Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

Sarah

T he bright lights above nearly blinded me, but at least I could understand my captors’ words this time when I woke. “…wants to see her as soon as you believe it is safe to take her out of sedation.”

“Then let’s do it now, because I don’t want her sedated any longer than she must be,” the familiar alien said.

“Ode, I appreciate your concern for the specimen, but she is under my care now.”

“I understand that, Wave, but you don’t know them like I do, and if you—”

“Thank you for your wisdom. I will be sure Deacon sends a bonus for your added input on the matter. I’ll take her from here. You may return to Sovereign . Now.”

I’m not sure what’s happening to me, but the familiar alien just got her ass handed to her in the nicest way possible . My mind tensed from the frisson between them and tried to prepare my body for a fight, but none of my muscles would respond.

The familiar alien said, “Wave, if you kill her because of your ego, Deacon will have your head.”

“Have a nice trip back home.”

The familiar alien looked down at me, her blue hair falling around her face and framing it. “When you can, speak up if you have side effects from your drugs or your withdrawals, Sarah Hollinger. No one else here will understand it, but maybe they can return you to me—”

“Safe travels, Ode Hrimp.” The new alien shoved the gurney I was on through a doorway, and my nerves tried to creep up again.

Where the hell am I going now?

The hallways were nicer than the other ship—bright white with golden trimmed things in the walls. I couldn’t smell anything yet. The state they kept me in stopped me from breathing or doing anything outside of staring. Thankfully, the hallway lighting was less harsh than it had been in the laboratory, so that was a plus.

Everything seemed warmer than the other ship. Not by temperature—I still couldn’t feel anything—but by coloring and lighting. The machinery looked sleeker, too. This ship felt like an upgrade with the exception of being taken to my master.

Is master a formal title or a BDSM thing…is this some kind of sex trafficking thing for aliens? All those stupid stories about getting probed…they can’t be real, right?

The new alien’s hair was gray and braided, and her skin was black, but had a sheen to it—they all did. Her sheen was blue, so when the light really lit her skin she looked unreal. The same was true of the other aliens, too. All of them looked like a Hollywood creature—human-like, but extremely different than us. They were all around seven feet tall or more. All were muscled, but some more so. The males and females were easy to tell apart. Broad shoulders and deeper voices for the males, while the females were voluptuous and had softer voices.

Their evolution must have been similar to our own.

I tried to think of my experience as being on safari. I was only a visitor, and I would go home soon, and everything would go back to normal. So, I tried to think of my observations as something David Attenborough would say on his documentaries that I grew up watching with my sisters. It was the closest thing we had to a decent education on animals—rural South Carolina wasn’t big on the sciences.

But whenever she could, my older sister, Elizabeth, made us watch nature documentaries. Elizabeth would make popcorn and we’d study the films, while Jenny would ask why he didn’t do documentaries on fairies, because that would be more interesting.

Thinking of my sisters made my heart ache, and I would have cried, had I been able to.

As the new alien pushed my gurney through the halls, he said, “I don’t think you can hear me or maybe even understand me. Ode Hrimp’s medical credentials are far below my own. None the less, I am Wave Reesk, and I will be managing your care now. I will be taking the straps off of you in a moment. If you struggle against the sedation, you may die. Don’t do it.”

What does that even mean?

We turned a corner and were in a room filled by steam. I saw the straps in her hand as she removed them before she lifted me from the gurney like I weighed nothing. Then she dropped me into a vat of hot red liquid, submerging me completely.

I was almost scared of drowning in it, but I hadn’t been breathing for a while, so I calmed down fast. The liquid sloshed in the vat, before she lifted me from it again.

She said, “You are parasite free now and you certainly smell better.”

The hell?

She placed me back onto the gurney and pushed it beneath a dryer that blew the thick red liquid from me. “Perfect. Now, on to your master.”

Something about that word terrified me more than the rest of my ordeal. I don’t want or need a master! I just want to go home! I would happily take Ryan’s coldness and all the drugs he wanted me to swallow over this!

My mind wandered, trying to sort this out. All the drugs …earlier, I had thought this was all a hallucination… it has to be . No matter who Wave was taking me to, none of it was real. Maybe I overdosed and this is whatever lucid nightmare my mind has conjured up before I die .

