by Tiana Laveen
It was time to move on. They’d discussed the FBI again, and he let her know the course of action. In the meantime, she had to lay low. The agents thought for sure she was dead; she almost bit her lip in two as she read the sarcastic emails talking about her as if she were some mangy dog that had gotten out of the fenced backyard. She knew too much now, she would cost them everything if she were to walk out into the world after such an ordeal. Even though she still didn’t know much at all, they’d never believe her, not in a million years.
But this was more serious than that. The later implications were clear—she’d been seen as a hazard. Now, everything had flipped, and she would become public enemy number one after a thorough interrogation, quarantine and a more than likely ‘declaration of insanity’ before being shipped away to another country never to be heard from again...if she were lucky. Xzion was the least of her worries, and she was safest with him—she knew this now. He never had to say one word.
She glanced back at him, and ran her fingertips down his chin. He smiled, stretched and yawned. The urge took flight within her and before she knew it, she was below the sheets, holding his shaft and placing the hefty head inside of her open mouth. The corners of her mouth curved as she heard him bellow, so very unsophisticated. He gripped the back of her head, slowly pushing himself further inside of her mouth as she licked and sucked the knob to oral perfection. She had him right where she wanted him...he lost his bravado, and became putty in her hand, and soon her mouth.
“Uhhh! Uhhh!” he grunted loudly, heaving, his ass lifting off the bed as he grabbed her harshly, pulling her into him.
He was close. She prepared herself, knowing his excitement and physical joy were dependent upon each tongue move she made. She flung the sheets off to catch his image...
Checkmate.
“Uhhh! Jaaayme! Uhhh!” He rocked, his eyes hooded, and he was so gone...
She held his hips as he jerked rapidly inside of her mouth, the velvety cool cream against her tongue quickly swallowed, until he had no more to give. Then, he fell back against the sheets like a feather on cotton, holding his forehead, but his smile was crystal clear. Without one uttered word, Jayme gathered herself from the bed and made her way out the door to the kitchen. She was hungry—after all, an appetite had been worked. She perused the refrigerator, spying a bottle of water and a freshly cut salad her Love had prepared for her lunch in advance.
So thoughtful...
She grabbed it and a fork, and began to make her way back down the hall. The blue lights as she went past blinked and flashed upon her, saying ‘hello’ in their own special way, reminding her that the security system was still in full effect.
What is in these rooms, Xzion? So many secrets...
She curiously scanned two of the closed doors, tugging gently on the knobs in vain.
He’d never tell me. I want to know what’s in here. Damn it...What’s the code? We are beyond surprises now, Xzion. We are together, a couple. You can trust me.
She stabbed the salad; the fork caught a wedge slice of ripe, ruby red tomato. She popped it into her mouth and made it back down to the master bedroom.
Snores. The man is actually snoring. I’ve never heard him do that before. That BJ must’ve been mind blowing.
She laughed.
Blowing...
Smiling as she made her way back to the bed, she slumped down and ate her salad. Thoughts of the two locked doors continued to enter into her mind.
I know he won’t tell me, won’t let me see.
She continued to wrestle with it...
If I ask, he’ll only get angry, tell me it’s military top secret. I have access to the entire house now, why not those two rooms?
One of the rooms was the lab she’d first seen when she broke into his house. Besides the odd bubbling things, she hadn’t had a chance to totally peruse it. There was a dark partition, right on the other side of the main door, and she wanted to see what was behind it. It would drift in her mind from time to time, like some prize awaited there. Not only that, his efforts to secure that room to the fullest hadn’t gone unnoticed. He’d put a more sophisticated lock on it soon after her arrival...
She rolled her eyes and picked at her plate. Then, it hit her. She’d seen an odd set of keys in a drawer. Rectangular with raised dots, like braille.
I wonder if those fit in the doors? He punches in codes to open them though... Hmmm, I don’t know...but what if the house was on lock down, the power out as he has done from time to time—how would he gain access? Yes...the keys.
She set her empty salad plate on the nightstand and made her way slowly around the bed, tiptoeing, deathly afraid to even exhale. She pulled out one drawer, holding her breath...
Shit. Not in there.
She watched him stir and turn on his side, a satisfied grin still on his face.
After hearing his even breathing, she opened another drawer and traced the metal latches and odd teeth of the key with nervous fingers. She grasped it, sandwiching it between her hands to muffle the rattle. Soon, she was out in the hall again, the blue light dizzying as she turned from side to side, trying to decide which door to try to open first.
Please work...
She picked one, and slid the key inside. A green light illuminated from the door latch, and she heard it catch. Acting fast, she pulled and it released, sliding abruptly to the left, revealing a room full of boxes and cool air. She cautiously entered. The room reminded her of a skating rink; only it was filled with boxes that were neatly stacked, yet unlabeled. Flicking a switch on the side of the wall, the room turned bright and she made her way around, looking inside boxes only to see that they were filled with folders and papers—things she had no way of understanding. She held up several blueprints that appeared to be to ships with markings on the side, in a language she didn’t understand or identify.
