Nothing on Earth (6 page)

She kicked and screamed and made it near impossible for Alec to hold on to her. He squeezed her hands harder, pulling her arms around him so that she essentially hugged him around the waist.

“
Tara
, not safe.” He grunted as she kicked him harder.

“Let me go,” she screamed, her voice getting louder, her tone more hysterical.

The sound of a single bullet was deafening in the small room, and
Tara
screamed as she felt part of Alec’s massive weight fall onto her. She twisted, finally managing to pull her arms free. He fell to his knees and grabbed for her ankle as she flew past, adrenaline making her movements exaggerated and bouncy.

One of the officers grabbed her, and she clung to him gratefully as Alec called to her in his own language. He yelled at her, his words rapid, his tone desperate, pleading. The officer who held her laughed at the same time that his partner replied to Alec in what seemed to be his own language.

Tara
screamed as the gun fired twice more, and Alec fell to the ground, his blood staining the carpet in this small room.
Tara
struggled out of the officer’s hold, terror pulsing through her at their actions. Alec had no longer been a threat, but they’d executed him. Blindly, she ran, laughter loud behind her.

She made it to the front door, but her hair was grabbed in a cruel fist, and she fell backwards, barely managing to get her hands underneath her so that she didn’t land flat on her back. The police officers face hovered in her dimming vision as he spewed malevolent words that sounded like Alec’s language.

The man laughed sadistically as he grabbed the front of her shirt and ripped the material with a single pull. She screamed, thrashing frantically as his fingers hooked into the front of her bra.

But his fingers went lax, and he fell forward his large body pressing painfully against her for a moment before he moved sideways. She barely had time to register the third person in the room before he moved passed her toward the doorway to the hidden room. She wanted to call his name, she wanted to throw her arms around him, and she wanted to apologize in every language known to man for not trusting him.

John pointed a strange device and activated it just as the second man dressed like a police officer came through the doorway. The man’s smile faltered as he saw John, but his body crumpled a moment later.

John merely stepped over the man’s prone form and entered the room where Alec lay dying, if he wasn’t already dead.

“
Tara
,” John called urgently, “I need your help. Get in here!”

Tara
glanced at the front door as self-preservation warred with human decency. Alec had tried to protect her, and he’d been shot for his trouble. Like it or not, she was the reason the man lay dying. She hurried into the small room that only minutes ago had been her terrifying prison.

John had moved Alec onto his back and currently held his hands pressed against the wounds in Alec’s chest. “
Tara
, grab the green duffle bag in the corner.”

She moved immediately to do as he ordered. “Where’s the phone? I’ll call an ambulance,” she said as she placed the bag beside him and moved close to Alec’s head. Alec’s neck was at an awkward angle, but she knew little about medicine, so even though she wanted to make him more comfortable, she had no idea if she should. Held helpless by her lack of knowledge, she stood by as John zipped open the bag and pulled out more strange gadgets.

“They used human weapons,” he said to her urgently. “I have to get the bullets out before I can close the wounds.”

He broke open a small package and dragged on latex gloves. He unwrapped another item, a tool that looked like a strange version of needle-nose pliers, and then pressed his finger deep into one of the wounds and slid the pliers in beside it. Alec grunted from the pain, and
Tara
hoped that was a good sign.

“Sorry, baby,” John said quickly. “This’ll just take a moment.”

True to his word, John pulled the pliers out and dropped a misshaped piece of metal onto the ground. He repeated the action for a second bullet, but as he checked the third wound,
Tara
’s thought processes finally cleared enough for speech.

“It went straight through,” she said urgently.

“Are you sure?”

She nodded. “I was behind him.”

* * * *

John had already figured out by the blood spatter covering Tara’s face and hair that she’d been quite close when Alec had been shot, and even though it was a relief to know that she hadn’t been injured, his blood ran cold at just how close he’d gone to losing them both.

He grabbed the small medical unit he’d been able to smuggle off the ship and started to seal the wounds in Alec’s shoulder, chest, and abdomen. The instrument would knit the flesh back together with a mixture of technology and accelerated healing, but he would need to put in a drain so that any blood that had poured into the abdominal cavity would be removed before it caused a problem. It would also give him a chance to monitor if the bowel had been punctured. He sure didn’t need that complication, but he had to take precautions. At least being shot by a bullet didn’t introduce the same contaminants as a knife wound could, so infection seemed unlikely.

Alec’s eyes fluttered but didn’t open as John pushed the drain into place and sealed the flesh around it. “John,” he said through blood-spattered lips.

“Yes, baby. You’re going to be fine. Just rest while I get things organized. We need to leave here before they send more agents.
Tara
, go have a quick shower. Dump the clothes. We don’t have time to wash them, and I don’t want to be on the road with a bagful of bloodstained garments.”

She nodded her head, wide-eyed as his meaning apparently sank in. She glanced down at her arms, finally noticing the blood covering her upper body, and for a moment he thought she might give in to hysteria.

“Baby,” he said to her in a soft yet commanding voice, “don’t look in the mirror. Just strip off, get into the shower, and wash everything. Okay?”

