Cannot Win

"We should be getting close," Devon remarked after a while.

I nodded. "Yeah, I can see the fire now."

A flicker of movement had me slamming on the breaks, making the tires squeal as a lithe form bounded past in a flash. The car jerked and the engine sputtered from the weight from a xenomorph using the hood as a springboard, making the front of the vehicle dip forward.

Between that and the breaks, our tiny hatchback nearly flipped end over end before its back tires fell back to the earth.

There wasn't much time to recover from that: yet another xenomorph landed atop us.

The ink-black alien perching on the hood turned its head toward us and bared its fangs, but otherwise left us alone and hopped off the car. Silently, it disappeared into the woods in the direction of town; the car rocked as it did, tossing us around the cab like dolls.

I hadn't put on my belt, but the airbag had deployed and softened some of the blow. My arms hurt like hell from bracing myself and being pummeled by the airbag, though. That was definitely something I was going to feel later.

Hell, it was something I was feeling right then. The dust from it was making it a little difficult to breathe, too.

However, Devon wasn't so lucky. He had his seatbelt on, but no passenger airbag had deployed. Either the car didn't have one or it had malfunctioned.

"What we hit?" he moaned. He was leaning back in his seat, his eyes closed and a hand to his head.

I could barely hear him over the blaring horn, and I cut the engine to stop it. The small amount of light from the car's headlights shone in the blood trickling down his face.

"One of the xenomorphs, I think. Are you okay?" I coughed.

His brow was bleeding, and it seemed like he was having trouble focusing; he kept blinking and squinting. I took a sharp breath and looked through the dashboard but remembered that the alien had gone.

Devon said, "I . . . I think I'm okay, yeah. Just a little . . . groggy . . ."

Glaring into the forest, I left Devon where he sat, saying, "Hang tight, I'll be right back," and climbed out, my hand on the hilt of my blade. I was going to be ready if that thing came back.

Something did come out from between the trees—but I recognized Wolf immediately and sighed in relief. He stopped short and trilled in greeting, his head cocked to the side. Behind him, the glow from the burning power plant stood out against the night sky. Contrasting the dark storm clouds, black and gray smoke billowed from the raging fires in the distance.

"I leave you alone for fifteen minutes and you blow up a power plant?" I remarked, running toward him as he came to meet me.

Wolf harrumphed and stooped to my level, his hands on my shoulders, and looked me over. Then, he motioned to the car and I sighed.

"The bugs you were chasing did that," I said. "I'm okay, though. Are you okay?"

He nodded, and then Devon called out to us. "Hey . . . I think I'm stuck in here. My door won't open."

"Devon!" I gasped, turning and jogging back to the totaled hatchback. I'd left my door open, so I flung myself back inside. "How's your head? I'm sorry, the xeno must have been running from Wolf."

"Well, he's a scary guy," Devon mumbled.

"You're bleeding," I pointed out.

He hummed and grimaced. "Head hurts. Think I smacked it against the window."

Still inside, I turned to ask Wolf for help only to find him missing. A couple of seconds later, the car door on Devon's side was wrenched from its moorings and then tossed aside like scrap metal. Wolf yanked Devon's belt out of the panel and my partner nearly tumbled out. However, Wolf caught him.

Surprising, actually. I would have expected him to let my partner fall.

"Thank you, Wolf," I said, hurrying around to the other side of the car.

Wolf passed him to me with a dismissive rattle.

"He'll be okay?" I asked. His response was the same rattle, repeated with more emphasis, and I sighed with relief. "Hear that, Devon? You're gonna live."

My partner rubbed the side of his head and grimaced at his bloodied fingers. "Woo-hoo."

I smiled and pat his back reassuringly, ignoring Wolf as he wiped his hand on my shoulder again. Then, without warning, he turned and headed back into the forest in pursuit of the xenomorph. He stopped just long enough to look back at us, making it clear that he expected us to follow.

"Let's go, Devon," I bade, gently leading my partner on. "He's on the trail."

"That lady's gonna be so disappointed," Devon lamented, his gaze cast toward the car. "And we're gonna have to pay for that later."

I took his hand and tugged him onward. "It'll be fine."

"For you, maybe," he muttered. "You're skipping town."

"Yeah, yeah."

We hadn't driven far from the main town, maybe ten minutes. That probably translated into a thirty-minute jog, but I wasn't sure.

Wolf never ceased to amaze me. Even after being out as long as we had been—not including travel time—he pushed on with seemingly limitless energy. No breaks or food, on the hunt for hours and hours on end. We'd been running on fumes after half a day of constant moving.

