“Carrie,” Kal stated louder, drawing their attention with the loud crack of his voice.
Eyes turned toward him.
“I don’t know, maybe check the strip club where she found you?” Missy quipped.
“Oh, my goodness!” one of the bridesmaids exclaimed, standing.
“Pat? What is it?” Missy turned to her friend.
Pat stood, holding an envelope in her shaking hands. “Oh, no!”
“What?” The question was more of a demand tinged with fear and excitement as if Missy was prepared to give the proper response depending on Pat’s answer.
“Someone took Carrie,” Pat said.
Kal stiffened. He joined the group to better see what was happening.
“We have her,” Pat read. “Seventy-five thousand by Thursday night to get her back. Call the police and we’ll let the public know you killed your cousin. We’ll give you drop off instructions.”
“Public?” Chucky frowned.
“They can’t do that.” Missy reached her hand for the note. Instead, Pat lifted a small photo from within and held it up. It was a picture of Carrie strapped to a chair. A hand in a black glove held up her head. Her eyes were closed as if she slept in the awkward position.
“What do we do?” Missy grabbed hold of Chucky. “I can’t pay that.”
Kal’s stomach tightened in dread. What was happening? Who had Carrie? He glanced around the private room to see if anyone watched them from the doorways.
“Your father,” Greg inserted.
“Has all his money tied up in his businesses,” Missy said. “Chucky?”
Chucky shook his head. “My trust fund doesn’t kick in for another two years.”
Missy looked desperately to her friends, but none of them appeared as if they were able or willing to help.
“What is this seventy-five thousand?” Kal asked.
“You!” Greg accused. “Convenient that we find a note while you’re here.”
“You were the last one with her,” Missy said. “What did you do to my cousin?”
“I am looking for her,” Kal said. “And I will find her. Now, seventy-five thousand what?”
“America Dollars,” Greg spat as if Kal was an imbecile. “What did you think it meant? Pesos? Yen?”
“A ransom for money,” Kal said.
“Of course a ransom for money,” Missy cried. “What is wrong with you? Why are you even here? Just go away. And you better keep your mouth shut about it. This is a family matter, and my sweet cousin’s life depends on it.”
Kal watched the group bicker and snap at each other as they tried to form a solution. A sick feeling built in his stomach as he looked at the photograph being passed around. He caught glimpses of Carrie’s unmoving face.
“What can you sell?” one of the women asked.
“We can’t be seen scrambling for cash,” Chucky said. “We have to keep this quiet.”
“We can’t stand by and do nothing,” Pat insisted. “I have twelve thousand that I can access in my savings.”
“I just have daddy’s cards,” another woman said.
“Me, too,” yet another added.
Greg’s eyes met Kal’s in challenge. The man didn’t speak, but the glare was enough. They kept talking in a chaos of suggestions that ended nothing but in inaction.
“We should call the police.”
“The scandal.”
“We can’t call the police they’ll kill her.”
“They always threaten that.”
“We should pay them.”
“Doesn’t the government say not to give in to kidnappers?”
“That’s right. If you pay them, they might not let her go. They’ll ask for more.”
Kal shook his head in disgust at their selfishness. The little he knew about Earthlings was beginning to repulse him. On Bravon, if a man went missing in the mines, you rallied. You came together to find him. You searched until every nook, and every cranny was probed until every rock was overturned. Ransoms were a device the cowards used to extract legal tender. But all that meant little, as it began to dawn on him that Carrie, the woman he wanted to make his own, had been kidnapped.
His mind began to spin until he decided that this was no way to manage a crisis. When the ash was choking the air, and the tunnel lights were out, a true man needed to step up and handle the situation. Fear gripped him, but he refused to let it take hold of him. He was of no use to Carrie otherwise.
“I will get the money,” Kal stated.
The silence as everyone stared at him stalled. His hypersensitive senses picked up on everything.
“Who is this asshole?” one of the men whispered.
