by Zara Zenia
This could all be some sort of elaborate and cruel trick to get me to come out of the bathroom.
Then what was to stop him from killing me right then and there on the spot? I didn’t want to risk it, but at the same time, I couldn’t stay sealed away in the bathroom forever, either.
No, he wouldn’t kill me because what would be in it for him if I died? He specifically said he brought me here to be his mate. He wouldn’t end my life if his sole intention was to have a companion.
Even still, it didn’t justify his treatment of me thus far, or the fact that he kidnapped me and brought me to a foreign planet in an unknown galaxy. I wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily.
With deliberately slow easement, I placed my hand on the knob of the door and white knuckle gripped it. I took a huge inhale of air and decided it was going to be now or nothing. I would soon find out what Harkzak’s real and true motives were.
I emerged from the bathroom a nervous wreck. I was blinking, and my nerves were hanging in the air at what kind of blow I might receive when I walked out.
Harkzak was sitting on the edge of the bed. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting him to appear so poised and calm.
He wore dark jeans and a black t-shirt. He looked almost…human. Was he trying to conform his appearance to make me feel more at home and at ease? His skin was still blue though.
His blue skin and dark markings were pronounced even more now that we were here on his native planet. His hair was soft and dark upon his head like a shadow over a moonlit creek.
I studied his movements. In his hands, he thumbed over a circular device that had a screen in the middle.
“What’s that?” I pointed at it, intrigued.
It was no secret that the Xicret race was far more in tune with technology than we were on Earth. I wondered if this little gadget was what he had planned on showing me.
His eyes were an ocean of depth I couldn’t grasp, but there was something about his posture that softened. He was relaxed, and I felt my own guarded cautions deplete slightly after witnessing his vibe.
His usual tough and unbreakable exterior was still there, but he didn’t have anyone there to compete with in the room right then. Maybe that demeanor was all a front, and he was really yielding on the inside.
I didn’t know what might be going on inside that head of his, but I had the singe of enthusiasm enough now to find out, especially if it meant I could convince him to let me go home.
“This is called the Looking Eye.” He raised his chin, poised his posture back to its natural state.
He held the device up for me to get a better look, but didn’t say anything further.
“Okay…well what is that?” I couldn’t help but egg on the sarcasm within myself when it came to addressing him.
He probably thought I was a massive bitch right then, but I had every right to be. He abducted me and I wouldn’t let him forget that.
A whimsical sigh escaped his lips. “It’s a device that my father uses to spy on people.”
His voice became snide, almost mocking. I could immediately tell that there must be some animosity between him and his dad. I didn’t know anything about his family other than they were obviously rich.
“So, what does that have to do with me?” I stood awkwardly a few steps away from him, giving us both plenty of safe space and distance.
“I brought this to you to show you what is going on with your family back on Earth. To prove to you once and for all that you must get used to being here on Xicret. It’s your new home, and you might as well get used to it. Your focus and attention should be on being here with me because as you’ll soon find out, there’s nothing to go home to back on Earth.”
The stabbing sensation in my gut made me choke back bile that I was sure had been building up since my abduction.
“What the hell are you talking about?” My jaw clinched, my eyes narrowed.
I knew this was some sort of terrible trick. I was such an idiot. My palms became sweaty and I felt like I might vomit.
I nearly spit the words out as harshly as I could. Harkzak had some explaining to do. How dare he come in here with this bombshell and no sympathy to back it up? Didn’t he understand how hard this process had been for me?
Fresh anger seared, threatening the surface of my outward emotions.
“Are you going to show me my family or what?” His delay aggravated me. “It’s apparent that all you want to do is make me more upset than I already am.”
Harkzak sighed. “I don’t want you to be unhappy.”
I scoffed with a snorting sound. “You could have fooled me.”
He looked up and his eyes were deep set with pain that made me relent slightly.
“I’m going to leave you with this Looking Eye. Press this green button here on the side. That will open up the screen. Type in your address to the keypad and your family will be visible. Just know I warned you.”
His voice was flat, but his eyes were blazing with an unspoken revenge he must have aimed at me for not being cooperative from the beginning.
My heart raced. I had no idea what I was going to see inside this screen. The way Harkzak approached the subject made me nervous and fearful.
He exited the room and the void of silence left in his wake made my head throb. With a shaking hand, I pressed the green button as instructed.
At least he’d given me the courtesy to give me privacy when I observed whatever it was that I was supposed to see in this damn thing.
The screen opened up as promised, and a hovering display loomed at direct eyesight range. I stared at it with curious wonder.
My throat became dry, my skin felt clammy. Nervously I typed in my address back home in Greenwich. I didn’t even realize how violently my hands were shaking until it took me several tries to punch in the letters and numbers.
When I finally got the address typed in, I hit the enter button, held my breath and waited. At first some static looking fuzz spread across the hover screen.
I began to question whether this would even work but then I saw them, my parents. I gasped at the sight of them. My insides tingled as if I were just filled with an electric volt of energy.
