Hello, readers!

We're finally here. It's taken me two freaking years to revise this POS story but I've done it. I finished revising the last like, I don't know, six of these chapters or whatever. I can finally put this all behind me. Ugh. It wasn't supposed to take this long. I thought maybe a few months at most, or maybe a year, but not TWO years. Jeez, I'm a disappointment to my family.

All jokes aside, I didn't spend as much time with these chapters as some of the others, so let me know if they're weak in places and I can go back and do some more edits. For the most part, I'm pretty alright with how it's turned out.

This chapter has been updated as of 11/1/2017.

~ Crayola


Chapter Twenty-Three

Defiant to the End

Instead of inside Ava's normal office, the building's meeting room was acting as our interrogation slash therapy session. It was the only place big enough where everyone could sit, and I was guessing we needed the table space, too, if the thick file in front of them was any indication. The agents were seated across from me and Ava was a few chairs away.

Of course they wouldn't call it an interrogation, but if it walked like a duck and quacked like a duck, it was a duck.

"Tell us about the alien that was with you when Mendes found you."

Agent Rawlins' question caught me off-guard and I looked up from the table at him, a familiar pit forming in my stomach. I'd thought they'd be asking me more about the black bugs. The things that had actually been making an active effort to kill and abduct the townsfolk. I supposed it would have only been a matter of time but—I hadn't expected it to be this soon.

I couldn't even just walk away. Sure, my crutches were nearby, but a toddler could catch up to me on those stupid things. Federal agents tended to freak out if you tried to escape when they were in the middle of questioning you, anyway.

At least Ava was nearby, my watchful guardian. Apparently, since I couldn't have my parents sitting in on my interrogation like I was supposed to, Ava was the next best thing.

She was never shy about letting them know when they were out of line.

"What do you mean?" I asked, stalling.

Rawlins was sitting straight, contrasting to Cooper's more lax posture, his arm draped over the back of his seat as he lounged. It was Cooper who spoke next. "We know you were with another alien species when Mendes found you. There were some . . . interesting reports of the time of your rescue," he elaborated, one eyebrow quirked.

Shrugging, I tried to keep my response nonchalant. "What do you want to know?"

"They didn't see much of it, but there may have been more than one. We just need you to fill in some of the gaps—what was it, how many where there, and what they were doing with you," Rawlins said, cutting off his partner.

Biting my lip, I looked between the two of them and tried to figure out how much I wanted to tell them. It took a moment, but I eventually responded, "There were two of them, but a lot more on the ship. . .mostly dead, I think. From the crash. I think they were the ones who owned the ship, and the other things were stowaways?"

Cooper scribbled down my response while Rawlings made a follow-up question. "And what were they doing with you there?"

Again, it took a while for me to answer. I kept my eyes down at the desk in front of me and fidgeted until I decided that the truth wouldn't hurt. Maybe it would help—maybe they'd believe that Wolf and his were. . .maybe not peaceful, but didn't mean us immediate harm.

The skulls hung up in that trophy room meant they certainly meant us some harm, but at least not until they were rescued or something.

"They, um, they were helping me," I muttered.

"What?" Cooper scoffed, tearing his gaze away from his notepad.

Heat rose to my cheeks and I squeezed my hands together. "Well, I mean, one of them did. The other tried to kill me at some point but I mean, he didn't—but yeah, I'd be dead if the one hadn't let me follow him around."

"Why would it do that, Nichole?" Rawlins asked, not unkindly.

"How should I know?" I retorted, finally meeting their gazes, if only for a few seconds. "He couldn't speak, so it's not like I could have asked him."

The two agents shared significant glances and then Rawlins flitted through the file, pulling several sheets out and laying them in a stack in front of him. I craned my neck to see, but the angle was all wrong for peeking.

It didn't matter, though, because he picked a few out and slid them across the table to me. "Does this look like him?"

Suspicious, I pulled the sheets closer and scanned them. The muscles in my jaw tensed and I sucked in a breath. The picture was from a distance, but it pictured the hulking mass of someone of Wolf's species, in what looked like a slaughterhouse. Beneath that one, there was an artists' rendering of what the face looked like without a mask.