“Yeah, who the fuck does he think he is?” another one added.
The rush of sound and images blurred his vision momentarily. But it didn’t deter him. He reached into his pocket and took out a wad of cash. If Galaxy Brides did not help him rescue her, then he would make sure he had enough Earth credit to pay for her release.
Kal exhaled slowly to buy himself time as the grim reality of what might happen to Carrie crossed his mind. It became apparent that the people in front of him should have had just as much, if not more, invested in Carrie’s well-being. Instead, they argued about going public and what was best for the family.
A man in a white gem-studded jumpsuit charged through the door and placed his hands in the air, just above his bowed head. The sudden entrance caused gasps of alarm. Kal had seen images of this character, which by all accounts was held in high esteem by the Earthlings. In a strangely accented voice he yelled, “Thank you, thank you very much!” When he lifted his head to see the shocked faces of those gathered, he slowly backed out. He kept the same accent as he pointed at them and said, “You’re not the Zimmerman party.” The man left as abruptly as he’d arrived.
Kal looked over the bridal party. The interruption had stopped their chattering. “Do not do anything stupid to get my woman killed.”
“You?” Greg asked. “How can you possibly get that kind of money?”
“Easy,” Kal asserted. “I’ll win it.”
His exit wasn’t nearly as grand as the jump-suited man’s had been, but he was thankful to have a purpose. How hard could it be to raise seventy-five thousand dollars?
Chapter Ten
Carrie tried to pull oxygen through her nose as she looked over the dusty room where she was being held. The metal and oil smell in the air played havoc on her allergies, causing her nasal passages to swell. All she needed was one deep gasp of air to cure the lightheadedness swirling inside her head.
Tears fell in hot trails down her cheeks. One moment she was rushing away from Kal in the casino, and the next she woke up here. She tried to open her mouth, but the tape kept her lips sealed shut. Sweat ran down her lower back, tickling her spine. It pooled beneath her arms and between her bound legs. Whoever had tied her down didn’t want her moving anywhere. Even her chair refused to rock back and forth.
Panic built anew, and she sucked air in harder and faster. It still didn’t help the almost feverish visions filtering in her mind. Was this part of Kal’s alien cult induction? Had they taken her to their space ship? No, those weren’t real. Aliens weren’t real. There was no proof. That was a delusion.
Had the cult taken her to their desert bunker? No, there was sunlight coming through cracks in the industrial metal wall. No wonder she felt so hot as if her body was being cooked in her chair.
Maybe it wasn’t dirt and oil she smelled, but ash. Ash mines? What ceremonies would be done with ash? Cremations. Funerals. Scattering ashes.
Induction? Abduction? Induction?
Fuck, Carrie, what did you do now? her inner voice demanded.
He seemed so normal, she answered. He was so sweet, so tender.
Don’t you mean he was so sexy? You were thinking with your hoochie. Stupid girl.
I have no proof he had anything to do with this. I have no proof he is part of a cult.
Do you need more proof than this?
Carrie moaned, hating her inner voice. No, I really liked him. I thought he was different. He made me feel things I’d never felt. He was special.
Yeah, special. Look at you tied to a chair and talking to yourself. Special.
What do they want with me? What if they don’t come back? She moaned louder, thrashing her head back and forth. The chair creaked beneath her by didn’t move from its place in the middle of the dingy floor. She needed air. She needed out of the heat. The voice in her head didn’t have an answer. Perhaps it was for the best. She wasn’t sure she’d want to know the voice’s response.
The sound of metal scraping concrete caught her attention, and she tried to turn toward the noise. Two blurred figures moved in the dim light. Sun trails struck them like tiny laser pointers from above as they streamed through holes in the ceiling. Their covered faces made it impossible to make out the details of who they were, but there was a familiar stereotypical goon-like strut to their gait as they neared her.
“What’s wrong with her?” a muffled voice demanded.
