Page 26 of Alien's Challenge
Alice
“Miriam!” Alice sat up in the bed, the blanket falling away as her shout echoed in the room.
How could she have forgotten about Miriam?
The fog had lifted in her brain, and she remembered everything. No more fuzzy gaps. No more slippery thoughts. She had been camping when Miriam showed up with the worst pizza imaginable and they were abducted by little green men.
Miriam wasn’t her favorite person, but she was taken too. Alice had to find her and then figure out how to get back home.
A knock rapped at the door a moment before Faris entered, carrying a tray. Whatever was in the bowl smelled delicious. “You are awake. How do you feel?”
“Better.” Alice stretched, her body aching. Faris tracked the movement. “How long have I slept?”
“It is near sunset now,” he answered.
“Wow, the whole damn day,” she said.
“Who is Miriam? She must be important to have three syllables,” Faris said. He had seemed impressed to learn that her family name had three syllables. He handed her a bowl of gray mush and a spoon. “It is porridge,” he said.
“Miriam was with me when I was abducted. Whenwewere abducted,” she corrected herself. She stirred the porridge with the spoon, finding it sticky and thick. “That’s not the first time you’ve mentioned three syllables. What does that mean?”
She blew on the spoon before taking a bite. Slightly sweet, the porridge had a bland quality. A mouthful felt like chewing glue, but she was too hungry to turn down food. She depended completely on Faris, and she wasn’t going to turn her nose up at the meal he provided.
She forced herself to smile and make yummy noises.
“It is not pleasant. You do not have to pretend,” he said.
“Oh, thank fuck.” She swallowed the mouthful with a grimace.
He watched her carefully as she ate. “Three is a sacred number for my people. A three-syllable name is respectable.”
She sensed that it was more complex than being respectable. “But your name has two.”
“I am not respectable,” he said.
“Agree to disagree.”
His eyes did that sideways blink again. This time was less disturbing.
“I killed a male,” he said.
She nearly dropped the spoon. She shouldn’t have been surprised. Yesterday, he shot people. A lot of people. Plus, he was efficient about it, like he had a lot of practice shooting people. She couldn’t even pretend it was in self-defense. He robbed a train. He was a thief. Hell, he stole her.
Remarkably, this did not bother her. It’s not like he was a serial killer. He went out of his way to maim —not kill —the goons on the train and in the club. Unless that’s what he wanted her to think, to get her guard down.
“Are you a serial killer?” she blurted out.
“I do not enjoy killing, but I must do what is necessary,” he replied.
She had no response to that.
“This is not a good place,” he said. “Reazus Prime was a prison planet. Everyone here was a convict or an administrator.” His top lip curled as he said the word, like it left a bad taste in his mouth.
A prison planet.
Alice finished the bowl, thinking about the bomb Faris dropped.
“I need to go home to Earth,” she said. Then, as an afterthought, “I need to find Miriam.”
