Alien Colony

by Anna Lewis

  “Fuck,” he muffled through the blood in his mouth. “Fuck.”

  I dropped him, watching his body slump pathetically to the ground. I placed my foot on his chest to fix him in place, to ensure that he knew where he stood. “Just tell me what you’re doing. Tell me why you are harassing my girlfriend. Tell me why you keep photographing her, why you broke into her car. Tell me who put you up to this?”

  He didn’t answer me. He couldn’t because he was crying too hard, but that wasn’t going to put me off. I wouldn’t feel sorry for him, not now. It was far too late for that. If I had to hit him again then I would, I truly didn’t care anymore. I would do whatever it took to get him to talk and finally end this. Anything.

  I pumped my fists by my side, anger eating me up. I bit down on my lip, waiting for him to talk, and eventually he did. He opened his mouth slowly, almost too slowly for me to be able to handle it, and he said just two words. They didn’t spark any recognition in me, but from the way Ellie’s face fell, she knew exactly what he was talking about.

  “Aaron Wilkes.”

  I looked up at her as she gasped, waiting for her to explain and after a few moments she did.

  “My… my father. He put you up to this?”

  “Yes,” he nodded sadly. “Yes, he did.”

  She paced the streets for a couple of seconds, mulling it over before turning to face me. “Let him go, I don’t want to look at him anymore.”

  “No, let’s call the cops,” I tried my best to argue. “Let’s get him arrested…”

  “Let him go,” she insisted firmly, giving me an intense look that I really couldn’t ignore. “I will speak to my dad and put an end to it once and for all.”

  ***

  Ellie

  I couldn’t believe it. I was in shock. I’d known that my dad wasn’t happy with me breaking out of my strict, sheltered life, and coming to New York to be a model, but I never would have thought that he would go this far. I assumed that cutting me off was punishment enough. I didn’t think that he would want to torment me too.

  I grabbed my phone while the rage was still bursting from me, and dialed my landline number. I knew that this could tear the fabric of our family apart forever, probably causing my mom to stop speaking to me as well, but things were broken enough anyway and there was no way that I could allow this to continue.

  “He… hello?” my mom answered in her meek tone of voice. I was certain that she had no knowledge of it, which was why I didn’t have anything to say to her.

  “Mom, get dad. I need to talk to him.” I was shaking with temper, and I could tell that was evident in my voice.

  “I… I don’t think that he wants to talk to you,” she told me honestly. “I think…”

  “I don’t care what he wants,” I yelled back, taking my rage out on the wrong person. “Put him on the phone now.”

  The line went silent for a while, but I could hear noise in the background. I kept expecting the line to go dead, but after a while my dad unexpectedly came on the line.

  “What do you want?” he asked glumly. “What are you yelling at your mother for?”

  “You,” I sneered at him, all the fear that I’d ever felt in his presence simply melting away. “You hired a man to stalk me, to torment me, to run my life. Why? Did you want me to come home? Did you want to force me back to you? Was that your plan?”

  “No!” he jumped in, shocking me into silence. “No that wasn’t it at all.”

  “So you aren’t denying it?” I gasped in surprise. “You admit that you did that to me?” Tears started streaming down my face, and I didn’t even try to stop them. This was utterly heartbreaking. I felt like the foundation of my life had been ripped away.

  “It wasn’t like that,” he said. For the first time ever, I heard something in his voice, an uncertainty. My dad always seemed so sure in everything he said and did, all the rules he laid down, but now he wasn’t and I wanted to know more. “I was scared for you,” he admitted. “I wanted to know more. You just… you upped and left without a proper goodbye and I grew scared for you. We were all too worried to just call you up, so I hired that man to photograph you, to let me see where your life was at.”

  “Do you know how mad that sounds?” I asked him, genuinely curious. “Do you understand how crazy you’re being right now?”

  “Of course I do, but I was desperate. Then he got snaps of you with a man, a stranger that we didn’t know. I looked him up online, but all I could find were bad things, so I asked him to keep on with the mission, just until I could learn more.”

  “Do you understand how scared I’ve been? Do you know how much he’s tormented me?” I exclaimed loudly, still not fully getting it. “He broke into my car the other day, I thought that my life was in danger.”

  “He shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry,” I could hear the tears in his voice. “I’m really sorry, I never wanted to ruin you. I might be scared for you, but I want you to achieve your dream. It might not be the dream that I would have chosen for you, but I want you to be happy.”

  “I am happy, dad,” I told him. “In fact, the only problem is this man following me. That’s the only thing that’s bringing me down. My career is starting to take off, I’m starting to be noticed, and the man that you could only find bad stuff online about… well, I love him.” At that moment, I glanced up at him and smiled through my sadness. He was a shining beacon in all this madness, and if it wasn’t for Kyle, I would still be stuck in a rut, never finding out the truth. “You should have just called.”

  “I will, in the future I will,” he replied gratefully, seeming to sense that I was letting him off easily. “I want to make it up to you. Maybe… maybe when you are more settled, me and your mom can come and visit. Really see how you’re getting on.”

