Page 65 of The Alien's Private Redemption

Angela nodded and sniffed again. Her tears had stopped but her emotions still felt raw.

"Now, I need you to answer my question before we get back to the meeting. I don't want to ask this in front of the others but I need to know the answer and we don't have much time."

"Alright," she said. "I'll do my best."

"Who does your voice of reason sound like?"

"What do you mean?" Angela pulled back and looked up at his face.

"When I heard you arguing with the voice in your head, it didn't sound like your voice. If it is a manifestation of your internal thoughts, you've given it the voice of someone you trust to get you out of trouble. Who is it?"

She frowned at him, thinking hard about his question. It made sense, the logic behind it was sound, but she couldn't quite grasp the answer.

"I don't remember," she said. "I mean, I do, but I can't…I don't…I should know who he is."

"Is there anybody else in your life you were able to talk to the way you talk to me?" he asked. "Someone who showed a special interest in your life while you were growing up?"

Angela shook her head. "No, not really. It was just me and my mom, most of the time, but most of our neighbors were cousins to some degree or other. Everybody was in everybody's business, it seemed like, but nobody more than anybody else. Except-"

She shivered and each breath became a struggle to pull into her lungs. Panic overwhelmed her and she knew the suffocating would start soon.

Zoric's hand on the back of her neck combined with his mind sliding into hers stopped the panic and the difficulty breathing. A name slipped tantalizingly out of reach but she saw something.

Green eyes.

Ones she'd always looked into with a sense of trust, of home, of safety. They'd never hurt her. They were there to protect her.

Angela looked up to see Zoric's eyes and they felt similar, but not the same. Zoric would protect her but he wasn't safe. A thrill shot through her at that realization and she tried to put the words together to tell him.

A knock on the door made her heart jump into her throat. When the guard called, she realized their time was up, and her conversation with Zoric would have to wait.

Chapter 10

Zoric wanted to curse the guards for their interruption but couldn't. He'd heard them coming, smelled the oil of their guns and the polish on their boots, but he'd hoped they'd take just a little longer. The metallic tang of weapon oil mixed with the artificial cherry scent of floor cleaner, creating a uniquely human combination that made his tongue flick unconsciously to process the data.

The panic attack that had risen in Angela had been the first sign he'd asked a question that could trigger her self-destruct. He'd stopped it but the speed with which it had started worried him. It had given him a better insight into how the self-destruct had been implemented and maintained. Her pulse had skyrocketed before he could even register the change in her scent.

Unfortunately, he was going to need help to remove it.

"Are you ready?" Zoric asked, turning to Angela. She licked her lips nervously and nodded. His gaze followed her tongue along her lips and a deep spike of need shot through him. Her scent changed subtly, becoming warmer, sweeter, and he had to force himself to focus on their immediate situation.

He held his hand out for her and fought the need to pull her into his chest and hold her until the world disappeared. They couldn't hide away from the consequences of the last few days, no matter how much either of them wanted to. His scales rippled with suppressed emotion, the tiny movements creating a whisper-soft sound that only he could hear.

Hand in hand, they walked out into the hall and fell in with their escort. The guards' discomfort manifested in minute changes to their posture and the way they gripped their weapons. Zoric couldn't blame them - he'd never enjoyed escort duty. Granted, his charges were usually in some kind of deep distress and going to something worse than a meeting. Angela actually looked happy to be with him, her warmth seeping into his palm where their hands joined.

The conference room assaulted his senses the moment they entered. The stark fluorescent lights bounced off the polished table surface, creating a harsh glare that made his inner eyelids want to close. The air conditioning system pumped recycled air through vents that rattled slightly, creating a constant undercurrent of mechanical noise that grated against his auditory membranes.

Dr. Phillips and Ae-cha were already there, their scents mingling unpleasantly in the enclosed space - the doctor's artificial mint competing with Ae-cha's natural musk. They stopped what looked like a very intense conversation as Angela and Zoric walked in. Colonel Schuh joined them while Zoric was attempting to get comfortable in one of the chairs, the faux leather squeaking against his scales.

The chair was an instrument of torture designed for human proportions. The arms dug into his thighs, the back forced his tail into an uncomfortable position, and the height was wrong for his longer legs. Every shift produced an embarrassing squeak that echoed in the too-quiet room.

Angela looked over at him then addressed the room. "Does anybody have a screwdriver?"

The Colonel took some kind of tool out of his pocket and handed it to her, his face tense as he watched to see what she would do with it. She pulled one of the bars up from the tool, then knelt next to Zoric's chair. The movement wafted her scent toward him - a complex mixture of standard-issue soap, dried sweat, and something uniquely her that made his heart rate increase.

When Zoric saw what Angela was doing, he suddenly understood her purpose and stood. The chair's metal frame creaked in protest as his weight shifted. Careful to not shake the chair more than necessary, he knelt next to her and used his claws in the screws holding the back to the arms of the chair. The familiar scent of metal shavings hit his nose as his claws caught in the screws' threads.

Angela had moved to the back of the chair by the time Dr. Torres joined them, bringing with him that unsettling lack of scent that made Zoric's scales bristle. It was the work of a few more minutes to remove the last of the screws holding the back of the chair on. The small sounds of metal against metal echoed in the quiet room, punctuated only by the soft whisper of cloth as the others shifted in their seats.

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