Page 21 of My Alien Bughead (Supernova Casanovas #4)

Chapter 21

Lucía

I stare at D’Aakh, my mouth wide open in shock. What the fuck did he just say? He’s dying? Like, actually dying? What?!

He does look sick. The shaking, which I mistook for him being cold a moment ago, has broken into tremors so forceful they could be borderline seizures. He’s covered in a layer of sweat, his skin burning hot to the touch. His antennae hang low, their glow so dim they’re barely visible.

The logical part of my mind takes all of that into account and agrees that D’Aakh, indeed, seems to be dying. But why?

He doesn’t seem to be injured. There was no blood. He wasn’t dizzy or disoriented and didn’t complain about any particular pain. Does he have serious internal injuries, maybe? Fuck, the sex we had must have made it so much worse. This is all my fault.

I glare at the stupid tunnel we’re stuck in. We no longer have the luxury of waiting for someone to rescue us. We need to get out of here. Now!

“Explain,” I order, springing to my feet. With a sharp tool from my belt, I start scraping away raw crylonite from the wall. Blowing up shit when we’re in a half-collapsed tunnel definitely isn’t the wisest thing to do but it’s not like we have any other options.

“It’s fine,” D’Aakh replies, his voice weak and trembling. “You can’t help me.”

I snort. “Did you just tell me what I can and cannot do? I thought you already learned that lesson, bughead. Tell me what’s wrong with you. Now,” I add, seeing he’s about to brush me off again.

“It’s…”

He trails off, and the tips of his antennae faintly glow pink. He’s embarrassed. Well, too bad for him. I need to know what’s wrong so that I can fix it. “Yes?”

Sighing, he pulls something out of his pocket. I pile the crylonite filled ore in my hands onto the floor then inspect the object in D’Aakh’s palm. It’s an inhaler of some kind, and it’s broken. Does he have a condition that requires regular medication? Then I recognize the tube inside the inhaler and groan loudly. “Fuck, D’Aakh, really? Stimsticks? How long have you been using that shit?”

“A few days. Well, more like a few weeks,” he amends. “I needed to stay awake.”

I smack him. Hard. “You’re such an idiot! Don’t you know how dangerous this stuff is?! Oh, wait. Of course you knew but you thought you could beat the side effects and avoid the addiction just by the power of your brilliant mind, didn’t you? Fucking idiot.”

I fight back the urge to kick him repeatedly and focus on the small pile of glowing green ore instead. “Alright, how do I turn this into an explosive?”

“Too dangerous.”

“D’Aakh! Tell me what to fucking do or I’ll spend the next few hours beating the shit out of you! Come on. I don’t know anything about this stuff. You get to be the smart one here and rub it in my face. Please tell me.”

Shaking his head, D’Aakh curls up on the floor in the fetal position. It might be due to the pain, or it might just be because he doesn’t want to look at me. Asshole. Time to play dirty. “So, you’re just going to curl up and die on me like Mzr died on you? Leaving me to deal with the same incapacitating guilt you’ve been living with? How nice of you.” I feel terrible saying those words but if it saves his life…

After all, I’ve already sexually assaulted him, so what’s a little emotional blackmail?

“W-what…?” He looks at me with so much despair in his eyes that I want to pull him into a hug and ask for his forgiveness. But that won’t save him. “I-I don’t want that. You hate me. Why…why would you feel guilty?”

“Because that’s what humans do. Besides, I never said I hated you. Not really. I mean, you’re easy to hate when you’re being a dick, but it’s not like, hate-hate. It’s more like you’re-so-annoying-I-want-to-bash-your-head-in hate. I don’t want you to die, D’Aakh, and I’ll be really pissed if you do. So please, stop this ridiculous martyrdom act and tell me what to do.”

He heaves a shaking sigh. “I don’t want to put you in danger, not for my sake.”

“D’Aakh…” I warn, my hand roving over my tool belt in search of something to hit him with that won’t immediately kill him.

“Fine.” He huffs out a frustrated breath. “Just so you know, you’re the annoying one here. You need to… Oh…” D’Aakh tenses up as a violent tremble runs through him and he groans in pain. “Fuck. This sucks. You need…you need the plasma torch. Grab that piece of metal and use it to…heat the ore and separate some of the base rock from the crylonite. It won’t be perfect but it should work.” His hand shakes so hard I barely see which direction he indicates.

I’m following D’Aakh’s instructions but he’s pausing a lot, struggling with full-body shudders and convulsions along with frequent groans of pain that he thinks he’s hiding from me. It’s clear he’s fighting to stay conscious and focused. It’s also clear he doesn’t believe he’ll survive even if we do manage to blast our way out of here, which is where he’s wrong. He will live. Like I said before, he hasn’t seen me at my most stubborn yet.

Finally managing to collect five small blobs of melted crylonite, I mix them with the fluid from D’Aakh’s plasma torch. “Alright, what next? Do I just toss these at the wall and hope for the best?”

He doesn’t reply.

“D’Aakh?!”

Alarmed, I rush to his side. His body is convulsing, eyes rolled back into his head and he’s definitely not breathing. “Fuck!” I yell as I roll him onto his back. I know jack shit about first aid but even I know that breathing is necessary.

Finding a soft spot between the chitin plates on his chest, I start pumping up and down like those sexy doctors in the TV shows my Nana used to watch. It’s probably not the right spot, his heart must be somewhere further up, but I can’t exactly perform CPR on armored plating.

