Xander
When the door closed behind Sydney, Xander punched the wall. It didn’t make a hole, but he was pretty sure he had cracked some bones in his hand. He flexed his fist and jumped when his dad grasped his shoulder.
“What the hell just happened?” Richard asked, his voice was raspy and dry.
“Let’s sit down,” Heather sighed.
After cleaning up Richard’s wounds and giving him ibuprofen, Heather made everyone coffee. As they got him up to speed, Rich stared at them all as if they had grown extra heads. “You can’t be serious?” he asked once they were done talking.
“Unfortunately, we are,” Shay told him.
The table went silent while he tried to process the story they told him. After several minutes he looked up at them again. “This is insane,” he shook his head.
“I know,” Xander ran a hand over his beard. “But it’s the truth.”
He knew his father still didn’t want to believe them, but he knew his family wasn’t crazy. And there was nothing funny about this to indicate some kind of practical joke. Eventually, when he had ruled out jokes, mass insanity, and the like, he had to accept they believed what they were saying. Xander didn't know if his father really believed their whole story, but he believed they believed it. Xander felt like he was going to burst out of his skin. He couldn’t believe they were just sitting at the kitchen table doing nothing. When Zak’s voice came through his phone, they all jumped. He had forgotten that the phone was still on speaker.
“Hi Rich.” Zak’s voice was somber.
“Zak?”
“Yeah.”
“What are you doing?”
“Following Sydney and the men who took her.”
“Where are they?” Xander leaned forward.
“Heading north. They haven’t stopped yet.”
“I can’t believe you let her go with them,” Richard glared at them all.
Xander clenched his fist causing his knuckles to hurt. Great, a bad shoulder and a bad hand. “I—we—didn’t want to. We didn’t have much choice though.”
“We needed more time,” Shay explained. “This was the best way.”
“Because they threatened me?” Richard sounded as exasperated as he looked.
“Yes,” Shay nodded. “For starters.”
“That’s—that’s bullshit. There is a reason you shouldn’t negotiate with kidnappers and terrorists.”
“True,” Shay reasoned. “But, Sydney is the only one they think can do what they want her to do. If she can’t do what they want, she’s going to stall.”
“How long do you think she has?” Richard snapped.
Xander and Shay glanced at each other. “We don’t know,” Xander nearly growled the words. “Where did they keep you?”
“In a closet somewhere! This is insane!” he repeated after a moment. “I was with those assholes. They aren’t nice people. We need to go to the cops!”
“And if we do, they hurt Sydney,” Xander pounded his fist on the table.
“Xander!” Heather snapped, finally speaking up. “Calm down! You aren’t helping Sydney by getting upset.”
“Plus,” Shay sighed. “There is the fact that they are blackmailing us.”
“But this is 2016!” Richard cried. “Forensics and all that would reveal the truth!”
“Really? You trust that?” Shay tilted her head. “People aren’t wrongfully convicted anymore?”
Richard was quiet because he knew she was right. Xander sighed. With his record, the cops would have little trouble arresting him for a crime he was genuinely connected to. “We have to do something,” his dad looked at the table, sounding defeated.
“Yeah,” Shay nodded. “We work on finding evidence and get it to the news or online or whatever. At the same time, we figure out a way to get Sydney out of there.”
“In the meantime,” Xander braced himself for the argument to come. “You guys need to get out of here.”
“What?” Richard was taken aback.
Heather was already shaking her head. “They think they can convince us to leave town,” she explained.
“Absolutely not!”
“Dad!” Xander laid his hands on the table, palms down. “It’s the smart thing to do.”
“We aren’t going to let you guys deal with this on your own!”
“What if something happens to one of you?” Heather had back up and was getting her momentum going again.
Xander tried to cut her off before she really got going. “Something can happen to us if you are here or not. And if you are here, it could happen to you too. Then where will we be? With no one to help. If you guys are safe,” he continued. “You can be our backup. There is someone left to go to the media or the police even.”
“He’s right,” Zak broke in again.
Richard was shaking his head and Heather looked no less determined. “We can’t just go off and let our children face something like this alone," he said.
“What about Mom?” Shay asked.
“Excuse me?” Heather looked aghast. “What about me?”
Shay continued looking at her father. “Do you want anything to happen to her?” Then she turned to her mother. “Do you want anything to happen to dad? If you guys get out of town, you can keep each other safe. If you stay here—we will have to help keep you safe. And that is less focus on ourselves and Sydney.”
Damn, Xander thought to himself. Shay’s playing hardball.
“That’s not fair, Shay,” Heather snapped, but she looked decidedly less determined.
Richard sighed and Xander felt a crack in their armor. “If we leave town, what’s to say they won’t follow us?”
Xander relaxed a little. “They’ll probably try. We’ll have to think of something to help deter them.”
Richard was silent for a moment. “Harry,” he said finally.
Heather looked at him mutinously. “You can’t seriously be considering this?”
“Uncle Harry?” Shay asked.
Xander remembered the old kook well. “He’s still alive?” He wasn’t their real uncle, but lifelong friend of Heather and Richard’s. They had lived on a commune together for a while before Shay and Xander were born.
