Hello, readers!

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the moment you've all been waiting for. It's taken 20 chapters (before edits it only took like ... 11 ...) but we're here. At the end of this chapter, the end game begins. Wolf. Is. AT HAND.

That's it for this round of edits! More to come, soon. Probably after I work on some new content for my other fics, but I'll try not to keep you guys waiting too long! Promise. In other news, I have a Twitter now! You can follow me at Imagine Kayla! I literally just signed up so I have like, nothing to show for it, but I'll start tweeting before you know it! And, of course, you can still become a patron if you want! I have up to 25 chapters (first drafts, so rough and in need of editing) posted of my original novel so far! For just a buck, you can read them all plus a bunch of other stuff, like Spotify playlists for my fanfics, Insomnia updates, and first draft chapters of fics (available for the public after a few days of posting)! Lemme know if you're interested and I'll get you a link so you can check it out.

This chapter has been updated as of 8/15/2018.

~ Crayola

Chapter Twenty

Old Acquaintance

Crimson coated the walls and control panel in thick spatters, dark and shimmering under the glare of our flashlights. The pilots sat in their seats, slumped forward and unmoving. Their faces had been mauled beyond recognition, their chests cleaved and rent into gorey ribbons. The very seats upon which they sat were shredded and full of holes, their fabric hanging by threads.

Devon gagged and ducked out, his arm obscuring his face as if that was going to block out the acrid, coppery stench of stale death. I heard him mutter "what the fuck" under his breath.

I remained standing in the doorway, frozen and nauseated, my own sleeve drawn over my nose and mouth. It wasn't the first time I'd seen blood, it wouldn't be the last time, but it hadn't been anything like this. Never so angry. I hadn't known the xenomorphs to maul people like this.

When a chestburster breaks out, that was plenty gruesome, but the scene before me, that was something else entirely. Awful.

It was rage. It was vengeance.

To think that those beasts were capable of such deliberate wrath was beyond me. It wasn't like they didn't have a reason to be furious and full of hate, I just hadn't thought them smart enough or developed enough to express it.

From outside the cockpit, Devon asked,"Was there anyone else on this flight?"

"I can only imagine there was," I murmured.

"So where are they?"

Devon, his hands on his hips, beckoned me to leave the pilot area. "I didn't see any bodies, not even any xenos. Just that one limb. Maybe a crushed corpse under the unit."

"We'll have to look harder."

Before we could search the rest of the plane for more remains, though, Ray's voice cut through the tension. "Agents? Agents are you in there?"

"Yeah, one sec. Gotta find a new way outta this dump," Devon called back.

I motioned in the direction of the hole. "We'll just go out the way we came in."

"I'm not crawling through that thing again," he harrumphed.

Groaning, I rolled my eyes and picked my way back through the fallen crates and over melted holes in the hull until Devon and I made our way to the back where the loading ramp was. All we had to do was find a way to open it.

Without really thinking, I attempted to kick open the cargo hatch—bad idea. The pain had me on the ground, holding my leg to my chest and teeth gnashing. Devon had had all of two seconds to babble a protest, and he was at my side in an instant, helping me back up to my feet.

"What the fuck did you do that for?" Devon asked.

"I thought it would open easy like the cockpit door did," I whined.

"My god, Nichole, you know better than that."

"Oh shut up!"

He made a patronizing clucking sound and left me there to nurse my wounded ego, walking toward the door. Using his flashlight, he examined the wall around it and the hinges. I couldn't see what he was doing, but there was a whole lot of banging before the door finally started to open manually with Devon pulling on a chain.

"See? Easy peasy. There was a latch. There's probably a control switch somewhere, but there's no chance it has any power right now," he said, walking back over to me once the ramp was all the way down. "You need any help limping out of here, gimpy?"

"I have everything under control," I hissed through clenched teeth, hobbling to the large bay door so I could exit.

