Page 51 of Alien Jeopardy

I glance over as Rex sits up, guilt swamping me.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” I whisper. “Just a bad dream.”

“No, I felt it too,” he says, his voice low. Dangerous.

“Felt what?” I ask.

Still, sitting like this, in a strange dark room, the fear from my nightmare or whatever woke me clings to my skin. I draw the sheet tighter around me.

“Something is wrong,” he says.

His arm circles around me, and I start to object as he draws me into him because doesn’t he know this will only make the heat worse for me?

The strangest thing happens, though, and I clamp my own arm around him. Sticking physically close to this huge alien is likely my best bet at surviving whatever is causing the ground to shake.

“Earthquake?” I squeak.

The last time I felt something like this was over a decade ago.

When the Roth invaded. It wasn’t an earthquake then—it was an all-out assault. Millions died. Our planet still hasn’t recovered.

Our population certainly hasn’t.

I squeeze my eyes together, like that will blot out the memories. The horror.

The walls rattle, and something nearby crashes to the floor. The room shakes, a rumbling, mechanical noise unlike anything I’ve heard coming from deep underneath us.

I press my face into his chest, and his wings cover me as he pulls me onto his lap.

“I have you. You’re safe, Ellison.” It’s a soft murmur into my hair, and for a half-second, I wonder how I’ve heard it at all over the roaring noise.

The sound stopped.

The shaking hasn’t.

“What is going on?” I ask, terrified. I wish I weren’t. I wish I were brave.

But this is too close to how it felt that night. How out of control everything was during it, and after.

How I haven’t felt in control since.

“This is part of the show, right?” I ask, finally opening my eyes.

Rex is staring down at me, orange eyes wide and volatile. “I do not know.”

“Attention, contestants.” A voice crackles out, sounding like it’s everywhere all at once. “I have been tracking you since your arrival. It has come to my attention that you are here to compete.”

“What?” I ask, nonplussed. It’s not the Roth Ayro’s voice. It’s not the human woman’s, either.

It doesn’t sound like a voice at all.

It sounds mechanical.

“It can’t be,” Rex says.

That’s ominous.

“I observe that some of you already have formed a hypothesis about who I am. Or should I say, what I am?” There’s an odd noise, and it sounds like a laugh track.