A Father's Duty Part 15
Part fifteen
Jeff stared around in awe of the opulent room he and Ava found themselves in. The furnishings were obviously expensive, the knick-knacks lavish and tasteful. It was a room the President could be comfortable in. For a guy from The Sticks, Nowheresville, it was a little too much. Jeff felt grossly out of place. He found himself wondering again why they were here.
If this guy really was Ava’s ‘protector’, he had a lot to answer for, like why she lived in a sewer her whole life while he lived *here*. And why she’d been on the brink of starvation when she’d arrived in Roswell. And how come he wasn’t out there - protecting - her and her siblings. She was the only one left of the four she’d grown up with. What did that say about Langley’s work ethic, for lack of a better word? His dedication was somewhat lacking.
Granted Jeff knew nothing about him and how or why he’d been appointed Ava’s guardian in the first place. Had he been involved with the original cloning experiments in the fifties, or had he gotten involved later when the kids’ had emerged from their incubation chambers? He had so many questions about his role in the event which had taken over his life in the past week. Could Langley have used his wealth and power to prevent the disaster which had befallen the kids?
Would he be willing to help them with Nancy when he’d obviously done nothing for the others?
Did he even know what was happening to his charges?
Question after question rolled through his head with no forthcoming answer.
Ava prowled restlessly nearby. Unlike him, she wasn’t shy about looking at the small sculptures adorning the tables, picking them up to examine more closely. She seemed more contemplative than nervous. He wondered if she too was comparing this room to her former residence, noting the irony.
He couldn’t help but notice her increasing nervousness as they were kept waiting. Finally, she said, “Ya knows, I think it woulds be better iffen I talked to him first. Maybe you should wait outside.”
“Why?” It was his wife after all. Jeff thought he should be the one to speak with Mr. Langley. They might have a better chance of connecting man to man. It was obvious to Jeff the guy shared no feeling of obligation towards his ward.
“I think it would be safer,” she said obliquely.
Perplexed, he questioned, “Safer? You think I’m in danger here? From what? Langley?” What was she talking about? “You said he might help us, now he’s dangerous?” What was going on here?
“Langley, he don’t like visitors none,” she explained. “I ain’t never looked him up like this and I’m starting to think he ain’t going to be happy about it.” She paused. Jeff knew he must look as confused as he felt when she hastened to add, “Not that I think he’d hurt you…”
That was as far as she got before the door opened and a man who could only be Cal Langley entered. He didn’t appear to be glad to see them. Jeff’s first impression was confirmed by his opening statement. “Well, if it isn’t Ava, come all the way from New York to grace us with her presence. How lucky for me.”
“Langley,” Ava cautiously returned. Her voice gave away nothing of her thoughts.
Searching the room, the alien’s eyes fastened on Jeff, and the other man swore he could read a deep-seated resentment there before it was carefully concealed under a polite façade. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure…” he prompted.
Striding forward, Jeff held out his hand, “Jeff Parker. Roswell, New Mexico,” he added as an afterthought as if naming his hometown could clue the producer on why he was standing in his parlor.
“Parker,” he frowned, as if familiar with the name, but not sure how it related to the man in front of him. Jeff knew the instant he made the connection because he face cleared just before the same mask as before dropped into place. “You’re along way from home. What brings you to my part of the world?” He shot a look at Ava full of questions.
In response she stated, “He’s cool. He knows the score.”
The shapeshifter’s body froze as tension coiled hotly inside him. “What?” His voice was cold and menacing.
“Don’t worry. He’s ok,” she said, her tone reflecting her worry as he swung back in Jeff’s direction.
“What do you know?” Jeff was asked in a voice that was blatantly threatening making his hackles rise in response. The producer’s placid countenance had become menacing behind his trendy retro-glasses.
“I know Ava and the others aren’t exactly human. I know about the ‘experiments’ in the fifties and I know you’re supposed to be her protector. Not that you’ve been, as far as I can see.”
“Really?” Langley asked snidely.
“Yeah, really,” Jeff shot back, unaware he was tugging the tail of an untamed lion.
Stepping closer, the shorter man growled, “So you think I should be taking a more active role in protecting her?”
“It would be a start,” Jeff agreed. “Then maybe she could have a decent place to live. Real food to eat.”
“Mr. Parker, don’t,” Ava stated, coming to stand beside him.
“Now why would I do that?” Langley asked, ignoring the alien in favor of intimidating the human. “Seeing to Ava’s comfort isn’t in my job description. My only job is to keep humans like yourself from finding out about her origins. Preventing them from telling others. Have you told anyone about Ava?”
