“No! Get your hands off him! You’re hurting him!” Lauren yelled.
Arms wrapped around her chest. She kicked out backwards and heard a satisfying crunch as the heel of her foot smashed into a shin. The hold on her didn’t falter. A foot swept beneath her ankles. She faltered and, using momentum, the alien who held her took her to the ground, pushing her face into wet, stinking foliage debris.
Her mind filled with terror. The Reptiles holding her down. Pain as something pushed into the side of her head. A blinding pain erupting inside her skull. She screamed, struggling, panting. Chest constricting. Black dots swam across her vision as Jo’Aquin roared.
He spun around, shaking free. More men piled onto him. His legs buckled with the weight. It took most of the men surrounding them to take him to the ground and hold him down.
Lauren screamed more, beyond reason, “Don’t hurt him!” She couldn’t take this. It was all too much. She was losing it, and there was little she could do but let a red wave crash down around her head. She bucked like a wildcat, but the heavy body that held her crushed down on her.
She could only watch as the leaf men pinned Jo’Aquin’s arms behind his back and wrapped orange vines around his wrists. The Commander heaved against the weight of men on his back, but there was no way he could shake them all off. Not wounded, poisoned, and weakened as he was.
Weight lifted from her body, but it was only momentary as many hands held her immobile. A knee shoved painfully into the small of her back. She yelped in anguish as her wrists were shoved behind her back and laced together with vines, the same as they had done to Jo’Aquin.
His neon gaze found hers. “Just do as they say, Lauren. I will keep you safe.”
But how could an injured man hope to save himself in the face of these odds, let alone someone who, by all means, was so much weaker than he was?
6
T hey marched through the bizarre, unearthly rainforest. It was hot. Humid. A trickle of sweat ran down her spine to coalesce into the soaked waistband of her jeans. Soggy patches beneath her arms merged with circles of sweat-damp material that clung to her skin. She was prodded every so often with the threatening tip of a spear when she stumbled or slowed down too much. She’d given up glaring at the guard behind her back, not just because it didn’t work, but she was just too damn weary to bother looking over her shoulder anymore.
Her throat ached, parched and dry. Her head felt like it was going to explode. The throbbing in her head was a sharp, wince-inducing pain. Even the sunlight seared behind her eyelids. She was feeling worse and worse by the minute.
She stumbled again. She struggled to lift her leg. The thick denim was like a coating of molasses over her limbs, and she paused for a moment. She glimpsed Jo’Aquin up ahead.
He stumbled in uncoordinated, lurching movements, looking as though he was drunk. Lauren could hear his laboured breathing even though they weren’t standing close. Jo’Aquin turned towards her, and she gasped. His lips were cracked, his skin degenerated to a dark, dull gold. His eyes were sunken, with deep brown bruises beneath them. Rivulets of perspiration ran down his face, and he seemed barely able to catch a breath. He was more than sick.
He was dying.
She couldn’t lose him. She couldn’t be here alone. She didn’t know him, of course, but he’d tried to rescue her. That meant he was the only person she could trust.
Besides, he was her only link to Earth. Her only way home . If he died…she could be stuck here for the rest of her life. It was selfish of her, but she needed him like she’d never needed anyone else before.
She stumbled over to the leader. A hand on her shoulder stopped her in her path. She didn’t bother to struggle, just waited, trying to ignore her pounding head. Lauren licked her dry lips, trying to work some saliva into her mouth as she squinted up at him, “Please help Jo’Aquin. Just look at him. Give him some water. Or…something.”
The leader gestured to some of his men. “We are in the village now. Take him to Mother.”
Confused, she looked around but didn’t see any village, only thick, unnatural multi-coloured leaves. She shook her head as though to clear her thoughts, but that was a mistake as dizziness consumed her. Her stomach turned violently, but there was nothing to bring up. It clenched painfully, and she bent double. She squinted as Jo’Aquin was led away.
He struggled, looking over at her. “Lauren.”
He didn’t sound any better than she felt. “I want to go with him.”
