Page 22 of Alien in the Depths

“Laying on the moves again, huh?” she asked teasingly. “At least wait until we get to the room.”

She winked at him, and Zaraq didn’t have the heart to tell her his affection was fueled by panic, not lust.

“We’re here,” Arccoo announced ahead of them. “The Kaylian Hotel.”

Zaraq knew the place well. It was Slikrim’s main competitor in the luxury hotel market, and he shuddered to remember some of the horrible things he’d had to do there back in the day. Flashes of violence broke through his thoughts as the rest of the group filed into the pink marble-clad building, oblivious.

“Coming?” Sofia asked as Zaraq hung back at the door.

“Uh, yeah,” he replied. He didn’t know if he was safer out on the street where gangsters and cops were looking for him, or inside where any member of staff that he’d formerly brutalized might see through his flimsy disguise.

Finally, he decided on the latter and followed Sofia and the others inside.

Their first night in Rikuus was uneventful. Thankfully no one at the hotel had recognized him, and now that he was off the streets, Zaraq managed to relax a little. That all changed the next day, though, when the plan started to emerge.

“I’m going to start at the casino,” Sofia announced over breakfast in their room.

He’d hidden in the bathroom while she’d gone to the door to collect their room service. Now they were sitting at the large table their room had come equipped with, eating their gourmet Rikuan breakfast, all on the prince’s dime.

Zaraq could hardly enjoy it, though. His stomach was twisted in knots at the thought of Sofia going out there alone, especially into the belly of the beast.

There was that word again.

“I really don’t think you should go in there alone,” Zaraq warned, watching as Sofia nonchalantly popped a jaran cherry in her mouth. “Slik is dangerous, and his men are just as bad. I should know.”

Sofia stopped chewing for a second, giving Zaraq a look. “You know as well as I do that we’re here to gather information, and since you can’t leave the room without someone coming after you, you’re just gonna have to be okay with me doing it for you.”

Zaraq frowned, but he knew she was right. He was sending her out into the unknown while he sat in the comfortable safety of their lush hotel room. But what choice did he have?

“I just wish I could go with you somehow,” he told her, releasing his grip on the tablecloth. He didn’t even realize he’d been grasping it until now.

“Well… actually…” Sofia got a conspiratorial look in her eye, but before Zaraq could say anything, she’d rushed out the door and down the hallway.

Within a few seconds, she was back with a groggy-looking Elena.

“What’s all this about?” she asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

“What do you know about radio transmitters?” Sofia asked, pulling her sister into the room with a look of excitement in her eyes.

“Can you hear me okay?” came Sofia’s voice, crackling through the room’s intercom.

Or rather, what used to be the intercom. Haphazard black and red wires were snaking out of it and connecting to the Gorian helmet lying on Zaraq’s purple-stained pillow.

“Yeah, but stop talking to yourself,” Zaraq replied, sitting on the bed beside the mess of electronics that Elena had quickly constructed. Elena, Carmen, and Arccoo had abandoned their rooms for Zaraq’s and Sofia’s, and they were taking up all the chairs.

“All right, all right,” came Sofia’s voice again. “I’m going in.”

Zaraq took a deep breath and held it. The stillness in the room told him the others were doing the same.

“Hi!” came Sofia’s chirpy voice, devoid of its usual sass. “I was wondering who I should talk to if I want a job?”

Zaraq’s heart stopped beating for a second, and he somehow inhaled even further. That wasn’t the plan. She was just supposed to be a patron, keeping an eye out for anything useful. But this…

Zaraq wheeled around to look at the others, but they seemed just as perplexed as he was. Carmen gave an apologetic shrug but turned her eyes back to the intercom when a gruff voice came over the speaker.

“That’d be Slikrim,” the voice said, and Zaraq’s blood ran cold. “Come with me.”

Zaraq could hear the tap of footsteps over the casino’s background noise. Then the sound of patrons and music died away, and Zaraq knew Sofia was being taken up to Slik’s office.