Annoyance itches at us. What if Doug is preparing to flee?
Light is urging Cadence to drive faster, and she tells us to shut up. We think she is stressed. For someone not used to aliens, she is doing very well. We contemplate telling her that, but given the glare she gives us, we stay quiet.
Then they are parking the car downstairs.
Doug steps out of the room, naked except for his new and very realistic human skin. His gaze flits over the room before he retreats to the bedroom. Humans need clothes. He is getting ready to leave.
He will check the safe and find it empty.
Curses flow from the bedroom. He checked the safe before getting dressed.
Light and Cadence are in the lift.
We must wait.
We want Doug alive. Dead is fine to collect the bounty, but alive he is worth more. And he can tell where the women are. We will find them and release them because it is the right thing to do, not because it will make Cadence happy.
Cadence opens the door and appears to be alone, but Light is in the corridor.
I move to her and whisper in her ear, “I am here.”
She startles, then nods and ventures further into the apartment. “Are you here Doug?”
I point to the bedroom and she walks toward it, ignoring the skin and suit on the floor.
Doug is buttoning up his shirt as though everything is fine, and he didn’t just squash his gelatinous ass into a new human skin. “Who were you at the restaurant with?”
She frowns, as though confused. “You.”
Doug picks up a gun and shoots her shadow, as if we would be stupid enough to play that part. Cadence jumps, and it’s all I can do to remain motionless in the shadow I have created in the corner.
“What the hell? Why are you acting weird? You were weird at dinner too, and then you left me to catch a cab home.”
His lip curls as he considers her. Nothing good is about to happen. “I was unwell. I feel better now.”
“Okay…”
The power in the apartment goes out, leaving only ambient light from the street to fill the space. Light is doing some of our best work.
Doug curses and lifts the gun. Cadence is already moving, not away from him, but toward him. She knocks the gun aside and punches him in the throat.
I help, flipping him to the ground. He keeps a hold of the gun and fires off two shots without looking. Both shots miss me and Cadence. We want to liquify and choke him before he hurts anyone else.
He struggles and the human skin tears because it didn’t have time to fully bond to him. Green oozes out of the split.
“This was a new suit,” Doug snarls.
Cadence steps on the hand that holds the gun. “You are under arrest. For so much shit on Earth and everywhere else too.”
“I know you were working with them, bitch.”
Then he is squirming, no longer caring about his skin. It doesn’t matter how hard Cadence and I try to hold him, he oozes through our grip. And he still has the gun which won’t hurt him, but it will hurt Cadence.
Cadence swears as one of his limbs hooks around her throat. The gun presses to her head. “You’re going to let me walk out of here, or I’m going to put a bullet through her head.”
“She means nothing to us,” I say. We think that might be a lie, but there’s no time to examine it.
The lights come back on, all of them, and ten times brighter than they should be. I blink and look away, aware that I am visible when I don’t want to be. Doug aims at me and fires. The bullet grazes my upper arm and leaves a hot, stinging trail. Cadence twists, but he doesn’t let her go.
