Alien Fascination (The Shadow Zone Brotherhood Book 3)

by Elise Jae

  I nod.

  It’s an easy thing to promise.

  And I desperately want to ask about the monsters. But that’s not what he thinks I’m here for.

  “So,” I say, turning and flopping down on his couch. “What do you do on a normal day?”

  “I thought you were going to ask questions about the sian body.”

  “Those’ll come. But we’ve got a while, and I’d rather spend today and tomorrow figuring out how I can fit into your routine. I’m here to poke and prod, but I don’t want to interfere with too much.”

  “I’m afraid my schedule is pretty boring.” He shrugs a single shoulder and jerks his chin toward the window. “I’m here to make sure that stays clear. So, I stay here, I watch the sensors, and I deal with problems as needed.”

  “And work out in between.”

  “Among other things.”

  I can’t tell if the growl in his tone is a threat, or a promise.

  “And is this what you normally wear?”

  He looks down at himself as if he has to remember what he put on that morning. “No.”

  “You got dressed up for little ol’ me?”

  “Technically. I usually wear significantly less, but did not want you to feel uncomfortable.”

  Significantly has my interest piqued. “Try it out tomorrow. If I have a problem, I’ll let you know.”

  He studies me for a moment and then nods, but before I can ask my next question, an enormous yawn overtakes me. Their sun is setting.

  “How long is the trip from Earth again?” Trench is watching me like he thinks I’ll tip over and shatter.

  “Twenty-six hours. We may want to pick up with the interrogation tomorrow morning.”

  “That’s probably best.” Standing, he holds his hand out to me, and when I take it, he nearly pulls me off the floor. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” I have to quash the five questions that immediately arise. Asking if he’d like to toss me around isn’t the right way to end the night.

  He walks me to my room, pointing to one further down the hall. “If you need anything, just yell for me. I’m a fairly light sleeper.”

  And then I’m alone.

  The lights in the rest of the house are off, and I’ve only just realized there are no doors on this level of the house either.

  Even the attached bathroom is wide open.

  But Trench has shown no sign of wanting to peep, and I’ve spent way too long around cadavers and study candidates to be shy about anyone’s body, let alone my own.

  I snatch my pajama shorts and tank top out of my bag and head for the bathroom.

  It’s not until I’m spitting out the last of my toothpaste that I realize I should have some sort of fear response.

  The primal part of my brain should recognize that there’s next to nothing between me and a man who is danger personified. But it doesn’t.

  I’ve literally never met a man as big, or strong, as Trench, and the fact that he could easily hurt me hasn’t crossed my mind once before now.

  Maybe I’m too tired to be scared.

  When I slip between the sheets, my hazy mind tumbles into the dark blur of dreams.

  I wake in the pitch dark and hear someone moving in the main part of the house.

  The strange room and stranger noise, has me bolt upright.

  The darkness on the other side of that open door is still, but that doesn’t stop my imagination from running away with itself.

  And the noises….

  The heart rate monitor on my wrist softly chirps a warning.

  I toss aside the covers, needing to know what’s going on.

  The floor is oddly warm beneath my feet—I vaguely remember Laurel saying something about geothermal heating—and I creep down the hall.

  I pause at the door to Trench’s room, but the bed is empty.

  No doubt, the sounds I hear in the living area are just him. But why he’s up at—whatever ungodly time this is…. And then, my brain clicks back on.

  There’s only one reason he’d be up right now.

  Swallowing the lump that’s lodged in my throat, I hurry downstairs.

  Trench is wearing something akin to a wetsuit and is tapping information into a screen on the wall.

  He glances up at me, just once before going back to what he’s doing.

  “I have a monster sighting I have to go take care of. Go back to bed. I’ll be home before daybreak.”

  He leaves without any more reassurance. And I’m frozen, blinking after him.

  I know more about what he’s heading into than I should. And the idea fills me with a sickly cold dread.

  TRENCH

  Hunting this monster down was harder than it should have been.

  But killing it was just as easy.

  If I could scrub all of those memories away, I would. But unlike the blood I wash off my hands now that I’ve deposited the corpse in cold storage… some things are permanent, staining.

  The lights are dim, but on when I step back inside, and I know Jessica didn’t do what I asked her. It only takes a moment to locate her.

  She’s wrapped in a blanket, staring out the plate glass window when I come back. Her jaw is hard, and when she looks up at me, I might be willing to say she was angry with me.

  Except that there’s no reason she would be.

  “You were supposed to go back to bed.”

  “How?”

  It’s not the response I expect. “I was under the impression that humans slept in much the same way we do… it should not have been hard to resume a position conducive to the activity.”

  She looks at me exactly how I would have looked at someone else if they’d unloaded that piece of nonsense.

  “I know exactly what you went out to deal with. I couldn’t just go to bed. What if you hadn’t come back?”

  “Then you would have at least gotten a good night’s rest before Drift came and found someone else for you to poke at.”

  Her brows pinch together and she pulls back like I might have tried to kiss her.

