MY LOVING ENEMY

By

Raquel Rodriguez

© copyright August 2007, Raquel Rodriguez

Cover Art by Alex DeShanks, © copyright August 2007

ISBN 978-1-60494-064-1

New Concepts Publishing

Lake Park, GA 31636

www.newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

Dedication:

Thank you to my dear friend and critique partner, Kathy, for telling to never give up writing, and to my loving husband and son who believed in me and gave me the time to write.

Chapter One

“Sarrah ... Sarrah, can you hear me?”

“We’re losing her ....”

Every cell in Sarrah Malone’s body screamed with pain worthy of an axe-murder victim. Burning sensations sizzled down the nerves in her neck and through her back as she lay pressed against something hard, uneven, and too cold. She could barely breathe and didn’t dare try to move. Even her damn hair hurt.

The research team’s calculations had been wrong. The experiment on dimensional transfer hadn’t occurred as predicted. No one had listened when she’d found the hostile variable. They’d all been too excited about the success of the project being ahead of schedule, too busy writing acceptance speeches and planning press conferences to promote the new method of transit.

Her mind drifted, and darkness threatened to close in. Sarrah fought for clarity. Again, the grim memory snaked into her conscious...screams, fire licking up to the ceiling....

Alarms blared.

The research team scrambled to their stations.

“Power’s surging through the conductors.”

Sarrah blinked to focus in the semidarkness. Tears left wet tracks from her eyes down the sides of her face. How long had she lain here in silence? One hour? Two? Her stiff body ached like she hadn’t moved in days.

The media would have a field day with these unexpected results from the experiment. Headlines all over the known system in two dimensions would broadcast the team’s blunder. They’d lose their work contract. Private funding would be rescinded. Rabid reporters hungry for a top byline would ignore what was best for law-abiding citizens. The disaster would provide more fuel to the rebel group’s demand to revoke sending criminal lifers on a one-way journey to hell.

Gathering courage, Sarrah inched her head up and frowned. Several of her colleagues appeared in the room around her, their bodies transparent. They stared wide-eyed and fearful, their faces pinched with concern, their white lab coats covered in burn marks and crimson splotches. Their mouths moved. Disconnected sounds echoed. Sarrah couldn’t understand their words or why they reached toward her then backed away terrified. Her heart slammed against her breast, the pain stabbing into her awareness.

“Help.” Her whisper cracked, and she labored to breathe. They had to hear her. She lifted a hand to the nearest man and dizziness spun her, churning her empty stomach. “Someone, please....”

“Containment levels are spiking. Shut it down now, or the new transfer unit will overload!”

“Protective shields are deteriorating.”

The ghostly images wavered, faded, leaving nothing except dank, musty air.

“No, wait ....” Sarrah groaned and dropped her head back to the floor, staring up at a damaged fluorescent tube light that would never shine again.

“Evacuate.”

Sarrah turned, but an explosion hurled her to the floor.

She blinked. “Caroline?”

No monitors beeped. No computers hummed.

“Henry?”

No updated reading flashed on the main system screen every thirty seconds. No interns rushed to do the project head’s bidding. Where was everyone?

“Dr. Louin?” Suspicion nibbled at the corner of her mind. “Is anyone here?”

Rising panic threatened to strangle her. Slowly her mind processed the information. She forced down the thick knot in her throat and blinked back welling tears. “Oh, god, no....”

She couldn’t be the only one left. Her team--the people she’d known and worked with for years, sharing ribald jokes, birthdays, the pictures from last week’s vacation--were all gone. Closing her eyes a moment, she thought she heard Caroline’s faint laugh. But quiet overrode the unearthly sound.

Sarrah ignored the pain of loss squeezing her heart and inhaled deeply. Main backup power had failed. The elevator would be useless, programmed to lock down in emergencies to maintain control and restrain any aggressive elements. She was trapped two stories underground with no electricity.

Carefully she turned her head toward the only light source. A single, dim, yellowish shard stole in through a small recessed shaft up near the ceiling that allowed ventilation into the room, lending an eerie ambiance. Dust motes skied along the slender ray to the floor. A glow, she knew, from the vintage WW-III street lamp outside that she passed to and from the government building where she worked. Only for a few minutes each day with the sun just past its zenith, light reflected through the lamp and bounced downward to her level through the long aluminum shaft.

But that couldn’t be right. This room only looked like her lab. It was a bad dream, and she’d wake up soon. She had to. The alternative was unthinkable.

