Chapter 12

TWELVE

As her eyes fluttered open, pain returned to her body like a thunderbolt, smashing through her foot, her shoulder, her hand…

Bloody hell.

The dream had been a welcome reprieve—almost blissful, apart from the presence of that unsettling bastard.

How could someone's existence in her dreams fill her with both dread and reassurance at the same time?

And all of a sudden, he was gone.

There she was, staring up at the bright daylight from fifteen meters below, wishing she was beneath the endless blue sky instead of being stuck here with no way of climbing out.

"Ungh." She groaned as she tried to move. Now that the adrenaline had drained from her body—now that he had left her alone—her pain and stiffness had increased a hundred-fold.

Jeez, you really did a number on me, didn't you, Dragek?

How dare he leave her here, alone and busted up, barely able to move?

No. You do not get to pretend that you'll be dependent on him. Ever. Get up.

Clenching her teeth, she managed to prop herself up on her elbows.

And then she heard it.

Crunch. Crunch.

Footsteps on compacted earth and gravel.

"Where the fuck is she?"

Uneven footsteps. Staggering footsteps.

This guy had regained consciousness, but he wasn't in the best of shape. Dragek had seriously beaten him up—using her body, no less. No wonder she felt like shit.

But if her enemy was hurting, then maybe she had a chance.

I'll come and get you.

His deep voice echoed in her head, and despite herself, hope sparked in her chest.

She didn't want to depend on him, but…

What else could she do? Unless she put in a superhuman effort, there was no way she could climb that ladder. Her hand could barely form a grip, let alone pull her up by her body weight.

But maybe she could hide… until he got here.

Please come soon.

"I'm going to kill that bitch," the man grunted as the sound of his footsteps became louder in her ears. "They never told us she could fight. What the hell is she? A black belt in BJJ or something? Fuckin' command. They never tell us anything. I'm gonna file for worker's compo for this. You all right over there, Jonesey?"

"Nah. I'm fucked." The other man's voice was barely a croak.

"I've already called for backup. They're five minutes away. Hold tight over there. I'm going to find her, then we'll get out of here."

"She's a fuckin' psycho. Be careful."

"She got lucky. It won't happen again." He was very close now.

Propped up on her elbows, Jade thought about getting to her feet, but she feared she would make too much noise, drawing his attention.

But maybe…

He was near the entrance now, moving with a shuffling gait, breathing heavily, grunting occasionally, swearing under his breath.

"Ah. Found you." At last, he appeared in the shaft of light streaming from the top of the pit. He was a big dude—almost twice her size, thanks to a combination of height, muscle, and pudge. In a battle of sheer strength, he would destroy her. It was astounding that she'd even managed to bring him down in the first place.

I'm screwed, she thought at first, but then she remembered something.

The gun.

She—no, Dragek— had tucked it into the waistband of her jeans at the small of her back.

Sweet. She wasn't helpless after all.

Reaching across with her good hand, she let out a small puff of relief as her fingers wrapped around hard metal. No device had ever felt so reassuring.

"What do you think you're doing?" the MWA officer snarled. "Don't fucking move."

Too late.

Trembling, she whipped out the gun, ignoring the screams of protest from her battered arm.

She flicked off the safety—remembering Dragek's instinctive move—and pointed the tip at the man. "Get out of here, or I'll shoot you."

His lip curled in disdain below an uneven salt-and-pepper mustache. "You're going to shoot me? And then what? Climb out of here? You won't make it out alive. You'll starve and dehydrate to death before they find you."

"I thought you said backup was five minutes away," Jade said coolly, sounding a lot more composed than she felt.

"Whether it's me or them, you're going to be detained and admitted eventually." The man changed his tone, attempting to sound gentle. But Jade could still sense the bitterness. He wanted to harm her. "You shoot me now, you'll have charges against your name. They'll put you into the forensic ward with violent criminals, rapists, murderers… not a good place for someone like you. Think carefully, Mrs Pitt."

