'Breathe in,' 'Breathe out.'

'One squeeze, just one little squeeze, and it'll be done. He won't be able to hurt me again. He won't be able to hurt anyone again, especially not my family. Ever. Full stop.'

A wave of complicated emotions bubbled forth from the thought of my family. On the one hand, shooting and killing him guaranteed they would all be safe. On the other, any gunshot would be heard from upstairs, and the last thing my loved ones needed was the stress that an unexpected gunshot would bring. Not to mention seeing me standing over a dead body.

I could try stabbing him, but I was tired of seeing blood today, even if it would be blue and not mine; I was loath to clean any of it up.

So now I was in a dilemma about how to get rid of this guy permanently without alerting my parents and sisters. And I realized I couldn't; I wouldn't be able to. Even though I really, really wanted to. But it was still a big hurdle to take that final step.

I wanted to do it so badly that I deliberately turned my thoughts to the video footage on the news. I hoped replaying those scenes in my mind would raise the temperature of my rage. To give it that final push to commit. Instead, the longer I thought about pulling the trigger, the more time I had to get my emotions under control.

Instead of enraging me more, replaying those images in my mind gave me a new angle of thought: perhaps I didn't need to be the one to do anything. Possibly, he would be more valuable alive; he had more answers I hadn't been able to get, but maybe someone else could.

Of course, just because some rationality was seeping into my thoughts didn't mean I wasn't still in a rage because of his words. It only meant I took even more time to struggle with my thoughts of vengeance. The longer it took, the more rationality started winning over my emotions. That rationality told me that this guy was forcing my feelings and that I was too biased to decide his fate. That I couldn't be the one to make this decision unilaterally. I wouldn't even be able to move him to do it elsewhere with all the chains wrapped around him, and taking them off was unacceptable.

I let out a long, heavy breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding and lowered the gun from where it had been pointed at the back of the alien's head; I couldn't do this anymore. It was mentally exhausting.

While I mentally debated with myself, the blue alien chained up in front of me continued to talk. It was good fortune for him that I hadn't been paying attention to what he said during my introspection. Otherwise, I probably would have decided to shoot him regardless: "—of course, after that, I will sell their meat to the Enitruvenij. They love the taste of fellow sentients. Unfortunately for them, this planet has nothing close to that definition. Still, I–"

I kicked him in the side, shutting him up. Just because I hadn't shot him didn't mean I couldn't resort to physical violence when it suited me. But I then turned away and tuned him out once more.

I placed the gun down and then leaned over my brother's workbench. I berated myself internally, 'You need to stop letting his words affect you. This behaviour is ugly; you are better than this.' After several seconds of self-chastisement, I thought about my situation. But no matter how long I took or how many angles I considered, I kept arriving at one conclusion, I would have to get help. Which meant I would have to tell my parents.

Mom and Dad were both great people, and I trusted them implicitly. They'd always been there for me when I needed them, and I don't see how that would change, especially not now. My biggest qualm with this approach was that I would need to tell them the entire course of events, including my getting stabbed.

That... was not a conversation I was looking forward to at all. Besides the lecture I was expecting, I just didn't want to needlessly worry them, which is what I knew would happen once they heard the story.

But, honestly, there was no time like the present. Putting it off further would help no one. I turned back towards the alien and picked the hook up on my way around to face him. I grabbed the makeshift gag and told him, "Open up so you don't get hurt."

He glared at me and opened his mouth to say something, probably more taunts and insults. Before he could, I stuffed the rag back into his mouth, perhaps a bit more roughly than necessary—but I didn't want him to be able to block me from doing so. I had decided what to do, and I didn't want whatever he had to say to convince me that I was better off taking care of him more directly.

If looks could kill...

'Which reminds me...' I picked up the blindfold and—after wrestling with him for a bit as he tried to throw off my aim—tied it back around his head. Satisfied that the rags would stay, no matter how much he was thrashing around and throwing out muffled curses, I returned to my feet and stepped around him to my brother's gun cabinet before reconsidering. I trusted in my brother's work, at least as a last resort. On the other hand, my parents would prefer the more mass-produced stuff.

I stepped back upstairs into the kitchen before going through the hallway and down separate stairs into our finished basement. We kept our more expensive guns in the basement utility room, one of which was a pre-1986 Colt M16A2. Another was a Benelli M1014. I loaded a magazine of jacketed hollow points into the Colt and inserted slugs into the M10; buck and birdshot would be too messy; the slug would definitely have the power to end the tough alien.