Devon marched along behind me, shaking his head the entire time. "Still don't know what would have possessed you to kick it down. This thing is huge . . . it would never have worked even if you didn't have a bum leg."

Heat burned my neck and cheeks and I was thankful for the dark. "Just drop it you piece of shit."

"Woah, no need for such hostility," he chuckled, walking past me and around the plane. Glowering, I followed him, still rubbing my leg and trying to walk straight. Ray was standing nearby, keeping to a respectable distance from the crash.

"What do you need, Deputy?" I demanded.

"You alright?" he asked.

"I'm fine." It seemed like I was saying that quite a bit lately. "What do you need?"

"I told Eddie to head back to town and make sure everyone got there safe, but I wanted to keep looking for Buddy and Sam with you guys."

"We can't have you—"

"That's great!" Devon interjected, placing a hand on my shoulder. "The pilots are dead, but there may have been others on board and we can't find them. A third set of eyes might help."

I glared at my partner, hoping to drill my displeasure directly into his brain, but he wasn't paying me any attention. Whether it was because it was too dark for him to see me or he was ignoring me I couldn't tell.

Ray didn't notice anything either and said, "You think someone survived?"

More like was dragged off the ship.

Devon shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. Might have been thrown from the plane or any number of things. We've got the fuselage secured, so we thought we'd have a look around before calling it a night and continuing in the morning with backup. First, though, my partner needs a break."

"I can keep going," I insisted.

He gave me a withering look. "You said you'd take a break when we found the crash."

"Yeah, well," I said, crossing my arms, "now I don't need one."

"But you just hurt yourself!"

"I said I'm alright!"

"How far did you want to search?" Ray asked, speaking over our bickering.

Nodding, Devon faced him. "We can maybe go—"

Growling, I pulled Devon aside and swung him around to face me. "What are you doing?" I asked in a harsh whisper.

"What? You said it was safe. That they aren't here," he pointed out. "What's the harm?"

Swearing, I rubbed my face and glanced back at Ray who was watching us curiously but trying not to make it obvious by examining the broken plane wing. "He doesn't know anything. What if he comes across something he can't know about? The predator? A xeno carcass?"

"Then we'll just kill him."

"Devon!"

He pushed me playfully and chuckled. "I'm just kidding. It'll be fine. He wouldn't know what he was looking at anyway."

"Maybe . . . except you thought it'd be hilarious if you told Eddie we were looking for aliens!"

"It was funny!"

I groaned, half a second from slapping him silly. "Devon, you need to take this seriously!"

"I am taking this seriously, Nichole," he soothed, both his hands on my shoulders. "Just because I don't have my deadly face on like you do doesn't mean I don't know this is serious. But you're going to worry yourself sick if you don't loosen up just a little bit."

Shaking my head, I pulled away from him. "You don't know anything, Devon. Bring him if you want, but don't say I didn't warn you."

With that, I turned and headed back into the woods, scanning the ground for clues.

He doesn't know anything because you won't tell him. If you do, this would be a lot easier.

The thought plagued me as we searched within a mile radius of the crash. If Devon knew what was really going on, why I was there and how I planned to fix it, he wouldn't be so happy to include the entire town of Gunnison.

Or maybe he still would. I didn't know what that fucking guy was thinking half the time.

In my heart of hearts, I knew he was just trying to relieve the tension. It was his shtick. I was too worried for it to work on me, for his behavior to relax me. I would apologize. Later. When we were safe from everything.

If there is a later.

"Agents, what am I looking at?" Ray called, standing several yards away.

We met up with him and crouched low to the ground, craning our necks to catch a glimpse of what he was looking at. Even in the pitch blackness, it was easy to spot. Though its glow had dulled with time, it stood out like a sore thumb.

Fluorescent green blood.

Jailbreak.

My hair stood on end and I dropped my composure. Without a word, I abandoned the two men and frantically searched the entire area, looking for more of the blood until I spotted it on a bush—a pinprick beacon against the black-green of the forest.

