Page 69 of All You Need is Alien Love
In the midst of all this, I can hear River’s voice in my earpiece. “Hold on, Kai, we’re coming!”
Adeline squats beside me with a calculating look as she secures me in tight restraints before I can manage to fight back.
When Fabian hauls me to my feet, I wince at the throbbing in my head and the momentary black spots I see flickering in my vision. My stomach rolls and for an instant I fear I might vomit.
Actually, maybe they deserve me hurling all over them. Bastards.
I watch as Adeline removes and pockets a USB drive from the computer she’d been on earlier, then heads toward the door. “Bring him with us,” she orders Fabian. “I still have some tests I’d like to conduct on him.”
“You’re both insane,” I manage to mumble.
“As one of the Earthling philosophers once said,there is no genius without some touch of madness,” Adeline replies, humming cheerfully to herself as she leads us away.
My head’s still spinning and I’m having trouble staying upright as Fabian yanks me along. I realize I probably have aserious concussion but I’m unable to do anything about it or my situation at present. With mounting fear, I watch as Adeline secures a small explosive device on the door to the med lab and forces us down the hall toward the transporter room.
“What the hell are you do?—”
She detonates the device just as backup appears at the other end of the hallway.
The explosion knocks me to the ground and I lose my earpiece. The floor shakes and glass shatters all around us. Lying on the ground, my head throbbing like someone is hitting my brain with a hammer, I cough as I inhale a lungful of pungent smoke. Then Fabian hauls me to my feet again and drags me with him at a fast pace.
When the ringing in my ears subsides, I hear the building alarm system blaring in the background.
My head pounds with pain and, for a second, I start seeing double. Two steps is as far as I make it before my stomach decides to expel all of its contents.
That only makes my head ache even worse but I derive a small bit of satisfaction from spewing on Fabian’s shoes. The mixed look of disgust and horror on his face is like a reward.
Alliance HQ has been thrown into chaos from the explosion and in the ensuing confusion, Adeline and Fabian manage to haul me to the transporter room. I make a good show of resisting, but my head is pounding worse with every moment. My vision’s going blurry and my tentacles are trapped behind a belt restraint they put on me. I try to walk, but my balance is off as well, so I stumble as I’m being dragged along.
Despite my pain, I chuckle quietly to myself, recalling River’s outraged face the moment I proposed using myself as bait. He fought me on it long and hard, but eventually even he couldn’t deny that this was one of the best ways to bring us right to LayneMadison.Little do these two fools know, but this was part of our plan from the beginning.
I knew Adeline would want to snatch her favorite test subject if she could, but I hadn’t quite believed Fabian would probably join in on the abduction, even though River had warned me he would.
To think my former friend—a fellow Iyaran and someone I had shared intimate moments with—would have sunk so low. However, where he’s concerned, I am, as River would say, all out of fucks to give. Fabian set himself on this path toward self-destruction ever since he teamed up with Layne Madison, and he will have to deal with the consequences of his actions.
The transporter room is empty when we arrive, and Adeline quickly inputs something into the system before we take our positions on the platform. I stand there, swaying and barely managing to stay upright while my stomach debates another round of vomit.
Trying to stall for time, I struggle weakly against Fabian’s tight grip on me. “Let me go or this won’t end well for either of you,” I warn.
Adeline scoffs. “As usual, you fail to understand who has the upper hand here.”
That smug overconfidence will be your downfall, Adeline. Just like River predicted.
Right when the transporter starts to fire up, River, Mom, and Mal burst through the door, phasers pointed right at my abductors. Unfortunately, Adeline and Fabian are already prepared.
Fabian’s holding me in front of him like a living shield—the disgusting coward—and Adeline has the end of her phaser pressing hard into my aching temple.
“You’re too late,” Fabian sneers.
River scowls at him and does a double take when he realizes Fabian’s accomplice is Adeline. “Holy shit! If you’d been rocking this Serleena look fromMen in Black 2all along—not as good as the first film, by the way—we would have totally known you were a bad guy from the start.”
Adeline smirks. “A nonthreatening disguise fools idiots like you every single time.”
“Let go of my son,” my mom snarls. On her face is what River so affectionately calls her “she’s gonna cut a bitch” look.
Fabian tightens his grip on me and Adeline grinds the phaser into my temple. Against my will, I make a pained noise. My poor head has been battered far too much already.
“Kai!” River cries, his voice laced with fear.