“I think you tied the tape too tight. You cut off her circulation. I told you, you have to be careful with humans. She’s turning purple.” The second man smacked his partner on the back of the head. His gesture defined him instantly as the boss of the two. “Fix it. She’s no good to us dead.”
“Yes, boss,” the first man answered. As the boss left him to fix his mistake, the man pressed his hand to her forehead and began prying off the tape. “Shows what he knows. You don’t tie tape. You stick it on. I tell him the details matter.”
Context. I need context.
Carrie started to look for ways to frame the unfortunate events that were happening to her. All she could salvage were thoughts of crazy alien stripper wannabes that she had the misfortune of bumping into, who had sold her to the highest bidder. Or abducted her into their cult. Or had nothing to do with this. There was neither logic nor sense in her irrationality. But she had to keep striving for answers even if it meant she cast wild accusations in her mind without proof, target, or evidence.
The captor freed her mouth, and she inhaled sharply. The rush of oxygen cleared her head by small degrees.
“Kal,” she whispered. “Please, I want Kal.”
Kal could very well be the reason why she was in her current predicament, but she wanted to see him again, to talk to him, to hear his voice.
“Sorry, doll, I don’t know any Kal.”
“Spark,” she said. “Please, I want Spark.”
The man let her take several more breaths before touching her face and turning her to look at him. “Let me see your eyes. Still feeling a little stoned, aren’t you? Never mind that, I need you to focus. Who is Spark?”
“Please, I want to see Spark.”
The eyes beneath the dark mask began to glow with a strange light, turning a bright yellow. She felt him probing into her mind as if trying to read her thoughts. The sensation burned behind her eyes, spreading its painful heat into her temples. “Where did he come from?”
“He said Canada,” she answered.
“That’s not the truth. Come on, give me the truth,” yellow eyes commanded. The pain in her head became more intense.
“He said Bravon.” Somehow the words left her lips, but she felt as if the man holding her head didn’t need her to say them. “Planet Bravon.”
“How long has he been here?”
“Newly arrived.” Carrie tried to blink, wanting desperately to block him out. “Not long. Please, I want Spark. Let me see him.”
“Did he say what he is? We can’t tell.”
Carrie shook her head. “Kill.”
“You want the pain to stop? Give me what I need. Stop fighting. I don’t like it when it hurts. What else do you know?” Yellow eyes petted her face as if he was trying to comfort her even as he didn’t stop looking inside her brain.
“He sees inside things,” Carrie mumbled, “inside the cards, inside me. He sees me. He sees me. He sees—”
“Ah, damn it, she burnt out,” yellow eyes grumbled. He dropped his hold on her head so that it drooped forward. “She’s a tough one. I had to push hard to get in. I don’t like pushing that hard.”
“Did she tell us?” a distant voice asked from beyond her field of vision.
The chair kept her upright, and she tried to lift her head. Whatever the man had done to her caused the tiny points of light to burn her eyes. Her vision blurred, and the pain in her temples throbbed like the worst migraine she’d ever experienced.
“He is foreign. Planet Bravon. I was right. This deal you made with the human for money is nothing compared to what we can make if we take Kal to the men with the toy guns.” Yellow eyes again patted her face, helping her to hold her head upright.
“Spark,” she repeated.
“The guns shoot bullets, not lasers.” His eyes no longer glowed. Suddenly, speaking as if he was a child, he explained, “That’s why I call them toys. In space, they wouldn’t be very effective. Not compared to what I’ve seen. Does Spark have any toys? I’d like to—”
“Stop talking to her,” a voice ordered. “You already burnt her out. Get her ready to transport.”
Yellow eyes let her take several more breaths before lifting the tape once more to her lips.
“No, please, I can’t breathe with it on my…” She tried to turn her face away.
“I tell you what. You promise to behave, and I’ll cut a little hole in it for you. But you can’t get me in trouble.” His voice was a whisper, and he waited for her to nod in agreement before adding, “Ok, now. See, there’s no reason for any of this to get ugly. You keep being a good girl, and all of this will be over very soon. You told us what we needed to know. They like when you do that.”
