Page 17 of My Alien Bughead (Supernova Casanovas #4)

Chapter 17

D’Aakh

Squinting into the darkness of the tunnel, I flinch as rocks tumble from the ceiling and land next to my head. A sharp piece of metal weighs heavy across my chest and stomach. It seems I have my chitin plating to thank for saving me from being impaled.

Pushing the metal with all my might, I curse at how weak I feel. How frail. Even as I try to assure myself it’s the result of being caught in an explosion and subsequent train crash, I know it’s not true. I haven’t been sleeping or eating for a while and my body is finally letting me know that it can’t go on much longer. Especially, since I’m running out of stimsticks and my ironclad will is beginning to ebb.

A mass shifts in the darkness as I scramble to my feet, the tortured metal groaning as it scrapes against the walls. The train wreckage is unstable. Not to mention this whole tunnel is about to collapse in on us.

Fuck.

I need to get Lucía out of here. Where is she? She was right next to me, quite rightfully yelling at me for following her onto the train and then… Then a bomb detonated and everything went to shit.

It was a bomb, I’m certain of that. This type of train runs on electricity. The worst that can happen to it is faulty power cells combusting. There’s literally nothing on the train that could explode. And something did explode. A proximity-triggered shaped charge, most likely. It took out the floor of the tunnel just as the train approached, dropping us to…

I look at the rough cave walls. Where are we?

It doesn’t matter, I need to find Lucía first. She has to be in here somewhere.

“Lucía?” I call out. A cascade of sparks from a torn cable is the only response. “Lucía! Answer me!”

Stone clangs against metal and I rush to the source of the sound, disappointed to find only a crumbling ceiling. Dammit. Where is she? Panic engulfs me as I frantically search the train wreckage, stealing my breath until I’m wheezing and gasping. She can’t be hurt. Can’t be…

No. I can’t even bring myself to consider it. She’s alright. She must be.

“Lucía!” I holler, still receiving no answer.

My racing heart stutters as I glimpse the FrenCorp coveralls under a pile of rubble. “No. Nonono!” My breathing stops completely, an invisible fist strangling me. “Lucía!”

Fingers bleeding, I shove stones and pieces of metal around to reveal the body. An unnaturally still body.

A tortured wail tears through my constricted throat. This can’t be happening. Not again. Not to her. She was so strong, so full of life, so…perfect. She can’t be dead. “NO!”

I yank a broken crossbeam off the body. It doesn’t move. At all.

“No…”

Digging through the rubble, I grab her hand. It’s cold and completely lifeless and…tinged blue? Humans aren’t blue. They come in various shades of beige and brown but, no matter what fantastical stories Astra and Nikolai spin to little Ellen, no humans are actually blue. Nor do they have six fingers.

My heart tentatively resumes beating. This is not Lucía. It’s the other worker that was on the train with us. A Karetelan, most likely. I didn’t get too good of a look at him as I was trying to stay out of Lucía’s sight, but it makes sense. Karetelans are more tolerant to heat than most species and they often work in smelters, which is where I assume the train was going. They’re a species that—

Wait. What the fuck am I doing? I should be looking for Lucía, not contemplating a Karetelan’s genetic disposition to work in high-heat environments.

Shaking my head, I do my best to wrangle my scattered thoughts back in line. I’m not normally this distracted.

Out of habit, I reach for the inhaler. A whiff of stimulant should help me focus.

My heart stops for the second time today. The inhaler is broken, the stimstick inside cracked in half. Checking my other pocket, my fingers slide over the smashed containers to confirm that yes, I’m absolutely, completely fucked. Also, dead. With the doses I’ve been taking in the past few days, there’s no way I’ll survive acute withdrawal. Within a few hours, I’ll go into cardiogenic shock. My heart will do its best to keep me alive, but eventually, it will fail to keep up and cease beating forever.

The realization is surprisingly freeing. I don’t have to worry about anything anymore because soon, it will all be over.

Glancing at the dead Karetelan still half-buried in the rubble forces me to correct myself sharply. I do have something to worry about. Lucía. I have to make sure she’s alright and help her get out of here even if it’s the last thing I do. Especially since it will be the last thing I do.

With renewed vigor, I continue searching, shouting her name until my throat hurts. “Lucía!”

The sound is so quiet I barely hear it. At first, I dismiss it as more stones falling from the dangerously fractured ceiling but then, I hear it again. It’s a pattern. Three quick clicks of a stone against metal, three slower ones, then three quick again. I don’t know what it means, or if it even means anything, but one thing is for sure—it’s not random.

Hope blooms in my chest as I follow the sounds to the front of the train. This part took the brunt of our fall, turning into a precarious pile of smashed metal and other debris.

