by Elin Wyn
Not like I hadn’t pretty nearly lost it already.
“This is screwed up,” I said out loud, just to have someone talking. I had almost forgotten that my latest musical interest was a collection of instrumentals, so there were no lyrics. How in the hell did I ever decide that was a good thing?
I got up and messed with my music, putting on some stuff that had real sound and real words to it. “Much better,” I said to no one in particular. “Oh yeah, sing to me, Luther. Take my stress away.”
Okay, maybe talking to a dead musician wasn’t the sanest thing in the world to do, but at least Luther wasn’t going to betray me, use me, or try to kidnap me.
Then, I laughed at myself a little. I was doing something that Zarik and Kyle had both done.
I was putting my own needs first. I needed calm, so I put on music. Zarik needed to fix some bullshit honor-code thing, so he chose me. I mean, people will take care of themselves, right?
Kyle, well, I didn’t want to think about that asshole, so I shifted back to Zarik. I was still sore from sleeping with him, but it was a good sore. I…I liked being this kind of sore.
“Dammit,” I cursed quietly. “Why did he have to tell me that? Why did he have to say something and ruin the mystique?”
Remembering how he’d felt, I sank back into the couch and let out a small moan. God, he had felt so good.
His hands so gentle, his touch so loving, and his… “Oh, hell no, not this song.” I got up and changed the song. It had been playing when I had been taken. I didn’t want that song on, not now, at least.
How could Zarik have used me? Or, did he? I know he said he chose the assignment as a way of making up for what had happened in the past, but how he treated me and acted towards me, that was real. Wasn’t it?
I know I definitely felt something and I’m not that much of an idiot to have mistaken his looks, his touches, and his tone when he was nice and gentle with me. He felt something for me. He honestly did. I might not know a damn thing about him, but there was no way he was that good of an actor.
Was he?
I missed him. I missed his giant hands that dwarfed mine. I missed the way his hands touched my shoulders with gentle power, how his hand easily fit on my back.
I missed the sound and tone of his voice when we joked and when he promised to take care of me.
I missed how he looked at me.
Could the idea of him trying to regain his honor really be that bad of a thing?
I knew that I still, still, still what? Did I love him?
Oh.
I sat up, knowing that if I had company, they would be weirded out by the look on my face. “It was real. He does want me and feel for me, just like I want him. I don’t want this to be just something that happened. It was too good.”
Oh, god it was, too. “I feel for this ridiculously tall man, and I know he feels for me, too.”
I had to talk to him, but I also had to wait for the locksmith.
Damn.
Zarik
I had always been told that truth was valuable, that truth was desired, and that truth was the correct path.
Whoever had said that neglected to mention that truth was also painful.
It didn’t take long for Miri to leave after I told her the truth about why I had originally taken her case.
And I couldn’t blame her.
To find out you had been used for something is gut-wrenching, and the fact that I’m the one that wrenched her gut made it that much worse, especially considering what we did last night.
Miri has to think that I used her there, as well.
I would if I were her.
But I didn’t, and I didn’t know how to go about convincing her of that.
And my sitting here in my room, sulking, was just a complete waste of time.
While I didn’t have work to do at the moment, I could still find something to make myself useful.
So I headed upstairs to talk to Tobias, to see if he needed anything or knew of something I could do.
As I topped the stairs, I saw Hileen sitting in the lobby again. I felt bad for her. When I had brought Miri out to her, I saw the pain in her eyes when she saw that it wasn’t her daughter being brought out.
Yet, here she was.
She wasn’t giving up.
I shouldn’t either.
Then, something dawned on me. There were women in the infirmary that had been taken, what if…I headed to Tobias.
“Tobias,” I whispered as I came up next to him.
He jumped slightly, looked up at me, then let out a breath. “You scared me,” he whispered back. “Why are we whispering?”
I nodded towards Hileen. “What was her daughter’s name again? I don’t have the file with me.”
His eyes went wide with recognition and he quickly turned to his computer and typed something into it. Within a few seconds, he had her file open. “Her daughter’s name is, hold on, Cora.” Then he shot me another look. “One of the women you guys brought in is named Cora,” he whispered excitedly. “Do you think it could be?”
“I hope so,” I whispered to him. I quickly stood and raised my voice. “Ms. Hileen?”
She looked over at me, her eyes filled with a mixture of hope, expectation, and fear. “Yes?”
“Ma’am,” I started as I walked over to her, “I don’t mean to get your hopes up, but we found a,” I hesitated a bit as I searched for the right information. “Yesterday, we found a hidden location of some humans trying to ‘re-educate’ others against us. We found a couple young women there.”
Her eyes began to well up a bit as she gasped. I just hoped that I was right this time. “If you would follow me, ma’am. I’m hoping we found your daughter this time.” I held my hand out to her to help her stand, then led her to the infirmary. I walked her right by Dr. Parr, who looked at me oddly, then stood up and followed us.