Crude, but accurate.

"I mean . . . yeah, I guess. How did you . . .?" It didn't look like Wolf—well it did, but I knew it wasn't. I had spent enough time with him to know the shape of his body, the way he held himself. This one was all wrong.

Cooper took the images from me and set them aside. "We've been tracking his kind since before you were born."

My eyebrows shot up. "Wuh—what?"

Rawlins handed the pile of papers over to Cooper who started to thumb through them. "We only have a handful of documented encounters, but we believe they've been coming here for quite some time," Cooper said.

"You haven't tried to stop them or initiate contact?" I asked.

"The government believes it's best to let them do their thing. They kill maybe a dozen or two people every decade. If we were to engage and really attempt to stop them. . .it would likely spark a war that we would not win."

"They—they what?" I asked, remembering that I wasn't supposed to know they hunt us. I likely wouldn't have if Wolf hadn't shown me all those skulls they kept hanging up on the walls.

Cooper nodded. "They hunt and kill us—like safari hunters or something."

"We need you to tell us what sort of technology he used. Why he was here, what those things were to him," Rawlins interjected, trying to move the topic back on track.

Instantly, I was on the defensive. I hunched my shoulders and brought my arms into my chest. "I don't know much of anything. It was dark and I didn't see a whole lot." Like I was going to give away my savior's trade secrets.

Even if I wouldn't see him again.

Sighing, Cooper picked out a new pile of pictures and slapped them in front of me. Some spun off to the side, threatening to fall, but I caught them.

"Do not get me wrong, Ms. Shain. We know a lot about these things. You are not protecting a good alien. We don't know why he helped you, just that it probably wasn't out of the kindness in his heart. Go on, take a look," he demanded, nodding to the pictures.

Scowling, I glanced at the pictures and then averted my gaze almost immediately, eyes wide and pulse skyrocketing.

When I didn't immediately take in the images, he leaned forward and spread them out in front of me. "See this? 1987, South America. A special ops team went into the jungle to rescue our soldiers. One of those things was hunting them. Skinned them. Hung them up. Stole their skulls."

The photo he showed me had nothing of the sort of it and was merely a picture of the group that went into the forest.

"Only two made it out, and only one of them was military. The other was some local," Rawlins added, handing me another picture. This one was of a man who was nothing more than a walking slab of muscle. "He managed to kill the one that took out his team. It activated some sort of bomb that blew up half the rain forest."

Next, they brought my attention to a photo that was nothing more than a smoking crater gouged out of a lush rainforest. It was an aerial view, but even from the high vantage point, I could tell that it was a huge cut of land.

"These," Cooper continued, flicking aside more papers. "Los Angeles, 1997. Another one hunted down cops, gang members, armed civilians—they've been hunting our kind for trophies for ages."

1997—that hadn't been so long ago.

They tossed more and more photos at me, making my stomach churn with each one.

A grainy image of a man hanging upside down from the rafters of a building, headless and completely skinned. Another, this one a man with his skull and spinal column ripped straight from his corpse. Blood spread out across the ground of the alley in a wide pool.

Her blood coated my fingers, leaving them with a sticky residue. It pooled beneath her, bubbled from the wound around the breached chestburster.

I started to tremble and my fingers slipped on the prints when I tried to push them away in disgust, so I pushed away from the table instead and put my hands on my head. My heart was thudding in my chest as I tried to shove those memories and thoughts out of my head—all those trophies Wolf had shown me. . .his own collection. . . .

"But he didn't—didn't kill me, so—and. . .and I don't know anything—less than nothing!"

He pushed more pictures over to me and I flinched as if he'd hit me. Before I could close my eyes and block out the images, I caught glimpses of beheaded bodies and I whimpered under my breath.

"There's nothing benevolent about these aliens," Cooper insisted.

