Saving Runt

by S. E. Smith

  Trembling, she leaned over him and gently opened the locket. Inside was a picture of her and her mother. This was her locket, the one that she had been forced to leave behind at the warehouse the night they first met.

  Tears burned her eyes. He had not only kept the locket, but he was wearing it. She snapped the locket closed and turned the chain until she reached the clasp.

  “Amelia,” Derik murmured in his sleep.

  She froze, her fingers still on the clasp and glanced at his face. He grimaced as he raised his hand to the necklace. She pulled away before their fingers touched and straightened. He wrapped his fingers around the locket and sighed.

  “He appears very fond of the silver pendant,” FRED observed.

  “Yes, he does,” Runt softly replied.

  After a moment’s hesitation, she grabbed the blanket he had pulled free, and tucked it back over his arm and around his shoulder. The light emitting from FRED’s fingers had faded, and he had taken several steps back until he was standing next to RITA. Runt noticed that their forms were flickering badly along with the rest of the lights in the room.

  RITA shot her an apologetic look. “I’m afraid you’ll have to do the rest, love. We’ve used a considerable amount of energy and need to recharge,” she said.

  Runt nodded. “Okay,” she replied.

  “He’ll be fine in a couple of hours. Let him sleep while the nanobots finish the repairs,” RITA instructed.

  “I will,” Runt responded.

  RITA stepped closer to her. For a brief moment, she could feel the AI’s hand brush against her cheek. Runt wrapped her arms around her own waist and lifted her chin.

  “Give him a chance, Amelia. When he said he loved you… he meant it,” RITA quietly said.

  Runt swallowed and shrugged her shoulders. She wasn’t going to go down that rabbit hole. How could Derik know if he really loved her? He didn’t even know her!

  She could feel the mark on her hand tingle. Curling her fingers, she lifted the back of her hand to her lips. Things were getting too complicated for her.

  She looked at Derik’s relaxed face. RITA said that he would sleep for a few hours while his body healed. There was no need to sit and watch him. That would be like watching a pot and waiting for it to boil.

  Okay, maybe not that bad since he is cuter than a pot of water, she thought before shaking her head at her musings.

  She would take advantage of the quiet time to go through the file she had downloaded. Decision made, she bent over and picked up her backpack off the floor. She looked at Derik one last time before she quietly exited the room. She walked down the hallway, briefly stopping by the front door to make sure that it was locked and to double check that the alarm system was activated. Satisfied the townhouse was secured, she climbed the stairs to the upper level of the townhouse.

  She walked down the hallway before stopping at the closed door to one of the bedrooms. She liked the smaller bedroom that overlooked the backyard. Opening the door, she stepped inside before closing it behind her. She placed her backpack on a chair near the door, then crossed the room, opened the closet, and retrieved the small stash of clothing from the bottom shelf in the corner that she’d left here the last time she had stayed.

  She stepped out of the closet and closed the door. Turning on her heel, she headed into the bathroom. Old habits die hard, she thought as she shut the door behind her and locked it. The house was completely secure and Derik was in no shape at the moment to be a threat to her—not that she thought he would be one anyway. It was just if there was a door with a lock on it, she wanted that added layer of protection.

  Her nose wrinkled with distaste when she pulled her damp shirt off. It stank of DiMaggio’s nasty cigar. She tossed it in the clothes hamper. She would wash her clothes when she was finished.

  Her thoughts went to Derik. He was going to need some new clothes. His shirt was ruined. She remembered from her previous visits that Cosmos kept a small supply of clothing for men and women in a variety of sizes in the room downstairs next to where Derik was resting. She suspected that the infirmary was used far more often than she’d have otherwise guessed. Cosmos was just too prepared. Given everything she had seen in the townhouse during her previous visits, he was stocked and ready for a small army.

  Runt turned on the shower. Steam immediately began to rise, and she adjusted the temperature before standing under the steady stream of water. She sighed in contentment and bowed her head as the warm water flowed over her.

