Alexei

by Serena Simpson

  “Ash.”

  Amber felt her lips twitch. Her dad did like speed and anything that would give it to him. Of course he found a way to stay on top of alien air craft.

  The door to their right opened and they were in the second command center. There was the captain’s chair. She headed for it wanting to sit in it. Alexei picked her up before she could sit down.

  “It’s booby trapped. It’s a precaution taken so that only the actual captain of the ship can sit there. An alarm would go off alerting them to our presence.”

  She nodded, shaking at how close she had come to giving their presence away.

  “Can you hack into their computer system?”

  “No, but I can get a secure line out. That’s all Uncle Hale needs, with that he can use it as a back door to enter their systems.”

  “He comes in, crashes the ships, and the war is over.”

  “I think I saw that movie, Amber and this won’t be that easy. There’s going to be war, fighting, death, and lots of gore. I wish I could tell you otherwise. Uncle Hale tapping into the computers is going to give us the one thing we need—a fighting chance.”

  He skimmed his fingers over the keys, slowly by passing security systems until he sent a silent thread of communication out. It finally beeped and his c-phone came alive at the same time. Hale was in.

  “What are you doing on the alien ship?” His uncle’s voice greeted him as he willed the phone to audio only.

  “We were caught in a trap and didn’t have a choice.”

  “Thanks for the back door hack and it’s time for you to go because they discovered three dead bodies and they are running a silent alarm.

  Amber groaned, so much for a nice easy escape.

  “You better get off that ship with her in one piece or you’ll wish they caught you. I am sending you a different route; the one you took is being secured. Go now.” Alexei memorized the route that overrode his audio. They were now on complete phone silence, only to show up as video. His uncle had some major abilities.

  “Amber, we have to go.”

  She took his hand and followed him out the door. Instead of going back up the corridor, they turned right hitting a parallel corridor taking them to another lift. Several turns and corridors later they found themselves on the back end of the corridor that led to the hangar.

  Having no other choice, they walked the empty corridor expecting someone to jump out at any moment.

  “This makes no sense. Where is everyone, I suspected someone to try to keep us from our ship.”

  “Amber, if we can get away without another fight let’s call that a good thing.”

  They slipped into the hangar with a sigh of relief. Now all they had to do was open the doors, get the hover car out, and fall long enough for the systems to come back on. Piece of cake or not as a figure of a female unraveled from in front of their car.

  “He was my mate.”

  “He tried to kill me, what else could I do?” Alexei asked her.

  “Die.”

  The woman turned into a snake just as long and deadly looking as her mate. Her skin was more of a silver metallic color but there was no doubting what she was. The hissing that came out as garbled gook from the translator showed just how angry she was.

  Amber moved out the way as Alexei changed shapes. The snake hit him with her tail knocking him across the room but not slicing him with a deadly barb. She seemed to want to play, make him suffer as much as possible.

  Alexei picked himself up and jumped at her. She was much quicker than her mate or maybe it was just that she had more open space to work with. She avoided his deadly claws, moving towards Amber.

  “Would you like to see your mate torn to shreds the way I saw mine?”

  She slithered on the floor as Amber backed up. Her c-phone came to life. “Amber why are you still on that ship.” So much for phone silence.

  “We’re kind of busted, Uncle Hale fighting for our lives.” She panted trying to talk and run at the same time.

  “Kill whatever’s after you and get off that ship. They know where you are and they’re coming for you.”

  Laughter left the snake woman’s mouth sounding like nails on a chalk board to Amber’s nerves.

  “Get in the hover car, Alexei.”

  He gave her a look and did as she requested. Amber ran towards the car, the snake woman blocked her. Amber gave her a sad smile.

  “Say hello to your mate for me.” Her body tensed and her muscles popped as she opened the door to the cargo bay. Using the strong wind current from outside, she whipped it around the snake’s body dragging her screeching and cursing from the bay.

  Amber ran to the car as the door to the bay opened. The ship tilted, the door to hangar burst open letting in more aliens. They rolled towards the open door. Amber used the wind to pull on the hover car and they went sliding out free falling.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Deep breaths, Amber, deep breaths, she repeated to herself as she tried to get her stomach to cooperate and not dry heave all over the hover car. Any remnants of a meal she had, she lost back in New Orleans still dry heaving when you couldn’t open a window was not great.

  “We’re alive, thanks to you,” Alexei said giving her a smile.

  “I think you had a lot to do with it this time. You need medical attention.”

  “I’ll make it, the wounds are closing already.”

  “How?”

  “I’m still Created even if I’m Hybrid. We heal quicker, it’s the deadlier wounds that need to be looked at. Even my leg is healing and that snake bite hurt him more than me.”

  She nodded feeling relief as she sank back into the seat.

  “Are you all right?” His concern came through in the deepness of his voice and the quiet solemnness of it.

  “I’m going to be fine. Why did this have to happen? Why couldn’t they leave us alone to live our lives in relative peace and quiet?”

