Mama and the Alien Warrior Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Epilogue

  Authors’ Note

  Other Titles

  Mama and the Alien Warrior

  TREASURED BY THE ALIEN

  Honey Phillips

  Bex McLynn

  Copyright © 2019 by Honey Phillips and Bex McLynn

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author.

  Disclaimer

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Design by Cameron Kamenicky and Naomi Lucas

  Edited by Lindsay York at LY Publishing Services

  Chapter One

  “Fireworks, Mama!”

  The excited little voice finally penetrated Abby’s sleep-fogged brain. She cracked open an eye to see her daughter standing by the bed in her pink fuzzy jammies, her long blonde hair tangled around her face.

  “What is it, baby?”

  “There’s fireworks! I sawed a big flash of light outside my window.”

  Abby opened her other eye and squinted at her clock. Three o’clock in the morning? Running a maternity home meant that it wasn’t the first time she’d been awakened at this hour, but it was usually due to one of her girls going into labor.

  She peered out the window but could see only darkness. “I think you must have dreamed it, Lucie.”

  “I didn’t, Mama. Honest.”

  “Okay, sweetie,” she said yawning, then lifted the covers. “Why don’t you crawl in here with me then and we’ll wait to see if the fireworks come back?”

  Lucie didn’t hesitate. She dove under the covers, snuggling against Abby when she drew her close. Abby loved having the warm little body tucked against hers. She buried her nose in her daughter's silky hair, catching the scent of baby shampoo and bubblegum. Lucie had been sleeping in her big girl bed for over a year now, but Abby had to admit that her own bed felt less lonely with her daughter at her side. Especially since she hadn’t shared it with anyone in the past, what was it—more than three years now? Three and a half years since she’d adopted her niece, and three years since John had walked out on her, unable to handle a child interrupting his lifestyle.

  Abby didn’t regret her decision in the slightest, especially now with her daughter safe in her arms, not left alone by a drug-addled mother.

  She dropped a kiss on Lucie’s head. “Go back to sleep, baby.”

  Abby’s own eyes were just closing when a blinding flash lit up the room.

  “See, Mama, I tolds you!”

  That flash had not resembled fireworks in the least. What’s more, it had seemed to come from inside the house. Was one of the girls playing some kind of game?

  “Stay here, Lucie,” she ordered as she climbed out of bed.

  The air was cool enough that she pulled an old sweater over her sleep pants and tank as she headed for the door. Her bedroom and Lucie’s room were at the back of the rambling old house, behind the shared kitchen, dining, and living areas. The girls’ bedrooms were all on the second floor and she headed for the grand staircase that led upstairs. When she reached the big archway leading from the dining room to the entrance hall, shock held her motionless as she tried to understand what she was seeing.

  Two strange men dressed in severe black suits stood at the bottom of the stairs, two more at the top. Amber, her newest resident, floated between them, her eyes closed and her long dark hair dangling as her body drifted down the stairs. As soon as she reached the bottom, one of the men pressed an instrument to her wrist and stepped back. The faintest burning smell reached Abby just as another flash of light filled her vision. As soon as she recovered from the searing impact to her retinas, she realized Amber was gone. That realization finally broke through her paralyzed shock and she stepped into the hallway.

  “Who are you? What the hell are you doing?”

  At her words, the men turned towards her and she was suddenly completely certain that they were not men. Their skin was white, not merely pale like human skin, but rather the smooth, flawless white of plastic. Matte black hair could perhaps have passed, but their eyes glowed with an unnatural red light and their features were just a little too long and angular to read as normal. This close, she could see that what she had taken for a suit was actually a uniform of some kind.

  “Who are you?” she repeated, her voice shaking.

  One of the men said something in a language she was quite sure didn’t exist anywhere on Earth, and the other stepped towards her. She tried to back away, but he grabbed her with an abnormally fast movement, his grip cold and unbreakable. With his other hand, he lifted a syringe and jabbed it into her arm. The burning pain scorched through her, followed by an overwhelming dizziness as her vision started to fade. Just as she began to pass out, she heard Lucie’s voice.

  “Mama!”

  Desperate to protect her daughter, she tried to struggle but her limbs wouldn’t respond.

  “Don’t… don’t hurt…”

  The room spun and the world went black.

  “Mama. Mama, please wake up.” Lucie’s voice came from a long way away as she drifted in a cold, dark world.

  “Mama, I’s scared.”

  Lucie’s fearful voice finally penetrated, and she forced her way back to consciousness. Her eyes watered when she tried to open them, halfway blinded by a bright, white light. She squinted against the glare, searching for her daughter’s face. Lucie hovered over her and burst into tears when Abby opened her eyes.