She glared at the man. I'm not Mrs Pitt anymore.

How quickly her husband had changed once he knew about the voices in her head.

Cameron didn't understand a thing. All he knew was rules and regulations and the law.

The bitterness of betrayal seeped through a crack in her heart, and despite her anger, it still hurt. "You're not taking me away. Whatever condition you think I'm suffering from, you're wrong. Leave, or I will shoot you."

"Jade…" The man's voice was soft, almost convincing. She knew what he was doing—trying to switch from bad cop to good cop. "The longer you try and resist, the worse things will get for you. We're trying to help you, Jade. You have a condition… a psychosis. What you're seeing and hearing… not all of it is real. We can get you the right treatment. Make it better. We aren't your enemies."

Bullshit. This was the guy who, only moments ago, had said he wanted to kill her.

She didn't trust these people one bit.

In the distance, far above, she heard something.

The engine roar of a landflyer.

"Give up," the officer snapped, betraying his impatience. "Backup's here now. There's nothing you can do."

Jade's heart sank. What if he was right? What if Dragek was just a figment of her imagination, conjured by her subconscious as an antidote to the chaos in her life?

Was her mind truly capable of inventing a creature like him—all seductive darkness and devastating promises of violence?

And if he wasn't real…

"Drop the gun, and let me take you into custody. Backup is here now, and believe me, there are a thousand ways they can take you down."

No…

What if he wasn't real? What if it all ended here?

Her life as she knew it… her freedom…

They would put her in an institution and treat her— rehabilitate her.

Her hand was trembling like crazy, but she didn't lower the gun. A part of her could not give up on this dream—that somehow, he was real, and he was coming for her.

But there was no trace of him, and as time ticked away, a chasm opened in her chest, growing bigger and bigger, eating her despair and turning it into something dark and terrible.

Until shadows danced across her vision, and pressure built up inside her, like steam trapped beneath a lid, and the walls of her mind started to dissolve.

I can't take this anymore.

Why won't you come, Dragek? Are you even real?

That bitch, she's done for. Look at her. She's worse than what they said she would be. Completely psychotic. She's going into the High Dependence Unit for sure.

Wait… what was that?

It was happening again. She'd just heard a man's voice inside her head… it was coming from the guy across from her, and yet his lips didn't move. He was just standing there, staring at her hand with the gun, the look in his eyes almost disdainful…

Not this again.

It always happened when her defenses were down, when she was emotional or upset.

And now there was something else.

The gun fell from her hand as a torrent of images rushed through her mind.

It was as if a high-speed train were shooting past, and she was catching glimpses of things in the windows; only those things were horrors far beyond what her human imagination could fathom.

Death.

So. Much. Death.

Death dealt in bleakness, in a cocoon of silence.

Stifling.

Suffocating.

Pressure in her head.

Pain, all-encompassing.

She almost passed out there and then.

A scream erupted from her throat.

Make. It. Stop.

Please.

Thud.

Something dropped. She saw with her eyes. It was the man who'd come after her.

She also saw with something else— an extension of her senses similar to what he'd used when he was inside her consciousness—but unlike his crystal-clear mind-map, her vision or sixth sense or whatever the hell it was… felt jumbled and chaotic and utterly overwhelming.

I'm not going crazy. I'm not mad. This is all real.

But if it was real… maybe that was worse.

The pressure in her head was almost unbearable. She feared she'd pass out at any moment. If she didn't get relief right now…

Her very essence would be torn apart.

She truly felt like she was about to die.

Dragek, you bastard. What did you do to me?

Figment of her imagination or not, she was angry—at him or herself, she wasn't sure—for the false hope.

Her anger grew, twisting in on itself, turning into a swirling vortex.

Slumped to the ground, the man put his hands to the sides of his head and screamed. And she could feel it; a weird sort of energy snapping and crackling all around her, wild and unfettered, like wind in a cyclone.

He isn't coming.

He doesn't exist.