I saw my mother first. I cried, wept and laughed at the same time, clinging to this device as if it were my life boat. “Mom?” I wailed and touched the screen to her perfect blonde hair.
My mother stood in front of the kitchen sink, overlooking our beautifully landscaped back yard and infinity edged pool. I missed that house tremendously and would give anything on Earth to lay by the quiet, relaxing and peaceful pool.
I could see that she was washing squash and zucchini in probable preparation before dicing or chopping it up for dinner with Daddy. Something was off about her. She looked almost…content and happy. That couldn’t be right.
“Mom?” I said again, knowing that she couldn’t hear me, but I talked anyway.
I reached out to touch her silky blonde hair. She looked so real. The longing burned inside me to touch her shoulder and have her whip around and hug me. I craved to tell her I was okay, that I was alive. I wanted to sob into her chest while she squeezed me tight.
My attempts were met in vain, because it wasn’t real, at least for me here on Xicret. She was only a video, someone I could watch through the display screen, but couldn’t actually stroke or contact in any existing dimension.
She looked peaceful, content—which puzzled me. I had only been gone for several weeks. Did they already give up looking for me?
Horror and worrisome doubt spread over me like wildfire. I used the navigation throttle to pan around the room. A newspaper article on the side of the fridge captured my attention.
“Local girl goes missing, most likely died in house party fire.” The date was accurate for when I disappeared, and a picture of me from my college graduation in my cap and gown taunted me from the side caption.
They thought I died in a house fire? That’s not what had happened at all. Panic lurche
d me into oblivion of nightmares I didn’t want to face. My eyes became blurry; I couldn’t look at the screen anymore.
There was no house fire that night that I could remember, but then again, I left early after being kidnapped so what did I know of what happened after I’d already gone? If there was a fire, was anyone hurt? My mind instantly drifted back to Fred.
I wiped the tears from my fuzzy vision, wanting to escape this torture, but I had to investigate and find out more.
Frantically and with flushed cheeks, I typed in Fred’s address, where we were going to live in Manhattan. I bit my lip so hard in anticipation that I could taste blood on my tongue.
Immediately I saw his charming and handsome face rise across the display screen.
“Fred,” I said with affection and reached out to touch the screen with a finger.
His name escaped my lips like a croaking prayer. He was on a balcony, flipping burgers on a gas grill. He looked like he was on a terrace of some sort, and I could see the city skyline behind him.
There it was, the Big Apple, the city that never sleeps, my home. The lights looked electric and full of life as the flickered in the skyscrapers.
I longed to be back in New York. I wanted to be where everything was familiar and where I had hoped my future still lie at my doorstep. Everything was left there, waiting for me to scoop it up and run with the potential. I feared those dreams would become staler by the minute, the longer I sat here. The clock was certainly ticking.
To my dismay and further revulsion, a gorgeous tall, blonde haired girl walked into the display screen. Fred didn’t have a sister. I didn’t know of any blonde cousins either. Who was this bitch?
My mouth dropped open and my gut fell through the floor as I watched her walk up to Fred seductively and hand him a beer.
She squeezed his left ass cheek and he leaned in to kiss her. The grin on his face may as well have been a beam from the surface of the sun itself, that’s how bright it was. On distant planet a million miles away, my heart burst into flames.
I could see that they were conversing, so I turned up the volume of the side of the Looking Eye because I had a dire need to know what they were talking about.
I thanked my lucky stars (if I had any left) that this little contraption had a volume button on it.
“I’m so glad I got what I wanted in the end, Amanda.”
Fred kissed the top of the strange and mysterious girls head. With a pang of jealousy, I noticed right away that she was about four sizes smaller than me.
Her midriff showed through her white halter top, giving way to a perfectly flat washboard abdominal stomach.
I screamed in frustration. Why the hell was he kissing her? He had already moved on from me? We were going to get married! This had to be some type of cruel joke or trick that Harkzak was playing on me.
I should throw this fucking Looking Eye or whatever the hell it was called out the window and watch as it crumbled to the ground below.
He had a menacing look in his eye before he left the room. He could be setting me up and making me think that my boyfriend, friends and family had already moved on from me after a mere few weeks of me going missing.
There were a million different scenarios to play out and I had no idea what truth to believe anymore.
Then, I noticed something in the far edge of the right upper corner of the display screen. The date was over one year later into the future.
I didn’t know how time worked here or how prolapsed this video might be. I was so confused and hurt that I couldn’t see straight.
Was there a time slippage involved with traveling to another planet on another galaxy? I never really paid much attention to astrophysics in high school so I didn’t know how that worked.
It certainly made sense though if they were already moving on with their lives. I hated the idea of them moving on without me in the picture. My spirit imploded in on itself in that moment.
My heart sank at Fred’s next statement and defeat crumbled my insides.
