Maruvian Bride (Alien SciFi Romance) (Celestial Mates Book 5)

by C. J. Scarlett

  Another muffled blast shook the control room, the walls cracking around them. Brad looked around, sweat collecting on his face as he panted in his stupefying helplessness. Brad rushed to Jeanell and Ali at the controls.

  “I told you to do something!”

  Jeanell shouted back, “And I told you there’s nothing we can do!”

  “That’s bullshit,” Brad said, turning to the control panel itself. “I’m not just gonna sit here and die!” He idly flicked switches, one toggle after another with blinding and lethal speed.

  Jeanell rushed to him, Ali right beside her. Jeanell said, “Stop it, you idiot!”

  Ali shouted, “He’s released the God Parti—!”

  But that was all any of them had time to say, or ears to hear. An explosion ripped through the collider, a massive force barreling toward the control room, like a living, breathing thing, a ravenous beast bearing down to devour them all. Jeanell and Ali clutched each other, Reeves ready to charge Brad to the death, if only he had the time.

  But then it arrived.

  It was a flash beyond light, a crash beyond sound, like the Big Bang itself, it was forever tiny and massively dark at nearly the same time. It threw Jeanell into darkness, her feet flying up off the floor. Ali was pulled from her, consumed by the event horizon.

  As far as Jeanell was concerned, it was death itself.

  ***

  Jeanell woke up with her head pounding and her mouth dry, eyes hard to pull open. Her face was sticky with sweat and dust, and her nostrils were caked. She’d lost her glasses and she looked around at the former control room, a blurred haze around her.

  “Hello? Ali? Anybody?”

  No answer, but even in the muddle and throb of her headache, Jeanell remembered her spare glasses, in the pocket of her lab coat. They were a little scratched up, but they’d suffice for the time being.

  The room was barely lit by a few corner lights, the ones that had been rigged up for emergencies. And this was one of those.

  Jeanell looked around to see Ali lying face down on the filthy floor, dust and debris scattered everywhere. It’s amazing we survived, Jeanell couldn’t help but think, remembering not to think too fast. She knelt to Ali and braced for what she might find.

  Ali wasn’t badly hurt, just a bit bruised and scratched up. Jeanell gently slapped her face to rouse her. “Ali! Ali, it’s Jeanell! Are you okay?”

  Ali began to stir, eyes flickering to life, head heavy on her shoulders. Jeanell said, “Oh, thank God!” Around them, Brad and Reeves rose to their feet, slowly and clumsily, coughing and wincing in stiffness and pain.

  Jeanell got Ali to her feet, the two nodding that each was relatively unhurt. But Jeanell took a quick headcount. “Hey, where’s Tony?”

  Brad winced, stretching his upper back and spine. “Dead, probably.”

  Reeves said, “That’s your own man you’re talking about.”

  Brad shrugged. “Collateral damage.”

  Reeves flinched, wincing his disgust, his beefy body jutting toward Brad to assault him. But his military training stayed his hand, and Brad seemed to know he was in no immediate danger. Forever cocky, he looked around and added, “Isn’t that him?”

  Reeves, Jeanell, and Ali glanced at the corner, Tony’s legs stuck out from a stack of dusty cardboard boxes. Jeanell and Ali rushed to Tony while Reeves glared at Brad.

  The women pulled Tony up, stroking his face and smiling sympathetically. Behind them, Brad rolled his eyes and shook his head.

  “Tony? Tony, are you okay?”

  Tony looked up from the floor, wincing in a daze to see the two attractive women, his superiors, fawning over him. He coughed, holding his hands out. “Ladies, please, there’s… there’s plenty to go ‘round.”

  They chuckled and lifted him up, Jeanell saying, “Careful, he could be hurt.”

  Tony said, “Why, Miss Glenn, I didn’t know you cared.”

  Brad said, “Okay, okay, you two, knock off the meet cute routine. We gotta find a way outta here.”

  Jeanell looked around too. She couldn’t disagree, but there were only the two doors, and Reeves was already checking one. Locked. So was the other. But the former control panel was pulled out, leaving the six-foot concrete walls on the other side badly cracked.