  She reached for the shampoo, closed her eyes, and slowly washed her hair. She repeated the process with the crème rinse before using the body wash to strip the grime and smell of cigar smoke from her skin. She sighed again when the smell of lavender replaced the stink of DiMaggio.

  She stood under the showerhead, enjoying the soothing sting of water as it rinsed the soap from her body. The warm water chased away the chill in her bones and released the tension in her muscles, relaxing her. She turned her palm over and gazed down at the mark clearly visible in the center of her palm.

  Derik, he was a problem that she didn’t understand. He’d come in with guns blazing—well, DiMaggio’s men had the guns, Derik just did the blazing. She’d come back to Washington because she had discovered a link between Afon Dolinski and DiMaggio. It wasn’t much, and the reference had come from a sketchy source, but it was the only clue that she’d found since Dolinski’s disappearance. The problem was she’d been unable to access DiMaggio’s server, which had led to tonight’s little adventure.

  “What am I going to do?” she murmured, staring at the mark.

  Need me, accept me, love me… not in that order, of course, he replied.

  Runt snapped her head up and glared at the wall with unfocused eyes. What are you doing awake?! RITA said you would sleep for hours, she growled.

  I felt… your… confusion. Going to sleep now, he slurred.

  You better! I don’t want any dead aliens in the house. I happen to like it here, she snapped.

  His soft chuckle brushed through her mind. She reached up and impatiently wiped the water away from her eyes. Now she was worried about him. What if he tried to get up before whatever FRED had done to him wore off and he fell? Or worse! What if he got up, and opened up his wound before the nanobots finished healing him, and he bled to death?

  She smothered an oath and quickly finished rinsing the soap from her body. Twisting the shower lever, she cut short her marvelous respite and pushed open the glass door. She grabbed the towel from the hook and dried off.

  With each article of clothing she pulled on, she imagined Derik lying unconscious on the floor in a pool of blood. She gave up on brushing her hair or pulling on her boots. Combing her fingers through her short strands with one hand, she snatched up her boots with the other as she rushed out of the bathroom. In minutes, she was down the stairs and hurrying toward the infirmary.

  Gripping the doorframe, she looked at the floor, then focused on the bed. A wave of relief swept through her when she saw that he was snugly tucked in, leaving her feeling almost weak.

  “You turd! I should have known better than to be worried,” she growled.

  Pushing away from the door, she walked over to the bed. She dropped her boots on the floor and looked down at the strange man who had haunted her for the past two years. It was hard to believe that he was from another world. It was hard to believe he was here, and not just…

  … an annoying fantasy, a crazy girl’s imaginary guy stuffed in a filing cabinet, she thought with a sardonic amusement.

  She sat down on the edge of the bed and studied his features. Her hand rose and she tentatively brushed his hair to the side. The brownish-black strands matched the color of her hair. She rolled a thick swathe of his hair between her fingers.

  Up close, it was hard to tell that he was an alien. A few things were different, but nothing that screamed ‘run away in horror’. She had seen humans on the street who looked stranger than Derik.

 
If it wasn’t for the fact that she had seen his eyes swirling with color, his teeth elongate like a vampire, and the supernatural way he moved, she would never have noticed that he wasn’t human.

  Curiously, she touched his lips and gently lifted the top one to look at his teeth. They looked normal now. She knew he could eat regular food, and that he enjoyed drinking beer, so he didn’t act like the vampires in the books and movies she had seen.

  She released his top lip and ran her thumb along his bottom one. This was the first time that she had ever touched a guy like this. It felt strange and surprisingly… nice.

  She decided he was cute—not handsome, but cute. She liked that he wasn’t handsome. Handsome men tended to be more arrogant, while cute guys were more loving and not so full of themselves.

  His hair was cut in a military style. It was short on the sides and a little longer on top. She touched his jaw. It was strong, and stubbly with a couple of days’ growth.

