Invaded (Alienated, #2)(63)

He was still grumbling to himself about the city’s poor sanitation when he pushed open the stairwell door and came face-to-face with a uniformed soldier.

Only the man wasn’t a guard.

Aelyx recognized the pink keloid scar that bisected the male’s forehead, his familiar brown eyes widened in surprise. Aelyx knew this man. When someone fired a gun at your chest, you committed that face to memory.

L’eihrs were quicker than humans, but not fast enough to outrun a bullet. There was no way Aelyx could make it back to the room in time, and the soldier stood too close for him to shut the stairwell door and call for help. Luckily, the man seemed just as unprepared for this meeting as Aelyx, something he intended to use to his advantage.

While the soldier fumbled for his gun, Aelyx charged him, doing his best to build momentum as his socked feet skidded against the smooth concrete floor. When the man realized Aelyx’s plan was to knock him backward down the stairs, he released the butt of his pistol and braced for impact.

Their bodies collided with a hollow smack that told Aelyx his enemy wore a Kevlar vest—another detail that gave him an edge. The leaden vests were heavy and bulky—great for stopping a bullet, but not the best choice for hand-to-hand combat. Aelyx balled his fist and struck the sensitive area above the man’s groin, eliciting a grunt of pain. He pushed with all his strength, but his slippery socks afforded him no traction.

To keep from falling, the man gripped the metal stair rail, and Aelyx did the same. With his newly gained leverage, Aelyx drew back his head and butted the soldier’s face. He couldn’t see what he’d struck, but the crunch of bone indicated he’d broken the man’s nose. That was a good start, but the soldier didn’t need his nose to fire a gun. Aelyx had to disable him long enough to get back to the suite.

He struck the soldier inside his elbow, slackening the man’s grip on the handrail and sending him stumbling down a few stairs. Aelyx saw a way to use their sudden height difference to his advantage. Gripping both handrails, he lifted his legs and kicked the man squarely in the chest, sending him careening backward down a flight of concrete steps. Without hesitating, Aelyx turned and threw open the stairwell door, then sprinted down the hallway and back to the room.

Heart hammering against his ribs, he darted inside and slammed the suite door. He bolted the lock and shouted, “Call the guards!” to David in the next room. When Syrine came running into the foyer, Aelyx grabbed her around the waist and towed her back into the living area. “Stay away from the door.” He locked eyes with David while trying to catch his breath. “The shooter from Christmas—he’s in the stairwell. I fought him off, but he’s still armed.”

David dialed a number and tossed his cell phone to Aelyx. “When my CO picks up, tell him what you told me.” He drew his pistol. “Stay here with Aelyx,” he told Syrine. “Don’t open the door for anyone unless they say the password.”

Syrine held tightly to Aelyx’s arm. “What’s the password?”

“Pear.”

Before Aelyx could try talking him out of it, David disappeared into the hall.


They knew the gunman’s identity by midnight, but not because anyone had apprehended him. The ex-infantryman—Anthony Grimes, if the military reports were correct—had once again disappeared like smoke on the breeze. By the time David had searched the stairwell, all he’d found were the bodies of three guardsmen.

No one was sure how Grimes had managed to infiltrate the building, but he appeared to have killed the stairwell guard first, then ambushed the penthouse guards during their shift change. Grimes had just dragged the bodies into the stairwell when Aelyx had surprised him. Five minutes later, and the man might have gained entry to the penthouse.

A chilling thought.

Aelyx had summoned a mental image of the gunman’s countenance and shared it with Syrine. Together, they’d composed a sketch for Colonel Rutter to scan into the facial recognition system. The search yielded a few dozen possible matches, and Aelyx had easily singled out Grimes by his jagged scar—which had resulted from the same drunk driving incident that earned the man a dishonorable discharge three years earlier.

But what Aelyx found most interesting was that Grimes wasn’t affiliated with HALO. He began to wonder if Isaac Richards had told the truth when he’d denied responsibility for the attacks.

But if the Patriots of Earth didn’t want Aelyx dead, then who did?

“I hate to say this.” David shifted forward in his seat, resting both forearms on his knees. “But I think Grimes has someone on the inside. How else would he know the shift change schedule?”

“Maybe it was a coincidence that he showed up when he did,” Aelyx said. “Sheer luck.”

David shook his head. “I don’t believe in luck.”

“Okay then,” Aelyx countered. “Call it chance. Regardless, it’s the reason I’m alive.” Because if he’d stepped out of the penthouse any later, Grimes would’ve met him in the hallway with his weapon at the ready.

“I don’t know…” David rubbed his jaw, eyes trained on the floor. “It’s fishy how that soldier wouldn’t bring up our food.”

Syrine looped an arm through David’s and clung to him. This latest attack hadn’t shaken her as badly as the letter bomb, but she’d still needed to retreat to her room for an hour of K’imsha after dinner. “I agree,” she said. “It’s like he wanted us to come out.”