by Tanya Jolie
“You ran towards me.” She almost hiccupped the words out of her mouth, each sound catching as if it had snagged onto something.
Javen smiled. Her energy was calming, becoming far more bearable. “You forgot your smock.”
“I wanted to forget it.”
It was perfect: the little poem they had composed together.
“Your mother never liked me,” Javen said, a mischievous smile spreading across his face.
Tyri smiled, her plump, pink lips revealing a set of pearl white teeth. A puff of pleasure colored Javen’s mind. Clear evidence that she was feeling better. “She never needed to,” She said, placing her hand on Javen’s cheek.
Javen wrapped his arms around her, loving how this big magnificent character could make herself so small for him. He kissed her, their trembling lips touching. They stayed like this while the impact hit.
Their luxury condo on the 56th floor of a building in the heart of Leeda wavered from side to side. The panic room contained nothing but sealed cabinets they were only to open when the hunger struck. It became more and more difficult to remain affixed to each other but Javen managed it. He clutched her tighter and tighter. She was no longer the thing making him fearful. She was his rock.
The shaking slowly eased to a stop. Everything was calm. Even the air seemed to have settled.
Tyri dared say it first. “Was that it?”
Javen’s heart turned over in his chest. Could it have been? He stood up and approached the door, not sure if he wanted to open it or not. The panic room seemed like a good idea when it was being built, but now he resented it. He could hear no activity from the outside world.
The door opened with a whine. He peeked out into the short hallway of their condo. He could see that their living room looked as if it had been completely ransacked. Outside of their large window, he could see a cloud-like mixture of mist. The smog completely covered his view. It cast the entire condo in dark light.
“Javen, my love?”
Javen could sense his wife standing up. He reached for her hand and led her out into the hallway.
She was not so relieved to see the state of the place. A tiny sob leapt out of her mouth. She ripped her hand out of his, clutching her head. Javen reached out to touch her when the ground shook beneath his feet. The floor shifted up and to the right, throwing them both into the wall.
Tyri yelped, the stomach-turning crack of her shoulder punctuating the rumble.
“Tyri!” Javen yanked her away from the wall and dragged her out into the main room. They stumbled over their feet, struggling to overcome the violent shaking. Their glass dove slipped off of a shelf up high. He pushed himself in front of Tyri, shoving her out of the way. Their wedding present came crashing down onto the marble floor.
Javen’s gaze shot up at the high ceiling. He winced at the rubble raining down on him. It was only a matter of time before it collapsed. “We have to get to the roof!” he yelled.
Tyri gave a frantic nod and took off for their front door. She was a star runner, had participated in all the Olympiads as a child. Javen followed her, silently thanking the gods for the fact that she did not protest him. She stumbled over the threshold, but Javen snaked his strong arm around her torso before she could go crashing down onto the ground.
She picked at his hands. “Come on!”
Just like that, she was in the lead. She opened the door to the service staircase and started hopping up them, two at a time. Javen, who was far less lithe than his wife, travelled much slower, calling to her to slow down. But she wouldn’t. She was driven by hysterical fear and determined to get to the top of the building. Javen could feel it.
But he could also feel the steps giving to his weight. They had been weakened by this aftershock of the earth quake. The structure was far from sound.
“Tyri!” he roared.
She glanced over her shoulder, one whole flight ahead. “Javen?” But her voice was lost in the whine of a chunk of ceiling dislodging directly above her.
Javen yelled as he stomped up the stairs but the ceiling was already falling.
Soon enough, Tyri followed his eyes, looking up. She had time only to gasp before a mix of stucco, marble and stone crushed her….
Javen’s eyes flashed open. He lifted his arm to swipe the sweat off of his forehead. There he was again, dreaming about his past. He internally kicked himself as he climbed out of bed and made his way through his small bed-space to the kitchen beyond. He turned on the camera sitting next to his seat and began to record as he fixed himself a sandwich.
“Day 24 on Earth. I have yet to find any possible matches. So far, I have scoured the southern-most coast of a province by the name of the United States.” He slabbed some butter on two pieces of bread and shoved them into his mouth. Through his chewing, he continued with, “Although, there is a woman getting a lot of attention on human media. She bears a striking resemblance to—”
He stopped himself short. The bread lodged itself in his throat. He coughed it up, spitting it in the sink. He glanced around himself at the suffocating air and the stale lighting. He couldn’t bear to spend one more second in that research sub-vehicle. He had to get to the surface. He needed fresh air.
Chapter Two
Valerie’s fingers flitted across the keyboard in front of her. Her lips drove the words to appear on the screen in front of her.
Edits.
It was the third draft of her book on organized crime in America. The whole thing was hinged on her award-winning piece on the LaVici family. The media immediately picked it up and she called dibs on the story. Now, she was stuck with a burgeoning draft she didn’t even know what to do with. Everyone kept telling her to hire a ghostwriter. I mean, for heaven’s sake, she was an accountant, not some sort of word’s smith. But she couldn’t bring herself to lay all of her work out for some bimbo who would take part of her money for it. No. It was her story. She would write it herself.
