His quiet words of encouragement to her, the manner in which he lifted and carried her when he thought it necessary. Everything Wrexel did terrified Travis more than the idea of him being a brute.
He prayed that it was an act.
Shehin interrupted their forward trek and announced that a tribe of the lizards lay just ahead.
The two guards and Travis were immediately concerned. They had been part of the missions that searched the planet and entered information about the inhabitants in the universal message store. It was their incomplete notes that had infuriated Wrexel when they first arrived.
Amber didn’t even flinch when Wrexel, unfazed by the numbers, told them to wait; he would clear the field ahead… alone. Travis paled and so did the guards. The lizards were strong and territorial; they would fight until death using talons and teeth. They possessed twice the strength of man and none of their ability for mercy. Could Wrexel cope in this fight, especially after a whole day of running with little food and no sleep?
“This combat will be without weaponry,” Wrexel warned before he left, his gaze raking over their laser guns.
He removed his jacket and Travis looked away from his visible strength with a measure of anger. Wrexel looked neither tired nor concerned about the fight that lay ahead.
Travis waited until Wrexel had left and then turned his attention to Amber as she sat down on the grass next to Wrexel’s jacket, her finger absently trailing over the fabric. The guards listened to the monitor carefully as it announced Wrexel’s successes. They scoured the perimeter even though Shehin was a far better source of protection than their eyes could ever be.
* * *
The silence became uncomfortable and Amber groaned inwardly when Travis sat down beside her, silently urging her to lift her face from the ground and look at him. She needed to sleep and felt irritated that he was forcing her to talk to him.
He reached for her hand and folded it into his. “Do you still remember nothing at all, Amber, or are parts coming back to you?”
She shook her head, wanting to point out she had been too busy running, but responded kindly instead. “I really don’t recall my time on Earth.”
“You remember your time on Throm?” he asked.
“I recollect being taught to fight by Staede mostly… I dreamt of Shihlo once and I’ve remembered Whyle, but nothing about Earth.”
“It saddens me that it is only Throm you recall, and even then I think your memory of your time there is impaired.”
“No, some memories are pretty clear,” she said.
“I have missed you so much.” He changed the subject.
“I know it must hurt you and my father to have me so oblivious to you.” She wasn’t sure what else she could say.
Travis tried to hold her hand, but she lifted it to smooth back her hair.
“It’s awful to have you here and not be able to tell you how much I love you; how I haven’t stopped praying that you would return to me some day.”
She took a deep breath and pulled her fingers away when he finally grasped hold of them; he needed a dose of reality about the real Amber.
“I don’t think you remember me well at all. If I truly loved you, I wouldn’t have left you, no matter how much coercion Wrexel used.”
“You had no choice, he forced...” Travis began.
Amber became even more irritated. “Travis, I have two husbands and honestly I have remembered being unfaithful to them both with Staede.” She hoped it would have the desired effect, but he proceeded to argue.
“No, Amber, you don’t understand…”
“I’m sleeping with three different men,” she said incredulously. “Why would you miss me? I also remember that it has never been against my will.”
Travis argued as she spoke, making outlandish claims about her having been taken from him. “You have to believe me, Amber, he took you against your will. You were engaged to be married to me, and we were deeply in love when they arrived on Earth. If you had an… affair with Staede,” he struggled to say the word, “I promise you it was because you wanted to hurt Wrexel. Nobody in their right mind would be with Staede. He’s a notorious playboy, despicable actually.”
Amber became angry at his words; she did not want to hear bad things about Staede, whom she remembered only fondly.
“We were engaged for a year,” he said quickly. “You had the whole wedding planned; it was a few months away when…..”
“Travis, please.”
“I worked with your father. I asked you to marry me on the beach. Amber, surely you remember how we kissed until the sun went down.”
* * *
Garth and Len moved farther away and turned their backs to the couple when Amber flinched in embarrassment.
“Amber, beautiful, sweet… loving Amber, try to recall… please try. Locked inside you is our love, I know it has to be there. All of your memories of Throm are of coping… you were coping without me. Wrexel gave you no choice; you bargained your life for ours. He’s psychotic, he’s obsessed with you, he took you, he...”
Amber stood up but Travis grasped her and tugged her down, slanting his mouth over hers in desperation before she could say a word. She wasn’t expecting the embrace. She felt nothing but sadness and pushed him away. However, as her hands touched his shoulders, the memories came flooding back. Memories of her walking hand in hand with Travis. Discussing plans for the future together. Recollections of her lying in his arms in her bedroom on Earth, him out of place against her pink sheets. Remembrances of her laughing with him, holding him and being held... her loving him! She recalled being on the beach in Travis’s arms, knowing she would always be happy with him.
He wasn’t lying.
She had loved him.
She had loved him deeply.
She remembered their kiss after he had asked her to marry him.