Chapter Eleven
“We have a high roller!”
Kal ignored the woman’s voice as she again tried to force her unwanted hands onto his body. He shrugged her off of him, focusing on the cards.
Savants on unseen leashes glared at him as if sensing he wasn’t human. There were only a few of them in the casino, but it was enough to take note. Normally, they wouldn’t be a problem for his kind, and he had to wonder if the Galaxy Brides people even knew they were on Earth. Most likely, they searched the casino for cheaters and card counters. The savants’ handlers wore dark suits and appeared busy checking their charges’ reactions to the crowd. Kal tried to act naturally as not to draw their attention. Killians weren’t known on many planets, and he preferred to keep it that way.
It was obvious that Earthlings only saw what was on the surface whereas he could see everything. The levers and wires that worked beneath the tables. The cogs and electronics inside the machines. He saw the blueprints, the mechanisms, and therefore the truth behind the “trick” as it were. Making seventy-five thousand dollars at the human game should have been easy, but they kept making excuses to delay his wins.
“We have a winner!” the dealer announced, the voice perfunctory in its forced excitement. He slid chips over to Kal and then began leaving ritual the others before him had performed before Kal was asked to move to yet another table by their gaming leader.
“Oh, boo!” the woman next to him screamed as if she had a vested interest in his winnings. “Let the man play, ya sorry losers.”
“Would the gentleman like me to add your chips to a casino account for you?” the manager asked. His nametag identified him as Stephan G.
“No. I am not done with them,” Kal stated. “Where may I play now?”
“Anywhere you like, sir,” the man answered, though his invitation was not very inviting.
“Very well.” Kal grabbed his chip trays and moved toward the next table.
“Sir,” Stephan’s voice stopped him. “You are, of course, welcome to stay at the low bid tables, but might I suggest the high rollers’ room?”
“Where is that?” Kal asked.
“It’s reserved for our bigger cli
ents who like to make higher bets,” he said.
“So I may win faster?” Kal questioned.
“Uh, possibly.” Stephan didn’t sound convincing. “It’s a room reserved for our—”
“—biggest clients who like to make higher bets,” Kal finished for him. Each second this man wasted was one second more he was without his Carrie. “Yes. I heard you. I speak the local language very well. Take me to the bigger game.”
The manager gave a tight smile and gestured that Kal should follow him. Two security guards tracked them, keeping their distance but still obviously interested in watching his every move.
Kal sensed something was amiss as he strode through the casino. The floor manager seemed nervous and kept turning his head to the side as if to look for someone in the crowd. He was a slightly built man who favored his right foot as if walking on the ball of his heel.
Kal followed the direction of Stephan’s gaze to find a savant who was more interested in Kal than finding card counters. He talked to someone on the phone, and Kal locked him with a stare. The attention caused the scout to cower behind a money machine and look the other way.
Against the far left wall came a row of men in dark suits, Kal counted eight as they quickly made a perimeter along the edge of the casino. Kal knew the difference between angry goons on the loose and a tactical formation. Something was happening, and it wasn’t good.
Glancing over his right shoulder, he noted that a security guard still followed. If the bulge in his jacket was any indication, a small primitive blaster was concealed within reach of his left hand under the thicker man’s armpit.
The guard on his left was right-handed, leaner, and about the same height as Kal.
The motion documenters from every vantage point watching him weren’t a concern other than they’d track his movements if he tried to run. Cameras. The humans called them security cameras.
“This was going to be one hell of a spar,” he muttered as he stretched his neck. The travel kit for Earth had said nothing about savants, kidnappers, and gun-toting security guards. In fact, he suddenly found a lot to be lacking from the Galaxy Brides’ package. Having met Carrie made up for it, but so help the entire planet if something happened to her.
Spark: Galaxy Alien Mail Order Brides (Intergalactic Dating Agency) Page 7