"Hey, hey, what exactly are you doing to her? Look at her," Ava said suddenly, leaning over to

pick up one of the pictures when she saw my condition. She paled and then flung the image at Cooper before jumping to her feet and collecting all of them in her hands. "Are you crazy? My client is a trauma patient! You can't just show her stuff like this haphazardly!"

Cooper flung his hand in my direction. "She needs to cooperate and if this is how we get her to do that, then so be it!"

Face red, the small therapist threw the remaining papers at Cooper. They fluttered all over the place, but at least three or four them wound up slapping him in the face. He looked flabbergasted for a second, and Rawlins leaned away from him.

"You're out of line!" she spat.

The agent stood up and slammed his fists on the table, making me recoil. "I'm out of line?"

Rawlins put a hand on Cooper's shoulder and forced him back into his seat. "She's right, let the girl alone."

For a minute Cooper looked like he was ready to argue, but eventually sat back down. Ava remained standing for another heartbeat, only moving to sit next to me when she was certain Agent Cooper had dropped it.

"Are you alright? We don't have to continue if you don't want to," she assured me, her arm resting on my shoulders.

"Like hell she doesn't."

Everyone shot Cooper a glare and he snorted before crossing his arms over his chest.

"Ms. Shain," Rawlins said. They were really pushing the "good cop bad cop" cliché. "Why don't we start with what we know about them, and you fill in the gaps?"

I shook my head. "None of this is important. What about the things that took us? I didn't get a chance to speak to you at the conference, but there could be more out there in those woods! Your people could be in danger, they could come back. You have to search the whole—"

"I'm going to stop you right there," Cooper said, his hand raised. I glowered at him but clamped my mouth shut with a click of my teeth. "We've already come across them."

Rawlins must have noticed the look of terror on my face because he leaned forward and reached a hand toward me. "Don't worry, we were well prepared this time. We only suffered a few deaths, mostly injuries."

Only a few!

If he was trying to make me feel better, it wasn't working. They'd been out there—at any time they could have come into town—they could have killed more people—could have—

"Breathe, Nichole," Ava reminded me, patting my back.

I nodded and took a few deep breaths to bring my hyperventilating back under control.

"So if you please," Rawlins continued, tapping a stack of papers against the tabletop to straighten them out. "We have the alien you were with written down as a species standing approximately eight feet tall, is that accurate?"

At first, I thought he meant the drones but then I realized what he was talking about. "I guess. I didn't exactly have a measuring tape."

He managed a smirk. "Yes, right."

Next to me, Ava sniffed. "Can you hurry it up? I want a chance to speak with my client alone sometime today, please. We have much to go over and try to address."

Cooper's face reddened and I thought he was going to start blowing steam out of his ears. Rawlins removed one paper from the stack before handing the rest to Cooper, then flipped it over to the blank side and scribbled a few notes. "Just glance over these things I'm writing down and tell me if they're true or not, and enlighten us if they aren't."

He slipped the paper across the table to me and I had to resist the urge to look at the other side. Rawlins had written down a few bullet points about Wolf's species. The more I read, the closer I felt to Wolf. Most of it I wouldn't have ever been able to deduce without spending more time with him.

"They see in infrared?" I asked.

Cooper nodded. "The first man who survived an attack from these things covered himself in mud and it couldn't see him anymore. We don't think that's the only thing they see in, though, as the one in Los Angeles could see our operatives even when they were wearing special suits."

My brow knit together as I thought about that. When he had shown me the alien queen, it had appeared light green. So far as I knew nothing in heat vision appeared green. "The mask," I muttered.

"Hmm? Oh, yes. We figured their mask might double as a heads-up display and a respirator," Cooper agreed with a nod. "We're fairly certain they're unable to breathe our atmosphere for prolonged periods of time."

I bit my lip and tapped my cheek with a finger. "There were parts of the ship that I couldn't breathe in very well, either."

Cooper raised his eyebrows and jotted that down. "Probably their ship's artificial atmosphere."

"I guess."

Both agents glanced at each other and then Rawlins pointed at some of the other bullets. "Okay, good. The other things there?"