For myself, I grabbed my brother's old Colt 1911, which had been a gift. I considered what I wanted to load it with. I was leaning towards using .45 incendiary rounds but decided to use the jacketed ones instead. I wasn't looking to burn the house down by accident. That said, after holstering the pistol and before shouldering the M1014 and M16, I grabbed a dragon's breath for the shotgun and an incendiary round for my pistol, just in case, placing them in my pocket. I never knew if setting the blue alien on fire would be the only way to kill him. I may have acted overly cautious, but he was still too close to my family for comfort.

Returning upstairs, I took a few–silent–moments before going through the door. Walking towards the living room, I could hear the television before I saw it. What I heard did not make me any happier for not having shot the alien. It was a combination of the news anchor describing what was being shown in the videos on-screen and the in-video sound of people fighting and screaming. I pointedly did not look at the tv when I entered; I hadn't spared the alien's life, only to end it after storming back down into the cellar in a rage.

"Mom? Dad?" I spoke aloud in the silence—not counting the tv—of the living room.

Five pairs of heads turned toward me; I hadn't realized the twins were back downstairs. I braced to defend myself from a lecture from my parents. They didn't mind us kids shooting, but they had to be informed before we even took the guns from the safes. Joey was the only exception to that rule, and he had to go through hoops for permission to set up his gunsmithing.

Instead, I got a nod of approval from Dad, while Mom told me, "Good idea, hon. Hand me my baby."

I hesitated, "Umm, can I see you guys in the kitchen first? It's important." I saw them turn towards each other with a look on their faces but left before either could speak, heading down the hall into the kitchen. For a split second, I was afraid they wouldn't follow after me, but that feeling became dashed as I heard them walk through the hallway.

My mom was the first one in. Petite at only 5' 4", she was a small woman, raven-haired with ice-blue eyes that changed depending on her mood; she looked like a tatted-up Rosie the Riveter. Until recently, her forearms had been bare, a holdover from when tattoos were looked down on, and she felt the need to cover them up. She had them over most of her body, across her chest, back, and legs. The only place it seemed she didn't have them was on her face, feet, and hands.

Her temperament was fiery; she never held back on her words or opinions once she was pissed off. According to Dad, she'd calmed down a bunch since Joey was born. But for the longest time, she had been afraid to discipline any of us kids because she was afraid of her own temper. That was in the past now. Regardless, she didn't tolerate bullshit well and never spared the feelings of strangers.

Mom, or Millie Baker (née Rochford), was a successful tattoo artist and—since we got the internet—a commissioned artist online to make up for the decrease in her clientele due to covid.

Dad entered behind her, over a foot taller than her, with brown eyes and hair and a large frame packed with muscle from work and the recent exercise Mom convinced him to take part in to stave off weight gain from covid, including yoga and cardio. With his short beard and well-groomed appearance, he looked like a Greek statue with a dad bod who rode around in a biker gang on the weekends. His only tattoo was the names of his nine kids over his heart, tattooed in Mom's elegant script.

Near the polar opposite to Mom in his temperament, he was quiet, empathetic, and embodied 'speak softly and carry a big stick'. He was the best heavy-equipment mechanic in the county, and there'd been more than once when his boss had loaned him out to other companies for his expertise. He didn't like making those trips often, electing only to go when the money was too good to pass up.

They were both dressed in their 'Sunday best'.

I handed the M16 to Mom as she asked me, "What's going on, baby?"

I turned to answer her as I handed the M1014 to Dad, "You know the situation on the tv and that whole mess?" I asked her instead.

She nodded as she examined the bullets her gun was loaded with before reinserting the magazine. Dad did the same with the shotgun, popping a slug out and checking it with a raised brow before rechambering it.

"Umm, well..." I took a deep breath, "there's a similar situation in the cellar–"

I barely got the words out before the barrels of both guns were pointed at the cellar door, shouldered and held unwaveringly. I'd seen Mom with a myriad of expressions over the years, but nothing quite like what was present now: a tight, determined expression on her face mirrored by Dad—whom I've never seen wearing that expression.

I knew both had been in the Army, which is how they'd met, but I only truly understood what that implied now. Two decades out of the military, and they still had that trained reflex.