  “Ssh, baby. It’s going to be all right.” She pulled her daughter against her, Lucie’s small body reassuringly warm and solid in her arms. Humming to her daughter despite the throbbing ache in her head, she tried to rock Lucie but her body felt heavy and lethargic. As the fog from whatever she’d been given began to clear, she noticed a burning sensation on her right wrist. Forcing her eyes to focus, she saw a long string of symbols etched onto her arm.

  “Me too, Mama.” Lucie’s lip trembled as she held out her wrist next to Abby’s. “It hurts.”

  The sight of the obscene mark on her daughter’s delicate skin sent a flood of icy rage sweeping through her, clearing the last remnants of confusion from her head. Those bastards in the black suits were going to pay for this. Still holding Lucie close, she sat up and t
ook in her surroundings.

  They were in a sterile white room with glass walls on two sides and dull white metal walls on the other two. Four beds lined each side of the room and her girls, all of them still unconscious, occupied five of them. One wall overlooked a wide corridor, and the other side was lined with two sets of cabinets separated by a counter arrayed with an alarming variety of strange-looking instruments. Through the other glass wall, she could see a second white room, this one filled with clear plastic cribs. At least half of the cribs were occupied, and she thought she could identify the three babies belonging to her girls. There were two more human babies and one tiny green one who was obviously not human. The setup reminded her of a hospital—or a lab—and the strong antiseptic smell that permeated the air only reinforced that impression.

  “Where are we, Mama?”

  “I don’t know.” Her mind was still wrestling with the idea that the men who had come to the house had not been men after all. And if they weren’t men, where was she now? “Did you see anybody before I woke up?”

  “Just those mean men.”

  “Mean men?”

  “The ones in black.” Her lip trembled again. “I don’t like them.”

  “I don’t either, baby. Let’s check on the girls, okay?”

  “Okay.” A tiny smile peeped out for the first time. “Elaina makes a lot of noise when she sleeps.”

  “But we don’t have to tell her that,” Abby said gently.

  Keeping Lucie’s hand firmly tucked in hers, she checked on the girls. All of them were still sleeping, although Cassie and TeShawna were starting to stir. Molly and Amber worried her the most. The other girls had recently had their babies, but these two were still pregnant. What effect would the sleeping potion in that syringe have on their unborn babies?

  Returning to her cot, she lifted her daughter onto her lap. “Do you remember what happened, Lucie?”

  Lucie hung her head. “I didn’t want to wait so’s I followed you. The mean man grabbed you and you fell down. Then he grabbed me.” She looked up, tears welling in her big brown eyes. “He had a needle. I don’t like needles. And I didn’t even get a sticker.”

  “I don’t think they’re anywhere near as nice as Dr. Becky.” Lucie’s pediatrician always rewarded Lucie after she had her shots.

  “They look funny. Who are they, Mama?”

  “I don’t know, baby,” she said again, wishing she had some answers.

  “What do they want?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  Chapter Two

  A little while later, the girls began to wake up. Cassie took the news that they appeared to have been taken by aliens with grim acceptance. She had already been through so much in her short life that she had cultivated a cynical shell that was rarely breached, although Abby could see her hands shaking. The other girls dissolved into tears as Abby did her best to comfort them. Molly, her fragile little sixteen-year-old, cried silently, big tears rolling down her cheeks.

  “Aliens, Miss Abby?” TeShawna finally asked, wiping angrily at her cheeks. “Really?” A street smart girl with a defiant attitude, she was one of the first to recover.

  “I know it sounds crazy, but they didn’t look human.” Abby gestured at the room. “And does this look like anywhere you’ve ever been?”

  “Lotta places I ain’t been,” she muttered, then sighed. “But yeah, ain’t never seen nothing like this before.”

  “What about our babies?” Elaina went to the glass wall that looked into the next room. The babies were also beginning to stir, and Cassie and TeShawna joined her at the wall.

  “Mikie’s gonna be gettin’ hungry soon.” Elaina crossed her arms over her breasts.

  As if in response to her words, Mikie woke up. They couldn’t hear him, but they could all see him as his mouth opened and his face started to turn red. All of the babies were completely naked, lying on plain white pads, with a glass dome covering each crib. The domes were apparently not soundproof because the other babies began to respond to Mikie’s crying, and soon all of them were crying except the little green baby. Elaina started to sob, and even Cassie sniffled as they helplessly watched their crying children.

  Narrow tubes suddenly emerged from the ceiling, one above each crib, and snaked down through an opening that appeared in the top of each dome. Each tube had a tip that resembled a nipple, and the nipple was aimed at each wailing mouth. The attempt was not successful. Three of the babies clamped down on the nipple eagerly, then immediately spat it back out again. The other two wouldn’t even attempt it, while the little green baby just lay there silently.