Focus, I reminded myself. I wanted to make sure I watched what I said about Wolf, but I didn't think I knew anything groundbreaking that would give them something to use against him. Nothing that they didn't already know, anyway. It seemed they knew quite a bit.

High tech weapons, hunts for trophies, some version of an honor code, and high-end camouflage.

Nothing new for me, either, except for the infrared tidbit and I could have guessed that.

"Well," I started, handing the paper back, "you guys know everything I know. It's not like I could talk to him, not like he could tell me much about himself."

Rawlins nodded his head toward me. "What's the mark on your chest?"

My hand rose and I brushed my fingers over the spot covered by my shirt. "I'm not really sure."

"When did he give it to you?"

"What makes you think he gave it to me?" I shot back. "It could have just been a splatter from the acid those things bleed."

"You confirmed yourself when you answered Rawlins' question," Cooper retorted smugly.

Disgruntled, I slumped in my seat and crossed my arms like a petulant child. "I don't know what it means. I don't know which part of 'we had no real way to communicate' you people don't seem capable of understanding."

"Alright, we'll come back to it," Rawlins said. Cooper didn't look like he agreed, but he didn't push the subject either. "What about—"

I shook my head and huffed. "What does it matter? You said it yourself; you're not going to try to stop them. So why bother learning anything at all? Especially when you're afraid of sparking a war you're just going to lose."

Cooper said, "Well, it's been made perfectly clear that if they're killed, nothing happens. It's an occupational hazard for these things. So if one goes missing, say, if we caught one alive or at least before it blows itself up, then there should be no repercussions. They'll just think that they died in the line of duty or whatever."

"How can you be so sure about that?" I asked.

"We're not," Rawlins shrugged, "but that's all beyond what we're going over here. There's no need for you to worry yourself about that. The government knows what it's doing."

That had to be code for "stop asking questions."

"Well, I don't know enough to help you there. Ask about the black things, about their nesting habits, their life cycle. They're easy. Let me tell you about them since they're the things that were killing people this time! You're obviously going to get another shot at whatever these other aliens are if they come back every ten years, so ask me about the ones that killed my friends."

When the agents turned to look at each other I slammed my palms against the table top and clenched my teeth together. "Stop doing that!"

Ava put a hand on my shoulder and glared over at the other two. "I think this is over, you can continue next time. She needs a break from you two a-holes pestering and picking at her like she's a perpetrator in a crime."

"These are very time-sensitive topics. We need to talk to her while it's all still fresh," Cooper argued, his fingers tapping impatiently.

"Her wounds are still fresh, too!"

I held my face in my hands and groaned. "Just ask me about the black things! I can talk about the black things!"

Cooper stood with Rawlins, who gathered up their papers. "We don't need you to tell us about them, we're figuring it all out for ourselves."

Rawlins tucked the folder under his arm once everything was straightened up and said, "At first we thought about asking you, but considering your past with these things we decided to spare you from reliving those painful memories."

My therapist-slash-impromptu-guardian also pushed herself to her feet, but I remained, not even making a move for my crutches. "What do you mean you're 'figuring it out for yourselves'?"

"Well, we have one," Cooper said, smirking.

All the color drained from my face. "One . . . what?"

"Y'know. The aliens. We caught one. Well, three of them," Cooper said, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his cheap suit pants.

If I hadn't been sitting, I would have collapsed. Already my heart was ramming against my chest and I suddenly found it hard to breathe. Everyone watched me with slight concern until, finally, I attempted to scramble upright. Ava hurried to push me back into my seat.

"You—you didn't. You—you have to kill them, now!" My voice was hoarse.

Rawlins extended a hand. "I promise you they're locked up safe. No way to get out. We're going to learn what we can about them, the ones we killed are already being dissected and studied."

No no no.

I shook my head, eyes never leaving the two agents. "You won't learn anything about them like that! You just have drones. They're like—like ants or bees. They have a queen. Without the queen they'll be—they'll be useless, lost. They won't reproduce, the queen lays eggs!"

