by Fall, Carly
He couldn’t take it.
His heart literally hurt at the words as he thought of Holly. He wanted to love her the best he could. As he glanced around the group, envy reared its ugly head. The females all stood with their mates, most with tears in their eyes as they clutched their male’s arms. He’d witnessed the love they shared as couples, and as a group. Didn’t he deserve that?
He looked at the crew of Rescue One. They watched the ceremony in a detached fashion, Kade actually looking a little fidgety. Most likely, they were all waiting to get juiced up at the after-party.
What if he threw it all on the line and told Holly everything? What if he came clean with her? What if he told her he had lied to her from the beginning, that he wasn’t from this world? What would be the worst thing that could happen? She could have him taken into custody and he’d be put away somewhere, probably studied by the government and he’d never see daylight again. It sounded like a miserable existence, but what he experienced now felt pretty awful as well. It seemed he fought to get through the day today, as if every step had become a heavy burden to him. He didn’t know how much more he could take before he finally let go and fell into the same state as Titus.
His options seemed bleak. Tell Holly and risk being taken by the government, possibly tortured, and certainly having experiments ran on him … or, not take the chance and become a shell of a male?
Then, if he did find Holly, he’d be going directly against Noah’s orders. The fact that he had to take orders from the male rankled him to no end. He’d been the one in charge for so long; it had become difficult to step aside and allow Noah to do the leading, especially with his crew, and even more so because he outranked Noah on SR44.
He constantly had to remind himself that on Earth, he had become a nobody. He had no ranking, no permanent home, no one to share his life with. He couldn’t spend the rest of his days sleeping on a cot in the damn gym.
“This concludes the mating ceremony. I wish both of you happiness, light, and love,” Hudson said.
Blake leaned over and passionately kissed Sophia for a very long time. It almost seemed obscene, and finally, Noah nudged him.
Justice and some of the others stepped to the side, allowing Blake and Sophia to lead the way back into the silo. Having spent some time in the kitchen talking with Hudson today, he knew the food would be absolutely amazing, yet he didn’t feel any hunger.
Well, he actually hungered for one thing … or one person.
He’d only been without her for about a week, and he was done. Taking a deep breath as he filed into the silo, he made a decision. He’d rather live out his life as a science experiment than not take the chance of being with Holly.
And fuck Noah.
He would do what he wanted, and he didn’t care who became angry with him.
As the party exploded into full swing, someone started some music, and Hudson and Beverly flitted around the kitchen preparing to serve dinner. Kade stood at the bar laughing with Axel and Rayner. He recalled Blake telling him that Kade had done some computer work, but frankly, he hadn’t paid much attention to anything all week long. However, if anyone could help him, it would be Kade.
He sided up to him. “I need your help on the computer.”
“Sure thing,” Kade said, not moving.
“Now, Kade. It can’t wait.”
With so many people, the loud music, and the bustling about, he doubted anyone would miss them for a few minutes.
Kade excused himself and followed Justice down the hall. They entered the War Room, and Justice immediately walked over to the computers.
“What’s up?” Kade asked, sitting down in front of the screens.
“I need to find Holly.”
Chapter 44
Holly drove through the desert, the radio turned to a seventies’ station. Ramblin’ Man by the Allman Brothers—one of her favorite songs—oozed out the speakers, but she barely heard it.
After leaving the mansion, she’d gotten in her car and gone back to her apartment. Numbness had settled over her, and she’d barely even noticed the mess the police had left. She’d picked up a suitcase off the floor and looked around for clothing she wanted. Once she’d had what she needed, she’d left, with no intention of ever going back.
She’d found an affordable hotel that didn’t seem to be dirty, one where she’d feel safe in staying alone, and paid cash. After unpacking her bags, she’d lain down on the bed and looked at the clock. It had read four in the morning, and she’d closed her eyes, waking twelve hours later.
With great effort, she’d rolled out of bed and pulled on her running gear. Although she would prefer to crawl under the covers and cry her eyes out, she would not allow herself to do that.
She’d run through the city, pushing her anger, hurt, and betrayal into energy, and not caring who saw her or what the consequences would be if the police stopped her.
Fuck everyone.
She’d leapt onto a cement bench, taken two steps, and flown off the other end, catching a tree limb. She’d swung there for a moment, the bark scraping her hands. She’d paid no attention to it. Landing, she’d tucked and rolled, then got to her feet again in one fluid motion. It had seemed no matter how hard she pushed herself, she couldn’t outrun her feelings.
What a surprise.
After two miles, she’d given up and jogged back to the hotel, picking up a sandwich and a bottle of wine on the way. After showering, she’d watched reruns of M.A.S.H while eating and finishing the wine, then turned off the lights and fell asleep.
The next morning, she’d reported to work, fully expecting a lot of problems with her absence. She’d had no idea what the letter sent to her supervisor had said, but instead of being angry, he’d been very sympathetic and had asked very few questions.
