Her brow furrowed. “I’ve never given it much thought. I just always assumed that my brother and I would live out our days in that cabin. I’ve never known anything different.”
Olivia tried to imagine living with her sister, Vicky, without any others around—she’d become certifiably insane in a matter of weeks. Yes, she loved and missed her sister terribly, but she could never live with her again.
Guilt and sadness washed through her. She shouldn’t be thinking of the dead like that.
“Why are you so sad, Olivia?”
Again, Eden startled her with her perception, or maybe she unknowingly wore her feelings on her face. She’d never been told that before, though. “How do you know I’m sad, Eden?”
Her cheeks turned absolutely crimson, and she gazed down at the floor. She remained quiet for a few moments.
“Eden?”
Finally, she raised her head. “You just look that way. I’m sorry if I upset you by noticing.”
She stared at her, not believing a word. Somehow, Eden understood exactly what she felt at any given time. How, she didn’t know.
“Eden, I think of you as my friend. If I didn’t, I never would have bothered giving you that lotion. In fact, you remind me a lot of my sister. I want you to trust me.”
“Your sister?”
Olivia took a deep breath, trying to recall when she’d talked about Vicky intimately with someone—probably to Vicky’s roommate when she’d first arrived in Phoenix a couple of months ago. “Yes.”
Eden tilted her head and her gaze flickered toward Olivia, almost as if she didn’t quite look at her, but at the space around her. “Where is she now?”
“She’s dead.”
Eden nodded, as if she almost expected that answer. “I’m sorry to hear that. It was very difficult when my mother died.”
“Yes, I had a hard time, as well when my sister passed on.”
“How did she die?”
“She was murdered.”
“Oh. That makes you angry.”
How had she known? Olivia had monitored her facial features and her voice tone, but maybe such fury and sadness couldn’t be hidden. Perhaps Eden was simply very astute. “Yes.”
“Have you prayed for relief from the anger eating you up inside?”
Olivia sat back in her chair. Now, it became her turn to stare at the floor while her cheeks burned. Not from embarrassment, but because of the emotions flooding through her.
Did the anger eat her up inside? She supposed to some extent, it did. She’d been through many sleepless nights where she stared into the darkness and imagined taking the life of her sister’s faceless killer, the pain and agony she wanted to inflict on him.
“Olivia?”
She met Eden’s gaze. “No. I don’t pray.”
After a moment, she spoke. “Then I shall do it for you.”
Tears stung her eyes. She didn’t know whether to be furious, or to be thankful that someone on this planet wanted to pray for her.
She couldn’t sit here and talk with Eden any longer, or she may just lose it and end up in a ball of tears on the floor. A challenge was what she needed, and she thought of Benedict.
“I’m going to go now, Eden. Thank you for your time.”
She nodded but said nothing.
As Olivia stepped out into the hallway, she took a moment between Eden’s and Benedict’s rooms and gathered her composure. Talking about Vicky always either made her terribly upset or shake with fury. As someone with a degree in psychology, she understood that she should work through those emotions because they did affect her, especially the anger. It wasn’t healthy. She probably needed to see a shrink, but she kept hoping that she’d be able to deal with it all on her own, or that time would lessen her pain.
Her plan didn’t seem to be going very well.
When she’d calmed down a bit, she stepped into Benedict’s sightline. He stared at her, his face emotionless.
She pressed the intercom. “May I come in?”
He shrugged and sat down on the edge of the bed. If she looked in Eden’s quarters, she’d find her sitting in the exact same spot, her hands folded on her lap, just as his did. A chill went up her spine as she thought of the similarities between the two.
She entered and sat down on the chair, and tried to remain pleasant. “How are you today?”
“Fine.”
Instead of making small talk, she decided to go directly into her questions. “How old was your mother when she died?”
She only saw a flicker of emotion in his dark eyes, the rest of his face remained impassive. “I believe she was sixty.”
“That was old for people in her generation.”
He shrugged.
Something in her wanted his calm features as riled up as she felt. Eden’s ability to read her so well had made her uncomfortable, and this smug, beautiful man sitting before her seemed way too peaceful. “Were you having sexual relations with your sister?”
He raised his brows for a moment, then shook his head. “I expected more from you, Olivia. Please leave me.”
The quiet, calm voice only made her angrier, and she wanted to scream at him and throw furniture, but taking out her emotional stress on him wouldn’t solve anything.
Standing, her cheeks now burned in shame, but she couldn’t find it within her to apologize. Leaving without another word, she approached Roman’s place, but stopped before she came into his view. Reaching into her pocket, she flipped off her recorder.
Although she knew she should, she didn’t want to record her conversation with Roman. Suddenly, she just felt tired and in desperate need of a friend.
He moved into her line of sight before she had been ready to greet him. Concern washed over his face as she pushed the intercom button.
“Can I come in?”
He nodded.
She placed her hand on the pad and the door slid open. For some reason, just being in his presence made her feel a bit better. “How are you today?”
