by E. A. James
“What do we do now?” she asked him as they made their way back towards the Gen-Lab main campus.
“Don’t worry,” he said wrapping his arm around her and leading her to the parking lot. “I have an idea.” He walked over to one of the handful of cars parked there. He smiled at her over his shoulder as he threw his elbow into the window of the car, breaking it upon impact.
The car let out a loud alarm, which he was able to quickly deactivate by pulling at a few wires under the steering wheel. She stood, wide-eyed, as she watched him fidget around with one wire then another. “How do you know how to do that?” she asked in amazement when the car’s engine buzzed to life.
“I told you,” he said as he slid into the driver’s seat and waited for her to run around the car to get in as well. “I was a pilot back home.”
“A pilot is one thing,” she said as he backed the car out of the lot and took off down the road. “A car thief is another.”
“It’s not that complicated,” he explained. “Once you understand the workings of a complex engine like the ones we have, something as simple as a car is nothing really.”
They drove for some time, the wind whipping into the car through the broken window. “Where will you go?” she asked him after they were sure they were far enough from the fight and were safe.
“I don’t know,” he answered, not taking his eyes off the road. “We’re going to have to keep searching for a place to settle.”
“It has to be hard,” she said trying to imagine how he must feel, “not having anywhere to call home, being constantly on the move.”
“It is,” he said reaching out and taking her hand in his, still keeping his gaze focused ahead of him. “But you want to know something?”
“Sure.”
“Leaving Zexilon was sad; it was scary venturing out, not knowing if we would ever find somewhere to call home again.”
“I imagine.”
“But leaving you now—it’s harder than that.”
She leaned in and rested her head on his shoulder, letting the heavy feeling in her chest consume her. She closed her eyes and listened to the sound of the wind whirling around them, trying not to give in to her sadness. It wasn’t long before she drifted to sleep, letting the safe, secure feeling of being with him comfort her one last time.
When she woke up, they had arrived at their destination. Before her, she saw an enormous, sleek, metallic ship. “Unbelievable,” she whispered, sitting up and wiping the sleep from her eyes, not fully comprehending what she was seeing.
Amias turned and smiled at her, laughing slightly. “I’m guessing you’ve never seen one of these before.”
“It looks like something out of a movie,” she replied, unable to pull her eyes away.
When he parked the car, they both got out. She continued to observe the massive construction. It looked large enough to house a small city. The entire thing seemed to be made of windows, although she couldn’t see inside any of them. “Amias!” she heard a woman’s voice call out.
Shifting her attention from the ship to what was going on in front of it; she saw a small group of people running in their direction. “Nayara!” Amias called out to the woman who was leading the rest.
When they met, they threw their arms around each other and hugged happily. Turning to Nicole, Amias made a quick formal introduction. “Nicole,” he said holding out his hand for her to take it. “This is Nayara. She’s another pilot in my fleet.”
“Nice to meet you,” Nicole replied, her face blushing slightly.
“You too,” the woman smiled at her kindly. “Is she coming with us?” she asked Amias.
“No,” he said dejectedly. “She had things she needs to do here.”
“Well,” the lady said looking between them. Remembering what Amias had told her about his kind’s abilities to read emotions, she wondered if Nayara could sense the feelings shared between the two of them. “I’m sorry to say it,” she continued. “But we have to get going, soon.”
“I’ll be right there,” he answered her. When she had walked away and out of earshot Amias turned to Nicole, placing his hand on her shoulders and looking down at her sadly. “I don’t want to leave you,” he whispered.
“I don’t want you to go,” Nicole replied, throwing her arms around him and holding him close.
“You can change your mind,” he said softly. “You can come with us.”
The idea suddenly seemed like the only option. She didn’t know why she had considered anything else before. Standing there, his arms wrapped around her, she was complete. There was nothing here for her. She was about to tell him that she would—she would go with him—when the sound of a gun firing rang through the air.
“What was that?” she asked pulling away from him and looking in the direction the sound came from. Not far from where they were, she saw a caravan of vehicles moving rapidly in their direction. Standing on the bed of one of the trucks, wielding a very large gun was her father.
“Get back here!” she heard Nayara’s voice yell to them to take cover.
Amias grabbed her hand and hurriedly led her towards the ship. “Nicole!” she heard her father’s voice call to her. Stopping abruptly and turning to face him, she saw that they had stopped their cars just about twenty yards from where she and Amias were standing. “Nicole! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Stay away!” Amias yelled in return, warning him not to make a move in their direction.
“You shut the hell up!” her father replied. “I’m speaking to my daughter!”
