The Visitor: Alien Hunger Special Edition

by Kaitlyn O'Connor

  Ledger scrambled to his feet. Garryk looked him over with disgust. “Man … put some fucking pants on. I’ll wait.”

  Ledger snarled, charging him like a bull with the clear intention of burying his head in Garryk’s belly. Garryk leapt to one side and booted him in the ass for good measure as he charged past. Ledger slammed into the dresser and bounced back. Garryk caught him and slammed him into the dresser again.

  When he hit the floor, he lay panting, his eyes closed. Garryk studied him for a moment and stepped over him. Moving to the door Glory had left open, he glanced outside and shut it.

  Ledger slammed into it just as he stepped back out of the way. “You are one dumb fuck, you know that?” Garryk growled, grabbing the back of his neck and slamming him against the door a couple more times.

  Ledger slid to the floor, huffing for breath. Garryk crouched in front of him. “We done here? Or do I need talk to you some more?”

  Ledger glared at him. “What the fuck do you want? Money?”

  Garryk uttered a disgusted snort. “I’ve got want I want, dick-wad. Chelsey’s mine. You got that? You ever fuck with her again, for any reason on any subject, and you won’t live long enough to regret it. I can fuck you up so many ways it don’t even bear thinking on.”

  Ledger studied him with a mixture of helpless fury and wariness. “What are the pictures for?”

  “I sure as fuck won’t be showing them to Chelsey, if that’s what you’re thinking. I wouldn’t want to taint her with them. Call it insurance. I’m a firm believer in being prepared and I know your proclivity for using the law to your advantage. No cops, no lawyers. You stay away from me and mine, nobody ever has to know what a sick little turd you are. Mess with me …. Shame on you.” He studied Ledger for a long moment. “Are we done here?”

  Ledger swallowed a little sickly. “We’re done.”

  Garryk straightened. “You aren’t nearly as stupid as I thought you were. It’s a shame. I was just starting to enjoy it. Now, crawl your flabby white ass out of the way.”

  Ledger got to his feet with an effort and moved away from the door. Garryk paused to look at him as he opened it. “I’d do something about that if I was you. The ladies like tight buns.”

  The sense of triumph buoying his spirits after the confrontation led to his downfall. He was so focused on the fact that he’d solved Chelsey’s problems, and pleased with himself, that he didn’t realize he was being followed until just before the two men in black stepped out of the shadows and hit him with a taser.

  They were a lot more surprised when it had no affect on him than he’d been when they appeared.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chelsey had spent three of the most miserable days of her life waiting in vain for Garryk to come. It hadn’t occurred to her when she’d seen him leave the courthouse that he wouldn’t. She’d been so certain after the hearing that he cared about her.

  True, he’d been summoned to appear. She wasn’t certain he would’ve shown up otherwise, but he’d done his best to convince the judge that he was a decent man and wouldn’t be a bad influence on Larry and there’d been nothing to compel him to do that, or to make the offers he had. Why would he offer to marry her and quit dancing if he didn’t care?

  Or was it just … like a gut reaction to what he saw happening? A sudden impulse to try to help her that he’d regretted?

  She didn’t think Garryk was impulsive, but she knew he could be very protective.

  Was he angry because she’d refused his help?

  She would have explained if he’d given her the chance! It had begun to look like he wouldn’t, though, and she didn’t even know if she should try when he’d been so secretive about his other life.

  She couldn’t think of any reason why he hadn’t told her he was a doctor. He must be proud of his accomplishments when he’d fought such tremendous odds to reach victory!

  Maybe his pride? He’d guarded that ferociously even when he was a kid, maybe especially then because it had been battered so much. Most people were just like Marla. They didn’t look at him and see potential. They looked at him and saw failure.

  And maybe they were right a lot of the time. The odds were so stacked against kids like Garryk that only a handful ever even got a chance or managed to make a chance for themselves and of that handful there was always the poverty monster right at their shoulder, just waiting to drag them back—the masses that didn’t make it and wanted them to fail, too.