She nodded her understanding, seeming to shake herself into action, but she moved stiffly, awkwardly. For a moment he worried that she’d been injured by the man who’d attacked her in the foyer, but she moved quickly to do as he asked.

“John,” Alec whispered, his voice sounding raw and weak.

“It’s okay, baby. As soon as
Tara
is finished, you and I are going to have a hot shower together.”

Alec smiled just a little. “Figures,” he said. “We finally get a chance to shower together, and I’m too tired to take advantage of you.”

John released the breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding. It would be a few weeks before Alec fully recovered from his injuries, but at least now John had a reasonable belief that his lover would be okay. He’d been very worried that Alec had lost too much blood, but at the moment it seemed he would recover without needing a transfusion. John really hoped that didn’t change.

Tara
came out of the bathroom, a large towel wrapped around her, and headed straight to her bag. She rummaged for clothes as John lifted Alec into his arms and carried him into the bathroom. Carefully, he sat the injured man on the side of the tub and held him upright as he pulled Alec’s blood-soaked clothes away from his skin. Awkwardly, John pushed Alec’s jeans down his legs, but after several moments of frustration, he ripped the material and pulled the tattered denim away.

Finally, he had Alec stripped, and he carefully lowered him onto the floor of the shower stall and then stepped back to tear off his own clothes. He angled the water away from Alec as he adjusted the temperature and then stepped in to quickly wash himself down. He then lathered shampoo into Alec’s hair as a brief pang of loss caught him unawares. When was the last time he and Alec had been this close? Not just physically but in an emotional sense. They spent most of the last year either fighting or ignoring each other. Hell, he hadn’t taken very good care of his lover in months, and he resolved to do much better in the future. He’d almost lost Alec today, and he was going to make sure that he didn’t waste another moment of their time together.

John lifted Alec onto his feet and held him tightly as the water rinsed the shampoo from his hair and the blood off his back. A soft sigh escaped Alec’s lips, and John couldn’t help but press a kiss to his lover’s forehead.

“Can I help with anything?”
Tara
asked through the slightly open door. He was relieved to hear her voice. A small part of him had expected her to take off while he was distracted. He’d be able to locate her fairly quickly, but it was far more convenient not to have to.

“We’re almost done,” he said as he twisted off the taps. “Would you mind dressing Alec while I hold him steady?”

He was probably asking a lot here, but even though she was traumatized and terrified, he still needed help to get Alec into his clothes without hurting him. Having
Tara
’s assistance would make it much easier.

“Sure,” she said cautiously as she stepped into the bathroom. “I’ll try. Just tell me what to do.”

He lifted Alec into his arms. “We might need to do this in the main room,” he said as he looked around the cramped tiled space.
Tara
nodded her agreement, grabbed the towels off the vanity, and led the way into the other room.

Once in the main area, John lowered Alec’s feet to the ground and held him close as they both dripped water onto the carpet.
Tara
stepped forward, stood on her tiptoes to rub the towel gently over Alec’s hair and then lower down his back, over his buttocks and thighs, and then knelt to dry his lower legs and feet.

“Okay, Alec. Time to turn around,” she said in what he guessed was her imitation of a nurse’s tone. Carefully, he turned Alec in his arms and tried to hold his dry parts away from his own still-dripping abdomen.

Tara
briskly dried the front of Alec, hesitating over the spots where the bullets had hit. The device had worked quite well, and now only a pale patch of skin covered each entry wound.

“How?” she asked as her startled gaze collided with John’s.

Chapter Eight

“We have a lot to explain to you, Tara. I’m just sorry that we couldn’t shield you from it,” John said quietly.

She nodded, not really understanding anything that he said. Well, not really understanding anything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours but very willing to hear an explanation now that her life had been almost literally turned upside down.

“Clothes?” she asked, determined to get Alec to safety before she started demanding answers.

“Leather suitcase over by the sleeping man at the doorway,” he said, indicating it with his chin. She moved toward the bag but hesitated as his words hit her.

“Sleeping?” She couldn’t quite hide the fear in her voice. Strange how she felt quite comfortable when she thought her and Alec’s attackers were dead. Knowing they were only asleep worried the hell out of her. She’d never seen a dead body, never wanted anyone to be dead, but right this moment she would have preferred it over the thought that the sleeping man might wake up.

Shit, this was one majorly fucked-up day.

“Yes, baby. They’re only sleeping. I’d rather not kill anyone, no matter how much they might deserve it.” She could hear the anger in John’s voice but also the quiet determination to hold true to his own values. Hell, she owed him a major apology.

She moved toward the suitcase, very grateful that she was able to drag it away from the unconscious man without him twitching. John’s soft voice called her attention again just as she was thinking of kicking the man who laughed as he tried to kill Alec.

“Baby, he’ll be out for hours, but we need to be on the road long before then.” His words were said in a low, soothing voice, and she wondered if maybe he could read her mind or at least her intent. Shit, she wouldn’t be surprised. After the things she’d seen today, anything seemed possible.