I comforted myself with the knowledge that aliens were not real and I was probably just dying on the floor of our bedroom. When Ryan comes out of the bathroom, he’ll hit me with an epi pen or something, and I’ll be fine .

The gurney shifted as we turned out of the door from the steam room and walked down a longer hallway, with my head leading the way as Wave pushed by my feet. Dread built inside my mind with no physical outlet. I wanted to scream and run away and force them to hunt me down on the ship. Even though I knew it wasn’t real, it was like being immersed in my worst nightmare.

This is the strongest hallucination I have ever had, and I want out!

The door behind me opened and I heard voices before I saw their sources.

A deep voice asked, “How is she?”

“She seems well. I don’t know what Ode was so worried for.”

A scratchy male voice said, “Because she’s the best human anatomist in all of Orhon, so you’d do best to listen to her, Wave.”

But she rolled her eyes before she looked down at me. “Sarah Hollinger, this is your new master, Deacon Ladrang.”

Then, she left, and the door slid closed behind her.

The tallest alien I had seen so far looked down over me as he came closer. His skin was deeply tanned, yet had a strange cast over it, like the others. Clearly muscular, his posture was imposing. His eyes were brown, and he had gray hair, which made him less terrifying somehow. It was almost as though he had tried to appear human and failed. When he smiled, I expected fangs or a green tongue or something equally horrific. But it was only a gentle smile.

“You will save my family, Sarah Hollinger.” Then, he waved a hand over my face.

Suddenly, it was as though my body came back online. I felt everything—nothing hurt—and I could smell something…citrusy. I filled my lungs and to my relief, there was air.

I blinked a lot before I tried to speak. “What the hell is this?”

Deacon Ladrang frowned and was soon joined by my human stalker, who said, “He doesn’t speak English. Try your other language.”

It was my turn to frown. “I don’t know any other language.” But by the end of the sentence, my words sounded bizarre and garbled to my ears.

The stalker said, “Better.”

Deacon smiled again and said, “We don’t have any time to waste—”

“What did you mean when you said I will save your family?” I interrupted him.

“You are the only one who can be in charge of the ghosts.”

I looked to the stalker to explain, and in turn, he told Deacon, “You’re going to need to tell her more than that.”

Deacon took a breath and impatiently, but politely smiled. “Sarah Hollinger, you are a conduit—eh, one who speaks to ghosts—so I am going to take you with me, and we are going to rescue my father’s pregnant mistress from the royal prison, fake her death, and take her to Halla, a micro-planet inhabited by ghosts. There, you will coordinate with the ghosts for them to raise my sibling as a warrior, so my sibling will join me on my crusade against the ruler of Orhon. Understand?”

I burst into laughter and cracked up until tears streamed down my face. When I could finally speak again, I gasped, “This is the most ludicrous hallucination I have ever had!”

They frowned at each other, before Deacon asked, “Is this how humans react to important issues? I’ve never—”

“Not usually,” my stalker sounded annoyed, “but in all fairness, she is right. It is a ridiculous plan.”

Deacon appeared angry, as his nostrils flared and his brow ridge became pronounced. He shouted, “You are the only one who can do it, Sarah Hollinger!”

I cowered back from him, waiting for a slap or worse.

But then he stepped back and looked bewildered. “Why do you pull away?”

“You are loud when you’re angry…”

“So?”

“I thought you might hit me.”

He was aghast. “I would never hit you, Sarah Hollinger. Not without a cause.”

His wording was strange, so I asked, “Anger isn’t a cause?”

“No. Only violence is a cause, and you are too small to bring violence.”

That’s a relief. “And what if I were to disappoint you?”

“I don’t know how you could.”

“I want to go home,” I insisted. “I can’t be a conduit or whatever. Take me back to my home.”

His full lips spread into a flat line of frustration. Then he said, “ Allegiant , Lanai Dea’s view.” He pointed behind me.

When I looked, there was a monitor that played porn. Is this supposed to get me in the mood? The room was familiar… there’s the painting I bought on our last vacation to Florida . Then I heard a recognizable grunt and my gut dropped.

I mumbled, “What the hell?” as I watched my fiancé climb on top of another woman.

