"I should have kissed you," John said.
Hannah blinked and looked at the man in shock, looking down at her, smiling. He raised a hand to her, cradling her cheek gently, smearing streaks of blood on her pale face. Blood began to flow freely from his hairline, streaming down his face but still he smiled. Horror filled her but she couldn't move, frozen in his dark eyes. John bent down, leaning toward her, cold breath touching her lips. She tasted blood.
An immense pain shot through her chest and she jolted awake and she sat up, swearing loudly and fighting against hands that held her. It took a moment for her mind to register what her eyes were seeing. She settled instantly, recognizing her front yard. She was soaked in cold sweat, and couldn't seem to catch her breath.
Jar-hidda removed the needle from where he stuck some of his clear alien medicine directly into her heart. Hannah's eyes flickered to him, then to the owner of the hands that were holding her.
"When did I pass out?" she asked Alexa.
"Part-way up the road to here. Your friend had to jump out of the truck and stop it from rolling back down into the street."
She didn't remember even making it to her road.
Another pain shot through her chest as Jar-hidda stabbed a health shard over the wound.
"Son of a bitch!" she yelled out, gnashing her teeth against more curses, all ones Jar-hidda had heard before no doubt. She kicked out once at the alien, who removed the shard. The crystalline injection points were now clear instead of purple, and the injection site started to bleed. Hannah tried to catch her breath again, eyes opening to look at the alien who closed and replaced the completely drained health shard on his belt.
Her chest rose and fell rapidly as she looked at the alien. Her heart was beating fast and painfully. She recognized the symptoms. She grunted and turned over, her hand finding the tire of her truck and tried to pull herself up.
"Please sit down," Alexa said, putting weight on Hannah's shoulders, "you lost a lot of blood, you need to rest."
"No," insisted Hannah, "I need to get up, we need to go, he needs to fix his ship, and leave this damn planet."
"He?" came the Celtic accent near her and she glanced over at Scott, who was standing far away from the truck. Seemed only Alexa was brave enough to be around Jar-hidda. Made sense considering her previous encounter with them. The alien in question lifted Hannah up only to put her forcefully back on the ground.
"Please sit down," he said in Alexa's voice and Hannah swatted his hand as hard as she could, which hurt her more than him, then pointed right at the eyes of his crimson mask.
"No, don't you dare pretend you don't speak English you ass hole."
Jar-hidda rattled and tilted his head, possibly unsure where this aggression was coming from, or maybe just surprised at the balls she had to scold him. Regardless, Hannah sank back to the ground and her arm dropped to her side, trying to focus on slowing down her breathing.
"Okay," he growled and stepped back, earning a surprised look from the other woman sitting beside Hannah.
"It speaks English?" asked Jacob.
"He, a little, yes."
"He?" came Scott's voice again.
"I don't know," Hannah said quietly, defeated, closing her eyes, "I just kind of assumed it was a penis."
"What!?"
Hannah tuned out Scott, brow furrowing as she forced the feelings of grief out, lifting her head and letting it fall back to the snow, forcing herself to take a breath. Now was not the time for mourning. Who knew when Weyland would be back on his feet and after them again. He knew where they were.
"Those people in that," Alexa said quietly, "who were they?"
"Weyland? Or the people he murdered?" Hannah asked bitterly, eyes opening to look at Alexa's blurry face. Alexa went silent, swallowing uncomfortable.
"Your spear's under the generator."
Alexa looked from Hannah to the back of the truck. She left Hannah in the snow with a gentle squeeze to her shoulder, then removed the tarp, finding the wrapped up bundle and taking it out. The woman touched the wrap tenderly before turning and looking at Jar-hidda, who was standing straight and tall, attentively scanning the area.
His head jerked towards her as she approached Jar-hidda, unwrapping the bundle and taking the spear out. She got his full attention. Hannah watched as the alien turned to face Alexa. Hannah took the opportunity of being unattended to get herself on her feet.
Alexa took a breath, like she was going to say something, but her voice caught in her throat. She looked at the spear, then extended it out to Jar-hidda. The alien looked down at the spear, rattled and looked at Alexa again. His hand went to her chin with a swift movement that made the men jump, startled. His grip on the woman wasn't tight or painful though, and he rattled again as he turned her face, moving his hand from her chin to the scar on her cheek.
He moved his hand away from her, clicking in a way Hannah did not recognize, and stepped back, removing himself from Alexa the respectful way, causing Hannah's jaw to drop slightly.
"No," Alexa demanded, stepping forward towards the alien and extending the weapon to him again, "take it. Take it with you. It's too dangerous to keep here. What if they find it?"
