Addicted In Cold Blood (45 page)

She imagined it being 1956 and the beautiful black woman, dressed in her red and white polka dot dress and freshly relaxed pin-curled hair, would have just served a round of coffee to the boys in blue. It was a time of racial upheaval, but in that small slice of the world, the woman was treated with respect. She was depended upon, despite her struggles as a widow with four children to tend to after her husband’s untimely death due to a heart attack one Sunday morning right before church. But, the police became her family, helping to soothe the pain, and they treated her well. She even made enough to give her children a small gift on their birthdays and the free Thanksgiving turkey never hurt.

Memaw, you were a firecracker.

Jayme smiled as she continued to drift in her daydream until she casually ran a hand over her stomach.

Will I be okay as a single mother?

She tried desperately not to think about whether the baby would be
like
her, if she or he was developing normally, and all that entailed. She’d resolved that she’d simply try the best she could. That was the most she could do, but to her, that was a lot. She didn’t need the pregnancy test for validation; in her heart, she already knew. She had lived in another world while in Xzion’s home, spending that precious time with him.

It was as if they had been on a deserted island, just the two of them, cocooned in each other’s love. It was so unlike her to be this irresponsible. She never guessed she’d make love to the man when the whole mess had started. She hadn’t taken birth control pills in months, and they were not a thought on her mind...until one day she woke up in her brother’s bed, experiencing mild cramps and suspecting that her period, unusually late, had finally arrived. She checked...nothing, and she could no longer ignore her urges, the unsettled stomach—and how the smell of cooked eggs made her suddenly nauseous. It was time to find out...but she knew, she’d known for some time. After the news from Mr.
Berlin, well, that was a whole new brand of panic. She toyed briefly with the notion of terminating the pregnancy—but how could she terminate a pregnancy that she actually wanted?

She stood in that bathroom for over fifteen minutes, looking blankly at the box, asking herself why she was even going through the motions. She and Xzion had created a child, and there was no reversing it. This was all the more reason to get her life back.

After she realized she had a life growing inside of her, she pulled herself up even faster by the bootstraps, overcome by the need for a final resolution. Now. The focus was less on revenge at the present, and more on eradicating what stood in her way from an existence worth living, for her
and
her baby. She’d already gone to Xzion’s home before she arrived in that building full of protective ghosts, in a last ditch effort to make things right, turn the hands of time. But when she entered, she found the place trashed... and he was nowhere in sight. The pod was gone and for a few moments, she broke down. She didn’t know if he’d gone back home, been hurt, or worse yet, dead. All she felt was devastation at knowing she’d never see him again. She spent the next hour circling the streets, giving herself pep talks before calling her enemy to the forefront. And in all of the confusion, her thoughts would drift back to Xzion. She hated how he haunted her thoughts and now, a piece of him was growing inside of her. Regardless, she didn’t give herself any time to mourn, or smack him—she wanted to do both—or kiss him even—she wanted to do that, too...

A sudden noise pushed her thoughts out of the way. Taking a police stance, she held her gun out in front of her as she looked to and fro in the darkness sprinkled with falling dust that glimmered like Christmas tree tinsel. The wind whistled through the broken windows, and the cool night air touched her flesh and roared as it passed by bits of old, shattered glass and ancient debris. The wind could conjure strange noises, after all, it was a singer and every object was its microphone but she’d been a cop way too long. She knew the difference between the wind tickling her skin and humming a tune versus the sound of a foot, accidentally stepping on a piece of dry-rotted wood, cracking it to bits beneath the pressure of a grown ass man.

“Jayme,” came the cool, deep voice, throaty and singed with a dab of arrogance. She recalled it all too well. Agent Stephenson...

He came out of the shadows, his hands in the air and a lopsided smile across his insipid face.

“You have no idea how happy I was to hear your voice when you called! We’ve been worried sick about you,” he said, his gaze glimmering in the blackness. If eyes were the windows to the soul, his baby blues had a picture-perfect view of Hell.

