by Fiona Roarke
Her answer didn’t seem to make him any happier. “Put your hands in the air,” he said in an overloud voice—like the louder he said it, the faster she’d comply. Nope. Not happening.
Victoria finished typing the last little bit to shore up Holden’s complete hospital file. A box came up on the screen asking her was she sure she wanted to save the changes to this file. Oh, yes. I’m sure.
Instead of putting her hands in the air, she reached for her Defender, hoping to point it in his direction and pull the trigger before he realized what had happened and then forgot all about her little visit tonight.
But after a thorough search using both hands, she found nothing attached to her waist. Victoria had raced out of the motel room without retrieving her Defender.
Spuds.
She’d gotten so used to leaving it behind day to day that she forgot to bring it when she needed it most.
Super spuds.
“I said, put your hands in the air.” The guy put a hand on the top of the holster attached to his waist. He’d brought his weapon.
Victoria wasn’t very good at reading minds, which was just as well in her life back in Alienn, and thank heavens Alphas couldn’t read each other’s minds.
“Okay. Don’t get your panties in a wad.” Victoria pulled out her flash drive and slid it into her pocket, hearing it clack against the vials of Holden’s blood. Please don’t break. She lifted her hands away from the keyboard, but hit the enter key to permanently save Holden’s changed file before doing so. Success—with the files. But failure—at not getting caught.
She straightened up, thinking furiously about what she should do.
“Back away from the computer.”
Victoria took one step backward. If she weren’t distracted by the coming space potato storm of being caught, she would have done a final thorough search to ensure all Holden’s files had been altered on the entire system.
“Come closer,” he said, motioning her with one hand.
“What are you going to do with me?”
“I’m going to put you in the holding cell we have downstairs, call the police, and tell them I found you fooling around with the computers in an area restricted to hospital employees.”
“That’s not going to work for me, I’m afraid.”
“I don’t much care what works for you. Come on over here.”
Victoria shook her head. She was stalling, and wishing for a miracle. Maybe Bubba would come through for her in her moment of supreme need any second now.
Would he have been issued a Defender? Maybe not. The leaders of Nocturne Falls and Alienn reached an understanding while she waited for Holden to wake up. Defenders were not supposed to come back into Nocturne Falls. But it wasn’t like Victoria could mail hers back to Arkansas.
She usually hid it in her backpack, which was in the motel room with a sleeping Holden.
Victoria felt her communicator buzz in her pocket. Was that Bubba? Was he close by, ready to save her? Please be close by ready to save me.
“Come over here or else,” the guard said.
“Or else what?” Victoria didn’t believe in idle threats. “Or else” had never worked on her.
“Or else I’ll make you come with me.”
“Well, that’s what it’s going to take,” she said with attitude in her tone. “You’re going to have to make me.” Victoria looked at his slight build and figured she might be able to disarm him if she made the effort. Of course, she didn’t want to get shot.
He took a step toward her, but paused. His eyes closed. What was he doing? He went limp, his arms fell to his sides and he collapsed to the ground.
Victoria looked around, wondering what had happened.
“Hey. Are you awake?” She approached the guard gingerly, hands still raised, looking all around for a reason as to why he had fainted.
“Hello?” she called out the open door. “Bubba? Is that you?” Victoria put her hands down, crept past the fallen security guard and approached the entry.
An ashen-faced Holden staggered into the entry, one hand holding onto the doorframe, the other holding her Defender. “Who is Bubba? Is that who you’re meeting here in secret?”
Victoria raced to him, arm going around his waist. He looked like he was about to fall down. “Holden? What are you doing here?”
His electric gaze fixed on her. He wasn’t frowning, exactly, but he wasn’t happy. “I’m trying to keep my wife out of jail.”
“How did you get my Defender to work for you? It’s keyed to only me.”
Holden gave her a superior look. “I know things.” Like how to re-wire their alien technology?
“No doubt.” She took it from him, noted scratch marks on the bottom where the power supply was housed. Did the Defender reset if you jiggled the battery wires? Unclear.
“Who is Bubba?” he asked again, sounding like a jealous husband. If only.
Victoria looked over her shoulder to ensure the guard was still out cold before she answered, “He’s the Royal Magistrate Guard that was sent here to find a stowaway.”
“What stowaway?”
“The one they believe caused the spaceship to crash.”
“Spaceship?” he asked, like he didn’t know.
“Very funny. Yes, Mr. Forgetful Pilot, the spaceship. You know. The one you flew here from Alpha-Prime and crashed into the Georgia forest.”
Holden’s expression flattened. His eyes closed and he slid out of her hold and down the doorframe until he was on his knees.
“Don’t faint on me.”
“Really trying not to.”
Victoria strapped her Defender to her waist, threw an arm around Holden’s middle and helped him stand back up. She heard the security guard cough. Time to go. Now!
They made their way to the staircase. Victoria eyed the elevator as they slowly moved past the corridor housing the conveyance, but it was too risky. There was no way to know if anyone waited to get them whenever the doors opened on the next floor it stopped at. She didn’t want to have to zap her way through the hospital. No doubt Sheriff Merrow would find out about that and be very unhappy with her.
