Page 60 of Homebound
She smiled politely. “I’m careful, and the aliens are contained. My work isn’t dangerous.”
“Out of curiosity, who do you have in there?” His eyes on her were sharp.
“It changes, they come and go, but we see a lot of Perali. I guess they get in trouble a lot,” she smiled again to cover up her inexplicable unease. “Tana-Tana are common. There’s been a Tarai, a Sakka, an Obu. All kinds.”
“A gentle Obu in prison? Are you sure?”
Yeah, she was pretty positive. “Yes.”
“Huh. And have you ever seen a Rix there?” He posed the question casually but his intent eyes behind the round glasses were anything but. As he spoke, he half-turned his head toward the picture near which they were standing. Instinctively, Gemma looked at it too and it clicked.
The Rix on the picture was inked around the base of his throat. The artist’s attention to detail depicted the blue hieroglyphic signs with laser-sharp precision and a cold sensation flitted through Gemma.
Gemma dipped her head low to hide her expression.
“I did see an alien at the prison when I first started working on their block,” she heard a slight hoarseness in her voice and cleared her throat. “I was told he was a Rix but he looked nothing like this picture.” This much was actually true and she raised her head to give Dr. Delano another one of her small apologetic smiles.
The doctor struggled and failed to conceal his sudden powerful interest.
“What did he look like?” His eyes searched Gemma’s face, probing, creepy.
“Very thin and pale, with long tangled hair and white eyes. He sat in his cell for days on end never speaking a word to anyone. I thought he was deaf and blind.”
“Did you see him move at all?”
“I… can’t say I did. He looked very sick.”
“What was his name?”
“I… don’t know his name.”
“Is he there now?” he almost interrupted her, his intensity bordering with lust.
“No, doctor.” She folded her hands neatly together. “He died.”
Chapter 17
Dawn had not yet broken when Gemma came within sight of the prison. It loomed ahead barely silhouetted against the dark sky, a hulking five-story quadrangle with no windows facing the outside, a symbol of justice and a threat to those who dared to break the law.
At the sight, Gemma’s belly grew tingly and warm. For her, the prison held a special significance. Simon was housed within its thick walls.
She hastened her steps down a pitted sidewalk that circled the prison. Other figures were walking in the darkness making their way toward the back entrance. People like her, custody help servicing the inmate population, with shoulders hunched in the cold wind that blew right through their clothes.
A solid metal door with rust spots opened and let her in, and the portrait of Warden Heis smiled benignly at her from its heavy frame. She went to her locker and neatly folded her coat placing it inside along with her hat and gloves.
The siren wailed once. Gemma exchanged greetings with her co-workers as she went through the security checkpoint where an indifferent guard patted her down head to toe.
“Morning,” the lady at the counter greeted her and checked the ledger. “McKinley?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Second floor.” She handed Gemma a belt with a stun stick clipped to it.
Time ground to a screeching halt.
“But I work on the third floor. With aliens.”
There was a pause as the lady frowned and checked again, and all the while the floor kept dropping, falling from under Gemma’s feet.
