by Lily Thomas
Escaping the Hunt
Lily Thomas
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by Lily Thomas
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce the book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information email [email protected].
www.lilythomasromance.com
ISBN: 9781549711909
ISBN: B075HQ3HZW (ebook)
Chapter 1
“Keep your hands up!” Her coach yelled at her. “Protect your face.”
Skyler gave a grunt over the teeth guard in her mouth, as she held her cherry red gloves in front of her face and bounced on the balls of her feet. Then she let out a couple quick jabs at the swinging punching bag.
“Good. Good. Now let’s do it again, but this time keeps your arms in closer to your body. Her coach critiqued.
“Em gwettin tird.” Skyler tried to say over her mouth piece.
“Stop trying to talk and get training. If we don’t improve your form, you won’t be winning your next match.” Her coach came up to hold the punching bag for her. “You want to win, right? Can’t you see the trophy? All shiny and gold? Not to mention the money we’ll both make.”
“O coose.” Skyler said over her mouth piece again. She’d been imagining winning the championships for the last year. It was so close, and she could taste victory. It’d be so sweet and so filling.
“Would you take that damn thing out of your mouth? Not like you need it when you’re only versing a punching bag. It’s not about to punch you back, and I can barely understand you when you speak.”
Skyler took off one of the gloves, and then took out her mouth piece. “I like training with all my equipment on. I always train this way. You know that. It’s like my good luck charm.”
Her coach, Michaela, shook her head, but gave a laugh. “Fine then, take a break, get some water. But I want you training for your next match, and you don’t need a good luck charm. You’ve got skill on your side. That’s why we practice so much, or are you trying to tell me I have no social life for absolutely no reason?”
Michaela clicked her fingers in front of Skyler’s face. “Did you hear anything I just said?”
Skyler heaved a sigh. “Robert’s been getting on my nerves lately. It’s all I can think about.”
“How so?” Michaela folded her arms in front of her chest, as she leaned up against a wall. Not only was she Skyler’s coach, but it was her job to make sure nothing else interfered with her best assets ability in the ring, kind of like a shrink.
Skyler stripped off her other boxing glove and put them on a bench. “I think he’s getting jealous of the time I spend training and my overall fame.”
“Jealous? How so? You provide him with a pretty good lifestyle. I don’t see him doing much for you.”
“We’ve definitely had a few more blowouts recently about what I plan on doing with my job. He wants a woman who is willing to settle down with him.”
“Blowouts? Nothing I need to worry about, right? Nothing physical?” Michaela would probably personally kick Robert’s ass, if she thought Skyler would get hurt. Not just because she was a good friend, but because Skyler was worth a lot of money at the moment.
“No, nothing to worry about. Just arguments.”
“You hear about some of those psychotic boyfriends who lose it when their girlfriend leaves or doesn’t do what they say.” Michaela warned.
Skyler shook her head. “Robert won’t become a psychotic boyfriend.”
“Maybe it’s time for you to find a new boyfriend. Someone who doesn’t feel threatened by you being the breadwinner. Any man should be proud of your success.”
Skyler popped open the top of her water bottle and took a greedy sip. “Yeah, maybe. I just don’t know. I was hoping we could work through it.”
Michaela shrugged. “Might come down to what means more to you, this relationship with Robert and making him happy, or your career and making yourself happy. Whichever keeps you moving through life and makes you satisfied.”
Her coach was right. It was probably time for her to choose which one was more important.
“In less than a year, you have the championships. You’re so close to your goal.”
“But if I win the championships, my life might get even busier with sponsors and media.”
“But you’ll be making a lot more and doing the thing you love.”
Skyler smiled. “So will you.”
“True, but I won’t pressure you either way. As long as you do what’s right for you.” Michaela gave her a one-armed hug around the shoulders. “You’re a strong woman, Skyler, and if Robert’s bringing you down or making you doubt yourself, it’s time to make a decision. I’m not only your coach, I’m your friend as well.”
She was right. Skyler had recently been missing more practices, just so she could make Robert feel better, but it also meant sacrificing a career she’d worked so hard for.
It was time she left Robert, so he could go find the right woman and she could find the right man. Skyler had wanted the relationship to work, but she wanted a man who could stand by her side and not feel threatened by her success as well.
With the decision made, she put her gloves back on, put in her mouth guard, and started sparing with the punching bag.
It’d been a day since she’d kicked her dead-beat boyfriend out, and she was currently on a train ride home after training. She’d told Robert to move out and get a life while he was at it. He hadn’t been paying rent, making dinners, and he didn’t even have a job, yet he was jealous of her success. Enough had been enough.
Skyler glanced out the window of the train and enjoyed the lights of the city passing her by. The planet she lived on, Jirian, was home mainly to well off athletes. It had a good balance of aliens and humans, which made it a diverse and interesting place to live. Plenty of appealing alien food and the ability to explore new cultures. It was everything she wanted and needed on a planet.
