by Anna Lewis
“Talia?” someone practically whispered behind her, and she spun around to see the familiar human man that she needed to see so badly. It was B. “You’re okay?”
“I am,” she said as she fell against B’s chest, sobbing hard. “But I don’t know where Wade is. I… I saw him… he was getting hurt… and now…”
“Shhh…. Shhh… don’t worry,” B tried to reassure her. “Let’s go and find him.”
***
Time passed. B and Talia searched and searched for Wade. Talia started to feel like they were never going to find him.
Maybe things were hopeless. Maybe he’d been killed, and that was killing her because she knew that it was her own damn fault. She could have helped him. It didn’t have to end up like it did.
“What are we going to do?” she wailed to B. “I can’t cope with this uncertainty.”
“I’m trying to pick him up,” he told her, clearly referring to some alien thing that she didn’t quite understand. “But there’s too much chaos here.”
She stepped back, no longer trying to interfere. Her eyes glanced everywhere. She really wanted to enjoy her reunion with B, but how could she when Wade wasn’t with them? It was the three of them now, all of them together, and she hoped that was how it always would stay. She had been more than happy with B, when it was just the two of them, but that was before Wade. Since he had entered their lives everything had been shaken up. She just couldn’t have B on his own, not anymore. It was all three of them, or nothing.
The searched on, Talia starting to lose hope.
Suddenly, B grabbed hold of her and gasped, “I’ve detected him, come on.”
Talia lit up, and grasped B’s arms. He led her onwards. “This way,” he said.
They followed the trail of Wade’s mind, despite the fact that it took them far away from the field. Talia didn’t know that she could trust it, but B looked so confident that she didn’t feel like she could outwardly disagree with him.
“He’s at the cottage,” he eventually told her confused. “Why is he there?”
They both picked up the pace, racing to get to Wade’s side, needing to know what was going on. It didn’t seem right that he would be there for no reason; something must have happened and they both feared what it might be.
Talia’s heart raced painfully against her chest, and her mind raced like crazy. She had a really bad feeling, remembering those aliens that were attacking him on the battlefield, and she feared that they were walking into a trap.
“Wait, wait,” she grabbed hold of B, pulling him back to her. “Wait… I have a bad feeling about this.”
“So do I,” he admitted. “But we cannot leave Wade in there if something has happened to him. We just can’t do that, it isn’t right. He’s ours now. We have to look out for one another.”
Talia nodded, knowing that B was right, but she was also acutely aware that they were no use to anyone if they were dead. “I know, but I think that your men found out that he was a rebel, and maybe they are using him to get to us or something… I’m not sure but I’m really scared. I don’t think this war is really over yet.”
B agreed with her, realizing that she was probably right. He knew his own race well, and he knew how they liked to take over other planets no matter what. It wasn’t like the Ec’dua race to take losing in their stride. He figured that if they were smart enough to plan this ‘final battle’, then he was pretty sure that they would also have a backup plan in case of defeat… or at least some of them would.
A lot of the Ec’dua race didn’t agree with the war, and they didn’t like taking over the other planets, just to wreck another one and move on, but the ones that did fought hard for what they believed was their rights… and there wasn’t anything that could be done to stop them.
B knew these people well, and he knew what they were capable of. So he decided to follow Talia’s advice.
“Okay,” he hissed to Talia, pulling her close. “You’re right. It could be a trap. We need to be smart about this. So what I suggest we do is we go and find out what’s going on first. Once we have some information we can make a plan.”
“Come on then, let’s just go and see…” Talia was petrified with fear, but she was also very determined. This was Wade they were talking about, he was theirs.
They crept up towards the cottage, both of them remembering everything that they’d been through there. With heavy hearts, they anticipated what they were about to find. This was supposed to be a happy time, the possible end, the time where they looked to a possible future, yet here they were, rescuing Wade, and possibly walking into a trap that would kill them all.
For a second, Talia wondered what was going on with the peace treaty, if the humans were making the aliens go or allowing them to stay, but then she quickly did her best to shake those thoughts from her mind. There was no point in worrying about things that she couldn’t control, when she had something in front of her that needed her full attention. A solitary girl like her had no impact on what would happen for the future of their planet, but this right now… Wade needed her.
“What can you see?” she hissed to B, who was sneaking close enough to peek through the window. “Is he there?”
B didn’t answer for a beat while he looked through the window, before he glanced back at her with fear in his eyes. “He’s there,” he whispered, almost trembling under the pressure of it all. “He’s there and he’s really hurt. He’s not moving. I… I don’t think he’s alive.”
Talia froze in horror, an icy claw clutching her heart and choking her breath.
Wade couldn’t dead.
Could he?
Book 4: Life Goes On
“What do we do?” Talia hissed at B, feeling the fear coursing through her veins. This was insane, far too much for her to deal with, and she honestly felt like this might be the last straw for her.