This is so damn strange...looks like a cruise ship, only smaller...
She continued, finding more of the same. Shrugging, she made her way out, and tried the same key on the next door. It didn’t budge.
Shit! He would do this...make it hard; make someone have to jump through hoops.
She tried another. Failed. She tried several more that hung from the steel ring, until finally; she’d located the correct one and understood the secret. You had to press one of the buttons, push the key inside simultaneously then turn to the left. Having an ex-cop boyfriend who specialized in lock picking had finally come in handy. She entered the room, flicked on the light and covered her mouth with both hands.
As she suppressed that scream, the keys accidentally fell to the floor in a loud clank...
CHAPTER TEN
His eyes fluttered and he found himself looking up at the ceiling. Sitting up slowly, he rubbed his stiff muscles and scratched the side of his jaw.
Stubble again. I need to shave.
He looked over and saw his lover missing. Initially, he didn’t think much of it, but something inside of him prompted him to go look for her, pronto. Getting to his feet, he slid his pajama pants on. He wanted to remain calm, but that was out the door once he noticed one of his dresser drawers slightly ajar. It caught his eye as if a fly had buzzed past, and his heart stopped for a half second. He made his way closer to it and looked down.
They’re gone.
His heart sank. It shifted, hardened. He touched his chest, wondering if this was what a heart attack felt like. Rushing out of the room and up the hallway, he stopped at an open door. A cool, misty breeze poured from the room. And Jayme was inside, her naked silhouette surrounded by dense fog. He slowly approached her. She seemed oblivious to him drawing near but before he reached her, his chest ached and painful hot flashes consumed his flesh. She turned to him—complete terror in her eyes. He reached for her arm; her lips were blue and cracked, her eyes, glassy. She swatted at his arm, and though her voice was low, he heard her—
“Don’t...touch me.”
He looked around the room, through the fo
g. He knew what she’d seen, and how could he explain it? This area of the room wasn’t the lab, it wasn’t chock full of charts and graphs...the damn pod was there, smack dab in the middle of the vast room. He looked at the metal contraption, resembling a rocket—his mode of transportation between the two planets and what he used as a carrier pigeon for supplies he needed from home. Beside it was a table with stacks of FBI and CIA documents written in his native language. But worse yet, were the brains—two, to be exact, floating in the tubes. They’d been sent for him to run the new blood sample testing on. He hadn’t gotten around to moving them to the lab portion of the area, behind the dark partition.
Two of his people perished, overheated, and their bodies were donated to science—their brains, to him. Aton had seen to it. The pod was sent down, he’d received them and was preparing for the studies but now, his world had been exposed to her in strange fragments that she’d never understand.
“Don’t be afraid. I can explain,” was all he could muster. He hadn’t seen that type of terror in her eyes since the moment he’d first caught her in his house so many months ago...
“No,” she whispered, fear apparent in her eyes as she backed away from him and held up her hand. “I’ve been...away from reality too long. Those...are human brains.”
She pointed to them, and kept stepping backward toward the open door. She bumped into a table, causing an avalanche of semi-automatics to fall haphazardly to the floor, along with boxes of bullets. The fog broke some, showcasing shelves of weapons before it was shrouded once again in smoky, cool air. He followed her as she steadily moved away from him. pleading with him nonverbally to not hurt her...
He terrified her, and it was ripping him apart.
“Jayme,” he said. “Nothing I say will make sense to you. The truth won’t make sense to you, because...you’re not in a position to listen.”
She kept backing out of the room, out into the hall. She wasn’t reasoning at that point, yet, he had to keep talking. It was all that he had left.
“I could keep trying to convince you, but you won’t believe me,” he repeated, his voice cracking. “Because I love you, I’m letting you go. I won’t keep you here any longer if it’s against your will. I thought you wanted to be here with me, but now, I can see...” he looked behind him at the brains, then back at her, “that has all changed.”
He turned and walked away, soon returning to her with a bag of clothing. “Here.” He laid it at her feet. She trembled from the cold, and from her vulnerable state. “There are some of your clothes and some money, you’ll need it. If the FBI finds out you’re still alive, they’ll interrogate you, and then kill you, Jayme. They don’t place people away anymore—this is a new breed. They are ruthless. I didn’t tell you this before, because I didn’t see how it mattered, but now, it does. Look, the agents you have been dealing with are in a secret division, within the agency—that makes them all the worse. It means that the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. No one but they know about what you’ve been doing...” He sighed. Her look of fear seemed to transform to pure hatred. He couldn’t decide which was worse.
“Make sure you take the gun out of there, too...” He opened his mouth to say more, but decided against it. Instead, he turned away from her and opened his wrist to disarm the front entranceway. It clicked, and the entire house flooded in bright blue light. Facing her again, he found her adjusting to the sudden deluge of cerulean. She opened the bag, removed a pair of jeans and a sweater and quickly dressed. Reaching inside again, she grabbed a pair of socks and shoes, surveyed the revolver and clutched it, pushing it into the back of her pants. Finally, she stood and regarded him cautiously while she finished dressing in rapid speed.