Devon was right, he was practically a machine.

One that could still bleed, though.

The dark made it easy to notice the bright, almost fluorescent green blood trailing from Wolf's hip down his leg. It drew my eye, nearly making me lose my footing on the uneven ground. I'd taken his word at face value when he assured me he was okay, but now I was worried.

"Wolf—Wolf, wait," I called after him.

He chittered an acknowledgment at me but didn't stop his relentless march toward town.

"Do you need me?" I asked Devon, wondering if he could walk on his own.

Devon shook his head and waved in Wolf's direction. "No, I'm good. I think. Though, I'm a little fuzzy on why we're out here in the woods."

I stopped short and gave Devon a horrified look. "Fuck, Devon, do you have a concussion?"

My partner sniggered and shook his head. "No I'm just messing with you. Go check on him."

Growling, I gave him the 'I'm watching you' gesture and put on a burst of speed to catch up to Wolf, who had pulled farther ahead. All thanks to Devon's joke. Wolf wasn't playing around this time, he wanted to go catch those xenomorphs.

Panting, I grabbed Wolf's hand and tried to get him to stop, but he only turned his head to look at me.

"You should really treat that," I said, my brow furrowed in concern.

It looked like his side had been pierced by something wide, all the way through to the back. The puncture bled from both ends and showed no sign of stopping. I reached out as if to touch it, but thought better of it and withdrew my hand.

Wolf didn't slow, but he did glance down at the wound. He chattered away my concerns.

"Are you sure? You're not even a little bit worried?"

He shook his head once and gave me a reassuring head pat.

Though I didn't quite believe he was going to be okay, I fell back to check on Devon all the same. My partner was still plodding along and gave me the thumbs up when he caught me looking. We weren't quite sprinting, the woods wouldn't allow it, but we were still making good time.

/He's not even limping or anything,/ I thought to myself as I watched Wolf's back.

My admiration only grew.

At the edge of the woods, we heard screams echoing through the trees and we stopped. They were faint, as if deep in the woods. We waited to see if they moved closer, but instead, the shouting receded, heading toward the power plant for some reason. When I listened closer, the sound of sirens wafted over on the wind. Responding, likely, to the fire.

Those were the shouts of someone who was being pursued.

The fading cries took a sudden shift, replaced by the voices of my friends as we sprinted through the National Park, praying and hoping we made it to the police before we were caught. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and I gasped my way into a coughing fit, my lungs already strained from the jog and the crash.

I reached for Devon as Wolf resumed his own hunt, deciding not to investigate.

"Keep up, please," I said.

This time, I wasn't leaving anyone behind. I wasn't abandoning anyone.

Jess' betrayed look pierced me through the heart and I had to suppress the desire to take Devon's hand. I wasn't going to let it go like I'd let her go.

Not long after that, the trail brought us to a small sister building to the high school. We slowed to a walk, favoring stealth over speed. As we came around a corner to the front of the building, we found there were cars parked in the front of the pool house.

They were still running, their headlights shining into the building.

"Who's out here this time of night? Don't they know there's an emergency curfew?" Devon muttered.

My expression fell. "They wouldn't listen. We never listen."

"'We'?" Devon repeated.

I shook my head and went to investigate.

The headlights didn't quite pierce all the way into the building, but I could still see something shifting around inside. I edged over to pull the door open for Wolf, my weapon drawn, to let him inside. I knew he'd be able to work the door on his own, but it was protocol. I would have opened it for Devon, too.

He nodded and stepped inside into the darkness. I motioned for Devon to go in as well. Like me, he had his sidearm out; when he was inside, I slipped in and made sure the door shut silently.

Once my eyes adjusted, I stopped cold only a few feet into the building. Devon was also frozen in spot, watching the xenomorph that was hunched over a bloodied and limp body. It kept striking with its second jaw into the body's abdomen, unaware of the three of us.

That was something I hadn't seen before—a xenomorph mutilating one of its kills.

I caught Devon's eyes and he mouthed the words 'what the fuck is it doing?'

All I could do was shrug. 'Maybe eating?" I mouthed back.

Wolf was still nearby, watching the thing as well and trying to decide his next course of action.

My eyes were drawn to the pool to our right: there was another body floating in the water. A dark patch of pool water spread from the corpse—blood from a fatal wound. Throat tightening, I looked away. I couldn't tell in the dark, but I had a sneaking suspicion that they were teenagers.

/It's happening again,/ came my dispairing thoughts.

Devon had gone pale next to me and I sympathized with his aghast expression.