  And now, I’m sure she’s mad. But I have no idea why.

  The sky has just started to lighten behind her, and I’m very glad I left the monster’s corpse in the room off my garage.

  She doesn’t need to see that—doesn’t need to see what I did to it in order to walk away from the altercation without a scratch.

  “This is my job, Jess. It’s what I was designed for. And if I don’t go… who will?”

  Her posture doesn’t change.

  “If something had happened out there. You wouldn’t have been stranded up here. All of the brotherhood knows you’re here.”

  Still, she doesn’t move.

  I don’t know what else to say, so… “Go back to sleep, Jessica. There’s no point in being mad at me when you could be getting your required rest.”

  When she stands, leaving the blanket on the floor at her feet, it’s the first time I’ve looked at her since she went to bed.

  On my way out the door, I didn’t notice how very little she was wearing, or how the shiny fabric flows over her body. I reach out, touching the hem of her shirt, without thinking.

  Her gaze drops to my hand, and she blinks, jerking her head back up. “I’m sorry. I knew what you did coming into this, I just….”

  She shakes her head and takes a deep breath, exhaling. “Goodnight.

  I stay where I am, watching her go. Wondering why I feel a little warmer than I did five minutes ago.

  She runs up the stairs, and I have to clench my jaw as her ass wiggles in those too short shorts.

  That could be a problem.

  THREE

  JESSICA

  The sun is full up by the time I roll out of bed for the second time. And this go-around, I pull on a pair of jeans and a sweater before I head out into the house.

  When Trench had taken hold of my tank top last night, my sleep deprived brain had run away with the idea of him lifting it….

/>   As I reach the top of the stairs, it’s silent. And for a moment, I worry he’s gone out again.

  But the faintest movement draws my eye, and I’m a little irritated at the relief that washes through me when I see him.

  Trench is standing at the window with a cup of something steaming in his hand, and the sun filters in on his bare chest.

  I can see a whole hell of a lot more of him than I did yesterday, because he’s not wearing pants either. Just a wrap at his waist that reminds me of something I once saw while on holiday in French Polynesia.

  If that’s what he’s going to wear, I should have ample opportunity to study his musculature.

  When he turns to look up at me, I know he knows I’ve been watching him.

  It’s what I’m here to do… so why do I feel embarrassed?

  “Good morning.” I start down the stairs.

  He smiles and holds up his cup. “Coffee?”

  “Please.”

  Following him to the kitchen, I accept the cup he offers.

  “Is coffee a sian thing too, or do you import it?”

  “They’ve started growing beans here, but this is from Earth. If it’s not the kind you like, we can get something else.”

  I turn the bag of whole beans around to face me. “This is perfect, actually.”

  He pours and I watch the dark liquid, instead of the way his skin shifts over muscle with each movement. “About last night, I’m sorry. I know that’s your job, but it was a little startling. I didn’t expect it so suddenly.”

  “They’re semi-nocturnal.”

  “I know.”

  There’s a pause in his movements. Almost like a hiccup. “Do you?”

  “I’m a biologist. I don’t only study sian physiology.” I hadn’t planned to broach the subject so early, but… “If I have the opportunity, I’d like to study them—through your narration—as I doubt there’s a chance I’ll see one.”

  He looks down at me, lips parted just enough that I think he has something he wants to tell me. But whatever it was, it fades, and he shrugs a single, huge shoulder. “The chance is higher than you’d think.”

  I turn toward the glass without thinking. “Are they really that common?”

  “Yes, and they’ve gotten worse because of the women on this side of the caldera.”

  “It’s remarkable your government didn’t force you to be monks.”

  “As a biologist, I’m sure you can understand why our government prefers that we breed.”

  That word, in relation to humans—and sians in this case—makes my skin crawl. It doesn’t matter that it’s factual.

  “But,” he says, pulling me away from my distaste, nodding toward the door to his garage. “A live one wasn’t what I meant.”

  He has a…. “Seriously?”

  He nods and sets his cup on the table. “Go put on shoes. I keep them in cold storage while I study them.”

  He starts toward the stairs while I stare dumbly after him. A moment later he turns back to me. “Or we can do something else. If you’d rather—”

  “No! I just didn’t realize…”

  He chuckles and disappears into the hall. I hurry after and dig through the clothes I still need to put away to get to get my snow boots—I have no idea where we’re actually going.

  I pull them on and head back to the main room without lacing them.

  Trench beats me there.

  My disappointment that he’s wearing clothes again is hampered by my excitement over the opportunity he’s teased me with.

  “It’s not far. You probably don’t need a full coat.” He opens one door, then the next, leading me across the garage and into what looks like an industrial refrigerator door from the outside.

  The room is probably thirty degrees colder than the garage, and I shiver before he points at the creature.

  It’s a sterile place meant for keeping the monsters from decaying too quickly. Like a huge morgue cabinet.

  There might only be one inside right now, but the room itself tells me this is not the first, or the last, carcass to haunt this house.

  Trench is watching me.

  Very carefully.

