Page 30 of Broken Triad

Khra nods. “She is too smart. Do not worry, Lola. There are no predators here. Do not fear.”

“Boar. There’s boar.”

“Boar cannot climb.”

“But Scorp can!” I remember the claws of the monster shearing through the hard oak door as if it was paper, and I force down panic, imagining them scaling the wall, how I would hide in the tent, curled up in a sleeping bag, as if that would make the relentless monsters stop from grabbing me and ripping me apart.

Khra shakes his head. “We cleared this area of Scorp. None more will come.” He checks his smartwatch, licking his lips, pressed for time.

“How can you be so sure?”

“I’ve hunted those bastards for centuries. I know how they think. No. Thought is too good for those bugs. They are drawn to populated centers—”

“Or to caves!” I blurt out.

“Do not interrupt me again.” Khra’s voice goes cold. I swallow, hard, and murmur an attempt at an apology. “They go to caves underground. That is the instinct of a Scorp. To burrow in safety. I understand these creatures. You will be safe here. I would not let you be here alone if it was not safe. That is an impossibility.” The last word has a new kind of anger to it, burning through the coldness, as if he cannot imagine putting me in danger.

I shake my head, terrified. “You can’t just leave me here, alone. Those things…they can smell a human from miles away, they can sense the beating of your heart, they just keep coming, and coming, and coming…” I’m spiraling into anxiety, remembering the stories my father told me, in the moments when even he couldn’t pretend everything wasn’t alright, the moments when he hated himself for revealing the danger he put himself in to try to buy back my freedom.

The three aliens look at each other, silently debating—probably speaking by telepathy, so that I cannot hear their words.

Finally, Krazak nods. “Look.” He points into the shadows at the entrance of the cave, at the top right side. There’s something…strange, an angular shape with lines too uniform to be a stalagmite. I squint in the shadows, trying to make it out.

“What is that?”

Krazak presses a button on his smartwatch. Bright light emanates from the watch, illuminating the shape.

It’s a turret. There’s a gun the length of my arm, the base suctioned to the wall of the cave like a barnacle.

“Gods, you were going to leave a fucking sentry gun here? What if I tried to escape?”

“It is set to the DNA of Scorp. If it senses them, it will fire and alert us. But trust me, Lola, there are no Scorp. It is only an extra precaution,” says Krazak. He kills the light on his smartwatch. “We must go.”

In this moment, the three of them look more alien than ever. Their robes are bulging out with their thick, hardened cocks, their eyes cold and grey, the black tattoo on their foreheads proclaiming their allegiance to a death cult that goes against everything I hold dear in this universe.

“You can’t just leave me here!”

I don’t know if I want them to leave or stay. They’ve got me shaken to the core.

“We will return, Lola. That, you can be certain of,” states Krazak.

With that, the three men give me one last look, then crouch at the edge of the cave, grab handholds, and flip themselves over the ledge. I rush to the edge, watching them scale down the sheer face easily, pause at the bottom, and launch themselves in great leaps over the thin part of the pool of water.

Their robes swish as they disappear into the forest, as if they were never there, and I’m left in the cave above the clearing, trapped like a bird in a cage.

Damn them!

I wait, half expecting the three men to come barging back through the forest, but they are gone. The birds quiet, then their songs spill out again, telling me that the three aliens are no longer in the area.

I turn, taking a clearer stock of my surroundings, trying not to look at the right side of the cave where I walked back until I hit the jutting rock, pressed against it as Bolden stole our first kiss.

First kiss. There won’t be another. Don’t think of it like that.

That’s a promise I make myself. I won’t return their kiss again. They can make me do whatever they want, but that, I won’t let them have. I’ll let them slide their tongues in my mouth, I’ll let them force their lips against mine, because I would be powerless to resist, but I will not allow them the satisfaction of me kissing them back. Even if they taste my lust, even if that primal need wells up in me, there is one thing they can never have.

A whimper escapes my lips as my nipples pebble hard, so sensitive that even the fabric of my bra is driving me crazy as I remember Bolden’s huge, calloused hands stroking over my body. I stare at the space in the rock wall where he pressed me against it, and I imagine if Khra hadn’t stopped him, how he’d push me against the wall, his hand reaching down and feeling how sopping wet he forced my body to be as he…

I stalk forward, angry, forcing my thoughts to clear. I need to think of my escape plan.

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