I practically flailed my hands at their faces, "Whoa, whoa, whoa! There's no need for that! It's safe..." I rushed to get the words out before their misunderstanding grew. "Well, safeish. I mean, it should be fine for now!?" My voice grew more high-pitched the less sure I became under their intense scrutiny.

I could tell by their faces that they weren't convinced. It was easy to understand why, considering I wasn't entirely convinced myself.

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"Look," I tried to clarify before either of them could ask me what was going on or get angry and ground me, "Look. So... there's this alien dude down there andheschaineduphanditsfineseriouslymom. MOM!"

I had to reach out and grab my mother's wrist before she could fling open the door, storm down the stairs, and, assumedly, shoot the blue prick for coming into her house uninvited and, worse, alive.

"Explain." She growled out.

An intensity to her gaze caused me to hesitate, a shift to her eyes. It was gone as quickly as it had come. Her eyes softened microseconds before Dad touched her shoulder while he spoke a single word, "Cupcake."

That simple pet name had a lot of meaning, and I saw some of the coiled tension leave my mother's posture. That did nothing to improve her glare, however.

I took a moment to compose myself, "Okay, so the short version is that while you and the girls were at church I was outside by the pond. Then I saw one of those black pods hit a plane and crash out in Mr. Miller's woods. I went up to it and an alien guy came out and we got into it a bit. Now he's chained up in the cellar with Dad's heavy-tow chain. My problem is I don't know what to do with him. He's... not a nice person, at all. And now I need help on what to do with him."

Of course, that wasn't good enough for them, and they asked for clarification. I couldn't tell them everything, at least not yet, so I dodged and redirected as much as possible before trying to get them back on track.

"Is he dangerous?" Mom asked at last.

"Yeah, but I don't know how much, hence the chains and the guns," I told her as I nodded toward the M16 in her hands. "But he told me that he was here for some sort of competition and implied that meant hunting down people. Also, every one of those black pods are filled with aliens just like him here to do the same thing."

"Alright, that's not much to work with for our situation here. What else do you know?" Mom asked me. I stared at her.

She stared back.

"Um... he's blue?" By her expressive eye-roll, Mom was not impressed. Even Dad had a bit of a pitying expression on his face.

"What?! Well, he is!" I couldn't help but exclaim in response to their unspoken criticisms. But I think they were ignoring me.

"Well love, let's go down there and check it out ourselves." Mom told Dad. Dad returned a silent nod. 'They were ignoring me!'

"But!" I rushed out with a slightly high-pitched tone. I forcefully calmed myself down and continued normally, "He's tough. Real tough. I knocked him in the head several times with a rock, and I think he barely felt it." Looking at their faces, I realized then that I had fallen into their trap.

They both looked anxious and upset. When I had rushed through telling the abridged version of the fight, I made it seem like it was more the kind of fights kids have. As if it was more roughhousing than an actual no-holds-barred fight to the death. Now they got the truth out of me without needing to say a word. Parental powers are OP bullshit. 'Nerf Pls.'

"But that's not super important. So let's go downstairs now, can't keep our guest waiting! What kind of hosts would we be then, huh? Chop-chop!" I tried to push past them to get to the door handle, but they were both very solidly in my way.

My mother looked straight into my eyes, "We will be discussing this after." She held my gaze for a few seconds before turning back to the door to the cellar and grabbing its handle. "Get ready, love." She told Dad.

I tried to plead with Dad for support with my eyes, but he was already turning away and shouldering the shotgun. My father gave his wife a tap on the shoulder.

I resigned myself to my fate.

Mom carefully opened the door and took point with Dad following behind her. I trailed them in resignation. I knew the moment she saw the alien when I heard her take in a quick breath. Dad took longer to get the alien in his line of sight due to his height, but I still heard him the moment he saw the alien.

They carefully stepped up to either side of the blue alien with their gun barrels pointed steadily at him. I stepped between them and asked, "Okay, now what?"

"SHH!" Mom hissed at me.

"Wha–? He knows we're here. Like, that's the entire point of us being down here. Now, what do we do with him?"

I could see that Mom was a bit lost on what to do. But clarity quickly came back as she regained some confidence in the situation.