  A few agonizing minutes passed. All of the girls were crying again now and Abby fought back her own tears. Lucie clung to her leg, her lip starting to tremble. Dammit! There had to be some way to get the girls and their babies back together. She looked around desperately, wondering if she could break through the wall, but the cots were fastened to the floor.

  While she tried to think of a solution, several of the aliens appeared in the corridor. Looking at them now under the bright lights, she wondered how she could ever have mistaken them for human. Everything about them was just slightly wrong enough to make the hairs on the back of her neck rise. And yet the differences could have been attractive if it hadn’t been for the utter disdain with which their strange red eyes surveyed the women.

  Lucie tightened her grip on Abby’s leg but her little chin lifted. The other girls gathered behind Abby, the sight of the aliens stunning them into silence. Cassie straightened, dashing her tears away, but Molly whimpered under her breath.

  “Damn, you wasn’t lying. They’re aliens all right,” TeShawna muttered. She, too, straightened, her body poised for battle. “What do they want?”

  “I don’t know.” Abby took a quick look at the terrified girls, all of them her responsibility. Her heart pounded but she assumed the firm, confident expression that had carried her through so many negotiations back in her corporate days. “But I’m going to try and find out.” She gently unfolded Lucie’s fingers. “You stay here with Cassie, okay?”

  “Don’t leave me!”

  “I’m not going to leave you. I’ll be right there where you can see me.” She hoped.

  “Come on, little bit. You stay here and help me be brave,” Cassie said. Lucie hesitated, then nodded and dove against Cassie. The older girl hugged her and nodded to Abby. “Go see what those bast—what those men want.”

  Praying that her face appeared calm, Abby clenched her fists and approached the corridor wall. Two aliens moved around examining data readings while another alien, obviously the leader, questioned one of his subordinates. From the questioned man’s hunched posture, it didn’t appear to be a positive conversation. Nothing that they said was audible to her, but she hoped they had listening devices.

  “Excuse me,” she said firmly. The leader glanced at her with those disdainful red eyes and just as quickly dismissed her. The subordinate also glanced in her direction, then started talking very rapidly.

  “Look, I don’t know what you want with us, but those babies need their mothers. Now.”

  The subordinate kept talking, going as far as to touch the leader’s sleeve before hastily withdrawing his fingers. She had a moment to notice that they had six digits before a section of the wall in front of her opened.

  Looming over her, the leader addressed her impatiently. His tone sounded demanding, but she didn’t understand the rapid clicks that made up his language.

  She kept her gaze locked on him. “I don’t understand you.”

  The leader and his assistant conferred, then the subordinate beckoned her forward. With a hesitant glance at Lucie, still wrapped in Cassie’s arms, she stepped out into the corridor.

  The man pointed to his mouth and then his ear, repeating the gestures after pointing at her.

  “I don’t understand. What do you want?”

  He shook his head and made the movements again.

  “You… want to give me s
omething to make me understand?”

  He nodded.

  “Very well.” Her courage almost failed when he pulled out another syringe, but she looked at Lucie and was able to stand her ground.

  Someone had to be able to communicate with these monsters.

  The assistant approached, keeping his movement slow and deliberate, and swiped behind her ear with a cool fluid. She could only hope that sanitizing the area was a positive sign. His hand clamped down on her shoulder and before she could react, he inserted the needle. A bolt of fiery agony erupted in her head. Her mouth opened but no sound emerged, her system too shocked to scream. If it hadn’t been for the firm grip on her shoulder, she would have collapsed. Fortunately, the pain passed quickly, leaving her weak and shaking but she forced herself to straighten. As soon as he felt her move, the alien removed his hand.

  “Do you understand me now?” the leader demanded.

  “Yes. What are—?”

  “It is not your place to ask questions. The product is not accepting nourishment. What needs to be done?”

  “The product?” Her mouth dropped open. “Do you mean the babies?”

  He waved an eerie six-fingered hand. “The name does not matter. Why are they not accepting nourishment?”

  “I don’t know about the others, but the three you took from my house are still being fed by their mothers.”

  “The breeders must feed them?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Their mothers must feed them.”

  After another conference with his subordinate, too fast and quiet for her to follow, he nodded. “Very well. They may have access for the feeding period.” He turned to one of the men still working at the counter. “Transfer the incubators.”

  A gap opened between the two rooms and three of the cribs floated through. The girls immediately went to their children, although Cassie paused long enough to pass Lucie over to Amber. The gap began to close, leaving two squalling infants and the silent alien child.