Arrival

I didn’t even notice him.

The fact that he is so close by and I had no idea…

Alarm shoots through me as my gaze darts around the darkness behind and around him, but I do not sense any others.

He looks at me for a mere second before his gaze lands on Mina again where his focus latches.

I swear I hear a hiss, much like the one Lava Eyes did, but the dark-eyed alien doesn’t move from where he is standing. I’m not sure if his intent was to conceal himself from us or if it is just an effect of the darkness.

“What are they?” I whisper.

“Very, very alien,” Sam replies.

“What do you think they want?”

Sam shrugs and moves closer to me and Mina.

Her gaze suddenly finds the one with the dark eyes and I hear when her breath catches.

“You didn’t see him there, did you?”

She shakes her head, her eyes wide.

“I don’t know what they want, Adira, but they scare the shit out of me.”

I settle back against the mound of dirt at the root of one of the trees and force some of the tension to leave my body.

They haven’t attacked us yet.

They aren’t even coming close to us.

I take a moment to allow myself to feel the extent of damage to my physical being.

Everywhere aches and the amount of energy I’m releasing just trying to stay this alert is quickly taking its toll.

It’s not as cold as it should be here out in the open. The fire helps.

And then it hits me that there is a fire.

I jerk back upright, staring at it.

“They made it after I commented that Mina was cold.”

My eyes widen a little, my gaze flying back to Sam.

“They can understand us?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. They haven’t spoken to us. They only stare.”

Even as she says this, I look down toward the water and I can see Lava Eyes.

He is walking back toward the shore and his eyes are focused this way.

Correction. They’re focused on me.

“They’ve just been in and out of the water. Bringing things up. I think…” Sam pauses, her voice falling low. “I think they’re dismantling that thing.”

My gaze shoots back to her. “The machine?”

She nods hesitantly.

For a few moments, we just stare at each other, afraid to even hope.

I swallow hard.

“Maybe they’re different from the other aliens,” she whispers. “Maybe they were sent here to help us.”

I stare at her. “If so, sent by whom?”

Sam shrugs.

I stare at her for a few moments, the implications flying through my brain.

“We don’t know,” I finally say. “They could still be our enemy.”

There’s a sharp click and a growl that makes me jerk in surprise and my head snaps up.

Lava Eyes isn’t even close to us, he’s several feet away and my voice was low.

There’s no way he heard me…

But those eyes are definitely locked with mine.

And I get the distinct impression that what I just said pissed him the hell off.

The night grows ever darker. But I remain awake.

I ca

Even when Sam dozes off and Mina’s eyes close, my eyes remain open.

Around us, the aliens have kept their distance. Yet, they watch us with an intensity that keeps me alert.

There isn’t a second where a set of strange, slitted eyes aren’t directed our way.

They’re different colors, their eyes, but all are mostly dark or some variation of red.

The more I look at them too, I realize I’m differentiating between them.

It’s not only their eyes that are different. Some of them are bigger than the others.

But they all do one thing…

They watch us.

How Sam sleeps while being observed is beyond me.

Mina, I can understand.

As the minutes tick by, her body’s resources are slowly being depleted.

The parasite will keep her barely alive until it is ready to be extracted…and then what?

If these new aliens are really enemies of the machines, I shudder to think what they will do when they find out Mina is carrying a spawn.

This beats on my mind, along with the fact that we are once again in a precarious situation, and I fight sleep.

More than once, I doze only to jerk awake to find Lava Eyes looking my way.

His gaze doesn’t startle me anymore and I wonder if it is a good or bad thing that I am getting used to them.

To him.