Page 52 of The Commander

“Seven.” All she had to do was let it happen. Let the natural course of things take over.

“Eight.” Bastian took a deep breath. Finding his calm. His center. He left his clothes on this time since he had no idea where they might end up.

“Nine.” He found a length of left over rope. It was still suitable for tying her hands.

Since she was running when she knew she shouldn’t, he would get to punish her.

“Ten. Ready or not, Kitten, here I come.”

CHAPTER 17 - CARA

Cara left the bedroom wearing the clothes he’d left for her when she heard the front door close and peeked out the window. Commander Bastian walked toward the school. He wore old style magazine clothes now, the kind that Danov and his men kept for themselves: a button down gray shirt, folded to the elbows, with gray slacks that curved over his bubble ass with perfection.

She had to blink to drag her eyes away from the muscular round shape. Damn. Did it look biteable? Was she really thinking that? Wanting that? She didn’t just want to bite him; she felt possessive of him. And hungry. Where were these feelings coming from? Why would it even enter her head?

She couldn’t take it. Not going there. Spending her life fucking an alien and raising his babies was not in the plan. Not that there was a plan. Who had time for dreaming of a future between the daily workload and just existing?

Despite Brenda’s bedding advice, Cara never wanted to bring children into this world. The idea of creating a happy little family in this shit show of a world was pure fantasy. Getting birth control was impossible. The aliens didn’t see it as a priority and wouldn’t provide it the same way they ensured basic antibiotics, clean water, digestible food, and shelter were available in their towns of sheep workers. This wasn’t a world where good times existed.

Shecouldn’tbring a child into it.

As soon as the Mister Giant Ass was out of sight, she slipped on her shoes. The door wasn’t locked. He’d just left her. Maybe, after everything, he expected her to leave and go back to her life. She’d never forget what he forced her to do and made her enjoy. He’d probably forgotten already.

He got what he wanted, hadn’t he? She’d answered all his questions. He’d taken her body. And as far as she knew, this was how most males acted. That’s what happened to Brenda and several other women Cara knew. And even if he was alien, he was still arrogantly, narcissistically male.

She wouldn’t stay here and wait for him to come back like a good little human captive. It wasn’t right. She had to get away. Go back. People who needed her help were waiting to hear from her.

She no longer had her backpack, the knife Brenda had given her to trade for food, or the snares used to catch food. If she couldn’t find the people to trade with she’d have to go back empty handed and start over.

Brenda would be upset. The others, crushed by her failure to find food. Everyone had been so helpless. She hoped they were okay.

Cara opened the door, her heart beating hard. He hadn’t even left a guard. The area was so quiet. The aliens didn’t fear attacks from wankers, she knew. The roaming gangs were ants compared to the invaders at best. Outclassed, lowly, shamed humans who were still trying to get enough resources to fight.

Leaving the apartment, she had an irrational impulse to go back inside and see if she could build a pipe bomb, just to use it and show them all she wasn’t one of their pacified sheep. She still had fight in her after being captured. They all deserved to burn.

Even if it wouldn’t kill them. It would alert them that she was making an escape attempt. Building a bomb and using it on the base was also breaking the peace, one of the commander’s laws.

She’d already been tied up in that school fearing for her life, running through the halls. Pressed up against the wall and eaten out.

Nope.She didn’t want a repeat.

As if she knew where she was going, she kept her eyes forward, retracing her steps out of the base until she could guess the right direction better. Dad told her that people broadcast the energy of their intentions in waves that the muzzle heads could pick up from miles away. Their fear and nervousness were lie detectors in their sweat. Acting with purpose and confidence was the secret to going unnoticed.

Captured at dusk, it was now near dawn. The muzzle heads were as good as hunting hounds for tracking people. Her best option was to get to the river. She’d wash, get new clothes, then get Brenda. And hope the commander didn’t chase them down. Why would he? He got what he wanted from her.

The aliens chose an old suburb as their base, which Cara assumed was part of old Dalewood. There were remnant signs of twenty-first-century buildings and roads everywhere.

Over time, nature reclaimed the once populated place in stained greens and muted, weathered yellows of branch and bark. With the uneven terrain and all the overgrowth, she hadn’t realized how close she’d come to the alien base of operations.

Had the wankers who stole her traps known where they were? Cara had seen a couple of groups milling about at the gates, their faces shadowed by the hoods of tattered jackets. He’d let them inside at least once, their presence a red flag if she’d ever seen one.

Dalewood lay two miles away. The central city area of the small town, the collection of weathered brick buildings bore the weight of its history. With the townspeople struggling to survive, the aliens swept through, erecting their stark, centralized power and water structures alongside a streamlined food processing factory. They left the original town untouched, complete with an ancient defensive wall with its moss covered stones, barbed wire, and wooden pikes.

Dalewood had a heavy, menacing feeling, different from Springfield. She should have turned around the first time she saw it. Mighty Joe and his refugees lived in the wall’s shadow, making do as best they could.

“You’ll learn, cuties,”Danov had said with a chuckle.“Hunger has a way of changing minds.”

Cara hadn’t been raised as a sheep worker. She didn’t have people in her life bent on teaching her how bad it was outside of the aliens’ towns and making her afraid to leave. Danov couldn’t changehermind. That left poor Brenda, who was more malleable but furious with Andy and three months pregnant.

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