  Like he’s waiting for me to run away screaming.

  “What do you do with them?”

  “Anymore? I look for differences, for similarities… for any kind of clue. But I’ve run up against a wall. I am not a scientist.”

  “The data you’ve collected so far, has any of it been useful?”

  “Yes, we know of some anatomical defects that make them easier to kill.”

  He might have said yes, but there was nothing happy in his answer.

  I move around the corpse, not wanting to touch it, or even breathe on it, really…. Its canine teeth are massive, the jaw… I shiver. But I pull a pair of gloves from my pocket and lift the mangled remains of its head.

  “They eat you… do you eat them?”

  “Actually, they don’t eat us. They don’t even eat the women they kill.”

  “Huh… I wonder why. Hunting for sport is a trait most commonly associated with humans—well as far as earth-based animals go.”

  “They hunt for survival.”

  I pause, looking up at him. Wondering why I have to say what I’m about to.

  “No, they hunt for extermination….” I place the creature’s head back on the table. “Unless there is a secondary set of people who are dropping into the caldera on a weekly basis to try to kill them.”

  “There are people who would like to.”

  I'll want to ask about that later…. “Why did you bring this back?”

  “Because we don’t understand them… and we need to. Killing them isn’t going to be enough to keep our people safe. And honestly… we’d like to stop.”

  “Do you have the data from the others’ findings?”

  His lips twitch in a… frown?

  “You’re the only one who does this.”

  “The others think it’s a waste of time.”

  There’s more to it than that. Something he doesn’t want to tell me.

  It’s something I’ll find out, so I don’t push right now. Instead, I look around the room at his tools and set up. “I’ll help.”

  “That’s not—”

  “Necessary?” I give him my best withering look. “Doesn’t matter. Think of it as a trade. Besides, you have a biologist on hand, you might as well take advantage of me.”

  He studies me for a long moment. “Be careful what kind of offers you make.”

  FOUR

  TRENCH

  A sharp trill pierces the air overhead and I wince as I usher Jessica out of cold storage.

  “What the hell is that?” Confusion quickly giving way to concern. “Another monster?”

  “Not sure.” I open the door, leading her back across the garage, and don’t stop to take off my coat before going to the wall screen to see what’s got my sensors screaming at me.

  It’s early in the day, not a normal time for a sighting… but stranger things have happened.

  The system boots up in a blink, and the problem flashes at me along the winding line of indicators.

  Luckily, the problem is mechanical, not monstrous. “One of the perimeter sensors is down.”

  “Is that… a common occurrence?”

  “The wind could have disrupted it, a drift could have covered it when the wind shifted, or a solenoid could have jammed.” There were a dozen answers, I won’t know which one until I get on site. “I’ve got to go replace it. I’ll be back.”

  She nods, pulling her tablet from where she left it. “I have some notes to make and a plan to start working on—well, to rearrange.”

  It takes no time to change.

  She’s on the couch, writing a list on the tablet, glaring off into middle distance when I come back down from putting my suit on. But her eyes sweep over me and I have to remind myself: I’m a specimen she’s studying.

  “We can get to your questions, when I get back.”r />
  “I look forward to it.”

  There’s something in the way she says it that makes me pause, but I don’t want to leave the gap in the perimeter for too long…. So, I can’t ask.

  The garage is cold, and I let the chill seep into me as I grab a spare sensor, before kicking the bike to life and heading out.

  It skims over the snow, and I’m at the perimeter marker in under twenty minutes, my head a little clearer.

  I see the problem before I’m off my bike.

  The rod is broken. Snapped by the wind.

  The bulbous sensor that should sit atop it is half buried in a drift about thirty feet away. When I grab it, the thing gives out a little screech and flickers.

  Tossing it onto the seat of my bike, I check on the remains of the rod.

  It has to come out.

  I have to melt the ice around it to pull the thing from the ground. Another half hour out of my day.

  Half an hour away from her.

  The thought leaves me uncomfortable, like there’s dirt between the suit and my skin.

  Now I’m being ridiculous.

  It's been less than a full day. I’m just fascinated by proximity, and I need to get over it. My brain is pumping out chemicals because she’s paying attention to me and no one’s done that before—no one I’d want to, or that I haven’t paid at Margot’s.

  Pulling the machine from the back of the bike, I set it up. Turn it to full blast—might as well soften up the soil while I’m at it—and settle in to wait.

  Fifteen minutes in, I see a plume and know I won’t be waiting alone.

  Drift slows his bike to a stop behind mine. “That looks painful.”

  The spike of the remaining rod has started to list.

  “Could always be worse. I could have slipped and fallen on it.” The suits we wear would have saved me from actually being impaled, but still….

  Drift plucks the broken piece from the back of my bike, inspecting it. Lips compressed. “Wind?”

  “Can’t think of anything else. There are no tracks, no other triggers. This one was probably just too brittle and snapped when it couldn’t bend anymore.”

  Nodding, Drift shoves it back and then turns to look down at the heater and its puddle. “How are you enjoying having a roommate?”