She rolled to her side, shuddering at the extreme possibility of what might have occurred. The muscles in her arms cramped when she pushed up to stand. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Her hands gripped the back of a chair for support, slipping on patches of greenish slime. Everywhere, failure pressed in, and destruction mocked her. Dr. Louin shouldn’t have accepted the less than perfect prediction. She should’ve insisted he listen to her findings. The team’s enthusiasm had made them careless.

Her gaze wandered further. Tarnish covered metal tables and tall filing cabinets. Streaks of rust stained the lab equipment. Cabinet doors displayed shattered, jagged glass panes. Once in neat rows where Henry had always diligently maintained them, broken bottles and beakers now sat on the storage shelves.

How was this possible? Had the variable she’d found caused an accident? Though this looked like the room where she’d worked for five years, past experiences with dimensional travel had taught her things weren’t always as they seemed.

Gritting her teeth then biting her bottom lip to keep it from quivering, she eased to sit at her computer and pressed the power button. She couldn’t bury the knowledge that her discovery might have prevented her team’s downfall. If her research was intact, she could retrieve the figures and solve the problem.

The computer remained silent.

She leaned back, staring at the blank screen. All her findings were locked up, the evidence stuck on a hard drive of the inoperable machine.

What could she do without her research notes? Speculations without facts didn’t fly with authorities. They’d never listen to her.

Sarrah dropped her head back against her chair and covered her face a moment with her hands. Exhaustion tugged at her eyelids. What had happened was just a prelude to a greater problem if another experiment was attempted. This disaster couldn't be allowed to be repeated. Somehow, she had to find the strength to continue, to understand for certain why the accident had occurred and tell someone. But from the evidence, she was afraid she was too late.

A noise outside the only door in the room roused her attention. Rusty metal creaked as the door jostled, trying to open.

The rescuers had found her!

Excitement shot adrenaline through her, and she tried to stand. Instead, a coughing fit seized her, forcing her to bend over her lap. When the heavy door swung wide, she glimpsed a flash of white, like the bottom of a long lab coat.

“Doctor…,” she started in between spasms, pushing herself up so her saviors could more easily find her.

A dark-haired man stepped inside the room, and he was nothing like she expected. In mud-caked combat boots, he strode in as if he owned the world, stopping a moment in the single light shaft.

Blinking away tears, her eyes traveled up over jungle-print camo pants hugging his well-developed thighs and cradling an impressive bulge she tried to ignore, to his naked, flat, tight stomach. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, fighting to stifle her coughs. The man’s extreme vitality reached out to her, and even fatigued, Sarrah’s body tingled with excitement. Her eyes tracked up further over a sleeveless lab coat that had seen better days and gapped open, hanging over an old flack vest he’d hadn’t bothered to close and that framed the most perfectly muscled chest with six-pack abs she’d ever seen.

* * * *

“Well, now. No one’s called me that in a long time.” Adam Templar watched Sleeping Beauty, as he’d dubbed her in his mind, struggle to stay upright amidst gasps that shook her voluptuous body. She had a strong spark of life still in her. It was good she fought to keep it. He crossed the room to a side table and, with a sweep of his hand, he cleared the dirt and old papers at one end to the floor. When he glanced back at her, the fact that she’d finally awakened eased the worry about her from his mind. He’d watched her for the past three weeks, and she'd finally come out of her limbo stasis.

“Sorry. I thought ….”

“Common mistake.” He plopped a drab, green backpack on the table and unzipped the main pocket. “Forget it.”

Concern about her health lingered with him. From her respiration, she didn’t seem too bad off. Not like the other one he’d found after the dimensional rift closed. Poor guy never had a chance. Out of the corner of his vision to his right, Adam saw the woman slowly rise and hold on to the desk for support. Her body trembled, weak from shock and extended immobility, and she was probably dehydrated.

“Where're the others?” She looked toward the door.

Adam unloaded his canteen and a medical pouch, placing them next to the pack on the table. “Other whats?”

“The rescuers? My research team?”

He hated being the bearer of bad news. She wasn’t going to like the answer. But she had to know the truth. He took a deep breath and pulled a file folder from another pocket of the pack. “You're looking at him, sweetheart.”

“But, there were five people in here with me.” She took two steps and lost her balance, stumbling forward.

Adam moved quickly, barely catching her in his arms before her knees hit the floor. “Not when I got here.”

As he straightened, their full body contact made his breath hitch, and he tensed. Sweat broke out on his forehead. The few seconds her breasts pressed against him and the heat seeping from between her legs touching his thighs was all it took to ignite a molten lust in his groin. He hadn’t experienced such a strong urge in years, much less done something about it with someone instead of with his own hand.

