Page 1 of Fallen Star

Alex Stone

You may be wondering what a girl like me is doing in a place like this. Dark. Damp. Filled with mummified corpses too old to name. Creepy crawlies that you don't even want to know about. *Crunch* Ew. I think I just crushed one with my palm.

Give me a sec while I wipe the goo off my hands.

Even the dust smells like it's lived and died a thousand times since the last human stepped foot in here.

And yet here I am, cobwebs in my hair, bug goo oozing into the cracks of my fingers despite my best effort to rub the crap off on the stone, crawling on my hands and knees through a narrow tunnel that should lead me to a cavern.

'Should' being the operative word here.

Well, let me set the record straight. First, I'm not a girl, I'm a woman. Notice the date on my driver’s license? Fully fledged grown-up. Also, those two PhDs at the end of my name are hard to come by as a girl. Factor in that I got my degrees by the age of twenty-five, and you can perhaps understand why I don't like being called girl. I graduated high school at sixteen. College at eighteen. Two PhDs in six years seemed a bit behind the curve, to be honest. I'm still bummed about that.

But life is full of little disappointments, isn't it?

The question is, will this tomb be a disappointment as well, or will we finally find what we've been scouring the world for?

"See anything, Alex?" Trevor's voice startles a critter near my foot, who makes a dash for my legs and tries to shimmy up my pants. Jokes on him, though. I learned long ago to keep that shit tucked in tight. That was a life lesson best not repeated. I still have the scars as a reminder.

Not finding a way in, the little beast screeches and scurries away. Probably to tell his friends all about the two delicious morsels waiting in the wings.

Trevor and I being those morsels, in case that was unclear.

"Nothing yet," I answer, trying to keep my voice low so as not to disturb whatever else might be living here.

While my partner might not believe anything that science can't definitively prove, I've seen enough to know we don't know everything. In fact, we don't know much at all. And not to toot my own horn, but I know a whole hell of a lot, so that's saying something.

Trevor's never been on an excavation like this before. He has no clue that's the real reason his company hired me. He thinks I'm here to fulfill some kind of PC vagina quota. That we're just searching for a rare artifact worth a lot of money. Something that museum's worldwide will drool over. Something that will unlock a few more secrets of the past.

Nothing wrong with that (err…, except for the vagina quota bullshit. I refer you back to my double PhDs). For the rest, well, we've all got to start somewhere.

But, I know better.

I know what we seek holds power. Real power.

Power I can't let Global Tech get their hands on. Which is the only reason I took this gig. To double-cross them.

I know, not very sportsmanlike. But if you knew what was at stake, you'd do the same. Trust me.

Plus, they're not the only ones after it. Dr. Vane's team—an archaeologist of questionable repute who has beaten me to more than a few precious finds—is en route as we speak, according to sources who know shit. I can't let that old man get his hands on this. Way too dangerous for someone with ties to not-quite-legal organizations who are known to smuggle rare artifacts into other countries and sell them to private collectors on the black market. If I ever meet the greedy son of a bitch in person, I have a few choice words to share with him. But, alas, he keeps a low profile.

I do too, but not for nefarious reasons. I do it mostly for my reputation. As young as I am, I look even younger. I'm working at reaching 5'5", but can only manage with heels, I'm compact—or what some would call 'scrappy' and my short pale blonde hair usually features a few fun colors. I get carded a lot. My look doesn't help instill respect and clout in a middle-aged white dude's club. So, I stay off social media, keep my pictures out of newspapers and online write-ups, and let my work speak for itself. Most people mistake me for a middle-aged white dude. Imagine their surprise!

I squint as the darkness that edges around the thin beam of light from my headlamp begins to brighten, and I feel a shift in the air around me. "We're coming up to something," I say.

Trevor grunts in response, and a few more critters frolic around our hands. Something bites the thick part of my palm, and I hold back a curse and smash the bastard against the stone, feeling it's small bones break. I can't move my head enough to look at my hand, but I feel blood pooling. I'll have to get something on that soon. Who knows what kind of infections these creatures carry.

I slow my pace, knowing I could be crawling into a trap. And then I stop completely and suddenly, my heart a drum against my ribs. Trevor bumps into me.

"What's the holdup?"

I look down, and my light doesn't carry far. If I'd kept going, I would have crawled off the edge into total darkness. "We've got a bit of a problem," I tell him. "But I have a plan."

It's not a great plan. But it's a plan. I explain it, and though I can't see his face, I know the look he's giving me.

He didn't like giving up control of this excavation to a 'girl.' He was also expecting a dude. But we worked it out. And in the course of things somehow ended up in bed.

Probably a mistake. But a fun one, I will admit. I'd like to say it had nothing to do with his sculpted body, dark bedroom eyes and wicked grin, but I'd be lying. I'm still a woman, after all. I have needs.