by Marie Dry
“How did you come to be there?”
“When Parnell sent me to No Name Town, I thought he knew what I’d done and was playing games with me. I feared he’d tell me to kill Julia or return her to her family.”
“Did he know that you helped Julia?”
“I don’t think so. He wanted me to monitor the situation in No Name Town. He was convinced whoever was responsible for the attacks on the raider camps, came from No Name Town or the surrounding area.”
“Did Julia recognise you?”
“I looked different in Denver. I wore a blonde wig and padded my body to look bigger.” She’d wanted to make sure that if she crossed paths with Benzoni’s in the future, they’d never recognise her. “I never dealt with Julia directly. I phoned her and offered to help her get away from her family.”
“How long had Parnell worked with the reverend?”
“From the beginning. He sent the reverend to set up business here.”
“To do his human trafficking.”
“Yes, but by the time he made me Marcie, he was also fanatic about finding the group who was destroying the raiders. I think he created the raiders and those camps.”
“We know he created them,” he said.
“He wanted to use them as his personal vigilante army. He was convinced you worked from Montana, near No Name Town somewhere.”
“How did he know we were in this area?”
“I don’t know. He trusted me more than the other agents, but he never told me everything. I didn’t realize he was behind the creation of the raiders. When you started to destroy the camps, he went crazy. He probably realized that, without the raiders, he couldn’t follow through with his crazy power struggle.”
“He killed the president,” he told her.
She closed her eyes. “I should be surprised, but I’m not. He’d acted strange from the moment the president disappeared.”
“He assigned you to No Name Town?” he prompted.
“I came here, and I became Margaret and made friends with Natalie and Julia. It was one of the best assignments I’d had. I kept thinking that if only I could find a way to get away from Parnell, I could make a life here. I could have friends and maybe one day a family.”
“The machine changed you to Marcie so that Natalie and Julia wouldn’t recognise you?”
“It’s dangerous to go into the machine too many times. When he made me Marcie, it was the third time that I knew of. He didn’t know about my friendship with Natalie and Julia. It was Sarah he didn’t want to recognise me.”
They landed and the door opened. She nearly cried in sheer relief when the cool fresh air rushed into the shuttle.
He turned to face her. “You think he used the machine on you more times than you remember?”
“How can I ever be sure? One of the side effects of the machine is amnesia. I shudder to think what I could’ve done to innocent people. He could’ve made me into any kind of monster and let me loose.”
“Do you know why he put the bomb into you?”
“I bribed the technician to use the machine on me when Parnell was out of town. To give me a new identity, a new face Parnell would never suspect. But somehow he found out about it and, when I went to meet the technician, I walked into a trap.”
“I will kill the technician too,” he said as if he discussed a stroll on the mountain.
She should object, but Abel had pretended to be her friend. He deserved to meet with the Zyrgin’s kind of justice. “I don’t care what happens to him, but if he betrayed me, he could’ve done the same to the other women trapped in Parnell’s system. I gave him a lot of money to help me.” Blood money obtained with Sarah’s suffering.
“He will live to regret having that money,” Larz said with sinister promise.
How many other young girls were trapped in Parnell’s evil snare?
“We have to help the other women.”
“We will. Tell me what else you remember.”
“I woke up as Marcie and together...”
She swallowed and closed her eyes. Her shoulders shook.
Larz sat down next to her, drew her into his arms. “What did you do together?”
“Parnell and I planned to use Sarah to draw out the aliens. We received reports that at each camp the soldiers asked about Sarah. He’d already had the reverend kidnap her, and I was the one who said we should put her in the camps and move her around so that you had to work hard to rescue her and not suspect we were using her as bait.”
She couldn’t stop the tears that fell in earnest now.
“You were placed in the camps so that you could infiltrate us when we rescued Sarah?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you act so aggressive when we rescued you? Would it not have been better to act helpless?”
She bit her lip and looked at him helplessly. “I don’t know. I think Parnell wanted me to suffer so he made me unlikable. Maybe he wanted me to fail. As Marcie, I thought I was one of his top agents.”
“And this is the real you. This Margaret.”
“It’s who I’ve fought to be. Not perfect, but as in control of my life as I could manage.”
“Your life with me will be perfect.” He stroked a hand through her black hair. He made no secret that he loved her hair and had decreed she had to grow it until it reached her knees. “Sometimes when you dream, you cry about killing an old woman?”
She shuddered and closed her eyes, leaning her head against his chest. “I loved the assignment in No Name Town. I was careful not to advertise my friendship with the other women, but I treasured it.”
She sat up, had to look him in the eyes when she told him what she did. “He called me back from No Name Town and I got scared. I was afraid he’d put me back in the box. He sometimes did that for no reason. He called it reorienting us. I was so scared, desperate to get away.”
“That is understandable.”
“We all knew Abel was willing to help any agent get out for a price. Parnell paid us very little, but I’d taken things during each assignment and hid the money I got for it where he couldn’t find it. I stole Sarah’s stepmother’s ring. That I did as Margaret and I have to own it. I owe Sarah that.”