What she wouldn't give to see him again. To be taken away by the very aliens that were the biggest threat to humanity's very existence.

Visions of death and bloodshed swirled through her fractured mind, and she caught a glimpse of something so vast and horrifying her mind instinctively closed in on itself.

The end of the world.

The destruction of the entire Universe.

A black hole threatening to swallow everything.

I need to get out of here.

The MWA guy was down. She didn't know how or why, but he was writhing on the ground, clutching his head.

Pain shot through her arms as she backed away, scooting her ass across the rough ground. Her heart was beating like crazy. Adrenaline coursed through her, swamping the agony.

Shaking, she rose to her feet.

Excruciating pain shot through her right foot, but the storm in her mind dampened it a little. She didn't know anything anymore—only that she wanted to get away from here.

The underground mine was a labyrinth, with narrow tunnels stretching far underground. Some of them probably hadn't been used in decades. It would be dangerous, but if she could just hide out until…

Until what?

Maybe… it would be better if she just gave up.

If she went with them.

Get real.

The aliens weren't coming to save her.

And this tempest in her head… it was pure torture. All she wanted right now was for it to stop.

She craved silence.

She just wanted to sleep.

Jade staggered around until her hand found a rough stone wall. She leaned against it, breathing heavily. The images kept coming, and she wasn't strong enough to stand against them. She saw visions of alien worlds, of barren deserts rendered in strange hues—rust-red and purplish brown. She saw worlds with double moons and planets where the surface was entirely water. She saw ancient empires and decaying civilizations.

She saw hands— his hands—covered in blood.

So. Many. Times.

How quickly he could move. How ruthlessly. He could crush a mind with just his presence and then physically snuff out the life therein with his lethal hands.

Sometimes, with just a single blow—a tap of the fingers in the right place.

His existence was carved from such cruelty and bleakness that she found herself caught in a torrential downpour of emotion so overwhelming she felt as if the world was about to split into two.

Tears streamed down her face. Her throat closed up. Pain shot through her chest.

Her screams echoed throughout the cavernous mines, but she barely recognized her own voice. She detached from herself, present but not. S he could float away from her body at any moment.

She was untethered, her mind splintering into a thousand fragments.

This is the end.

I'm going to die here.

Visions of alien terror mixed with flashbacks of her own life: perfect, predictable, peaceful. She was a lawyer. Newly married. Barely starting to make strides in her career.

Not a fugitive. Not a damn psychic or a clairvoyant or whatever the hell this was supposed to be.

Now, she was sobbing. The pain was unlike anything she'd ever experienced before. It wasn't physical pain; it was something far deeper. And combined with the terror was grief, for she knew that this was an endpoint.

The people from her past life were ghosts now. She could never go back.

So she wept uncontrollably as she fell to pieces.

She was all alone.

The torrent of images wouldn't stop, no matter how hard she tried to control them. The chaos mingled with screams—from both humans now. And then, all of a sudden, they stopped.

The voices—the real, human ones—had been silenced.

There was only the sound of her rasping voice and the wetness of her tears.

She didn't know anything anymore.

Why was it so quiet?

Yet, her mind was so loud.

" Shh. " And then, a familiar voice wrapped around her consciousness, and the pain of her entire existence being torn apart became a little less excruciating.

It's you. Are you here? Really?

I am here.

Something came to rest against the sides of her neck. Something rough and hard and alive.

Something blessedly cool.

Gentle.

His hands.

Somehow, he knew exactly where to press his hands so that she felt calmer. At the same time, he did something, radiating invisible energy that rippled across her skin, raising goosebumps on her arms.

For a precious moment, she forgot all about the terror in her mind.

For a sublime moment, she allowed him to touch her, to gently caress her neck, where he made tiny circles with his callused fingers. Her thundering heartbeat slowed. She was floating, separated from the catastrophe in her mind. He surrounded her with his dark, silent energy, wrapping her in a cocoon of unbreakable stillness.

