Forever Tonight Read online

  Forever Tonight

  By

  Tara Newlands

  Dedication:

  For those who seek courage during dark hours.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Forever Tonight by Tara Newlands

  Red Rose Publishing

  Copyright© 2007 Tara Newlands

  ISBN: 978-1-60435-167-5

  ISBN: 1-60435-167-5

  Cover Artist: Kat Nisaá

  Editor: Shaiha

  Line Editor: WR Gabbidon

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews. Due to copyright laws you cannot trade, sell or give any ebooks away.

  Red Rose Publishing

  . www.redrosepublishing.com

  Forestport, NY 13338

  Forever Tonight

  By

  Tara Newlands

  Prologue

  Scientists say the universe is composed of almost 75 percent dark matter. Yet, no one knew for sure what resided there. The light or visible matter and the dark or hidden matter existed side by side in a balance that connected the centuries. It was in the dark matter they waited.

  If you saw them, you’d think your eyes were playing tricks on you. That fleeting moving shadow you just saw had no form, no purpose or did it? For eons, their energy could not escape the dark light. So, they watched as the light matter mankind expanded and spread across the earth. They were jealous. They coveted our light, our sun and ability to shape visible matter.

  With cunning they plotted to overthrow, reshape and replace mankind with their biological offspring who would help them cross the rift to take over this earth. The plan was so clever and precise that we woke too late to danger. Before, anyone knew they outnumbered us three to one. The invasion started in 2008 without a shot fired.

  As the Earth’s armies were subdued, they spread their message into the living rooms and televisions that covered the earth. No one had ever completely seen them. So, it was a surprise that they looked just like us. They are humanoids, like us. Yet, with two key differences. Their double telling traits are the dark light that they emit and the cold inhumanity of their emotion.

  Their dark light surrounds their bodies like an invisible cloak. It was invisible to all, but the trained eye. It is the key to telling the dark from the light and to mankind’s fight for survival.

  They call themselves the ‘Kien’. They promised a multitude of revelations for humankind if all would capitulate to their rule. They had placed their learned offspring into key places of power. It was surprise to none that most of mankind’s governing officials gave their people and nations over for the vague offer of peace with power the Kien offered.

  Yet, there are free zones of mankind that have refused to give up control to the encroaching Kien. So, in systematic campaign the Kien’s armies rounded up those they considered trouble makers, the very scientists who for decades had struggled to understand the matter they possessed and those still willing to fight placing them into militarized zones called the classes.

  Those considered the greatest threat were placed into the ‘Redclasses.’ As the years have passed, a movement for change and liberation has spread through Redclasses of the world. The centre of mankind’s rebellion is centred in Seattle in the United States of America. But, in a world gone mad love had become the only thing that that mattered. What follows now is one terran woman’s story of hope, love, rebellion with a dose of revenge.

  Chapter One

  Ann Kiply was angry as she walked the rain slick streets of Seattle alone. The night stirred dark and sober around her filled with withering unseen terrors that threatened to consume what was left of the woman she’d been.

  Emptiness flooded the gate of her soul devouring her from the inside out the way that water which drips unstopped can eventually overcome the greatest of foes. It was late night and cars trickled by on the boulevard filling the dark with random hollow sounds of metallic chucks and clangs. It felt as if the questions she’d asked herself dozens of times in the deepest parts of her heart might never be answered. Yet, she continued on the hunt for the Kien male that had almost ruined her life.

  Cold and damp air surrounded her as she continued down that long lonely street. Her breath whispered past cool, slightly chapped lips to hang suspended in the night air for a brief moment as she moved passed. Goose pimples moved lightly across her sienna skin under the heavy weight of the clothing she wore.

  She was afraid that Kien round up units had discovered her escape. She looked behind her, was it movement she saw in the shadows just east of the street lamp across the street? A shuffling to the left of her caused her to glance into the shadows of an alley across the street, her eyes strained for sight in the gathering darkness. She moved on. It was nothing. Her flesh felt chilled to the bone with an ache and coldness she had never felt before.

  She asked the silent night sky above a muted question, “is it right to do this?” It gave no answer just a mere clap of thunder in the distance. She walked on nose pointed to the ground pausing slowly outside the window of a brightly lit upscale bar. There were Kien inside with their human sympathisers drinking looking happy and alive to her tired eyes.

  A sudden rain began pouring from the sky in cold icy droplets. She thought maybe it was the tears of the angels in heaven for the action she was considering taking. The little icy droplets continued pouring down sinking into the fabric of her light jacket. Ann couldn’t tell anymore where the coldness inside her began or where the tears of the night ended.

  The small crowd inside the bar continued about their business. Ann’s eyes were riveted and glued to a tall solid dark haired man who stood with his back to the window. She allowed her eyes to shift into trained sight. She could easily tell now who was Kien and who was human. The dark haired man was Kien. His darklight was thickly radiating off him in a steady wave.

