For the rest of this year, Wednesdays on the blog will be dedicated to bringing you a chapter a week of my alien abduction science fiction romance, CAPTIVE. For Chapter One of CAPTIVE, click here.
An abducted cop and a gladiator prisoner must learn to trust each other with their lives…and their hearts…to escape their alien captors.
CAPTIVE
Chapter Two
He had no idea she was awake. Good. Maybe she’d have a few minutes to check out her surroundings in the light and figure out how to escape.
Her gaze shifted around a room void of light fixtures and windows. Large shadows moved across bright, translucent walls. Where was she? Inside a giant plastic milk jug?
Slowly so that Max wouldn’t detect her movements, she lifted her head off the pillow. Every sound grew louder: his crunching and sucking as he chewed and her breathing that seemed to echo in her ears. She held her breath, listening.
From the other side of the wall came a dull clank followed by faint crackling. Rice cereal? She cocked her head toward the sound.
“Morning.”
Her gaze shot to her captor. He hadn’t moved from his place except to turn her way and flash a crooked, sexy smile. “How you feeling?”
Let’s see: confused, scared, angry, humiliated.
“Hungry?” he asked, a little too cheerful after the horrible night they shared. He pushed the larger bowl closer to her.
Holding the blanket tight around her, she sat up and eyed the bowl. Why hadn’t he eaten from it?
Max crouched on the floor facing her. She couldn’t stop gawking at his nakedness, fascinated how in its relaxed state, it wasn’t nearly as threatening. She felt his gaze. He knew she was checking him out, yet he didn’t bother hiding himself. The guy had absolutely no shame.
“Go on,” he said. “Eat.”
What woman could eat with that staring at her? She pulled a sheet off of the pillowed mattress and tossed it to him. “I don’t suppose you’d mind covering yourself.” She was parched, and the words came out rough. She coughed to clear her throat, but that made it feel scratchy.
“Oh. Right.” He wrapped the white sheet around the lower half of his body. “Better?” His smile held amusement.
Why was he acting nice this morning? Maybe he wasn’t a crazed serial killer. After all, if he hadn’t strangled her in her sleep, he probably wasn’t going to. She hoped.
He took a long drink from the pitcher, each swallow causing his Adam’s apple to bob up and down, making her uncomfortably aware of her growing thirst. She tried to swallow but couldn’t.
“Ahh.” He wiped his mouth.
She eyed the pitcher.
“Go ahead.” He pushed it toward her. “I know you’re thirsty.”
Thirsty was an understatement. After a moment’s hesitation, she brought the pitcher to her lips and sipped. Cold water refreshed her tongue and mouth. She drank deeply to rehydrate.
Max picked a pink, juicy cube from the bowl of colorful fruit and held it out to her. “Here.”
“What’s that?” Her voice still sounded hoarse. How was she going to ask him the million questions rattling around in her brain if she could barely talk?
“Food. Try it.”
She took her own chunk from the bowl and sniffed it; a citrus fragrance filled her nostrils. Her stomach growled, making her realize she wasn’t just hungry. She was ravenous.
Seemingly unaffected by her snub, he popped his proffered food into his mouth and watched her study the cube.
Heat radiated inside her hollow stomach. It cried out again for nourishment. The fruit looked harmless enough, and he did eat some, therefore, it couldn’t be poisoned. Besides, sharing a meal might make him more inclined to answer her questions.
She nibbled. Sweet nectar with a hint of spice trickled over her taste buds. Juice and saliva pooled in her mouth. She swallowed and greedily took a bigger bite. Juice dribbled down her chin. “It’s good.” She wiped her chin with her fingers. “And messy.”
He grinned, and his weird green eyes brightened with the joy of a little boy showing off a new fishing pole. “Pop the whole thing in.” He tossed another piece into his mouth.
She bit into another cube, squirting juice on him, and tried not to snicker as the pink liquid rolled down his chest into the nail marks she had left from yesterday’s attack.
He drew in a quick breath, his pain giving her a perverse satisfaction. “Nice shot.” He wiped his chest with his hand. “You might want to close your mouth before biting next time.”