As she drove through the desert, she tried to keep her mind in that place of numbness, where she felt very little and she didn’t think about him.
Son of a bitch.
She’d made brief inquiries on Lieutenant Justice this week, only to be met with blank stares. A friend of hers worked in the records department, and Holly had asked her to research him, but nothing came up, even from the California office, where he said he had been stationed.
He’d lied to her about being in the military.
Her first instinct had been to tell her superiors about him, but something held her back. Whether it had been her feelings or the fact he’d helped her out of her dire situation, she didn’t know. However, she didn’t think he needed the military after him, even if he had been a complete fraud.
She’d spent most of her time off looking for a place to live, but couldn’t muster much enthusiasm for anything she’d seen. In fact, she couldn’t get excited about anything in her life, but at some point, she needed to move out of the hotel and start over.
She pulled up to the bunker where they had first met, and the tears stung her eyes. They’d had their first kiss here.
But she couldn’t think about that.
“Just check the damn thing out and make sure everything is locked up and get the hell out,” she murmured.
She got out of the jeep and went to the door with so many more questions about Justice now than when she had been sleeping with him.
“A good fuck can damage your critical thinking,” she said as she unlocked the door.
She shut it, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness for a moment, then she turned to the left and found the light switch.
“Holly.”
She spun and gasped, her heart beating wildly.
Justice stood at the chain link fence leading down to the rest of the bunker. A bolt of fear ran through her until she noticed he stood with his hands at his sides, dressed in camouflage pants and a military t-shirt and boots. His stance seemed completely harmless.
Part of her wanted to cry and throw herself at him while the other part wanted to gut him from sternum to pelvis.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” he murmured,
keeping his hands at his side.
She studied his face and noted the hope in his eyes, as if he wanted her to believe him.
“What do you want?” she bit out. Her emotions seemed to be swinging from killing him to hugging him, and the tears in her eyes pissed her off even more.
“I’m here to tell you the truth.”
Well, she hadn’t been expecting that.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Hmm … I think that would be a novel concept for you.”
He grinned and glanced down at the floor, then met her gaze again. “Yes. With you, it will be, and I’m so sorry, Holly. I’m sorry for the lies and deceit and for being an all-around bastard. All I ask is that you hear me out and save your judgments until I’m done with my story.”
She shook her head. “After that crap you pulled at your friend’s mansion, you’ve already been on trial and the jury found you guilty, Justice—if that’s even your real name. I don’t even know if that’s your last name or your first name, but who in the hell names their kid Justice?”
He looked as if he would answer her, but she cut him off and began pacing, her anger building. “I have never been dumped so harshly. Never. What you did was beyond cold. You didn’t want to be with me? Fine. But at least give me the respect and tell it to my face, not leave some fucking note on the counter and abandon me in some stranger’s house with a checkout time!”
Her voice echoed around the chamber, and she realized she’d been yelling. Justice stood just as she found him, staring at her.
“I know,” he pleaded. “It was terrible what I did to you, but I want to explain. I want you to know the truth about everything, Holly.”
She saw honesty in his face that she’d never noticed before, and it softened her just a bit. Curiosity also got the best of her—she wanted to hear what he had to say.
“So, let’s hear it. But how will I even know it’s the truth? Once you deceive a person, it’s hard to get their trust back. And right now, I trust you about as much as I would an angry rattle snake.”
He flinched at her words, but then nodded. “I can understand that. I’m just asking for a little bit of your time. When I’m done with my explanation, you can do as you please. I just can’t live with myself without at least trying.”
“Trying to do what?”
He shook his head. “Later. I’ll tell you that later. Now, can I please have a few minutes of your time?”
She stared at him a beat, knowing she should arrest him for trespassing, or at least tell her superiors that someone needed to change the damn locks in this place.
“Please, Holly. I’ve been waiting here for you since last night hoping you’d show up. I want to explain everything to you.”
Curiosity overrode duty, and she nodded. “Okay.”
He grinned, turned around, and opened the gate leading down into the rest of the bunker. “After you.”
She shook her head. “I’m not going down there with you. Are you nuts? I don’t even know your real name!”
“My name’s Justice. I’m unarmed, but I see you’re carrying. I’ll stay at least six feet away from you at all times, and if it makes you feel safer, you can train your weapon on me for as long as you need to.”
“Why can’t you just tell me everything right here? Why do I have to go down there?”
“Because, I want to show you things. It all started right here, Holly. I want to give you proof of my words—I want you to see it.”
It probably wouldn’t be considered smart to go into the bowels of the bunker with him, but she had to admit, she needed answers to what happened between them.
Withdrawing her weapon, she pointed it at him. “Fine. Let’s go. You first. And don’t try anything, Justice, because I’m so pissed at you right now, I won’t think twice about putting a few bullets in you.”
He snickered and nodded. “I have no doubt, Holly. None whatsoever.”