She melted against him, kissing him with the idea in mind that she was his fiancée and would soon be his wife. Their recollected kiss began to fragment and suddenly the kiss became hotter, her desire insane and the arms held her stronger. Her memory of being in Travis’s arms had been replaced by that of Wrexel. Wild memories of kissing bombarded her. Wrexel’s embrace brought her to the point of madness and made Travis’s kiss cold. She burned when Wrexel’s mouth was on hers.
Nobody compared to him.
He consumed her with intense feelings so widely different; she grappled to understand what he meant to her. She could not deny, though, that there were nights when she was sure he made love to her very soul.
Wrexel.
Infuriating, devastating, unpredictable, cruel, wild, heart-stopping. Wrexel.
Her tired and confused mind was in turmoil but the memory of his kiss and only his lingered.
The recall lasted seconds. Seconds when she knelt in rigid confusion, but Travis mistook her moment’s hesitation as an invitation. Amber pushed at his chest as he ran his mouth over hers; her mind reeled in delirious exhaustion and delirium as the memories thundered through her. Travis may have once owned her heart but Wrexel owned her betraying body. She may have loved Travis but Wrexel had consumed her to the point where the love no longer mattered. Travis’s mouth was violently wrenched from hers and he fell back on the grass with a thud as Wrexel’s hands tore him from her.
* * *
Amber’s hazy mind cleared, and she faced the demonic version of Wrexel. He shook with violence, his face twisted and contorted in the same way it had been when he killed the lizard that attacked her. She remembered that Travis’s life meant nothing to Wrexel. Human life except for her own meant nothing to him. She jumped when this knowledge linked more to intuition than memory clambered to the fore. Wrexel would kill Travis and think nothing of it. His body was covered in the blood of his many victims, his eyes glazed and mad. He was disoriented, the enemy in the grasslands forgotten for the enemy in his grasp. She flung herself between them.
“Please, Wrexel, stop.” The shout shattered the surround
ing silence, Wrexel appeared confused as he fought an inner struggle for control versus destroy.
She threw her arms around his neck. “Please, don’t kill him,” she begged as his lips spread with a snarl. Garth and Len stood immobilized, their faces wretched with anxiety as they raised their laser guns with trembling hands, unsure how to act.
“You are my husband,” Amber pleaded, “you know what we have… you know, Wrexel.”
He had to know.
By God, she knew, and she had only half a memory.
“I’m not in love with Travis anymore.”
Wrexel’s eyes slowly cleared and he stopped his advance on Travis. He turned to devour her mouth in glazed madness until she broke the kiss. He glared at Travis but nothing he could say would be worse than what Amber had just confessed. He gave him a warning look and then sped out of the clearing with a chilling cry, leaving them with the feeling that they were surrounded by madness. An animal had left to fight other animals. Travis lay panting on the ground and the two went to his aid but he immediately zoned in on Amber. “Do you remember now? Did you feel anything for me when the beast you call husband was going to kill me for touching you?” he demanded. “Tell me you said that to ensure he let me go?”
He began to throw random memories at her until she screamed for him to stop. The guards tensed at Wrexel’s return and watched with relief as his rage slowly dimmed, and his arms gradually lowered the dripping sketh to his side. Painted in the blood of his victims, his hair and face splattered with his victory, his eyes had lost none of the anger. He zoned in on Travis in a manner that frightened them all over again. Less animal, he now responded as a man betrayed. This was somehow even more terrifying.
He pointed his sketh at Travis warningly. “I let you live because she asked. Don’t make me change my mind.”
Amber stared at him as she tried in vain to make sense of a mind full of half-memories and the myriad emotions that came with it.
“Has your memory returned in full, Amber?”
She shook her head. “Only some.”
“Memories of what?”
“Us,” she said softly but meaningfully.
* * *
In the silent madness that had them all transfixed, the lizard approached stealthily and unnoticed. It gained their attention only when it leapt into the center of the clearing and knocked into Wrexel with its large body. Wrexel was so distracted by the look in Amber’s eyes that he was caught unaware. The word “intruder” from Shehin was lost among the announcements of fleeing females. For a few moments the lizard had the upper hand as Wrexel rolled across the ground. With the impact of his pouncing frame, his sketh fell out of his reach.
The lizard lashed out to the side and sank his claws into Len’s torso, biting his arm as he scrambled away. Blood spurted forth, immediately coloring the tan uniform in a steady flow of red as the young guard cried out in pain and struggled to hold the gnashing teeth from his neck. Time seemed to move very slowly for Amber. She saw Len reach for his laser. She screamed for him to put it down. Len panicked as did Garth and two shots lit up the sky; both their attempts missed the lizard and went out into the dark night like a beacon for the Sketchi. Confused by the light, the beast staggered back from Len and blindly crashed into Garth, biting down on his shoulder as Wrexel ripped the laser from his hands. Before anybody else reacted, Amber jumped forward and stabbed her sketh into the creature’s neck. She twisted it viciously until Wrexel pulled her away from the flailing creature, which managed to slice open Garth’s face with his talons as it died, gurgling and drowning in its own blood. It clawed at its esophagus to remove the knife but after a few jerks lay still as its eyes slowly closed.