  “Wait a minute,” Jeanell said, thinking aloud as she glanced around the room, thick with dust. “This dust I understand, from the explosion, but… where’s all the equipment?”

  Ali looked at Brad, Reeves at them both. “They cleared it out after the accident,” he said.

  Reeves said, “But who’s they? And why did they leave us here and take the equipment?”

  Brad looked around, his cockiness entirely obliterated. “I… I don’t know.”

  “And then they locked us in here?” Ali crossed to the doorways. “This equipment was built in; did they take it all apart piece by piece, while we’re all just lying here? No, that makes no sense at all.”

  Brad said, “And what do you suggest, we woke up in a radium stupor and ate it?”

  “You watch your tone of voice when you talk to me,” Jeanell said. “You’re not my boss anymore.”

  “Oh, the mouse roars,” Brad said. “But you’re right about that, little mouse. In fact, as soon as we get outta here, I’m gonna sue your balls off.”

  “Speakin’ of getting out of here,” Reeves said, “I think it’s about time we do just that!” He crossed to the fallen chair near the control panel. He summed up one of the doors as he made his approach.

  Jeanell said, “You’re wasting your time.” But Reeves ignored her and smashed the chair into the door. It bounced back, falling out of his hand, leaving the door unscathed. Jeanell went on, “Told you. Just because I’m a woman, doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

  Reeves said, “Just because I hit the door, doesn’t mean I wasn’t just trying to get the attention of whoever might still be out there.” Reeves bent down and pulled a hunting knife from a sheath strapped around his ankle.

  Jeanell had to admit that he had a point, that she’d stepped out of line. They would need to work as a team if they were to make it safely out of that control room, and then back up to the surface.

  And even that seemed unlikely.

  But no answer came. Instead, a long, miserable silence filled the room. Realization overtook them one by one. Ali seemed the most resolved, as if she’d known it first among them, that she foresaw their terrible fate. Now, she walked quietly to the wall and leaned against it, staring off into space.

  Jeanell said, “Ali, stay with me. This isn’t as bad as it seems.” No answer came from Ali but Tony spat out a contemptuous huff. Jeanell crossed to Ali just as she leaned against the wall, then slowly slid down, arms huddled in front of her, staring off into an imagined distance too terrible for words. “Ali, I need you to keep it together, okay?”

  “Oh, leave her alone,” Tony said. “She’s right, we’re all fucked! We’re sealed up in here! That explosion killed everybody else on the compound, probably buried us under twenty feet of concrete and rebar! They’re never gonna get to us.”

  Reeves said, “That’s enough, boy.”

  “I don’t wanna die in here,” he said, a childish crack in his desperate voice. “I’m only twenty-one! It’s not fair, it’s not fair!”

  “Fairness has nothing to do with it,” Reeves said.

  Brad added, “Anyway, it’s perfectly fair. You wanted the job, you begged to watch, you get what you pay for. Buy the ticket, take the ride.”

  “I didn’t sign up for this!”

  “None of us did,” Jeanell said.

  Brad spat out, “Look who’s talking! It’s your fault we’re in this mess!”

  “Me? You went ape-shit on the controls, released the God Particle! What were you thinking?”

  “That explosion was going to happen anyway. It’s probably thanks to me that we’re alive at all!”

  Tony shouted, �
�What difference does it make? We’re all gonna die in here!”

  But he wasn’t interrupted by another shouting voice, or a flashing light, or a buzzing siren.

  The doorknob started to turn and flicker. Jeanell’s heart jumped as all eyes fell to that door, and whoever was on the other side.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Ali looked over from the wall, new hope in her widening eyes. Reeves called, “Who are you? Identify yourselves.”

  The door kept shaking and no answer came back from the other side. Reeves clutched his knife handle and called again, “Identify yourself, friend or foe!”

  The door stopped shaking, dead silence on the other side. Reeves, Jeanell, and the others approached the door in silent caution, listening for some sign of activity, ready for whatever would burst through that door.

  But nothing did.

