I leaned against the building, between the door and the window of our room. “I don’t see how this is much different, Conner. Victoria is strong-willed. Grown. The decision is hers to make. Once we get her through this situation, anyway. Her decision could be the same.”
Conner stopped distracting himself with the leaves and looked up from the ground. “Hmm. Seems you’re right. Except maybe for one thing.”
I knew what Conner meant. As much as I’d tried not to, I’d already become a factor with Victoria. “I haven’t encouraged—”
“You didn’t have to. She’s knocking through any walls we put up. She knows. She might not understand, but she knows what we’ve all figured for years.”
“Things are complicated, though. She could still choose a different path, one she’s more familiar with.” I let out a sigh that filled the air in front of my face with an icy cloud. I didn’t want to think of the possibility, though I’d respect it if that was her choice. “Let’s concentrate on the now, which is keeping her safe. How far away are the shuttles from here?”
“Right. The now. The shuttles are only a couple of miles from here.”
“I agree with the ship’s assessment of Brian. He’s no threat. As long as the rest of the group stays where they are, we’re going to remain here. We can make it to the shuttles long before they could get to us. I need the medical feedback from the ship in order to make the right decisions if things . . .” I hesitated. Tas’s words—worst case—rang in my ears. “If things take a turn for the worst. We can’t rescue Victoria from these people just to have her die on the ship.”
Conner clenched his teeth. “Ugh. Why didn’t we anticipate this? Why didn’t any of us feel this possibility?”
“I have no idea. But we’ll work through it. We have to.” I raised my head to the heavens and prayed for the Universe to give Victoria strength. To give us all strength.
CHAPTER 40 -
VICTORIA
My worry morphed from mental to physical, manifesting in a churning sea of uncertainty that raged in my gut. I clutched at my stomach like my hands could keep what little bit of sandwich I’d been able to choke down from coming back up for a visit.
It wasn’t working. I made a dash for the bathroom and knelt over the toilet, letting bits of sandwich and stomach acid fly. After a couple of dry heaves, my body was satisfied that it had rid itself of all the food I’d just eaten and my stomach muscles stopped convulsing. My nerves were still twitchy, though.
I plopped onto my bottom and leaned back against the bathroom wall, too weak to stand up, but needing to put some distance between my face and the place where who knew how many strange butts had been. I yanked a strip of toilet paper from the roll and dabbed my mouth. I had to pull myself together before Gaige and Conner came back inside. This thing happening to me—the intuition, the sensitivity, the whatever—was affecting me more than I cared to admit, zapping my energy and now giving me enough insight and worry to make me physically sick. I’d never been a weak person and didn’t want to start now. But if I couldn’t be stronger, I had to at least fake it better.
The outside door of the motel room creaked open. I was out of time. Forcing myself up from the floor, I took a quick look in the mirror. With pale skin and bloodshot eyes, I’d definitely had better days, but they would have to do. I pulled the door open and stepped out of the bathroom.
Gaige’s brow wrinkled. I’d seen that look before—his worried face. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, just touching up my makeup. I figured I’d better look good for my mug shot.” Concentrating on each step I took, so I’d at least appear steady, I tried to make my way across the room.
Gaige put his arm around my back and guided me to the bed. “You’re not slick, Earthling.”
“I’m a little slick.” I sank onto the bed and let the façade float away.
“Maybe a little. You had me fooled earlier. Not an easy task considering Anuans’ empathic abilities.”
Gaige sat down beside me, placing a hand on my thigh as naturally as if he’d known me forever. I liked the feel of it, of him next to me, of him caring about me.
Conner sat down at the table and went back to eating his sandwich. He kept his attention focused on his food and away from me and Gaige.
Gaige rubbed his hand up and down my thigh. Probably trying to comfort me, but doing so much more. My breath stuttered. He stopped.
“Sorry.” He pulled his hand away, but his eyes remained on mine.
“Don’t be.” I couldn’t break from his gaze, nor could I catch my breath.
Conner stood up. “I’m going to take a walk.” And Conner was gone in a nanosecond.
Gaige and I both stayed fixed on each other, not bothering to say a word to Conner when he left.
“Victoria . . .” Gaige started to speak, but no more words came.
“Gaige . . .” I could find no words either. Only feelings. Longing, desire, connection—
Gaige shook his head and looked away. The spell was broken.
“I’ll be more careful,” he said.
“Okay,” I answered.
And it was over. Another moment that had grabbed us and didn’t want to let go. But Gaige was a gentleman. That was good, since I didn’t seem to be able to think straight about that kind of thing where he was concerned.
“When Conner and I came back in here, you weren’t doing well. How are you feeling now? Tell me what’s going on.”
Gaige’s presence made me feel better. A little discombobulated over the thigh rub, but safer, for the moment, with him there. Overall, though, the running was getting to me and I didn’t want to admit that to him. “I thought you were an empath. You tell me.”
“My focus is a little disrupted right now.”
We both knew why and I started laughing. Then crying.
Gaige hugged me. “You don’t have to hide things from me, you know.”
