Under Your Skin

Though we had to detour around the spanning valley Wolf's explosion had created, we eventually made it back to where we'd left Jailbreak. I'd half expected that he was just going to leave him there to rot, but I was glad I was wrong.

My legs were killing me after the run, making limping through the woods a task, but I managed without complaint. I tried hard to hide it from Wolf, but he was all-seeing. He made me stop and motioned toward my legs, chattering away in his normal surly manner.

"Remember? You broke my legs. I'm fine, just keep walking," I grumbled.

Devon, from his position in the peanut gallery, said, "HE'S the one who broke your legs?"

Wolf snorted a protest and chased after me.

"You broke my legs, they broke when I jumped, same difference," I huffed. It was at least a little easier to understand the flow of our conversations, now.

It was almost like old times.

Wolf gave me a good-natured shove, but it was still strong enough to make me stumble.

"Ow! I was just kidding, god. I don't actually think you broke my legs. But you're gonna break my something if you push me like that again," I sniffed.

Though I wasn't sure exactly what it was he muttered in response, I pretended it was an apology.

"I don't like how he manhandles you like that," Devon remarked.

"And I don't need you to white knight me, Devon. This is our thing," I replied, not unkindly.

Still, I caught him muttering under his breath. "It's rude, that's what it is."

Once we reached the corpse, Wolf removed a large vial of blue liquid from one of his pouches. It kind of reminded me of the syrup containers from iHop. In space. I'd seen him making it on the airplane, but I hadn't known what it was.

"What's that?" I asked.

I did not receive a verbal response.

He drizzled some of the strange substance over the length of Jailbreak's body and stepped back. I was already standing a small distance away, but Devon pulled me back a bit more when the corpse melted away like cotton candy in the rain. Wolf put the vial away and motioned for us to keep going.

"Well, wait . . . that's all?" I asked, staring in disbelief at where Jailbreak had been mere seconds ago. "Just . . . melt him away. Like he was never here?"

Wolf nodded.

"There's no ceremony to it? No eulogy or, or, anything to give him a proper send-off?" Devon joined in, equally as appalled as I was, maybe more so.

To my surprise, Wolf answered by shaking his head. Maybe he really was making an effort.

"That's—that's awful," I muttered.

All Wolf did was roll his shoulders and make a derisive sound. I wasn't expecting much else, so it came as a surprise to me when he growled out a couple of English words; "No honor."

My chest tightened with sympathy and I dropped my gaze. "Because he was captured."

Though Wolf answered in the affirmative, he gesticulated with his hand, making me think that there was more to it. I gave it a moment's thought, but when I couldn't come up with anything, Wolf thumped his fist against his chest and made an outward motion with his fingers.

"Being captured and . . . his chest. Um, because he died to the parasite?"

He answered "yes" in his language.

"Oh," was all I could manage to say.

Any more protests I had died on the tip of my tongue. I wanted to try to paint Jailbreak in a better light, tell Wolf that it wasn't his fault, but it was too late for that. Wolf had already made his decision and destroyed the guy's body.

Jailbreak wasn't going to have a warrior's send-off.

And part of that was my fault. Wolf probably wouldn't see that way, though. It was sink or swim, bitch. Jailbreak, in Wolf's eyes, should have helped himself or died trying.

"That's kinda harsh," Devon remarked. "You really wanna be caught up with this species?"

"It's fine," I muttered, unsure if I meant it.

Once again I found myself wondering what could have been. What might have happened had I succeeded in freeing him and returning him to his kind. Whether or not they might have given him a chance to redeem himself or if they would have cast him aside like yesterday's news all the same.

For now, I tried to push the thought aside. Hindsight wasn't going to change the present. Wondering what could have been would just make me lose focus. I'd make my choices, I had to deal with the guilt that came with them.

Another, small part in a corner of my brain simmered. A tiny bit of insecurity, wondering if this was any place for me. If I had a place by Wolf's side if this was what I had to look forward to. Sink or swim, win or lose. It was a wonder that Wolf had ever helped me out in the first place.

Wolf growled and insisted we move on.

That was all I'd allow myself to think about the matter. I was ready to swim.

For now, though, there was still the issue of Buddy and Sam, and the xenomorphs that were likely roaming around.