"Right," she mumbled while straightening her posture. "Right. We should interrogate Eiffel 65 here. That's what we need to do. We need information from him that can be used to help the military. Troop compositions, movements; supply caches, lines; armaments; targets; a whole host of things that we should try to get from him. Any ideas, love?"

"You've got a better idea than I do, Pumpkin." Dad replied.

"HAH! Don't expect an old army cook to know jackshit. Alright, well, no use standing here with our thumbs up our asses. Get those rags off him and ask this Blue Man Group reject what the fuck is going on." Mom must be more out of her element than she was letting on to be cursing so much. Not that she never swore, but it only really came out when she got fired up, at least around us kids. She was a real sailor around everyone else.

I assumed she was talking to me, so I squatted to go eye-to-blindfold with my captive.

Moving my hands slowly closer to the rags in his mouth and around his eyes, I took hold of the corner of either one. Then, as fast as I could, I ripped one out of his mouth while yanking the other off his head.

I quickly stood back up in my previous position between my parents. All while keeping an eye on him.

I could tell he wanted to snarl something at me but stopped when he caught sight of my parents. He straightened up a bit more in their presence, losing the more lackadaisical attitude he possessed when he was dealing with me. It bothered me a bit to be dismissed out of hand like that. But I wasn't going to let it become a big deal. I'd gotten help from my parents precisely because I didn't want to be dealing with him anymore.

Besides, I was the one who had won our fight. 'Scoreboard motherfucker.'

I exchanged a glance with Mom before she went back to studying the alien captive the same way she does before she starts interrogating one of my siblings or me when we get into trouble.

"Alright, listen up–" Mom started before unexpectedly stumbling over her words. She turned to me, then. "What's his name?"

Me, internally: '. . .'

Me, externally: ". . ."

Mom: ". . ."

Dad: ". . ."

Blue Alien Dude: ". . ."

Mom facepalmed.

"You didn't think to get his name at all the entire time you were down here with him?" She spoke into the palm of her hand.

I snorted in sarcasm, "Yeah, the next time I get into a life-or-de–ragging him across the yard I'll try to remember to ask for his name." Shit, that was close. I almost fucked up and told them too much again. How do parents do that?

Mom sighed to herself, de-facepalmed, and turned back to the alien dude, "Okay, listen. You are gonna give me your name and you're gonna tell me everything I want to know. Most of the questions are gonna be about your friends outside in their dinky little spaceships, what weapons they have on them, and how many there are. You don't answer and you get to stay chained up down here in this moldy, uncomfortable cellar with the rats. They like to bite. You do answer, and we can make some deals with you. Capiche?"

I realized then that this was where I got a bit of my snarky attitude from. 'Oh joy.' I thought sarcastically, 'This is how I find out I'm a bit of a momma's boy.'

The alien looked at her, over to my dad, then me. It looked as if he did not capiche. His shoulders slumped a bit from his position on the ground, then he spoke to me, his entire bearing changed from his near-rabid state a dozen minutes earlier.

"It seems as if you were telling the truth to me, that you integrated with the system. Imagine that, an honest savage. This entire season has just become almost unbearably interesting. Tell your female that I cannot understand her inane gibbering and that it is as grating to my ears as her appearance is to my eyes. Your male, however, seems that he would be an adversary that I would not be ashamed to admit to others that I had hunted down. Unlike with you." As he finished talking, he rested his gaze back on me from where it had been appraising Dad after first condescendingly staring at Mom. Or at least, I assumed that's what the nonverbal cues meant. 'I don't know... he's a goddamn blue alien.'

Regardless, he was getting on my nerves again. I didn't know whether it was his tone or the words themselves, but I didn't like it. I backhanded him, thrust my finger into his face, and told him, "Don't talk to them like that again."

I'd done it pretty hard, too, as I knew how tough he was. I didn't even think about how it would look to my parents.

"Hey!" "Aiden!" My parents shouted at me, Mom grabbing my wrist. She spun me around to face her.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" She asked me in a furious tone. "We do not do that."

I flushed in embarrassment and shame; embarrassment that my parents had seen that display, shame that I had given into another provocation after telling myself that I wouldn't.

I don't know what it was about this guy (or maybe it was the circumstances?), but I was losing control over my reactions to him. I hated it. I'd never been a violent person. Besides some horsing around that sometimes got too rough with my siblings and, later on, sparring with them, I'd never been in a fight before.

