by Liz Paffel
“Are you just another scavenger?”
“I am a warrior. Warriors do not scavenge. They protect and provide. I’m sorry your experience has been poor. I only wish to help.”
“How do we get out of here? What do we do?”
He didn’t have an answer for that. Not yet. “I’ve sent a transmission to my home base so they can track my location. Until we determine how to get a transport ship through, there isn’t much to do but stay alive.”
“Great.”
“You are their leader?”
Her eyes widened. “Me? No. I’m no one’s leader.”
“They look to you for guidance and comfort. It was immediately apparent to me that the females consider you their Commander.”
“I couldn’t command my way out of a paper bag.”
She was laughing at herself. Her mouth turned up into a tight smile and she rolled her eyes to the ceiling and back down. A playful gesture he’d seen on Earth. His parasympth ability detected deep emotional disturbance within her. Angst, self-doubt and a great measure of tightly contained fear. He could take it away with one touch of his hand. Put her into a deep sleep so she could fully rest.
His hands tingled with the need to touch her, to soothe the storm inside.
Her face paled. “What if they come back?”
“Go with your females. Eat, drink. I will keep you safe while you sleep.”
She shook her head and hugged herself harder. “I’m not hungry.”
“Your lips are cracked and peeling. Your cheeks are hollow. I’ve been around humans enough to know this means you need water. If nothing else, drink. The water is pure. Your women can’t have an unhealthy leader, or none of you will survive.”
“I’m not their—” she waved a hand in the air. “Water is exactly what I need. Thank you.”
With a look behind her at the table, Sasha gave him a tiny smile and brushed past him to the door. His body flared to life at the small, simple brushing of her arm against his.
“Sasha.”
She looked back.
“It would be helpful to gather intel from you so I can better transmit information to my station. Will you speak with me a while after the meal?”
“Alone?”
“You may bring whomever you wish if it makes you comfortable.”
She smiled, but there was no humor in it. “Nothing about this place makes me comfortable.” She reached in her pocket and pulled out the candy he had provided. “But this helps, so thank you for that. And… everything else.”
She left but not without looking behind herself twice, watching him warily.
He hadn’t learned much on Earth about human women, but the consensus that chocolate made everything better certainly seemed to be true.
He should have brought more.
Chapter Eight
“Who is this guy?”
Sasha stood next to Blume in quiet observation as Hahn fiddled with the water containment system in her sleeping quarters. It was like an ensuite shower but had never contained enough water to produce more than a trickle she could use for only a cursory washing.
He rolled two flat disks around in one hand. He’d taken off his gloves, revealing strong, capable, masculine hands. The fact that his skin was green didn’t take away from the attractiveness, or how easily she lost herself in watching him work. The Axxeon had been on Earth for a few years, but she didn’t know much about them. They were only briefly talked about on television, and most of the images of them were from people taking covert pictures with their cell phones and posting on social media. She’d never seen one up close.
If they all looked like this, she’d been missing out.
“What’s he doing?” Blume cocked her head.
He put the disks into the top of the glass container. A spark jumped between the disks followed by a thin tendril of smoke. And then water began bubbling up from the bottom, rolling and waving to the top until the container was completely filled.
“He just made water.”
“He made water. I like this alien.”
“Yes, but can he make cheesecake?”
“Then I’d be in love with him. Like, take me now while feeding me the cheesecake.”
Sasha chuckled at their silliness. It felt good. All this time, she’d been strung so tight. So worried. So steeped in past memories that she worried the tension would never leave her body.
“I wouldn’t even share.” She said lazily as she watched Hahn work.
“You wouldn’t share what? The alien, or the cake?”
Oh, boy. This conversation had taken a weird turn. She couldn’t answer because, really, she wouldn’t share either and that was weird. Hahn could be a psychopathic alien inside a beautiful body.
“Did you taste the creepy tubular, fanged reptile with armor piercing tail appendage?” Sasha diverted. “Kind of tasted like chicken.”
“It did taste like chicken. Oh man, barbeque chicken on the grill, with the skin just a little blackened. I mean, it was close, but that’s what I really want.”
“And a vat of McDonald’s fries.”
They both groaned.
“Do you think he has little pellet things that make fries?”
Hahn turned to them. Sasha’s breath hitched as his gaze swept her body. “The cleanser will allow quick use from all of you, but only if you ration the water.”
“It’s been a million years since I’ve been clean.” She thought about her pink loofa and the homemade goat’s milk soap she had at home. Her carefully decorated bathroom, done in modern farmhouse with finds she scoured off the internet. She’d had to gut her townhouse and start over.
After the stain that had affected every inch of her home, she couldn’t reside there until it was scrubbed clean. It had taken weeks, but she’d redecorated to make everything fresh and livable again. And then she’d been abducted.
“You go first,” Blume said. “I’ll wake the others and tell them.”
“No, let them sleep. I think this is the most relaxed I’ve seen Angel. You go first. There are a couple things I need to do.”
Hahn observed their interaction and she had the sensation that he was studying her. Maybe trying to read her.