“I don’t need a babysitter. I’ll work through it.” I sank my face into Gaige’s chest, trying to pull myself together.
“Okay, that’s fair. But at least tell me, what are you working through?”
I raised my head and Gaige wiped the tears from below my eyes with his thumbs.
“Tell me,” he said again.
“Stress, I suppose. This situation is concerning.”
“Stressful. Yes. I could . . .” Gaige put his head down, thinking, maybe.
“You could what?”
He raised his head. “Hold you. It would help, unless . . .”
“Yes, I’d like that. It’ll be okay, I think.”
He scooted around behind me and pulled me to him. “Still okay?”
I laid my back against his chest, letting my head rest in the crook of his neck. Feeling more comforted than aroused this time, I knew I could handle it. “Yes. Better than okay. I’ll behave. You do the same.”
“I promise,” he said. “I agree, this situation is concerning. And, the fact that you seem to be so open to our energy is not helping you deal with the already stressful situation. That alone can be exhausting for you physically and emotionally, even without these people chasing us. But you know, you don’t have to worry about them catching us. We have means you can’t even imagine. If we need to use them, we will. These Kians could never keep up then. Okay?”
Why hadn’t I thought of that? Certainly, they could come up with something more technologically advanced than the car we were using to run from these people. But how long would we run before the Anuans stepped in with their technology? And what would that ultimately mean for me? “You said, if you need to use Anuan means, you will. It seems like maybe . . .” that time has come. I couldn’t bring myself to say it out loud. But it was there, hanging between us.
“Yeah, maybe,” he said. “We’re assessing things.”
“Your conversation outside just now?”
“Yes. You don’t need to worry. Just know we’ll keep you safe. One way or another.”
I belie
ved Gaige. Still, I wondered how, exactly, all this would work out, starting with what means of escape Gaige had at his disposal. “You melted your space ship. Does Conner have his stashed somewhere?”
“Yes, Conner has his. We call them shuttles. The spaceship is much bigger and is well beyond Earth’s atmosphere right now. But shuttles are here on Earth. Everyone on the rescue team has one and they’re cloaked not far from here.”
“Cloaked?” I sat up and turned in the bed to face Gaige. “Like Klingons?”
Gaige grinned. “Ah, Star Trek. Yes, like Klingons.”
One step at a time, I decided. We had a way to escape the cycle of motel hopping. The notion gave me relief for the time being. I wanted to hold onto that just a little while, before letting my mind worry about anything else. “Okay, then.” I snuggled back into place, not really feeling the need for comfort at the moment, but not beyond using it as an excuse to stay close. “I think I’ll take a little more of this. You know, to keep me calm.”
Gaige enclosed me in his arms. “You’re scandalous, Earthling.”
“I’ll accept that, Alien.”
CHAPTER 41 -
GAIGE
Having Victoria nestled against me on the bed felt more natural than anything in the universe. I didn’t want to move. But Brian was on the way and I needed to explain that. I let her rest while I sent calm energy to her until I couldn’t delay any longer.
“Victoria?”
“Yes?”
“We need to talk,” I said.
“Do we have to? This is kind of nice.”
“Unfortunately, yes. There’s something you need to know.”
“Okay.” She moved to one of the two chairs at the small table and patted the other chair. “Come. Talk.”
I joined her at the table. “You know government officials from Wright-Patterson are coming this way?”
“Yes. You said we had a good lead on them, though. I figured since we were still here, they weren’t close yet. Right?” She picked at the top of her sandwich bun, but didn’t eat anything. Just tossed the bits of bun she’d plucked off back onto her plate.
“Well, not entirely.”
She lost interest in picking at her sandwich and turned her focus to me. “What part’s not right?”
“We still have a good lead on them. Except for one. Brian.”
“Brian?”
“Yes. They’ve sent him ahead, to try and bring us back. We’re going to talk with him. We don’t believe he’s a threat to us. And he’s probably only a part of the group because he’s being forced into it.”
“No, Brian wouldn’t be a threat. But what’s the point in talking with him? We’re not going back, are we?” Her eye narrowed at me. “You’re still assessing things where I’m concerned, right? You’re not sending me back yet?”
“No. We’re not sending you back. We still haven’t figured things out, especially where you’re concerned. That’s unusual. So, we’re buying some time, that’s all.”
Victoria had found some peace knowing we had means of escape. She didn’t need to know their focus had turned to her. If she figured it out on her own—which she might—I’d deal with that then.
I leaned toward the window and cracked the curtain open. “We’ll figure it out. In the meantime, we’ll keep you safe.”
Conner sat on the hood of the car, scanning through the enacted view screen on the sleeve of his suit.
“Okay. I trust you.” Victoria pulled the other side of the curtain open so she could see from where she sat. “I think we scared him off.”
“Nah, Conner doesn’t get scared away easily. He probably wanted to give us some privacy.”
Victoria let go of the curtain. “Privacy. Yeah. To talk things out.”
“Yeah, to talk things out.” I waved Conner in. He nodded and I let the curtain drop.
