Trapped (Here Trilogy)
Copyright © 2014 by Ella James
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Any names, places, characters, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination and are purely fictitious. Any resemblances to any persons, living or dead, are completely coincidental. PLEASE DO NOT PIRATE THIS BOOK. I HAVE BILLS TO PAY, JUST LIKE YOU DO.
ISBN: 978-0-9895084-6-9
For Cha Bear. Because this stuff always was.
IF YOU HAD told me a year ago that the fate of the world would hinge on a beautiful alien/Japanese girl wearing a designer gown and clutching a red whistle, I would have told you to lay off the molly, my friend. Actually, I wouldn't have. A year ago, Halah hadn't told me that 'molly' was code for dropping acid, and S.K. hadn't started hanging out with Ami, so I also wasn’t yet aware of how cool it was to call everyone you encountered 'my friend'. But still. I would've thought you were a big, fat liar—or insane.
Yet here we were—Nick and I, facing just that.
Just her. Vera.
It felt like hours that the wind howled in my ears, tossing fallen snow into the air, where it glittered like stardust at the tail of a comet. Overhead, black clouds swirled above the mountaintops, dark as the ones that followed Nick to my house the day I found him.
I looked at Vera, holding Nick’s whistle between her soft, full lips. Her eyes, on his, must have conveyed a million things, but I couldn't understand a single one of them. I watched his shoulders tighten, and I wondered if they could communicate with ESP.
When Nick spoke, his voice was low and deep, a warning and a plea. “Vera. We're not having an emergency. We haven't even spoken yet.”
She plucked the whistle from her lips, cupping it to her chest as she sneered. “‘Haven't
spoken'?
Have you turned into a human?” Her eyes flitted over me, a curt, dismissive glance before her dark gaze pinned Nick.
“Whether we blow the whistles at the same time and return, or I blow yours and issue an emergency SOS, it's happening now
.
This mission is over. We
will
mine this planet's gold. The Rest will be sustained.” Vera sounded calm now. Serene, almost.
I searched Nick's face, the side of it I could see, but his emotions were on lock-down. “Vera, please. Exercise some patience. We haven’t even conferred.” He sounded monotone—nothing like my Nick— and the weight of what was occurring crashed onto my shoulders.
Nick and Vera, aliens, pieces of some hive mine that scoured the universe for elements essential to their survival. They came to our planet for our gold. They had a litmus test to determine if native beings were sentient enough to be spared. And humans didn’t pass their test; Nick had said as much back at S.K.'s cabin, and Vera seemed certain of it.
But Nick, the alien, was arguing for our survival. For
my
survival.
“Clearly, there was an error during your translation,” Vera declared. “You’ve been compromised. Decision-making falls to me, exclusively.”
Her fingers positioned Nick's whistle between her lips again, and I felt my panic soaring to new heights.
This is it
.
I thought, in a wild rush, how ironic this was. After all the times I wanted to die after Dad did, it was ending
here
? Like
this?
I glanced over my shoulder, in the direction of the underground DoD compound we’d escaped. The rocky, ice-slick cliffs blurred a little as my legs trembled.
“Take a deep breath, Milo,” Nick said. My breaths, I noticed dimly, sounded like a teapot shrieking. “'Vera' is trying to strong-arm me.” Nick took a measured step toward her. I couldn't see his face anymore as he moved in front of me, but I watched one of Vera's thin eyebrows jut up.
“Trying?” The whistle bobbed between her lips like a cigar. “There is no way that I will fail. In that ridiculous vessel, you are practically as weak as a human.”
I looked at Nick's back, watched him shift his weight in agitation. His voice was soft, a tiger's purring growl. “You will not blow the whistle. Neither one of us will act until we come to an agreement. Do you understand?”
She tossed her jet black, layered hair, snow-damp bangs falling over her pale forehead. “By that you mean
I agree with you, and we leave this planet never to return?” She laughed. “You are damaged.”
“Vera—”
“Enough!” Her thin arm sliced the space between them. Her grip on the whistle tightened as her shoulders rose. Oh, God. She was going to blow it! I opened my mouth, filling my lungs so I could cry Nick's name. Then he stuck his hand out and the whistle flew into his palm. He closed his fist around it. “
Don't
test me.”
I could see the surprise on her face. Surprise that he would disagree with her. Or surprise that he would fight for humans. Maybe surprise that, in a human ‘vessel,’ he was strong enough to take the whistle back.
“Test you?” she scoffed. “There is no need.” She flicked her manicured fingers and Nick flinched. His hand convulsed around the whistle and it fell into the snow.
“Fool,” Vera hissed. She opened her hand and the whistle flew back into it.
I don't know what happened next, but I think Nick must have tackled her. I saw a flash of his green scrubs, and the next instant, Vera's red gown was spread across his lap, her butt to his crotch, her back to his chest. He had her in a choke-hold.
She struggled against him, trying to turn her head so she could see his face. When he pressed his forearm more tightly over her throat, her shoulders slumped. “What happened to you?” she rasped.
Nick's jaw flexed, his eyes darting, for a split second, to me. “You're making a mistake,” he told her.
“You attacked me,” she whispered. Her eyes were wide, almost vulnerable.
This time, Nick's gaze rested on me. “I’ll do whatever I have to.”
Vera coughed, her head lolled, her body slackened, and for a split second I wondered if Nick had killed her.
Oh my God
.
Then the air rippled like water and Nick flew into a row of firs, smacking one of them and bouncing, face-first in the snow.
Vera was gone.
I stepped toward Nick and the ground below me shifted with a mighty rumble. Another step and I was on my hands and knees, blinded by a swirl of snow. I scrambled toward Nick as the firs around me clattered, the ice on their branches making eerie music.
“Vera?” I heard Nick’s voice before I saw him out in front of me, turning in a circle, waving at the sky. It was black now. Awful, Armageddon black. Snow fell in heaps, piling on our heads and shoulders.
“Damnit, VERA! STOP THIS!”
And then she was standing right in front of us.
She held the whistle out to Nick, her face unreadable. Rage contorted his. He lunged for her and she side-stepped him, red dress whipping in the wind. She pushed her hair out of her face, and I was shocked to find that she looked sad.
“I hope, when they arrive, The Rest determine you can be salvaged.”
SO SHE'D DONE it. Holy shit. Sometime while Nick and I were blinded by the snow, Vera had blown the whistle. Issued the ‘summons.’
I was breathing hard and fast, too afraid to even see straight, when we heard the voices. Nick and Vera turned in unison, gazes fixed on something behind my shoulder. My heart gave one hard beat and then forgot to beat again. I couldn't even draw a breath.
Then I turned and saw them: dark figures cresting the cloud-wreathed peak we'd hiked up, spilling over rocky cliff-side where we stood. Men and women dressed in black. Agents from the Department of Defense.
Nick grabbed my hand and jerked me down the snowy slope, toward a thicker grove of Douglas Firs framing the outer rim of the mountain.
My numb feet, pounding over snow and frozen stone, didn’t hurt anymore except near the bones. My lungs felt like they were on fire, and eventually they just hurt all the time; the only way I knew I was still breathing was because I was still moving.
All I could think, as I flung my legs out, clutching Nick’s hand, was that I felt so trapped. If the DoD got me, I'd be labeled a traitor. If we managed to out-run them and the aliens arrived, my life was over anyway.
For one sweet moment, I allowed myself to go to the dark place I would go to sometimes, during the worst days after dad died. The place that was filled with relief because if I did die, at least it would be over.