  Jeanell turned to see the other control room door open, completely behind their backs, and in the doorway stood two children of about eight years old, a boy and a girl, definitely siblings and probably twins, staring at them with big, silent eyes. They stepped toward her, four adults entering behind them with more entering behind them. Jeanell screamed, drawing everyone’s attention to the advancing throng.

  Reeves lurched to stand against the crowd, but he was overwhelmed by three adult men, pale and balding and scrawny in their rags, but enough to pin the former colonel and take the knife out of his hand.

  Ali released a terrified gasp, hopeless and helpless in the corner.

  Brad held his hand out, crouched in a cowardly stance as he feigned bravery. “Okay now, everyone, hold on here, just hold on! We didn’t mean to be aggressive about it. Our friend here was just being protective. We’ve got women here, they’re frightened.”

  Jeanell wanted to contradict him, to correct his arrogance, but that wasn’t the time. It was coming though.

  The children said nothing, and were quickly swept out of the way by a scrawny woman with wincing, yellow eyes and a shrewd chin thrust forward. “Kill ‘em,” she rasped, “we gotta kill ‘em right now!”

  Another said, “No, Brooke, we have to take them to Ric.”

  “That’s what they want,” the woman called Brooke said. “Why do you think they’re here? No, we have to put ‘em down, right here and now.”

  Another man, very muscular with a grim expression, stepped out of the crowd. “No,” the big man said. “They may have information we need. We won’t kill them yet.”

  Jeanell’s heart was pounding, her mind swimming in confusion. “What are you people talking about? Information? We… we worked here, is that what you mean?”

  Brad said, “Shut up, Jeanell.”

  “Don’t you tell me to shut up!”

  Reeves repeated, “Shut up, Miss Glenn!”

  The big man said to Jeanell, “Jeanell Glenn? And you worked here?”

  Jeanell nodded. “Sure, of course. How do you think we got here?”

  “Lies,” Brooke said, “Cut the bitch’s tongue out, Lux!”

  The big man said, “You don’t give the orders, Brooke.”

  Jeanell was astounded, her confused mind repeating the odd turns of phrase, considering the dilapidated state of the people asserting their authority.

  Brad said, “Everybody, take it easy—”

  But the woman shrilled, “Cut that bitch’s tongue out too!”

  The big man said to Jeanell, “You, woman—”

  “Woman?” Jeanell looked at them, confusion growing to terror. “I… I don’t understand this. How did you people come to be here? Were you here when the accident happened?”

  Lux looked at the smaller man, a thin mustache on his weasely lip. They shared a chuckle. Lux asked her, “Which one?”

  Brad said, “Don’t you say another word, Jeanell!”

  Jeanell asked, “Why not? We don’t have anything to hide.” Then, to Lux, she said, “Yesterday, or not too soon before. May seventeenth.”

  “What year?”

  “What do you mean, what year? This year, of course, 2017.”

  The spindly Brooke said, “See? They’re spies, planted by the chancellor’s forces! I’ll kill her myself!”

  Jeanell repeated, “The chancellor? Who’s that?”

  Lux crossed his arms and huffed. “I think it’s time we see Ric.” He turned to the two kids. “Go tell him we’re coming, and we got company.”

  Brad asked, “Who’s Ric?”

  “You’ll find out.” They dragged Reeves out first, his thick torso writhing among them. Brooke crossed to Ali and rapped a clawed finger around her arm to pull her up. Ali was incapacitated with fear, barely able to gasp when her new captor took her in her bony clutches.

  Jeanell said, “Hey, you leave her alone!” Jeanell crossed over to push Brooke away from Ali, but Lux grabbed her. “Let me go, you greasy goon!” He snickered, one massive hand wrapping around each of her upper arms and cranking them back. She tried to stifle her own whimper of pain, clenching her teeth as he wrenched her back.

  Brad said to another big fellow grabbing him by the arm, “Take it easy, pal; we’re all on the same side.”

  Lux said, “We’ll see about that,” before wrenching Jeanell up off her feet. She kicked out in front of her, feet sliding against the dusty floor as Lux pushed her toward the door. Only moments before, she’d been in despair about ever getting out of that room. Now there was nothing she wanted more than to stay there.