That was another reason she choose to be Margaret. Every time someone called her name she would remember that, as Margaret, she’d betrayed her friend.
“You remember everything now. Why did he want you in the raider camp? Near Sarah?”
“So I could infiltrate whoever rescued her.” Margaret sighed and looked down at the floor. She almost wished she could go back to remembering nothing at all. “And yes, I remember everything. It’s still a little jumbled but it’s all there in my mind”
“Do you know anything about the raiders camped outside the force field?”
“No, if he really killed the president, maybe he thinks if he destroys the aliens he’s been working everybody up about, he can make himself president. Call himself savior of the Earth or something like that.”
“Ten times the raiders camped outside the force field couldn’t conquer us.”
She rubbed her temples. “At least that’s what I think. All the memories are jumbled up in my head.” At least she wasn’t Marcie anymore.
“What were you supposed to do when you found us?”
“He thought you might be aliens, but we thought you’d be like the purple one who escaped from Parnell. I was supposed to infiltrate and do as much damage as I could if I couldn’t get back to him to report.” She moved closer to Larz, needing the comfort of his warm body against hers. “But he’d put a bomb inside me, so he never expected me to report back to him.”
“Julia was contacted by an agent who gave her co-ordinates for Sarah. Was that you?”
“I don’t remember. It could’ve been me, before I went into the machine, or it could’ve been Parnell playing his games.”
“I think it was you,” he said.
“Everyone betrayed me. My father was never the most
loving, but he was supposed to look out for me, have my best interests at heart. I was sixteen, a child, and what he did was unforgivable.” She stroked a finger over his cheek. He was the one rock solid person who had never betrayed her. Even when she was acting her worst as Marcie.
“He will never harm you again.”
“Parnell hurt me, nearly killed me with his ‘training,’ and still in some weird twisted way he became a father figure to me. The one constant in my life. I feared him, prayed I wouldn’t have to see him, but he was always there. I trusted him. I knew he’d hurt me and send me on difficult assignments, but I thought he at least valued me as a good agent. I never worshiped him like some of the other girls, but I never thought he’d try to kill me so easily. He was friends with my father. I thought that at least would protect me.”
“Humans are very susceptible to emotions.”
“He betrayed me and hurt me. Would a Zyrgin accept being betrayed by someone they trusted?”
Something flashed in his eyes, something terrible. Parnell had played Russian roulette with her life when he turned her into Marcie and sent her here. “No. We would kill such a person.” He nodded at a Zyrgin who appeared in the door of the shuttle. “We will go to our dwelling. You will tell me everything you remember.
“So that you can report it to Zacar?”
“Yes.” He didn’t try to explain or lie to her and, after all the lies and subterfuge she had to live with, she appreciated that. She didn’t want Zyrgins ruling Earth, but allowing Parnell to proceed with his plans would be just as bad for her planet. At least the Zyrgins were bringing back life to the world. Parnell only wanted to destroy so that no one could challenge him.
Larz motioned to the door and, nodding, she got up and walked out of the shuttle. Once outside, she stopped and looked up at the sky. “I love the sky here. It is bigger and brighter than anywhere else.”
“It is the same sky you see from anywhere else on Earth,” he said and steered her away from the shuttle.
It was a good thing he held her arm, because with her staring up at the sky while they walked, she’d have stumbled all over the place.
She smiled but didn’t try to explain the difference emotions could make to how you viewed the world around you. He might not realize it, but whenever he talked of their home planet, there was a note of reverence in his voice.
They went inside their dwelling, and it felt like coming home. As if there was one place on this planet where she was welcome and safe. And accepted for what she was. Not perfect, just a woman with a terrible past who did terrible things to survive.
He stopped and looked around at the walls. He’d made it white with a blue tint at her request. Larz only had to grate something in Zyrgin to have them change color, and she planned to experiment in the future--when she was settled and not bombarded with memories. As she watched, the top half of the wall slowly became transparent. No matter which direction she turned, she had a beautiful view of the mountain.
Sunshine poured in from the transparent walls--weak winter sunshine, but she loved it. Winter would always be her favorite time of the year. Sometimes when the weather turned really bad, Parnell couldn’t send them out on missions.
She swallowed tears and smiled at him. “Thank you, Larz.”
He grunted something she didn’t understand. “I should have done this before,” he said in English.
“I appreciate you doing it now. I suppose claustrophobia is something I’ll hold over from those times I spent in the box.”
“You will never be shut in again.”
She expected Larz to grill her some more on her memories, but he went down the corridor toward the bedrooms and returned with a big brown pelt. Her heart started to stammer. Could it be an Eduki pelt? It just felt impossible that her life would suddenly become so good in such a short time.
“I killed the Eduki for you after I took you from the raider camp.”
She eyed the huge pelt that reminded her vaguely of a bear pelt. “You were still small then. How did you manage to kill such a big bear, I mean Eduki.” She appreciated it, more than she could tell him, that he’d done it before they realized what Parnell had done to her.