Remember who you are. Do not allow your mind to fracture over this. Compared to what you can become now, everything that has come before is trivial.

Dream-boy, what are you saying? In the midst of her despair, she latched onto something— anything— that reminded her she was herself.

That she was human.

In this case, it was something small and inane.

If that meant calling the scary, lethal, telepathic alien silly names, then so be it.

"But you're wrong, aren't you? Now you have proof that I do not exist merely in your dreams." His voice—his real voice—wrapped around her like decadent silk. It was resonant and seductive and alien, and she swore she felt his breath feather across the back of her neck.

"Maybe I just think the name suits you. You came to me in a dream, after all."

"That wasn't a dream."

" God…" She didn't have the capacity to understand any of this right now. She was hanging onto her sanity by a thread, and the only thing stopping her from going over the edge completely was him.

"I'm no god," he murmured. "Quite the opposite."

"It's a figure of speech," she said dryly. "Are you going to take me out of here now?"

"Yes."

"Up that rickety ladder? Not even you can carry me up that thing."

"I could, but there's an easier way." The sound of his voice was really something else—almost too good to be true. It soothed everything inside her—pain, both physical and psychic. But she didn't dare turn around, out of fear that the being behind her would be different from the man she'd encountered in her dreams.

No. He was right.

You were real all along.

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and focused on the sensation of his cool, steady fingers against her neck. She basked in the energy he radiated, which chased away the ghosts in her mind like the sun burning away the mist.

Her thoughts grew blissfully quiet.

How the hell does he do that?

How was it possible that the antidote to her chaos was capable of so much violence and chaos himself?

But she couldn't allow herself to get stuck in this reverie. She couldn't allow herself to fall under the spell of a complete stranger.

Especially when he was an alien. He was going to take her away, and she had no choice in the matter. She hated that it had come to this—her entire life upended and dismantled by something she could barely comprehend—but she had to accept that there were forces out there that were far beyond her understanding and control.

He was one of them.

And right now, his touch was everything.

Reluctance morphed into burning curiosity.

Suddenly, everything changed.

She had to see him.

So she turned around, disrupting his firm, unyielding touch against her neck, which had the strangest way of making her feel calm.

She shouldn't be finding solace under such lethal hands, but here she was.

Already too far gone.

So she turned.

And opened her eyes.

And found herself face-to-face with the alien from her dreams.

He wrapped her in a cone of blissful silence, free from incoherent voices.

He radiated dark, calm energy. It reminded her of a bottomless pond, the sort that would give you existential jitters if you crossed over its cold, black surface.

He was everything she'd imagined him to be, but in real life, his presence was a thousand times more intense.

Bright sunlight streamed down from the mineshaft's entrance, diluting the shadows and giving form to his silvery features.

There was nothing soft or delicate about him. Chiseled jaw, strong nose, broad forehead. Angular features that were handsome in a rugged way.

And unearthly. Humanoid, but definitely not human. Eyes of pure obsidian: sclera and iris and all, perfect gleaming orbs that saw everything and nothing.

Her breath caught.

For a moment, she forgot to be afraid. Fascination took over.

"Dragek the Kordolian," she whispered, his name dancing dangerously across her tongue like a forbidden word. "All this time, I didn't dare believe that someone like you could exist. But now you're here."

"Indeed."

"What do you really want with me?"

His hands were still on her, both thumbs applying pressure to a spot on either side at the base of her neck. But when she stiffened—more in shock than anything else—he abruptly released her and stepped back.

Without thinking, she lamented the loss of his touch. The way he'd held onto her—he'd been the anchor, and she, the ship in the storm.

Plus, his touch was blessedly cool against her feverish anxiety. The blazing heat aboveground was finally starting to seep into the mine, and she was starting to sweat.

Did Kordolians ever sweat?

He didn't look like butter could even melt in his mouth.

He gave her a look: an unseeing, all-seeing, goosebumps-rippling-all-over look. "I don't know what I want with you— yet . But you're far too valuable for me to leave you here."