Alien Skin Market by Lizzy Bequin

CHAPTER 38: MAUREEN

“Rawn,” the creature answered with a dip of its head.

Tears sprang to Maureen’s eyes. She pulled herself up off the ground and ran forward, throwing her arms around Rawn’s neck and burying her face in his warm, shaggy fur while he purred happily.

“Oh Rawn, I thought you were dead,”

“Rawnnn…”

Maureen’s heart felt like it would burst with joy.

Her thoughts turned to her other companions. If Rawn had survived the crash, then it stood to reason the three Raksha might have made it too. But if the others had survived, why weren’t they with Rawn now? God, how she wished she could talk to him so he could let her know.

Maureen decided to focus on the positives. She had Rawn back, and he had saved her from a truly horrible fate.

She pulled back from her hug and looked him up and down with a smile.

It was hard to believe this was the same little space mouse she’d met on the shadowmen’s ship. He was now the size of a full-grown grizzly bear, and even though he was standing on all fours, the peak of his shoulders almost reached the level of Maureen’s eyes. But his shape was not exactly bear-like. His hairy forelimbs had a muscular, almost human appearance, and they ended not in flat paws but in curled fists like a gorilla’s. His once formless head had elongated into something like a shaggy pit bull. But his telltale grin was still the same.

“Look at you, you big boy.” Maureen sighed. She gave him a well deserved scratch behind his newly protruding ears, and Rawn’s pleasant purr deepened. “Yes, you like scritches, don’t you?”

Maureen gently butted her forehead against his.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“Rawn.”

Maureen turned her attention back to the Raksha lying on the ground beside them. He wasn’t moving, and his naked body was covered in bruises and blood that glowed orange in the shadows of the jungle. Was he dead?

Maureen stooped and cautiously touched his wrist. Her fingertips registered a frail pulse, that strange double-hearted rhythm Maureen had felt before with her three Raksha companions. When she looked closely at the fallen Raksha’s chest, she saw the slow rise and fall of his weak respiration.

“We’re going to have to do something about him,” she murmured.

Rawn was standing close by, looking on protectively in case the Raksha started to stir. At the sound of Maureen’s words, he raised himself up on his hind legs and scanned his eyes around the area. He dropped back to all fours and trundled a few yards away into the underbrush.

“Rawn?” Maureen called. “What are you doing?”

A moment later, he returned, walking awkwardly on his hind legs again, this time carrying a massive stone in his front paws, which had developed into rudimentary hands.

He stood over the fallen Raksha, paused for a beat, and then raised the stone over his head with the clear intention of bringing it down on the Raksha’s face.

“No, wait!” Maureen shouted.

The shaggy giant froze, and he gave Maureen a confused look.

“Rawn?” He did a little pantomime with the boulder to express what he had in mind—namely smashing the Raksha’s head open like a cantaloupe. “Rawn?”

Maureen shook her head. “No, Rawn. Don’t do that…”

She looked at the unconscious Raksha again. His face was stained with blood. His long, dark hair fanned out around his head.

For a moment, Maureen wondered if she was going crazy. The nameless Raksha had tried to kill her friends, and he had possibly succeeded. Rawn had survived, and that gave Maureen hope for the others, but she couldn’t be sure. On top of that, this Raksha had kidnapped her and tried to rape her. She shuddered as she recalled the bestial way he had snarled and growled on top of her. He was clearly dangerous, and possibly insane. The safest thing to do would be to let Rawn kill him now while they had the chance.

But Maureen simply couldn’t allow that. Despite everything that had happened, she was still an FBI agent, a law enforcement officer. Self defense was one thing, but she would never execute an incapacitated criminal on Earth, and she wasn’t going to do it here. The fact that she was stranded on an alien planet didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to sacrifice her morals. At this point, they were all she had left.

“We’re not going to kill him, Rawn. Put the stone down.”

After a moment of hesitation, Rawn reluctantly chucked the stone away into the woods. It landed with a heavy thud in the underbrush.

“Rawn?” he asked.

“Well, we can’t just leave him here,” Maureen said. “He’s too dangerous.”

It didn’t even feel weird talking to Rawn that way. People talked to their pets all the time, right? And Rawn’s intelligence obviously ran deeper than an ordinary animal’s. In fact, he seemed to be getting smarter as he grew bigger.

Maureen cut her eyes toward the escape pod.

“I’ve got an idea,” she said. “Come on, let’s put him in there. Here, you get his arms and I’ll take his—oh, nevermind.”

Maureen’s intention had been for both of them to carry the knocked-out Raksha, but that wasn’t necessary. Rawn just scooped the purple being off the ground and slung his limp body over his shoulder.

“Okay, that works too,” Maureen said.

Rawn carried the unconscious Raksha to the escape pod, and he was about to stuff him inside, but Maureen stopped him.