“I was a superior Zyrgin warrior.”
She noted the past tense. “I wish I was worth it, worth you.”
“You are worth it.”
“No, I’m not. If I was a worthy person for you to give that Eduki pelt to, I wouldn’t have stolen that ring and Sarah would never have been taken.”
“Her mother would have found another excuse to sell her.”
What he said was true, but it didn’t change her guilt. “I needed that ring so badly. Added to the money I’d managed to save, it could’ve brought me freedom. I wanted that freedom so much I could taste it. But it wasn’t worth Sarah’s life.”
“Would you have taken the ring if you knew she would blame Sarah and sell her to the reverend.”
“No, never.”
“That does not make you a terrible person.”
“I can’t blame all my choices on Parnell. He didn’t tell me to steal those jewels. I did something even worse.”
He simply waited and she debated telling him this. No one need to know about this, about what she’d been capable of. She sat down on the couch and held out her arms for the Eduki pelt. He placed it on her lap and sat down next to her. She stroked the lustrous brown pelt with its coarse hair that felt like silk.
“I killed Sarah’s stepmother.”
“She sold her own daughter. I could wish you did not kill her. Zyrgin justice would not be so easy for her.”
“Stepdaughter. Very few people knew, but she was Sarah’s stepmother.” The memory was hazy, she remembered something about the woman not feeling right to her. She’d searched the records and found a monster steeped in ugliness.
“She adopted Sarah like Natalie adopted Alissa.” His lip curled. “She forced me to play games with her. Zorlof had to do tea parties.”
Margaret bit her lip. “Something like that. The woman had married Sarah’s father and proceeded to ensure that Sarah would never get any of the money left to her by her mother. It’s ironic how greed was the cause of everything that happened to Sarah. My own greed and Sarah’s stepmother’s greed.”
He cocked his head. “I do not see a problem with your actions.”
“The things I did as Marcie, I did because the machine forced that personality on me. But this I did as Margaret. She was the woman I wanted to be. And I became a monster of my own free will.”
“It needed to be done. A woman selling her daughter cannot be allowed to live. Natalie would give up her life for Alissa.”
Margaret stroked the Eduki pelt. It was so heavy it pressed her into the couch. She loved the feel of it draped over her lap. “Larz?”
“Yes, my breeder.”
“Please tell me why you don’t call yourself a warrior anymore. Why you refer to yourself as a citizen.”
He stiffened and his eyes flashed a terrible red with black spikes in between. For one brief moment, his claws extended. It happened so fast she doubted she even saw it.
CHAPTER 15
Larz got up and moved away from her so fast, his movement was only a blur. “That is not your concern, human.”
Her heart contracted. Human, not my breeder, merely human. What man could endure punishment and humiliation and not learn to resent her? Was this the first indication of a simmering resentment?
He paced in front of her and it was different from the kind a human man would do. He moved so fast she only saw a blur in different spots in front of her, each movement showing his agitation at their discussion.
“Please stop moving like that, you’re making my head spin.” She suppressed the urge to move behind the couch. He wasn’t Parnell, wouldn’t strike out at her in anger or perceived embarrassment.
He stopped and materialized in front of her, his legs braced apart, and one hand on his hip--the place where he’d draw a sword fr
om?
Except she hadn’t seen him draw a sword in a long time. Because he wasn’t a warrior anymore and not allowed to use a sword.
“Are you going to cut off my head for asking you about your punishment? And don’t try to deny it. I know you’re being punished because of me.” What kind of messed up system punished the wrong person?
“I will not talk about warrior business with a breeder.”
She carefully placed the Eduki pelt on the couch, ensuring it couldn’t fall on the floor. She’d take her time and decide where she want to display it.
That red gaze tracked her every movement, noticed the care she took with the Eduki pelt. Did his stance soften? Was it wishful thinking that his shoulders relaxed, his lips weren’t pressed together in a grim line anymore?
“Is Sarah really okay?” she asked for something to say while she tried to figure out a way to get him to talk about his punishment. There had to be a way she could help him. She couldn’t bear seeing her proud warrior having to pass out water bottles.
“She is healthy. The bomb was taken out of her body.”
“Why is she going to the home planet?” With the panic over the bomb, that part had only vaguely registered. He merely looked at her. She threw her hands in the air. “More Zyrgin business you refuse to discuss with me. This is not the way a relationship should be. Talking to each other is crucial.” That’s what she’d heard, anyway. It wasn’t as if she ever had the opportunity to date.
“She is safe. You do not need to know more.”
Obviously she’d have to educate him on couples sharing information. “You just gave me an Eduki pelt which I treasure more than you can ever imagine.” She snapped her fingers and his eyes narrowed. “But you are also starting to get on my last nerve.”
He cocked his head and she’d bet that, despite his knowledge, he was trying to work out how you got on a nerve. She could see the moment he realized it was a figure of speech, dismissed it as not important.
“You will be told about Sarah when the other breeders are informed.”
“Informed of what?”
“You will wait and not ask about Sarah anymore.”