“Yes,” Richard nodded. “He’s living in Canada. ‘Off the grid’ he says.”
“Son of a bitch…” Heather got up from the table and cleared away their coffee cups so roughly Xander was surprised they didn't break.
Chapter Twenty-One
Sydney lay on her cot staring at the water stained ceiling. She itched to call Xander and the others. She wanted to hear their voices. She wanted to know they had come up with a plan since she hadn’t. She wanted to know that Richard and Heather were leaving town. But she hesitated. Not just because she was afraid Gary or Jason would realize she had a phone and take it from her. But also for practical reasons. She didn’t have a charger with her. She had turned her phone off to conserve the charge she had, but she needed to save her battery for when it was important. When she had something to report.
She had been sure she no longer had a Dyian in her brain. But, if that was the case, how were they able to find her? Why did the hosts at the coffee shop try to attack her? Was there some kind of stain left on her? A lingering pheromone? She felt like her brain was spinning in circles. Unable to lay still any longer, she climbed off the uncomfortable cot and crossed to the door. She tried the knob, but found it was locked—of course. She knocked and a moment later Jason opened the door. He just stared at her.
“Hi,” she said finally.
“What?”
She rolled her eyes. “I need to pee.”
“There’s a bucket in there.”
Syd scowled at him. “Fuck that. Take me to the bathroom.”
Jason stared at her for several seconds. “Fine. But if you try anything, you won’t get another bathroom break. And I’ll take the bucket out of there too.”
“Fine. I don’t know what you think I’m going to do,”
shook her head at him as she passed.
“This way,” he grabbed her arm and led her back towards the lobby. He pulled her to a stop in front of a door with both a male and female silhouette. “Hurry up. You get five minutes.”
Inside the bathroom, she peed and washed her face and hands. Her reflection surprised her. It looked like she had aged ten years in the past day. She had bags under her eyes and her hair was limp and stringy. She flexed her hands, worrying about the pain in her fingers that still lingered. She knew it wasn’t arthritis since it seemed to be at the tips and not the joints and she assumed if she had actually gotten frostbite her fingers would turn black or something. My luck, I’ve caught some kind of fungus that will rot my fingernails off. She tried to not let her thoughts wander to her missing month. There was no telling what had happened to her or where she had been.
She sighed and dried her face off before leaving the bathroom. Jason was fidgeting nervously and a loud voice offered an explanation.
“What the hell is she doing out of the closet?”
Sydney jumped when Gary barked at them from the lobby. She spoke up before Jason. “I needed to pee.”
“There are buckets!”
“If you guys think I’m going to shit in a bucket you’re dead wrong.”
Gary finally drew even with them and his hand closed around her upper arm hard enough she was sure it would bruise. He yanked her close and she struggled to not wince. “I don’t care if you shit your pants. Don’t try any fucking games.”
“I just wanted to piss.” She held his eye, determined not to be the first one to look away.
The ding of the elevator drew their attention and calling the stare down a draw. Syd could hear the doors slide open and then Moreno’s voice. “—the car?”
A second voice answered. “Si.”
“Good, good.”
Moreno and two other men turned the corner and he threw up his hands when he saw them. “Good! You are ready to go!”
“Where am I going?” Sydney asked, wishing Gary would let go of her arm. She was starting to lose the feeling in her fingers.
“On a test run.” Moreno did some kind of dance shuffle towards them. His grin pulled the scarred flesh of his face grotesquely.
Sydney’s heart thumped in her chest. She was unprepared and the very real fact that she could be killed, or worse, settled onto her shoulders. “I still don’t know what you want me to do.”
“I want you to do what is natural,” Moreno cooed at her. “I want you to find the Dyians.”
Sydney tried to speak around the lump in her throat. “I told you,” she swallowed. “I don’t know how.”
“You’ll figure it out,” Moreno snapped, changing attitudes in a heartbeat.
Gary eased his grip on her arm and gave her a side-eye. She took a deep breath and steadied herself. “Well, let’s give it a whirl then.” She cursed silently over not having her purse, and phone, with her. But there was nothing she could do about it now.
Moreno cackled. “That’s the spirit!” His playful mood was back as fast as it left.
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and she struggled to not cringe away from him. He smelled like spices—not cooking spices. It was an aroma she would have expected to find in an apothecary or maybe even Shay’s medicine cabinet. It was an almost medicinal smell with a natural, herbal undertone. She glanced back at Gary and for a moment she could have sworn he looked sorry for her. Jason kept his face carefully blank, but sweat was beaded at his hairline.
Moreno guided her out of the building and to a SUV. The two men that had followed him off the elevator got in the front and Moreno held one of the back doors open for her and she noticed his hands were scarred as well. She looked to Gary with a surprising desperation. The devil you know…she thought. But neither he, nor Jason, looked her way as they climbed in their sedan. Filled with dread, she slid into the truck and flinched when Moreno shut the door behind her.
Once he was inside, Moreno turned to her. “Are you hungry?”
“What?” She was sure she had misunderstood.
“Are you hungry?”