The woman stared up at him like she’d never seen a man before. Or maybe it was the way his semi-hard cock fit so perfectly in the V between her thighs. Down, boy.

“Please,” she broke the spell between them.

“You're okay now.” Under the single, narrow ray of dim light that fell diagonally over her face he saw through the dirt and grime. She was younger than he’d originally thought. Young and eager, like another lab technician he'd once known. He eased her to a safe arms-length away and cleared his throat. “I really need to locate .....”

“I must let them know I’m here and find out what happened.”

Better she found out now than later. “Cascade failure. Total melt down.”

She blinked, still staring as if he’d sprouted another head which, given the strangeness of this dimension, was entirely possible. “I shouldn’t be alive.”

Helping her to stand, he guided her back to her chair and retrieved his canteen. “Do you have a name?” He squatted next to her and unscrewed the cap.

“S-Sarrah. Malone. I’m a research assistant.” He nudged her bottom lip with the edge of the canteen. Her full lips puckered when she wrapped them around the opening and accepted the cool liquid.

His groin tightened, and he dragged his eyes from Sarrah’s mouth, shoving away the mental image of that same mouth wrapped around his throbbing cock. “Well, Sarrah Malone, I’m Adam. I need you to sit quietly while I do some work.”

She gripped his biceps with surprising strength for a post-stasis victim. “You're going to leave me here alone?”

At her sudden wide eyes and pitiful tone, a tiny smile pulled the corners of his mouth. He extricated himself and moved back to the table, opening the medical pouch. “I don’t plan on it, unless you want me to.”

“No,” she answered too quickly, drawing his glance. She licked her lips and ventured a smile, renewing the rush of heat through his belly. “I--I mean, all my work is locked in this computer. I need to find a way to restore power and get the information out.”

He could open the damn thing and take out the hard drive. But he sensed her independent determination and didn’t think she’d appreciate how easily the fifteen second process would be to cut the wires and yank out the palm-sized device.

Again kneeling in front of her, he reached for her eyelid and pointed a penlight. “Hold still.”

She jerked back. “What's that?”

“It's okay.” He opened his hands, displaying the light and a temp-strip. “I’m just going to check your optical response and make sure your body temperature’s normal.” Unlike his own.

Sarrah let him momentarily place the temp-strip on her forehead and check her optical response with the penlight, and he was relieved she tested almost normal. But when he reached into his pocket and drew out an adhesive slip with a tiny injector, she pulled away.

“It’s just a few nanytes with antibiotics that will help your body repair itself faster.” He pulled out another slip, pulled a paper off one side and stuck it on his forearm. “See? It’s a precaution to fight any possible infection and boost your energy.”

She stuck out her arm and pulled up her sleeve, wincing at the tiny sting when he applied the slip. “You didn’t answer me about what happened to my team. Did everyone make it out okay? Where are they?”

Adam had hoped to forestall giving her any more information until she’d rested and was more emotionally stable. She was hungry for details, but he couldn’t have her distracting him right now. “I'll answer whatever you want me to after I’ve finished.” He moved back to the table, replacing the items in the medical pouch and opening the file folder.

“Something bad happened, didn’t it? I mean, other than the accident?” Her tone was pleading, almost desperate.

He turned to a filing cabinet that looked a hundred years old and leaned to one side. He couldn’t lie and tell Sarrah what she wanted to hear. “Look, if you’re going to stay here, at least be quiet so I can finish my work, okay?” The second drawer screeched as he tugged it open, making her flinch.

“Adam, how long exactly has it been since the accident?”

“You really don’t want to get out of here, do you?”

“All I asked was ….”

“Do you know where there’s a tool kit? I’ll need a screwdriver and wire cutters.” She had mentioned needing her hard drive. If he gave her a job to do, it would distract her from her questions.

“Henry kept one in the bottom drawer of his desk. But I don’t see ….”

“Get it, and go sit at your computer. I’ll walk you through how to open it.”

“You can do that?”

“It's not rocket science, sweetheart. You just need to know what to do.”

Adam shuffled through the folders in the drawer, stopping to pull one out and flip through the pages. Satisfied, he closed it and placed it next to the original folder he’d brought and continued his search.

“What do I do now?” Sarrah’s voice cut through his concentration.

He’d almost forgotten she’d woken up. In the past as he’d worked, she’d always been quiet, as if asleep. “First, unplug the cables from the back.”

She moved the keyboard aside and pulled the eight-inch square computer closer.