There was something like resignation on the leader’s face when he turned to her. She didn’t expect to see that, but was too far gone to really wonder about it, “He is being taken to a healer.”
“You’re going to help him?” It was all so confusing, and her brain hurt so much.
“Of course. Just like I will help you, if it can be done,” the leader said.
Her mind was molasses, thoughts wading through thick resistance. “But, why have you treated us like this? Tied our hands?”
The leader sighed, “It was for both your and my men’s safety.”
“Safety? What safety?” Jo’Aquin was so injured he could barely stand. She didn’t understand any of this. She was so tired. So weak. All she wanted to do was lie down and sleep for a week and forget about everything and hope like hell that this was a really bad nightmare.
The leader came up close to her. So close that she could do nothing but blink up into his face. He studied her for a couple of long moments, “One of my men has contacted Mother. She will do what she can to counteract whatever the Reptiles have done to you.”
“What? Done to me? All they did was put me in a coffin thing and send me to this place. I don’t even know why they did that.”
Serious eyes that held pity and determination peered down at her. “Believe me. They would have done something to you. The idea is to find out just what they did and why they sent you here.”
Lauren sobbed out loud, no longer trying to hold everything in. It took too much effort, and she had nothing left. She winced as a particularly sharp pain slid behind her right eye. “I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t even know where here is . I should be in the middle of a desert, cursing my friend and waiting for a mechanic. Well, as bad as it was back home, I want to go back there. I just want to go home!” She was powerless to stop the flow of tears coursing down her cheeks.
A range of emotions flickered through his eyes. Understanding, sadness, then resignation, “At least you’ll have your memories.” He looked beyond her, “Sheldod, take her to Mother now. See what she can do to help the human.”
A grip settled on her arm, and a younger man came from behind her, “Wait! Where are you taking me? I want Jo’Aquin.”
The man she knew as the leader trailed his finger down her cheek. “You will see him again. If he lives.”
“What? If he lives? What are you saying?” she spluttered.
“It’s the best I can offer. Take her now, Sheldod. She is just about done in.”
The leader walked away and was swallowed between the large leaves in a second. “Wait! What do you mean?” She seemed to ask that a lot, but there weren’t enough answers being supplied.
She struggled, but she was so weak it did nothing. The pounding in her head notched up to a nauseating level and her movements were nothing but protests. Her limbs didn’t want to move the way she wanted them to.
Sheldod marched her to the base of an impossibly large tree. The trunk appeared wide enough to fit in thirty cars side-to-side with space to spare. It was covered with a purplish-brown, smooth bark. She tilted her head back and peered upwards. Her vision swam, and she had to blink it back to focus. Leaves hindered her view, and she was left wondering how tall such a massive tree might be.
“Now what?” she groaned. She was so weary she didn’t think she had it in her to walk any further.
“We climb.” She looked up into the face of Sheldod. Although his skin was obscured by streaks of orange and purple camouflage pa
int, he was still quite handsome. The most startling thing she noticed was his eyes. They were a deep purple, but the pupil was a vertical slit, like the eyes of a cat.
She forced her gaze away, not wanting to see anything more that would confirm that, in fact, she wasn’t going insane, that she was, in fact, on another planet and she had, in fact, been abducted by aliens. For the second time.
She rested her head against the smooth, cool, bark, “If I’m meant to climb, how am I going to do that with my hands tied?”
Even if she hadn’t been trussed up like a Christmas turkey, she couldn’t even attempt to climb such a tree. There were no steps, no ladders, and no notches. Nothing to hold onto at all.
The question was soon answered when Sheldod slung her over his shoulder as though she was a sack of potatoes. Her breath whooshed out of her lungs as he started climbing–using nothing but his fingertips and toes. He spread his hand wide over the trunk. His fingers flattened out into suction cups as study as superglue.
Her vision swum and nausea rolled through her with each press of his shoulder into her diaphragm. She closed her eyes against the world of dizzying hues of swirling colours, finding little comfort in the darkness behind her closed lids. They continued to climb for what felt like forever. Her head was one big pounding weight, and all she wanted to do was to curl up in a ball and cry herself to sleep.
