Choosing Riley

Chapter 5-1

Chapter Five

“What about this wire? Do you think it connects to the explosive pack or to the detonation switch?” Vox was asking Tor.

All five men were gathered around a partially dismantled collar. Or should she say, four of the men were gathered around one of the partially dismantled collars on Fred. Poor Fred was a shivering nervous wreck as Vox, Tor, and Lodar examined the collar while Bob leaned over their shoulders, watching from a distance. They had been at it ever since they had returned from the dining area.

“I’m not sure yet,” Tor murmured under his breath. “There are three sets of wires. If I cut the wrong one, it could explode. I don’t know enough about the Antrox to know how they do their wiring configurations.”

“Please,” Fred’s right head said in a trembling voice. His left head was sitting perfectly still with its eyes tightly closed. “Please, c-ca-can’t you do this to someone else?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Riley muttered, getting up from the bed where she had been trying to read. “How difficult can this be?”

She tossed her iPad down to the side. It was impossible to concentrate on what she was reading anyway with everyone in the room. Besides, she was tired of listening to Fred’s soft whimpers.

She walked over to where the group of men was kneeling around the small, trembling body of the Tiliqua and picked up the pair of wire snips. She studied the wires for a moment before reaching over Tor’s shoulder and snipping the reddish color wire. The moment she did, the glowing light showing it was active went out.

“Problem solved,” she said, dropping the pliers into Tor’s hand and returning to the bed.

Both sets of Fred’s eyes rolled back in his head as he fainted. Lodar and Tor grabbed him and lowered him down to the hard floor before turning to stare at her in disbelief. Riley picked up her manicure kit, pulled out her nail file, and began shaping the chipped edges; working in the mine had made a mess of them. She finally looked up when the silence stretched into several long minutes.

Four pairs of eyes, including one blazing set, were staring at her in disbelief. “What?” she asked, looking at them in exasperation. “You guys were taking too long to make up your minds. It’s not like it was that difficult of a choice, and I was tired of listening to Fred whining.”

“How did you know which wire to clip?” Tor finally asked curiously.

Riley shrugged, looking at the nail she had been working on. “Everyone knows it’s the red wire that you cut,” she replied, working on the next nail.

“But how did you know?” Vox asked suspiciously.

He wanted to know if perhaps he had been mistaken this whole time about the female he knew to be his mate. Things were suddenly not as clear as he first thought. What better way to knock him and his men off guard than to find an unfamiliar female specimen they had no experience with? The fact that she was his mate turned out to be a bonus. He suddenly had questions he wanted answers to! Like why was she allowed to claim five mates when all other females only had one? Why did she have tools on her? How did she know which wire to cut? Was there more to her than he’d originally thought?

Vox stood up and stalked toward her menacingly. It would not make a difference that she was his mate. He would do what he had to do to protect his people, even if it meant… Even if it meant killing the one woman he knew was meant for him.

“How did you know which wire to cut?” he growled out in a low, menacing voice.

Riley stopped filing her nails and looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “I know you are not talking to me in that tone of voice,” she said, staring at him through narrowed eyes.

He stopped in front of the bed and knelt down in front of her. Reaching out, he gripped her wrists in a firm but unbreakable hold. He stared deeply into her eyes, determined to know the truth, even as his mind, body, and cat rebelled against the idea that she could betray them.

“How did you know?” he asked again softly.

Riley frowned back at him in confusion. Why was he suddenly so intense? Everybody knew you were supposed to cut the red wire. She frowned again, biting her lower lip.

Or was it the black one? she suddenly thought, trying to remember which wire the guys in The Abyss and Speed always said they were supposed to cut.

“Damn it, now I can’t remember!” she said crossly. “I’m trying to remember if the guys in the movies said you always cut the red one or the black one.” She looked at Vox with confused eyes. “I’ll have to watch The Abyss again.”

“Who is this Abyss?” he asked cautiously as Lodar and Tor came up behind him.

Riley looked at the other two men, then over to Bob before looking down where poor Fred was still out cold. Her eyes moved back until she was looking worriedly into Vox’s dark tawny ones.

“He’s going to be all right, isn’t he?” she asked hesitantly, glancing back at Fred before looking again at Vox. “I mean, I cut the right one, didn’t I? He isn’t hurt, is he?”

“Riley,” Vox said, squeezing her wrists gently to get her attention as her eyes drifted to the Tiliqua again. “How did you know which wire to cut?”

“From all the movies I’ve watched,” she said, looking at the other men. “I mean, I’m pretty sure it was the red wire they always cut. You see, in the movie The Abyss, the hero has to go to the bottom of the ocean because the bad guy was being a butt head about the aliens that came to visit them. He has to stop this bomb from blowing up the aliens that live there only he can’t really see what color the wire is, and the good guys back on the underwater station are telling him to cut the red wire. Only I can’t remember now if they said the red wire. It could have been the black one. Anyway, he can’t really tell what color the wire is because he is using this green glow stick thingy like we used to play with on Halloween. That’s when we all dress up in costumes and pretend to be monsters and stuff so we can go get some free candy, only I always dressed up as a ghost because Pearl couldn’t afford costumes for me and Tina so she used some old sheets,” she explained. “Does that make sense?”

“No,” all four men said before Vox growled at the others to be quiet.

“No,” Vox said, looking into Riley’s confused eyes.

Riley sighed in frustration before remembering she had been watching Galaxy Quest on her iPad earlier. She tugged on her wrist so she could grab it and show them what she was talking about. Vox held her firmly for a second before reluctantly releasing one wrist. He kept his eyes glued to her while she reached for the device she had been so focused on over the past couple of days.

If she tried anything, he would make her death as quick and painless as he could. Pain sliced through him at the thought of hurting the delicate beauty in front of him. His cat hissed in revolt, clawing at his insides in rebellion.

He watched as she pressed a button on the device, and it lit up. “This is a movie,” she was saying as she flicked her finger along the smooth surface. “I love science fiction/fantasy-type movies. Sometimes I’ll watch a good horror one, but I always get nightmares from them so I have to be careful. I had nightmares for three days after watching Stephen King’s The Mist!” she explained after she pressed another button, and a strange creature appeared on the screen.

Vox watched it for a minute before understanding dawned. She was referring to the entertainment holovids. The human on the small screen was working on an obviously fake control panel before he and a human dressed in some type of costume disappeared behind the console. He listened as Riley giggled. Her eyes were glued to the screen, mesmerized.

“God’s blood,” Tor muttered over Vox’s shoulder before a chuckle escaped him. “She used something like this as a reference for knowing which wire to cut?” he said with a shake of his head. “It’s a miracle Fred’s head wasn’t blown off!”

“That’s okay,” Riley responded absently, still watching the movie. “He has a spare one.”