“I’m fine. Bored, but fine.”
Nodding, she didn’t bother to ask if she could sit down, but just planted it in the chair. She figured he’d had his mouth and tongue over every square inch of her body, so they didn’t need the formalities. Today as she watched him, she didn’t even feel freaked out that she’d slept with an alien. To her, he didn’t seem strange or foreign. He had simply taken the role of what he’d been before—her very experienced, kind, sexy lover.
She glanced over her shoulder to make sure security hadn’t entered the area, then motioned to her pocket and began to pull out a piece of paper. He coughed, and she smiled. They seemed to have this down to a science.
“Roman, I know there are others like you. I’m aware of the other facility. Could you please tell me where they are? We only want to help them, to understand your race.”
He took the paper from her and jotted a note before answering. Are you okay?
Do you really care?
After giving her a dirty look, he grabbed the pen from her. Even if you are my sworn enemy, of course I care.
Then he said, “I don’t have an answer to your question. I have nothing to say about my race.”
“Roman …”
She sat forward and put her elbows on her knees, her head in her palms. Tears threatened to fall again.
For some reason, out of the people in this facility, she felt closest to him. They hadn’t even spent twenty-four hours together, but he seemed to be the one who knew her the most intimately.
Or maybe, she just felt really tired.
She looked up at him. “I think I need to go.”
He nodded, and scribbled another note. Come back tonight.
Sighing, she nodded. If she came back, she’d be taking a huge chance again. Last night, she’d somehow bypassed the cameras, and they’d both gotten past the microphones.
Then, she remembered she still needed to take a tour of the Control Center. That would certainly get her a good idea of
what they saw and heard.
I will if I can.
He nodded, his handsome face forlorn.
As she left his room, the distinct need for a nap hit her with the force of an anvil dropping onto her. Her job today had simply drained all her energy, making her body feel like a wet dishrag.
She had one woman who seemed so young and innocent, but held the strong convictions of someone much, much older. She’d offended Benedict, and she missed the touch of her old lover, who also happened to be an alien.
This bus she rode on felt like it just may drive off the cliff.
Chapter 27
“Why isn’t she calling?”
Blake glanced at Axel and just wished the guy would shut up. It had been a long afternoon since Justice had arrived, and Blake had leaned back in his chair, going into an idyllic place where he had the patience of a saint and his body floated like he rested on an eternity of water. The din from the mellow conversations around him served as background noise, but that damn Axel and his angry attitude just blew him right out of his blissful non-existence. The urge to break some teeth railed through him.
Justice smiled. “Relax, Axel. She’ll call when she can.”
“I would think that she’d find time to do so.”
He couldn’t take any more. “Zip it, Axel. Justice said she’d call when she had time, and obviously, traveling out in the middle of the damn desert doesn’t provide the best cellular reception.”
Fuck, the guy really needed prescription of Xanax or something. Maybe Beverly could hook him up with some and spare all of them his shitty attitude. Or, maybe she should hand out Xanax to everyone else, just so they all could smile as they listened to his fury. He understood why Axel had become angry; he really did. However, he also realized the guy needed to get past the fact his planet had been blown to shit, that he’d lost his family and friends, and that he needed to start living in the present. If there had been one thing he’d learned, the past belonged behind a locked door, and it shouldn’t be let out. You couldn’t change what had been done; you could only move forward and hope to be better today.
They sat in silence for a few moments. He didn’t do well sitting for long periods of time. He became antsy and nervous. When he got like that, he thought about drugs, then he wanted heroin.
He’d wait a few more minutes, then bail. Until then, he’d think about Sophia. What had she wanted to discuss with him?
She’d said she wouldn’t be leaving him, so that brought on a lot of relief. Maybe it had something to do with Megan’s schooling. The girl showed absolute brilliance, so maybe Sophia wanted to order some new teaching tools or something, but wanted to check with him first. Not that he’d ever say no … Megan would one day soon outsmart him, and he planned on encouraging that as much as possible.
He tried to think of anything else she could want to talk about … maybe she had gotten into an argument with one of the women in the house and wanted his opinion. That seemed a little far-fetched, but the past few months had brought so many changes with babies, the parents had become sleep-deprived and edgy. Tempers could snap and flare under those circumstances.
Maybe he should go talk to her now. He glanced at his phone and realized Sophia would be helping to prepare dinner or working with Megan on her schooling. It wouldn’t be a good time.
He sighed. He’d just have to wait to talk to her because he really had no idea. He thought their sex life was great, their relationship seemed to be solid, so he didn’t understand what it could be.
He stood. “I’m going to head outside for a walk.”
Hudson glanced up at him. “It’s raining.”
Fuck.
“Well, then I’m going to run some stairs. I can’t sit here anymore. Someone call or text me when Holly calls.”
Hudson nodded. “Understood.”