“Don’t you fucking die on me, D’Aakh,” I growl. My cheeks are damp and my eyes blurry from the tears as I run my forearm over them before returning to my foolish attempt to keep D’Aakh alive. “I don’t hate you. I kind of even like you, even if you are an annoying bughead. I definitely like your cock. It’s a good cock, even if it’s attached to your snarky attitude. Do not die!”

There’s a wheezing sound. Then a gasp. D’Aakh’s body jerks under me as he desperately takes in air.

I’m torn between the urge to slap him or kiss him, but force myself to focus on the rescue plan. “D’Aakh! What do I do next? Come on. You said it was almost done. Tell me.”

“The…” He moans in pain as another convulsion consumes him. There’s foam coming out of his mouth. His back arches, fingers digging into the tunnel floor.

Screaming in frustration, I can only stand here like an idiot while he’s dying in front of me because I don’t know what to do.

D’Aakh’s hand jerks toward his tool belt. At first, I think it’s just an involuntary movement, but when he does it again, I realize he’s trying to point at something. “... fuse …” he wheezes. “Ion sphere…”

Ion sphere? My panicked brain takes a second to piece his words together, but eventually, it clicks. Our flashlights.

Alien torches don’t use lightbulbs. They use ion sphere arrays. Tiny balls of ionized plasma held together by a magnetic field. Perfectly safe if wielded right. Dangerously unstable if someone messes with it.

My fingers tremble almost as hard as D’Aakh’s when I turn off his flashlight and pop it open. There’s only one ion sphere, and he made me create five crylonite blobs. Do I use them all? Or maybe…?

Examining the horizontal shaft leading to the other tunnel, I realize that I don’t need to blow up the entire wall between the tunnels. All I need is to make the connecting shaft wide enough for us to crawl through. If I could spread the crylonite along the shaft and then blow it up all at once, would it work? Was that what D’Aakh had in mind?

One look at him lets me know I won’t be getting any more answers from him. He’s curled up on the floor, semi-comatose, his breathing so shallow it’s barely noticeable. I need to hurry the fuck up.

“Alright. Let’s blow this shit,” I mumble to myself, gathering the crylonite up before approaching the shaft. It’s only about one foot wide and I’m not sure I’ll be able to get the crylonite blobs all the way to the other end but I have to try.

There’s a rustling sound from the darkness on the other side. I lean closer to listen to it, then shriek in absolute terror as something crawls right into my face.

“WHAT THE FUCK!”

I raise my plasma torch. Whatever alien monster thinks it can have my face for dinner will get cut to ribbons. I’m so fucking done with this fucking tunnel!

Then the creature gets closer and I recognize its blue, triangular head. “Cricket?!”

The Serramorph youngling chirps excitedly. He eases himself out of the shaft and skitters down the wall. Sniffing at my legs, he lets out more chirps and squeals, which are echoed from the other side of the shaft.

“Guys?!” I shout, hoping to hear something other than excited insect noises. No such luck. It seems that the Serramorphs are here alone and I don’t want to think on the reasons why. Hopefully, there’s no fighting going on up on the station yet. Damn, I have to get up there and stop people from doing something stupid. After I save D’Aakh, that is. And get us out of this stupid tunnel. That’s a fairly long list.

“Alright, Cricket? Can you carry these blobs through that shaft and space them out evenly?”

Head tilted to the side at an alarming angle, the young Serramorphsniffs at the crylonite in my hand. He bristles and hisses, but cautiously picks the blobs up with his pincers.

“Thank you, Cricket. You’re such a sweetheart. If this works, I’ll help you fix everything in your biosphere so that you have the most amazing home in the galaxy. If it doesn’t, well… I guess I won’t be around to deal with any complaints.”

Peering into the shaft after Cricket crawls through, I nod to myself at the sight of five faintly glowing lumps of crylonite. Cricket did a perfect job spacing it out. “It looks great. Now, just step out of the way. I’m not sure how big of a bang this will be. Just go back into the other tunnel, okay?”

There’s some chirping and skittering from the other tunnel, which quickly fades away. Hopefully, the Serramorphs are keeping their distance. I’d hate for anyone to get hurt because of me.

With utmost care, I extract the ion sphere from D’Aakh’s flashlight. The cloud of plasma swirls inside violently, held back by the magnetic field maintained by the metal casing. Once that’s gone, the sphere will vanish in a small but powerful explosion.

“This better work.”

Crouching down by D’Aakh’s side, I run my free hand over his clammy forehead. He’s stopped convulsing but I’m not sure if that’s a good sign or not. Instead of burning hot, he’s alarmingly cold now, and he isn’t reacting to my presence or touch.

“Just hang in there a little longer, please,” I whisper. “Please. I want you to keep annoying me while we work on your ship. I want to see how far I can push you before you’re the one throwing stuff at me,” I beg, placing a gentle kiss on his forehead. “Don’t die, please.”

I’m tearing up again and I absolutely don’t have time for a crying fit. Wiping away the tears to clear my vision once more, I announce, “Alright. Let’s do this.”

After double checking that D’Aakh is out of the firing line and, hopefully, in a stable section of tunnel, I approach the air shaft. Sending a prayer to whoever might be listening, I remove the casing from the ion sphere.

“FIRE IN THE HOLE!” I yell, before tossing it into the air shaft and running away. I said it mostly because that’s what they always shout in the movies when something is about to explode and I thought it would be funny. It’s not.

My heart is in my throat as I throw myself over D’Aakh, ready to shield him with my own body in case the tunnel comes crashing down upon us.