Chapter 5: You'd gift wrap me

Aurora sat back down.

The president nodded his approval. "I do not want to force you to do this."

But you will, she thought. If I'd stand still long enough, you'd gift wrap me.

Outside the protesters still chanted, their voices a dull buzzing. Inside the Oval Office, Aurora could hear a pin drop.

For a long time, they stared at each other, Aurora willing him to say she was too valuable to be given away like a sack of groceries. Her fingers trembled and caused a soft rustling as her dress shifted around her hands. Please let him say he'll go to war before he'd hand me over to the aliens. It was irrational to expect him to put her welfare above everyone else's, but, still, she hoped.

"But you will," she said at last.

"Yes." His lips firmed, but lines appeared on his forehead, the grooves deepening in his cheeks. "Don't force me to detain you until I have to hand you over."

Now she saw the soldier behind the politician who did what he had to do to finish a mission. "Find my sister or - "

Something crawled down her spine - an awful feeling of danger so intense she couldn't breathe. The president turned with a jerky movement, his own breathing harsh and strained.

The air changed, and a shimmering rectangle appeared - as if something from another dimension tried to walk through the very fabric of space. Pressure built in Aurora's chest, and the oxygen in the room expanded until it felt as if the air molecules she inhaled were the size of golf balls. Time's up, she thought.

The president swore under his breath. "I'd hoped we'd have more time to talk." The light brightened until she had to look away. "We seeded your luggage with recording devices and explosives," the president said hurriedly, barely above a whisper. "Recording devices in your hair products. Explosives in the makeup."

She barely heard him. A large creature stepped out of the rectangle, something with an aura of menace - something that came for her.

It stepped into the Oval Office, each step an odd doof-hiss cadence as his booted feet struck the carpet then lifted with a soft hiss. One look at that alien face, and it took all her will power not to recoil, to stand with her chin raised, her trembling hands hidden in the folds of her dress. He wore a black uniform molded to an extremely tall and muscular frame. On the right side of his neck was a colorful yellow, orange, and brown tattoo. It pulsed, moved, and changed colors underneath his skin. His skin didn't resemble that of any living thing on Earth.

His eyes were deep set, exotically shaped sloe eyes, with oval-shaped pupils. The irises were thin vertical slits embedded in the pupils. As she looked into those alien eyes, a membrane blinked sideways over them. Aurora suppressed a shudder and forced herself to keep looking at him. His lashes were coarse brown with a hint of orange on the tips. Instead of making him look colorful, it added to the aura of danger surrounding him. He rarely blinked. The savage eyes, staring straight at her from that face with its sharply delineated bone structure, looked angry. Or maybe he really wanted to pound her into a messy pulp.

His thin reptilian lips made his smile look cruel. His massive hands had only three fingers and a thumb. The black hair, that appeared brittle and dry, pulled into a ponytail on top of his head, didn't soften his appearance.

He stayed honed in on her, their gazes locked. Those long black reptilian-like irises held her mesmerized. Every hair on her body stood upright. Her muscles knotted as if she'd run for miles without resting. She wanted to run, beg for mercy, but he pinned her in place, like a deer shot with an arrow, with only his gaze. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't look away. Her swallow was loud in the charged silence. She had to seduce this? Dead silence fell over the Oval Office until all she heard was the buzzing in her ears.

He marched up to her, his footsteps hissing with every step he took, as if his boots clamped onto the carpeted floor and released with each step. Step hiss, step hiss, a refrain singing her doom.

Aurora forced her shoulders back, her chin up a little more. She wouldn't give the president or the alien the satisfaction of seeing her run.

"Are you the individual I spoke with earlier?" the president asked.

The alien stood head and shoulders above the president, an immense creature dominating the space in the Oval Office - massive in the sense of presence as well as size. He exuded a wild fragrance that made her think of unknown spices on a planet never seen by man. He never took his eyes off Aurora. "I am the person who spoke with you."

His voice reminded her of bass drums, of something metallic scraping over gravel, with a rhythmic cadence that gave it a pleasing almost hypnotic quality.

She wanted to be back home, safe in her bedroom. That alien gaze pinning her like a bug in a specimen tray brought home the situation - what her priorities were. Earth belonged to humans and, no matter what she had to do, she'd do it to rid their world of these things.

He reached out, clamped his three fingered hands on her upper arms, and drew her closer. She inhaled wild spices, exotic seas, and leather - a curiously pleasant smell, considering that she'd expected him to smell like a reptile cage, or metal, or machine oil...or something.

He held her with her feet dangling off the floor, brought her closer to that cruel face than she ever wanted to be. Her skin broke out in a cold sweat, her eyelashes fluttered with a will of their own, and her legs trembled. If he put her down now, she doubted she'd be able to stand. He had to be enormously strong to hold her like this, dangling off the floor, his arms not even shaking.

"Put her down," the president commanded. "You're hurting her. Human women are fragile."

The alien turned his head to the president with a strange smooth machine-like movement. "I am pleased that you produced the human Aurora as agreed." Still, he kept her dangling off the floor, his arms steady. His strength was frightening. Her arms hurt where he held her, and her shoulders ached.

"Please put me down."

If he didn't put her down soon, her arms were going to come out of their sockets. He slowly, with impressive control, lowered her until her feet touched the carpet.

The president stepped closer. "May we have your name? You didn't introduce yourself during our conversation."

"I am Balthazar." That bass drum and metal grating sound reverberated around the room.

Aurora half expected the walls to rattle from the combination of metallic machine and deep man's voice. A strange, hot-cold shiver traveled over her skin. His voice abraded her nerves. She exchanged a look with the president. Balthazar? Like from the bible?

"Is that a typical name for your people?" the president asked. "In our history, there was a civ - "

Balthazar didn't take his eyes off Aurora. "You will come with me," he said, ignoring the president.