“Oh, did that hurt?”
“Fuck, yeah, it hurt!” he burst out in her language.
Chapter Four
Laurel blinked. It took a second for the implication of the outburst to register. Then she leaped to her feet. “You speak English!”
“And many other Earth languages.”
“You…you…” she sputtered, apoplectic. He’d lied! He’d understood every word she’d said!What did I say?She had no idea what had come out of her mouth; she’d just been talking to herself the way she always did.Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
She snapped the first aid kit shut. The gunshot wound should be stitched or at least bandaged, but he wasn’t bleeding much, and right now, she didn’t care. Fuck him! She stomped out.
Inside the main chamber, she paced. Un-freaking-believable. He’d let her go on and on, never once indicating he could understand. But what did she expect from an invader? Eavesdropping on her private personal mutterings had to count as the least of his crimes. Why had she assumed he didn’t understand her just because she asked? Of course, the bastard would lie.
“I never should have—”
Dammit! Talking to herself would be a hard habit to break.I shouldn’t have brought him here.
But she couldn’t leave his body for his comrades to find.
Why couldn’t the fucker have died like he was supposed to?
Apparently, his injury hadn’t been as serious as she’d thought.Another assumption!But even if a bullet missed his heart and lungs, who the hell survived a gunshot wound to the chest without medical intervention?
An alien, that’s who.
The bullet had popped out on its own.
I really do have a tiger by the tail.She remembered saying that. She couldn’t let him go, but she couldn’t keep him zip-tied to the bed forever. How long would the plastic ties hold him? How strong was he? He looked quite muscular. What if when he recovered—which seemed to be happening fast—he broke the tie or pulled the post loose?
I could leave.She could grab her bag, clear out, and let him starve to death. But she couldn’t do that either. If she didn’t have thecajónesto shoot him dead in the woods, she couldn’t leave him to succumb to a slow, painful death, even though he deserved it.
Having a conscience sucks sometimes.
She’dwantedto end his miserable existence. He deserved to die. But she’d stared into his blue-blue eyes and couldn’t do it. She’d fired into the ground near his head. Then, in a super-idiot move, she’d run to the cave, grabbed the travois, and then dragged his body home.
What am I going to do?
Maybe I don’t need to decide today.
As long as he’s restrained, I have time to think about it.
However, time wouldn’t alter reality. Her options boiled down to two: leave or kill him, slow death or fast one. This wasn’t like trapping a skunk in a cage. She couldn’t just open the door and run like hell.
In bringing him here, she’d only postponed the inevitable.
Until she decided how he would die, maybe she could extract some info from him. She paced, twisting her hands. The alien gave her the creeps, and she didn’t feel up to this.I’m no interrogator. Brent would be much better at this than I am.
At the thought of her brother, the resolve to see this through to the end hardened.This isn’t about me; it’s about all the other potential survivors and all the people who have died.I have to do this for them.
First off, she should try to find out how many aliens were in the area or if he’d encountered people. She assumed he’d killed them. Except one, obviously, had gotten away and shot him.
Why had Earth been attacked in the first place? The answer wouldn’t change the devastation, but a desire to understandwhyburned hot inside. The senselessness gnawed at her. It was like when somebody shot up a school and killed innocent children. Why? Why?
She didn’t expect him to volunteer information, but maybe a hint would slip out. Stifling her revulsion and shoring up her courage, she marched into the chamber.
Blue eyes met hers with a flash of relief. Obviously, he’d feared she’d abandoned him.