He added two more folders to his growing pile and wondered if she’d ever used one of the old-fashioned computers that were five times larger than the newer models. It didn’t matter, though, how old her system was, just that they’d be able to extract what she needed.

“Done yet?” he asked, shutting the noisy drawer and replacing everything in his pack.

“The cords are disconnected. My computer’s so small—can’t I just take it with me?”

The hope in her voice reminded him of when he'd first arrived in this place and been too naive to realize the severity of the present situation. He could let her take the computer. But then it would be a race between them who'd figure out the correct answer first to the dimensional instability. If they took only her hard drive, it might not be compatible with his system, and she'd want to return for hers. Her delay would gain him the time he desperately needed. The means to have her running in circles for a solution would be easy to fabricate. He'd be able to conclude his own research and permanently close the dimensional portal.

But he sensed Sarrah was intelligent enough to figure out he didn’t want her to succeed. She might even try to send a warning through the unstable dimensional rift back to Terra-Alpha. And she'd hate him if he managed to beat her to the solution and found she couldn’t go home.

Adam hoisted his pack up on one shoulder and dragged another chair to sit beside her. Indecision gnawed at his conscience. "Let's see what's inside and how we can get it out, shall we?"

Sarrah scooted her seat over to make room so he could see.

He removed the top cover and one side. As he'd thought, her drive wasn't a compatible model. Should he damn her life to save potentially thousands more, or sacrifice the dregs of humanity that political injustice had sentenced to this dimension, just to save her?

"What do you think?" Her hand gently settled on his, sending an electric frisson up his arm and out to his extremities. Hope sparkled in her eyes.

Damn, he knew he'd regret his decision. "We'll take your computer, and I'll rig up a new power source."

"Thanks. You have no idea how much this means to me."

"I think I have a good guess." He screwed the top and side back on then walked around the room winding up several long cables into coils over one arm. "Find a bag or something to carry it in."

"Why?"

"It's the only way to get it out of here." She frowned at him in confusion, and he clarified, "The only way out is to climb the emergency ladder in the elevator shaft."

Working quickly, he at last had the additional cable length he needed for more power. Turning, he saw Sarrah watching him, a pack hanging from one hand. "I took the tools too."

He nodded and moved to the door. "Things are different up top from what you probably remember. Don't be surprised by anything, and stay alert."

"Okay." She stepped towards him, wobbling a little.

He reached out and grasped her elbow, steadying her. "You sure you can climb? It isn’t such a long way up, but you’ve been in stasis."

She inhaled and squared her shoulders, her breasts thrusting up, making his mouth dry and his hands ache to fondle her nipples. "I'm ready when you are." A blush stained her cheeks.

He nodded again, averting his eyes from the tantalizing sight and switching his headband light on so he could see as they exited the room. Down the hallway, he stopped at the open elevator shaft. Repositioning all but one coiled cable over his head and diagonally across his chest, he turned to Sarrah. "Hold your arms up so I can tie us together."

She did as he asked, and he looped the cord around her waist. "Afraid I'll get away from you?"

"Huh?" He looked up, broadsided by the sweetness in her smile as well as the teasing in her voice. Even covered in dirt, she radiated a rare inner beauty. His fingers fumbled, and he pulled the knot tighter, wishing instead he could pull her to him and taste the richness of her full lips. Damn, he had to get a grip. "In case you slip, I don't want you to fall down the shaft."

He tied the opposite end of the cord to his mesh pistol belt and helped her shift the pack from one shoulder to her back. "Okay, let's go. There's ten feet of cord between us, so don't step on the slack or get tangled in it. But don't get so far behind it pulls tight. Try and stay the same distance from me at all times until we reach the top. And don't look down."

She looked down the opening into the obsidian pit leading to the many sub-levels, pulled back, and shrugged. "It's too dark. I can't see anything down there."

He eased into the wide shaft, securing his footing on the nearest rung of the ladder. "Wait until I climb three steps, then get on."

Adam moved slowly, hearing Sarrah's small grunt of effort as she swung her body out over the black maw. One foot, then two.

"Okay, I'm on."

They'd climbed a dozen rungs, almost one floor, and she stayed with him as instructed, when he heard a sound. "Wait."

"What?"

"Quiet. I need to listen." He heard her respiration increase, could sense her mounting fear in the dark. "Hang on."

"Why--ahhhhh!"

Air rushed up from below, and shrieks loud enough to wake the dead preceded hundreds of flapping bodies.

He looked down at the same time Sarrah's foot slipped off the rung and she fell. "Sarrah!"