Davis stood in front of the small house and watched the windows while Fenn checked the note he had on his phone. The doctor could see lights. Someone was home—he could see them moving around, but when Jun knocked on the door, it wasn’t immediately answered. When, at last, it opened, Reyer blocked the small gap with her body. The way her arm was hidden by the partly open door made Fenn suspect she was armed.

She said, “You don’t have any tattoos, do you, Sheriff?”

“I don’t, Miss Reyer. I don’t suppose you’d simply take me at my word?”

“Not a chance.”

“What options do we have?”

“You could let me mortally wound you.”

That caught Davis’s attention. He stopped looking around and stared at the woman in front of him. Despite the joking tone, he had an uneasy feeling that she might do what she suggested.

“I do have my doctor handy,” the sheriff said.

“Fenn,” Davis growled.

Reyer raised an eyebrow. “A medical doctor?”

“Miss Reyer, this is Dr. Nathaniel Davis. Nate, I’d like you to meet Alix Reyer. She’s my prisoner.”

“How do you do?” Davis grumbled.

“Forgive me if I don’t shake your hand, Doctor.”

“Doctors don’t like to shake hands. That’s how disease spreads. If we’d had any brains worth saving, we would’ve adopted the ancient Asian tradition of bowing.”

Reyer raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Tell me, Doctor, do you like tea?”

“I’m a coffee man myself.”

Alix stepped back and opened the door wider. “Oh, well. So close.”

Fenn and Davis stepped through the door. Vas was there. He had his e-pistol out and pointed at them. Reyer covered them from behind.

Nathaniel started to raise the hand not holding a cane, but Vas said, “I’d rather you keep your hand down, actually.”

“Is he still conscious?” Alix asked.

“He is.”

“Walk slowly toward the table, gentlemen. If you move quickly, I will shoot, and I’m edgy right now, so my finger’s already twitching on the trigger.”

Vas stepped aside to reveal the simple wooden table Ashtell had imported for each of their apartments. On it, a man lay dying. Davis had been a doctor long enough to know what that looked like. If he’d had all his tools and a full staff, he might have tried to do something, but even then, his cynical mind put the man’s odds at only five percent.

“Stay back a little, Doctor,” Vas warned.

Alix lowered her weapon and walked over to the table. “Tennama?”

To Davis’s surprise, the man managed to mumble the word, “Human.”

Vas and Reyer both heaved a sigh of relief and put their weapons away.

“Where’s my deputy?” Fenn asked.

“Here, Boss.”

Jun and Davis had been so caught up by the sight of the bloody wreck lying on the table, they hadn’t realized Joseph was lying on the couch. Someone had found a blanket, but it was folded down so Wyss, who was kneeling beside him, could check to make sure none of his wounds had reopened.

Fenn said, “I thought I told you not to get caught.”

“They haven’t caught me yet, sir,” Tate said.

“Will you live?”

“That’s my intention.”

“What is this place?”

Tate and Wyss exchanged glances.

The deputy spoke slowly, weighing each word before he said it: “It’s a safe house. We thought it might be useful.”

“How did you arrange it?”

“Creative bookkeeping?”

“Whose idea was it?”

“Mine,” Wyss said. Her face was as bright and cheerful as it could be in the circumstances.

Fenn stared at Tate.

“Don’t blame me,” Joseph said. “She was like this when you found her.”

Jun turned when he heard Alix say from behind him, “Not too close, Doctor.”

Davis seemed to be gravitationally attracted to the alien on the table. His meandering orbit had brought him close enough he could reach out to touch him.

“Fenn told you I’m a doctor, Miss Reyer,” Davis said, “and since you’re no longer threatening my life, I have to assume I passed some kind of test. What are you afraid I’m going to do to him?”

“It’s not you we’re worried about.”

“It’s all right, Miss Reyer.” The xeno’s words drifted out with his breath. “I won’t hurt him.”

“I thought you didn’t like doctors,” Reyer said. There was a strained humor in her voice.

“Nonetheless, he’s safe.”

“And we’re supposed to trust the self-control of a dying monster?”

The edge of the xeno’s lips twitched. “Never. But there is a better assurance. I can’t move my arms anymore.”

Vas crossed over to Tennama. Davis lurched the last two steps to his side. Alix reached out and touched his arm, but there was no reaction. The limb felt cold.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

When the door behind them opened, Davis was more startled by how fast Vas drew his weapon than by the sudden entrance of two strangers.

