guard for Keiser for the past six months. She said he had been extremely tense about something for a couple of weeks. Last night he told her to call this number and tell whoever answered, that Merrick said we would protect them. She couldn’t tell me anything else and sounded scared out of her mind,” she explained as she took the Kevlar vest Rose held out.

  “The helicopter is ready,” Rose said with a nod. “Let’s get moving. Team One was on standby in California. They should be there with the next hour. RITA has all cameras in the area under her control.”

  “Shit,” Trudy muttered. “Homeland is going to be calling Cosmos again.”

  “Not this time,” Rose chuckled. “We have the President’s permission.”

  “Thank goodness,” Trudy said as she stepped into the private elevator. “I hope that means Lady Luck is on our side this time.”

  The doors to the elevator closed on the two women. Neither of them noticed the silent figure standing near the door leading to the bedroom attached to the office. Runt stepped into the room and quickly walked over to the computer panel. Within minutes, she was pulling up the video that RITA was looking at and coding her own search software into the computer.

  “You really are extremely good at this, Amelia,” RITA observed with a gentle voice. “Cosmos and his team could really use your skills.”

  “I don’t like people, RITA,” Runt replied. “They won’t make it in time. Look at the blueprints. There is an underground system. That is how they’ll move him. There are no cameras there. They must have known it could be hacked. Have you managed to get into their security system?”

  “Yes, they have pulled the tapes and shut down the main power grid. From what I can see, the hard drives were removed an hour ago, according to the logs,” RITA replied. “Still, there may be something that can give us a clue to where they may take him next.”

  “Uh-huh,” Runt replied in a distracted voice as her fingers flew across the keyboard.

  She drew in a swift breath when she found what she was looking for, a picture from inside Cosmos Raines warehouse home. She had been running the secondary search embedded in the first one. A moment of sweet triumph swept through her when she realized that RITA hadn’t caught the simple, but effective code.

  Pressing the print button, Runt printed the image of the male on the screen. She quickly erased her search history befo
re rising out of the seat. Pulling the colorful print off of the laser printer, she gazed at the intense eyes and rigid features of the man from the warehouse that had been haunting her for the past four months.

  “You know, if you had just asked, I would have given you the information,” RITA’s soft voice echoed in the room.

  “Where…,” Runt paused, gazing down at the image for a few seconds before she carefully folded it and slipped it into her pocket. “What is a bond mate?”

  “It means you are his, Amelia,” RITA responded in a gentle voice. “You are his world, his only focus, his wife on his world.”

  “His… world?” Runt whispered, staring blankly at the computer console and pulling her tattered jacket closer around her. “What is he?”

  “He is a Prime warrior from another planet,” RITA said. “He will stop at nothing to find you, sweetheart. You are young, though. He will not do anything until you are older.”

  “You mean… He’s an alien?” Runt whispered in disbelief.

  “Yes,” RITA said. “They really aren’t so bad. I’ve uploaded another version of myself into their computer system and I have to say, they are a hot group of hunks. I swear RITA2’s circuits were practically sizzling!”

  “I don’t care how hot they are! I don’t want anything to do with anyone,” Runt muttered, bowing her head as a blush heated her cheeks.

  “Where are you going?” RITA asked as Runt turned toward the elevator that Rose and Trudy had left in.

  “To get something to eat from the cafeteria downstairs,” Runt replied. “I’m hungry.”

  “The cooks downstairs are some of the best in the world,” RITA replied cheerfully. “You should try their cookies. I hear Rose constantly raving about them.”

  “Thanks,” Runt mumbled, stepping into the elevator and pressing the basement level.

  What she didn’t add was that she would pack some of the food and keep going. She knew RITA would have picked up a lie, so she told the truth… just not all of it. It was time to disappear again. Only this time, it would be permanent.