“In here,” I said quietly. Hileen walked through the double doors that I indicated, with Dr. Parr and me half a step behind.
She stood still for a moment, looking at the people inside, then her breath caught and her hand went up to her mouth while tears streamed down her cheeks.
I followed her gaze to the woman I had rescued from the underground lab and I was forced to blink my own eyes clear.
“Cora?”
The young woman in the bed looked over and she let out an almost heartbroken sob as Hileen rushed over. Mother and daughter hugged and cried as they were finally reunited.
“You crying?”
I looked down at Dr. Parr, my vision blurry. I didn’t bother replying as she leaned into me for a moment. “You did good.”
I nodded. It felt good to finally reunite these two. Miri would have loved it. I suddenly felt bad for her not being here and decided that I needed to apologize and do whatever it took to convince her that I truly did miss her and care for her.
“Excuse me, doctor,” I said as I turned and left the room, Hileen and Cora’s joy filling my ears.
I decided to go to Miri’s apartment. I had to try again. And again, if that’s what it took.
I was almost out of the hospital when I received a call on my comm. Hoping it was Miri, I looked down and was unable to hide my disappointment when I saw that it was Leena instead.
“What can I do for you?” I answered.
“Hey, I know this isn’t usually your field, but since you were the one that found all of this, I thought you’d want to see it,” was her response.
“What would that be?”
“Just come to my lab, please,” she requested. “It’s easier to show you.” She ended the call, leaving me to wonder what she was talking about.
I went to her lab. “What’s going on?” I asked as I walked into her lab. I possibly should have knocked as two of Leena’s assistants jumped and glared at me for interrupting their work. I held up my hands in an apologetic manner and made my way to Leena’s desk. “What’s going on?” I repeated, a little more quietly.
She grabbed one of the pads that was still on and swiped to a file she had open. “Here,” she said, handing it to me. “What you’ll find there is essentially a memorandum written up by their leader, detailing their overall objective. They were trying to essentially re-wire people’s minds to make them think that you guys were here to destroy all of us.”
“We already knew that,” I said.
She nodded. “Yeah, but what you didn’t know was that this is a massive operation and that they were in the testing phase. They were taking anyone, even if that meant people kidnapping their own family,” she gave me a look.
Like Miri, taken by her cousin’s friend.
“They’ve already tested this on over a dozen people, each time making the serum more potent and effective.” She reached up and swiped to another file, a large list of names. “This is the list of the people involved, or that want to be involved. There’s a massive population that doesn’t like you guys, or those of us that do like you,” she added.
“We already knew that,” I countered. It didn’t seem plausible that every human would like us, or even come around to tolerating us.
Intolerance was a standard option in living beings. Most people were better at ignoring their intolerance than others. Something didn’t sit with me, however. Leena looked stressed. “But this isn’t what’s stressing you out, is it?”
She shook her head. “No. This is,” she reached over and grabbed another datapad, a large silver one that she had connected to her computer. “I was looking through this one after receiving the decrypted the files and I’m not happy with what I’ve found. They have intimate knowledge of the Puppet Master; what he is, what he does, basically they know almost everything we know about him.”
That was bad. Detailed knowledge of the Puppet Master wasn’t supposed to be public. People knew of him, and had basic ideas of what he was capable of, but this kind of information had been held back. I scrolled through the files that Leena already had open and they were in depth, highly detailed files about the Puppet Master.
“But how did they get this information?” I asked.
She shrugged and shook her head. “I don’t have a clue. We’ve got a hacker on our side. It's not that far of a stretch that they have one, too. One more thing…”
I looked at her.
“They know where he is and how to get to him,” she said.
Rek!
“Have you shown any of this to the general?” I asked.
“Parts of it,” she answered. “I just decoded this info as you were walking over.”
This was distressing to say the least. “Thank you, Leena. I’ll notify the general right away. Can you send a copy of these files to his tablet?”
I waved her off as I left her lab at a light jog.
Within moments, I was in Rouhr ‘s office. He had Leena on speaker and between the two of us, we explained Leena’s findings and what my suggestion was.
“Good call, Leena,” he said as he punched up the barracks and ordered the strike teams to mobilize. “You, too,” he said with a nod in my direction. I nodded as well and rushed out to the barracks and the armory.
As I rushed out, I couldn’t stop worrying.
Not about the Puppet Master. We were doing everything we could. It would have the best protection on the planet.
But this delayed my conversation with Miri. With every step away, I wanted to pull back to her side.
I just hoped she would understand.
I needed her to understand.
That might finally make this pain in my chest go away.
Miri
The lock was installed, my mind was slightly more at ease, and I had a meeting with Dr. Parr.