Jayme smiled and lowered her gun, only slightly, playing the part of trusting and loyal cop. “Great and I’m glad you could come.”

He stepped closer toward her, the floor creaking under his gait. He studied her with a frown, no doubt wishing he could read her mind and beat her to her orchestrated punch.

“I have no idea why you appear so skittish.” He looked around.

He is lying. How do I know? Because his mouth is moving...

“Jayme, relax.” He smiled wider, his hands still high. “I know you’ve been through a harrowing ordeal. But you’re a hero!”

“Where are Agents Bryant and Brown?” she questioned as she looked in her peripheral vision and over her shoulder. In a flash, her gaze settled back on Peterson before he had a chance to crawl one more inch in her general direction.

“They are waiting outside to take you to the precinct. I already called your captain. Everyone is waiting, Officer Knight.” His smile was entirely too wide, too gleaming, too perfect...too good to be true. “We are going to celebrate! You have single handedly saved the city of
Baltimore. All we need now,” he stepped a bit closer to her, his hands still up and the phony smile pasted to his face, tempting her to shoot him right there, “is the address where you said his body is. I thought you said it was
here
, in this building, but,” he shrugged, “We’ve looked everywhere, and didn’t find it.” His smile faded like mist.

“This wouldn’t be some sort of trap now, would it?” he said grimly.

Suddenly, Officer Bryant and Brown emerged like ghastly apparitions out of the walls, vapors that swarmed and materialized from one of the many fractures in the cracked, dirty windows.

“Grab her!” Stephenson exclaimed, his teeth gritted and his knuckles clenched around the barrel of an M-4, 223. She caught the sight of the weapon, and her throat tangled with a swallow.

In an instant, Jayme’s adrenaline kicked in high gear. As soon as Bryant’s arm grazed hers, she quickly turned, facing him, and shot point blank range at the damn man’s forehead, blowing him several feet away. She ducked down as several rounds rang out from Stephenson’s gun, gravelling on the brittle ground, crawling like a snake in the dank darkness. A nail in the floorboard scraped across the skin of her palm and her hand started to bleed. She gripped the gun tighter, feeling no pain. Quickly turning over on her back, she shot in the air, blindly, at the creak of the floor right beside her. Someone screamed—a guttural sound—and stumbled out of the dark. Agent Brown’s lifeless body soon fell like a heap of trash upon her.

Curse words bounced across the empty room, echoing into the night—hers. Fragmented bits from the grimy ceiling fell upon her while she struggled to roll the heavy man off of her body. Then, the ever so slight creaking of the floor came again, and without hesitation, she shot in that direction, but was only left with a heart pounding hard in her chest and the taste of sheer panic in her mouth. She refused to gulp down the grit and accumulating saliva. Instead, she struggled...

Fuck!

The damn gun had jammed and someone was coming for her, swooping down like a winged demon. Someone with foul intentions. She screamed when the man yanked her hair and pulled her roughly across the splintered floor. Agent Stephenson grabbed her weapon and tossed it aside, ignoring her protests, his hold on her tight. That brute force contained immeasurable rage. No doubt, he planned to snuff her out like a cigarette butt.

“You killed my men, you bitch! Tell me where he is or I’ll shoot your goddamn brains out!”

Just then, Brown’s moans wafted through the room as he choked, gasping for air, struggling to stay afloat in the land of the living. She couldn’t see him, but she heard the man jerking around, gurgling on his own blood, feasting upon the iron-rich, warm liquid meal as he thrashed about like a fish out of water.

“Well, you killed
one
of my men.” Stephenson smirked as dragged her toward Brown.

The man was hanging on by a thin, bloody thread. Standing over the struggling man’s body, Stephenson cold-bloodedly put a bullet into his heart, as if it was just another day at the office. The shot rang out, followed by a disconcerting quiet that flooded her with dread.

“Can’t have anyone else getting any credit for this. I’m ready for some notoriety, some much deserved fame!” He cackled. “Once I have him in my custody, dead or alive, I will get what I deserve. Now, you tell me where he is...and you tell me
now
.”