Jar-hidda stopped and looked at Alexa, "it's yours," he growled. He stared at Alexa until she retracted the spear and held it close, "you are yautja. It's yours. … Have it."
What was yautja? Hannah had never heard him use the word before. Maybe it meant 'hunter' or was a title of another sort. That would explain why he showed Alexa respect, and not her. Alexa had been marked by one of these aliens she had said. She was one of them in their eyes. Hannah was not.
"Jar-hidda," Hannah called and the alien looked up at her, then moved to where she was leaning against the truck, again leaving Alexa in the respectful way. This still ticked Hannah off a bit but now wasn't the time, "how close are you to finishing you ship?"
Jar-hidda rattled, "…close to finished."
"What about with this stuff?" she waved her hand over the entire bed of the truck.
Jar-hidda scanned the truck, reaching in to touch the generator, "with this I can… exit this world, but not go far. I can then call others."
Hannah hissed in a breath, furious, "why didn't you call others in the first place?"
Jar-hidda growled at her, "you don't call others to this world."
Hannah held her tongue. She didn't have time to argue with an alien twice her size.
"Jacob," she called, and the young man came over to her as she left Jar-hidda, intentionally turning her back to him and earning an angry growl, "come with me."
She led Jacob to the cabin, all but kicking her door in as she entered, "I don't know how long it will take for them to get more trucks," she explained as she opened her closet and took out a wound-up hose, "there's a faucet just outside this door, take this and go as far down the road as the hose will let you and spray down the snow. The ice will slow them down."
Jacob nodded and took the hose from her. She then went up the stairs to get the sled from her work room, absent-mindedly wiping at the dark green stains as she heard the water go on in the wall. She turned with the sled and began making her way towards the door when she heard a rattle. She froze, her eyes darting around, looking for Kali. She couldn't see the snake, but she was near. She took a careful step forward and the rattling increased in fury before settling down again. Hannah tried to pinpoint the noise. There were lots of places the snake could hide in this room. The door seemed suddenly very far away. Hannah risked another step an irritated the serpent even more. But it let her narrow down where the snake was. She moved to the side, away from her workbench, and bent slightly to see underneath it. The large rattlesnake was curled up by the heating vent, tail vibrating angrily in warning.
She stared at the serpent. Why did she seem to be in a habit of surrounding herself with dangerous reptiles? Maybe it was her destiny to die by one scaly bastard or the next.
Hannah skirted around the bench to the door, giving a final glance to the bench where the dangerous reptile was before shutting the door, and letting her have reign over the room. She heaved a sigh before travelling down the stairs with the sled, huffing. She was out of breath again by the time she made it back to the truck.
"Load it up Jolly," she gasped, sitting back down in the snow to recover, finally taking the time to look at the wound. Jar-hidda didn't question, but put the generator on the sled first, apparently deeming it the most important thing he would need for finishing up repairs. Alexa set down her spear and helped with arranging the smaller things around the generator so that it would all fit.
"It went all the way through," Scott reported as he came up to Hannah. The woman looked away from the wound in her chest, zipping up the windbreaker.
"Help me up," she said, and the man took her hand and put it around his shoulder, helping her back to the cabin when she pointed to it. She began handing guns to the man, one rifle for every human, shouldering her own.
"You know how to use that?" she had a guess the answer was 'no.'
"No, Mark… Mark was the only one really good with the guns, we just had the handguns for just in case."
Hannah took one of the extra rifles and looked at Scott, "better than nothing," she said, "when firing these, just make sure the back end is against your shoulder, or it's going to fly out of your hand."
Scott nodded and looked at the extra guns in his hands, putting one over his shoulder in the fashion Hannah had it.
When the two exited, Jacob was returning, so Hannah shut off the water.
"It melted the snow," he said handing her the hose and she threw it into the house.
"The ice is what matters," she said and shut the door to the house and handed him a rifle, giving him the same instructions she gave to Scott, then taking the last gun from Scott.
Alexa was tying down the sled and Hannah moved to it, handing the woman the last rifle and grabbing the handles only to have the chords snatched away from her. She looked at Jar-hidda who looped the straps across his shoulders as he had seen her do often enough. He looked at her, as if daring her to protest.
She set her jaw, looking up at the alien then asking, "why were you there?"
Jar-hidda rattled and tilted his head. He was silent, in the way he usually was when trying to find the right words he needed, then answered, "you didn't return."
Hannah understood, and at the same time, didn't understand what he was talking about. If he had thought she was in trouble, wouldn't he have just left her to fend for herself like with the cougar?
"Get on the…," Jar-hidda growled, and before he could find a word to replace the one he lacked, Hannah moved to the sled, climbed on and sat on the generator.
"Sled," she told him as she closed her eyes, holding her shoulder.