“Keep aggravating me, see what happens.”
“I’m terrified.” He feigned a shiver, then stopped. The scanner blinked, and he frowned.
I lowered a hand to my blaster. Shivers passed through me, each like a quake moments from sending me to my knees. “What now?”
“There are two more passages ahead of us.”
The cavern we found ourselves in wasn’t as large as the others. A stream trickled through, disappearing under a rock ledge. More worm creatures crawled on the walls, illuminating the cuts in the cave that must have been the potential exits. Roys stood at the center of the room, where water dripped from the stalactites.
“The scanner shows the same oxygen level from each, so there are two possible exits,” he finished.
“Or two possible dead ends,” I said.
“Your pessimism is unnecessary.”
I fired finger guns at him and headed toward one tunnel. Using the flashlight on my visor, I moved in to check the area. Roys did the same for the other tunnel. On my end, there was nothing but more caverns, no sign of any change or exit. Based on Roys’ silence, his was no different.
We were going to die down there in the dark, where the light would never reach. We’d be lost, discovered by nothing save the flora that put us there. I fled the Colony to be forgotten elsewhere, more broken pieces for the cogs of the universe. Fate didn’t like letting anyone go.
My visor beeped, reading my erratic pulse. I put on the visor to take a breath of filtered air. I breathed so heavily I fogged up the screen. My hands shook. The world swayed. My visor kept blinking,warning, warning, warning.
We’d be buried. We’re dead. Buried like my parents, but not with Her. It was over.
“Fuck.” I dropped my visor to my belt and shoved out of the path, trying to focus on anything else. Staring at the worms on the ceiling and counting them one by one, my jumbled thoughts lessened, spread out, thinned, until I could breathe without my chest collapsing.
I couldn’t be silent, couldn’t let my mind wander otherwise I wouldn’t return.
“Do you think that’s why the flora didn’t attack us when we were unconscious?” I asked, hearing Roys hum. His presence was annoyingly helpful. “We haven’t come across flora here. There’s no sunlight. Their root systems are in the soil, but not in a cave. They wouldn’t do well here, so the flora may only react to stimuli above ground where the energy is.”
I met Roys in the center of the cavern. There, he smiled a little crooked, dare I say, impressed. Without the shirt on, my eyes struggled with where to focus. I shifted my attention back and forth, trying not to admire how the sweat rolled over his firm stomach. He wasn’t the type of muscle head obsessed with the form, but strength that could easily hold me down. I actually really wanted him to, to be entirely encased by him, like that would somehow shield me from the rest of the world.
“I wish you used that big brain of yours more often,” he said, causing me to roll my eyes.
“It’s a theory. Doesn’t mean I’m right.”
He knocked his knuckles against my temple. “It’s a good theory, and you’d have more of them if you gave yourself the time to think.”
“In short, I will never share a theory with you again to avoid situations like this entirely.”
“Are you allergic to praise or is it praise specifically from me?”
“You aren’t that special.”
My eyes, however, thought he was quite special as they had given up their attempts to remain discreet. I preferred his distraction over seeingone path after the other that led to the same dilemma. I admired his biceps, wondering what it’d feel like to hold them, what it’d taste like to run my tongue over that brawny chest, lower and lower. What noises would he make if I got on my knees, what sounds would I make for him.
“Stop the staring,” Roys said, one thick brow cocked.
I shrugged. “There isn’t much more to stare at.”
And not much else to think about that didn’t involve maggots making homes in our eye sockets. The slow decay of an unforgiving universe that would forget us as it had everyone else.
Dead, dead, dead.
“And here I thought you hated me.”
“I do, but hate fucking is always an option. We’re going to die down here, and I’d rather get one more good lay in before that.”
“So you think I would be a good lay? I’m flattered.” He walked toward the tunnel I inspected. It was annoying how passive he remained. Rude. I thought I could be fairly charming.
