Page 51 of Matched to the Alien King
I instantly beamed the light toward Nera who was now rising from her chair, her gaze aimed over her shoulder and flicking around at all of us.
“What is this place?” she asked.
Bling offered her a half smile as she made her way toward Nera, her high heels clicking across the floor. “We’re still trying to figure that out ourselves.”
“While we’re being filmed.” Judge gestured one knobby finger to the camera drones hovering above us, perfectly silent and still. “Smile, everybody.”
No one else but him did. Obviously. We weren’t all camera drone whores.
“Look,” the Killian said from behind me. “There are enough lights for everyone.”
Sure enough, farther down the table, lay a whole pile of flashlights. Just lights and nothing else. I picked up two more and then crossed toward Nera and Bling while the room gradually lit with each flashlight switch.
The room was large, bigger than I’d imagined when I crossed it, the walls, floor, and ceiling painted in nothing but black. There were no doors or windows, at least that I could see.
“Okay, but this still doesn’t answer what this place is,” Nera said, searching her light over one wall in particular. “Did we all wake up here after a flower attack and a bag over our heads?”
The four of us nodded.
She huffed a loud breath. “Well, damn. This is my fault, then. I told Pete to liven things up, but I had no idea the piss wizard would have this in mind.”
I angled myself between her and everyone else, putting a carefully precise note of warning into my next few words. “No one’s blaming you, Nera.”
The unspoken “or else” was a given.
“That’s fair,” Judge said, shrugging one green-scaled shoulder. “But are we not going to address why you’re covered in blood and why Nera has an Earth Space Fleet uniform on all of a sudden?”
The two of us just looked at him until he nodded slowly.
“Also fair,” he said. “So how are we going to get out of here?”
Nera brought her light closer to the wall she’d been transfixed with. “Feel for any seams in the walls to indicate a hidden door.”
While the other three did as instructed, I came up behind her and placed my hand on the small of her back. Even while preoccupied, she instantly responded to my touch, arching and stretching to feel more.
“You’ve done this kind of thing before?” I asked.
“Well, yeah.” Her brown eyes sparkled when she gazed up at me. “Escape rooms back on Earth. My dad and I were champs. Have you ever done one?”
“I try not to make it a habit of trapping myself when I don’t have to.”
She shrugged. “You’re missing out.”
“Mmmm, am I though?”
She grinned, but it froze to her face in the next moment when the wall underneath her fingertips popped open. “I got it.”
That instantly drew the attention of everybody else. They gathered around while Nera pulled the secret door open. Ahead, a short hallway of floor-to-ceiling mirrors that turned left blinded us with reflections of all our lights. Quickly, we shined them down at our feet and blinked the starry echoes from our eyes.
“We’re really going in there?” Bling whispered.
The Killian side-eyed her. “You’re not suggesting we stay in here, are you?”
“No, I just…” She swallowed thickly. “It’s very narrow.”
“I’ll lead,” Nera said, her voice nothing but confidence. “Grab hands or shirt sleeves or whatever so we can stay together.”
She took my hand and started through the doorway, expecting us all to follow her command, but I gently yanked her right back.