  “I don’t know. What makes any being decide to eradicate another through warfare? All I know is your culture and mine is riddled with it. The galaxy is not a peaceful place and it was bound to bring its prejudices, desires, and greed to your shores one day.”

  “I know; we destroy ourselves a little bit at a time but this is different. We stop long enough to recuperate and try to talk our problems out. There will be no recuperating or talking to them. They said this was all about a fight between Yaksim and the Created. But who destroys a whole world over a fight? There has to be more.”

  Ambers voice held a pleading note as she begged Alexei to tell her that one male, with a personal vendetta against another, wasn’t about to try to blow her planet out of the sky for something as trivial as his bitterness.

  “I’m sorry, I wish I could tell you something different, offer you some kind of comfort, but all I know is what you know. Tyrants don’t take others into consideration. Their goal is to make our lives as miserable as possible.”

  She nodded and closed her eyes.

  “Amber will you go on a rollercoaster with me?”

  “What?”

  She opened her eyes. They were hovering just over the tallest peak of a coaster ride. It was one of the tallest in the world and Pittsburgh had it. It came to town roughly four years ago but she never got up the nerve to ride it. Would she ride it with him?

  She thought the amusement park was a ghost town so why was the coaster operating. She looked closer and found two cars were filled. She watched as hands went up in the air and laughter she couldn’t hear spilled from the participants. Why were they here?

  “Let’s ride a roller coaster,” she agreed; maybe she missed something. Hopefully they could tell her why they were here.

  He lowered the car to the ground until they could get out right at the fence surrounding the park. He sent the car back in the air instead of trying to find a place to park in the overcrowded lot.

  Amber looked down at her blood-splattered outfit. It was probably not the best outfit to wear w
hen trying to enter a park, not that there was anyone at the gates.

  The few people milling around the park seemed polite. They asked each other if there was anything they needed. Did they have a place to hole up if things got bad? She even watched as one woman offered a room to a homeless man.

  “Alexei, are we still on Earth?”

  “Yeah, this is Earth at its best. Everyone is coming together in any way they can even if it’s just to be polite with each other. This is why Earth has to survive, it’s great now but one day it will be epic.”

  She turned and moved into his arms kissing him.

  “Let’s find that coaster.” She took his hand and led him, weaving through groups of people.

  “The park seems bigger than the last time I was here.” Maybe because it was so empty. She expected everyone to flee or hide in their homes, but the reality of it was that some people wouldn’t give up. Just like the captain of a ship, they would go down with it.

  Where would they flee? There was no safe place on this planet. Maybe caves, but how do you find them if you’ve lived in the city all your life. There was a quiet resilience here. Determination that said they would fight. These were her people, the reason she killed. She wanted to keep her Earth safe.

  They passed by the space balls ride. They were small balls big enough for two people to be tossed in the air and then into a free fall before a mechanical arm reached out to catch them. It was much too similar to the free fall they did out the space ship. She would pass on that ride.

  They found the end of the line of the coater called The Eleventh Hour. Amber always thought it was because it was the last hour you might get to live. Alexei put his hand in hers and then raised it for a kiss.

  “What do you think of those saucers in the sky?” the couple before them asked.

  The woman was short with strawberry blonde hair and green eyes. She was beautiful. The man had dark brown skin and green eyes. They made the perfect couple.

  “I think they mean trouble,” Amber said softly.

  “I know they mean trouble. I have been analyzing where they are sitting and several of them are hovering over some of the worse fault lines we have, not just in the US but in the world. A few well-placed blasts and the world will go up in smoke before it breaks apart. Bye-bye humans, bye-bye world.”

  “How do you know this? I haven’t heard anything about it on the news.”

  “All I am is a techie trying to prove I know enough to advance. The big boys, the ones who should be telling the truth, are all vying with each other for power, so me and those like me are sounding the alarm to deaf ears. As far as their language, if I can decipher the code they are using then the big guys should be able to decipher it also.”

  “What’s your name?” Alexei asked the male.

  “Sorry for not introducing myself. My name is Marcus and this is Krista, my fiancée.”

  I am Alexei and this is Amber, my girlfriend.”

  Amber raised an eyebrow but stayed silent.

  “Marcus, have you heard of Hale Dare?”

  “Who hasn’t heard of him? That man is brilliant.”

  Alexei reached into his pocket and pulled out a c-phone. “This is a c-phone. You put it around your wrist. My Uncle, Hale Dare, designed it. If you touch this button right here it will connect you with him for an interview. After that he will decide to either allow the c-phone to continue t0 work allowing you to reach him or he will send a pulse through it to destroy it. If you try to tamper with it, it will self-destruct. He’s expecting your call after the coaster ride.”

  “How can I thank you?”

  “Amaze him like you amazed me.”

  “You’re next.” The couple in front of them got in the car and slowly began the ride our out of the terminal.

  “We’re next,” Amber’s stomach dropped and her heart raced as she thought of their turn to ride the coaster.