  So maybe he hadn’t told her because he’d needed to know she didn’t see him like that? Maybe he’d wanted to know that she cared about him—the real Garryk and not just the place he’d made for himself?

  She couldn’t say she completely understood that, but then she hadn’t had to face the things he had. Her place in society had been assured by her parents, inherited by birthright. She could’ve failed miserably. She could’ve fallen, but she’d been assured a chance.

  The heavy knock on her door brought her from her thoughts and set her heart to racing with excitement for a handful of moments until it dawned on her that Garryk had a key. Disappointment flooded her and then uneasiness. Getting up from the couch where she’d been sitting for the past several hours, hoping against hope that Garryk would show up, she went to the door and hesitated. “Who is it?” she asked in a quavering voice instead of the authoritative demand she’d intended.

  “Agent Claude Sherridan. Open the door, please, Mrs. Ledger.”

  Chelsey’s heart leapt in fright and then made a series of missteps that gave her the sensation of falling down a flight of steps. “Agent who?”

  “If you’ll just open the door, Mrs. Ledger, I can show you my credentials.”

  But she didn’t want to open the damned door!

  What if he wasn’t an agent at all?

  What if he was?

  FBI? What in the hell had her ex-bastard done now?

  She didn’t think she had a choice, unfortunately.

  Unless it was to try Garryk’s route over the balcony and she didn’t think she could handle that. Besides which she didn’t want to get caught dangling from her railing and she had a very bad feeling that would be the end result of trying to escape.

  As quietly as she could, she engaged the security lock and then unlocked the deadbolt and eased the door open as far as she could with the security bar still in place—which allowed about a two inch sliver of space.

  An ID pinched between two thick male fingers appeared in the opening.

  Chelsey stared at it, feeling her stomach go weightless as the wording leapt out at her.

  It looked real. It looked official. And all it said was government agent—not which government agency, which disturbed her more than she liked.

  A person who hasn’t committed any crime should never be afraid of any agency of their own government!

  But she was and yet she didn’t see that she had any alternative.

  She debated closing the door again and calling the cops.

  That actually didn’t seem like a bad idea—assuming there was a possibility that the guy wasn’t really a federal agent.

  Well—even if he was.

  “Ok,” she said. “I’ll have to shut the door to take the burglar bar off.”

  “Alright.”

  She shut the door and raced to her phone, punching in 911 with shaking fingers. “911 what’s …”

  The door abruptly burst open, splinters flying in every direction. Chelsey screamed, jerked reflexively, and lost her grip on her cell phone. Mouth gaping, she whipped her head toward the door in time to see the man who’d identified himself as an agent surge through with his gun drawn. A woman—presumably another agent since she was dressed similarly in a dark suit—followed. In the lead was a man dressed in the armored gear of a swat member or soldier with an automatic rifle at the ready and behind the two agents were about a half dozen more military/or swat team members.

  Chelsey was so paralyzed with shock, the two agents approached her and mana
cled hands around her upper arms while she was still frozen, her brain scrambling madly for some sort of explanation for this outrage.

  “Are you alone?” the man barked.

  “Is anyone here with you, Mrs. Ledger?” the female agent demanded.

  Chelsey glanced from one to the other, blinking while her scrambling brain tried to make sense of what they were demanding.

  The apartment was tiny. It didn’t take as long as the questions they’d asked for the swat team to return to report that no one was there.

  “Where’s the … person that calls himself Garryk Sinclair?”

  That threw her for a bigger loop. Her mouth, she discovered when she tried to speak, was dry from gaping at them slack jawed and her vocal chords squeaky. She frowned. “What do you mean calls himself …?”

  The woman shook her. “Garryk Sinclair! Where is he, Mrs. Ledger?”

  The physical ‘assault’ was sufficient to dispel some of Chelsey’s shock. She glared at the woman, trying to wrest her arm free. “How the hell would I know?” she snarled angrily. “I don’t keep a GPS up his ass! Why do you want him? And why did you say ‘calls himself’? Because I’ve known him since he was a kid and that isn’t an alias! And I don’t believe for one single damned minute that he’s done anything!”