  She gave a careful meaningful glance at the others seated in the tiny bar. A man wearing a multi-colored tie glanced towards her. He appeared to be a rich Kien noble. Ann could tell by the fine cut of his suit, the Rolex watch around his wrist and the noticeable glimmer of the darklight that surrounded him.

  He looked out at her then with a cool smooth gaze. He rested his thick masculine hand on the finely boned hand of the woman sitting by his side. They both gazed at her then and the man whispered a silent comment as they slowly began to laugh.

  Ann was pinned in place under their silent mockery. Chilly, wet drops of rain rolled off her hair to mix with her tears as she met their gazes head on. A bitter rage moved within her body and soul at the cruelty they could so easily display until she was the rage, until she was the hate, until she was a despairing soul who’d had enough. She gathered what was left of the woman she was and quietly put it away. She’s become what she’s feared, a creature of pure ancient rage.

  The mockery in the nobleman’s eyes turned to quiet uncertainly. Could he see the change? Without taking his eyes off her, Ann watched him call for a waiter. But, it was too late. With a cry born of desperate years, years spent crawling searching for what had been lost; Ann laid her hands and forearms on the glass running them over the cool moist surface.

  She smiled at the man then, at the night and at Chaos. This was her chance to make a stand. She slammed her thickly gloved fists and forearms on the glass and watched consideringly as it shattered inward. Jagged pieces of crystallized glass floated like
glittering snow reflecting silvery light at the rain outside. Mingled cries or fear and disruption moved like a shockwave in the brightly lit room. She smiled then at the surprised and worried faces. The order had been upset. She carefully crossed the opening she’d made and entered the bar.

  “What the hell are you doing!” said the Kien nobleman. His earlier smile had faded leaving a mere line of tension in its place.

  She stood swaying in the moist breeze from outside listening to the muffled cries and calls for the police.

  “Miss, you better get out of here.” A tall husky waiter approached Ann from the side. His footsteps faltered as she gazed at him with heavy hooded eyes from under the cover of her moist chestnut coloured hair. The soft glow radiating off his body marked him as human.

  People stood trying to gather their belongings as they edged toward the door except for the tall Kien man standing by the bar. His mirrored reflection gazed at her and the scene behind him with cool calculating eyes as he carefully continuing drinking his beer.

  “I won’t stand for this,” one stately gentleman said as he gathered up his car keys. Ann couldn’t help laughing at the expression on his angry face, “You won’t stand for it? My friend, I think you should sit down.” She cocked her face to the side watching his chest puff out like a roster showing off, “You’re not going anywhere until I’ve had my say.”

  She opened her jacket then revealing the device swapped to her chest. There where startled gasps then competing with harshly indrawn breaths.

  “What are you going to do with that?” It was the waiter again for the second time.

  Ann smiled at the boy then, “I don’t know. But, I’ll have my say.”

  She glanced at him with cool eyes, “Tell your friend behind the bar to put down that phone and sit right over there.”

  The waiter glanced at his friend trying to decide what to do. For a lifetime of seconds his decision was finally made, he said quietly “Roger, put the phone down and come out here.”

  “But, Josh!”

  Ann listened to the low weeping of the Kien women in the café. “What do I want,” she said quietly to the now silent room. “I want what you want. But, you seem to think that’s cause for laughter.”

  The Kien nobleman and his companion chimed in at once, “What do you want us to say, that we’re sorry? Well, we are. You must let us go.”

  She refocused livid eyes on the pair, “I see you’re used to giving the orders.” The rain continued to fall like tears outside as roaring lighting lit the night sky.

  Ann whispered softly to herself, “Oh, the despairing soul is a rebel.”

  She looked around the room. “I’ve lived on the edge of your new world in poverty and grief. I see images of myself and terrans like me distorted, twisted for your amusement. Until I’m nothing more than a creature of no thought or conscience, like you. Give back the lives you’ve stolen.”

  The faces in the café were a riot of mixed emotion as she continued, “The people of the Redclass are in despair. We cry to the heavens you live in to be seen. But, you don’t listen.”

  Ann stopped her urgent gently swaying movements and chuckled without mirth at the looks of startled terror on the faces in the bar all around her, “Oh, don’t fear now is not the time. Yet, I can’t help feeling irony at the looks on your faces. I thought the Kien felt no fear.

  Walking forward toward the nervous crowd she glanced at the seated men in the bar and asked earnestly, “Who will be the hero tonight?”

  She gazed at the waiter to the right of her noting his strength and height, “Is it you? You have a body and face cameramen love. They could catch you when it’s all over as you stand under the streetlight across the street.”

  She met his amber coloured eyes while she continued, “the cameraman will shoot you from the backdrop of this broken window. The street lamp will tower above your head as spellbound masses from all over this nation will watch as you become like that tower, a pillar of strength in a night filled with madness.”

  After brushing away the jagged remaining pieces of glass from the broken window, she sat with a heavy sigh, “Maybe I didn’t think this over carefully enough.”