Luckily they only had to go down one flight of stairs to get to the ground floor. Holden was moving pretty well with her help. She didn’t know how in the world he’d made it all the way to her without collapsing.
“How did you find me?”
“I got lucky. I remembered that you said you wanted to get my CT scans and my blood samples. There was a handy directory posted on a wall next to the stairwell. Radiology is on the second floor and was the first place I looked for you. The lab is two more flights up.”
“That is lucky. And I’m very grateful.”
“Anything for you, my lovely wife. Even if you are committing criminal acts.”
“Very funny.”
He gave her a curious look, but then focused his attention on putting one foot in front of the other. She didn’t know how they were ever going to get all the way back to the Pinehurst Inn. She might have to hide him somewhere and fetch the vehicle.
They made it as far as the small park with the decorative fountain across the street from the hospital. He lowered to sit on the fountain’s edge and she joined him, hoping he would recover his strength soon. They were a couple of streets from downtown Nocturne Falls and the main thoroughfare with all the cool shops and restaurants. In many ways, Nocturne Falls reminded her of home. Her home in Alienn, though, definitely not Alpha-Prime.
From their perch on the edge of the fountain, Victoria saw a similar scene to what she would have seen in downtown Alienn, Arkansas. Despite the hour, several townsfolk were out for a walk. A few had dogs on leashes. A few rode bicycles. One guy power-walked as sweat poured off of him, like he’d just run for miles. A couple strolled hand in hand away from them, likely headed to Main Street.
The lamplight around them was surprisingly bright, perhaps because the designers wanted to showcase the fountain. It was very pretty.
Holden scooped up a handful of water, letting it run through his fingers. Then he did it five more times, like he couldn’t believe his eyes. “I’ve never seen so much water that wasn’t reserved for drinking or growing food.”
“Lots of water here on Earth,” she said absently, thinking of a lake back home near Alienn. You could rent a paddleboat and pedal it like a bicycle all over the surface. Maybe in their fake life she and Holden could do that one weekend day every month or so.
“Sure looks like it, and so different from home.”
“Sounds like you’re getting your memory back,” Victoria said, only slightly sarcastically.
“Am I?” He managed to seem surprised.
“Well, you remembered that Alpha-Prime is a desert planet without much water and I, of course, assumed you recalled your life there. Not to mention you were able to disassemble the Defender and get it to work for you. That certainly came in handy today.
“I read somewhere in your dossier that you’re very good at taking things apart and putting them back together again.”
He shrugged. “I guess. Wait. You have a dossier on me?”
“You are very amusing.”
“Am I?” He sounded a little surprised. He was probably the type of guy who never wanted to boast about his strengths or accomplishments.
Victoria appreciated his efforts to keep up the pretense they’d been forced to use in the hospital in front of the earthlings. But he could relax a bit when it was just the two of them.
She turned to tell him that, but he didn’t look so good. Holden had lowered his gaze as if struggling to remember the differences between Earth and Alpha-Prime or perhaps his ability to assemble and disassemble things.
He didn’t snap his head back up all of a sudden or say, “A-ha! I do remember everything.” Instead, he grabbed one side of his head like someone had just popped him one on the skull and groaned in pain. His eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped over. Oh no! He tipped to one side, almost falling into the fountain.
Victoria grabbed Holden, using both arms wrapped around his shoulders to keep him from dropping sideways into the shallow pool.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw several teenagers dressed in Halloween costumes approaching them.
“Hey! Totally cool megaphone!” said an exuberant voice. Spuds, now what?
Victoria wrestled a barely conscious Holden up from falling headfirst into the fountain.
“Can I borrow it? Your megaphone, I mean. We’re headed to a costume contest downtown. It would take my fireman’s costume to a whole new level.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m very attached to my megaphone. I can’t loan it out.”
His brows scrunched as he looked her over head to toe and back up again. The other seven members of his pack of friends remained silent. “What are you dressed as?”
“A human with a totally cool megaphone,” she retorted. Couldn’t they see she was dealing with a sick man?
As if he heard her thoughts, the teenaged firefighter looked at Holden with a measure of contempt. “Is your friend drunk or high or something?” he asked, crossing his arms as if he were about to lecture her on the kind of friend she associated with and his weakened condition.
Victoria almost lost her battle to keep Holden out of the fountain. “My friend is very sick. Could you possibly help me out here?”
“Maybe we could trade. I’ll help you if you loan me your megaphone.”
Why should she give up her Defender for his use—a complete stranger—in a costume contest? It was absurd.
“No. Sorry. Not going to happen.” Victoria put her knee on the edge of the fountain, leveraged Holden in the right direction, barely, and reached for her Defender.
The young man in the firefighter suit took a step forward as she aimed it at him and pulled the trigger. She expected him and his friends to all drop into oblivion courtesy of Alpha alien technology.
She was disappointed.
It didn’t work. Were they supernatural teenagers? That would be just her luck.
She pulled the trigger again, then suddenly remembered Holden had tampered with it so he could use it on the hospital security guard. He must have reset it to his unique handprint.