“Of course not,” Jeff was incensed. “I wouldn’t do that!”
“What about me? Who have you told about me?”
“No one. I only found out who you were when we got here.”
To Ava, he demanded, “Is this the truth?”
“Yes.”
Turning away he said, “Good. That makes it easier.”
Jeff had to ask, “Makes what easier?”
“This,” Langley answered before turning on the human.
Jeff watched in amazement as the protector raised his arm, palm flat out towards him. Before he could register the threat implied in the action, he was hit with a bolt of energy so strong it knocked him off his feet and nearly stopped his heart. He dimly registered Ava’s panicked cries to Langley of ‘Stop. Don’t hurt him’ as he landed heavily on his back, the world spinning into blackness round him. What the hell was that? part of his mind had cried out. He hadn’t been close enough to hit him with anything, yet he obviously had.
No sooner had the thought registered, than he heard Ava cry out in pain. Turning his head, the small action an effort with the pain still drumming though his body, he saw Ava was laying on the ground a few feet away. Her face was caught in a grimace of agony as she writhed beneath the pain Langley was inflicting on her - from ten feet away using no weapon other than his mind and his outstretched palm.
“Stop!” he demanded, rising to his knees, too shaky to go any farther. “What are you doing to her!?”
“How dare you bring him here! Has living with Rath and Lonnie finally cooked your brains? Why would you tell this guy about me?” Each question was punctuated by another burst of energy from the protector into Ava’s small body. “For that matter, why are you even with him? Don’t you realize they’re watching him? And now you’ve led them to me you little idiot. What, did Lonnie manage to pass on her stupidity before she croaked? Are you that eager to die? And take the rest of us with you?” He stopped and stared down at her.
Jeff crawled to her side, insinuating his body between Langley and hers. “Why are you doing this? She said you were her protector, dammit!”
“Stay out of this, human!” Langley warned, grabbing Jeff by the back of his shirt and flinging him away from the trembling girl.
“It’s not like that. No one knows we’re here,” she quickly protested through the pain, desperate to make him listen. “But we need your help. This is Liz Parker’s dad,” she emphasized.
“I got that,” he ground out. “Good for him. He must be so proud at the depths to which she’s sunk recently.” That remark was aimed directly at Jeff.
Jeff frowned at the emphasis Ava had put on to his relationship with his daughter. It was as if she expected this guy to know or care about Liz in some way. The acid in the response was too strong to be ignored. Despite the situation Liz currently found herself in, he WAS proud of her. Nothing could change how he felt about his daughter and he would not put up with this guy mouthing off about things he didn’t know or understand. “Hey, you shut up about her,” was all the comeback he could think of, however. “You don’t know anything about my Liz.”
“I know more than you think,” the protector answered as Jeff warily climbed to his feet. “Rather than going to school and driving all the college guys crazy, she is now hiding from the authorities like a common criminal. And will be for the rest of her life. Mark my words. That’s a change alright. Not one for the better in my book. Do you even know where she is?”
“How do you know this?” Jeff asked, stupefied to the point he’d forgotten the receding pain in his body. It boggled his mind that some big-shot Hollywood producer not only knew who he was, but was familiar with some very private details of his life. It confused him… and scared him, too. Suddenly, he remembered Jim’s words from earlier in the week when they were all standing around in the desert. About how the protector was like the kids - different. And how he had taken Liz out of her home and put her in mortal danger from himself and the government agents. Tightening his fists in fury, Jeff ground out, “You son-of-a-bitch! What did you do to my daughter?!”
“What? What are you talking about? I’ve never even spoken to her,” Langley refuted.
“Don’t lie to me. I know the truth.” Jeff made a stabbing motion with his finger as if pointing to the alien’s deceits. “I know you took my Liz and put her in danger all in the name of protecting Max Evans.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Langley defended with an indifferent air as thought he could care less that Liz could have been hurt. “It must have been someone else.”
“Someone else calling himself their protector?” Jeff derided.
“There’s more than one of us, you know,” he pointed out as though the truth were blaringly obvious. “Now sit down….” Before he finished speaking a chair dashed across the floor, hitting Jeff in the back of the knees, forcing him to drop down on it. “…and be quiet like a good human and I just might let you walk out of here alive.”
Jeff was too stunned by the unearthly action at first to notice that his limbs were being held immobile by an invisible force. Something unseen was keeping him in the chair, and the more he struggled against it, the more frightened he became. Why had they come here? Hadn’t Ava known what this guy was? he wondered. A voice in the back of his head whispered that maybe the whole thing was a set up. Maybe she’d dragged him halfway across the country just to deliver him to this monster who stood before him.