The train stopped at her station, and Skyler made her way off and over to her apartment complex, which was only a half a block away.
Once she made it inside her apartment, she uncorked a bottle of wine imported from another planet, grabbed a glass, and hit the button on her answering machine.
“First message.” A mechanical female voice said through the speakers in her walls.
“I can’t believe you left me. Is there another man? Is that the reason you left?” Robert’s whiney voice filled her apartment.
Skyler rolled her eyes and took a deep sip of her wine. “No, I left you because you’re a dead beat.”
“Do you think you can meet a man better than me? I’ll make you sorry you broke it off with me.”
Skyler rolled her eyes again. If he wasn’t careful, she’d report him to the authorities, and then he’d be sorry he even called her. He was threatening her, and now she had it on tape. So much for reassuring Michaela that Robert wouldn’t turn out to be an insane ex-boyfriend.
“Second message.” The mechanical woman came over the speakers again.
“Why have you left me?” Robert whined over the message. “I’d do anything to get back with you. Just tell me what I did wrong!”
“End messages.” Skyler couldn’t listen to one more second of this. Not tonight. All she wanted to do was have a glass of wine and relax, not listen to Robert whine and moan on
her answering machine. The man really didn’t have a life.
Slowly, she made her way to bed. She didn’t miss Robert, but the large apartment did feel a bit emptier with just her in it. Maybe she’d think about buying a pet or two. And a little after that she might think about dating again, but this time she’d take things a bit slower.
She’d rushed into her relationship with Robert, and it hadn’t turned out as she’d hoped.
Skyler bolted up in bed and listened to the darkness around her. Her eyes darted around, but only blackness greeted her.
Had she just heard a glass break? Was Robert back inside her apartment?
She’d changed the locks to her apartment, so he shouldn’t have been able to get in with his key card. Or maybe a dream had woken her up, and she was worrying about nothing at all.
Skyler plopped her head back down on her pillow, but a few seconds later she heard something move downstairs. Was that a chair scraping against her tile floors? Someone was definitely in her apartment.
Quickly, she stretched her arm across her bed and pressed the emergency button under her nightstand. Within minutes the police would show up and hopefully take care of whoever was messing around in her apartment.
Now all she had to do was hide and wait for them to show up. She was glad Michaela had convinced her to get the security system. As a well-known boxer, she could be chosen as a victim of a crime.
She just hadn’t expected to ever use the security system. She’d mainly gotten it just to make Michaela happy.
Her heart stopped, as she heard some more sounds from below her room. What if Robert had come back with a plasma gun? Maybe after a couple drinks he wasn’t thinking properly and had somehow found his way into her apartment to end her.
Skyler leapt off her bed, darted into her bathroom, and locked the door behind her. She might be a boxer, but she only versed other human women in a fairly controlled environment, and she was worried her intruder might be armed. Maybe she should have gotten a weapon instead of a security system or both.
She glanced around her sparse bathroom.
“Dammit!”
There was nothing for her to use as a weapon, unless she wanted to throw a bar of soap at the intruders in her apartment. There weren’t any windows either, not that it would matter since she was on the thirty-third floor.
This whole situation was making her reconsider her life choices. She needed an apartment on the first or second floor, and she needed more than just a security system. Maybe a large animal or a large plasma gun. She was a lone woman now.
Maybe cloistering herself in the bathroom had been a bad idea as well. Now there was nowhere for her to run or hide. She was out in the open, so to speak.
Footsteps came stomping up her stairs, and Skyler’s breath hitched in her throat as her heart plunged to the floor. She was afraid her breathing might give her hiding spot away. Hopefully it was just some burglars who would leave after they got what they wanted, like her jewelry box.
Then another pair of feet came tromping up her stairs. If it was Robert coming back to honor the threats on her answering machine, then he’d brought a friend along.
If they came into the bathroom, she would give them a fight. Hopefully the police would arrive at her apartment at any second.
Then the footsteps made their way into her bedroom, and her heart leapt into her throat.
Skyler could hear the intruders rifle around in her room, and then the doorknob to her bathroom rattled. Then the door shook, as someone on the other side tried to get in a little more forcefully.
Skyler prayed they’d leave her alone when they couldn’t get inside. She had plenty of valuables for them to steal. Unless they were here to steal her and get a ransom. They’d get a hefty ransom, that was for sure.
They had to know she was in the bathroom, because no one locked a bathroom from the outside. At least, no one that she knew.
The door stopped shaking and everything went quiet for a few seconds.
What were they doing?
Skyler wanted to move, but she held completely still anyways. No need to make any unnecessary noises.
Slowly, she let out the breath she’d been holding, and then the door came flying in and a scream ripped out of her throat as she leapt out of the way of the flying door.
An alien man came striding into the bathroom.