Steps. Nice, tangible steps, that didn’t involve me hiding under the bed with a knife.
I decided that I would take a cab, not really feeling like walking that far to her office.
That rift thing was useful. But way too cold.
And still a little weird.
When the cab pulled up, I got in and made myself comfortable.
“Hospital, please,” I said to the cabbie. He nodded and started driving. He tried to strike up a conversation with me, but I was too preoccupied thinking about Zarik.
I tried to force him from my mind so I could make sure to remember what I needed to talk to Evie about.
I needed to ask her about the memories that were suddenly returning, especially the more traumatic ones. I wanted to make sure that the brain scans were okay and that the sudden return of my bad memories weren’t messing me up.
The problem was, trying to force Zarik out of my mind was something that was messing me up. I couldn’t think straight.
Every time I tried to force my concentration, I saw his smile, or heard his voice trying to encourage me and push me. All I succeeded in doing in my attempt to not think about Zarik was to think about him even more.
“We’re here, lady.” I looked up to see that the cabbie was pulling into the hospital parking lot. He hovered in front of the hospital as I paid him and got out.
He sped off, leaving me to wonder if I had upset him or something. Just because I didn’t want to talk didn’t mean that I had an issue with him, I just didn’t want to talk.
What was wrong with that?
Then, I looked back up at the hospital and realized that I was in the wrong place. I was at the hospital like I was supposed to be, but Evie’s office was on the other side.
Steps. Just more tangible ones.
Resigning myself to a short hike around the hospital, I started walking. The more steps I took, the harder it was for me to take my mind off Zarik. I wondered what he was doing and if he was angry with me.
I had stormed off. I had left him and been angry with him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t want to see me, not after how angry I had gotten.
I wanted to talk to him, to tell him that I forgave him. I knew that he didn’t mean to hurt me, and that his need to make up for part of his past was important to him. I wanted to tell him that I understood, and that he also needed to not let his past control him anymore.
Then again, if I was being honest, if it hadn’t been for him trying to make up for whatever mistakes he had made in the past, we would never have met and I might not have ever figured out what happened to me.
I might have fallen by the wayside and merely become another one of those people just trying to somehow make it through life, maybe without ever getting my memories back.
I guess him doing what he did for the reasons that he did them ended up being a good thing, in a sort of convoluted way.
Right?
I rounded the corner of the hospital and spotted Zarik and the rest of the soldiers he had told me were strike team members. They were in full gear and marching with determination back towards the offices. Letting my curiosity get the better of me, I rushed over.
“Zarik,” I called out with a big wave of my arm. I saw him look around to see where his name had come from, finally spotting me. He stopped as I caught up. “What’s going on?” I asked, a bit out of breath.
He didn’t even hesitate in his answer. “Leena’s team managed to crack the security on the datapads that I found. She’s discovered that the anti-alien group has more in-depth knowledge of the Puppet Master than previously believed, including its location. We’re on our way there now to make sure things are safe and to set up a defensive perimeter, just in case.”
I took a minute to soak up what he told me. I
f the group knew about the Puppet Master’s location, and if the Puppet Master was what Zarik had told me it was, if the group killed it, that would mean the planet would die. Right?
“I’m going with you,” I said impulsively, not recognizing my own voice at first.
When I saw his surprise, and felt that my own face mirrored his surprise, I set my jaw and folded my arms in front of me. I was determined to not be left behind.
He put his hand on my shoulder. “No,” he said as I grabbed his hand. I looked at him as if he had spoken in a foreign language.
“What do you mean, ‘no’?” I asked. He looked at me and I could see the honest to goodness care and worry in his eyes. I never so badly wanted to hug anyone and hold anyone as closely as I wanted to hold him at that moment.
“You can’t come with us,” he said, a bit of force behind his words.
I tilted my head as I looked at him. I pushed his hand off of my shoulder and changed my look into a glare. “Really? You don’t want me there?”
He shook his head. “It might not be safe there,” he said. Then, before I could answer, he left to catch up with the others.
I chased after him, my thoughts racing with my feet. Everything lately felt like a choice had been made for me. Getting grabbed by Kyle. Their stupid experiments. Staying in the holding cell. Zarik and his honor and whatever was growing between us.
I was making this decision on my own, even if it wasn’t particularly well thought out, damn it.
I saw the rift opening a few yards away and turned on the speed. I raced past Zarik, who was trying to reach out for me, and jumped through the rift. The cold was unbearable, but since I had jumped through, it was quick.
I landed on dirt, sticking my arms out to catch myself. The rift set me down in front of a tunnel that led down.
“What are you doing?” I heard from behind me. I didn’t even have to turn around to know that Zarik had followed me through and was angry.
Whoops.
I turned around, a big smile on my face. “You couldn’t stop me. Big bad you couldn’t stop little bitty me. That’s funny.”