Victoria guessed it was way too much to ask that they both could use her Defender now instead of one at a time. And something she planned to complain about at the next lessons-learned meeting in Alienn. Spuds.
“What are you doing?” the young man asked when it became clear she hadn’t been about to give the “megaphone” over to him. Holden remained seated on the edge of the fountain, but bent over, chest resting on his knees. If she moved or let go, he’d slide easily into the water.
She tried to put the Defender into his hand, but his fingers were all wet, making it nearly impossible to get it into his palm, let alone a finger on the trigger to shoot at the crowd of hooligans. If they were even susceptible to the power of the Defender.
Try as she might, Victoria couldn’t hold on to Holden and also help him shoot the Defender. It was increasingly frustrating.
Without warning, the fake fireman grabbed her Defender away from them both, holding it up in the air like he slayed a dragon in order to win the megaphone prize.
“Give that back, right now,” Victoria said.
“Make me,” he said, dancing back a few steps further out of her reach. “I need it.”
“It’s mine. You’re stealing it.”
“No. I’m only borrowing it.” He laughed and all his friends laughed with him. “Come on, let’s go,” he said to his gang, putting his mouth on the narrow end of the “megaphone” to command them. It didn’t make his voice louder, but he didn’t seem to care. She couldn’t let him leave with her Defender.
Victoria had two choices: keep Holden from sliding head first into the fountain or let him go and race forward to grab her Defender.
“Super spuds!” she screamed at the top of her lungs in utter frustration. The gang of costumed teenagers turned back at her outburst, but only laughed harder.
Teenaged troublemakers.
<^> <^> <^>
Holden was barely conscious as Victoria tried to fend off the attack of the costumed teenagers. He was so weak with pain that he felt about as useful as a cargo shipment of sand released in the middle of a desert. But when she yelled her curse to the skies above he tried to make more of an effort to at least remain conscious.
The tender spot near his temple throbbed, sending heated electric bolts of agony into his brain with each beat of his heart. It was as if someone repeatedly struck him right on that little bumpy wound, although nothing was touching that part of his head. The idea of even a finger coming into contact with his tender head would likely knock him out completely.
Holden used every bit of his waning strength to throw himself away from the luxurious fountain of water and onto the grass at its base. It reminded him of falling out of the spacecraft and onto the verdant forest floor.
Recalling his first memory in this strange new world didn’t make his temple hurt as much as trying to remember his life before it, but he still felt a tingle of pain. He focused on the feel of the cool grass beneath him. He opened his eyes and stared at an impossibly tall tree, with leaves that fluttered just a bit in the breeze. Mostly he did his best to think calm thoughts and not attempt to remember anything.
Victoria shouted again. “Bring that megaphone back!”
Holden lifted his head off of the grassy ground to see the group of costumed teenagers sauntering away. They hadn’t gotten far. He dearly wished he could run and chase them for her, but as he attempted to gather the strength to stand up and look menacing, something very odd happened.
The entire group of young Defender megaphone thieves collapsed on the sidewalk. Eight human heaps littered the ground a few yards away. Had the Defender gone off? Had they managed to shoot themselves?
“What just happened?” Holden asked, finally able to sit up and climb to his feet with Vic
toria’s help, although he felt as weak as a newly hatched desert puffin.
“I do not know.”
A whistling sound came from across the park area. They turned to see a very large, stern-looking man jogging toward them. He carried a Defender in one hand. Holden guessed he’d been concealed in the trees.
“Victoria?”
“Yes.”
“Bubba Thorne. I got your distress call. I shot them with my Defender from behind the trees, but I wasn’t certain of the range.”
Victoria made a noise of relief, let go of Holden’s arm and went to collect her Defender from the downed teenagers. To the newcomer, she said, “Thank you so much for showing up, Bubba. I wasn’t even sure you were in town yet, let alone with a Defender. I heard they weren’t issuing them for travel to Nocturne Falls anymore.”
“I talked Cam into it and promised only to use it in emergencies,” Bubba said.
Victoria grinned. Holden frowned. “Well, for future reference, the Defender works within fifty feet, so you had about ten more to spare.”
“Good to know.” The fierce-looking man suddenly cracked a smile. “Thanks for the information.”
“Who are you again?” Holden asked, crossing his arms and trying to look tough even though he felt frailer than ever.
“I’m the Royal Magistrate Guard the leaders from Alienn sent to find the stowaway.”
Holden nodded—the word stowaway was familiar—but then frowned as he wondered if this was the man Victoria had been talking to on her communicator in a hushed voice in the bathroom. He didn’t think so. He mulled over the significance of the word stowaway until his head started aching again. Anytime he tried to remember something specific, his head pounded. So annoying. Apparently his mind only allowed him to focus on the present and never the past without pain.
Victoria glanced down at the fallen young humans and said, “Let’s get out of here before they wake up. Where are you staying, Bubba?”
He grimaced. “At a place called the Pinehurst Inn. Not fancy, but the price was right. I’m not certain how long I’ll be here yet.”
“I understand. I’ve got a room there, too,” Victoria said.