I really needed to get away from him, from this whole thing. But I wouldn't leave it up to my parents alone.

I mumbled, "Sorry." And backed away to stand behind them.

"We'll talk about this later." Mom let go of my wrist and faced the alien, opening her mouth to speak, took a second before shutting it, then turned back to me.

"Did you understand what he said?" She asked me.

I sheepishly looked up at her and nodded. "Yeah. Did you guys not hear him?" I looked between the two of them.

"No. We heard him. We just didn't understand what he said. But you understood him? How? What did he say?"

"I really don't want to tell you, it was insulting and crude, and it pissed me off. I mean, it was incredibly disrespectful, and I don't want you to haul off and swing at him after you just gave me that lecture." As I said that, I couldn't help but give her a cheeky little smile. I heard Dad chuckle beside me.

Mom's eyes narrowed as she glanced between Dad and me. Dad and I straightened up, wiping the smiles off our faces with a slight wince.

Mom turned back to look at the alien, "So you can talk to him, huh? You're really going to need to tell me that story soon. Alright, ask for his name."

I nodded and stepped closer, "Okay, ugl–okay, what's your name?"

Instead of answering me, the alien had a look of contemplation cross his face.

"You know," he said slowly, "I usually disagree with the Enitruvenijian practice of eating the meat of sentients, but I am reconsidering while on this planet. Starting with the two behind you."

Repeatedly, I had lost my temper with the alien and acted uncharacteristically, and this time was no different. No matter what I told myself, I couldn't keep my emotions under control around him.

"Fuck you," I growled at him, jabbing the end of my pistol into his face. I couldn't recall unholstering it. I vaguely heard voices in the background. "Fucking fuck you you fucking piece of shit. I'm gonna–"

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my dad reach over and wrap his hand around the gun barrel, dragging it away from the alien's face. I looked over at him questioningly.

He didn't say anything, just gave me a calm, concerned look.

"Enough. You need to calm yourself down." Mom spoke to the side, "It's obvious you aren't going to get anything useful from him. It's just going to keep making you angrier. Neither your father and I can understand what you guys are saying, and there is no fucking way we keep him here. Babe," She turned to Dad, "who do you think we call to let them know about what we have here? Everyone I know is either out of the service or I don't have their number anymore."

"The general?"

Mom laughed at the suggestion. "If he doesn't try to court-martial me as soon as he realizes it's me on the other end."

"Fort Edwards is an hour away, and the Armory is even closer."

"Yeah, but they're all going to be out messing around with these alien spaceships everywhere. It'd be hours before they send someone here."

"The hotline?"

"It'll have to be unless we think of something better."

I felt comforted by the calm discussion between my parents. I felt safe in how confidently they were handling things. Compared to my emotionally charged flailing, it spoke of competence.

"Baby." I realized Mom was speaking to me.

"Hmm?"

"We need you to go call the hotline they were showing on tv and report him." She finished with a quick nod toward the chained alien on the floor. "We need someone to come pick him up."

"Do you know the number?" I asked her.

"No, you'll just have to go get it from the tv, or hope one of the girls has it."

"Alright." I took one last look at the blue alien. He had laid there quietly, without a concern. Giving no indication that he had understood the conversation between us.

Just looking at him gave me a feeling as if there was a pit in my stomach. I still didn't like leaving him out of my sight, even chained up with others to watch over him. I tried my best to ignore those feelings.

Walking upstairs and into the living room, I hoped the news wasn't showing more videos of attacks. Unfortunately, it seemed as if that was all they were playing. Waiting on the other side of the living room, I could see the backs of my sisters' heads. I didn't want them to ask me any questions. In a way, it would be much hard deflecting them than it had my parents.

Luckily I remembered I could use my phone to search online. I knew I would find the number to the hotline there. Avoiding the inevitable conversation with my sisters entirely.

I turned around and headed upstairs to my room, finding my phone where I had left it. A quick online search had me dialing up the number to the hotline in less than a minute.

After waiting for several minutes to go through the introductory options, I reached a voicemail. I gave my information and then recounted my tale, leaving out bits here and there. Mostly the stuff that made me seem a bit unhinged. I had just finished the part where I learned the alien and his buddies were apparently here to hunt us down when I heard screams and cries from downstairs.

It was my sisters' voices, and they sounded scared.