“Sure…” What kind of game is he playing? Sydney watched the street lights as they came on and hoped that Zak and ET were still following them. She didn’t like feeling so exposed and vulnerable next to Moreno. Everything she had heard about the man was vile. “What happened to your face?” she asked. She knew it was a stupid thing to do but should couldn't stop herself from goading the man. She glanced towards Moreno and found him glaring at her.
“That’s a very rude question.”
She shrugged. “It’s also rude to kidnap people. Let alone force them to work for you.”
Lucky for her, Moreno barked out a laugh. “True.”
He would have been a strikingly good looking man if it were not for his scars and the cruel glint to his dark brown eyes. “I was in a fire.”
“I could have guessed that.”
“Your government,” Moreno began after a moment. “They assaulted my home. They killed my family. They killed my employees. They burned my house to the ground. I barely made it out.”
“Well, if a government tried to kill me, I don’t think I would go right to that country and start kidnapping people.”
Moreno chuckled. “The means justify the ends,” he struggled with the saying. “If I get what I want…I can make your government pay for what they did to me.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
In the steakhouse, Sydney had a hard time eating. She wasn’t actually hungry, but she didn’t tell Moreno that. Instead, she let him pick a restaurant and even let him order for her. He chose steaks for them both—cooked rare. When he offered wine, she jumped at the chance. Thinking ahead, she hoped she would be able to pretend the wine was throwing off her alien hunting abilities. Unless the pheromone thing still worked and the hosts found her.
Her back went stiff. Up until now, she had been worried about not finding aliens for Moreno. But a new fear arose. Finding infected people was just as dangerous as not finding them. If she couldn’t perform for Moreno, she had to worry about him killing her and her friends. If she did find them…then she had to worry about being attacked by snarling people playing host to aliens. And what she had seen before showed that they were vicious and irrational. Fuck.
Syd tried to swallow the bite of meat she had been chewing on for several minutes. It slid down her throat slowly, restricting her breathing for a moment. She washed it down with a gulp of wine and Moreno smiled at her. Neither of them had spoken much since being seated. Moreno was busy glaring at people who stared at him.
“Aren’t you worried you’ll be recognized? You’re kinda memorable, you know.”
He smiled as if she had just complimented him. “Your government thinks I’m dead. They aren’t looking for me.”
“Which branch of government as we talking about here? DEA? ATF?”
Moreno laughed like she had made a joke. “No.”
When he didn’t elaborate she slumped back in her seat. “Well, if they are some kind of ‘men-in-black’ what makes you think they would give up so easily? No matter what branch, I can’t imagine they wouldn’t search the rubble to be sure.”
Moreno scowled. “It doesn’t matter if they did.”
“Why not?”
“They won’t find me.”
“And you know this how?”
“I made offerings. I am in the favor of the gods.”
Shit. “Wow.”
If Moreno picked up on her sarcasm he didn’t react. “If the gods don’t want you found, you won’t be,” he stated as fact.
Syd felt cold as hopelessness crept in. How do you rationalize with a crazy person? How can you plan and predict the actions of a mad-man? “Who are these gods?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to know, but she asked the question before she had a chance to reconsider. Doc had alluded to just how crazy Moreno was, but she had not been prepared for this.
“The Dyians, of cou
rse,” Moreno laughed.
Syd remembered his comment during their first meeting. He didn’t see them as aliens. He viewed them as gods. “The Dyians are your gods?”
“Of course. I didn’t know it for a long time.”
“What?”
“I have been praying to the gods for years. And they always protected me. When they asked for a sacrifice, I gave it. And they gave to me too.”
“What sacrifice?”
A flash of sadness glinted in Moreno’s eyes for a second. “A virgin sacrifice. My daughter.”
“Holy shit.”
“It was a heavy price. But I would do it again,” he declared with resigned pride.
“How did the Dyians pay you back?”
“The site of the sacrifice. When we were burying Esmeralda, we found the Quimbayan structure.”
“Oh…” Sydney let the word drag out.
Moreno took a deep drink of wine. “The Dyians have rewarded my sacrifice. My loyalty.”
“But what about the agents that attacked your home?”
His face went dark. “There will always be forces of evil. My Dyians got me out. They saved me.”
“How?”
“One of the hosts. His confines broke in one of the blasts. He attacked the agents that were chasing me through the basement. He caused the explosion that covered my escape. If it wasn’t for him, I would not have gotten out of there.”
Sydney sighed. She knew it was impossible to argue with crazy but she couldn’t seem to stop talking. “But, if the Dyians are helping you, why would you have to find them? Wouldn’t they just be waiting for you?”
“In their hosts they are vulnerable. They are alone here. Lost. And confused. Even once they break free, they are on unfamiliar ground. They need me to guide them. To help them acclimate.”
Sydney took another gulp of wine. Her head swam, and not just from the alcohol. If she continued to argue, Moreno would have answers ready. People who wanted to believe—those who were truly invested—wouldn’t be swayed by people they already didn’t trust and saw as an enemy. But does Moreno actually see me as an enemy? “Where do I fit into all of this?”
Show No Fear (The Dyian Series Book 2) Page 13