  This was something that I never dared to dream about, yet it was happening for me. It would take a long time to heal the rift, I was perfectly aware of that, but this was a start. This really could lead to something very positive.

  “I would love that,” I told him honestly. “I need some time to get more settled, more established, but when you come, you’ll be proud of me. And that’s all that I’ve ever wanted. But you have to tell that photographer to stop following me!”

  “I am proud of you,” he told me, healing a hole in my heart. “And I can promise you this, you will never see that man again. I will contact him right away and tell him to leave you alone. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I will do whatever it takes to make this right.”

  “I love you, dad,” I told him, feeling the weight of the world lifting from my shoulders. I was finally getting the sense of closure that I’d always needed, and that felt incredible. I really felt like the lucky one here, the one who was getting everything that she needed.

  “I love you too,” he replied warmly. “You really are a great kid. Thank you.”

  ***

  Kyle

  It was over, it really was over. I actually couldn’t believe it. All the obstacles that Ellie and I had faced during our time together were all finally gone. The stalker was the last issue that we faced, and now Ellie was fixing that.

  It was totally messed up that her dad had organized this, but who was I to judge? It wasn’t like I didn’t come without my own baggage… all that nightmare that my ex-wife had inflicted upon us. Still, I was glad that it was all finally coming to an end. The future looked bright.

  As Ellie said goodbye to her father, with a promise to speak again soon, I felt my spirits soar. She was finally smiling again, a genuine smile.

  “Well?” I asked her, moving close to her side. “Is it all done?”

  “It’s great,” she replied happily. “I didn’t expect that. Now that it’s done I feel incredible. I think that there has been a massive weight on my shoulders for far too long now, and I didn’t even realize it.”

  I pulled her in for a deep hug, allowing her to lose herself in my embrace. “Good, I’m so glad that you’re alright. I’m so gla
d that it’s over and done with now.”

  “It’s done,” she giggled like crazy. “It’s over. But what do we do now?”

  “Well, you have your job to get to soon,” I reminded her, making her laugh even louder. “I know, doesn’t that seem too normal after all that we’ve just been through?”

  “Totally,” she giggled.

  I pulled back from the hug to look into her eyes. “After that I want you to gather up your belongings and move in with me.”

  “What?” she gasped in shock. “Are you serious? You want me to move in with you? Isn’t it a little soon?”

  I kissed her hard, allowing everything to flow free from within me. “Of course it isn’t too soon,” I murmured against her lips. “I love you and you love me. Why hold back anymore? I want you to come and live with me, I want you to be mine forever, I want you to one day be my wife.”

  “Is that your way of asking me to marry you?” she chuckled.

  “No, of course not,” I laughed along with her. “When I propose to you, you will know about it. You will be swept from your feet, totally unable to resist.”

  “I will, will I?” she teased, kissing me again.

  “Come on then, hop in the car, let’s get the hell out of here,” I said, as I turned and started to walk her towards the car. “You have work to do.”

  Epilogue – Ellie

  Ten Years Later…

  “Mom?” Kate asked in a sing song tone of voice. “How did you meet Dad?”

  “What makes you ask that?” I smiled at my beautiful daughter, before wrapping her up in my arms.

  “Well, we were talking about it at school today…”

  “What? Already? You’ve only been at school for a few months,” I teased her playfully. “Do you really want to know?”

  With that, Kyle walked into the room with a tray of cookies for us both. “What are you two talking about?” he asked with a smile across his face.

  “I want to know how you and Mommy met,” Kate insisted. “Will one of you just tell me?” That girl was incredible. She’d inherited Kyle’s determined nature, and my feistiness – a personality trait that I didn’t even know I had until my life in New York set me free and allowed me to be myself. Kyle brought me out of my shell. He had helped me to be who I was, and I would always be grateful for that. I told him that on the day we got married, and it was still true today.

  “Oh that’s a great story,” Kyle smiled. “Shall I tell it?”

  He shot me a look, and we smiled secretly to one another, remembering that moment, that fateful day, the one that would be ingrained in both of our memories forever. “Well,” he started, settling down next to us. “Did you know that your mother was a model? I gave her a job.”

  “At your fashion company?” Kyle still ran his business, really successfully, and I was a part of it too, but more on the design side. I’d given up my modeling the day that I discovered I was pregnant after a short but very successful career, and I discovered a new passion. I realized that it was the clothes that I loved, and that I could actually create some amazing stuff.

  “Yes, at the fashion company. And I fell in love with her at first sight,” he said. My heart fluttered at those words, remembering the same sensation flowing right through me when I first saw him. “And it’s a good thing I did, because that led us to have you.”

  As they hugged, and Kyle continued to tell Kate everything, I thought about how wonderful our lives were. We faced a lot of adversity in the beginning, but that had only served to make us stronger, and had gotten us through everything.

  Now I had something else to tell Kyle, another secret buried deep inside, but I would wait until Kate was in bed before I said anything. I held my stomach gently, cradling our brand new baby, filled with excitement at the prospect of making our perfect family just that little bit bigger.

