The Hostile Wife

2-2

Was she dead? Was her soul flying toward the sky, reaching for heaven? She tried to move her head, to break through the push of wind and look around, but felt a tight grip at her waist.

“Don't move, you don't want to risk to splatter yourself on the ground.”

Abruptly, Alice turned her head up to the voice, but a sharp pain reverberated through her spine, leaving her breathless. Then she remembered what she had seen and understood. With that realization, nausea got the better of her and she threw up for long, agonizing minutes, while she was still suspended on the emptiness. The heaves stopped when, exhausted, she passed out for the second time.

She woke up again slowly, having troubles shaking the numbness off her tired and frozen limbs. Plus, she could perceive viscous, hot drops falling down her mouth through her teeth, on her tongue: a sweet taste, that reminded her of cherry brandy, the only liquor she ever liked. She savored them on her palate and tried to swallow, but a stab of pain in her neck paralyzed her, making her choke. She coughed several times, bringing a hand to her chest.

That horror-filled night was not over yet and her fear rushed back, overcoming the last of tiredness she felt. Eyes wide and horrified, she instinctively pulled back as good as she could. She was lying down on the ground while Bill was standing on his feet above her. Clearly alive and without a single scratch.

“Don't worry, I don't bite. Not now and surely not you,” he said with a harsh and rough tone, as if she were some dirty hooker. “Stand up, we don't have time to waste. The sun is rising.”

“Why? What happens at sunrise? You'll burst into flames?” she answered with a vehemence she immediately regretted. Damn her smart mouth.

He shrugged. “I meant that for you. It's already daytime, you must be tired after all that dancing... I can still hold up a little longer.”

With a rough yank, he lifted and carried her towards a gray metal door several feet ahead. Alice then realized they were on another rooftop and soon recognized the city landscape stretching before her eyes: they were in New York. They flew all the way there. She and... that thing.

Since she was a smart person, she had already done her math, reaching the most obvious result, but she wasn't willing to acknowledge it, because it would have meant finding herself in graver danger. She didn’t trust Bill anymore, but had to play by his rules. That didn’t mean she hadn’t a multitude of questions right on the tip of her tongue, even if she was still trying to digest the vastness and intensity of that bewildering discovery. Sure, she wasn’t going to ask anything to the man who dragged her in that hell of a situation, and now was acting as if what had happened was all her fault.

As they reached the door, Bill looked toward a video camera hidden in a corner and waited. She took advantage of that to recover her breath, straightening her back and putting some distance between them. She also tried to set herself free of the strong grip of his hand, but it was useless, and it only gained her a hostile look loaded with unexpressed threatens. They walked through the door while Alice was fighting like a fury to make him loosen his hold.

“Let me go! Do you think I'm so stupid that I'll jump off the cornice to escape?”

“I don't know that yet, but it's obvious you still have a lot to learn about life. Now you'll do it, willing or not,” he said, pushing her in front of him as if she weighed nothing: another sign that earlier he was holding back on his super power.

She was wondering if he had some of them, or the things she read and heard about... those like him, were all lies, maybe well-orchestrated by his... species. The most unlikely questions were crowding her mind, but she was too exhausted to start arguing with Mister Popsicle over there, while trudging and limping along a narrow, dark hallway. She tried to lean on the wall and more than once he stumbled on her, almost like on purpose. When she nearly fell on her knees, he passed her by, leaving her behind. Alice had to run after him blindly, ending up crushing against him: it was like hitting a reinforced concrete wall.

“Ouch! Would you mind helping me? I don't know if you’ve realized it but I'm not a... one like you. I don't have any super vision!”

“Me neither,” Bill answered, stopping in front of what turned out to be an elevator. The white neon light blinded her, but she was not fast enough to cover her eyes, because he pulled her inside and pressed a button to go down.

“No? So, you can't you see that...”

“That you have a black, strapless, lace bra? No, I can't. But,” he added snickering, before the shutters opened again, “I definitely know it's broken.”

And then he went out, walking fast, too fast for a human, and stopped when he reached a well-lit room. Immediately other figures surrounded him, charging him with questions.

Alice was too furious to stop and think: she followed him at breakneck speed and threw herself on him. Bill didn’t move a single step.

“You ugly, perv bastard! Who do you think you are? If I weren't a lady, I'd tell you to get that huge stick you got up your ass and use it to knock yourself off, then we'll see if you still want to x-ray my private parts!”

She had yelled and expected a violent reaction. This way, at least, she would blow some steam off. But nothing happened, other than Bill stared at her like she was an annoying bug, then ignored her to resume his conversation, turning his back to her.

Red faced and breathless, Alice realized she held the spotlight, so she stood still and took a better gaze at the newcomers, reciprocating their surprised stares.