Finally, the man stopped climbing, and she was manhandled off his shoulder. Her legs collapsed beneath her and she fell to the ground, which was soft and springy. She cracked open her eyes to discover it was a branch. A very wide, smooth branch that was more of a laneway. Filled with people. Lots of people.
Men, women, and children were dressed in pink, orange and purple leaves, blending in with the tree. They chatted in hushed tones and pointed at her. The crowd parted, and a gnarled old woman hobbled towards her.
Her hair was stringy and a ghastly shade of pale orange. The woman could be anywhere between eighty and five-hundred years old. Her face was lined like a piece of tissue paper had been crumpled and then carefully unfolded. Her skin reminded Lauren of the softest leather, but her eyes were the colour of new spring leaves and held volumes of wisdom.
She bent over Lauren. Broad hands of dry skin cupped Lauren’s face and tilted her head, staring at her as though she was looking for something.
“This girl has been tampered with. It is yet to be seen if she will live.” The woman’s voice crackled, clean and dry, but it was the words themselves that froze Lauren’s blood.
Die? She was going to die? This nightmare was tilting on the grounds of absurdity. She wondered if Mike had felt the same terror, knowing the death sentence of cancer was over his head for years.
“Let me see your palms.”
“I can’t. They’re tied,” she said.
The woman uttered an angry sound, and Sheldod quickly cut through the vines pinning her wrists. Her arms flopped uselessly to her sides, lit with fiery pins and needles. As quick as anything, the old woman grabbed her wrist and peered at her palm. “Who did this to you?”
Lauren squinted at her palm. An angry, red wound cut right through it. “A lizard...Iguana. Reptile thing.”
The woman grunted, and a calculating gleam entered her eyes. “I will do what I can. If she does not live, her body yet might be the help we have waited for.”
Lauren was lifted, tried to walk, but her legs flailed uselessly. Her body wasn’t listening to what she wanted to do. “I just want to go home. Please, let me go home.”
She was thrown over Sheldod’s broad shoulder, and the world went hazy again. It was a long time before she was let down and she collapsed onto a pallet. Multi-coloured leaves swum around her. She was in some sort of leafy, domed igloo.
Sheldod bowed to the old woman and disappeared through a large leaf that served as a door, not unlike a tent opening. Lauren tried to move, wanted to move, but her body not only didn’t listen, it resisted. Her head pounded with the fury of several jackhammers. It was all she could do to peer up at the woman. “Jo’Aquin. Joe. Where is he? What have you done with him?” Her words were slurred, her voice hoarse.
The woman shuffled about the igloo and muttered to herself as she took random containers and began mixing a concoction into a wooden bowl. She began to chant, her voice strong, yet low. Garbled words Lauren couldn’t decipher.
A scratching sound filled the room and Lauren’s head. The room tilted in a dizzying spiral as horrifying creatures exploded through the giant leaf-wall. Lizards, snakes, creatures with deep green scales clawed at her. Ripped her head open, and stirred her brain.
Long forked tongues licked out across her skin across deep rivulets of blood and painful gashes. Red eyes stared at her. Hollow. Dead.
When she screamed, nothing came out. A foul-tasting slurry was thrown down her throat. Lauren gagged, trying to spit it out, but her mouth was sewn shut. Chanting was everywhere, a thousand voices, echoing inside her and all around. Her skin chaffed and burned, endless pain spiking everywhere.
She screamed out for Mike. Knew it would be useless. He was dead. Dead. Dead. Screamed for Jo’Aquin. Desperate.
Then she screamed for God to save her soul.
7
V oices whispered around her, but the words were slippery. They mingled into meaningless sounds. She clung to the deepest tone. The most soothing note. She followed it, hand over hand, just like she was climbing a rope from the bottom of a deep, dark pit. The words stopped being just sounds. A voice called her name. There was light. She struggled upwards. Up. Up. To the light.