  THE END

  = Bonus Book 5 of 12 =

  Black Dragons

  Maria felt a chill working its way up into her skin. She knew that she only had about ten minutes to get where she was going and she was in no mood to be late. Her stomach growled with hunger and she shrugged it off, ignoring the little stands of food and corner stores that seemed to pop up every few steps. She didn’t have time to eat, no matter how hungry she was.

  Her breathing was quick and she felt the wind whipping through her hair, teasing at her skin and making her shiver. She felt a little sick, worries twisting in her gut. She hadn’t been summoned since her father had passed away. When he had died, she had received a call just like this one.

  Urgent and curt. She approached with dread, and rightly so. The news that her father had been killed still rung in her ears. It was right there and then, back in her teenage years, that Maria had decided to cut ties with her heritage and walk away from it all.

  She wanted no part of their feud. She wanted no part of a war that was only there to get people killed. First her mother, then her father. They had been playing with fire and she was in no mood to do the same. She glanced at her watch and hurried along.

  She had to move it. She picked up her step, glancing over her shoulder as she did. Her parents had been part of a dragon-hunting clan, one that you joined, not one you were born into. They took it upon themselves to hunt down dragon shifters and do away with them completely.

  Maria shuddered. She wanted no part of it. Her parents had been human and so was she, and chasing dragons was just a stupid thing to do. They had gotten themselves killed and left her alone to deal with the fall out. Now the dragon hunters were calling on her. Maria had wanted to ignore the call, but she had a sinking feeling that they would find her, regardless.

  She had to go, even if it was to tell them to stay the heck away from her from now on. Maria sighed and fixed her hair as she turned into the dim little alley that led to the shop at the back. It wasn’t hard to find, but it was dingy. It didn’t speak of anything great, and Maria didn’t really expect it to.

  She wasn’t sure she even believed in dragon shifters. And if she did, she definitely wanted to stay away from them, not go hunting them like an idiot. She had loved her mom and dad, but that didn’t excuse the fact that they had run off and gotten themselves killed.

  The dragon hunter clan expected her to want vengeance. While anger smoldered in her chest, Maria was determined to stay out of it. Unless she had a guarantee of finding her parents’ killers, then she didn’t want any part of it. Chasing innocent dragon shifters wasn’t her idea of a good time.

  So she had walked away. Now, years later, she stood face to face with her past all over again. With a deep breath, Maria knocked on the door.

  After a moment, an older man pulled the door open. He took her in, assessing her, before nodding and letting her step past. Maria felt a shiver running down her spine. The silence was chilling and she hated the custom of being all secret and mysterious.

  She thought of her little office job and the handful of friends she had been able to make. She wanted to return to that, not this suffocating life. A dull lump of misery had been lodged in her chest ever since her father passed and she doubted that this was going to help it any.

  She was led down a dimly lit staircase, and Maria felt like she was descending into the bowls of hell. It was hell alright, only damp and suffocating and strange. It was nothing like the life Maria dreamed of. She had never seen a dragon shifter, never seen any grand fights or declarations. She had only seen death, this suffocating little hovel and a bunch of people that got kicks from being so mysterious.

  She was led to a seat and plopped down on it without ceremony. She wrapped her arms around herself, idly checking that she still had her phone close and readily available. If she could keep her phone on hand, she’d be able to deal with anything that popped up. A quick call to the cops about a cult should do it.

  She bit her lip and waited instead.

  Slowly, people filed in and Maria shifted uncomfortably in her seat. It wasn’t until the leader of the dragon hunters, at
least for this city, entered that everyone stood up. Reluctantly, Maria did the same, more because she was in no mood to stand out and draw even more attention to herself, when she could just quietly blend in.

  “Maria Jacobs,” his voice boomed across the room.

  No such luck. Her plans of blending in evaporated and she glanced around her.

  “Step forward!” the voice continued and she realized that it belonged to Travis. He was glaring down at her and she took a small step forward, drawing her away from the rest of the crowd. She felt everyone’s eyes on her and shifted, uncomfortable.

  “We have found the one who murdered your father.” His tone had grown softer now, and Maria felt her heart leap into her chest.

  “What?” Maria hated the way her voice came out as a squeak, her eyes widening at the news.

  Travis was nodding. “We have found him.” His eyes stared down at her. “Do you not want justice, Maria?”

  Maria curled her hands into fists, feeling her breathing come in short little bursts. If he was right, she could make sure he paid. She didn’t want to extract vengeance herself, but if he killed her father, then she couldn’t just let it slide. She wouldn’t let it slide if her dad hadn’t been a dragon-hunter. Why should she let it slide because he was?

  Travis seemed to sense what she was thinking. “If you want justice, then you’ll join us, Maria.”

  The old reluctance surged to the surface. She had been so determined to stay out if it, only a few minutes ago. But a few minutes ago, she didn’t have a link to her father’s killer. She bit her lip, thinking it over. She needed to figure this out, and quickly. Her heart thudded in her chest and she felt a little giddy.

  “Join us, and help us bring him down.” His voice was low, almost seductive in its promises and Maria felt something shift inside her.

  “Okay. But I’m not hurting anybody.” Her voice sounded stronger and more self-assured than she felt.