“It’s us,” Ciro said.

“They don’t know that.” Jane pushed past him into the room. “He’s still awake, isn’t he?”

“If you’re talking about this man,” Davis said, “he shouldn’t be.”

“He’s not a man,” Jane said. Vas stepped aside so she could get to Tennama. “It’s important that xenos stay conscious until the last possible moment. It gives them more chances to take a new body.”

“Ah,” Anthony mumbled. “This one is my doctor. The great fiend, Dr. Mengele.”

“Is that how you intend to vouch for me?”

“It’s hard when you learn how human your monsters are. Jane, when I die, the body is yours.”

“Of course it is. I called it ages ago.”

Wyss stood up and took her place next to Davis. Both of them felt bewildered. There were certain things that people tended to say at a deathbed, and this was not how it was supposed to go.

Jane pulled out a chair and sat beside the table. “How bad is it?”

“He can’t move his arms,” Alix said. “I don’t think he has long.”

Jane put her face in her hands and took a slow breath. Then she pulled her hands away and said without looking up, “Ciro, would you…please, leave the room.” When he didn’t answer, she repeated, “Please?”

Fenn, Davis, and Wyss could only watch the scene in a general state of confusion, but Vas and Reyer, who both knew Jane better, were shaken by the rare display of civility.

Ciro said, “Where would you like me to go?”

“I don’t know. Anywhere. Is there a bed here?” When Wyss indicated there was, Jane said, “Put Tate to bed. Watch him.”

Eve’s body jerked when she remembered that they were referring to the man she still thought of as Creed. She loosed herself from Davis’s side and offered to help Ciro get him settled.

As the three of them disappeared up the stairs, Jane turned to Anthony.

“It must be bad if you don’t want him to see it,” the xeno said.

“I might be able to save you, Tennama.”

“How?”

“At a point of high adrenaline, your body enters a near-regenerative state. Your claws have to create themselves. Your cells prepare to transform into a new body—they’re bursting over, ready to split and change at a moment’s notice. If I cut off your claws at that moment, they would grow back.”

“Little paws. Little tails. Did they grow back, Dr. Bonumomnes?”

“Sometimes. Not often.”

“What are the rules?”

“You have to be conscious. We can’t use any analgesic. I would have to cause an extreme state of stress response, and I would have to maintain it for as long as I could.”

“Your education has served you well, Doctor. You mean torture. You’d have to torture me.”

Jane’s eyes flicked up to meet Reyer’s. Alix was pale, but her lips were pressed together. Jane knew she wouldn’t say anything.

“Yes,” Jane said.

“Do it.”

The biologist was surprised by how quickly the xeno answered.

“Tennama, I can’t guarantee it will work—”

“If it doesn’t,” Vas said over her, “that’ll be a lot of pain for nothing.”

“Haven’t you heard, Captain? Xenos don’t like to die.”

Reyer had to leave the room. She used the banister to get up most of the stairs, but when she was out of sight, she dropped to her hands and knees and crawled up the rest.

She had to be quiet. That mattered. She couldn’t let anyone hear her.

When she reached the top of the stairs, she sat against the wall, pulled her knees to her chest, and waited until her breath stopped heaving. She felt close to frantic. She wanted to run far enough to outdistance the screams she knew would be coming, but even that wretched hope was impossible.

Reyer swore under her breath, then braced herself against the wall and walked her hands up it until she was standing.

She went down the hall. Through the bedroom door, she could hear the sounds of someone moving around. She readied herself, then went inside.

Ciro and the nurse both looked up.

“Wyss,” Alix said, “is Tate okay?”

Eve tore her eyes away from the obviously distressed Reyer and gazed down at her charge. “He’s okay. If he is Tate.”

“You have to forgive me someday, Evie.” Joseph lifted a hand and let it drop onto her arm.

Wyss called him a jerk, but she also put her hand over his. Then she turned to Reyer. “Do they need me?”

Ciro’s eyes narrowed as he watched Alix. It was like waiting for a statue to move. When she broke out of her stillness, all she did was nod.

As Wyss went toward the door, Alix grabbed her sleeve.

“They’ll need restraints. Strong ones.”

This time Wyss nodded. Reyer let her go.

The door shut behind Eve, and Alix was left alone with Ciro and Tate.

“Sarge—”

Ciro interrupted. “Where’s Adan?”

His brother should’ve been there. If Adan had any idea how upset Reyer was, he would’ve climbed over a mountain of corpses (probably of his own making) to comfort her. That was the way the universe worked.

