Page 3 of Theirs to Crave
“¡Gracias a Dios, hermana! I thought these fuckers had killed you! How bad are you hurt?” Mariano’s voice was strained and shaking, but he didn’t turn around. He stood between me and the aliens, radiating menace as they waved their arms and spoke again in their strange, buzzing, hissing language.
Hurt? My head was foggy, but I concentrated and my body came online with a symphony of pain. Shit, I was hurt. I was also missing my clothes, I realized with squirming horror. Mariano and I both wore only strange gray tank top style tunics. But— “I’ll be ok.”
Mariano grunted, the sound calling me a liar.
“Mira, my head’s killing me, my ribs hurt, something’s wrong with my wrist, and I’m basically naked. But I don’t think anything’s broken and I don’t have a concussion.”Probably, I added silently. Not like we could do anything about it if I was wrong.
“No concussion, my ass,” he snorted. “You’ve been out for at least ten minutes.”
The closest alien lunged towards us, brandishing something in its lower hands.
Mariano yelled, jumping into its path. For a moment he held his own, but another alien darted around—shockingly fast for its size—and picked him up, all four arms holding him tight as he cursed and struggled.
The third scuttled towards me, legs bent and body low to the ground. It stretched out its arms, hissing, “Hhhhssshhhhttttcchhh.”
I lurched to my feet, stumbling as everything spun around me. The alien jerked forward, but I dodged to the side and plowed gracelessly into the alien holding the mystery object. It could have been a med scanner from one of the old sci-fi shows, if it had been crossed with a gun and a nest of snakes. Whatever the fuck it was, it wouldn’t be good news for us. I grabbed for it, kicking the alien’s skinny legs and hoping they were a weak point.
They weren’t. It ignored my barefooted attempts and used its upper hands to peel mine off the snake gun. One of the others grabbed me from behind, lifting me clear off the ground by my hair and neck.
I screamed as new agony exploded in my head and tears burst from my eyes, only to be met by bruising, suffocating burning at my throat. I clawed at the hands around my neck as my vision started to dim. Mariano’s shouts cut off abruptly, and I gurgled out a moan. Please let him be alive. Oh, Dios mío, please let us both survive this.
“Ssstt, Xteechh. Ch st’st’ix bzzit hhshhttch,” the alien holding the snake gun buzzed, twisting its head to unsettling angles. The alien strangling me hissed a reply, and I collapsed, gasping, to the floor.
I tried to curl into a ball, but the damned alien grabbed me again, wrapping its hands around my upper arms in a punishing grip. It squeezed them, pushing my elbows together, and hauled me up. My shoulders screamed as they were forced to carry the weight of my whole body. I kicked, frantic to break free. The pain was indescribable. I stopped struggling and hung there, bombarded by agony.
I craned my neck, keening as I caught sight of Mariano. He was limp, his body bloody as the third alien heaved him onto one of the platforms. It pressed the snake gun to my brother’s neck. There was a sharp hiss, Mariano’s body convulsed, and then he was still.
I kicked again, oblivious to the agony, and called his name, but he didn’t twitch.
The alien adjusted a couple things on the snake gun and shot him again, first in the side, then the thigh. Mariano never moved. I couldn’t see him breathing.
A fine trembling took over my body. My eyes were dry and burning, fixed on his face as if I could force it to animate.
I was vaguely aware of the aliens buzzing and moving around the room, but I couldn’t look away from my brother, still and crumpled on the dirty platform. I felt like I’d been shattered into a million pieces, none of them great enough to function. One piece of me floated above my body, numb. Another piece tunneled into Mariano’s body, willing his eyes to flicker and his chest to rise. More pieces were just throbbing pain. And one desperate piece was insisting this was all a hallucination, that we’d been in an accident and would wake up in an ambulance.
My teeth jolted together as I was dropped onto the other platform, my skull cracking against the metal. Something coldpressed against my neck and lightning shot through me. The shards of my consciousness slammed back together as my body locked in a helpless, convulsive arch. It was agony. The wave began to wane, and I tried to roll, to protect myself from the next two shots, but uncaring hands pinned my arms and legs. The shot to my side had nausea rolling through me as my stomach and intestines pulsed. Clammy sweat broke out over my body. The shot to my thigh sent numbness radiating outward, paralyzing me. I couldn’t even close my eyes. Hot tears leaked down the sides of my face as I scrabbled inside the cage of my own body.
Helpless, I listened to the aliens hissing and buzzing as they moved around the room. There were noises I couldn’t place, then one of the ugly gray fuckers loomed over me. My vision swam as it lifted my head by my hair and clamped something around my neck. It was heavy. Cold. Metallic. A fucking collar. These damned aliens had put a collar on me! ¡Como un maldito perro!
It moved out of my sight, then there was a mechanical hiss and their scuttling footsteps faded into the distance. Finally, all was silent save for the sound of my broken heart beating against my ribs.
I don’t know how long I lay there before my eyelid twitched, and I realized I could blink. It felt like scraping my eyes with sandpaper. I blinked again, trying to force my eyes to lubricate themselves. Slowly—painfully slowly—I regained control of my body. Dios mío, everything hurt. My head was a kaleidoscope of pain, my shoulders and back screamed whenever I breathed, my wrist felt like it’d been run over, and my whole body throbbed along with my heartbeat.
When I could move my neck, I turned my head to see Mariano. I couldn’t tell if he was breathing. He had to be. He just had to be.
A few minutes later I managed to lift my right hand, muscles trembling with the effort, to the collar around my neck. It felt like smooth metal, no seams or buckles that I could find. Pulling on it did nothing. I groaned and tried to sit up. I failed. I dragged myself to the edge of the platform, sucked in a breath, and rolled to the ground.
When the pain cleared enough I could move again, I rolled onto my front. Using a modified army crawl with my injured left arm tucked against my chest, I crossed the eight or so feet separating me from Mariano’s platform.
By the time I got there, I’d gained enough control to consider climbing up. I pushed into a sitting position and lost a lot of that confidence in the wave of dizziness that followed. I gritted my teeth. It took everything I had, and in the end I was sweaty and shaking, but I managed to haul myself up beside my twin.
I pressed my good hand to his chest, the relief at feeling it moving so strong I almost threw up. For long moments I sagged against him, reciting half-forgotten novenas in desperate gratitude. Eventually, I pushed up and tried to pull off his collar. After some searching I found the tiny seams that joined the two halves, but other than breaking another nail I made no progress. I gave up and wedged myself into the corner, pressing my aching shoulders into the cold wall. I held Mariano’s hand with my good one, and tried not to think. I had to watch over him. I couldn’t afford to spiral.
I was alive. Mariano was alive. Whatever the fuck was going on, that was enough for now. My body needed rest. If I was verylucky, I’d wake up in my own bed and this would just be a wild story I’d tell him over breakfast.
Chapter 2
Estrella