"There were two civilians caught up in all of this, a boy and his father. I don't know where they are, and there is also the crew of the ship to worry about. I don't know if they survived the crash or were dragged off by the xenomorphs," I reported, taking out the picture of Sam and Buddy to hand it to him.

Wolf took it out of reflex and looked down at it, then turned his head back to me and cocked it to the side, chiding me with a grating sound.

Grimacing, I snatched the paper from him and dropped my gaze. "Right, sorry, I forgot. You don't see the same way I do."

"Do you think he can find them?" Devon asked.

I nodded. "I'm sure he can, even without knowing what he's looking for. Right?"

I turned expectantly to Wolf, and he nodded. He scanned our surroundings, kneeled to examined some dirt, then turned and indicated for us to stay put. When we acknowledged his request, he walked past me and slammed into Devon as he walked by.

My partner stumbled and sent off a slew of choice profanities in Wolf's direction, but he had already activated his cloaking device and was gone.

"Does he do that often?" Devon asked as I came to check on him.

"I'm sorry about him. I don't know why he's acting like this," I sighed.

Devon quirked an eyebrow at me. "Really? You don't know?"

Taken aback, I shook my head. "No!"

He studied me for a second, then rolled his eyes and said, "Not gonna lie, Nichole, the guy seems like a real asshole."

So, I guessed he wasn't going to tell me what he meant.

"Sometimes, I guess. He's not usually this crass."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Devon said abruptly.

"About Wolf?"

"No, that the Easter Bunny wasn't real. Yes, about the god damn alien!"

The sarcasm was a step in the right direction and I took a bit of comfort in his familiar snark.

"Um, because I work for a government agency actively attempting to capture and experiment on his kind?" I said, glad Wolf had already left.

"You could have told me. I wouldn't have breathed a word of it," Devon said, unsuccessful in his attempts to keep the hurt from his voice. He still wouldn't look at me, and as close as I was, I could see the tension in his jaw.

Sighing, I put a hand on his shoulder. He didn't protest. "I honestly didn't know he was going to show up here. I mean, yeah, I called him, but that was right after I got home from leaving work . . . I expected it to take some time."

"Why'd you call him at all if it wasn't to help with this situation?" he asked again.

I hadn't answered him the first time he asked, and I wasn't sure I could answer him now.

Averting my gaze, I sighed and said, "I wanted him to come and get me."

Devon stared at me for an uncomfortable amount of time, long enough that I just had to say something.

"He gave me the beacon so I could call him. Before, when I was still a teen, he tried to take me with him. I wasn't ready, and I didn't want to go . . . I needed an excuse to stay, so I dedicated myself to getting into the FBI so I could find a chance to kill the xenomorphs," I explained.

He was starting to put the pieces together. "And when you learned that they had already been transferred, you decided to call it bust and just go. You'd killed the queen, done everything you could, but had no more reason to stay."

I nodded.

"Distancing yourself, refusing my invitations to hang out with friends . . . it was all so you wouldn't hurt so much when you left, wasn't it?"

Again, I nodded.

Rubbing his face, Devon exhaled sharply. "Jesus, Nichole . . . What are you going to do? What are you to him? It's clear he's mad jealous that I'm here, so he is clearly attached but that's kind of weird considering he's an alien and he met you when you were like, what? Seventeen?"

My face burned red. "Don't make it weird, Devon."

"I'm just trying to understand—"

Wolf rescued me from the interrogation by showing back up, dropping down from a tree nearby, and startling both of us. I was all too happy to change subjects, so I met him halfway and asked, "Were you able to find them?"

He assured me he had and motioned for us to follow.

"How can he understand us?" Devon asked, eying Wolf as we headed back into the woods.

"The mask," I said. "I assume it has a translator or something. It's either that or he just knows English. He does say a few words, but I think it's more likely he has a translator."

"Oh, I think I remember you saying something about that when Jailbreak was captured."

"Yeah."

It turned out that Buddy and Sam weren't far off from where we were, maybe another mile or so. I marveled at just how fast he had found them compared to how long it took him to lead us to their bodies, but eventually, he babbled away in his language and gestured at the dark shapes in the grass.

The meaning was clear: "Is this them?"

Though I'd been holding onto a tiny sliver of hope that they were still alive, that was quickly snuffed out. Swallowing, I steeled myself for what I might see and approached. However, he stopped me and pushed me back, indicating for Devon to look instead.