Chapter 45
Justice led the way down the hallway to the bunker, feeling as though his heart may pound out the front of his chest. The fact that Holly trailed him with a gun didn’t faze him. That he would be revealing all his secrets to her had him shaking in his boots.
He walked through the main room to the locked door. He pulled out the keys and opened it, stepping inside. Moving to the middle of the crops, he stopped and turned to her, putting his arms out to his sides so he seemed unthreatening to her.
“What’s this?” she asked as she walked into the room.
He glanced around at the vegetables they’d planted and grown. “I’ve lived in this bunker for two years with five other beings. This was our main food supply besides the M.R.E.s.”
He pointed over to the corner where a pallet stacked high with boxes stood, each one stamped with M.R.E. and what the box contained.
Holly looked around, surprise evident on her face. “Two years?”
“Yes.”
Her surprise turned to outrage seconds.
“This is a government facility! How the hell did you get in here?”
“It seems your government tends to waste a lot of its resources. It was abandoned until you showed up. We didn’t see anyone for a year. And to answer your second question, do you remember where we shared our first kiss?”
Her cheeks flared pink, and he took that as a ‘yes.’
“It was by sheer luck. I tripped over the handle while looking around when we first got here. It led into the bunker.”
She glanced around the room again, this time more carefully. He could see her studying the plants, and she gazed over at the pile of boxes for a second time.
“So, after we moved in, so to speak, we learned how to work the computers. My friend, Kade, is terribly smart. It took him a couple of weeks, but before long, he had them up and running. We lived here while waiting for someone, but more on that later.”
“What do you mean, ‘my government’? And who did you wait for?”
He began pacing, putting his thoughts in order. He wanted to tell this story in a somewhat linear fashion, and if she would be running from him in fear, he’d rather have that happen after she’d heard everything.
“Later. As I said, we didn’t see anyone for quite a while. Then one day, out of the blue, you showed up.”
He gazed at her, and he could tell he’d really caught her attention.
“You scared the hell out of us. We thought we were busted, for sure.”
She grinned, but didn’t say anything.
“Then you started coming on a regular basis—every Thursday, you’d be here around noon, and for a while, we were terrified that you’d find us. Some time passed, and we realized you wouldn’t.”
He couldn’t help but smile as he recalled those days. “We’d listen to you talk. I learned so much about you during that time, Holly, and as the days went on, I came to realize what a caring, kind person you are. I admired that you took care of your brother, who was so sick. I laughed at your bad Dezi Arnez impression. We had to look that one up to figure out who you were trying to impersonate.”
“How did you do that?” she asked.
“The computers. Like I said, Kade is very intelligent. It only took him a short time to figure out the Internet. We spent hours on YouTube.”
She shook her head and lowered her gun. “What do you mean, ‘figure out the Internet’?’”
“I’ll get to that in a minute as well, okay?”
She stared at him a moment, then nodded. “Okay.”
“So you came every Thursday, and I looked forward to it. I liked listening to you, hearing about what was going on in your life. Like the time you got something called a ‘road rash’ from your runs. Parkour, you called it. So, I had Kade pull up some videos, and I couldn’t believe you were capable of doing those things. I was amazed. Or the time you talked about your friend moving away. You sounded so sad. For those few minutes on Thursdays, you shared a little bit of yourself with us.”
Her cheeks flamed red. “I’m so
embarrassed.”
“You don’t need to be. You just talked about your life, and there’s nothing embarrassing about it. You are an honorable female, Holly. It seemed to me that you always tried to do the right thing.”
“I do.”
“I know. I grew to care about you a great deal during that time, even though you didn’t know I existed.”
“This is kind of weird and stalker-ish,” she mumbled.
He shrugged. “Maybe it is.”
“Is Noah one of the ones you lived with here?”
“No.”
“Who’s he?”
Taking a deep breath, he began his tale.
“I’m not human, Holly,” he said.
A shiver went down her spine as she let the words sink in. She looked him over from head to toe. His dark skin shone under the lights. He still stood with his hands at his sides, and his face pleaded with her to understand. He seemed to be a physically perfect human specimen, and maybe that was the only indication he wasn’t human.
“There are others here like me. They’ve been here for a long time, hunting the evil of our planet.”
If she didn’t know aliens existed, she would have thought him totally crazy. However, she’d seen the other beings with her own eyes, and they’d looked completely human as well.
“Noah is one of them, the leader of the Six Saviors. Almost two years ago, we received a transmission that they had completed their mission and we were to come to these coordinates and wait. We did as instructed.”
“You waited two years for someone to show up?” she asked, her voice incredulous.
He shrugged. “That isn’t a lot of time to me. We live to be two thousand years old, give or take a century in either direction. Two years is like two minutes to me.”
She stared at him, thinking about the other aliens she’d seen. That big one named Micah hadn’t been anything like Justice. He’d been rude and bombastic, but Justice had always been the exact opposite.