No, that couldn’t be, another voice argued. She’d done so much to help him. What would have been the point. Besides, Cal Langley was hurting her more than him. After that initial blast, Langley had stopped trying to hurt him - for now- yet he continued to rail against the young teen. Jeff hated the fact that he couldn’t do anything to help her but sit here and listen. As soon as he was free, he swore, they were getting out of here. He didn’t know *what* this guy was, but he wasn’t like Ava and the others. He was the scary thing the government should be hunting down, not his daughter, Jeff thought in sudden realization.
This was the monster Deirks and Hopkins were looking for, and if he ever got free, Jeff was going to deliver him to them personally.
Seeing Jeff had no immediate comeback for his threat, Langley acted as if he considered the subject done, and went back to piercing Ava with his sharp gaze. “You still haven’t answered my questions. What are you doing with him, and why have you brought him to me?”
“We need your help,” she repeated. “It’s Liz’s mom. She’d been taken to Edwards. We need your help to get her out.”
“Ava,” he said in mocking sadness, “what makes you think I care about Liz’s mom? I couldn’t care less if it was *your* mom. I wouldn’t spit on Max Evans if he was on fire. In fact, as I recall, the last time he was here, I tried to *set* him on fire, which to date was the smartest thing I’ve ever done,” he added with a pleased smirk. “What makes you think I could care less about some human that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time just because she’s his girlfriend’s mother. Heck why don’t we go rescue Philip Evans’ secretary’s neighbor’s dog while we’re at it?” The sarcasm was unmistakable and harsh. “Have I ever done anything to give you the impression that I *care* about you or the others? If I have, I apologize because I certainly didn’t mean to.
“You’d think being dumped in the sewer with the others would have been your first clue. Did I help when they shoved Zan in front of that truck? No. Did I rush out to Roswell to stop Max from making the biggest mistake of his life in getting involved with you? Not hardly. Did I stop him from making an even bigger mistake by getting involved with Tess? Have I in any way given you the impression that I care about any of you?” His eyes pinned her in place. “I didn’t think so,” he said after a moment.
“But you was supposed to be our protector,” Ava protested faintly. She was still recovering from the ferocity of the shapeshifter’s attack, standing shakily on her feet. She knew from past experience with her siblings that retaliation would be useless and dealt with in even stronger measures. All she could do was hope he would continue to ignore Jeff in his need to vent over being sought out.
She’d thought her heart would stop when he’d first blasted her companion. She would never ever forgive herself if anything happened to him because of her.
“Hey, you’re alive aren’t you? I must be doing something right.”
Taking his trendy glasses off his face, he rubbed the lenses and stated, “Look, Princess, I never wanted this. I only signed up for this job to get out of there. I was tired of the war, the fighting. When I was approached by her majesty with the opportunity to leave it all behind, start fresh in a whole new place, you bet I jumped at the chance and didn’t look back.
“I hid you and the others in the best place I could find. For my efforts, I’ve been chased, shot at, hunted, betrayed by my only friend on this whole freaking planet. After all that, I considered my duty done. I don’t owe my loyalty to anyone but myself. I just wanted to be left in peace but you couldn’t even give me that. No, you had to come barging in here, exposing me to the authorities with some half-ass baked idea of getting all of us killed while reenacting the hero scene from some spaghetti western. Well, no thank you Princess. Max has already ruined my life, destroying everything I’ve ever cared about with his selfish demands, now you want me to give up my life to save some human who is probably better off dead at this point?”
Jeff’s simmering temper snapped at that proclamation, overriding his fear for the moment. “Hey, who the hell do you think you are? That’s my WIFE you’re talking about! You son-of-a-bitch!” He renewed his struggles to get out of the chair.
Ignoring Jeff completely, focussing solely on Ava, he laughed meanly, “Babe, I hate to tell you this, sometimes the good guys wear the black hats, and the bad guys win. You don’t have a chance in hell getting in there with security as high as it going to be and I wouldn’t give up my life for you, let alone for someone I don’t even know.”
“I ain’t asking you just roll over and die,” Ava refuted. “I’m asking you to do the right thing. I know yous care more than yous is lettin’ on. How do you think I knew who you were? Zan told me. He told me you come to see him once. It was right after Rath…” Darting her eyes towards Jeff, she stopped and edited what she’d been about to say. “Afterward, when I was still laid up, you came and told him he was to protect me better. And he did. After that one time, he stuck close by, making sure Rath and Lonnie didn’t try to pull nothin’ like that again until I was strong enough to fight back.”