Cooper shrugged. "Then there's nothing to worry about if they can't reproduce."

They didn't seem to understand that they had machines incapable of remorse or reasoning. Wolf had an honor code; he only killed the worthy or out of self-defense. These things—without a queen, without a reason to do anything . . . how would they react? Maybe they'd just wither away and die, or maybe they'd become even more murderous.

"But—I don't know how smart they are." I floundered for a moment, then knit my brows at them. "Let me see them."

"That is absolutely out of the question, Ms. Shain," Rawlins said, always so calm.

Ava stepped forward, mouth open, but Cooper cut her off. "They're not even in Colorado anymore. It would be highly inappropriate to fly you to our compound let alone let you see them."

"Now hang on," Ava managed to edge in. "It might be a good thing for her to see them."

"What?" We all turned to her, varying expressions of surprise on our faces.

She looked between us, then sighed and rolled her eyes. "It could be very cathartic for her. Seeing the things that tormented and tried to kill her locked up. It might accelerate the healing process to know that they can't hurt her anymore."

I severely doubted that, but whatever it took for me to see these things.

However, Cooper shook his head and rubbed his nose. "No, it's just not possible. She doesn't have the clearance. Besides, what if it makes it worse?"

"It might, or it might make her feel better," Ava sighed, exasperated.

Rawlins put a hand on Cooper's shoulder and took a step forward. "Okay, well, if Nichole wants to see them then we could give it a try."

"I do!"

"What the hell you talking about?" Cooper grunted.

"The best we can do," Rawlins continued, ignoring me and Cooper, "is get some pictures though. There's just no way we could give her clearance to fly out to the facility let alone get inside the facility."

Cooper glanced at Rawlins. "Even then we can't get pictures of everything, just of their holding cell. And that's a maybe. We don't know if our bosses would allow even that much," he amended, sounding as frustrated as Ava.

"That's fine," Ava sniffed. "Whatever you can do. I'll sign papers, write a note, whatever. If it'll make Nichole feel better, then they should be willing to at least try."

Their way of talking about me like I wasn't there was starting to grind on my nerves. My face reddened and I crossed my arms over my chest. "I want to see them. If possible I'd like to see them dead. You don't know what they're capable of!"

"And we won't know unless we have live specimens," Cooper snapped. Before I could say anything else, he stormed toward the door. "Enjoy the rest of your session, we'll see you next time."

Rawlings followed him but stopped before crossing the threshold. "If we can get some pictures, we'll have them for you by the next time we see you. It might not be this week, but we'll stay in touch." He offered a smile and wave and then started to close the door. However, he opened it back up and added, "Oh, and Nichole?"

"What?" I sighed.

"Are your sister and her friends going to be a problem?" he asked, his tone suddenly dark.

I averted my gaze and hunched over in my seat. "No. No one believes her. I haven't told her anything, either."

He stared at me for a few seconds, then nodded. "Alright. We'll be watching."

And with that, they finally left.

As soon as he was gone, I felt the bite of my nails in my palms. Ava waited for a heartbeat before turning toward me. "Alright, let's move this to my office. We have some time to talk and I'd like to go over how the press conference went."

It took a moment for the words to register, but I grabbed my crutches and heaved myself up before following after Ava down the hallway. If I hadn't needed to pay attention to the turns she took, I would have been lost in my thoughts. A million miles away, in some secret government facility where they were keeping a few of the drones.

The things that haunted my nightmares.

What were they thinking, keeping just one of them alive, let alone a handful of the things? If they knew, if they had been there, they would have killed them outright . . . .

Or maybe it was really just me being unreasonable. The beasts had no queen, so they couldn't multiply, and even if they did they wouldn't have any hosts while they were locked up. There was no way of knowing what they'd do without their matriarch—which also meant there was no way of knowing if they were smart enough to escape.

Couldn't they learn enough from the dead ones? From me telling them what I'd learned? Why would they need to study their behavior?

They had to be killed, I knew that much.

How am I going to convince them?