“I don’t know where he is.” Jayme glared up into the man’s eyes, determined to keep herself together, although he could blow her brains out any second.

“We staked out your old apartment every single night. We knew you’d eventually go back to it, if you were still alive. I couldn’t kill you just yet though. You have valuable information; you are the key that can stop this shit—stop them, finally! If you want to live, you will take me to
him
, do you understand?!”

“But I don’t...”

He reached down and smacked her so hard, her flesh burned as if it had been lit on fire.

“No one gets away from them,
ever
! It has never happened in the history of their coming to Earth to bleed us dry! I can’t tell you the countless agents they’ve killed, police officers, navy men and women. We even sent armed forces to try and get these sons of bitches, so many marines, the damned army—all came back empty handed, never heard from again or in body bags! Our best drug lords and dealers—wiped out, within a blink of an eye.” He leaned in close to her, spit on his bottom lip as a wild and crazy look took over him, one of pure evil.

“These bastards are worse than any terrorists known in the history of mankind! And worse of all, we’ve never been able to kill any since they started sending those fucking warrior foot soldiers of theirs over here! They die from overheating, can you believe it?! Nothing we did stopped the sons of bitches. They get too fucking hot and we can’t get close enough to shoot them in the damn head, in the exact right spot! You can’t be even one centimeter off, or the bastards live! And if they live and you missed...well, you’re fucked! Roaches!” He cackled.

Jayme listened to the mad man rant, his eyes barren and his face covered in glistening sweat beads. Her eyes shot back and forth, trying to figure out her escape route.

“And this last one... he was the worst of them yet! That motherfucker willingly let you go—that is the
only
reason you are here now, alive, speaking with me. I don’t know
why
he did, but he did. If you had of obeyed orders as soon as you’d found him, you may have still been alive, and I’d have what I worked so fucking hard for! You tried to be a hero, and failed...don’t try again, Officer Knight. Make this easy on yourself. You tell me where the fuck he is right now or I will blow you to kingdom come and this is your last goddamn chance! I’m tired of playing games with you!”

He yanked on her hair with all of his might, causing her scalp to burn. Grunting, she pushed down a scream that begged to escape her lips. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction...

One pain she couldn’t ignore was coming from the core of her gut. Jayme gripped her stomach as it knotted. The queasy feeling she’d grown accustomed to over the course of the past few weeks was coming at the wrong damn time. Through the commotion, the floor creaked—a telltale sound of the floor submitting to human weight. She looked up at Agent Stephenson who didn’t seem to notice. She peered into the darkness, trying to make out the source—who was there?

Another creak—and then a large shadow cast across the room and Agent Stephenson’s body was suddenly shrouded in blinding, red light. He screamed out, a scream so jarring, so haunting and bone chilling, she gasped and fell back against the floor in horror as he released her tangled tresses, sticky with the blood from Agent Brown. His eyes bucked, and then he stilled, as if in some sort of strange daze. She scooted back like a frightened crab, fumbling in the darkness for her discarded gun. She soon discovered it, gripped the barrel, and just then, Stephenson started to scream out as if hurled from a vacuum. If she were superstitious, she’d guess his very soul was being twisted, snatched right out of his body by an invisible and cruel hand. He shuddered like a jackhammer.

Doing her utmost not to lose the gun again, she got to her feet and ran the other way as the red light got brighter, blinding her...and then it began to wane...and she saw him. The six foot two, broad shouldered man with the shimmering right eye and a beautiful blood red laser beam shooting point range out the middle of the iris...

Peterson still stood there in a state of shock...and then her mouth opened in a silent scream when the man fell apart in thinly sliced pieces, like paper gone through a high-powered shredder. Clean cuts and not a drop of blood—a man carved up like a ham. Dropping on her knees in shock, her body trembling, she cradled herself, unable to look away or make a move. The red light dimmed until it was gone, leaving Xzion standing there, his gaze on her.