Chapter Four

Her two suitcases were sitting on the floor near the foot of the bed. She wanted to jump on the bed but refrained. She was dirty and planned to sleep on that bed later. She wanted to keep it clean. A knock on the door made her jump.

“Hello?”

“I have something that belongs to you.” Thrice’s deep voice came through the door.

She opened it a little and peeped out. He was holding up her cell phone.

“Where did you find this?”

“It was in the cave. Someone was sending messages to Brandi.”

“Thank you.” She reached out and took it. “I’m going to take a shower.”

“We’re going to go out for a while. Would you like me to bring you something back?”

“A burger with the works, big, thick and juicy. Fries and lots of caffeine. I’ll take a vat of the stuff.” She stopped to look into his eyes. He probably had a regimented diet of eggs and whey products. Although she could never figure out how they got that big eating that stuff.

“I’ll take a teeny burger with a handful of fries a diet coke, and a small coffee. Not the good kind with mocha and whip cream in it.” She stepped back and slammed the door in his face. She wanted to be at home so she could eat what she wanted and didn’t have to worry about alien guys that were hot enough to make her panties melt judging her.

When the front door closed, she grabbed her toiletries and went to the bathroom. She knew it was wrong. The politician her dad would force her to marry would probably force her to do charity work to make up for the blight against her soul, but she did it anyway. She turned on the shower and sat on the toilet, so she could call Brandi.

“Piper?”

“Brandi!”

“Where are you? I was so worried. Are you all right? Thrice went to find you. Did he find you? Piper, are you crying?”

The whole ugly story rolled out from the day she got there. “I thought they were going to kill me.” She tripped over her tongue when she made that confession.

“Where are you? I’m coming to get you.”

“No, we have plane tickets for tomorrow.”

“I can get you home faster than that.”

“You know I can’t. I have to be on the plane, just in case he checks.” They both knew the he; she was talking about was her father.

“He thinks I’m fat and ugly.”

“Who thinks that?”

“Thrice.”

“Did he say that?” Her voice rang with righteous indignation.

“No, but I could tell.”

“Piper, were you rambling?”

“No, maybe, a little.”

“Oh hun, he just doesn’t know what to do with you.” She laughed a little. Piper had hit him with those eyes that made men want to steal her away, then she rambled. It was her way of hiding the genius underneath.

“Give him time to catch up, he’s just a male.”

“Do you really think so?”

“I know so.”

“You sound better. Look at me being selfish.”

“Girl, stop. You were kidnapped; killer robots came after you. Then you met Thrice. Speaking of killers.”

“That male has a body that won’t stop. Don’t get me wrong Jabari is fine. If you like your bodybuilders super size which I always did until I met Thrice, who is lean with killer muscles.”

“Piper’s in the house.”

She laughed. “All right enough distracting me. Tell me how you really are.”

“I’m fine. I died Piper like really died. I’m not sure what happened mainly because it makes no sense, but I got a second chance at life. I don’t deserve it, but I got it.”

“You must be on the good pain meds.”

“I know, crazy. Ask Thrice, he’ll tell you. I’ll be alive when you get here. I’m still tired, and according to Dr. Herman, I have to take it easy, but I’m going to make a full recovery. I knew that because Mekhi had already told me, but Jabari thought we needed to see the human doctor to avoid suspicion.”

“You know?”

“Shit, I slipped. You know?”

She found herself nodding her head even though Brandi couldn’t see her. “Thrice isn’t human, I don’t think his friend is either.”

“What friend?”

“Hale Dare, he’s the guy giving the main presentations at the conference.”

“The one you wanted to talk to?”

“Yeah, him.”

“I met three of the Dare’s. The women, you will love them, and they were all human.”

“Do they use them for science experiments?”

She laughed until tears rolled down her face. “That’s why you and I are best friends Piper. I wondered the same. No, they love them. Take a shower, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“All right, Brandi?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t know what happened, but I’m grateful you're alive.”

“I love you to Piper. Sister’s forever.”

She hung up the phone. “In life and death.”

Brandi was alive; she was alive, and Thrice was hot. Maybe she should wish for more, but she was willing to settle for that right now. She got into the shower hoping the hot water would help with the nagging ache in the back of her head.

