Page 12 of Alien in the Depths

“Why?” Sofia asked. “What’s so terrible about me that you’re disturbed by the thought of liking me?”

“No,” Zaraq said. He stepped forward to touch her shoulders, but she stepped out of the way, deciding to sit on the foot of her massive bed. He noticed she did not offer him a place next to her. So, he had a seat in the chair near the balcony window.

“You don’t disturb me,” he continued. “You dazzle and amaze me. Your love for history and folklore, your attachment to your sisters, your bravery. It’s all so incredible to me. You, Sofia from Earth, are a truly spellbinding person.”

She uncrossed her arms and rubbed her legs. “Then what aren’t you telling me?”

He almost stopped right there. He almost got up and left her behind forever just so he could protect himself from the shame he knew he would feel once she saw the real him.

No more running, he thought.It’s time to plant your feet and take root.

“I didn’t grow up the way you did,” he began. “I didn’t have any brothers or sisters to play with. By the time I was old enough to remember them, my parents were already gone, killed because of some gambling debts. I had no one.”

He stopped, deciding that wasn’t quite right. He corrected himself.

“People were looking out for me. But they either bailed when raising a young one got too expensive, or got mixed up with the wrong crowd themselves. You should feel lucky that your sister found the prince. The rest of the galaxy isn’t quite as nice and stable as it is here. Most of us have to take any job we can to make it through the day. And a lot of those jobs aren’t very nice.”

He couldn’t make himself meet her gaze as he continued. “During my teenage years, I ran away from a foster couple. They were nice enough, I guess, but I was a wild kid. I couldn’t stay in one spot for too long. As you can imagine, the galaxy isn’t built to accommodate young people with no money. That meant I needed work. I found a job in a casino.”

Sofia didn’t say anything, but she made a humming noise that told him she was, at least, still listening.

“The owner was a bastard. He manipulates people by reminding them how nice he was for giving them a job and guilting them into doing more and more for them. For a long time, I didn’t care. He was paying me to fix a few tables and run messages. So what if he wasn’t the nicest guy in the universe? I could afford clothes and food and my own room.”

He could feel her staring at him. He rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably and cleared his throat.

“After a few years, he bumped me up to security. That’s when I learned how to hurt people. The boss would suspect someone was cheating the house and he would tell me to make sure they never came back again. That was his way of ordering me to break their legs. Then he’d laugh and say, ‘Wow, Z-boy! You got a beast in you!’ Like it was my idea to hurt those people.”

He sighed. “Another security guy and I wanted to go freelance, start our own security business. Working for someone else wasn’t sitting right with me anymore. The boss found out about it, and had my friend killed. He framed me for it. The law has been after me ever since.”

Zaraq rubbed his face, drained by the info dump. He’d always known if he ever told anyone, it would come erupting forward like a geyser. What he didn’t expect was how fatigued he would be after.

Still, he had more to say.

“That’s why I couldn’t answer all those questions at dinner,” Zaraq said. “I’m always on the move, and it can be hard to keep my story straight. Well, that’s only part of it. I also worry that knowing what I’m running from might put people in danger. That’s stupid, I know. But it’s true.”

Sofia stared at him, her jaw slack and her eyes glistening. “Get out,” she said.

Those two words slid between his ribs like a sizzling blade. “Sofia…” he started to say, but she cut him off.

“You lied to me,” she said. “You lied, and I don’t want to see you right now.”

He started to protest, but she screamed at him to leave.

Honoring her wishes, he lifted his bag and walked out the door.

Chapter 5

Sofia

She took her dinner in her quarters. She didn’t feel like sitting down at a long, fancy table with her perfect sister and brother-in-law dressed in those ornate and gorgeous dinner clothes they sometimes wore.

Throughout her decades of existence, Sofia had never been able to develop a poker face of any kind. Whatever she happened tobe feeling at any given moment got automatically telegraphed through the lines of her forehead, the creases bordering her nose and mouth, and the lights of her eyes. They would notice something was wrong the instant she walked into the room, and the last thing she wanted right then was to answer more of their stupid questions.

Questions got me into this, she thought, glowering at her socked feet.

That wasn’t fair. Her family was just making polite conversation. They were getting to know someone new, someone she cared a lot about. Was it their fault the man they were talking to was nothing but a bunch of lies and secrets disguised as an attractive, intelligent, and interesting person?

“No,” she answered her mental question out loud and wiggled her toes angrily.