Page 8 of Alien Rescue

“I am feeding you your coffee.”

She pushed his claw away, half expecting him to slash at her. “I can drink it by myself.” She looked around at the large, silver room. “Where is this place?”

“You are in the dwelling I built for you in Natalie City.” Yeah, that helps a lot. She’d find out where she was one way or another. Hopefully it was close to a human city. When she escaped, she’d be able to get the word out about the aliens.

“How long have I been...unconscious?” She had some vague memories of crying because he ate her hands, and of him feeding her.

“Two weeks.” He touched her head again, seeming fascinated. “I approve of your hair. Larz’s breeder has midnight hair, but not interesting spirals like you.

Two weeks! That horrific rage, the same rage she’d felt the night before when he told her he’d destroyed her chances of proving herself, coursed through her. She literally shook with it and he took the cup back from her. “I could kill you,” she snarled at him.

“Why?” He looked baffled even though his face didn’t change expression. Maybe she was just anthropomorphizing him.

“You destroyed any chance I’ll ever have to prove myself.”

“Why do you have to prove yourself?” Again, that feeling of great confusion coming off him.

Rose stared at him, for a moment totally stumped. “I just have to, that’s all.” How did she explain to him how crucial it was—it had been, she corrected herself? How crucial it had been to become an agent. To rise in the ranks and be allocated a big case. She’d known she’d be able to go home if she made a success of herself. Her father would accept her and her brother would forgive her.

“Who put you in that hole?”

“Parnell did, to help me prove that I can be an agent.” She licked her lips, afraid to ask the next question. “Where’s Mr. Parnell? The other people in the building?”

He patted her head, and for one, long moment she battled the need to really hurt him. “We captured him; he’ll never harm you again.” There was something strange in his voice—an intense rage.

With a sinking feeling in her stomach, she licked her dry lips. She’d hoped she was the only one they’d captured, that Mr. Parnell and the others were safe. “And the others—my colleagues?” she said, barely above a whisper. They’d become her family. She’d never been close to any of them, but they’d spent most of their time together for years.

“Some we captured, some we allowed to go. A few humans escaped.”

They stared at each other, the silence around them as loud as a siren. She had skills, but he was so much bigger and more muscular than anyone she’d ever come up against. She’d have to catch him asleep.

It hit her, as if the reality of her situation reached inside her head and slapped it into her. She was trapped, couldn’t get out of this silver box he kept her in. Just like that, the panic she’d been pushing to the back of her mind overwhelmed her. Her skin became clammy and she looked around, her motion jerky, seeking exits, a primal scream trapped in her throat, her muscles so tense they ached. She was shut in again. It might be a bigger box, but she was shut in a place with no windows, the door hidden in the wall, and she was sure it would only open for the alien. What if they were underground? His lips moved, but she couldn’t hear what he said. He sat the cup down on a shelf and came toward her, touched her face, and his lips moved again.

The wall opened and another alien came in. She screamed and screamed, but couldn’t hear her own screams. Why couldn’t she hear herself screaming? The other alien pressed something against her neck and her eyelids became heavy. The last thing she was aware of was Zanr touching her cheek. Curiously gentle.

When she woke, she couldn’t think of anything but the fact that she needed the bathroom desperately. She looked around the cluttered room and it all rushed back: the alien, her destroyed hopes. She had a vague recollection of the doctor alien injecting her. Before she could panic, she saw the alien sitting on a silver chair.

“I need the bathroom.”

He’d helped her to the bathroom before, but she’d been so weak and out of it at the time, she wasn’t sure which wall it was behind.

He pointed, and a section of the wall slid apart to reveal a large bathroom. She got up and staggered to the door, motioning him back with one hand when it looked like he wanted to help. She only hesitated a moment before entering the smaller space.

She used the facilities and then went in search of a toothbrush. She found one in a section of the wall that slid open when she touched it, found a toothbrush inside as well as a tube of toothpaste. Rose didn’t waste one minute going to town on her teeth. It was a miracle she didn’t kill the alien with her breath alone. She rinsed her mouth and straightened. Looked at the mirror that she could’ve sworn wasn’t there a moment before. Her eye twitched and then she screamed. Pure rage blinded her and this time she heard her own scream. She’d kill him slowly and with blunt things that hurt him. A lot.

He was next to her before the first scream left her throat. “What is the matter, my breeder. Do you feel ill again?”

“What did you do with my hair you, you funkwhisker?”

He cocked his head. “Funkwhisker?”

“Never mind, what did you do with my hair?” Using the word her mother used made her heart ache. Instead she focused on the alien she was going to kill.

He stroked the spirals he’d somehow plaited to stand upright on her head. She looked like that woman in the story. The one who had snakes on her head. “I am very pleased to have a breeder with superior hair. I enjoy arranging your hair, my breeder. I have obtained many hair ornaments for you.”

She walked past him and went back to sit on the chair he’d vacated. “I’m going to kill you,” she said at last. Conversationally. “I’ve spent almost eight years trying to prove myself. And you, alien, came and ruined that.” She took a deep breath and continued, “And on top of that you messed with my hair. No one messes with my hair. And no one made it stand upright like I have a head full of snakes and lived to talk about it.” How on earth did he manage to plait it like that?

Again, that reptilian cock of his head. “Why should I not arrange your hair?”

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