“Should we wake her?” Piper was asleep on the couch her brown hair shining around her head, the red highlights picking up the light and reflecting it back to him. Her beauty shouldn’t catch him off guard he’d seen it in the photograph. She put her picture to shame.

“Depends on how hungry you think she is.”

“I’m starving.” She sat up pushing hair out of her face and then blushed when she realized she was wearing her tank with a hole in it and the most unflattering pair of gym shorts.

Her eyes got big before she could stutter an apology. There was a cart laden with food.

“I didn’t know how much you could eat. If it were me, I’d be starving.”

The burger he uncovered was a triple so thick and juicy looking; there was no way she’d be able to eat all of it. The fries looked like they came from the original (a shop that was famous for its fries), which made her mouth water.

“I got you three different kinds of coffee, there’s french vanilla, mocha, and mint. I didn’t know what you liked.” He had three two liter bottles of soda. A Coke, Pepsi and Mountain Dew.

“I’ll be more specific the next time I ask you for something. What are we going to do with all this food?”

“I have a suggestion.” They both turned to look at Hale. She had forgotten he was there.

“Cut the burger and share the food with Thrice. He hasn’t eaten. I believe he was concerned for you.”

“Do you want to help me eat all of this?”

“I am hungry.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be in the other room talking to my mate.” Hale walked off ignoring them.

“I never thanked you for saving my life.”

He cast around for something to say. “You’re welcome.”

She flashed him a smile before she cut the burger.

“So, what’s it like being an alien? That was stupid.”

“I can see through you.”

“What?”

“I know what you’re doing.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re looking for information by pretending ignorance. Just ask me what you want to know.”

“Does it feel like a punishment living on a planet that must be so far behind the one you came from? Do you feel out of place?”

“I never had a place. The planet I came from only saw me and others like me as weapons. The planet we were on before we came here was nice, but it wasn’t home. You?”

She picked up her burger and squeezed it together until it would fit into her mouth. She lost the feeling of having a home when she was eight. Over the years, she thought it would come back, but it never did.

“I haven’t had a home since I was a child.”

“Your condo.”

“You would think it would be home, but it wasn’t.” It hadn’t been three weeks since she, and Brandi moved into the building securing condo’s next to each other that she came home to find her father sitting in her living room. His silent point clear. There was nowhere she could go that he couldn’t get to her.

“Home is someplace you feel safe or a person you feel safe with. The closest I ever got to that was Brandi. She’d never tell my secrets.”

“A defender never leaves a friend.”

He picked up his half of the burger and didn’t need to squeeze to get his mouth around it.

“Why do you think the robots kidnapped me?”

“I don’t think they did. They were after you, but I have no idea why.” He picked up a fry dipped it in ketchup and teased her with it until she opened and bit it. Her eyes sparkled so he did it again.

“Why do you say that?”

“Robots are straightforward not a lot of subterfuge in them. They also didn’t want to hurt you. Keeping you in a cage and feeding you lettuce hurt you.”

She nodded; mental trauma could be as bad as physical trauma. She opened again when he fed her another french fry. If she was back in her condo with all her engines going full speed ahead, she’d never let this happen.

“Why was I kidnapped?”

“I don’t know, what did they say to you?”

“Nothing. They showed me a code. I assumed it was a computer code, but I’ve never seen anything like it before. It was advanced. Too advanced, to have come from earth. Looking at it made my head spin, but it wasn’t finished. They didn’t say that, but it looked like there was only half of it there may be less.”

“Can you write it down?”

“No, it’s like asking me to write a foreign language I glanced at that didn’t use the standardized alphabet that I grew up with.”

“They will be back.”

“That’s not what I want to hear.”

“We’ll protect you.” He would protect her not that he was going to tell her that. She was Brandi’s friend. That meant he couldn’t touch her. It was a custom on earth.

“Don’t worry about it as soon as my dad finds out about this, he’s going to whisk me away, and that will be the end of that. I’ll be sheltered for the rest of my life and married off to some man who doesn’t know his cock from his, sorry I got overzealous.”

“Is that what you want?”

“No, but didn’t you know some people don’t get a choice? Thanks.” She started cleaning up. When she was done, she picked up the mocha coffee and headed back towards the bedroom they gave her earlier.

“Thrice, sad but true. This is the nicest evening I ever spent with a male.”

She opened the door and walked in. Her life was about to change forever.