Page 69 of Holiday with the Aliens

“Are you alright?” she asked. “We can take a break.” She smiled at him gently, but her fingers were firm and cool against his skin. He studied her, assessing whethershewas the one who needed a break. They’d been walking for hours, but this timeno trouble had come their way. Still, his companion didn’t show signs of fatigue, though her stomach had growled several times, pressing on him how important it was to find food.

“Rest soon,” he said. “Water.”

Her eyes lit up. “You think so? I know it’s getting damp, but I was too scared to hope.” She gripped his shoulder and grinned, bouncing on her feet. A small hint of red colored her cheeks and pleasure sank into him. Water made her happy—he’dmade her happy by sensing it.

The demons retreated, the call of the hunt turning to the search for resources. Even his own stomach had begun to churn. He’d gone for many days without food before, but he didn’t know the last time that he’d been fed. He’d been saving the energy bars in his bag, but they would feast on them when they stopped.

The hallway they walked through turned steep, the path drawing them down into a darker area, one that was wetter and promised water, if not food.

Little of the light from the hallway filtered to the end of the tunnel, and once they got to the end of the smooth floor and walls, Arest could hear the slap of water, but he couldn’t see it. No light filtered beyond the hallway. Stella took the light stick that she’d looped through a hole on her pants and held it up, giving them a faint trail to see by.

It wasn’t a doorway so much as a hole in the wall, one that had been punched through with much force. Rubble littered either side, and jagged stone threatened to tear into them if they lost their footing. Arest kept a hand on Stella to make sure she didn’t fall. The thought of her injured, bleeding here where there was no hope of help, sent a completely different kind of demon loose.

Maybe he was wrong about the chaos. Maybe there was nothing that could make him hurt her.

A fall of rocks blocked the path when it turned to the right. Only a small opening above his head peeked through and Arest doubted that even Stella could wiggle herself through. But the hole in the broken wall beckoned, space more than large enough for an adult to maneuver through, though they’d need to shimmy and crawl through the tightest spots.

“This is…” Stella trailed off and ran a hand against the wall, letting her fingers bump along the broken edges. “Are you sure we should be down this far? This looks,” she sucked in a breath, “unnatural.”

The entire place looked unnatural, but this tunnel hadn’t been bored with drilling equipment. This hadn’t been planned. “Water,” he replied. His lips were chapped and his skin cracked and Stella seemed just as bad. “No bad smells.” Damp hung over them and he knew water masked a lot, but he didn’t get the tiniest hint of danger. Not in his nose, at least.

Stella looked at the blocked path and then back up the way they came. From where they stood, the path was steep and long. They hadn’t had water in days and even Arest was daunted by the thought of climbing back up. Stella looked back to the hole and smiled. “Water.”

With a final test of the air, and the confidence that none of the monsters they’d already faced lurked nearby, he ducked into the hole and Stella followed close behind him. The path was short and narrow, and halfway through, they both clambered to their hands and knees, scraping along the jagged rock under them. Stella cursed behind him and Arest’s heart twisted, but she said nothing else and Arest kept moving.

His muscles bunched up, tension coursing through him at the thought of being trapped right here. The sound of the door to the outside slamming shut echoed in his memory and he moved faster. It didn’t mean a thing that this opening didn’t look likeit belonged in the tunnels. A proper trap didn’t look threatening until it was sprung.

But after another minute the pathway opened and Arest stood. A few more steps brought him to a ledge overlooking a huge cavern, big enough to fit three or four of the space ships that had brought them here.

Stella stood behind him and gasped. Far below them, a lake pooled, the water an inky blue in the dim light. And even though they stood deep underground, they could see. Farfarabove them, too tall to climb, cracks in the ceiling let sunlight filter in, diffusing light throughout the entire cavern.

“It’s magical,” she whispered, pressing a hand against his back.

A stark beauty, one that could only be appreciated in hardship. The satisfaction of the place settled into his bones. Arest could grow to love something like this, given the time to settle.

But when he spotted something moving against the rocks below him, satisfaction dissolved and the killing drive rose to the fore once more. Arest bounded off his safe perch, Stella’s yell echoing on the stone around them.

Chapter Six

At first she thought that Arest growled and jumped for no reason, but as her eyes adjusted to the dim light, Stella spotted the shadow moving along the wall below them and off to the side.

No.Shadows. And none of them were Arest.

Had he seen them all? Or had he jumped at the first threat? Her hand reached out, as if she could pull him back from his mad dash to suicide, but the first sounds of scuffle already bounced around her.

Stella blinked hard, as if she could force her vision to adjust quicker, but even with the sunlight streaming through the ceiling, most of what she could see were shadows and outlines. She wanted to curse. She wanted to run. She wanted to fight. Her desires warred inside her, rooting her in place while the shadows engaged below her, growls and groans echoing eerily on the rock. She could see exactly where the fight was going on, but if she closed her eyes she knew she’d lose the spot.

A keening wail tore out of someone down below and a meaty crash against rock told her someone had gone over the edge and down the steep cliff to the water below. She scrambled forwardand saw two figures still fighting. Arest stood proud, a form she was beginning to know too well to mistake for a monster.

He leaped back with an acrobatic twist, spinning in the air and landing in a crouch before surging forward almost faster than her eyes could process. A cheer caught in the back of her throat as he rammed into the monster. She cut herself off just in time, unwilling to distract him.

But she couldn’t just sit there like one of the carelessly strewn boulders. She needed to do… something. Not fight. Not without a weapon and training and backup. She knew that if she jumped into the fray she’d be a liability.

She felt around, her hands finding loose rocks and gathering them close. But with Arest and the monster so entangled, she couldn’t chuck one down without risking a hit to her friend.

Frustration mounted and she spat out a curse. She crawled to the other side of the ledge they’d popped out on and scanned the rock around her, looking for more threats. Far across the cavern, dozens of meters away, the shadows undulated. Whether it was the wind or more monsters, she couldn’t know. But the path to this side of the cavern was far, and for the moment she was safe.

Fallen rock made a steep ramp that led down a few meters. Stella wanted to shine her light down to make sure nothing lurked, but she’d turned it off and shoved it into her pocket during the crawl and worried that it would be a beacon if she turned it back on now. Instead, she moved slowly and kept her ears on alert. She couldn’t hear nearly as well as Arest, and the sounds of his fight still held her attention, though they got more muffled as she moved.

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