Chapter Two

They ended up in the heart of the city. There was a long downhill concrete pathway not far from where they parked. At the bottom, was a large opening covered by metal bars that were pressed close to keep anyone from slipping through them. The sign read water and sewer department. The bars were on a track that would roll to the side with the right command.

The keypad was electric.

“Do you do this a lot?”

“As opposed to tracking down my enemies and killing them or raiding the vaults of other planets?”

They were keeping track of him and his brothers. That really didn’t surprise him. It would be stupid to send someone back to the past and then leave them unsupervised. If the male was looking for an apology or even a reason why, he’d spend a lifetime waiting.

“I only do what’s necessary, but you’re beginning to understand that. I stand for and with my family.” Hale said.

Empty words. “No one was there for mine.”

“Not because we didn’t want to be. I’m here for you now.”

It hadn’t been easy to be created. The scientists kept them apart. Some were kept at different levels in the air depending on what they could do. Others on land and some underground. They were encouraged to stay in their family groups and not mingle with others. Even then the rumors of the first and the second reached them. They promised a revolution a time when everyone would be free.

An useless dream but one that he and his brothers clung to as they fought to save a planet that he would have condemned to hell in a heartbeat.

“You’re one of the seconds.” Hale didn’t deny it, and he knew he was right. He was part of the group that everyone said was dead.

“Why didn’t you ever tell anyone that you were alive?”

“Being the second group of created born didn’t make us special. It simply meant that we were the group that went through the hell of finding out who we were first.”

Which made him wonder where the first were, but since the male hadn’t answered his other question about them, he didn’t ask this one. He watched as Hale set the gym bag he carried over his shoulder on the ground. It was filled with wires and buttons as well as explosives. He could use an explosive, but it wasn’t his specialty.

“Move back.” He did. Once Hale was finished hooking up a small charge, he joined him.

“This is as far as I go.” The bars rolled back giving him access to the off-limits area.

“Why?”

“My salvation is waiting for me. Yours may be on the other side of that opening.” He packed his bag and walked up the hill leaving Thrice to put the day’s events into some type of manageable order.

He would have gone after him, but the weight of that picture in his pocket had him walking straight ahead. When this was over, he’d call a family meeting. Together they could figure out if they had a crisis on their hands.

The further he walked the less appreciation he had for this hole in the ground. It was proliferated with cracks seeping water. He placed his hands against the walls. He could feel the weakness of the structure. If he were in command, he would have someone reinforce these walls. Humans, they seemed to live a hairs breath away from the next tragedy.

The light from the sun could no longer penetrate the shadows which were growing longer. Overhead were dingy lights more yellowish than bright giving off just enough light to see what lay ahead. He rounded a corner and was confronted with three metal doors. Two of them had small windows at the top. The third was completely solid.

He placed his hands on each door getting a feel for what the room could be harboring. There was no weight against the first two doors. Anything could still be in there, but it wasn’t keeping backwater or a solid material pressed against it ready to spill out if opened.

The third door was too thick for him to judge what was behind it. It could be keeping water in. Since the walls were oozing with it, he wouldn’t put it past whoever created this facility. This door was new. It could also be holding one petite human female.

He picked door number three. Nothing was ever easy in this world. There was a cover over the lock. It was human in origin and easy to get around. The lock underneath wasn’t human. It looked familiar; he must have seen it but never had to dismantle one like it. He went to his knees pressing his ear against the lock. Alien locks didn’t have tumblers they had something even better, a voice. Not the kind that could be used to create language, but it was still a voice.

There as a time the lock would have whispered its secrets to him. Those days were gone. He slowly turned running into one dead end after another. How much longer did he have before her captors came back even if he had chosen the right door?

Down here he could change into his other form, but if her captors were human, he would have to kill them. It was easier to live on a planet when you weren’t killing its citizens. He worked on the lock until it opened for him. The door swung inwards; no rush of water came at him.

This room was worse than the hallway. The walls looked like they had been made with a huge claw-like instrument. The slight warmth from earlier didn’t exist in this room, and it was pitch black. He almost didn’t notice that his eyesight adjusted automatically to the darkness.

Along the back wall was a silent alarm. He watched as the small pinpoint of green went to red. They were about to have company.

“Hello? Please, let me go.”

A feminine voice reached out to him from the darkness wrapping around him. She was pleading now, begging, promising her captors anything they wanted short of her body. He should reassure her, but he wanted her to keep talking.

