Chapter 4 #3
But she wasn’t listening. She rolled onto her hands and knees and shook her head, her body swaying as she sought to keep her balance.
She couldn’t, and flopped onto her side, this time facing me.
Her eyes, cloudy with whatever drug they’d given us—vanik?
—blinked at me. Her mouth moved, but the sound of my name was barely there. Just a whisper. “Ee-eethan.”
Behind my back, I tugged at a frayed end of the rope. “Yeah, right here. With you.” I didn’t want her to panic.
The leader with his stupid fucking vest rose to his feet, and I didn’t like the look on his face. Not at all. It was a lot like the look that man had in my dream, the one who repulsed Goldie with his touch.
The leader said something to the two long-haired stooges, and they immediately reached for her, getting their stinking hands all over her golden skin.
“Hey,” I barked as they hauled her to her feet. They ignored me as they gave her some sort of orders, ones I could tell she tried to obey, but she could barely hold her head up.
I tugged at the knot harder, feeling the slack on my wrists growing wider. If only I could get use of my hands, I’d tear these fuckers apart. They were taking her somewhere, marching her between them as she dragged her feet, stumbling here and there.
“Where are you going?” I tried to get my feet under me, but damn my muscles weren’t listening to my brain.
My ankles were useless, my knees like jelly.
The leader followed behind Goldie and his two stooges.
The younger one bounced to his feet like an eager dog to join them, but the leader gave him an order that made his face crumple.
He stayed where he was as the green aliens led Goldie into a heavily wooded area.
Soon, they’d be out of my sight. I wouldn’t be able to protect her.
“Goldie!” I hollered, finally managing to make it onto my knees, all the while tugging at the rope.
The scent of my blood filled the air. My hands were slick with it. “Goldie!”
Her head turned. Her eyes shone as blue and deep as the ocean. And then she was out of my sight.
I roared as the younger alien stalked toward me, holding a blade that was nearly twice his size.
He seemed to struggle with the weight of it.
Spitting mad and needing something to take my anger out on, I chose him as my target.
“Oh look at you, with your big boy knife. Can you even swing that thing, you weak piece of shit? If I wasn’t tied up and drugged, I’d kick your ass, you ugly motherfucker. ”
But he was mad too, whether it was something the leader said to him, or the fact that he’d been left behind with me instead of doing whatever they were doing to Goldie.
Goldie.
As soon as he reached my side, he raised that blade in the air. And my taunts felt a little silly then, because it turned out he could lift the blade, and in a second, he was going to bring it down on my head and cleave me in two.
He swung the blade with a guttural bellow, and I dodged like my life depended on it. I dropped to a knee and rolled on my side, avoiding the blade by a foot as he slammed it into the tree branch, where it stuck with a wicked thwack.
I lurched to my feet, and before the alien could withdraw his blade from the trunk to hack at my flesh, I used all my body weight and slammed into him. We both went down in a heap of stinking limbs. Me with a victorious yell and him with a grunt of pain.
I knew I didn’t have much time to capitalize. I barely had control over my muscles. My brain was iffy. But Goldie was there in my head, rushing through my veins, and I could hear her voice over the sound of my panting breaths and rapidly beating heart. Use your teeth.
Before the alien could shove me off him, I turned and clamped my teeth down on his neck.
He roared, and writhed, but I held on, sinking my teeth deeper, until his thick skin broke against my teeth and his rotten blood flooded my mouth.
His frantic movements to escape only tore his flesh worse, and I held on like dog with a bone, grinding my jaws into his stinking skin until his attempts grew weaker.
Weaker. Until he lay slumped beneath me, eyes open and awake, but barely.
He tried to move, but his limbs weren’t cooperating.
I finally tore my teeth from his throat, spitting him out as I rose to my feet in a stumble.
“Yeah, I know what that’s like, you asshole. Taste of your own medicine, huh?”
His eyes rolled in his sockets. Internally, I knew he was panicking. His mouth gaped, his chest rose and fell with heaving breaths, but his limbs weren’t working, his muscle groups failing him one by one as the vanik that he’d injected into me now roared through his veins.
I spat out his taste, gagging the whole time as I staggered toward the blade still stuck in the tree.
With a quick jerk, I severed the last of the ropes from my wrists.
Ignoring my torn skin, I hobbled toward my bag which lay near the fire.
With each step, I felt more alert. My balance improved.
I could sort of run now with a loping gait.
I snatched my laser gun and left the green alien to gasp and panic all alone in his useless body.
Every cell in me was narrowed to one single focus. Goldie.