* * *
Amber stood up, removed her sketh, and wiped it on her leg, using it to point at the men. “Their wounds are pretty deep, Wrexel, do you have something I can use to stop the bleeding?”
He moved so swiftly that Amber lost her breath. He grasped her in his arms and broke into a run, leaving the guards and Travis frozen on the spot in shock and horror.
His speed was incredible and there was no way they could catch him.
Amber clung to him, not sure what the result of this “escape” would be but knowing that she was helpless against him as he thrashed through the grasslands. Minutes later, he set her down in a section where water reached their knees. “Wait here for me. I need us to separate from the humans now because the laser would have been picked up by the Sketchi monitors. I have no doubt they will comb the area looking for the source.”
“Wouldn’t it make more sense if we stuck together to fight?” she argued.
“If my goal was to protect all, then yes, but it isn’t.” He spoke without remorse. “A divided target minimizes the threat.”
“Wrexel, no!”
He was leveling the playing field. He would not risk her getting hurt through the fault of others.
“They stand a better chance of survival with you and me.” She would put herself at risk, but could not allow him to use the three men as separate targets to increase their chances for diverting the Sketchi.
“Amber, let me recover one of your memories for you. I will do anything to keep you safe and at my side, and at any expense.”
“But the men back there…” she began.
“Are diversion bait.”
He left her sitting in horror.
Amber wept.
Her emotions were scattered, and she was exhausted, distressed, and confused.
* * *
Travis jerked with surprise when Wrexel returned to them within minutes. “Our plans have changed.” He moved for Travis’s monitor and punched in coordinates. “These are to my ship, but they are not direct. I need you to be a decoy.”
“What?”
“Follow these and we will meet up in eight hours or less if you keep pace and if you aren’t caught. I have to focus on Amber now; none of us stands to lose what she does if we are caught by the Sketchi.”
“We should stick together,” Travis cried out desperately. “I can’t move these two wounded men at the pace you’re setting.”
Len and Garth stood in silent shock when Wrexel addressed them. “You will remain behind. You won’t make it far with those wounds; they’re deep and infected. Lizard saliva is eating into your veins as we speak.” His voice was cold. “You do not have the ability to fight off their venom like I do.”
“What?” Garth asked, already dizzy from the poison.
“You’re dying, I have no anti-venom, and you won’t be able to reach Rheese for treatment. Die here in dignity and don’t hold your soldiers back.” He looked at Travis. “Go!”
“But,” Travis argued, “I’ll take Len and Garth with me. We’ll head back to Rheese and get an antidote.”
“Read your own fucking manuals on your perimeter animals and their toxins, Travis. They have less than 30 minutes of movement left before the venom coagulates their blood.”
Wrexel picked up both the lasers like lightning, taking advantage of their confusion. He lifted one and aimed it at Travis. “Run or die, human?”
“Are you insane?”
“The Sketchi,” Wrexel interrupted, “will be here within the hour looking for the ones who fired the cowardly shots, and they will find them. These two may deter them. If not, I need another moving target. If you are not a moving target, you are of no use to me and I’ll kill you now.”
“Dear God…”
“Our mission was clear.” Wrexel pointed at the two men. “They did not follow it.”
Travis stared at him in horror. “I will not leave my men.”
“Then you will all die.” Wrexel bristled with frustration. “Your idiocy is consistent ,Travis. You nearly lost your planet because of your stupidity and now you will lose your life for these two men who have an hour left to live, anyway.”
Travis was still arguing when the crunch of Len and then Garth’s necks being broken echoed in the dark and eerily silent night. They slump
ed at Wrexel’s feet, their heads twisted dramatically. Travis dropped at his guards” side and threw up with a guttural cry.
“Stay and die, or run.” Wrexel left in the same lightning motion.
* * *
Amber bristled when Wrexel came out of the grass. “I want you to take me back, I want us…”
“Not now, Amber.”
She fell silent at the violent obscurity of his face; it was vaguely reminiscent of another time she could not exactly define. Some alarming flashbacks were returning of him that scared her.
He dragged her to her feet and ran for a period that left her breathless, although he kept sweeping her up and carrying her when she thought her legs would fail. When he finally came to a stop, the forest of the non-climbing ghouls lay before them.
The sun slowly rose, and the remainder of the nocturnal creatures would now return to their underground caves. Their run to the ship would be swift and creature-free.
Amber sat down next to him, catching her breath and trying to still her racing mind. “What did you do?” she asked eventually. “They don’t stand a chance without you.”
“Travis may live. The guards are dead; the lizard venom is highly toxic. They had an hour left at most, and nothing can reverse the effects unless it’s immediately applied.”
“What did you do?” she groaned again.
“I made sure that you will live.”
Silence returned until, minutes later, he stood up and held out his hand.
Amber declined it and began walking to the trees. “I’m looking forward to my memory returning, Wrexel. I think there are a lot of things that I need clarity on when it comes to you.”
AMNESIA Page 12