Chapter Twenty-Two
The elevator seemed ten
times longer than usual as Sandra and Alex rode it up to the apartment. They
shared a few knowing grins and slight-of-hand touches as they waited to reach
the safety of the front door.
Alex barely had closed
the door behind them before they both dropped their jackets and they collided
together in a powerful, needy kiss.
“I waited all day for
this,” Sandra said between kisses, pulling Alex’s tie towards the stairs.
Alex tugged off Sandra’s
suit jacket, as he followed her up the stairs to the bedroom, “Thinking of you
was the only thing that got me through the day.”
Sandra smiled at that,
though she felt a little stupid for feeling so happy that he thought about her,
so she pushed it to the back of her mind. “Hey, you didn’t have people sticking
needles into you all day.”
The thought of that
stabbed at Alex but he didn’t let it ruin the moment, “You didn’t have people
kicking your ass all day.”
Sandra laid a soft kiss
on his ear, “Let’s just forget about today.”
Alex stared into her
eyes for a long minute, completely in awe of how amazing she made him feel,
“Deal.”
*********************************************
The click of the door
closing set off the silent alarm, alerting Hayden, in the main bedroom, of an
intruder.
Grabbing his gun,
Hayden silently crawled out of bed and out of the bedroom. He slid slowly
across the wall to his son, Kent’s, room checking on his sleeping form before
closing and locking the door.
He heard the bottom stair
creak, as the intruder, not so stealthy, climbed them. Hayden quietly moved
across the hall, to right above the stairs, his gun ready by his shoulder. As
the intruder reached the top of the stairs, Hayden swung around the corner and
aimed his gun.
The intruder, although
surprised, managed to get a shot off, barely missing Hayden’s right shoulder
before he shot the man point-blank in the forehead. The man fell to the ground,
a dead weight and crashed down the stairs.
Hayden watched as a black ooze drained from the man’s body, recognizing it as the
black oil.
He checked the rest of
the apartment and then made the appropriate calls, with seemingly calmness. But
inside he was far from it. His apartment had never been broken into, very few people even knew where it was. He rushed back
upstairs to
His son was barely two
months old, Hayden had barely started to know what to do with a baby let alone
raise one all on his own. He knew the risk he put
He packed up a baby bag
and headed out the door to the only safe place he could think of.
******************************************************
Alex unwrapped
his arms from around Sandra to go answer the front door, to answer the constant
banging. Grabbing a pair of jeans and his gun on the way, he answered the door,
finding an out-of-breath Hayden and a baby.
“Go get Sandra, we have
a problem.”
Alex took Hayden to the
kitchen and handed him a shot of whiskey, in which the young man looked like he
desperately needed. It was only then
that Alex saw how young Hayden really was, he was a kid, but then again so was
Sandra. Feeling old, Alex went to get Sandra.
Sandra said nothing
when she came into the kitchen and saw the baby sitting in his car seat.
Focusing her attention on Hayden, his face was distressed and tired, something she’d never seen on him.
“What’s going on,” she
finally asked.
Hayden’s face changed
back to it’s usual professionalism, “We need to hide
you.”
Sandra sat heavily in a
chair, “If I had a dime…” she muttered.
Hayden leaned forward
on the table, looking Sandra straight in the eye, “And I need you to take him
with you,” he motioned to the baby.
Sandra saw Alex start
to say something but she held her hand up, “Okay.” She stood, placing a hand on
Alex’s chest and conveying with her eyes an understanding. “Let me grab some
stuff.”
As she packed a bag she
was overcome by the memory of having to pick up and leave everything, again.
She ignored it, not willing to let emotions override her mind, that was not
what she needed right then. Whoever they were running from was going to pay
when the time came but until then, Sandra had a baby under her care. Whoever’s
it was.
“They’re called
Puritans, they work for the aliens but they are the ones to actually make
contact with us. They were the ones who worked with The Consortium and they
were the ones who brought the black oil to earth, which they call Purity, hence the name.” Hayden told them as they drove away from
the city in his Dodge Stealth.
“Where do they come
from?” Sandra asked.
Alex was the one to
answer, “All over the universe, they are the victims of colonization, except
unlike the rest of their world who became slaves or are killed,
they sold their souls to save their necks.”
“Why don’t the
colonizing aliens just make contact, wouldn’t that be easier than going through
a middle man, so to speak?”
Hayden took that one,
“The aliens aren’t comfortable with making direct contact with such a ‘low’
species. So they gave the Puritans the ability to take human form and speak the
languages, which makes it easier on us. Apparently it’s supposed to aid in
trust.” Sandra didn’t have to look to see Hayden roll his eyes.
They drove in silence
the rest of the way to a small airstrip, where a plane was waiting to take
Sandra and the baby away to wherever she chose, she couldn’t even tell Alex or
Hayden where she was going.
“What am I supposed to
do with a baby?” Sandra joked, not wanting to face the fact that she might not
see Alex again for a long time.
He brushed a strand of
hair to behind her ear, “You’ll figure it out.” He didn’t make an attempt to
keep his voice light. “Sandra, these people…they want you dead, you’re the one
thing stopping the aliens from complete colonization of earth. If they find
you…”Alex looked at the ground, not wanting to think what could happen.
Sandra lifted his face
up to hers, “Then I’ll kick their asses.” Sandra kissed him lightly on the
forehead. “Don’t think you can get rid of me that easy.”
Alex smiled, “You can
probably take better care of yourself than anyone else.”
Sandra wrapped her arms
around his neck, “Hey, I’m a new-age women.”
Alex lightly fingered
her jaw line as if committing it to memory before he
gently touched his lips to hers. “I love you,” he whispered before letting his
need for her take over and envelop her in a passionate kiss.
Sandra pulled away a
few moments later, her head more than a little light. “I love you too,” she
said before turning to Hayden to take the baby.
As Alex watched her
walk away he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d ever see her again.