“Hang on,” she said. “If we’re going to do this, we need to make sure there’s no possibility of him escaping.”

First, Maureen tugged the boots off the Raksha’s large feet. As she’d expected, they contained multiple hidden knives. Those blades might come in useful for survival. Maureen tossed the boots aside with the intention of examining them more closely later.

Next, she reached inside the pod, grabbed the Raksha’s satchel, and tossed it on the ground nearby. The only other items inside the escape pod were the two seats. They looked harmless, but there was always a chance the Raksha might use some of the chair components to McGuyver his way out of the pod.

“Can you tear those seats out?”

Rawn dropped the limp Raksha on the ground and placed one hind paw on his chest just to be safe. Then he reached into the pod and made short work of the two seats.

“Well done,” Maureen said.

But she still wasn’t finished. As an FBI agent, she had experience dealing with hardened criminals. She knew just how resourceful they could be. One of the oldest tricks was hiding small weapons or tools inside one’s body.

“Help me pry his jaws open.”

Rawn did as Maureen said, opening the Raksha’s mouth wide so Maureen could inspect inside. With a twig, she checked behind his lips and under his tongue. Nothing.

There was just one more place to check.

“Okay, lift him up, but don’t put him all the way inside yet. I want you to bend him over the rim of the door, right here.”

Again Rawn did exactly as Maureen instructed, placing the knocked-out Raksha so his upper body was face down on the floor of the escape pod, but his muscular legs still hung out, and his naked backside was bent over the door’s bottom edge.

“Good,” Maureen said coldly.

She wished she had a pair of nitrile gloves for what she was about to do. Or maybe some of that weird liquid skin Tristn had used on his hands when he’d inspected her. But the jungle offered no such luxuries.

Maureen gripped the base of the Raksha’s limp tail and lifted it, exposing the deep cleft of his muscular buttocks and his dangling testicles, massive and smooth like a bull’s.

“Here, hold this.”

She handed the Raksha’s tail off to Rawn, who kept it raised for her. With both hands now free, she was able to peel apart the Raksha’s rump, exposing the puckered star of his anus.

“All right,” she muttered. “Let’s get this over with.”

Maureen had performed several cavity searches in her day. Needless to say, she had not enjoyed any of them, and this one was no exception. Still, as she inserted her middle finger into the Raksha’s rectum, she couldn’t help but smirk inwardly. Just a few short minutes ago, the bastard had attempted to penetrate her against her will. Now she was the one doing the penetrating. Oh, how the tables had turned.

She forced her finger inside him as deep as it could go, but she felt nothing, only the tight canal of his rectum squeezing around her invading finger.

“He’s clean,” she said at last.

Maureen withdrew her finger and made a mental note to wash it thoroughly at the first opportunity.

“All right,” she said to Rawn. “Throw that fucker inside.”

With a grunt, Rawn shoved the rest of the Raksha’s body into the escape pod and pushed the door closed after, trapping the Raksha inside.

“Okay, that’s a start, but it’s not good enough. We need to make sure he can’t get that door open.”

She looked around at the jungle, and after a minute, she had an idea. First, she had Rawn push the escape pod so that the door was wedged into the nook formed by the V-shaped trunk of a particularly massive tree. Then Rawn positioned another huge fallen log against the other side to brace it. The whole escape pod was jammed tightly in place, and Maureen felt confident there was no way the Raksha would be getting out.

For a second, Maureen wondered if she was making a huge mistake. She wasn’t worried about the Raksha escaping his makeshift cage. Her concern was what she would eventually do with him. She couldn’t just keep him in there forever. Sooner or later, he would starve to death or die of dehydration.

Was she just being cruel by condemning him to a slow death? That was not her intention, even though the bastard deserved it. Perhaps the most merciful thing would be to kill him. But Maureen simply couldn’t bring herself to do that either.

Her one hope was that her three guys were still alive.

They would know what to do.

Now she was faced with a new problem. Assuming her guys were alive and looking for her, should she try to return to the ship, or should she wait here for them to arrive?

And what about her medicine? How long could she survive without it?

On the one hand, returning to the ship sounded appealing. Rawn had gotten here quickly, so the ship must not be too far away. And he probably left a trail of broken branches and footprints they could follow to get back.

But a glance overhead cancelled that idea. Between the interstices of the jungle canopy, Maureen could see a few tiny patches of sky poking through. That sky was rapidly darkening, and so was the jungle around them. Night was falling quickly. It would be completely dark soon, and Maureen had no desire to be lost in the jungle at night.

She decided to stay put for now.

“All right, Rawn,” she said. “We’re going to make a camp and sleep here for tonight, okay? Tomorrow we’ll figure out our next course of action. Sound good?”

“Rawn.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

She went to the satchel lying on the ground and opened it to see what kind of supplies it contained.