Chapter 23

Pain. Darkness.

Light. Pain again, in his head. Someone was pulling on JJ’s body. Click! His seatbelt was unhooked and he flopped into someone’s arms ... no, two someones. They were saying things ... why couldn’t he understand what they were saying? Zoot? Veet? How hard had he hit his head, he wondered?

Darkness again.

JJ awoke and tried to sit up too quickly. “Ack!” His head pounded and he lay back on something soft. “Mom?”

“Your mother is fine, JJ,” said a tinny voice, as though through a speaker. He recognized it even so.

“Carmen?” He turned his head. He was laying on a queen-sized bed that took up most of the small, concrete-walled room he was in. There was a secure-looking door, and next to that he could see Agent Carmen Sandoval through a wide glass window with a lattice of thin metal, flanked by a couple of adults he didn’t know, one male, one female. There were no other windows. “Ugh ... what did you do?” JJ carefully raised himself to his elbows to regard his captors.

She looked at him with cold eyes. “Your dad released the video your girlfriend took, JJ. I’m burned, so I did the only thing I could, and sold you to the highest bidder. Sorry, not sorry.”

The man behind her said something JJ didn’t catch. Carmen turned to him. “English, Jean! I told you, I don’t speak French.” She had pronounced the man’s name in the French fashion, like ‘Jhon’.

“You need to show the proof, Sandoval,” Jean said in accented English.

She turned back to regard JJ with a sour look. “Right ... so send in the test subjects.”

A few minutes later, four women were pushed into the room by a couple of rough looking men. One of the women was...

“Mom!” JJ tried to get up, but fell back again, dizzy.

“JJ!” His mother rushed forward to tend to her son while the other three women banged on the door after it closed behind them.

“Let us out!” a thirtysomething Chinese lady yelled, while another, an ash blonde of about the same age, was swearing in what sounded like French. The third, a slim brown-haired woman, looking about 20 years old, sat down hard, her back to the wall. Her eyes darted everywhere, like a cornered animal.

“Ooh, that’s a nasty bump on the side of your head, JJ!” his mother said, examining him. “Just lie back, okay?”

“Mom, what about Aaron and Regan?”

She looked worried. “Those people left them in the car when they grabbed us. Aaron had a lot of blood on his head, and Regan wasn’t moving.” She turned to the window. “Are my daughter and husband alright?! Tell me!”

The other woman behind the window whispered in Carmen’s ear.

“They were taken to the hospital, one serious, one critical,” the former agent said.

“You have to let us go!” JJ’s mother yelled at them. “You have no right to keep us here!” Sniff!

JJ’s ears perked up. His mother had tried to have sex with him earlier that day -- was it still the same day, he wondered? If she stayed this close to him, her brain and fertile body would be overwhelmed by his pheromones and she’d try to jump him again! That’s why these women had been sent into the room: to show off his ability!

“Carmen!” he called out, “Get my mom outta here, please! She shouldn’t have to see this.”

“See what?” His mom turned to regard him, and he could see that her pupils were bigger than usual. He didn’t have much time!

“You know what, JJ?” Carmen said, “You fucked me over, so I think your mom finding out what a piece of shit you really are ... well, that’ll be my revenge. Ladies, please head on over and say hello to JJ.”

The Asian woman turned from the door and moved tentatively toward JJ, and after Carmen’s command was relayed in French, the blonde woman followed suit. JJ looked at them fearfully, as if they might bite him. The brown-haired woman remained sitting, holding her arms around herself and shaking.

“What’s she talking about, JJ?” his mom asked. “Why did she call you that?”

“Mom ... please, just move back toward the door. PLEASE.”

Still sniffling, JJ’s mother backed away. Then she knelt next to the overwhelmed woman on the floor. “Are you okay, dear? Did they hurt you?”

JJ examined the two women as they sat next to him on the bed. The Chinese lady’s eyes were naturally dark, but she only seemed to be looking at him warily. The blonde woman, though, had started to sniffle. She said something to him in French.

“Sorry, I don’t speak French,” he informed her.

The Chinese lady looked confused. “She says you’re hot.”