Talk things out. I had to make sure that’s all we did. She pulled at me with black hole force, connecting at every level, flipping things on within me that were hard to control. She felt it too. How could she not? I had to be strong—strong enough for both of us.
Victoria peeked behind the curtain to look out the window again. “This is all kind of crazy, you know? I’m holed up in a motel with a couple of space aliens with government agents in hot pursuit.”
“Not what you expected when you woke up this morning?”
Victoria tilted her head and stared off for a moment. “Actually, I knew there was something different about this day when I woke, probably even before. I didn’t imagine today would be this far removed from the ordinary, though.”
Conner opened the door, walked in, and sat on the edge of the bed. “The scientist is almost here.”
CHAPTER 42 -
VICTORIA
Gaige and Conner paced the motel room, back and forth in front of the paisley wallpaper, waiting for Brian to arrive.
Gaige broke from his pacing, pulled the edge of the curtain back and peered through the crack. “He’s here.”
Soon, a knock rattled against the hollow door. Conner stood at the end of the bed, waiting, while Gaige opened the door.
“I’m not here to hurt you.” Brian held his hands in the air. “Can we please talk?”
“Come in.” Gaige moved back from the door to allow Brian to step inside.
Brian looked like crap with his face slack and his eyes droopy. He thanked Gaige for letting him in and gave me half a wave. He opened his jacket and pointed to the black ink pen sticking out of his shirt pocket. At the same time, he brought his index finger to his lips. Gaige nodded. Brian picked up the complementary motel notepad and pen that lay on the night stand and sat down at the table with me. Gaige sat on the bed opposite Brian.
“As you know . . .” Brian wrote as he spoke to Gaige, holding the paper at an angle so Gaige could see.
Conner moved next to Gaige and the two watched the letters and words form on Brian’s paper.
“I work for the U.S. Government on top secret aircraft research,” Brian continued, still writing. “Your craft was of great interest to us and I was asked to reverse engineer it. Since the craft is now of limited use, we would like to discuss the matter with you personally.”
I leaned forward and stretched my neck to see what Brian was writing. Though upside down from my perspective, I could clearly make out the words.
They’re about fifteen miles from here. They will come for you if I don’t bring you back with me. They want Tori more than they do you. I don’t know why. You have to get her out of here! I will stall as long as I can.
Me! So I was in trouble for leaving with Gaige. But why would they want me more than an alien?
Gaige nodded and reached his hand out for me as he rose from the bed. “I’m willing to consider having discussions with you and your people,” Gaige said. “But first, please tell me more about what kind of arrangement your government would like to offer. I want to hear all the details.”
I slid my coat on and took Gaige’s hand. Brian gave Gaige a thumbs-up and me a weak smile. He began to ramble off lengthy details, none of which required a response. I followed Gaige and Conner toward the restroom at the back of our room. I supposed they didn’t want to take any chances that the entrance was somehow being monitored.
Once we had squeezed into the small bathroom, Gaige closed the door softly behind us. Conner pulled back the curtain and my heart gave a hard thump inside my chest. The window was only a couple feet wide, if that, and not a lot taller. Cut the height in half when considering how much of the window actually opened, and it was questionable whether Gaige or Conner would fit through.
Conner slid the window open, trying not to make any noise. Regardless of his effort, the old metal frame made a high-pitched squeak. Conner didn’t let the noise distract him. He looked out into the wooded area behind the motel and checked to the right and the left. He sat on the counter and put his feet through the opening. His legs and hips easily fit, but the right side of his flight suit snagged on the fr
ame. He tugged it loose and angled his shoulders in order to maneuver his way out. Once firmly on the ground, Conner turned back toward the motel to help me out. Gaige picked me up and handed me through the window to Conner, who eased me down onto the ground. I’d fit easily and both Conner and I were free of the motel. Now only Gaige, the biggest of us all, was left inside.
CHAPTER 43 -
GAIGE
“Gaige,” Tas blurted into my ear.
“What’s wrong, Commander?” I whispered, as I put one leg then the other through the window.
“Pags has identified two other teams closing in on you. We don’t know where they came from, but they’re not far. You’ve got to get out of there! The Captain is bringing the ship closer, in case we need to quickly move into transitioning range. Engineering is on standby for a short-term boost of power to the ship’s cloak in order to counter the effects of the high solar activity. The Council has been notified. Under the circumstances, they’re in agreement with an emergency transition of Victoria to the ship. IF it comes to that.”
Tas had given me every bit of information I needed to know, except the most important. “And Zada?” Without her input, I couldn’t make a proper decision. “What does she say about any medical issues?” Trying not to panic and get hung up in the window like an animal in a trap, I stretched my arms above my head to make my upper body more streamlined for my exit.
“There’s risk, but she thinks it can be mitigated.”
“Have her assemble medical teams to deal with anything Victoria might need. I want them on standby in sickbay.” I wriggled my body in small increments, one side then the other, as fast as I could in order to get my shoulders through the tight opening. I had to get myself free and get Victoria away from there.
The Anuan Legacy: Book 1 of The Anuan Legacy Series Page 10