Just then, Wolf nudged me forward. I was struck with a sudden nervousness when I realized that he was urging me TOWARD the alien. It was easy enough to figure out just what he was trying to do.

He wanted me to kill the thing.

Taking a deep breath, I put my gun away and instead drew my sword. I gave the creature a wide berth to make sure I wasn't noticed and came up from behind it. Though I expected it to whirl around and launch itself at me in the blink of an eye, it never paused for even a second.

It didn't notice me sidle up behind it. I forced my hands steady and raised my blade. The drone didn't know what hit it as I drove the pointed end deep into its skull.

Going rigid, the thing slumped over once I pulled my weapon fee.

More than anything, that simple act of stealing away the awful creature's miserable and unnatural life was the most cathartic feeling. I drew a decent amount of satisfaction from the wet slap of its body against the damp tile.

An act of tiny, cold revenge that gave me some breathing room. I couldn't even stop the triumphant and proud smile that I wore, glancing over at Wolf for validation.

Wolf chittered his praise, giving my shoulder a shake as he walked over. I backed away from the acid pooling under the dead alien and Wolf grabbed its tail, yanking it into the water with the other boy.

The other casualty. Suddenly, my triumph felt hollow and weak.

He returned to grab the half-eaten kid by the back of his shirt and tossed him in the chlorinated water, as well; only the xenomorph sank.

Something inside me pulled taut as I watched those kids float—a hair-thin thread. If it pulled any tighter, it would snap. I clenched my fists and took a deep breath, counting to ten, while Wolf poured more of that devouring blue liquid into the bloody water.

He was so nonchalant about it. Business as usual. Death was a part of our life now. I couldn't let myself be bogged down by every loss.

So why was my chest so tight? Why were tears burning in the back of my eyes as I watched those two teenagers boil out of existence at the bottom of a high school pool? Why did Devon's despondent, glazed expression threaten to push me over the edge with guilt?

Closing my eyes, I took one last deep breath. Wolf thought I was doing well. He'd even, I'm pretty sure, praised me back there. That was what mattered.

/Be like Wolf. Unfettered and strong. You can do it,/ I told myself.

The pool had turned into a volatile cauldron, the water bubbling violently and creating a noxious mist of vapor that swirled at our feet. Whatever the chemical was that Wolf used to dissolve evidence into nothing, it didn't seem to mix well with the shit they used to keep the pool clean.

In a matter of seconds, Devon and I were coughing. The mist made my eyes water, but I didn't dare rub at them. Wolf grumbled to himself and took me by the arm and pulled me down a hallway. He stopped long enough to make sure Devon was following, then let go of me.

"Thanks," I murmured between mild wheezes.

If I'd been having trouble breathing before thanks to the airbag, now it was ten times worse.

Wolf huffed in response—not unkindly.

Devon sulked behind me, and I didn't blame him. In the few years we'd been together, we'd never suffered casualties like this. Some idiot every now and again wound up dead from their own stupidity, but nothing like what the xenos did to people when they weren't capturing them for a hive.

Wolf, however, was unencumbered by it all and I tried to mimic his stoic strength.

Perhaps, if our timing had been right, we could have killed the drone before it managed to sink its claws into them. Maybe not. Maybe—

The maybes were endless. I had to stay in the present if I wanted to keep moving forward.

We were following a trail of muddy blood that led us through the halls of the pool and into the locker room. I stopped short and Devon gasped behind me, surprised by yet another scene highlighting the xenomorph's brutal nature.

The lockers were painted with another kid's blood, the bench before us slick with gore. A large splatter decorated the window above the lockers, which was cracked open.

He'd tried to escape through the window, that much I could surmise.

I briefly wondered if the screams we'd heard on the way down from the power plant were somehow related, but I couldn't dwell on that. Wolf was already examining everything.

Devon had fallen silent and stood in the doorway, unmoving. He had his arm up over his face but was slowly lowering it. The color had drained from him. I wished I could share in his shock, but this was all becoming far too familiar for me.

Wolf checked for anyone—or thing—else in the locker room, then turned to leave. Devon stepped aside so he could go by and I followed after the big guy, stopping to place my hand on my partner's shoulder to try and comfort him.

"Devon, are you—"

"I can't talk right now, Nichole," he snapped, shrugging me off and spinning on his heel.

My hand dropped to my side and my shoulders sagged as I watched him trudge after Wolf, my chest knotting painfully. I hadn't wanted any of this for Devon. Dealing with the xenomorphs wasn't something I would have wished on my worst enemy, let alone my best friend.