“Lucía?”

“... here …”

Her voice is barely more than a faint whisper, but the mere sound of it has my eyes watering. She’s alive. Trapped and maybe injured, but alive. I can work with that.

Removing the larger pieces of rubble, I start digging through the debris like a madman. “It’s alright, Lucía. Everything will be okay. I’ll get you out of there. Just stay where you are.”

This time, I hear a snort. “Not like I have anywhere to go.”

“True,” I chuckle, tears trailing wet paths down my dirty face. “Are you hurt?”

“I don’t think so. A metal sheet is wedged above me. It saved me from most of the rubble, but I can’t get out.”

I see the piece she’s speaking of. Formerly part of the outer wall of the train, the gnarled, twisted piece of metal now serves as an improvised roof to shelter Lucía from any falling wreckage. If it wasn’t there… I shudder. She would have been crushed.

Ignoring the blood pooling in my palms, I grip the serrated edge of the metal and yank. I stop immediately, even before Lucía screams as the pile of rubble starts shifting, stones clanging down against the bent pieces of metal.

“Shit!” she shouts. “Don’t move that thing or we’ll both get crushed.”

I can’t help but roll my eyes. “Figured that one out already, thank you very much,” I sneer, hoping the raw panic coursing through me doesn’t show up in my voice if I put enough snark in it. “Any other ideas?”

“Uh… I’d say we wait for help but I’m not sure anyone will get to us in time. Where the fuck did we even end up?”

I look around again, noting the smooth walls of the tunnel. Definitely not natural. “No idea. Looks like an old mining shaft. We don’t have time to wait for a rescue. The tunnel’s integrity has been compromised, and it’s about to collapse on top of us at any moment.”

“Oh. Perhaps you should just g—”

“You better not be suggesting I leave you behind and save myself,” I snarl. “I know you think the worst of me but I’m not that kind of person.” Am I?

No. I’d rather die than leave Lucía here on her own.

She grumbles. “Well, how would I know? You’ve been nothing but a jerk to me. I wouldn’t think you’d want to risk your own hide to save mine.” A few pebbles rattle as she shifts position. “I think… Maybe I can crawl out of here, if we can move the stones by my feet? That shouldn’t bring the whole thing down on us, should it?”

“No, it shouldn’t.” It’s a good plan, a sensible one. It has just one tiny flaw. An ominous rumble sounds from the ceiling, fine dust floating down on us as the cracks grow wider. Alright, it’s a big flaw. “We have no time for that. Get ready.”

I have to get Lucía out of here. My life is already forfeited, but she has to survive.

“For what? D’Aakh, what the fuck are you doing? D’Aakh?!”

Ignoring her question, I grab the metal plate again. This time, I don’t stop even when the pile of rubble shifts and starts to slide down on me. Hefting the edge of the plate onto my shoulder, I hold it up, then reach for Lucía.

I’m not gentle as I yank her out of the hole she’s been buried in but we are seriously running out of time. The metal plate grows heavier every second as rubble pours down onto it, but it does a good job protecting Lucía’s and most of my body. Not so much my head, though.

As soon as Lucía is out, I drop the metal sheet. The train wreckage shifts around us, metal groaning and screeching, the ominous rumble from above turns into a full-fledged cracking. “RUN!” I shout, shoving Lucía forward. Thankfully, she doesn’t hesitate.

We race through the violently shaking tunnel, with only the headlights from the train and my glowing ahni to guide us as we trip and stumble over rubble strewn across the floor. Behind us, everything collapses burying the train wreckage under tons of rock, along with the body of the unfortunate Karetelan.

Rocks of all shapes and sizes rain down upon us. One slams into my back, sending me stumbling to the floor. Less than a second later, strong arms are hauling me up. “Keep going!” Lucía shouts, her voice barely audible over the cacophony surrounding us.

We run for what feels like hours but is more than likely just a minute or two. Eventually, the rumbling dies down and the tunnel stops shaking, though it’s filled with a cloud of dust that makes it difficult to breathe. It’s also pitch black. This time, the only light is coming from the glowing tips of my ahni and that’s nowhere near enough to illuminate anything.

“Shit.” Wheezing, Lucía leans over and coughs. “Fucking hell. Are we alive?”

“I think so. For now, anyway.” Especially me.

“Good,” she growls, her voice ice cold.

I can’t see her swinging the tool at my head but my instincts, honed by years of service as a Voidstalker, warn me anyway. Raising my arm just in time, I manage to save my skull from getting bashed in by the largest spanner from Lucía’s tool belt. “What the…?”

I don’t get an answer, just another attack and a furious screech. “You fucking ASSHOLE!”

What the actual fuck?