Valerie pursed her lips and sat back. She was in a warehouse in the industrial district just outside of Miami and right on the seawall of Southern Florida. The place stunk of industrial-strength cleaners and she could hear mice in the floorboards, but it was the only place she was safe.
Her eyes fell on the two tall, muscular men who stood milling about around the front entrance. They slouched around. Valerie gulped, a spike cutting through her mind. There it was; the one on the left was hungry for something. In fact, they both were. She frowned. She couldn’t catch physical sensations, only emotions.
Cravings.
She stood up and practically tiptoed to the makeshift kitchen about eight hundred feet out of the way. It had only taken the city council and the FBI about two weeks to get this whole thing prepared for inhabitation. One of the things they so kindly thought of was a small stove, a four burner electric—something you could basically plug into the wall—and a kettle. They knew she would be working on a book… and that she was addicted to coffee.
She went to work, pulling the two mugs out of the paper bag she had stowed away and throwing two hefty spoons of instant in them. She wasn’t sure if they had had any before the guard switch, which had only happened a little over an hour ago. She wouldn’t bring herself to ask in order to make sure. She knew that they would just wave their hands and tell her she shouldn’t bother herself.
She placed the kettle on the stove and watched it turn red hot. As she leaned against the table, slipping her feet out of her shoe in order to air out her toes, she heard a banging sound. Her heart stopped, but she scoffed at herself, placing her hand on her chest.
“Calm the fuck down Valerie,” She whispered to herself. This whole mess had turned her into a little stress sponge.
“We’re here for the girl!”
“Girl?” she grimaced at this.
“Don’t come any closer.” It was one of the guards.
A window shattered, something dense skidding across the floor.
“Get down—!”
“Ms.
James!”
Valerie dropped down onto the floor. Half of this was some sort of survival instinct, but the other half was just her being too frightened to hold herself up. No sooner had she clasped her head in between her knees did a blast shake the whole warehouse. The ground lurched, throwing Valerie out of her hiding place. She grunted, flexing her skidded knee.
A gun shot cut through the air.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” she said as she crawled her way back behind the small counter.
There were more gunshots, but they sounded like they weren’t hitting anything; simply ricocheting off the walls and hitting metal cans. She only heard the thump of metal to flesh once…
Twice…
She didn’t need a finance degree to put that together. She stood up, revealing herself to the mobsters she knew had just won the fight, wildly regretting not informing the guards that she was going to make coffee before she did it. Maybe then, they might have died knowing they were sacrificing their lives for someone who truly cared.
“James!”
Valerie glanced over her shoulder. Three masked men. Always masks. It was that eerie detail that let her know they wanted more from her than just her life.
She took off into a sprint, veering off to the right, then to the left. They were running too fast to be able to aim their subpar guns properly, but she did it just in case. She slammed herself against the backdoor. As soon as it gave way, a red, hot alarm poured into the entire establishment.
Valerie zipped through the cool, crisp air, the smell of the ocean assaulting her nose. She had made as many as twenty steps before she heard the door slam open for them. She was on her way. Eight years of track had trained her to outrun almost any human she’d ever come across. A smile slipped across her face, a strange kind of defense mechanism against the stress that threatened to overcome her.
But as soon as she had followed the road all the way to the sea wall, she saw something just ahead. There was one more body rushing towards her, masked, just like all of the others.
She let out a gasp and lurched to a stop, glancing all around her for an out. Then, she took it, crossing the street, and running straight into an alley… but the alley didn’t actually have another side. She slammed into a brick wall, her arm scratching across the rough surface.
I still have time.
She rushed right back out into the main road, but she had miscalculated. There was a body right there waiting for her. His heavy hands grasped her shoulders, cutting off the circulation in her arms. “Let me go!” Stupid, instinctual words.
He wiped his hand across the face, the slap easily drawing blood. Her cheek split on the inside of her mouth and she turned to discard the blood and spittle onto the asphalt. One breath, then another, then she drove a hard kick into his gut. For however big and strong he was, this small gesture was enough to decapitate him. She squeezed from in front of him, but before she could take another step, another man yanked at her arm and twisted it behind her. He slammed his body against her back and, in one fluid motion, slipped a knife out of his belt.
She could already feel the blade cutting into her skin…
Chapter Three
Javen strolled along the seawall. Sometimes he couldn’t help but detest earth and everything about this forsaken planet, but at other times, he could not deny the uncanny resemblance between it and Kahara. It was easy to see how some of his own had managed to immerse themselves here. The warm wind greeted his face, drying his hair and wetsuit. He climbed up the next flight of stairs he could find, stepping onto street level.
It was as he was reveling in the peace of the night that he saw something odd in the distance. He slowed down and stared harder. It was a woman racing towards him. A street lamp bathed her in its warm glow such that he could just make out the long thick hair, the high cheekbones and strong jaw… the hazel eyes.
“Tyri!” he said, but he shook his head before the words could even finish leaving his lips. No. Not Tyri. Tyri was dead.