Somewhat insulted, I said, "Why can't I identify them?"

Wolf huffed and pushed me back again, letting Devon go instead. Devon gave me a non-comittal shrug and picked his way through the underbrush toward them, shining his flashlight over their bodies.

"What is it?" I asked, trying to look over Wolf's arm.

Devon put his arm over his face and swore under his breath.

"Yeah, it's them . . . ," he called at last, shaking his head. "It's a damn fucking shame. Looks like they'd been found by the xenos and impregnated."

My heart sank. "Oh no . . ."

He came back and swapped places with Wolf, who went to take care of the bodies. I tried to go with him, to see what he was going to do, but Devon held me fast. I was going to protest until I saw his face and I stopped.

"You don't need to see that. I wish I hadn't seen it," Devon murmured, his face clouded with misery. "Dammit, he was just a child . . ."

He didn't have to tell me. I could picture it vividly in my head after watching so many people die the exact same way. After watching my best friend die in my arms to those fucking parasites. I took one of his hands in both of mine and said, "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," he sniffed. He was doing a better job of keeping himself together than I had.

Wolf pulled out that blue dissolving liquid and Devon was quick to jump toward him. "No! No wait, we have to get those bodies back to the mother. The coroner can fix them up, make them look presentable and the mother can grieve properly."

Stopping, Wolf regarded Devon for a moment and then pointed at the bodies.

"I know you want to hide evidence or whatever, but we have our own way to hide evidence. I'll have these bodies picked up by my people and they'll spin whatever story they can to keep this from coming to light," Devon assured him with a fiery passion I'd seen a few times before.

I was quick to come to his defense, too. "He's right. You can do whatever you want with the technology, but I promise no one will know what really happened to these bodies."

Wolf regarded us, then nodded and put his thing away.

Devon sighed with relief and took his phone out. "I'll send a message to Hassan and attach our coordinates. I have to update him about the possible threat of an infestation."

I grabbed his hand and said, "No, wait. We don't know how many are out there yet and they don't have a queen, so they can't reproduce forever. Wolf's here, so we can have them all killed off in a day or so. There's no need to involve the military yet."

He didn't seem fully convinced. "You really think we can contain this by ourselves?"

"Yes, with Wolf here, I really do."

Sighing, he pulled his hand out of mine and said, "Fine, but I have to tell him something. I'll just say we found two bodies that might have been infected and we're still investigating if the xenos are a threat to the area."

"Thank you, that's fine."

He sent the message and then studied Wolf's muscular form for a moment, his mouth twisted into an incredulous frown. "What about the citizens, though? When should we have them evacuated?"

Wolf growled as if he thought it was a bad idea.

"We can take care of it," I said. "We'll find where those things are nesting and kill them there, then Wolf can find those that are infected and deal with it."

"By killing them."

"Well—"

He shook his head and said, "No, that's exactly what's going to happen. We can help these people. Gestation is how long? A few hours? That's plenty of time to get them somewhere via helicopter and try to extract the parasite."

"Like, through surgery? You heard the doctor, they attach to an artery in your chest," I reminded him. "How could you remove something like that?"

"People do delicate surgeries on brains and remove tumors from spines and shit. It couldn't be that hard. I'm sure any heart surgeon worth their scrubs would be able to find a way to get it out and then stitch up the artery," he scoffed.

"Devon," I said, trying to keep my voice level, "you can't just cut it out like a tumor. You gotta remember, this is a special tumor with teeth and acid blood."

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I guess that's true but shouldn't we at least try?"

"I want to keep these people safe, too, but to do that we have to kill the xenomorphs before they can get established and start hunting en masse. We're not going to be able to save everyone," I argued.

Though Devon opened his mouth to say more, Wolf interrupted, hailing me with a single word he pronounced a little more carefully. "Ast'ni."

Confused, I asked, "What's that?"

He pointed at me.

"Me? Like . . . like a nickname? Like how I call you Wolf?"

Wolf nodded and then jerked his head in what I thought was the direction of town. We stood like that for a minute, then I suddenly remembered myself and said, "Oh, right. We have to start the hunt or else we're giving them even more of a chance to establish a nest."

"Alright, let's get going then!" Devon said.

"Any sign of which way the bugs went?" I asked Wolf.

Wolf nodded and set out into the night, leaving us to follow after him.