He wiggled three fingers.
This fucking guy. “It’s nice to see that you can count so high. But can you add?”
The smirk slid from his face. “Don’t tell me the kids have pods too.”
“Noooo, why would I ever tell you something like that and ruin your day?”
He eyed her cautiously. “Is that sarcasm again?”
“Bingo.” At his apparent confusion, she leaned a shoulder against the frame of the cave. “I’ll let you in on a little secret. Our pods are synched. So if I tell Adam to push his transportation icon, we all drop into a pod, no matter how far apart we are, and we’ll meet up at the next destination. Whoever brought us here is an asshole, but at least they wanted us to stay together as a family.”
“That’s not possible,” he said in disbelief.
She showed him her pearly whites. “Oh, but it is.”
“Fryx!”
“What does that mean? My translator didn’t pick that word up.”
He rolled his eyes, shook his head, and let out a deep breath simultaneously. “It’s a vulgar word. It shouldn’t be used around children.”
“Oh, so you’re suddenly concerned about my children?”
“Only about the bonus they might fetch me.”
The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She straightened from her relaxed pose and smiled, but there was no humor in it. “Do something to me, and my smart little boy who’s watching my back will initiate his pod, then we all go bye-bye.” She was obviously lying, but by the stunned look on his face, Fanian believed her.
“Come down.” He held up both his hands. “I won’t try to take you.”
“Why would I come down there?”
“To negotiate. You can’t run from me forever. You’ll eventually run out of pods. I have a buyer who is very interested in you. If you give me your demands for leaving willingly, I could get him to agree to them. He wants you. He might be reasonable.”
She humphed. He’d stated her worst fears, but leaving with him wasn’t an option. She had to win.
“You’ll have a nice place to live and safety for your children and honestly anything else you want. I can have a contract made up.”
“I don’t have to go down there to talk about this. I can hear you fine from right here.”
He picked at his nails. “Fine by me. I just thought you wouldn’t want your very smart child to hear any of this. Let’s start the negotiations for the children. Az’ud would want his own. Yours are extra. If I were you, I would add in the contract how he is to treat them, their schooling, and add that he’s forbidden to re-sell them. You should make him believe that the children are a bonus. Otherwise, you will lose them and never have access to them again.”
He’d stated her worst fears. She had to win, leaving with him wasn’t an option. “Wait. Stop.”
She glanced at Adam over her shoulder. He held Lexi protectively to him and watched her with wide eyes. Miranda didn’t want her son to hear any talk about being sold. Fanian was right on that point. If they were going to make it home, they had to get rid of this guy once and for all.
She chose to believe Xrez over Fanian. If she survived this, they could go home. Xrez seemed to be helping them. Fanian clearly was not.
“Give me one second.” She ran to Adam and Lexi. “You and Lexi stay here. If, for some reason, I don’t come back right away, call Ben after the evening alarm sounds, okay?”
Adam tilted his head to the side. “Why wouldn’t you come back?”
“I will.” After she killed Fanian. “I have to convince this robot to leave, and if it doesn’t, I may have to lead it away from you both.”
She rummaged through the diaper bag, looking for the dental floss. Got it. She’d seen something on one of those prison movies that had given her an idea. She just hoped it worked.
She hugged and kissed them both, refusing to believe this might be the last time she saw either of them. She removed worrisome thoughts from her head and went back to the lip of the cave, where she crouched and dropped into the water below.
She waded on shaking knees to where Fanian stood grinning smugly. Heart hammered in her chest the entire time. If this plan didn’t work, she’d put her kids in danger unnecessarily.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. She repeated to herself as she made her way toward him. I should’ve just called for a pod and ran away.
Too late now. She stopped in front of him. “Let’s negotiate.”
Fanian considered her closely. “Why would I do that?”
She frowned. “Y-you said...”
Before she could blink, he had a hard grip on her wrist, covering her comlink. “You really didn’t think that I believed that story about all your pods being synced, did you? Call for your children to come down here. Now.”
She brought up her other hand. The one she’d hoped he would ignore. She’d been waving her comlink at him as she walked, hoping to distract him. It had worked. Pressing the taser against his skin, she squeezed her hand around the handle. The taser buzzed, sending shock waves through him.
She pushed the prongs deeper onto his exposed skin and stared into his black eyes. “No, I didn’t.”
Every muscle and tendon on his face bulged under his tight skin. “Daughter of a geelick whore,” he said through clenched teeth. “Not again.”
She kneed him where she hoped his penis was, and he fell to his knees with an oomph. She kept the taser pressed against him until he passed out and fell face-first into the water. A satisfied chuckle erupted from her throat. Now she had to make sure he was really dead.
She took the dental floss from her pocket and pulled off enough to fit around his neck and to wrap around her hands. Then she sawed. It was a good thing he was face down. She didn’t exactly want to see his face as she was separating it from his neck. Even after the blue water turned green, she kept going. As barbaric as this was, it was a necessary evil.
It wasn’t a simple task, nor was it fast. By the time she was half-way through, her arms were like jelly.