“Aww, ain’t that sweet?” Cal stated in sarcasm. “It sounds like Zan was a hero. A true Prince.”
“He was,” Ava affirmed passionately. “Zan was always looking out for me.”
“I hate to tell you this, Princess, but Zan was no Prince. Not even close. He may have saved you from his siblings, but he was not looking out for you. He was looking out for himself. Zan wanted you for himself. He was rather picky about his bedmates, and wasn’t about to shack up with one of Rath’s leavings. Not that I can blame him.
“I didn’t tell him to save you from Rath, I told him *no one* was to touch you. Including him. Typical Zan, he ignored me and did whatever the hell he wanted to anyway. Not that you were complaining,” he added snidely.
“What are you talkin’ about. Zan was my mate. My husband,” she refuted, “And how do you know we was together? Didja stand in the back of the room and watch?”
“Once or twice,” Cal goaded.
Ava looked green, before rallying. “You sick bastard.”
“Hey, I call them like I see them, and you know what I see when I look at you?” He continued without waiting for an answer. “A weak, useless piece of nothing. I mean, look at you. Here you are, all alone. How do you even sleep at night? Everyone else in your family dead because you did nothing to stop it. Now, you’re so desperate to belong somewhere you’ve taken to adopting humans as pets. You’re lucky you’re stuck here, you know that? Tess thought she had it bad when she returned to Antar, but her humiliation would be nothing compared to yours. At least she earned hers, trying to pass her bastard brat off as the true heir. I must say, all things considered, that piece of idiocy makes her marginally stupider than you are. She deserved to be laughed off the planet.
“You… you on the other hand. It’s just so sad the entire nation placed its trust and hope for a new beginning in you. How misguided they were. I guess they forgot what a screw-up you were the first time around.”
Through the tears she was obviously trying to hold back, Ava accused him softly, “Didja think that maybe if you was to do your job then maybe I woulda turned out better?”
“Hey, I’m not your father, kid. I never was. I was supposed to protect you. I did my part. You’re the one who failed.” Langley put his glasses back on and stared her down for a minute before adding, “Now, is there anything else you wanted to ask me?”
Mutely, Ava shook her head ‘no’.
“Good,” he said, winning the argument having never once wavered in his arrogance and apathy towards them. “You know the way out. I don’t expect I’ll be seeing you around here again.”
Releasing Jeff, he strode from the room with the same indifference with which he’d entered it, having made his point, the same point he’d been making for the last ten years: he could care less about the children left in his charge. All he wanted was to be left alone.
The human climbed shakily to his feet for the second time since his arrival. “Ava?” She had her back to him, refusing to turn around. Jeff crossed over to her and touched her shoulder lightly. “Hey, are you ok?” He couldn’t miss the raspy way she was breathing. At the first sign of his concern, her shoulders began to shake. Without further thought, he pulled her small body into a gently comforting embrace. “It’s ok. He’s gone. Are you hurt?” he asked in tender concern. He had about a million questions running through his head, but they could wait. She was obviously in no condition for a round of twenty questions. Using his finger, he tipped her face up to his. “Hey, did he hurt you?” He brushed away her escaping tears with his thumb, trying to see into her eyes.
Unable to look him in the face in light of her humiliation, she simply shook her head.
“Come on, let’s get out of here before he comes back.”
“But.. but what about Nancy?” her soft voice shared her disillusioned sorrow at having failed him.
Tightening his grip on her shoulder, Jeff growled, “We’ll find another way. Come on.”
With no further conversation between them, he led her to their waiting car, feeling like it had been hours, weeks rather than mere minutes since they’d gone inside Cal Langley’s palatial residence. As they pulled away, Jeff secretly vowed to make the bastard pay for what he’d done to the poor girl sitting beside him, trying to hide her tears. She hadn’t gotten a good break her entire life and the one time she goes to the man who was supposed to be looking out for her, she gets horribly abused both mentally and physically. It was so wrong, making Jeff wish there was some way he could make it right for her again, knowing there really wasn’t.
Maybe it was the dad in him, but he wanted so badly to be able to put a band-aid on her hurt and kiss it and make it better. Langley’s cruelty had gone far too deep for such a simple remedy, leaving Jeff at a loss of how to deal with it other than to plot out various ways in which he would make that creature pay for each one of her salty tears.
His revenge would have to wait, however. Right now, Jeff had more important things to do.
Stroking Ava’s back softly as she cried, he inexhaustibly drove them back to Edwards and Nancy.