Had Amiriska died there? The Gathendiens thought so but had no proof.
Sometimes, when whatever drug the Earthlings pumped into him plunged Taelon into near-unconsciousness, he imagined Amiriska escaping her ruthless captors, razing the building that had imprisoned her, and finding a safe haven nearby in which she could await rescue.
But Riska was sweet and delicate. Yes, she was a hard negotiator and could stand her ground in political battles. She could match anyone in a war of words. But she had never been trained to fight physically. They had never seen the need to drill her in methods of war and self-defense because unmarried females in his society were always chaperoned. Violent crimes were rarely committed on Lasara. And Amiriska had nevertheless always been well guarded as a member of the royal family that ruled their planet.
Until she snuck away from her guard on the way to a diplomatic meeting and flew to Earth with only a small crew. Taelon still couldn’t figure out how she had managed to do that.
Electricity shot through him, stiffening every muscle in his body.
Drekking Earthlings and their torture.
Tears threatened when he imagined these monsters doing the same to his little sister, but he blinked them back. The butchers would assume the pain they inflicted elicited them and would take pleasure in seeing them fall.
Ari’k, as lacking in emotion as the rest of the Yona people, had bluntly concluded that Amiriska had most likely either been killed in the fire or transferred to another facility. The closest they could find that met the same criteria of the first was this one. Most of the military bases on this continent were known publicly. This one, like the one that had originally incarcerated his sister, was secluded, hidden, and shrouded in mystery.
Taelon’s body continued to twitch involuntarily after the electrical current ceased. He ignored the chuckles and loathsome comments of his tormentors.
Ari’k had volunteered to teleport to Earth and perform reconnaissance. But his unusual skin coloring would have drawn too much attention. Taelon’s second-in-command had recommended sending a Lasaran soldier down instead to gather intel. But Taelon possessed a gift that gave him an edge neither the Yona nor any of the Lasaran soldiers had. He could make others see what he wanted them to. So he had pulled rank and come himself.
The room tilted and whirled as the dizziness increased.
It had been yet another miscalculation. But it had yielded clues.
These butchers knew about Riska. He had glimpsed it in their thoughts before they’d drugged him that first time.
Was she here? Was she close to him right now, being tortured like him?
If so, he should be able to feel her. Though he didn’t bear her gift of being able to recognize and trace any individual’s unique energy signature, on Lasara most family members could sense when a loved one was nearby.
Was the drug interfering with his ability to sense her? Or…
He swallowed hard.
Was she dead? Had the butchers taken their torture too far and killed her? Was her body frozen in stasis, a rare specimen preserved for these monsters to study?
More pain. More dissecting.
He had made several mistakes in his urgency to find her. But he refused to let those cost him his life. He wouldn’t die—couldn’t die—until he knew his sister’s fate. And every once in a while these butchers let something slip when they spoke. He just had to bide his time and cling to life as long as he could.
If his sister still lived, he would find some way to free himself, rescue her, and send her home before he punished those responsible for harming her.
And if she didn’t…
Taelon wouldn’t die until he fulfilled his parents’ wishes.
He wouldn’t die until he wiped the Earth clean.
Amid the ongoing agony and burgeoning plans for annihilation that filled his spinning head, Taelon felt the brush of something new. Something not malicious. Something fresh, then fearful. A presence nearby.
What the…? A female voice sounded in his head, so faintly he could barely hear it. He struggled to tune it in like a signal on one of Earth’s radios, but the drug was drekking with him.
Oh shit! Fear filled him. Her fear. The female’s. Oh shit! she cried again. What the hell?
Then electricity jolted through him once more and he lost her.
Lisa sighed. Though consciousness beckoned, she had difficulty making her way toward wakefulness. The thoughts surfacing in her mind whirled around so swiftly she couldn’t seem to grasp one and hold on to it long enough to decipher it. Her head felt thick, her mouth weirdly dry.
Had she gotten drunk last night? She’d been really relieved about turning in that last final exam, but… she didn’t remember going out afterward. And she really wasn’t much of a party person. Sure, she had attended a few wild parties in high school. But that had come to an abrupt end when her mom had gotten sick. After that, she hadn’t been up for them. And she hadn’t really had a chance to get her life back on track after her mom died before she lost her dad, too. Then it had been one struggle after another, leaving her no time to make friends beyond a work acquaintance or two. So… with whom would she have even gotten drunk?
Brad maybe?
He was the only one she could think of. He was friendly and fun to chat with. And she vaguely recalled heading toward the Anomalous Cognition Research Institute. Then…
Nothing.
Finally, she managed to pry her heavy eyelids open. A stark white ceiling bordered by gray walls greeted her.
She frowned. “What the…?”
The walls in her crappy apartment were all white, not gray.
When she turned her head, her gaze alighted upon what appeared to be medical devices that monitored her heart rate and she didn’t know what else.
Weird. Her heart rate was a lot faster than it should be. Her resting heart rate should be a good thirty beats slower than that.
A bag full of clear liquid hung on an IV pole. Lisa followed the tube descending from it to the bend of her arm.
“Oh shit!”
Absolute panic filled her. Not at the sight of the tube inserted in her arm, but at the sight of her stomach. Her large, round, expanded stomach.
She was pregnant. Hugely pregnant.
Her heart began to slam against her rib cage. “Oh shit,” she repeated. “What the hell?”
She wasn’t pregnant! She couldn’t be pregnant! It just wasn’t possible. She had only slept with two guys. One in high school and one since graduating high school, and the latter had happened over a year ago, before her dad’s death. There was no way she could possibly be pregnant.
She rested her hands on the large mound.
It felt real. Even more so when she sat up.
Again she swore. Her breasts were at least two cup sizes larger than they should be and a lot heavier.
Shoving the covers down to her lap, she studied the hospital gown she wore. It gathered just below her breasts like some maternity dresses she’d seen, then flared out in a loose skirt comprised of two panels tied together down the center. Quickly unfastening the ties, she parted the coarse material and gawked at the big pale belly she exposed. Her hands shook as she cupped it, smoothing them across its surface. It was real.
When something moved inside that belly and she saw a shape slide across from one side to the other, she yanked her hands back and damn near screamed in surprise.
Her heart rate increased even more.