“Mommy,” Adam called. “Lexi made a poo, and it’s stinky.”
She glanced over her shoulder to see him standing at the entrance of the cave. “I’ll be there in a minute, baby.”
“But it’s so stinky. I’m going to throw-up.”
She glanced down at Fanian. He was really dead this time. There was no coming back from this. His head hung from his neck. She dropped him in the water, where he floated, arms out.
Yup. Dead.
She trotted back to the cave, stopping to clean the blood from her hands. Her jeans were stained with it. There was no way around that. When she was sure she wouldn’t scare her kids, she climbed the rocks and entered the cave.
Adam handed her Lexi and stuck out his tongue, grimacing. “Ugh. Gross.”
“Now, who needs a stinky diaper changed?” she asked Lexi.
The ground opened, and they screamed as they dropped into the waiting pod she hadn’t called.
Chapter Seven
The pod raced forward on its tracks. It seemed to move faster than expected. Before, she was able to look out and clearly see the other tracks around them. This time everything was a blur.
“Did you press your comlink,” she asked Adam. Not waiting for his answer, she grabbed his wrist to check his band.
“I don’t think so. But maybe I did by accident?”
Adam still had three lines next to his transportation icon. What if Lexi had pressed hers? Miranda’s heart raced. She hadn’t thought about that. Lexi could get taken away and transported to only God knows where, with or without Adam and Miranda. She grabbed Lexi’s wrist and turned it over. She released a breath after seeing three lines.
“If no one called a pod, then who did?” Miranda whispered to herself.
“Where are we going this time?” Adam asked, pressing his face against whatever material made up the pod.
“I don’t know.” She never knew where they were going when they dropped into
the pods, but this time it truly scared her.
“I hope it’s someplace fun. I really liked the water.”
“Where ever we end up, I’m sure it’ll be fine.” Her fake optimism didn’t reach her voice.
A few minutes later, the pod came to an abrupt stop, and the roof slid away. Immediately a cold burst of wind hit them. Before she had time to complain, they were pushed out to land, tangled together, on snow so soft they sunk deep into it.
Lexi’s high-pierced scream cut through the quietness. Adam’s eyes were wild and wide. His body stiff as a board. He was in shock, and she realized with the coldness seeping through her wet skin and settling into her bones, she was soon to join.
She hadn’t killed two aliens in front of her children just to end up letting them freeze to death. Lexi had extra clothes but nothing that would keep her warm from this snowy mess. She and Adam didn’t have anything to change into.
We’re going to freeze. I’ve killed us.
No. They could at least take refuge in their sleeping bag until she came up with a better plan. With a finger that shook too much to control correctly, Miranda hit the sleeping bag icon. It popped from its compartment and slowly unfolded.
Hurry. Hurry. Hurry.
Wait.
She now had different icons on her comlink. She pushed one that resembled a body. A second later, a ball a little larger than what the food was delivered in popped from the snow. Before she opened it, she wrapped her children in the sleeping bag that was now thicker than the one they’d had before.
“Sh. Sh. It’s going to be okay. You’ll be warm now.” She zipped her shivering kids inside.
Miranda went back to the pod. Her movements now stiff. She couldn’t survive exposed much longer. Acting fast was no longer an option. She could barely move.
She opened the ball. Clothes.
Stripping out of her wet ones was ideal, but she didn’t have the strength. She donned the new clothes over her old ones, then followed up with the snowsuit that conformed to her body. The last items she put on were the hat and gloves. She recovered instantly with a sigh. Warm again. She left the wind visor on the snow for now.
She turned her attention to the kids and unzipped the sleeping bag. Adam and Lexi shivered and clutched each other.
“C-c-close it. T-t-t-too c-cold,” Adam said through chattering teeth.
Miranda didn’t waste any time explaining to him what she was doing. She pushed the same icon on both their comlinks. Two balls popped through the snow, with her newfound warmth, she worked fast to dress them. After she slipped on their wind visors, which they needed to help shield their eyes against the berating wind, she did the same.
The kids were finally warming up. Their faces were no longer stark white. Pink now tinged their cheeks. She didn’t revel in that small victory. She still didn’t know where they were. She glanced around. Gone was lush greenery. No more jungle, just a howling sound in the distance.
There were trees in this new place, but they were gnarled and gray, with spindly branches. The leaves were few and far between to be of much help with hiding. She glanced up at the sky. The sun shone, but the warmth didn’t seem to reach them.
“Where are we now?” Adam asked. His teeth no longer chattered. He sat in the open sleeping bag with Lexi on his lap.
“I really don’t know.” She glanced around again. They were close to structures that were broken and old, made smooth from the wind. The stones were light gray and blended well into the snow. If she wasn’t as close as she was, she might not have noticed them. What was still standing looked to be locked in place by pride and time. It would have to do for now.
A howl sounded again.
Time to move.
Miranda fisted a corner of the sleeping bag and started for one of the structures that looked the least likely to fall and crush them, pulling Adam and Lexi behind her.