  But she had no choice.

  They dragged Jeanell and the others out of the control room and down the long hallway. Jeanell had walked up and down the hallway thousands of times, and he couldn’t believe how strikingly different it was; not only was it dusty and dark, poorly lit with a few staggered, sputtering lights. But the paint was peeled and it wreaked of mold and mildew.

  How could this have happened in two days, Jeanell had to wonder, her panic growing with her rising heartbeat. What’s going on here?

  Office doors punctuated the hallway on the left, the doors open and the offices dark and windowless behind them. Where’s the rest of the research team, the administrators, the guards?

  Big Lux squeezed Jeanell’s arms tighter as she tried to pull away from him, yanking her arms of little use against her massive captor. Reeves would have had a much better chance, very nearly breaking free. But he was more interested in seeing this Ric and finding out what was going on. A military man, he wasn’t accustomed to fleeing. But Jeanell grew up a bookworm in Encino, California, a science nerd, a research specialist. She never had much of a reason to flee, but she knew then that she’d spent a lot of her life hiding. It had been a survival tactic, and it had almost worked.

  A rat scurried down the hall in the other direction, clinging to the foot of the wall, sending a shiver up Jeanell’s spine. A rat? Down here, in a sealed facility two miles beneath the surface of the earth? Can’t be.

  She and Brad exchanged a worried look, and Jeanell made a snap decision. She threw out a long, loud, “Help! Somebody help us! Heeeellllp!”

  Lux pulled her arms further back, nearly dislocating the right one from her shoulder. “Shut cher gob, spy! Who do you think is gonna help you here?”

  Jeanell opened her mouth to answer with any one of the obvious: police, the security guards, the United States government.

  But none of those seemed that obvious anymore.

  They dragged Jeanell and the others to the end of the hallway and into one of several large reception areas, located at various points in the complex. Once a clean and posh chamber, it was now a dusty, miserable mess, with chunks of fallen concrete and broken furniture.

  “What’s going on here?” Jeanell and the rest turned to see the two kids returning, ever silent, with several other adults. One of them walked ahead of the others, tall, posture straighter than the cringing men and women around him.

  Brooke stepped forward, chin thrust as she pointed at Jeanell. “Spies, Ric, spies! We caught ‘em in t
he old control room.”

  Jeanell repeated to herself, The old control room? How old do they think it is?

  Brad said, “We’re not spies, we work here! This is my project, for chrissake!”

  Ric stepped toward them, looking them over. He was good looking, his face gaunt and chiseled, chestnut hair long, falling over his shoulders. “How’d you get here?”

  Brad said, “I just told you, we work here! How’d you get here? And who the hell are you people anyway? Where’s the rest of the staff, the security crew?”

  Ric looked him up and down, then threw out a sarcastic chuckle. “The chancellor really is losing it.”

  Jeanell asked, “Who’s this chancellor you keep talking about? And tell this gorilla to get his filthy paws off me!”

  “And spoil his fun?” Ric stepped casually around the reception area.

  Brooke said, “Let him have her!”

  Reeves struggled among his own captors. “I’ll kill you all!”

  “See,” Brooke said, “spies!”

  “Spies,” Jeanell repeated, “chancellor? It’s time you told us what the hell is going on here!”

  Ric said, “What happened is that you’ve been captured and now you’re on trial for your lives.”

  Ali just stood in silent terror, but Tony finally said, “What are you people, on drugs or something? How’d you even get in here?”

  “We live here,” Ric said. “It’s our sanctuary, has been for years.”

  Jeanell stood, stunned, no longer able to struggle for her shock. She looked around at the battered facility, more damage than a single explosion could have done. The rat, the mold, the gutted control room; evidence of age, time far beyond the few days they’d all assumed.

  Far beyond.

  Jeanell knew what had happened; they’d been unconscious for months.

  Jeanell asked only, “What month is this?”

  Ric answered, “June.”

  “June,” Jeanell said. She glanced at Brad, thinking aloud. “But… you didn’t grow a beard in all that time?”

  Ric asked, “What are you going on about now?”