CHAPTER 7 #3
“Shut up!” Melinda spat. “Shut your fucking mouth!” She pointed a warning finger toward her.
She was breathing shallowly, her cheeks were red, and her eyes were widened.
“I will enjoy watching Atlas tear you apart.” A maddened grin appeared on her face.
“And, you know what? I will pleasure myself at the sight of him torturing you. Oh, yes—I will come so hard hearing you scream and cry and beg for mercy. Do you how fucking mangled you were after he’d fucked you?
Do you know how badly he tore your useless cunt?
He doesn’t see you as a sexual partner—he sees you as a thing to shove his dick into. ”
Lila clenched her jaw, but she knew Melinda was only trying to provoke her. “And you wish you were that thing, don’t you?”
Dr. Bryce’s face twisted in anger, and she turned on her heels and marched to the door. Opening it, she shouted at the guys to come to get her. “She’s going back to the cage.”
“But, we haven’t sedated him,” muttered one of the security guys, and as he entered, Lila felt a lump form in her chest. She recognized the man as a guy called Flannagan, one of Dean’s friends.
“Doesn’t matter,” spat Melinda. “He’ll behave once he understands we’re returning his toy.”
Flannagan and the others seemed unsure, but they did as told and grabbed Lila to take her back down to Atlas’s enclosure.
She tried to resist. She fought them the whole way, putting her heels down and effectively forcing them to drag her into the elevator. She made their job difficult until Flannagan finally threw her over his shoulder and carried her the rest of the way.
She screamed and kicked and flung her fists about, but Flannagan was a big guy. He threw her to the floor once they had reached the large hall, and she tried to lunge for one man’s gun but was cruelly kicked back to the floor. So much for him being a good guy.
Dr. Bryce strode toward the computer panel by the front glass and activated the entrance tunnel.
“Should we really do this when he’s still awake?” asked another of the security guards.
Melinda didn’t even turn. “He will know we are the ones to give him his toys. Besides, there will be several solid steel doors separating him from us. We’ll only send in Lila.”
She pressed the first button, and a short but sharp alarm sounded as the first door unlocked and began to slide open. Lila could feel the security crew’s nervousness, and several of them raised their guns.
“Bring her forwards,” ordered Melinda, but the guards hesitated. When another short alarm ran, and the second door began to open, Dr. Bryce called, “Hurry now.”
Lila was grabbed by the arm, and before she could even scramble to her feet, she was dragged toward the tunnel. She gazed at the glass, saw the massive shadow hulk between the trees as the yellow eyes observed the scene, and she felt her entire being sing, as if he called for her.
But she did not want to get back into that cage. She didn’t want Dr. Bryce—or West and Howland—to win. In a panic, she gazed around for an exit, an escape, anything. That’s when she saw it, the small, red button on the control panel, glittering like a ruby in the fluorescent light. The fail-safe.
Looking around, she saw Flannagan’s pass card swing from his belt. If she could only get it, she might at least be able to reach the control panel before they shot her.
In one last effort, she swung her hand at his crotch; he screamed and released her, and she hurried to snatch the card from his belt. He stumbled after her, swearing and threatening to beat her up, and Lila tumbled to the side, nearly falling as she threw herself toward the panel.
“Lila, no!” Dr. Bryce screamed and dashed toward her. “Stop!”
But before she even knew what she was doing, Lila fumbled with the card into the slot; Flannagan aimed a shot at her but missed.
Shards from a broken monitor rained over her, and she covered her head with her arms, but she was not discouraged.
They could kill her, if they wanted, but she would take them down with her as she unleashed Hell.
As the card finally slid into the slot, she flipped open the plastic lid and slammed her hand on the emergency switch, and a loud alarm filled the room as all the gates and doors unlocked and slid aside.
Everyone stilled. The guards had abandoned her to aim their guns toward the steel tube, and Dr. Bryce was slowly backing away from the glass, toward Lila. Out from the trees, the tall, greyish-blue alien came stalking, his teeth bared and his body ready for a fight.
“What have you done?” Dr. Bryce hissed at Lila, and then, everything happened quickly.
A roar vibrated through the entire hall as Atlas came hurling through the steel tube, guns fired rapidly, men screamed, and Melinda threw herself over Lila and dragged her underneath the control panel.
There, they both covered their ears as the sharp and loud sounds of gunfire echoed throughout the large domelike hall.
The bloodcurdling screams made Lila’s hairs stand on their end, and from underneath the panel, she couldn’t see anything but the blood splatter on the floor, and the security guards as they fell to the ground, their heads and spines ripped from their bodies.
When the sounds stilled, and only the alarm wailed, Lila saw Atlas’s legs as he turned toward the panel.