He moved towards her like she was a magnet, and he was metal. She was standing clutching on to the bars of the cage. Her big gray eyes were scared, but she was fighting it, trying to hide it. Her head was tilted at an angle, and her shoulders framed her beautifully. Her whole body said I will win. I'm just not sure how right now.

“Who are you?” Bold, defiant, in the midst of her trouble.

“Thrice, one of Brandi’s brothers.”

“She doesn’t have any brother’s.”

“Now that she is mated to Jabari, she has five.”

“Oh, is she...” Her throat worked looking for the right words. “Is she…”

“She’s still alive.”

Her shoulders dropped in relief.

“Can you get me out of here? Someone kidnapped me. I don’t know what they want, but I don’t think they plan to let me live. If they did, they would have contacted my father by now.”

“Stand back.”

Brandi was alive. She tripped over her feet in relief as she made her way to the far wall. There were days when all she could think about was her friend even knowing how much jeopardy her own life was in.

Brandi’s brother, it felt strange, but she’d take it, was gripping the bars like he was going to pull them apart. That had to be impossible. She spent hours trying. Her mouth dropped open when she heard the stress on the metal. It was heating up around his hand and becoming red but not coming apart.

“Those metal bars won’t budge. Nice try though.”

“It’s an alloy, but it’s not from Earth. There’s no way I’m going to pull it far enough apart for you to get through like this.”

“Run, call the police. They’ll know what to do.” When her father found out about this, she’d be lucky to go to the store for bread on her own.

“Run?” He said it like he never heard the word before. “Turn around.”

“What?”

“Turn around. I don’t want to scare you.”

“What are you going to do take down your pants and show me your tiny wiener?” Why Piper? Can’t you let the deranged lunatic rescue you first?

“I warned you.”

She shoved the heel of her hand into her mouth to keep from screaming. He was changing. His already tall body grew. His muscles bulged, and the chest she’d been eyeing up for a long goodbye hug was so thick it should be illegal. She watched every bodybuilding competition she could find, and he put all the participants to shame.

In fact, she would throw herself at him. If he was human. He was humanoid that was all she could give him. There was no white to his eyes. They were a light brown but were multifaceted like a diamond. The hair on his body was shaggy. Like he needed a serious cut everywhere. His face was rough and rugged. He screamed alien, yet she thought there was a chance she might dream about him tonight.

It would be the kind of Sci-Fi movie Hollywood didn’t have the sense to make. Where she’d be the poor misunderstood earth girl, and he’d be the monster. Her love would tame him. The world wouldn’t understand, but she would turn her back on humanity to live with her one true love.

Yep, when this was over, she was getting mental health treatment A.S.A.P.

He gripped the bars and started pulling again. The muscles in his arms bulged. She didn’t want to notice, but this was as good as sitting on her couch with a bowl of popcorn watching buff men flex. Which sadly meant the panties that she hadn’t changed in forever were wet. Eww, there was nothing sexy about that.

Damn, the bars were moving. Now that was sexy. What if he didn’t know Brandi? He could be her jailor coming to kill her.

“Stop!”

He just looked at her like she was crazy. Maybe she was. Could this be a bad dream? Maybe she had an accident and was in a coma.

“Why did you feed me lettuce?”

“What is it about human females and leaves? Brandi made us greens. It was tasty, but they were so green.”

“You really know Brandi, and she is alive.”

“I told you I knew her. Did they hurt you? Hit your head or are you always like this?” His voice was strained as the muscles in his arms bulged to the point of popping.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Always like what? I’ll have you know I graduated in the top ten.”

He stopped and stepped back. There was a hole big enough for her to squeeze through. Since she wasn’t a small girl, it was a rather big hole.

“Don’t touch the bars, they’re still hot.”

“How can you talk in your alien form?”

“Every form I have is alien, one is more compatible with your world than the other.”

“Oh. What do you eat? People?”

“Piper.”

“I sometimes talk when I get nervous.”

“I’ll listen to everything you have to say when we’re out of here.”

“That probably makes sense.” She approached the bars and took the hand he extended. She felt like a baby next to him. Her hand was engulfed in his. All she wanted to do was go home, shower and sleep for a week. Please let this be a dream.

He stepped in front of her to lead the way. His form shrank as he became a man again. No, not a man, a male. They walked out the door that was hanging open. Coming down the hallway were…? What the hell were those things? She decided not to stick around and find out. She ran while her savior fought off her captors.