AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I should’ve pushed this contact aside, but some primal part of my being wanted her to claim me publicly, after everything we’d been through.
“I love you,” she said, smiling, and I watched her mouth say the words at the same time as she thought them at me, for all the world to hear.
“How touching,” announced a strange masculine voice over the intercom inside her helmet. “Doctor Kepzler, get your ass in here,” it demanded, right before the end of her cable tugged her through the water-wall, sending her sprawling in her suit to the ground on the other side.
chapter 51
ELLE
I lay there on the ground in the dock room, surprised and sputtering, feeling Ceph panic in the water nearby.
“Don’t do anything rash!” I thought out at him, while I tried to get my bearings. There were several soldiers in the room in ominous all-black uniforms, with what looked like tactical armor on. Donna was handcuffed to the crane-nest, and one of the other men had Marcus tied up.
“Stand her up! The rest of you keep her in your sights!” the first one demanded, the same voice I’d heard. He had close cropped blonde hair, an aristocratic British accent, and he was nearing on me. “Have you made alien contact?”
“Who the fuck are you?” I asked, and heard my voice come in through the crane-nest, over my helmet’s intercom. I picked myself up off the ground, and heard multiple weapons readying.
“Don’t shoot in here!” Marcus pleaded. “If you puncture the habitat, we’ll all die!”
I felt white-hot rage on my bond with Cepharius: that I was in danger, that he felt like he couldn’t do anything. “Ceph, I really need you to calm down, please.”
He grasped hold of his emotions like they were a living thing. “Yes, my pearl,” he acquiesced and hid them all away.
“Disconnect her cable and take off her helmet,” the British man commanded. I was flanked by soldiers instantly, who did precisely what he said. “What have you been doing out there for two days, Doctor?”
I tried to shake off the men but couldn’t. “I’m not answering anything till I know who you are!” I shouted, the second I was breathing habitat air.
He took a few steps closer, but didn’t touch me, inspecting me from afar. “I’m Quentin Hargrave, your new boss.” He spent a long few moments, staring into my bloodshot eye. “Tell me everything you’ve seen.”
Somehow I didn’t think he was just going to just give me a battery. I heard Ceph growl a warning in my mind just before I responded, but that wasn’t going to stop me. “Go fuck yourself.”
He snapped his fingers, then shifted his gaze to one of the men standing next to me. “Teach her some manners.”
This man’s hand raised—and it was the last thing he ever did, because he was fractionally closer to the water-square than the rest of us. One of Cepharius’s tentacles lashed out, reached his ankle, and my mate yanked him into the sea.
He gave a shout of surprise that echoed in the metal chamber, and we all heard a splash as Cepharius pulled him through. His death, however, was eerily silent, as the pressure outside the water-wall crushed all the air in his body, compressing his lungs to the size of golf balls, ripping them away from all their surrounding tissue, and he started bleeding out of his mouth and nose, staining the dark water that faced us red.
Then the two men beside me pulled out their guns and started shooting into the ocean. I panicked for Ceph, but I knew he hadn’t been shot—if he had, I would’ve felt it on our bond.
“What the fuck is wrong with you!” Marcus shouted, flailing against the soldiers that held him.
“My men can aim,” Hargrave said, before crooking his fingers for his me to be brought closer. “We had good reason to suppose you were dead.” He inspected me without touching me. “How did you survive? Did you make contact?”
Whoever he was, he knew about the aliens. I grit my jaw. “It’s classified.”
He clucked his tongue—then took my arm and ejected my suit’s data sleeve. “Nothing’s classified for me.” He jerked his head, toward the rest of the habitat. “Take her to her room and tie her to a chair.”
chapter 52
ELLE
The toes of my boots scraped the floor as two soldiers dragged me down the hall—and I still had no idea what was happening.
I could feel Cepharius’s concern for me, like a constant thrum, and I held onto it like it was my lifeline.
When we reached my room, the soldiers easily let themselves in—so much for all the locks and secrecy.
And my tablet was gone, along with the ROV parts and data sleeves from the other suits.