Nicole tried to take a step forward, but Amias kept a firm hold on her hand. “I have to go,” she said turning to look up at him. “If I go to him, maybe he’ll let your people go peacefully.”
The sound of guns being loaded and cocked around them seemed to be deafening. “No,” Amias said to her firmly. “It doesn’t matter. He won’t let us leave, no matter what.”
Before she can respond, a loud crack filled the air. “Someone fired! You know what to do, boys,” Nayara said to her group.
They all began to change quickly, filling the air with a heavy heat and thick cloud of smoke. “Nicole,” Amias said, leaning in so that she could hear him over the commotion going on around them. “You have to believe me. I know. I can sense it. He’s not going to stop!”
Around them, a battle suddenly broke out. She tried to make out the figures darting back and forth, but the smoke still hung in the air making it hard to see exactly what was happening. “Stay here!” Amias ordered her.
“Okay,” she agreed, too afraid to do anything else.
As he took off to join his people in the fight Nicole stood, motionless, watching the two sides attack. The air was filled with tension and a hint of confusion as the cloud of smoke prevented her father’s men from seeing their targets clearly.
At first, she didn’t feel it—the stray bullet that hit her. She was too paralyzed by fear that her senses refused to register the blow. But when she looked down and saw a red stain forming around her left shoulder her body jolted suddenly with pain.
Letting out a scream, she fell to the ground, clutching her arm and trying to stop the bleeding. The sounds around her became muffled, and her vision blurry. The last thing she remembered seeing was her father’s face, staring at her from a distance, the same look of disappointment spread across it that he always had for her.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
When she woke up, she was in a hospital room. Her body ached, and her head was pounding. It took a while for her eyes to adjust, but when they did she saw the face of a woman peering down at her. “Hello, there,” the woman said to her sweetly.
“Where am I?” Nicole asked, trying to remember the events.
“You’re in the hospital, dear,” the woman said, turning away from her and writing something down on a chart next to her bed.
“Where is Amias?” Nicole asked, quickly remembering the last time she saw him. He was in a battle; her fath
er was there. “Is he okay?”
“You need to rest,” the woman said to her, not answering her question.
“No!” she yelled out. “Where is he? Is he okay?” she felt a wave of panic wash over her. If she wasn’t answering her questions, it had to be because something happened! The woman just patted her shoulder and turned to walk out of the room. “Wait!” she cried out after her. “Come back!” But it was too late, the woman was gone, and it was clear she wasn’t coming back.
“You shouldn’t yell in a hospital,” she heard a familiar voice say; “it’s not polite.” Around the corner, Amias appeared. His arm was in a sling, and he had a bandage going across his head.
“You’re alive!” she exclaimed, a feeling of relief filling her. “I was so worried! I had no idea what happened to you!”
He walked over to her bed and sat down next to her, smiling at her kindly. “How are you feeling?” he asked stroking her hair slowly.
“Better now that you’re here,” she replied. “But, wait,” she said, pushing herself up. A jolt of pain radiated out from her arm, but she tried her best to ignore it. “What about your people? Where are they? Did they get away? How are you here?”
“Nicole,” he said slowly, “look around you.”
She did as he said and noticed that the hospital room she was in was unlike any she had seen before. The machines appeared more advanced, and the lights let off a warm green color, instead of the usual fluorescent white. The wall next to her bed was covered in panels, all closed up tightly. “Are we on the ship?” she asked as the pieces fell into place.
Amias reached over and grabbed a small remote sitting next to her bed. “What do you think?” he asked, pressing a button. The panels next to her hummed quietly as they slid up, disappearing into the ceiling, revealing a large window. Outside all she saw was dark space, with points of bright white lights sprinkled across it—stars.
“Wow,” she said, letting her jaw hang open.
“When you got shot, I had to bring you on board,” he explained. “You needed immediate attention, and your father didn’t seem concerned enough to make sure you got it.”
“My father,” she said under her breath. “Is he okay?” As much as she despised him, he was still her father. She still felt a sort of obligation to worry about him.
“That’s what I love about you,” Amias said. “You care about him, even though he treated you the way he did.”
“He brought me to you, didn’t he?” she asked smiling.
“Yes, he did,” he answered, leaning forward and kissing her quickly on her forehead. “And don’t worry. He’s fine. He was injured in the fight, but it wasn’t anything major. He drove off with his men, and I’m sure he’ll recover.”
“Good,” she said letting herself relax and fully absorb where she was and what was happening. “So, I’m going with you?” she asked, a hint of relief and excitement in her voice.