  The two agents exchanged a look. “He was here before,” Claude said to his companion.

  “Yes, that does seem to confirm he was one of the original ….” She tightened her grip on Chelsey’s arm. “We have to go. We need to get you to a safe house.”

  “What?” Chelsey demanded, so stunned by their comments that they managed to haul her across her living room and out her door before she realized they hadn’t actually waited for her to agree or comply. “What are you doing? Where are taking me? What’s this all about?”

  “You’ll be debriefed once we get you to a secure location,” Claude responded grimly once they’d negotiated the stairs and reached the sidewalk.

  “Debriefed?” Chelsey echoed, glancing around desperately for help as they manhandled her down the sidewalk toward a dark sedan that was sitting by the curb. “I want my lawyer! You can’t do this! I haven’t done anything! I have rights, damn it!”

  “We just want to talk, Mrs. Ledger,” the female agent said as they opened the rear door and shoved her inside.

  Claude climbed in directly behind her, before she was even halfway in, and the woman then hurried around the car to the other side before Chelsey had a chance to clamber across the backseat and try to escape through the opposite door.

  Wedged between the two agents, Chelsey flicked a look toward the front seat as the driver started the engine and pulled away from the curb.

  There were actually two agents in the front seat, but one was slumped against the passenger window as if sleeping.

  The driver turned toward them with his hand extended.

  Both agents made an aborted attempt to pull their holstered guns when the three realized almost simultaneously that the driver was actually Garryk.

  Then a blinding light hit them just as Chelsey gasped Garryk’s name and she felt herself falling into a deep, dark pit.

  “Sorry, baby!” Garryk muttered as she slipped from consciousness. She was going to be totally pissed off with him when she woke up and remembered everything, he didn’t doubt, but he saw no way he could have avoided the situation.

  If he’d gotten to her before the Feds had ….

  He shook that thought. She would still be pissed—because the shit had hit the fan and his persona had crumbled, leaving him no options.

  Well, he could’ve simply abandoned her and left, but he didn’t consider that option. She would be danger and the baby she carried in more danger.

  She had to see that!

  Unfortunately, that didn’t mean she would forgive him because he’d caught her up in his elaborate charade and now she didn’t have options—none of them had a choice of which life appealed the most—a life here or a life on the colony world he’d chosen.

  They were all just going to have to deal with it, he thought grimly as he made his way through town and out into the countryside where he’d left his ship.

  Parking the car on the shoulder of the road, he got out and moved to the back. He had to drag the unconscious female agent out to get to Chelsey. Shrugging, he lay her on the ground beside the car and reached for Chelsey. She was completely limp and that gave him a pang as he cradled her carefully against his chest and headed across the field.

  Without ordering the computer to decloak, he issued the order for engine startup and told the computer to open the hatch and extend the gangplank. He was only a couple of yards from it when the gangplank settled. Moving swiftly up it, he ordered the gangplank to be retracted and the hatch closed.

  He settled Chelsey in the tiny cabin the craft had, secured her in the bunk and headed toward the control room.

  He had no idea how long she would be out—she wasn’t drige—but he hoped it would be long enough to dock with the mother-ship and get her settled for the long trip.

  Because he had no idea if the humans were capable of pursuing and trying to drag him into a fight and he hoped, if that transpired, that he wasn’t going to have to try to fight Chelsey off at the same time.

  Besides—he thought he’d get less argument out of Chelsey if they were already a very long ways from Earth when she realized what he’d done.

  He had some hope that the gift he’d brought along would go a long way toward appeasing her.

  But what did he know, really?

  She was liable to be more enraged than gratified by what he’d done!

  * * * *

  Chelsey wasn’t even fully conscious when the sense of having been in a fight and lost, or maybe a car wreck, began to filter through to her brain.

  Well, maybe not quite that radical. She was stiff and sore, though, and achy.