“I will leave you to the cleanser.” He walked out, making no move to hide the blatant once over he gave her again before he left. She shivered, but… not in a bad way. Her skin heated, her body acutely aware of him.
“Geez, girl. If he likes you looking like this, imagine what he’ll think when you’re clean.”
Sasha’s face went cold. The last thing she wanted was to draw an alien male’s attention. Look how that had turned out for all of them so far. Hell, look how that had turned out for her with human men.
Tragic. It had been tragic.
“Do me a favor?” Sasha prompted after ensuring Hahn had walked away.
“Of course.”
“You’re in the Army. I assume you’ve had self-defense training?”
“Extensively. But I want to remind you how well that worked out for me considering I was abducted months ago and still haven’t managed to escape.”
Sasha shook her head. “I know. I get it. It’s just, the alien wants to talk with me to gather information to send to his home base to hopefully get us out of here.”
“You want me to watch your back.”
“Yes. I’ve always been book smart, you know, but I’m not a physical person. I never learned how to defend myself. Not even after— I should have learned. I should have. Look, maybe the two of us can’t take down one advanced alien male. But I’d feel better knowing I have someone there if I need to try.”
Blume gave a decisive shake of her head. “You got it.”
They took turns in the cleanser. There was a spongy material that looked like some type of plant-based soap. It created a lot of luxurious bubbles. No matter how many times she squeezed it out, new bubbles formed. She turned the cleanser off to preserve the water while she scrubbed her hair, fantasizin
g about standing under a steaming shower for an hour. This thin streamed, cool rinse was just about as good considering she hadn’t had a proper bath since her abduction.
She slipped into a loose pair of pants she’d found in the storage room, and a strange wrap-style top that crisscrossed over her breasts and around her back, then looped around her ribcage and tied at her waist. She’d found several of the outfits in the back of the storage room and left them stacked for the others when they woke. Finger combing her hair, she sighed with the first feeling of normalcy she’d had in weeks.
The other women had cleaned up the remnants of their meal. The bag of coffee-like brew was sitting on the warmer. She eyed it in awe. The warmer hovered in the air, the top alight with a glowing orange hue. Taking a metal cup, she dumped some of the liquid into it. She’d barely eaten a thing. Her stomach wouldn’t allow it thanks to her nerves. But coffee? She was always up for that.
Especially a double espresso with a few shots of cream. Damn.
Turning back toward her quarters, she jumped, nearly spilling her drink to find Hahn in the hallway. He’d removed his outer suit and was clad in black pants with a waffle-like texture, and a bright blue top with short sleeves. It had a molded appearance as it clung to every dip and curve of his torso. His exposed skin had the strange green-red marbled appearance and was marked with a hexagon pattern with a honeycomb effect.
He held a blade the length of his forearm in his hand and rubbed the sharpened edge with a cloth.
“Would you like to see something?”
“I’d like to see you put that away.”
“Do not worry. You can trust me, Sasha.”
“Trust me is what all the men with a huge weapon say.”
“I will only use the tip.”
“Just the tip, huh? Did you learn that gem on Earth?”
Her cheeks heated at the turn the conversation had taken. He slid the knife into a holster at his side and appraised her reaction.
“Thank you,” she conceded. “What did you want to show me?”
She followed him, slightly surprised when he waited for her to walk next to him rather than behind. He kicked open a set of double doors. She’d never been allowed past them and though she and Blume had tried to bust through, they’d failed. Curious, she looked around as they went inside. There was a control room on the right, some sleeping quarters on the left. They turned and Hahn gestured slightly ahead. There was a laboratory of some kind. It was filled to the brim with medical equipment, including two upright monitors with what looked like defibrillator paddles. A cabinet held a variety of clear fluid in syringes. Medicine, maybe?
Anger pounded at her temples. “I could have used some of this to save that woman’s life.”
“It would not have worked.”
“I would have tried anyway.”
“Do not bruise yourself for things you can’t control. You are not an expert in alien biology, is that correct?”
“I’m trying to learn. But, you’re correct. I’m not.”
He gestured with his hands as he spoke. “It is unfortunate that she died, but I’m relieved that you did not try to revive her.”
Sasha pulled up short. “Excuse me?”
“You already carry extreme weight inside your heart. There is deep sadness and fear inside of you. All of your attempts to revive her would have failed, which would only add to your burden. She was a Henoli female. It is their nature to die immediately after giving birth.”
Her brain hurried to catch up to what he’d said. How did he know how she felt inside? “Are you a, a mind reader something?”
“Axxeon males have parasympaths that allow us to feel emotional energy. That is all.”
“Oh, that’s all? Humans can’t even walk in a straight line half the time, and you can read people’s emotions. No big deal.”
His eyes narrowed playfully. “The ability to synthesize cheesecake from the air might be a better ability, right?”
She huffed a laugh. “You heard all that?”
He grinned and looked away. He was worried about how a futile attempt to resuscitate the Henoli woman would have added to her emotional burden. Who WAS this guy?