They were four magnificent male specimens, all dominant, as Gina would have said, and so enormous they looked... Well, they were indeed not human, but her short-sighted eyes had never observed such well distributed abundance of darting muscles, six-packs, and shoulders worthy of colossus. And she only looked from the waist up!

She had just focused her attention on below their belts when Bill, that annoying hypocrite, fake coughed and threw her in the middle of the group, avoiding every other physical contact. Six pairs of magnificent, shimmering eyes were staring right at her. Only one pair kept alternately looking at Bill like he was insane, and at her, like he had never seen a female in all his entire life.

She wanted to talk Bill’s ears off with insults, but the impression of being trapped was stronger and he placed one of his giant hands over her mouth, shutting her up.

“The lady here was with me during the ambush. Her name is Alice Cooper.”

“Like the rock-star?” asked one of the men, giving her an open and friendly smile. “Cool!”

Tom frowned, as if he was digging through his memory. “I don't even know who that is, let's try not to socialize, if you don't mind. Doc, clean her up, get a sample of her blood and analyze it. Gus, recover the surveillance footage from the hotel, try to find out what she has seen: scan her memories one by one, every detail might be important. I suggest you to start from the rear-end collision. Then reset her. Lupus, Corvus, the situation has gotten worse: it was humans who ambushed us. Mercenaries. I want you to find out who hired them. Let's update in two hours.”

And after that rapid sequence of orders, he finally let her go, walking away with quick steps toward a side corridor that led to another elevator.

So, that's how things were? No “it was nice, let's keep in contact”? No apologies or thanks for taking his fake death to heart? And who the hell allowed him to analyze her like a lab rat?

A terrifying suspicion crept into her conscience. She looked at that guy who made the funny comment on her name, the only one wearing a flashy colorful Hawaiian shirt, a six and a half feet tall monolith Bill had called Gus.

“What does it mean that you have to reset me?”

He gave her a sympathetic smile. “I know you're really scared, but you shouldn't be. I need to talk to you, and when we're done, I'll delete all those unsettling memories. That's what reset means. You won't remember anything of tonight, for your own sake.”

Alice was stunned. They were going to erase all the horror she experienced and she couldn’t hope for anything better, but what would have happened to all the passionate memories of Bill she had? Sure, he revealed himself to be a despicable traitor, but it was still her head they were talking about! Shouldn’t it be up to her to decide what to do?

A hand delicately landed on her naked shoulder. “Trust us, honey, and be sure that if I could, I would reset myself too!”

She raised her head to look at who was talking, she wouldn’t know if it was Lupus or Corvus. Nevertheless, judging from the sad face the gentle giant was sporting, she knew he was telling the truth. She nodded, more because of her weariness than because she feared to fight and stared down at her own dirty, bare feet. She didn’t trust her own voice and, even if she was starting to feel better, she would rather gather all leftover energies and stay focused. She only allowed herself a moment to say goodbye to Bill, who was standing near the elevator's doors, busy discussing with the perplexed guy who was wearing dark green doctor's scrubs. She hoped he would turn, go back to her and, maybe, apologized.

Romantic up until the end, right Alice? She thought with a hint of bitterness.

Obviously, he didn’t turn, dismissed his friend and walked into the elevator but, just before the doors closed, he stuck his head out to say in a clear loud voice filled with revulsion: “By the way, stay away from her: she's still a virgin,” and vanished.

Lupus, or Corvus, whatever, pulled his hand back. Everyone fell silent and took one step away, as she was affected by Bubonic Plague.

She had never felt that embarrassed and humiliated in her whole life! The adrenaline rushing through her body had a last peak.

“You son of a b***h!” she yelled. “It's not enough that I almost died because of you tonight, is it? Don’t you care about me at all? Well, listen, I know you can hear me, you bastard: I might be human, but I'm not going to allow any man to treat me this way. Not even if he's a damn f*****g vampire!”

With clamped fists and so much rage that she wanted to kick someone, Alice walked straight to the elevator, but the doctor blocked her.

“Easy, girl,” he told her, obstructing her path. “Tom didn't mean to offend you; he was rather protecting us. Sure, I can't excuse him for his rudeness, but if you let me explain...”

“Explain? Explain what? Why did he use me like a towel, to clean his own blood off?”

She opened her arms to display her body in all its glory: she was soaking wet, bathed in so much blood it was dripping from her clothes on the immaculate, elegant ceramic flooring.

Then she blanched realizing with horror how far Bill had lied to her. Her arms tiredly fell down her hips.

“Wait... Who the hell is Tom?”

After a moment of uncomfortable silence, which only managed to make her feel even more stupid, she let that guy, Doc, convince her to follow him in one of the rooms nearby. Unlike the two vampires with animal names, who left snickering to do what they had been instructed to, Gus refused to leave her side.