He kissed her, then moved down her perfect naked body to eat her out. Staring from her point of view, his head bobbled between her thighs. I hadn’t seen that view in over a year, due to his alleged neck problems. She dug her fingers into his hair, pushing him against her pussy.

Deacon had stepped closely to me when I had been distracted. His voice was in my ear and still deep, but this time, it was softer, “Would you like him executed for this betrayal, Sarah Hollinger?”

I could hardly speak, but it wasn’t sedation that did it to me this time. It was the shock of viscerally seeing my fiancé cheat on me.

I whispered, “What?”

“She will kill him right now, if you like. She has him in position, and we can watch. Lanai Dea can rip his head off or use her thighs to crush his head or something more painful, if you prefer. Perhaps bring you his manhood as a souvenir?”

“I…she can do that?” I asked in shock. “He’s screwing an alien?”

“Lanai Dea is an android, though she looks human at the moment.”

“And you would tell her to kill him, like it was nothing?”

“Not like it was nothing.” Deacon solemnly shook his head. “Nonconsensual infidelity is punishable by death—is that not the human custom, as well?”

“Not where I come from—not usually and not legally, anyway.” My mind ran wild with the thought of it and slipped into a pool of logistics to avoid thinking of the actual problem of killing Ryan for an affair. Since this is a hallucination, am I thinking of killing him? “…I wouldn’t want her to be arrested.”

He laughed and it was a peculiar sound. Almost as if he didn’t do it often. “No human prison could keep Lanai Dea, but more importantly, she would never be caught. The moment the deed is finished, she can use her locator ring and be automatically transported here. Just say the word, Sarah Hollinger, and your partner will be—”

“You taste so fucking good,” Ryan moaned against the robot’s pussy. She shoved him down again, and he groaned for it. Ryan had always hated when I tried to be rough with him…

“Is this…is he drugged, like I was?” I asked in confusion. “Or is this something he’s choosing to do?”

Deacon nodded. “Lanai Dea is not the only woman he has had congress with, apart from you. Allegiant , the others.” As we watched the monitor, pictures of Ryan with other women, some clothed, some not, flashed on half of the screen. “He has been having dozens of other women. I sent Lanai there as a police officer investigating your missing person case. Everything you see here has been his choice. Say the word and he is done.”

I was enraged and I spun my engagement ring until it slipped from my finger. When the large diamond hit the floor, it made the smallest sound, like it had hardly ever existed at all. My heart felt as if it sheared into two pieces. It wasn’t that I was madly in love with him or that I thought he was with me. I was hurt, certainly, but I was more upset about the alteration of my future. I was nothing without his money, and that fact embarrassed me. But I would rather live in my car than have that cheating bastard in my life after watching him fuck a robot.

“No,” I shook my head, halfway not-believing I was turning the offer down, “I can’t have his death on my conscience. I don’t want anything of his anymore.”

“Very well. Lanai, come back when you are ready. Allegiant , outside view.” The monitor switched from their escapade to a haunting view of space.

Okay, if I play along with my hallucination, then maybe I found evidence of Ryan’s affairs and that’s why my mind shattered like this. If I play along with the scenario, I bet I’ll wake up ….That had been a lot of work for this alien to set up for me. Maybe he sees me as someone worthy of the effort? If I treat him well, maybe he will do the same, take me home, and I’ll wake up?

I asked, “Could you bend down here?”

He frowned but did as I asked, lowering until his head was level with mine.

I kissed his cheek. “Thank you.”

He stood up straight again and stared at me. “Why are you thanking me? How can you go from seeing that betrayal to gratitude?”

“You sent your robot to Earth, putting her at risk of whatever dangers she could encounter, all so you could have proof of my cheating asshole fiancé and you could show me the truth. That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.”

“Then you need better friends,” my stalker piped up.

I laughed bitterly and said, “That’s probably true.”

Deacon explained, “I only did what any Ladrian would do, Sarah Hollinger. Betrayal is the highest offense. Loyalty is everything to us.”

I took one of his hands in mine. It was enormous and far warmer and softer than I had expected. He was shocked by the gesture but in my hallucination, he let me hold his hand.

I smiled and said, “Loyalty is everything to me, too.” I gave his hand a squeeze before I let him go. “Now, do I get to go home?”

“No.”