Blurred silhouettes focused to become faces peering down at her. She concentrated on the one with the neon blue eyes that were so concerned. Why would they be so concerned? No-one was ever concerned about her. They were always concerned for Mike. Poor sick, sick Mike. Mike was sick. Very sick. But sometimes...sometimes it would be nice for someone to ask her how she was coping because she was so sick of sickness , of withered bodies, sunken eyes, lost hope...of looming death that no one wanted to talk about...
Her gaze remained glued to his face, confusion breaking way to familiarity. As her mind started to work, memories engulfed her. The man–alien–with the not-quite-human face and the beautiful eyes. He’d been concerned for her.
“Joe?” She hitched a quick breath and struggled to sit up, only to discover she was so weak she barely managed to lift her head. She pressed her palm to her forehead, willing the dizziness to pass and noticed two other faces beside him. The leader and the old woman. The leader regarded her with a look that made her feel she was prime real estate, while the old woman’s calculated gaze showed curiosity. The word ‘sideshow’ came to mind.
“I’m here.” His soothing voice calmed her a little.
She lay on a pallet in the colourful leaf igloo, only this time dappled sunlight illuminated the bright leaves creating a soft glow inside. But being in the leaf igloo also meant that the nightmares were real, and she so desperately wished they weren’t. She felt like she’d been put through a meat grinder. Her body ached, and her mind wasn’t much better.
Her breathing hitched. She was on an alien world, and these people staring down at her were aliens. Then again, she was on their planet, so that must make her the alien. Cold sweat broke out on her skin. She tried to bring her breathing under control, but she panted like she’d just run a mile. She couldn’t stop herself.
“She’s still not well.” Joe sounded nervous. No. He sounded angry. At her?
A large hand gently wiped her forehead. She latched onto that touch and grabbed Joe’s hand like it was a lifeline. Maybe it was. She was too panicked to put too much reasoning behind her action.
“Here. Drink this,” the old woman said.
Lauren turned her head away from a cup that was placed at her mouth, but a hand behind her head brought her back. Cool liquid sloshed into her throat. She didn’t realise how itchy and dry her throat was until she felt the liquid. Without being able to stop herself, she gulped
the rest down.
Coolness spread into her chest and cleared her head. The panic receded, and she was able to think. She drew in a deep, clearing breath to find Joe perched over her, holding her head up. She clutched the cup and drank the rest of the fluid, licking her lips with relief.
“I’m okay now.”
“I don’t think you are.”
The line between Joe’s brows became more a valley over his measured gaze. It was clear he didn’t believe her. Mental sands shifted beneath her feet. She needed to know where the hell she was and what the hell these strange people wanted of her. Being tied up and strung up a tree and then healed didn’t quite make sense. But then again, she wasn’t dealing with humans. Who knew what their reasons were? She did know that people didn’t necessarily help without wanting something in return. If she valued being able to get back home, she couldn’t afford to show any weakness. A sick person had nothing to deal with.
She rolled to her side, using whatever feeble strength she had to sit up. In her experience, if you didn’t get up, you stayed down. Despite her protesting body, Lauren forced her limbs to move.
“Lauren, stop,” Joe said.
“You can help me or not, but I’m still sitting up,” she wheezed. She silently hoped he’d help her. Moving was hard at the moment.
There was a quiet curse in a language she didn’t understand, then his large, strong hands, gentle and firm, helped her up, his touch comforting beyond reason. At least he hadn’t told her to stay down. Soon, she was propped against the soft leaves of the igloo wall. She leaned back with a sigh, panting. That cost her, but at least she felt better seeing everyone at eye level. She ignored the old woman and the leader, peering at Joe.
“Did they...do anything to you?” The man who was nearly dead, when was that, yesterday maybe, looked strong? His skin was dusted with a golden hue that looked healthy, his sunken cheeks were now masculine dips and shadows, and his eyes were that remarkable bright blue. The cats eye slit disconcerted her, but she was so relieved to see him looking well, it didn’t bother her so much. It was amazing that so many shocks to the system could numb the intensity of things after a while.
JoAquin_An Alien Abduction Paranormal Romance Page 4