  “Not sure if I like that. It might be scratchy,” she reflected.

  A light blush turned her cheeks a rosy color. She didn’t want to think of all the places his whiskers might scratch her. Well, she did want to think of them as long as he didn’t know that she was fantasizing about where he would put his lips.

  Shaking her head at her crazy thoughts, she continued stroking his skin. He felt warm, but she remembered reading in one of Terra’s reports that the Prime tended to have a higher body temperature than humans did. She slid her hand down his throat and touched the chain of her necklace.

  “You know, this is all very strange. Aliens are only supposed to exist in books, urban legends, or movies, not in real life. You do understand that our creating a Gateway to a distant world opens up a whole can of worms that humans aren’t ready for. I know Avery has been telling Cosmos that, but I’m not so sure that he’s been listening. Of course, Cosmos would never have found Terra if he had listened, and Avery wouldn’t have found Core. This whole ‘touching someone and a mark appears’ thing is just—wrong. I mean, where’s the challenge in finding someone if all you’ve got to do is touch them and ‘wham, bam, thank you, ma’am’, you’re a match?” She paused. “I guess it would save on buying food and having a bunch of useless conversations,” she murmured.

  “Is that what humans do?” he questioned.

  She started to yank her hand away from the skin above his collarbone, but he was too fast. He encircled her wrist with his fingers and trapped her hand against his warm flesh. Their eyes met and they stared at each other for several seconds—neither blinking nor looking away.

  “You have pretty eyes,” she commented without thinking.

  He chuckled. “Thank you,” he said.

  Runt felt heat rise to her cheeks again. “Why?” she asked.

  His brow creased in confusion, and he frowned. “Why, what?” he prodded.

  She ran her fingers along the chain around his neck until she reached the locket her mother had given her. She grasped the silver pendant. Tears burned her eyes.

  “Why did you keep my locket? Why are you wearing it? Why… why is this happening to… us?” she hesitantly asked, gazing into his eyes again.

  His fingers closed over hers. “The pendant means something to you—thus, it was my responsibility to keep it safe until I could return it to you. I have worn it since the night we met. As to why this is happening to us… I don’t know. I’m just thankful that it is,” he confessed.

  “Even if it means getting shot?” she asked before biting her lip. “I’m glad you didn’t lose my necklace. I’d have been pretty miffed at you if you had.”

  The warmth of his chuckle filled her with pleasure. She tried not to smile, but it was impossible. Her laughter mixed with his.

  Her skin tingled when he released his grip on her wrist and slid his hand up her arm until he cupped the back of her neck. She leaned closer when he applied a little pressure, anticipation fluttering in her stomach like butterflies.

  “I’m going to kiss you, Amelia,” he murmured.

  She parted her lips at his words, and looked at his mouth. She swallowed. She had never been kissed—at least not a real one.

  “My name is Runt now,” she whispered.

  He pulled her closer until their lips almost touched. “You’ll always be Amelia to me,” he replied before he captured her lips.

  Chapter Eleven

  The kiss Derik gave her held all of his pent-up longings from the past two years. She parted her lips, and he deepened the kiss the way he’d learned about in the vidcoms RITA2 had uploaded for him. He threaded his fingers through her short hair, noticing that it was damp.

  She tentatively tangled her tongue with his, growing more confident the longer he held her. He felt her hands tenderly cradle his head and a shiver of pleasure ran through him when she pressed her body against him. Their breaths mingled, becoming one. All too soon, she broke the kiss and looked down at him with turbulent eyes.

  He reached out with his mind, connecting to the threads of silver he could feel linking them. Their souls were connected and their bond was growing stronger the more time they spent together. He’d heard about the connection between mates, but to experience it….

  “Amelia,” he whispered against her lips.

  She pulled away from him and straightened, her hand sliding down to his bare chest. The blanket had slipped down to his waist and was partially hanging off the side of the bed. She cleared her throat, stood up, and took several steps backward.