Valerie James. Odd that on the very night he video blogged about her for the first time, they happened to actually run into each other on the street. When he looked back up at her, it became apparent that she was running… from something. Two men followed her closely, right on her heels. He could sense her as clear as day.
Fear.
There were other emotions, but that one dominated above all else. He sped up just as she veered off the street and into an alley.
“No.” Javen had been there before. He knew it was a dead end. She was handing herself a death sentence. His heart raced as his mind started whirling around in circles. His mission was straight forward: collect a census of humans that carried the Kaharan blood line, then report back to Kahara for further instructions. If he were to seriously entangle himself into human affairs, he would give away his presence. That had to be avoided at all costs. He could not leave a footprint on earth whatsoever.
But Valerie had just run right into one of the men. Javen stopped walking, biting his lip. Maybe, by some miracle, she could take care of herself. Maybe she had been secretly trained to fight. He watched her drive her knee into that man’s gut, clenching his fists in approval, but then the other man kicked in and grabbed her. Javen saw the metal of a knife glinting in the moonlight.
He took off into a run. The mission was one thing but this woman was another. And even as he ran, he continued to try to convince himself to turn around and take a deep breath, to take control of his emotions. But her figure had disappeared before him. He peered through the night, but he could no longer see her, only the man that held her, trembling from the strain.
Javen crossed the street, reaching out for the masked man with the knife. He yanked him by the collar and a drove a punch right into his face. The man yelped in pain, releasing Valerie from his grip. She tumbled onto the ground, but picked herself up as soon as she could and took off into run, sprinting back into the main street. The other man immediately followed after her, dislodging his own knife from his belt.
Javen pivoted on his heel to make after the man chasing Valerie, until he felt a strong grip on his ankle, ripping his foot from under him. Javen stumbled, throwing his hands out in front of him to catch his fall. He turned just in time to see the man swinging a knife at him. Javen grabbed his wrist with one hand, blocking the swing, then ripped the knife out of his hand.
The man landed another punch into Javen’s gut, sharp pain spreading all across his body. Javen clenched his jaw, ignoring his screaming, torn abdomen and delivered another blow to the man’s face. His knuckles cracked at the impact, the man’s blood covering his hand. Before he had a chance to regain his composure, Javen jabbed the knife into his torso, his hand shaking with the resistance of the man’s abdominal muscles and internal organs. He lurched over, a sound something like the mix between a grunt and a screech pressing out of his bloody lips.
Javen did not hesitate to turn around. By the time he had crossed the street, he could just see the man hopping over the short fence that separated the sidewalk of the seawall from the main road. Javen pushed himself, energy coursing through his veins, his lungs selfishly drawing in air, then discarding his hot breath.
It didn’t take him long to see that he wasn’t running fast enough. The man had all but caught up with Valerie. Javen could feel her fear radiating through his veins, begging and hoping for help.
A yelp escaped from her lips as the man grabbed her by her hair and yanked her back. Her feet lurched from under her and slammed onto the ground.
Javen pushed himself still harder, kicking up sand as he ran.
The man revealed his knife, the glinting metal flying through the air as he drove it into her gut. She screeched in pain. Her sobs and yells dangling in the night air.
“Hey!”
The man looked up just as Javen reached him. Anger turned his vision red-hot, beads of sweat sprouting on his forehead as he grabbed hold of the man’s neck. The man knelt before him, weakened by hi
s grip, but Javen couldn’t bring himself to stop. Valerie shook and writhed beneath him, her breath catching as blood flowed freely out of her gut, but he still could not bring himself to stop.
He detested these men for hurting her, for taking it upon themselves to destroy an innocent woman simply because they had the capability to do so. Javen could feel her silent, desperate plea for deliverance. It was a poison dragging him down but he would not block it out even if he could find the strength. He wanted to feel her pain. For the first time since Tyri, he needed to feel something other than the devastating hole her death had left behind. Valerie was his emotional scape goat. He was well-aware of this but that didn’t mean he could stop it.
The man had begun to turn purple before Javen came to. He released his hands from his neck, a gasp falling out of his mouth. He couldn’t kill another sentient being. It was an absolute and unforgivable crime for Kaharans. So, he snatched up both knives and stowed them away in his wet suit.
While the man remained unconscious, Javen turned his attention to Valerie, whose blood had already begun to pool all around her body. She had stopped writhing and had assumed a far more peaceful state, her chest rising and falling ever so slightly with her breath. Javen acted fast, ripping off her shirt so that he could then use it as a make-shift bandage for her wound. He took note of her fascinating features—her clear skin, tainted with the hue of a yellowing cauliflower, her hazel eyes and her ears, nearly as pointed as his. But he refused to let himself dwell on any of this. He needed to get her help.
His first thought was to take her to the hospital, but he shot that down quickly. How could he justify delivering a badly injured Valerie James? He wasn’t a family member or known associate. In fact, he barely knew her himself. They would almost certainly think that he had something to do with the men that did this to her. He shuddered to think what the General in Kahara would do if his informant relayed the information that he had been tangled up in human affairs. That was completely unacceptable.