  She pushed away her heavy damp hair from her face with trembling hands. A low pitched masculine came from the bar, “You should let us go.”

  “Who said that?” Ann’s eyes met the eyes of the Kien class trooper she’d watched earlier. He sat watching her from the bar with knowing dark eyes.

  “It’s you,” she said. “It’s not because you feel a need to save these people. But, you’re a predator. I know your kind.”

  He tilted his head in silence acknowledgement of her words. His voice was mocking taunting sarcasm as he said with a snort, “You’re right. I don’t really care what happens to these folks. I just don’t feel like dying tonight.”

  Ann continued to gaze at him a moment searching his face slowly. She gave him a slight knowing smile as whispers of recognition moved inside her, “What’s your name?”

  The trooper glanced around the room at the seated and standing patrons who were watching their exchange with breathless tension.

  “Well, good evening everyone. My name is Theodore.”

  With a smile that didn’t quite light his steel dark eyes he continued, “Ok, I’ve told you mine. So why don’t you tell me yours or should I guess?”

  “Ann Kipley. I’m a member of the Redclass unit, section five. But, I think you already knew that.”

  Theodore searched the faces of the people in the bar. They stared at him now in mute appeal. The Kien woman and the men watched him as if he were a saviour who held the key to the unspoken question that now hung in the room. Would they die tonight?

  A few were gazing at him as if he were a devil in league with the woman they now found before them, “Ann, you have a story I think you wish to tell.” He turned back to take a gulp of beer, “Don’t you think you should get started? But, know this they won’t listen. If they listen, they won’t understand. Life in the Redclasses is strange and foreign to most of these folks. But, by all mean continue.”

  There were angry murmurs between the seated diners. The laughing Kien noble from earlier turned to Theodore, “I can’t believe this. Sir, just whose side are you on anyway?”

  Theodore glanced back at him with cool disdain, “I’m not on anyone’s side, but my own. You got the ball rolling tonight.” As the man began to speak words of denial, he continued, “Don’t try to say that’s not true. I saw what you were doing earlier as this young lady stood at the window. Tell me, friend how does it feel to lose the control you thought you’d had.”

  Ann gave a wan smile when Theodore finished. “Oh, life is so strange at times.”

  Giving the huddled group a searching glance she began to speak, “I’ve lived most of my life in Redclass five. When your species invaded the earth and took over, the world governments’ resistance movements broke into open warfare with you in 2012, I was 13 years old. My parents were rebels and as such were some of the first to be placed into the Redclass sections in the years that followed. Daily, I had to face the broken looks in their eyes as they spoke of times that were no more. See, they’d lost the will and hope to fight. They never thought anything could happen to the good old USA.”

  “Not the camps or the dictatorship. But, as we all know it did. The poor, the unwanted and the rebels who wouldn’t give into your new order were rounded up for work and detainment in the new camps. My parents for years tried to flee to the free zone, but they never made it. The world they’d knew was gone, just gone.”

  Ann looked at the group now as they listened with curious interest, “I forgot the happy times from before and quickly settled into the pattern of existence we now had to live in. But, I always dreamt of the day I’d be free. I dreamt of joining the freedom fighters someday. Do any of you have any idea what it’s like there? Any idea of what it’s like to see cameras everywhere watching everything you do?”

  She s
ighed shaking out her mane of slightly damp brown hair laughing without mirth, “But, of course you can’t understand because it’s not you.” Ann wasn’t surprised to feel tears rolling down her cheeks, hastily she brushed them away.

  The night sky was filled with lighting arcing across the city skyline until the towering buildings seemed to stand out like centuries. Raindrops blown inside by the wind just outside the window wet her skin and hung like diamonds from the tips of her eyelashes. She was quiet then watching the drops continue to fall, yet her mind was a jumble of mixed emotion. Should she finish this or walk away? Would she fail Brian again if she did?

  For a brief instant a single drop of water rolled noiselessly down her cheek, Ann reached out a nervous hand to try to catch it. But, it slipped noiselessly passed her cupped hand and fell into wet pool that had gathered around her damp boots. Is this me? She couldn’t see an end to the madness and someone must pay for the pain Brian had endured.

  Ann gazed at the Kien patrons, searching their worried faces. If not for the differences in their uniforms and the darklight they emitted, many of them were much like her. Theodore continued sitting sipping his drink at the bar and his eyes pointed at her like daggers.

  “None of you can truly understand what’s happening in Redclass. Your state media are going to call me mad. Reason cooled my sweating brow many times until I almost lost the one person in this screwed up world who means something to me. Brian Williams is the dearest joy I’ve ever known and I almost lost him for no reason other than he tried to bring the truth of the Redclass into the light.”

  Ann felt her heart tighten in remembered emotion as she though of his shooting days earlier. In a short time he had become the love of her life. They’d met after he’d hidden in the community building of the Redclass section to escape the Kien’s death squads.