“I think I know where we are,” Adam said.
“Where, baby?” She huffed as she tramped along. The kids weren’t heavy. They glided over the snow nicely. The troubling part was walking through the calf-deep wintery mess.
“The North Pole. Daddy said he would take me there one day. This must be a part of the adventure package.”
“Of course,” she grunted. She fell to the side and pushed back up to her feet and continued walking. “Call Ben. Let him know that we’re someplace cold now.” It wasn’t the evening, but this seemed important enough to break Ben’s rule for.
“That funny looking icon we push to speak to everyone else is gone.”
Miranda stopped and checked her comlink. No. This can’t be right. She studied the comlink harder. There were other differences besides the new clothes icon and missing communication icon. The food icon appeared slightly differently. What if she no longer had food? Damn. At least she’d been smart enough to stock up on the protein bars and water canvases.
She pressed one of the new buttons. A small pod popped from the ground. When she opened it, there were five red sticks. She shook them. Nothing happened. A howl sounded again. She didn’t have time to figure out what the sticks were.
She handed them to Adam. “Here. Hold these.”
While Adam smacked the sticks together, she went back to her comlink. There were two solid lines instead of three next to the transporter icon now. She didn’t worry too much about that, with the kids that gave her six uses. Then she noticed the other two lines where there had only been one before. They’d made it to Level Two.
Is that why Esme hadn’t answered? Had she been captured, or had she made it to Level Two? Miranda wasn’t sure, but she hoped for the latter.
She wrapped the sleeping bag in her hand again and pulled.
Make it to shelter. Then figure out a game plan.
“Ouch!”
She turned around. Adam had thrown one of the sticks in the snow where it billowed with smoke.
“It makes fire!”
FANIAN LAID SPRAWLED at an odd angle on the wet grass. None of the other hunters had tried to help him after the evening pod dumped him in front of the lodge. They’d probably thought he was dead. His head had been hanging from his shoulders at the time, after all. They’d most likely assumed the pod had malfunctioned and brought him to the lodge when it should’ve taken him to the medical ward.
The medical ward was where hunters were taken and declared dead. The pods were equipped with sensors that monitored vital signs. The only reason Fanian’s hadn’t taken him to the medical ward was because the sensors had registered a faint heartbeat.
Miranda had almost severed his head. Almost. If she’d finished? Even a Givvek couldn’t come back from death. But as long as his spine remained connected to his brain stem, he would survive and self-repair.
Too bad it had taken most of the night. When he could finally move his neck from side to side, he sat up. There was still pain. The entire ordeal had been painful, but he wouldn’t complain about that since he was alive to feel it. He was wet and muddy but didn’t care. “I’m alive!” he screamed into the night with conviction.
Despite the situation, he chuckled. Az’ud had wanted a human because he’d thought them docile and weak and who could make him scores of hybrid-human children he could parade around. Miranda would end up killing Az’ud as soon as he handed her over to him. Fanian threw his head back and laughed again. That wasn’t his problem, though. His problem was catching and delivering the bloodthirsty female to Az’ud’s doorstep.
Fanian shouldered his way through the lodge doors and went straight to the communal living area. He stepped over the trash and ignored the stench of unwashed bodies. His first stop was the food processor. With almost dying and losing most of his blood, he needed to replenish. He gulped down three bottles of synthetic blood and was on his fourth by the time he made his way to view the projection to see which prey was left.
Miranda’s picture had moved from the Level One grouping to the Level Two. There were only two humans there. Miranda and another female
. The other female was listed as a killer too.
He yelled out his frustration. Some of the other hunters turned their attention toward him.
“I thought you were dead?” one of the hunters called out with a laugh.
Fanian ignored him and the chuckles throughout the room. He had a choice to make. He could stay in Level One and turn his attention to one of the three remaining females, or he could follow Miranda to Level Two. Any of the three remaining Level One females would make Az’ud a suitable mate.
If he caught one of them within the next few days, he’d still come out of this with enough credits to accomplish his plans. If he followed Miranda to Level Two, that would severely cut into his profits. Common sense told him to leave Miranda alone and move on to what he hoped was more manageable prey. Az’ud would be satisfied with any human female.
His gaze fixated on Miranda as he fingered the raised scar around his throat. Maybe it would heal. Maybe not. Whether it did or didn’t, Fanian would always remember how it felt to wake up on death’s door.
Was it revenge that had him staring at her picture? That had to be the only reason. Capturing Miranda then handing her over, gagged and bound if needed, to Az’ud was what she deserved.
But how could he capture her without losing any more credits? A thought came to him. A small smile spread across his face.
He knew exactly how to accomplish his goal. All his patience would finally pay off.
Chapter Eight
Fanian made his way to his cot and used his thumbprint to open the safe under his bed. He took out extra clothing, a cross-bow, and knives—the weapons allowed in the next Level.
“Off to Level Two?” a hunter asked with a chuckle. “You might want to stay away from the mother. She’s been on a killing spree. We thought you were one of her victims.”
Hunted by the Alien Vampire Page 8