"What is it?" Ray asked somewhere behind me, following along. I found that I didn't much care what he did anymore.

"Um. Leakage, from one of the packages. An animal must have gotten into something and took off with it." If Devon was one thing, it was quick with the covers.

None of that would matter if we followed the trail and found what we were looking for at the end. If he saw Jailbreak, there wasn't going to be any kind of cover that would explain away the presence of a real alien.

"We can handle this. You look for your missing citizens," I demanded. It was safer if they were close to me, but I didn't want Ray to see what we were really after.

Devon nodded and pulled Ray away. To me, he said, "Shout if you need us."

"I told you to stay with me, Devon," I said, taking a few steps toward him. Somehow I managed to keep my expression under control.

"Don't worry, I'll be fine. One of us needs to stay with Ray, anyway. We shouldn't be splitting up at all, but there is the matter of secrecy . . . ."

"I don't need a babysitter, agents," Ray frowned. We elected to ignore him.

Once again, I was pulling my partner aside and leaving an irritated Ray to stand on his own. "This is why I didn't want to bring him along. He's not safe here and we can't let him follow us around like a stray dog or something."

He waved his hand errantly by his head. "Yeah, but you said that the xenomorphs aren't out here, right? So we're okay."

"That's not—they might be hiding or there could be stragglers!"

Just tell him.

"If it's just one or two stragglers we should be okay, right? They'd be injured, left behind by the others. We can handle a couple injured ones," he argued. "I know they're pretty vicious, I see that now, from the pilots, but we're ready for them. Especially injured ones. We don't know if they're even alive. If you think they are, then we need to call Joseph and let the military handle it."

My mouth bobbed up and down as I tried to find the words that would make him stay. But, we couldn't bring Ray, and he couldn't be left alone. Besides that, there was no way I wanted to hand this over to the military yet. Above all else, I couldn't tell Devon about Wolf.

Not yet.

It was my precious secret, one I couldn't bring myself to give away. I'd ferreted it away for all these years, clung to it, and I didn't want to share now. How could I explain, anyway? Never once had I ever considered divulging the information, so I had no plans for when I did.

Defeated and deflated, I lowered my gaze and huffed. "Fine, whatever."

Devon grinned and gave me a squeeze. "You'll be fine. There's nothing out here that can hurt you anymore. But still, shout if you need me."

I nodded and, when he was out earshot, muttered, "I'll just follow your screams."

"Wait, is it really okay to leave her by herself out here in the dark like this?" Ray asked, glancing over his shoulder as Devon pulled him away from me.

"You saw her throw me, she can take care of herself . . . ."

Their voices faded as we drifted apart. I watched the spot they'd disappeared for a moment, panic rising like bile in my throat. I was alone. My fingers flexed in and out of a fist and I closed my eyes. I had to hope that we really were alone out in the woods, especially since I wasn't a hundred percent sure there weren't any xenos around.

We'd walked in from in front of the crash. That burn mark on the forest floor couldn't have been from burning debris. If wasn't from that, and it wasn't signs of a campfire . . . .

It had to be one of the aliens.

After taking a few deep breaths, I forced myself to get it together. They were a shout away, and it was only a matter of time before my backup arrived. I followed the trail, walking on my own through the woods, focusing on the task at hand rather than the circumstances. I couldn't freak out now. I had to help Jailbreak and send him back home.

The green droplets increased in frequency and amount present as I traveled. Despite the feeling of jelly in my legs and dull throb from when I'd kicked the door, I convinced myself to move faster. This was nothing compared to what Jailbreak had to go through.

"Where are you? Give me something, anything," I muttered, sweeping my light frenetically across the ground and up in the trees.

Several feet to my left, I spotted the spatter of vivid green across a tree trunk. I stumbled over a rock in my path in my haste to move toward it, but kept my footing and steeled myself against the pain. Wading through the bushes, I stopped close to the tree when my shoes hit something solid with a slight yield to it.