“Um, what did you… do with her?”
“I would like to show you. Here.” He handed her a dark blue robe looking thing that he’d had wadded in his arm. She took it cautiously, spreading it apart to figure out what to do with it.
“It is my nualet. Put it around yourself to keep the chill off.”
Chill? Was she going outside? Her heart leapt at the thought of fresh air. He led her down another hall where the door had been forced open from the inside. Withdrawing the long knife, he rammed the tip into the slit on top of a block-shaped lock on the other door. With a forceful downward movement, the spear slid into the lock, splitting it in half.
“See?” He said with a grin. “Sometimes the tip is all you need to get the job done.”
She held back an instinctive chuckle. He opened both doors. A tunnel appeared; the sides lit with small lights embedded into the sand. Hesitating, Sasha couldn’t help but relax when Hahn stopped, made a half turn, and waited for her to walk beside him. She took the momentary silence to listen for any sound of Blume following in the distance. The other woman had been watching so she could follow.
At the end, Hahn opened a circular metal door, the hinges emitting a high-pitched sound from the exertion. Cold air blew into the tunnel, rushing across Sasha’s face and whipping her hair. He took her coffee cup so she could toss the cape over her shoulders. It landed in a bunch. Hahn made quick work of spreading it over her. The cape seemed to lightly shrink wrap to her form, cradling her in soft warmth.
The door shut with a clang. Shit! There was no way Blume would be able to open in to follow without Hahn hearing it creak. She was completely alone with this alien—this handy, attractive, considerate alien. It was dark and momentary fear took away her enjoyment over being outside. She should be sinking to her knees and running her hands through the sand while inhaling the frigid air.
Instead…
What if he put the knife to her throat? What if he—
“I would never.”
She expelled a fast, shuddering breath. “What?”
“Harm you. You fear me. I can feel it crackling off of you. I wish that you didn’t.”
“I can’t help it,” she burst. Way to admit weakness. The aliens she’d met so far preyed on weakness. “It’s a natural reaction to the circumstances.”
“Do you know what else is a natural reaction to the circumstances?” He smiled. His face lit up with the movement of his lips, his chiseled features so striking that her throat tightened with unexpected emotion.
“I don’t know, what?”
He ushered her over a slight hill. And suddenly the world opened. Tingles exploded over her body, racking her scalp and trailing down her spine and over her limbs. A dip in the surface in front of them made the sky appear to gape and open wide. A kaleidoscope of colors danced before her eyes. Red, purple, yellow, pink swirled and danced while punctuated with swaths of shimmering stars.
“I call that natural reaction, awe.”
She looked at him, doing a double take when she spied the reflection of the night sky in his eyes.
“Beautiful,” she drawled. Pulling herself away from him, she startled a little to find her own eyes stinging with tears.
“There’s no sign of the storm now, which is confusing to me. I need to return to my craft and perform another atmospheric scan. In the meantime, this is to be enjoyed. Right?”
“I haven’t been out of that building in weeks. Not one breath of fresh air. No wind on my face. No sunlight.” Holding back her tears, she wiped at her eyes. “Where did you place the… body?”
“There.” He pointed to another crest to their right. “She has a perfect view of the brightest blanket of stars.”
Sasha couldn’t stop the tears then. They fell in a silent rush down her cheeks. She let them
fall while immersing herself in the view. Hahn was silent, as if knowing she needed to burn off her emotions her own way. The more the tears fell, the more panic and despair welled up inside. It was time to stop before things turned ugly.
“What information can I help you with?” She used the palms of her hands to wipe at her face.
He sat on the edge of the incline, drew up his knees and rested his forearms on his knees. Sasha followed suit, keeping a body’s length between them.
“On Earth, our surveillance would pick up television programs. Humans are fond of saying, “tell me your story” when they want to know about a person. So, tell me yours.”
She huffed a short laugh. Her story wasn’t a pretty one. At least, not the past few years of it. Scrambling to think of what might be useful to him, she pulled the cape closer. It had a sweet and almost smoky undertone, followed by a distinctly male note that made warmth flush her skin. Would he smell the same if he pulled her close to his body?
“I’m a nurse midwife. It’s a kind of healer who works with mothers and babies. We deliver babies and help make sure they are healthy. I was at my home, taking a walk when the Lork appeared out of nowhere, wrestled me to the ground, and the next thing I recall, I woke up strapped to a table inside, what I learned later, was a spacecraft. They kept me restrained until we landed, and then they dumped me inside that building where I’ve been for… I really don’t know, weeks. Months?”
“Do you recall the month it was on Earth when you were taken?”
“February. February 24th.” Her stomach sank a little. That should have been a triumphant day. She’d gone to her last mental therapy appointment that morning. The psychologist had cleared her to return to work. After months of being on leave for PTSD, she was finally going to get her life back.
Hahn’s eyes narrowed in a slight wince. “I have a habit of counting Earth months in my head. I suppose I got used to thinking of time in human terms and it’s hard to forget.” He looked at her. “The Earth month is now June. You have been here four months.”
