-What do you think you're going to do?
Anne's voice did not show the fear she felt.
-That scratched you!
Did she blink in confusion. Scratches? The entire night had been a dire disaster. She had almost been raped. Bratt and their friends. Anne shuddered as remembered the screams of earlier silence. It was chilling. Were they alive? The way they might have been killed was to make her stomach churn with the drink and little food she had been able to eat.
Who really cared about scratches? He was worried about the damn scratches when she felt the bite on her arm throb.
-And?
Kory sighed, struggling to relax as looked at the pale face of the human in front of him. Just a teenager. A new and perfect guinea pig for hybridization tests. And the idea did not please him. She looked so young and innocent in her ignorance of the world where they were now.
"So what if these things scratched me?" Anne was angry and couldn't imagine why.
She should have been overjoyed to have escaped Bratt and friends with only a few bruises. After all, she could afford to breathe with relief. It was just not looking around. Not that it was too difficult. That dark-eyed stranger seemed to exercise a compulsion to be admired.
It was the strong, masculine body of any of her friends' dreams. Tall and with defined and worked muscles. The colour red wasn't even that strange, it only accentuated the well-made features worked on a breathtaking face.
Kory mumbled something.
-Because they have the small habit of feeding on energy. -He explained tired and indifferent as approached.
The whole situation had to be a trial of fate. She was a warm-blooded human who was too attractive to someone like him who had been sticking to a diet that would never be suspicious of the Confederacy. It was at least to be expected that someone would not be tempted in that way.
Ignoring all of his senses and all of Ane's complaints and further protests, her hands firmly touched her soft skin, forcing her to extend the arm before his disapproving looks. Her low moan made him wince in anger at himself.
-You are crazy!
-Can you move your legs? - the question showed evident doubt.- These scratches usually act very quickly so that the poison of these things can spread through the victim's organism, bringing paralysis to facilitate the feeding and infection of new mutations in hosts
Anne's eyes widened almost out of their sockets.
-How so infection? What the damn infection? Then, it hurts ...
Kory paid no attention to the new complaints anxious to make sure more humans would not be infected.
Such a disaster would have repercussions and bring questions that no one wants in the Confederation. There was still a great deal of controversy about legality among the most conservative about research and experience for the preservation of threatened alien species.
But there was suddenly an impossible scenario for which there were no contingency plans. The security breach could expose safe guinea pigs to the danger of worrying contamination. And more and more, Kory was very aware of the pleasant and inviting warmth that young body transmitted.
It was his hell. That girl could take years of work before he was finally accepted into that security position.
-You won't even care about it or complain that it hurts. Not when you see what really attacked us. I also guarantee that you will not enjoy watching these things in a natural environment hunting and feeding. Much less become like them.
Anne gasped, totally oblivious to all fear. Become one of those things? She winced, noticing the muscles in her legs contracting in painful spasms as her sensitivity slowly returned.
The hands that touched his legs were meticulously embarrassing with the meticulous efficiency of a doctor. She was sure that she burned with the sudden heat and the contact with him was surprising. It was not a hot body. The cold skin next to his gave the sensation of relief to the heat that spread through her body. Her fingers travelled over her calf, stopping at her knee, making her shiver involuntarily. Did he intend to massage her legs like that or make her burn in the scorching heat of the contact of pleasant fingers?
-There. You shouldn't ...- She tried to say something.
She tried to pull away and gasped when touched her leg, trying to relieve the burning sensation there.
Kory could curse an endless list of plagues in a vocabulary that would make anyone jealous. Females! That girl disrupted all of his plans on that mission.
It was the perfect and long-awaited opportunity for factions of the Confederation to obtain proof of what was happening to everyone there inside the Colony.
-Yes, it should. I need the blood to circulate through your veins again with the immunization I applied.
Ane tried to pay attention to any word he spoke that might make sense.
At that moment, the looks of both met more embarrassingly. There was a strange current emanating between them making him contract more awkwardly. Kory felt ready to complain loudly about the companies Anne had chosen for the night. And it shouldn't matter to him. What difference did it make for him what a guinea pig there did or failed to do? Did she experience the same sensation?
There were terribly dangerous and lethal species created in laboratories that should never have the opportunity to escape. In fact, they were creatures that shouldn't even exist according to nature. Hybridization processes ...
Everything was getting out of hand.
-God! - Ane gasped with fright. Was it her impression, or were it little horns that emerged from the sides of his head through his thick hair? "That's not a goddamn fantasy. And even those things don't really exist. Or they shouldn't. What's going on around here?
These were questions that Koy did not want to answer. After all, humans were unaware of other types of alien lives. Only at that moment, it made a lot of difference to him that she knew who she was. What was?
-I was born in another place far from this research colony. My name is Koriander, but some call me Kory.- He spoke attentively to the features of the face that showed freckles on his cheeks provocatively and temptingly. - All this confusion here shouldn't have happened. Guinea pigs that inhabit this planet are too valuable to take such unnecessary risks. I'm part of the military security corps here. We only had time to leave the lab room after the sensors warned that the cages' security system had failed.
Ane looked at him, paying attention to the delicate situation of being able to move again with the certainty of having two left feet. Was it your impression or did the colour of his skin very slowly lose its intense bright red and start to change?
It's all right. It was certainly not a crazy dream. At least it was the effect of the drink. They had put on something incredible to create hallucinations that way. It was that or admit that those things inside the garage existed and that the boys must be dead. Or else to be crazy and crazy that there was life outside Planet Earth as they knew it. Because he was simply not human. Not at all.
-It's all right. Can you repeat the part I can understand? Security breach? You take care of those things that shouldn't exist. That easy part I took.
Thunder and another lit up the dark sky. Soon after, lightning ripped through the darkness, full of electricity. It was totally impossible. It didn't make any sense but Anne opened her palm in amazement to see the falling snowflake followed by more.
Around them, small translucent and white ice crystals fell on the floor.
-The part of what I do or what's going on here? - Kory wanted to know and swore loudly.
Ane held the snowflake in disbelief. It was impossible, too. Perhaps she should return to the theory of the craziest dream of her life. It was never possible in the middle of summer, was it? It wasn't even cold.
-It's snow. Snow really.
Kory's big hand gripped hers tightly while he took the sword with his other, gritting his teeth with veiled fury.
-Come on, move. Now. we have to provide shelter.
-Is playing? I'm not going anywhere with you! - She assured without much certainty.
Whatever happened there was no good from Kory's expressions.
-I think it's good to move that ass. Traffickers are never the best type of people to negotiate with. What a joke! I can't believe they're here illegally collecting guinea pigs from the colonies. of course, we suspected, but it is absurd!
Ane blinked without action. She could have sworn that Kory was glowing redder than before. Was it anger that changed his skin tone?
-What's going on, for God's sake?
-You can believe that you will not want to be one of the creatures that this mob usually abducts to negotiate beyond the neutral zone quadrant.
There was no answer. Blinding lights emerged illuminating the darkness as if the day was rising on the horizon. The metallic sound of breaths. The screams started again, renewed and filled with horror. Ane from a distance could see teenagers like her running, trying to protect themselves.
And then everything she knew about a normal world has lost all sense
The owners of Colonia Terra were inspecting the cage where the security breach warned of the danger of contamination. In such cases, the protocol followed was generally hygiene. It meant cleaning up all tracks.
The cage known as the United States was safe from its damaged energy barriers. A failure that no one was interested in as far as the Confederacy was concerned.