“What’s going on here, Max?”
“Breakfast,” he said in a sorry attempt at feigning innocence.
“You know that’s not what I meant. You said we’d talk in the morning. So talk. Where are we?”
He finished chewing before he answered. “Hyborea.”
“Where’s that?”
“I can’t exactly say where it is, but I can tell you where it’s not.”
“Okay. So where isn’t it?”
“It’s not in the USA. Here, try this. It’s my favorite.” He handed her a cracker as long and wide as a dollar bill but with the texture of a shredded wheat cracker. “Dip it in here.” He indicated a bowl of little, round black balls stuck in a heap of thick, pasty stuff. Was it caviar? For breakfast?
“Eew. What the heck is that?”
“It looks gross but tastes great. Try it.”
“No, thanks.” She bit into the plain cracker. “Do you know how I got here?”
He shook his head. “What do you remember?”
“There was a forest fire. I tried escaping in the river but was caught in the rapids. I was getting banged up on the rocks. The last thing I remember before losing consciousness was a huge shadow over me. Then I woke up here.”
“Sounds like the Hyboreans pulled you from the rapids.”
“Are the Hyboreans a cult?”
Max choked on his cracker. He covered his mouth and coughed. “Something like that.” He coughed again. “More biscuits?” He offered another wheat cracker.
“Are the Hyboreans out there now?” She pointed to the wall.
He nodded.
“What are they doing?”
“Feeding us breakfast.”
“Knock it off,” she said with more anger than she intended to show. She folded her arms across her chest and glared. “I want answers. Real answers.”
He stopped eating and looked her square in the eye. He dropped his shoulders slightly and leaned toward her. “If I explain everything, do you promise not to flip out?”
She nodded slowly, unsure if she’d be able to keep that promise.
“Okay. The Hyboreans want babies. They take people, put them naked in a room together, and let nature take its course. There is no escaping. Ever. If you do what they want, you’ll survive. If you piss them off, you won’t.” He spoke as if he were explaining the rules of a card game.
Addy scooped another fruit cube from the bowl and ate it, hoping this basic life function would ground her in reality. She had to keep her wits in order to figure out where she was and how to escape. “What do the Hyboreans do with the babies?” She really didn’t want to know but had to ask.
“Sell them.”
“This is a baby ring? You mean instead of kidnapping newborns, they enslave adults to make the babies for them?” She couldn’t wrap her brain around the idea. It was too crazy and disgusting—like that fertility doctor in the news who gave his patients his own sperm in order to save money. “These people are sick!”
“You’ve no idea,” he mumbled.
The weight of the conversation hit her full force. This wasn’t the news or some campfire ghost story. This was real. She’d been kidnapped by a baby-selling cult. Her throat constricted. Her breathing sped up.
She was a Forest Service cop. A tree cop. She wasn’t experienced in handling human trafficking. This was totally out of her jurisdiction. “There really is no escaping, is there?”
The sudden sadness in his eyes said it all. She was trapped here, probably until they killed her.
She’d never be set free. The cult couldn’t risk anyone telling the FBI or the United Nations or whatever organization one informed about international kidnapping and slavery. Her body tingled with a cold numbness. She hugged her knees to her chest and rocked. She’d never again see her friends, her father, her home.
Shaking from the swelling rage bubbling inside, she wanted to scream. She wanted to pound on the wall. She wanted to demand they release her. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t stand that pain they’d shot through her yesterday. And she couldn’t stand her vulnerability. A good cop knew how to manage her emotions under stress. So she sat there, sitting and rocking and wondering how this had happened.
Dazed, she reached for more food, hoping it might fill the hollowness inside. Max snatched the bowl away, and she flinched.
“Lesson number two: don’t eat all your food at once, in case they forget to feed you.”
She wanted to ask if that happened often but was too scared to hear the answer. “What’s lesson number one?”
He reached for her, hooked a finger around her choker, and drew her to him. His piercing cat eyes, inches away from hers, held a stern seriousness that penetrated her body and stopped her heart. This lesson was crucial.
“Don’t piss off the Hyboreans.”
#
Romance with a rebel heart
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