CHAPTER 8 #2
Lila made herself small behind Atlas, and she saw him raise an arm before a strange, whooshing sound overpowered the guns, and everything stopped.
She dared to peek out from behind him, and she saw the guards lay dead on the floor, all cut in half.
Bile rose in her throat, but Atlas only pressed for the doors to close, and their elevator ride continued.
They stood in silence, and Lila could feel the fear crawl around her lungs like vines.
He could speak now—or rather, she could understand him.
He called her pet , said she would “do well” in his bed.
Reality was slipping away, it seemed. None of this could be happening, none of this could be real.
No—she couldn’t have been recruited to a top-secret scientific project, by Howland she couldn’t have been fucked by an extraterrestrial being—and liked it; she couldn’t be destined to become an alien’s pet.
“What is going to happen?” she managed to ask, but her voice was weak.
Atlas glanced at her and sighed. “I am being fetched by my people.”
“And me? What’s going to happen to me?”
He looked at her, his yellow eyes hard. “You belong to me now, Lila. You will come with.”
She swallowed. “T-to space?”
He didn’t seem amused by the conversation and only grunted as the elevator came to get another stop. But when the doors opened, the hall outside was empty.
Lila glanced at the buttons. This was below two. “Mr. West has his office on this floor.” She didn’t know why she even said it out loud, but Atlas responded with a deep grunt and grabbed her arm as he stepped out of the elevator.
“Show me,” he growled.
Lila swallowed and carefully made her way through the hall. The alarm was still ringing, and she expected most people to have evacuated to the ground floor by now. Maybe, if they were lucky, Mr. West was still in his office—if he was there at all.
The narrow corridors were empty but sounds of feet were heard scurrying.
As they turned a corner, Lila saw a white-coated man hurry away from them, dropping papers in his wake.
There were voices down the hall, calling for others to run, and amongst them, she could hear Mr. West bark at them to control themselves.
Lila gasped. “He’s here!” Without thinking, she began to run. She would not let that sadistic man get away with what he’d done to her—or Atlas. As she rounded another corner, she saw the man peeking out from his office. “Mr. West!” But he only ducked back in and closed the door.
She hurried to it, grabbed the handle to tear it open, but was roughly pulled back by the alien. He glared down at her, his teeth bared. He said nothing as he forced her away before grabbing the handle, himself, but the door was locked.
With a growl, Atlas extended one of his long and powerful legs, and the door nearly exploded upon impact. It flew into the office space, splinters hailing through the air, and Lila heard a pistol being cocked. She dared to walk closer until she entered the room.
Mr. West stood behind his desk with a pistol aimed at Atlas.
His hand was trembling, his breath was short, and his face was pale.
His otherwise perfectly combed hair was disheveled, he seemed to have spilled some coffee on his shirt, and his eyes widened in terror.
The items on his desk were all in disarray as if he’d either tried to bring them with him as he ran—or destroy them.
A computer monitor had tipped over, and Lila could clearly see an image of Atlas’s lair, and the camera was pointing directly at the very bed where he’d fucked her.
Disgust and rage rose within, and she spat, “You thought you’d get away with it, didn’t you?” Speaking her own language, she felt the difference in her throat. Despite it sounding smoother, it was more straining for the mouth.
Mr. West didn’t tear his eyes away from Atlas, but he said, “I gave him the best I could find, and he enjoyed it. I regret nothing.”
She wanted to attack him, scratch out his eyes, but as long as he held the gun in his hand, she couldn’t do a single thing. Instead, she turned to Atlas. “He watched us,” she told him. “He watched us mate, and he jerked off to it.”
The alien’s eyes narrowed, and he grunted.
“I know, Lila, but it matters not. He should wish to observe a greater being claim his female. He should take pleasure in the superiority of our coupling. But he believes himself to be above me; he imprisoned me, tried to make me dance like a puppet, and tried to exploit my biology to save his own pathetic race. Such disrespect will not go unpunished.”
It was not the answer Lila had hoped for, but either way, Atlas didn’t seem too keen on Mr. West.
The man dropped his jaw, and the arm holding the gun wavered. “Y-you can speak to him? What were you saying?”
Lila glared at him and pursed her lips. “He’s saying that you deserve to die for what you did.”
“No!” He tightened his hand around the gun and aimed it once more. “We can discuss this. We can talk about this!”
Atlas took a step closer. Mr. West cried out and fired his gun, but the bullet only bounced off the alien’s body and ricocheted into a lamp that broke into a million pieces. Atlas advanced, and Mr. West shot again.
Lila took cover from the bouncing bullets, out of the room, her heart in her throat.
She didn’t look to see what Atlas would do to the man—knowing what he’d done to the others was enough.
As she heard the gunshots, heard Mr. West’s pleas, it was as if the world simply disappeared.
She could hear nothing but her heartbeats, and she could finally digest all the things the alien man had told her.
He was going to take her with him, to space.
She was going to be—what, his slave? She didn’t want to go with him.
She didn’t want to go to outer space—the mere idea was incomprehensible and mortifying. She wanted to go home.
It was a split-second decision, but she bolted toward the elevator.
Her heart was in her throat, and she knew that if she would have even the slightest chance of getting away, she needed to reach the elevator before Atlas knew she had run.
She heard Mr. West scream, she heard Atlas roar, and as the sounds faded, she heard the now familiar crack of bones breaking.
A sob rose in her throat. That could be her—who was to say Atlas wouldn’t grow bored of her?
Who was to say he wouldn’t break her bones while fucking her?
She would not give him the chance. Hurtling into the elevator just as Atlas rounded the corner, Lila pressed the top floor button as many times as she could.
She could barely breathe; her legs were nearly buckling underneath her while she saw the alien’s rageful face as he sprinted towards her with long, fast strides.
The doors slid shut, just as he was about to reach her, and the elevator began its climb.
Lila let out a sob of relief as she fell to the floor. She heard Atlas bang on the doors down on second below, but it was when it became ominously quiet that she started to worry.
“Come on, come on, come on,” she muttered at the elevator, praying for it to go faster.
She watched the minus turn to zero, and the soft chime of the bell signaled that she had arrived.
As soon as the doors opened, she crawled out and onto her feet.
The lobby was abandoned, but the door stood ajar.
It was dark outside, but she saw the lights from the helicopter a few yards away spilling in through the open exit.
But it was already lifting.
“No!” Lila screamed as she rushed to the door. “No, wait for me!” She hurried out into the chilly night, ran toward the landing platform, but the helicopter rose into the dark skies. One had already flown off, she gathered. All they left behind were dead bodies—and her.
She fell to her knees and cried. That was her only chance.
As she sat in the stillness of the night, the alarm still ringing from the building, she didn’t even hear Atlas when he came up behind her. She just winced in pain as he grabbed her hair and hauled her to her feet, forcing her to face him.
Tears streamed down her face as she gazed into his furious eyes. “Atlas,” she croaked, “please, don’t hurt me.” She had said the exact same thing when she found herself in his enclosure—but now, he could understand her.
His face was unforgiving. “My pet shall learn,” he growled and dragged her with him back inside the building.