“Jess.” His eyes widened, completely stunned to see me. That only lasted a second before he checked his emotions.
“Clyde.”
I stared at my old mentor over the top of the gun and shook my head slowly, never taking my eyes off him. He was ex-military, former chief of police, and now mayor of our great city. He sat dressed in a navy suit and tie, looking handsome and fit for his fifty years, a paragon in this city. A war hero, his eyes were framed by laugh lines. The dimple in his chin had earned him the title of the city’s most eligible bachelor.
“I thought you were gone, off fucking an alien.”
He had the nerve to pull a cigarette from his pocket and light it as I watched, the slow-moving smoke dancing in the stillness of the air between us.
“The alien didn’t do it for you? Did you come here for a fuck, sweetheart? Another dose of C?”
“No, thank you.”
He shrugged and took a deep draw on the cigarette, exhaling smoke rings as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “Thought I’d offer. I hear you loved C the first time, thought you might like another go.”
I shuddered. I’d told no one about that hellish night, the night I’d spent drugged out of my mind. I had locked myself in my bathroom curled in a ball on the floor. I’d masturbated until my pussy bled, thrown up over and over for hours, each orgasm only offering me momentary relief. The torture had lasted most of the night and now I knew exactly who to blame. My finger twitched on the trigger and he must have seen it, for he held his hands up in a sign of surrender.
“Easy.”
“I trusted you.” The thought of killing him made me want to vomit all over my boots, but I’d do it. He didn’t deserve to live, but I needed a confession. Him being dead wasn’t enough. My camera rested on the ledge of the fireplace, recording everything in the room, every fucking word. “Why did you do it?”
“Do what?” He stared me in the eye, calm and unhurried as he moved to sit in his favorite recliner, the one that used to have a sidearm tucked between the right arm cushion and the seat. The firearm was now safely stowed in my pocket, but he didn’t know that.
“You know, set me up. Kill a few dozen innocent women. Go into business with the cartel. Sell out your city.”
His hand moved to the space between the cushions and I smiled, watching his eyes change from blank to furious as he realized his weapon was gone. He sighed and lifted his hand to cross his arms across his chest.
“Do what you have to do, Jess, but you won’t get a confession from me. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
I ached to shoot him at point-blank range, blow a hole in his chest the size of Texas, but something stopped me.
God, sometimes it sucked to have a conscience, not that this man would understand what that meant. I’d killed during my tour in the Middle East, but I’d been forced to. Kill or be killed. That was different. This? This was cold-blooded murder.
But seriously, he deserved to die.
I stared for a full half-minute, weighing my options. Kill him and run? Tie him up and call the cops?
They’d never believe me. Never. I was the sellout, the corrupt ex-military officer who’d been found with an extra million in the bank, a stash of C-bomb in my home, and the drug in my bloodstream. In this city, he was a god. I was a criminal and a liar. I was scum.
He smirked at me and the sight made me angry enough to stand and take a step forward. I was going to have to lie to him and take a chance I could push his buttons and piss him off. Force a confession. I’d left my stakeout as soon as I took his picture talking to the agents, but he didn’t know what I’d seen, and what I hadn’t. “I don’t need a confession, Clyde. I’ve got you on camera at the blowjob café with a hooker between your legs and bag of drug money on the table.”
“You bitch,” he sneered at me, all attempts at maintaining the appearance of humanity gone. “I’m going to get you so high you won’t know your own name, and then I’m going to dump you in the middle of the men. They’ll tear at you like dogs.”
The neurostims in my temples buzzed and I shook my head to clear it. It happened again, louder this time, a strange noise I’d never heard before, like machines talking to each other.
I took a step back and Clyde rose from his chair, crouching to make his move while I was distracted.
Shit. Something was wrong. I lifted a hand to my temple and moaned. I had to get out of here. Now.
Too late. Pain shot through my temples and I dropped to my knees. The shotgun clattered to the floor as I bent over and whimpered, fighting to remain conscious.
Clyde grabbed the weapon and took one step toward me before the front door exploded inward on its hinges. Three gigantic beings stepped into Clyde’s living room. They were not human. Their entire bodies were metallic, but not hard and reflective, like my grandfather’s wrenches; they were soft, like metal that moved, flowing over their bodies like skin, like living tissue. Their eyes were silver but in the center, where the pupils should be, ran black dots and lines like patterns on a computer part. They had eyelids, but they did not blink as they took in the room and the man who charged them with the shotgun.