  The car pulled to a stop letting out happy people who were cheering and saying they wanted to go again. Once it was empty it was their turn to get on. They got in the first car; Alexei gripped her hand as it slowly pulled out of the station.

  They whipped around and went down some hills causing Amber to laugh aloud. Now they were climbing the highest hill. She looked down, the people on the ground looked like ants. She looked up but couldn’t spot the ship she knew was around.

  They reached the top and Alexei put their hands in the air. The coaster went over causing the wind to snatch the scream out of her mouth. She lifted her other hand and enjoyed the ride. She was laughing with everyone else as they finally pulled into the station. “That was fun,” she said as she jumped into his arms. He swung her around until they both were dizzy and then gave her a kiss.

  “We’re alive, Amber, and as long as we are, we’re going to enjoy life and beat the invaders every chance we get.”

  “Let’s get something to eat; I feel like I threw breakfast up somewhere along the way.” She directed him to the rows of food stands. “Potato patch fries. From what I understand this has been here forever because everyone love’s French fries.”

  “I never could understand what I was supposed to enjoy about these grease sticks” They moved up in the line.

  “If you don’t want your grease sticks, I’ll eat them.” Amber rubbed her tummy as Alexei watched her touch herself.

  “Eyes back on my face.”

  “Do that for me when we get back to my place,” he leaned over and whispered in her ear. “I am so hard for you. I want to feel your sweetness wrapped around me again. I want to taste you.”

  Amber moaned at the thought of his lips on her, licking and sucking.

  “Can I help you?”

  She looked up realizing they were next in line. “Can we get a large fries with cheese on the side and two large drinks?”

  “Coming right up.” Amber reached up and ran the back of her hand in front of the scanner paying their bill quickly. She had a chip embedded that contained both her funds as well as medical information. The appropriate one was tapped into by the type of scanner.

  The server came back with their food calling out next as they walked away and sat at an empty table.

  “Where to after this?”

  “Back to my house.”

  “Shouldn’t we check in or something?”

  “Uncle Hale knows we’re at the Amusement park. He’s tracking our every move. Besides, I had to call him to tell him about the interview.” He tapped the side of his head. “As far as going to someone else’s house, I think we need a rest. We have had a long day, in fact…” he checked his watch, “it’s now tomorrow. We need sleep.”

  “I agree.” They finished their fries and left the park. It would be closing soon, anyways.

  The walk out of the park was long. The few people there were cleaning up, employees and park goers alike.

  “What happens? The longer we wait for the other shoe to drop, do we stop coming out or going to the park? Do we lie down and die?”

  Alexei turned to look at her. They were standing on the curb outside of the park.

  “No matter how much I want to pick the whole world up and tell them to move, it’s not a movie, we can’t do that. Some people will learn to fight and some won’t. It’s like…actually it’s war, but now instead of a nation against a nation, it’s the world—us against them.”

  She nodded. The sad thing was it always seemed it was a case of us against them. At least they would unite the world. We finally have a common goal—the survival of mankind.

  Alexei called the hover car down, they climbed in and took off.

  “I like this car; it’s nice not having to park it in a lot.”

  “It’s a convenience, there will come a day when our skies will be crowed and our streets and lots will be clear.”

  “Maybe I’ll live to see that day.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Home. Not really her home, Alexei’s home, but for the moment it felt like home. Her scent combined with his c
ame to greet her, comforting her with how they mingled together. Tomorrow she would want to clean the place thoroughly but today comfort was what mattered.

  “You keep bringing me here and I’ll have to pretend to move in and bring my own toothbrush and extra clothes.”

  “We can swing past your place tonight and get them.”

  “Alexei!” His words lit a fire making her want to see her things mingled with his.

  “I’m serious, what’s stopping us. I don’t know what’s happening between us. If I listen to all I’ve been told, I’m too young for a commitment. I don’t feel young and being with you feels right.”

  “It’s only been once maybe after the second time you’ll hate it. You’ll hate me; maybe after the second time you’ll want to experience someone else. Why should one person be all you get to try when there’s a world of flavor out there? Alexei, you’ll live forever or at least forever compared to me. You can’t just say I’m the one.”

  Pain slashed through her heart as she spoke. Alexei growled deep and menacingly, Amber walked into the bathroom not being able to face him anymore. She was right and she knew it. He would be the only one for her but how could she ask him to waste years of his life. Wasn’t that selfish? She would spend the time in the shower convincing herself she needed to let him go, because she wanted more than a second or a third lay with him—she wanted forever or however long his forever was. She wanted in for good or bad and everything in between. Who was she fooling besides herself? She loved him and it wasn’t the sex that was great, it was the times spent with him. The working together, the having each other’s backs. She was helpless, how could she fall in love with the one man who was off limits? How could she want him to bite her when she knew it was the one thing he couldn’t give her.

  She stepped into the shower after pulling off her foul clothes and stuck her face in the water. This way she could pretend it wasn’t tears running down her cheeks.

  “We can get you whatever shower gels you want, so you don’t have to use what I have, but I must admit I love smelling my scent on your skin.”