Blake left the War Room, walked down the hall and to the staircase. As he descended the nine stories, he wondered what Roman had been enduring. Needles in the eye, drills in the brain … it made him sick just thinking about it. They’d been damn lucky Holly had wanted to keep her job in the military. She had a front row seat to all the freaky shit they did out in the Arizona desert and could report back to them. If she hadn’t seen Roman, they’d probably have lost him forever and never would have known what had happened to him.
Hopefully, Holly would call soon and they would be able to put together a plan to get him out, and he prayed they wouldn’t be too late.
Chapter 28
After dinner, Olivia found the Control Room without much effort. She knocked on the door and Beth answered.
“Hey! I thought you were coming by yesterday!”
She grinned, glad she’d caught Beth in there instead of someone she hadn’t talked to very much. “I got caught up in work. I’m done for the day, so I’d thought I stop by now.”
“Sure! Come in.”
The ten-by-ten room consisted of six monitors and two chairs. On the largest monitor, a movie she didn’t recognize played.
“You sit here and watch movies?”
Beth nodded. “Most of the time. Those aliens aren’t going anywhere. They can’t get out of their cells, and if even they did, they can’t get past the handprint security. I could care less what anyone is saying around here, so I keep the volume on the recorders low, just loud enough so that if someone yelled for help or something, I’d be able to hear it.”
Beth took a chair, and Olivia sat down next to her, staring at the movie for a moment. No wonder no one had called her out about visiting Roman last night. Of course if they had, she’d simply have said she had been doing her job. However, seeing the setup added a new level of comfort to her clandestine visits.
The war movie played on with people being killed all over the screen. She watched it with detachment, not really following who should be considered the bad guys or the good guys.
“Don’t tell anyone, but sometimes, if I’m on late night duty, I’ll bring in my Xbox and play games.”
Olivia nodded, feeling even better about her unaccompanied visits to the aliens. She hoped Beth wouldn’t get caught anytime soon, because having her on duty could prove to be very beneficial for Olivia.
After a few moments, she stood. “I should get going—I’ve had a long day and I need to get to bed soon.”
“Sure. I’ll be in here for another few hours, then I’ll do the same.”
“Thanks for letting me take a peek.”
“Anytime. Come visit if you’re bored. God knows I am.”
She left the Control Center and headed to see Roman.
Roman had just finished dinner and stared out his cell, wondering of Olivia would swing by. He wished he had something to read, or a TV to watch. The noise depravation combined with nothing to do had him feeling like he traveled on a downward spiral into an even deeper depression. As he rubbed his face, exhaustion railed through him, despite his nap, and he seemed to be thinking a lot about dying. Well, if he stayed here, at some point, that would be a given, but he wondered about the afterlife, if there would be one. He didn’t know if he believed in that or not, but he supposed he should be finding out pretty quickly. He just couldn’t imagine that there’d be absolutely nothing after dying, that he’d simply cease to exist.
To take his mind off it all, he’d been watching the two cells on the other side of the hallway that he couldn’t see into. There didn’t seem to be any movement in them, but he got the feeling that others had been placed in there. Was it his people from the silo? Had Holly reached out and told them he was here and they’d come to rescue him, only to get caught themselves?
If he were to get any answers, he’d have to ask Olivia. For her to give up any information, he’d have to offer up some of his own. Hopefully, she’d ask him something besides where the Saviors were.
Even despite his dire circumstances and Olivia working for his enemy, he couldn’t help his attraction to her. In fact, he found the whole situation pretty sad. He’d really liked
her. He didn’t want to mate her or anything like that, but he could see those feelings coming around pretty quickly.
Squinting, he thought he saw a shadow in one of the cells. Maybe it had just been his eyes playing tricks on him, but he didn’t think so. His gut told him someone—or even something—had been locked in there.
His species wasn’t the only one beside humans to walk the Earth.
Olivia rounded the corner in bare feet, and she glanced into the two cells as she passed them. She waved at the first one, and briefly smiled at the second.
He’d been right. There definitely was someone in there.
She grinned and placed her hand on the pad, the door sliding open. He thought of tackling her and making her take him out of here, but he couldn’t hurt a female, and his inability to do so would most likely lead to his death.
He considered asking her to lead him to the front door, but then he assumed security would know she was in his cell. If the talk needed to turn personal, they wouldn’t be able to communicate. He imagined they’d wonder about the shower being turned on with her in the room and come to investigate, and then they’d both be in trouble.
He turned and headed for the bathroom area. She followed.
Once the water echoed around the room, he didn’t bother with small talk. “Who is in those cells over there?”
She glanced over her shoulder. “No one.”
“You don’t smile and wave at no one.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, she tilted her head. “You want answers, but you aren’t willing to give up any.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, mirroring her stance, and hoped that he could keep his hands to himself. She looked exhausted, but he still longed to feel her lips on his. “You answer first and I promise I will give you information. I just can’t tell you where anyone is living.”
“So, you’re admitting that there are others.”
He shrugged. “You already know that.”
She nodded. “Yes, I did. There are others like you in those rooms.”
He tried not to let his panic show. Who was it? “Did they give you names?”
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