Page 44 of Alien in the Depths

“Come on, come on,” she whispered as her eyes scanned what was probably once a gleaming white room but was now grimy and dirty. She vaguely wondered how much blood had been washed out of Vexis’s clothes in the black washer and dryer that took up one wall.

She suddenly shuddered at the thought that she may have been sitting in clothes soiled with the same sordid substance the entire time she’d been there. Her wide eyes flickered to the pile, squashed and indented with the shape of her body.

Just as quickly, they flickered away. She decided she didn’t want to know.

Instead, she set her sights on the rest of the room, sure that she’d be able to find something to bypass the lock.

On the wall opposite the machines, an open set of shelves overflowed with detergents and powders. Sofia crossed the room quickly, rummaging through its contents. She rifled past a packet of dryer sheets, tipped over a box of whitening powder,and got her hands sticky with some kind of heavy-duty blue stain remover, but nothing looked useful.

Finally, she turned to the washer and dryer set, which were half-obscured by yet another pile of dirty clothes. Out of desperation, she flung open the door to each, but they were empty, save for a single sock forgotten in the depths of the dryer’s barrel.

“Come on, there has to be something.” She said this last part a little too loudly and clapped her hand over her mouth in panic.

For a second, Sofia stood stock-still, her heart pounding in her chest. The last thing she needed was Vexis barging back into the room and harassing her some more. Or worse, figuring out her plan and binding her hands and feet for good measure. As the seconds ticked by, though, nothing happened.

Just to be sure, she crept toward the door again. When she pressed her ear there, she heard the men’s voices still echoing down the hall from the other side of the house. A deep exhale escaped her lips, and she turned back to the room once more, determined not to give up.

Apart from the washer, the dryer, that shelf, and way too many dirty clothes, though, there was nothing else in the room. Sofia paced anyway, hoping something would come to her, but every time her bare feet connected with the cold tile floor, she grew more and more frustrated.

Zaraq’s kind face flashed before her eyes, and she could almost feel his lips again. Worse, she could almost see him arrivingat the house, could almost hear Vexis’s cruel laugh, and could almost see the hope drain from Zaraq’s eyes when he realized he’d given up his last chance at redemption.

Sofia shook her head. She couldn’t let that happen, but she didn’t know how to stop it, either. A surge of hopelessness rose in her, and in a sudden burst of pure frustration, she kicked at the clothes piled up in front of the washer, sending them skidding across the floor.

“Oh my god,” she gasped, her hands coming up to her mouth.

Her green eyes, which had been scrunched almost closed in her frustration, were now wide open and staring. With more than a little trepidation, she stepped forward, crouching in front of the drawer beneath the washer that had been obscured until now.

When she’d kicked the pile of clothes, the drawer had been pulled partly open, and her heart pounded as she caught a glimpse of something shiny inside.

The fragile hope that the sight of the drawer had fostered only grew in her as she pulled it open, and it burst into full bloom when her gaze landed on a collection of mismatched and rusty tools.

“Oh my god, yes, yes, yes,” she whispered to herself. It felt like her whole body was alive again. All the despondency she’d felt just moments before was now cast aside in the light of what she decided was ostensibly a miracle.

As she inspected the tools at her disposal, she chuckled quietly. It was obvious Vexis had severely underestimated her. To him, she was not a whole, complex, intelligent individual. Instead, she was just a woman, a bimbo, a piece of ass to be used and then discarded.

And what’s more, she was an Earthling.

Zaraq had told her, the day she’d gone to the casino, that she should be aware of the way her kind was viewed on Rikuus. The general consensus, according to Zaraq, was that Earthlings were something of a lesser species—harmless but generally uneducated, especially when it came to space travel.

Quietly pulling a pair of pliers from the drawer, Sofia had to agree with that last part at least. Compared to the things she’d learned since meeting Arccoo, landing on the moon and sending a couple of rovers to Mars seemed like child’s play. And that was more or less how the citizens of Rikuus treated them—like well-meaning but ignorant children.

Sofia shook her head, smirking. She might not come from a planet with an advanced space program nor a leg-up in galactic trade or high-tech weapons, but at the very least, they did have pliers. That and chisels, which she also extracted from the drawer with care.

With a grin still plastered on her face, she went to get up, only to turn again as something caught her eye. There, right beside the drawer and half-covered in a crusty sock, was something that looked an awful lot like a clothespin.

Sofia swapped the tools to her left hand and with her right, picked it up and inspected it.

Yep, definitely a clothespin.She grinned even wider. The small metal coil that held the thing together might be the missing piece to her plan.

With tools and the pin in hand, Sofia scurried over to the door. Her heart was pounding again, and one last time, she held her ear to the cool white wood. Only this time, she heard something that made her blood run cold.

She still couldn’t make out the words, but the voices were louder now. And not because they were closer. She heard yelling as two or three men shouted at each other, and she was certain—more than certain—that one of them was Zaraq. She’d know that voice anywhere. Even from behind the door of a laundry room in the house of the man who had ruined Zaraq’s life and seemed intent on twisting the knife.

Now more than ever, she knew she had to get out of there. But even though she wanted to hurry, it was clear that the only way to do this was to do it right. Taking a deep breath, she pulled her ear reluctantly away from the door and instead concentrated on the security panel.

She wished Elena could be there with her, but at the very least, some of her sister’s engineering know-how had rubbed off on her. With as much patience as she could muster, Sofia slipped the chisel under the cover of the panel and twisted. It took a few tries, but finally, the metal lid popped off.

For a second, it flipped through the air, away from the doorjamb, and Sofia’s heart jumped into her throat. She managed to catch it just before it clattered onto the floor, and the room remained in perfect silence. Except for the thundering in Sofia’s chest.

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