Skyler reached up and yanked the bar for her shower curtain down. She gave a wild swing with the bar, the alien man ducked under the metal bar, and then grabbed her before she could get another swing in, and dragged her out of the bathroom.
Skyler’s arms whipped out, and her hands latched into the doorframe of her bathroom. She kicked out her legs, hoping to beat the man in the face, but her feet didn’t connect with anything other than air.
Another alien man came up and pried her hands off the doorframe. She wiggled in their grasps, but they cuffed her hands behind her back.
“Do you want money? I can pay you both quite a bit. I’m quite wealthy.” Why not try to bribe them? She really had nothing to lose at this point.
They didn’t respond, so she kept trying to wiggle out of their grasps even though someone else would have given in by then. She refused to make this kidnapping easy for them.
They dragged her over to the stairs, and she saw an opportunity. Rushing forward she knocked her shoulder into one of the alien’s backs and sent him flying down the metal stairs. She felt hope soar through her chest. She could take them out. They’d messed with the wrong woman.
The alien behind her growled something right before a needle stuck her in the side of the neck.
“What the…?” Skyler spun around, her heels balanced dangerously on the edge of a step and almost went tumbling down the stairs herself, but the alien’s arms shot out and caught her.
Whatever they’d pumped into her bloodstream was slowing her down, and Skyler lost control of her limbs as they fell limp at her sides.
The alien swept her up in his arms, made his way down the stairs, and growled something at the other alien who was in the process of picking himself up off her floor.
Skyler tried to smirk at him, but she’d also lost control of her facial muscles and all she could manage was a gurgle and grimace. She only wished the fall had caused him more harm than it had. A broken leg would have been nice, or maybe a cracked skull. They both deserved it for breaking into her apartment, and then kidnapping her.
They carried her onto her enormous porch where there was a shuttle waiting. They’d landed on her porch? She was amazed her porch could handle such a weight load.
So not the thing to be focusing on at the moment. Whatever they’d stuck her with wasn’t only making her slowly fade out, it was making her a bit loopy.
Skyler glimpsed flashing lights in the distance as emergency shuttles came their way. She tried to struggle, but she couldn’t get her limbs to cooperate. If only she could postpone them just a couple minutes longer!
Slowly, black dots covered her vision, and then she blacked out as despair consumed her.
Chapter 2
As Skyler sucked in a deep breath, something tickled the tip of her nose. Blinking her eyes, she squinted at the sun above her. Where was she?
Getting into a sitting position she looked around. She was laying on the ground, but it couldn’t be Jirian, because Jirian was a desert like planet, and the area around her was lush with bushy trees and green grass all around her. Her hands skimmed over the blades of the grass.
It was so green. Skyler blinked her eyes again, as she let them grow used to the bright light and the blinding greenery. It’d been a long time since she’d seen such a green planet. So, if she wasn’t on Jirian, where was she?
Also, what had happened between getting kidnapped and getting plopped here? She tried to rack her brain for why the aliens would just leave her in the middle of a field with nothing but the clothes on her back. Didn’t they want a ransom? They couldn’t get a ransom without her.
&n
bsp; Skyler stood up and looked around. She’d been abandoned on a planet in her pajamas. Thankfully, her pajamas were green, so it wasn’t like she’d stand out to any wildlife roaming around. Her toes spread out against the grass. Her kidnappers hadn’t been kind enough to give her a pair of shoes.
She glanced down at her wrist and found her hair band still in place. Quickly, she put her hair up into a ponytail. Then she searched her pockets for anything useful, but came up empty.
After spinning in a full circle, she concluded there was nothing but trees around her. Maybe there was a town or city she could walk to. But which way to walk? Her eyes narrowed, as she scanned the area around her.
She bit her bottom lip, as the wheels in her head turned. She’d never been faced with such a problem and wasn’t an outdoorsy person so she really didn’t have any idea of where to start.
But she did decide that waiting forever for a rescue didn’t sound like such a good idea. She’d rather get on the move instead of waiting around in the open. She had no idea what planet she was on, which meant she didn’t know what kind of wildlife could come stumbling upon her.
If she was being honest, she was a bit scared, which was an uncommon emotion for her. If it came down to her surviving in the wilderness, Skyler knew she wouldn’t make it too far. She was too used to modern amenities.
Somehow, she had to find a way off the planet or had to find a way to communicate to any nearby help. Michaela would sound the alarm, and so would the authorities. They must have found her apartment empty and were probably already searching for her. All she had to do was stay alive and find civilization on this planet.
Assuming she wasn’t the only person on the planet. Her heart froze in her chest. She was worth quite a bit of money, so the search would go on. Skyler just hoped the authorities would actually be able to find her on a random planet.
There was no way for her to know how much time had passed since she’d been accosted in her apartment and now. She could have been out for more than just a day. A week could have passed, and she would have never known any better.
Skyler decided she would spend the upcoming night in the same area and head off sometime the following morning.