  She opened her eyes abruptly when she finally recalled being manhandled by the two people posing as Federal agents.

  She was in a room she didn’t recognize.

  It wasn’t a very large room, but it certainly didn’t have any of the characteristics of a cell.

  Then she remembered the agents had said something about taking her to a safe house.

  She glanced around for a window and saw a small, curtain-less one on the wall opposite the bed.

  It was night time, she realized in dismay.

  It had been early in the day when they’d picked her up! Hours away from dusk!

  There was a loud knock on the door just as she got up and headed toward the window to see if she could figure out where she was being held.

  Startled, she stopped in her tracks and glanced toward the sound.

  They dragged her out of her apartment without her consent and now they were knocking?

  “Who is it?”

  There was a brief pause. “Garryk.”

  She rushed to the door and tore at the unfamiliar latch in her haste to get the door open and reassure herself that it really was him. A profound gratefulness filled her as she stared up at him, drinking in the sight of him when she’d begun to fear he wouldn’t come back, that she was never going to see him again. “It wasn’t locked. Why didn’t you just come in?”

  Something flickered in his eyes and across his expression that she couldn’t quite identify. He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I thought you might not want to see me.”

  She stared at him in dismay, wondering how he could’ve thought such a thing. As she studied his face, she noticed the bruises fading from his jaw and cheek and her heart skipped several beats.

  Lawrence had been mugged the night following their hearing. He was still in the hospital.

  And Garryk had been playing least in sight—waiting for the evidence to fade, no doubt.

  “Oh Garryk!” she gasped, surging toward him abruptly and curling her arms tightly around his waist. “Baby, how could you think that?”

  He flinched when she flung h
erself at him, surprised enough that he didn’t begin to embrace her until she’d already begun to pull away. He encircled her with his own arms then, preventing her escape, and waltzed her inside, kicking the door shut behind them. He shifted his hold when she looked up at him, capturing her face instead and searching her eyes.

  Her heart lurched when he abruptly closed the distance, tilting his head to fit his mouth to hers. Warmth surged through her the moment she felt the heat of his mouth settle over hers, thawing the frozen core of doubts she’d been harboring. The bold, possessive rake of his tongue infused her with the elixir of life, the drugging, powerful euphoria only Essence-of-Garryk had ever produced. She felt feather light and as heavy as lead at the same time, floating and sinking, dizzy and disoriented as he fired her blood, making it surge in every pulse point, awakening desperate need.

  She kissed him back feverishly. Like a sonic wave, boosted and magnified from tower to tower, his kiss became more ravenous and in turn fed the growing hunger in her, building each time until waves of heat emanated from both of them. The heated, moist cloud that enveloped them carried their scents, swirled them together and combined them until it almost seemed as if they, themselves, merged.

  Garryk broke from her lips abruptly, sucking in a harsh, shuttering breath, and cast a swift, fevered glance around. Catching her waist, he pulled her close enough to cover her mouth again, working the buttons of her blouse free with shaking fingers. Too mindless by that time to think for herself, Chelsey mimicked him, reaching to tug at his shirt with fingers that had no memory of ever delving the intricacy of removing a t-shirt before. She’d barely managed to tug the hem from his jeans by the time he’d scaled the row of buttons on her blouse and shoved it from her shoulders. It tangled around her elbows, binding her arms behind her back and preventing her from dragging his shirt any higher than his breast bone. She was still trying to figure out how to get it off of him when she felt the restriction beneath her breasts vanish as her bra fell away and then the heaviness of her unsupported breasts for a moment before Garryk cupped them in his hands.

  She paused to enjoy the feel of his hands, dropping her arms to her sides to give him better access and felt her bra and blouse slip down her arms. Shaking the clothes loose, she reached for his t-shirt again and shoved it up to his arm pits. He broke the kiss, released her breasts and grabbed at the back of his t-shirt, dragging it off over his head and tossing it. When he reached for her again, he waltzed her backwards until she felt the edge of the bed against the backs of her legs.