“My parents loved Lucy, and I really liked her, I mean we were friends, but I was never really attracted to her. She was, well, bigger than I’d I have liked. You though, I’ve always thought you were perfect, Amanda. Thin, gorgeous, everything I’ve ever wanted, but never thought I’d get, because of the damn alliance between my family and hers. But now, I’ve got everything I’ve ever wanted, starting pitcher for the Yankees and you, the woman I love.”
They clanked their beer bottles together in cheers, and then shared a deep and profound kiss that made me retch. I shut my eyes and shook my head. No, no this can’t be happening. I ran to the bathroom clutching my stomach.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see. All I could do was gag and sob as Fred’s hateful words replayed a billion times over in my mind.
I hung my head over the edge of the toilet and expelled the contents of my stomach. Although, at this point, there wasn’t much there to toss up because I had been basically refusing the meals from the maids.
After I heaved out all of my sorrow into the bowl, I flushed and kneeled on my hands and knees sniffing and panting hard.
I pinched my skin and wailed, hoping to wake up from this nightmare. But when I opened my eyes again, I was still lying on the cold marble tile in a bathroom on a foreign planet, millions of miles away from everything I had ever known.
Chapter Nine
Harkzak
The sound of the Looking Eye smashing into bits against the floor was unmistakable. I cringed as my heart raced. This isn’t really happening. It couldn’t. If so, I was as good as dead in my father’s eyes.
I barreled into the room after hearing the excruciating sound that shattered my ears. I had been waiting on the other side of Lucy’s door to see if she would come out and discuss the results with me.
I had no idea the aftermath would entail her actions as bold and rash as to simply destroy it altogether. It was clear that I had remarkably underestimated her.
I stopped dead in my tracks when her smoldering, blazing eyes fixed on me, locked in like an angry tiger ready to strike its prey.
Her face was stark white like a ghost, her lips pale. Her eyes were rimmed with red and glistening with fresh tears.
I had struck a nerve with her by showing her the results in the Looking Eye. The gash between us was now a gaping hole.
“You!” she screamed at me, the veins in her neck bulging at attention. “You’ve broken my heart! This thing, this stupid fucking thing has ruined my life. Thanks so much for showing me how my family has moved on. I had no idea that a year had passed either. You didn’t tell me about the time difference!”
She took a deep breath. I guessed she was done ranting because she ceased talking altogether. She folded her arms across her chest defensively and choked out one last sob.
Her shoulders wilted, and her defeated demeanor finally caved and cracked beneath the surface from which she was fighting to stay so strong. Her torment made me temporarily forget the destroyed Looking Eye.
“Listen, Lucy—I…” I trailed off and tried to find any words that could comfort her.
I had no idea the damage or repercussions that showing her what was happening back on Earth with her family would have on her.
She cut me off with an abrupt yell. The girl certainly had a sizable pair of hard working lungs. All of Xicret probably heard her scream.
I wondered if the royal guards of the palace would soon loom at her bedroom door to find out the cause of the disturbance.
I inhaled deeply and sharply so I wouldn’t grow intolerant with her and tried again. At least one of us should try to remain calm.
“Lucy, if you just listen to me please.” I held up an impatient hand as her mouth opened to shout again. “My intentions to show you your family back home were not meant with malicious intent. Up until a few hours ago, I didn’t even know this device existed. I don’t want you to feel heartbroken or melancholy over this. I simply wanted you to face the truth
and embrace your future. Your future is here, with me.”
I wanted desperately to get through to her. I smiled for added friendly effect, but she still wasn’t buying it and I grew increasingly concerned that I would never be able to be free of this bitter woman.
An idea came to me, like a light bulb switching on from connective fuse. Finally, I had thought of something that might strike up interest with her.
“Why don’t you come downstairs with me? I want to show you something.” I waved her to the entrance to the bedroom, coaxing her along.
“As if I have a choice in the matter.” Lucy folded her hands across her chest again and stomped to the door like a spoiled child. She was huffing dramatically.
We walked down the spiral staircase in silence. The only sound to my ears was my shoes hitting the tiled floor below. “Follow me out here to the garden,” I beckoned.
“What is it you want from me? I’m never going to adapt or bother to get used to being here. I don’t care what you have to show me.” Lucy stared at the ground and refused to make eye contact with me.
I spun around, unable to ignore her dense comments anymore. It was time for her to snap out of it. I wanted her to be adventurous. Even if she just pretended as if she was on vacation until she adapted, that would be fine with me. Anything was better than this.
I stood over her. I was probably intimidating and brooding, but I wanted to get my message across to her.
“Did you not just see the same thing I saw in the Looking Eye? I’m sorry to be brazen, Lucy, but to me it looked a hell of a lot like your family has moved on from you. If you hadn’t noticed, the time difference between traveling from Xicret to Earth is an entire year span even though to you it seems like only a mere couple of weeks. Your family has done their mourning, they’ve moved on. They have made their peace with the fact that you’re never coming home. You need to realize that and make your own harmony with it as well.”
The expression on her face contorted with a mixture of anger, resignation, and sadness. I felt sorry for her and irate with my dad for putting me in the position to trap her into seeing her family like that in the first place.