“Goodbye, Jayme...”
She grabbed a hooded coat, the wad of cash and raced to the open front door, without saying a word...
****
Xzion leaned over the kitchen sink, his stomach in knots. It had been three days and six hours since she’d left his home. His computers buzzed, Aton’s messages remained unplayed, uncared for and unanswered. He turned from the sink and ran a hand down his face. Before her, he’d never cared about how someone felt...
Before her, he’d never questioned his birthright.
Before her, he’d never longed for someone.
And the shit hurt. He refused to give into it. He fought, tried to keep his resolve, tried to act as if he was okay, but everything around him proved otherwise.
Unmade bed, cocooned inside the house—a small part of him hoped the fucking FBI knew he was there now. He even debated letting them kill him. It would be a sweet death, a chance for him to be out of misery or he could enjoy one final showdown and tear them to shreds, take all of his anxiety out on them—it was their fault, after all. The second notion made a maniacal laugh, tinged with heartbreak and rage, erupt from his core. He slowly negotiated the hall to the bedroom and slid under the sheets. He grabbed the pillow, inhaling it...
It still smells like her...
He hugged it, clutched it, forgetting to breathe for some moments...
He gasped for air...
She takes my fucking breath away...
He looked up at the ceiling and cursed. Glancing across the room, he spotted the mixed CD he’d made for her. He got up and played it, listened to the songs that they’d made love to so many times.
Pretty Ricky sang, ‘Make It Like It Was’, then Nivea crooned, ‘Complicated’—the electric guitar riff was his favorite part...
Jayme, I loved you enough to let you go. I can’t keep you a prisoner here. Hell, you stopped asking, I figured you wanted to stay...told me you loved me, had nowhere else to go. We’re from two different worlds, but my heart belongs to you, baby. I just hope you’re safe, wherever you are becauseif something happens to you, I’ll know who did it...and I will make them regret the day they were ever born.
He pushed down the prickly, tangled emotions, sneered at his image in the mirror, gripped his nightstand lamp and cast it with all of his might, shattering the vanity glass into serrated bits. He drew his knees upward to his heaving chest then ran his fingers through his hair, now twisting from the new grown length. The music continued to play, making him hate himself even more.
He now had new emotions to contend with. Grief. Mourning. Loss. And it hurt so fucking bad, like a toothache in the pit of his damn chest.
If she knew what I really am, she’d hate me even more...just leave her alone...you should have known you couldn’t have her, that it would come to this...
Aton was calling his phone; he turned away from it, brought the sheets over his head and lost himself in a series of dreams, all of them of his beloved Jayme...
****
The wind whipped through Jayme’s untamed tresses. Pulling the gray hoodie down over her head, she prayed that no one would recognize her as she surveyed the large red brick apartment building across the way. Her brother, Jayson, lived there and it was a wish on a star that he was actually home and better yet, sober enough to open the damn door, let her inside, and allow her to unleash what the hell had happened in the last sordid six months. The last few nights had been brutal. She understood that Xzion was not who she thought he was or wanted him to be—but she felt confident he hadn’t lied to her. But he simply refused to answer questions, which to her, at this point, made him just as guilty. She’d had a nightmare as she slept in a park for a couple of hours, trying to figure out her next move—how to claim her life back.
The two brains were alive and moving, just as they were when she’d laid eyes on them. She watched them pulsating, and though they looked like human brains, they were actually a bit larger. Nevertheless, the wires and electrodes sticking out of the gray matter made her stomach twist. She didn’t have the time to sit back and think about how much she missed the monster behind the scenes, torturing herself with ‘what ifs’ and how could he live that way? Where those brains of his victims and who the hell did he work for that would re
quire him to do something so despicable and grotesque? She pushed the disturbing memories out of her mind, shoved her hand in her pocket and made her away across the street. Soon, she was at Jayson’s apartment entrance way, punching the buzzer with her dirty index finger.
“Come on, goddamn it,” she muttered under her breath. She heard commotion in the dingy lobby. Old concert and club promo posters dotted the walls with promises of free drinks after twelve and a DJ who would spin all the latest beats. She lowered her head under the fluorescent light.
Two scantily-clad women laughed boisterously, one knocking into her then turning back—“Sorry baby!” the woman cackled, and continued on her way, her friend’s arm folded tightly around her.
Jayme buzzed once again and heard the husky voice come over the static-filled reception.
“Who tha fuck is ringing my goddamn bell at three in the morning!” Jayson roared. It wasn’t a question but a statement—and he was ready for a fight from the tone of things.
“...Jayson, it’s me!” she whispered as loudly as possible, without drawing more attention to herself.
Suddenly, she heard the familiar click and she entered the stairway, the light from his open apartment door ushering her closer for reprieve.
****
He couldn’t believe his eyes.
There she was, in the flesh. She’d lost a bit of weight, but she looked healthy, unkempt, but in good form. Jayson grabbed her into his arms, and felt her shake in his grip. He was speechless, and desperately tried to get control of himself. He needed answers, but he was so happy to see that his little sister was alive.