  “There’s… Cosmos has a room full of clothes next door. There are bathrooms upstairs if you want to take a shower. Avery makes sure that each one is stocked with whatever you might need,” she said, not looking at him.

  He sat up and swung his feet over the side of the bed. “Amelia…,” he repeated.

  She hurriedly shook her head. “I… my name’s Runt now. I haven’t used Amelia for a long time. I’ll see if I can warm up some food for us,” she said.

  Derik watched as she swiftly turned on her heel and exited the room. He grimaced, running his fingers through his hair before looking down at the gunshot wound in his side. He rubbed the fading scar. In another couple of hours, there would be no evidence of it at all.

  “Terra and Cosmos are getting really good at coming up with new inventions,” he mused.

  He would have still been in the medical unit back on his world. Granted, he would have ended up in about the same shape he was in now, but it would have taken a lot more equipment and technology to get him there.

  He looked up at the door when he heard banging. It sounded like Amelia was taking out her frustrations on the cabinets and cookware.

  Runt! For the last time, my name is Runt now! she snapped.

  You’ll always be my Amelia, he responded.

  You make me sound like a song, she growled.

  His laughter was rewarded with more clanging pots. He pulled the blanket from his lap and slid off the bed. His tattered shirt hung loosely on his shoulders where it had been cut open.

  Several minutes later, he had picked out fresh clothing from the room next door and was climbing the stairs. The smile on his lips grew when he thought about the kiss he and Amelia had shared. Soon they would be back on his world where he could keep her safe.

  And share much more than kisses, he thought.

  Twenty minutes later, Derik tightly gripped the spoon in his hand. The afterglow of their kiss had been replaced with the desire to shake some sense into the woman sitting across from him. He studied Amelia’s stubborn expression. In a matter of seconds, she had ruined all of his carefully laid plans.

  He shook his head. Perhaps he had misunderstood her. Surely she had learned how dangerous it was to cross men like DiMaggio!

  “What part of almost dying tonight did you miss?” he asked in a slightly incredulous tone.

  “I wasn’t the one who almost died, you were,” she calmly pointed out, gesturing dismissively with a cracker in her hand.

  “Yes… trying
to save you, and you did almost die. If I remember correctly, you were being strangled,” he reminded her.

  “Whatever. I had a plan. You were the one who came blazing into a room full of guys with guns,” she insisted.

  “Plan… you had a plan? Getting kidnapped, dealing with a… a crazy man, and almost getting strangled was not a very good plan!” he growled.

  She reached over and pulled several more crackers out of the open package on the table between them. She crumbled them into the bowl of chicken noodle soup in front of her, and silently stirred the crackers into the steaming liquid.

  “I had it under control,” she finally replied.

  “Control…. Amelia, there was no control. Have you seen the bruises on your neck?” he snapped.

  She shrugged and lifted her spoon to her lips. Derik was surprised that the spoon in his hand hadn’t bent under the pressure of his grip. He reached over and pulled the package of crackers toward him. Removing half the contents, he crushed the crackers into his bowl.

  “The bruises will heal. I’ve had way worse. Even after everything I went through, I was still in way better condition than you were,” she added.

  He opened and closed his mouth several times as he tried to think of a rebuttal. He dismissed each response as fast as they appeared. None of them would do justice to what he truly wanted to say.

  “I won’t let you do it,” he finally said.

  She released an inelegant snort and raised an eyebrow. “Oh, please! In case you missed it, I didn’t ask for your permission,” she replied.

  He watched as she parted her delicate lips and popped a cracker into her mouth. His body tightened in response and he shook his head again. Now was not the time to think about how sexy she looked.

  Instead, he drew in a deep breath, held it for a few seconds, and then released it. The small exercise helped him relax enough that he could speak without feeling like his jaw would break from the pressure. He tried to reason with her again.

  “What part of nearly getting yourself killed do you think is smart? Isn’t once today enough?” he growled.