Time slowed to a crawl. I kept my eyes on the tree in front of me, spotting patterns in the spray where there were none. My shoulders rose and fell rhythmically with each labored breath. My pulse roared in my ears as I lowered my gaze from the blood to the mass at my feet.

Already, I could see it in my periphery. The concentration of blood, the familiar contour of muscles drawn over a chiseled body . . . .

I dropped my eyes the rest of the way before I could convince myself not to. My lungs ceased all function and I had to catch myself from sinking to my knees; there was no way I would be able to stand again if I let myself fall.

A bloodied hole gaped up at me from Jailbreak's chest, his splintered rib cage jagged with protruding bone. I was going to lose myself if in it if I wasn't careful.

His mask was gone, his mandibles spread and mouth open. A permanent roar of pain and rage. Captured by humans, strapped down and stripped of his gear and dignity. Humiliated, abandoned by his peers and left on a planet in the hands of the enemy. His only hope had been a single, hopeless human girl.

All of it ended in a death devoid of any honor.

And I'd been helpless to do anything about it.

There was no way he had stood any chance. The xenos would have shaken the sedative faster, regained their strength quicker. The crew would have taken his mask, replaced it with a hospital-grade plastic respirator by then. The drones that survived the crash would have freed any facehuggers aboard. They can carry them like the scientists had said. I didn't know how many they'd taken or how many survived the crash.

Inside my chest, my heart constricted and I clutched the front of my jacket, teeth grinding—a barrier to prevent the lament I wished to release. I took an unsteady step back and hauled in deep breaths to keep the angry tears at bay.

My fault.

I'd waffled too much. Spent too much time hemming and hawing. I'd wasted a whole day reading about the predators. Maybe I'd learned a bunch about them, but what good had it done Jailbreak?

He was dead. Nothing I learned would change that.

I couldn't hold it all together. I snarled through my teeth and turned, reaching out to grab the branches of a nearby pine, shaking the limb until it pulled free of the trunk, my bag thumping against my back. I tossed the branch as far as I could throw it, stumbling when my knees threatened to buckle.

It was the only tantrum I would allow myself. I inhaled as many times as it took to calm down, and then whirled toward the body, senses suddenly on high alert.

I heard it, I know I did.

As if standing still would make me hear better, I didn't dare move a muscle. My ears strained, taking in any sound in the area. Was it Devon and Ray? The sound of their footsteps or idle conversation drawn by the wind? Something told me that it wasn't. A niggling feeling that tingled on the back of my neck.

Then it came again, low and quiet. A sound that plucked at my heartstrings and made my spirit soar. It was familiar and comforting in a way I never thought possible.

The rattle of a curious predator.

My feet carried me back to the corpse, hope swelling in my chest—was Jailbreak really alive? Could he have somehow survived the birth of a xenomorph? I hadn't thought it possible that anything could endure such physical trauma, but if anyone could, it was this species.

But when I reached him—I hadn't gone that far away to begin with—he was unmoving and quiet. I lowered myself into a crouch and pressed my fingers onto his arm.

Cold.

So then what. . . ?

Electricity crackled through the air, standing my hairs on end and tingling my skin. I scrambled back onto my feet and took a step back, mouth open in unabashed surprise.

His tall, thick form melted into visibility and my heart skipped a beat. He tilted his head to the side, crackling a question. I chewed on the inside of my lip and pulled on one of the straps of my backpack until the computer in it poked into my hip bone.

He looked at his wrist, reading a display. I let the saliva pool in my mouth then swallowed it, coating my throat so that I could speak.

"Wolf?" I asked tentatively.

The word had him lifting his head. It had to be him. The mask, the color of his skin against the dark night . . . . My heart exploded into life, pounding against my rib cage as if trying to free itself.

A dead person's voice echoed in the distance between us, choking me anew with emotions.

"Nichole."