Her life had been a crazy up and down mess ever since she was six years old, and the planet had burst into a war with the Ec’dua alien race, and it didn’t seem to be getting any better. What humans hadn’t realized before the war kicked off, was that this shapeshifting race had been living among them for many generations, plotting and waiting for the right moment to start their uprising.
No one had been prepared for it, and it was safe to say that it had been something of a bloodbath… at least at first. Many people had died, and it had taken everyone a really long time to find their footing in a world at war.
After a while, humans had regained their confidence and they started to fight back, and with the help of an alien rebellion group who didn’t agree with the war, they had managed to overthrow the majority of the alien race in an epic victory. It had taken many years for the final battle of the war to come around, but when it had, the humans had won, surprising absolutely everyone.
While all that was going on, Talia had found herself in a very confusing situation where she fell hard for two of the Ec’dua race. It wouldn’t have been considered normal at all to anyone else, but to her, her love for B and Wade was the best thing that she’d ever experienced and she didn’t want to let it go. It seemed like the Ec’dua saw love a little differently to humans anyway, and that this sort of thing was normal to them. They were often freer with their feelings, more open with loving more than one person, and that was something Talia hadn’t realized that she needed before they came into her life.
She had been so focused on getting through the war, on dealing with her feelings, and coping with the aftereffects of that, that she hadn’t even considered anything else bad happening. But in the middle of the battle, just as Talia had been distraught at losing her father who she had only just found again after all those years of thinking that she was alone, Wade had been pulled away and it was clear now that he’d been kidnapped by some of his own kind, and possibly killed by them.
B had just peered into the building where Wade was being held – the cottage where the three of them had hidden in when they first found their unique
love – and he wasn’t even sure if he was alive or not. The news was devastating to Talia.
“We need to get him back,” B said determinedly, ignoring the evidence that things really might not be okay. “We need to go in there and get him back.”
“But we don’t even know what’s going on in there,” Talia hissed back. She wanted Wade back as much as B did, but she knew that neither of them were going to be any use if they were both dead. “Like, how many are in there? What do they want? Can’t you find out by reading him?”
Talia wasn’t totally sure what the aliens had, but she knew for sure that they had some kind of mind reading power. Surely that could be helpful to them right about now? Surely it could help B to find out at least something…
“I can try,” B told her, looking a little bewildered. “But there’s no bond there… except with Wade, but he’s… well… I don’t know.”
Talia examined his face, amazed at how well he could show emotions on it when it was very human. She had only ever seen B in his human form – that seemed to be the way he felt most comfortable – whereas Wade often returned to his natural form. She loved the differences between them, it was what completed them as a threesome. But she wasn’t sure what she would do if he turned out to be dead. She didn’t know how she would even begin to carry on.
Of course, as the peace treaty was being discussed between humans and the aliens at that exact moment, it could turn out that all the Ec’dua were about to be banished anyway, sent away into the galaxy to start their hunt for survival all over again, but Talia was doing her best not to focus on that part. If she started to think about the prospect of that, she might just fall apart and for the time being she needed to have it together. If only for Wade.
“Fuck it,” B suddenly announced, shaking his head. “I’m going in. I can’t read anything but I’m not just going to sit here and to let things happen, Not when Wade is in there, maybe on the brink of death. I can’t do just stand here and do nothing… not after everything we’ve been through.”
He stalked off determinedly, and Talia followed closely behind. Her feelings for Wade were strong too, and she didn’t want to leave him either. She was terrified, her head racing all over the place, but at the same time there was nowhere else in the world that she would rather be. She didn’t dare ask B whether or not they had a plan, because she honestly didn’t want to know.
At least if they died, they would all be together. That might not be the outcome that she wanted, but it was much better than nothing…
***
As soon as they stepped through the door, one of the guys inside grabbed Talia without her even seeing him, and he pulled her to one side, strapping her arms behind her wide back. She struggled violently against her captor, but she found herself so distracted by the three aliens looming over B that she didn’t keep up the fight for as long as she should have done. She was annoyed that they’d obviously been expecting them, and that they’d clearly walked into a trap, but her mind was currently spending most of its energy trying to work out what the hell was going on.
At first, she thought that the room was filled with an awkward silence, but she soon realized that the aliens were communicating in a way that seemed to be more normal to them – through their minds. Talia felt incredibly frustrated that she had no idea what was happening, but there wasn’t a damn thing that she could do about that. She was just going to have to wait and hope that soon things would be made clear to her.
She hoped that they were sorting something out, and that things would be peaceful, and that she and B and Wade might get a shot at a happy life together, but it quickly became clear that wasn’t going to happen. Her heart sank.
But as one of the alien attackers lurched out at B and started to fight him, a scream to burst from her chest and she snapped into action.