“Down there,” she said. “They need his help. He’s the strongest.”

There was a silence.

Ciro said, “I’m not much, but I must be stronger than that little nurse you sent down.”

Tate huffed out a laugh. “Don’t bet on it. Eve is amazing.”

“And I’m supposed to stay here?”

“Jane said please,” Alix said.

Ciro grimaced and turned to face the back wall. “Always the background boy.”

“This isn’t about you!”

Startled, Ciro looked at Reyer.

Her words were more air than articulation—hollow, like a cave breeze: “This is for her. That’s why she said please.”

“Sarge, are you all right?” Tate asked.

“I’m sorry,” Reyer whispered. “I’ll leave.”

Ciro walked over and threw his arms around her. “You complete moron.”

From where her face was buried in his shoulder came the words, “I can’t do it, Ciro.”

“We both know you’re a total fake, Alix Reyer. You might as well stay here.”

They sat on the end of the bed. When the noise started, Ciro had her cover her ears, but no matter how tight he held her, she couldn’t stop shaking.

[https://i.imgur.com/6iM8gcI.png]

Wyss came up to get them when it was all over. None of them wanted to disturb her by asking how it had gone. She looked haunted.

Reyer made her way down the stairs and found Tennama sitting up on the couch. He was tired but alive. He was still wearing his blood-soaked pants, but they had cut off his shirt and tossed it aside as unredeemable. Alix could see the three round masses of pale skin on his chest. They looked like small caliber entry wounds for ancient bullets. The ones on his back would be slightly larger.

She was still several feet away from him when her steps faltered. She couldn’t bring herself to come any closer.

Jane and Vas were both sitting at the table. Jane was slumped in her chair, while Adan rested his elbows on his knees and let his head hang. Davis was leaning back on the counter in the tiny kitchen, trying to swallow the water he’d optimistically served himself. Fenn was coming back from wherever he’d gone to hide the tools they’d used. All of them stopped to listen when they heard the quiet word drop from Reyer’s mouth.

“Scars?”

“Yes,” Tennama said.

Alix nodded. A second passed before she asked, “Are they almost as good as mine?”

A weak smile lifted Anthony’s cheek. “Only almost, Miss Reyer.”

Alix echoed his smile, then went over to Vas. He raised his head when he felt her hand on his shoulder.

“Are you two okay?” she asked.

“Fine.”

The captain’s nonchalance sounded forced, but Jane didn’t contradict him.

“What about Wyss?” Reyer asked.

Vas pushed on his legs to sit up straight. “I was impressed, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she needed some space.”

As Jun walked across the room toward the kitchen, he asked, “Where is Miss Wyss?”

“She said she wanted to check on Tate,” Alix said.

Davis averted his eyes as the sheriff washed the blood from his hands.

Fenn picked up a nearby towel and turned to Reyer. “We’ll give her a few minutes, then I’ll go get her.”

Beside him, Nathaniel Davis lifted his head. “Go get her? For what? What are you going to ask her to do now?”

“We need her here if we’re going to talk plans,” Alix said.

“And you all call him a monster!”

“She’d want to help, Nathan,” Fenn said. “You know she would.”

Davis stamped forward, his cane thudding on the floor with every other step. Addressing Reyer, he said, “When was the last time you slept, young woman?”

“The queen knows her plans are in danger now,” Vas said. “She probably has more people than we do, and she definitely has more resources. If we give her any time, she could use it to move the xenos or reinforce her position. But what’s the hurry? I mean, what’s the worst that could happen if we delay? Maybe she decides that she needs more sentient xenos.” He held up his fingers. “That’s a minimum of three bodies for each one.”

Davis looked at Fenn.

“He’s serious,” the sheriff said. “That’s three people dead for each xeno.”

The doctor said to Vas, “You said there might have been more than two hundred.”

“Two hundred that they found,” Alix said.

From the couch Tennama said, “That’s not the worst that could happen, Captain.”

Everyone turned to him.

“She could decide to leave the planet.”

Jane put her forehead in her hand. Davis moved toward the table and stumbled around a chair until he could finally sit.

When he was comfortable, he mumbled, “Six hundred people?”

It was Tennama that nodded. He saw the doctor’s eyes shift to his hands. They looked normal now, but the xeno could almost see the memories of the last hour playing in front of the man’s eyes.

“You better get Wyss,” Davis said.