He leaned in and kissed her softly. “You’re coming with me,” he said to her. “We found a new planet. One that will support life.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” he said taking her hand in his. “We’re going there now. One of our other scout teams found it, and it’s safe, Nicole! We can settle there, forever. We can make a life there!” He lifted her hand and placed a soft kiss on the back of her knuckles. “You and me,” he said looking her deep in the eyes. “We can make a life there—together.”
*** THE END ***
THE PRIMAL BILLIONAIRE
CHAPTER ONE
Margaret could sense someone standing over her. She didn’t have to open her eyes to know who it was—Liz. She kept her eyes squeezed shut, hoping that her roommate would eventually go away. It didn’t work. Liz began to noisily move around the room, clanging glasses together, and shuffling through papers. She must have lost patience with Margaret, because the next thing she knew, Liz was tossing bits of old popcorn in her direction.
“I’m up,” Margaret said, covering her face with her hands to prevent any more kernels from hitting her.
“About time,” Liz said annoyed. She gathered up a handful of dishes and walked out of the room.
As Margaret sat up, she wiped the sleep from her eyes, and let her legs hang over the edge of the small, beat-up couch. She couldn’t believe that this was where she had ended up. When she moved to New York six months ago she had big dreams and high hopes. She was going to be a famous actress; she was going to make a name for herself.
The city proved to be a lot more unfriendly than she had expected. Coming from a small town in upstate New York, Maggie was unfamiliar with the heartless, cold, no-nonsense world that was the Big Apple. In the last months, she hadn’t gotten one single acting job—not even a commercial spot or uncredited appearance on a TV show. She had been to more auditions than she could count, and nothing. She had already blown through her savings, which was what led her to this—sleeping on the old couch in the small, cramped family room of a dumpy two bedroom apartment in Queens. Initially she had her own room. It was a small room but it had a door and privacy, and provided her with some sort of dignity. But when she could no longer afford to pay the rent, her roommate found someone else who could.
It was true that Liz’s willingness to let Maggie crash on the couch until she could get on her feet could be perceived as kind. But that’s not what it felt like. Margaret was more convinced that the only reason Liz hadn’t kicked her out completely was because she enjoyed having her around—it made her feel better about herself. She was constantly putting her down, reminding her on an almost daily basis that she was on the brink of complete failure.
Liz had been living in the city for several years, and she was not afraid to tell Margaret that she didn’t think she “had what it took” to survive. “You’re too weak,” she said one day while they were watching TV. “This city is going to chew you up and spit you out. You’re better just going back to wherever it is you came from. Save yourself the embarrassment and pain.”
Her roommate’s observations did little to help Maggie’s self-confidence, which was always low. Her family and friends from home had always said that she would need to be more certain of herself if she was going to make it in the overly competitive world of acting. Until recently it had never been an issue. Taking on roles in school plays and small, local productions was never a problem for her. She enjoyed the experience of being someone else—it was an escape from who she was.
But now she could see that being able to portray someone self-assured and confident wasn’t enough. When going to auditions and casting calls, she needed to show the directors that she was someone who was comfortable in her own skin—someone who had spunk and tenacity.
And that was not Margaret. She couldn’t be confident with who she was when she found herself so boring and plain. While she didn’t think she was unattractive, she didn’t think she was attractive either. She was just average. Her hair was medium length and a very dull color of brown. Her eyes matched her hair—dull brown. She was curvy, something that she never seemed to care about or notice before. But now, going to compete with other girls, all skinny and slender, she suddenly felt out of place.
Maggie got to her feet to begin folding up the sheet she used the night before, when she saw the newspaper on the coffee table. This was Liz’s newest way of dropping hints that she wanted her out. Every morning for the last week she had left the paper out and opened to the classifieds.
After putting the sheet away, Margaret returned to the couch and began scanning the columns for potential jobs. Most required some level of experience, all in areas that she had none. There was nothing—literally nothing—that fit into Margaret’s limited frame of abilities.
Moving past the jobs section, she decided to look at other sections of the classifieds. “There has to be something I can do,” she said under her breath as she continued to scan the black print. When she came across the “Situations Wanted” section she paused momentarily. The only things she saw we
re for escorts. “Right,” she scoffed, “’escorts’.” She knew what that meant—prostitutes. Her mother had worried that her moving to the big city would end in her selling her body for money. “I’ll move home before I do that,” she said to herself determinedly.
As she continued reading one ad caught her eye: “CARETAKER. No experience necessary. Must live in.” She sat back and stared at the wall in front of her. No experience necessary; must live in. It seemed perfect. If anything it was a way to get out of her current living situation.
“This might just work,” she said to herself, looking back down at the paper in her hand.
CHAPTER TWO
“Are you going to call?” Liz questioned her eagerly when she told her about the ad she had seen.