Once she realized that this was actually a dangerous situation, something flipped inside of her. As soon as that changed within her, she felt the old her come back, the badass one, the one who could take down any damn alien that crossed her path, especially in hand-to-hand combat. She had spent much of the war alone, fighting and defending just herself, and that had turned her into a capable warrior. As soon as she’d met B and Wade and they’d gone into hiding, she had softened due to love and the new emotions she was feeling. She had also found herself consumed by a lot of fear – it was a lot harder to survive when you actually had something to live for, someone to defend, but now that had all come to a head and her brain managed to zone in once more on only the battle, only what she needed to do to live. Of course she was distracted by B and his fight – she really didn’t want him to get hurt – but somehow she managed to ignore that and focus only on the thing she needed to do.
She yanked her arms away from the alien holding her, and turned to punch him violently in the face, knocking him to the ground. It was as though she was on automatic. She might not have understood just what was going on, but she was glad that her hand-to-hand combat skills could come into play. It was the one real advantage that humans had always had over the Ec’dua, and Talia felt good that she could use that too.
It had always been known that the aliens were good when it came to fighting with their superior technology – that left them leaps and bounds ahead of humans – but in one-on-one fights, with no weapons involved, humans were so much better, and in that moment in time, Talia was one of the best. She was always able to use her additional size and weight to her advantage.
Luckily B was holding his own too, attacking everyone fiercely, and despite the fact that he was Ec’dua too so he didn’t have that advantage, he actually seemed to be doing okay. Maybe it was because he had a stronger motivation to win, just like Talia did. With only Wade on both of their minds, and the incredible desire to at least try and keep him safe, they were both exactly as focused as they needed to be.
Talia just needed to get to Wade now. She needed to find him and to check that he was okay before all of this got out of hand. This was already getting pretty crazy, and she was still none the wiser on how he was doing. She wanted to ask the aliens, to try and get some answers for herself how he was doing, but she knew that was never going to happen in the middle of this violent melee.
But it suddenly hit her that B might know – he had been communicating silently with them after all. Maybe during their exchange he’s learned something that could give her that extra kick of motivation.
“What’s going on?” she screamed at B over the top of the chaos, praying that he could hear her. “What’s happening? Is Wade okay? Do you know?”
Her heart pounded noisily in her chest, but she didn’t stop fighting. Fear crept through her brains, but she continued to work through it and to punch and kick and elbow until she was all but standing alone.
“He’s okay,” B eventually replied, the second he got a chance to speak freely. “He’s their hostage. They haven’t killed him, he’s just hurt. He’ll be okay…”
“Don’t they know the war is over?” she screamed in frustration. What was going on here? It was supposed to be done now, things were supposed to be changing. Why were the Ec’dua now fighting among themselves? Sure, things hadn’t gone the way that they’d planned, but it was over now… why continue it unnecessarily?
She smashed her fist, and kicked her feet savagely, and hit whatever she could, not even looking at what she was connecting with anymore, desperate to put an end to this brawl. It seemed pointless when they had more important things to be worrying about. They had this peace treaty to understand, to know what was going to happen next. They didn’t need this. Talia was more concerned with what was going to happen next, how their future would pan out – another battle was the absolute last thing that she needed to be focusing on.
“This faction of the Ec’dua is angry at the rebels,” B continued, trying to help her understand what they were up against. “They blame them for the loss of the war and for some reason they seem to think that by torturing Wade, they ga
in information and scare the rebels. They hope to end the rebellion, regather their strength, and resume the invasion of Earth.”
“What?? Those bastards!” Talia screamed. “Haven’t they done enough?”
By the time the other aliens were all knocked down and beaten, Talia was done with even looking at them, so she rushed into the other room to check on the other love of her life, Wade. She knew that they didn’t have long before the aliens came back around and called for reinforcements and she didn’t want any of them to be there for that. If Wade could move she needed to get them out before things got out of hand all over again.
“Wade,” she touched his body lightly, her body trembling with fear, shaking him, half expecting him to feel cold. He was bruised, and bloodied. One of his eyes was closed and swollen, having been hit there. “Wade wake up.”
As he stirred, making some noise, relief flooded through Talia – he was alive! That was really all that mattered by that point. He was okay and they could now save him.
“Wade, are you okay?” she gasped loudly, clinging onto his hand tightly, not wanting to let him go.
“They… they want to kill me,” he rasped, struggling to even get any words out. It was even more difficult that he had to speak in English, rather than his native language, but of course he would do it for Talia, she meant the world to him. He would do anything for her. Plus he really needed her to understand – this was vital. “They think I started the rebellion and that it’s my fault they lost war. They blame me for what they think is the demise of the Ec’dua race. One of them is the ring leader of the group that kidnapped you, which has made them even more annoyed. The fact that B and I have broken the cardinal rule to sleep with you has made this even worse.” He was babbling, not sure if he was making any sense, but from the look on Talia’s face she had at least gotten some of it.