Page 12 of King from the Sky

But she did not want to fight this voice. She was not quite able to place it but she knew it was a friendly voice. It was soft and sweet, despite being thick and somber.

Emily peaked out from under the table just enough to get a visual of who the voice belonged to. She could not see anything except jeans and flannel until the person moved, crossing the room as if hoping she would magically appear on the wall.

It was Alex!

She couldn’t believe her eyes and was convinced that they had to be playing tricks on her. She had often heard that in the moments before death the mind begins to relive all of the beautiful moments of one’s life and that even at death it releases something that makes the death experience much more comforting and easier to handle. Was this it? Was that what she was seeing right now or was Alex actually here?

“Emily?” Alex called again a second before he spotted her crouched on the ground under the counter.

“Alex!” Emily whispered, almost too loudly.

He reached out and grabbed her hand, pulling her to her feet as she fell instantly into his arms. It was impossible for him to be here. But here he was--his hair, his skin, his sweet face and strong arms. How was it so easy for her to feel this way with someone she had only met twice? She was aware of how little sense this made, but she just didn’t care. She just wanted to stay there with him as long as she could.

As Emily held Alex she began to realize that she had been not just thinking about Alex since she had met him, but she had been wanting him and needing him too. There was something missing in her life that she never really understood before, until he was there. If she had been asked to describe it she would not have been able to put it into words or say that she understood it in the slightest, but she could feel it and she could feel that she needed it. She had been missing it for so long and now it was here.

“Where did—“ Emily started, but Alex quickly clamped a big, strong hand over her mouth to cut out the sound.

“Shhh!” He whispered in her ear. “There is more of them here.”

“What?” Emily said, her voice just above a hush. “Who is it?”

“The Government Agency who regulates the quarantine, capture, and extermination of all non-Earth organisms.”

Emily had heard of this group, but she had always assumed it was the stuff of Hollywood imaginations and Science Fiction novels. She had heard about Area 51 and everything else that the government supposedly kept secret, but she had never believed in aliens, let alone that the government was really keeping this information a secret from the people.

“How many are here?” Emily asked clutching onto Alex’s arm.

“I don’t know, but we have to find a way out of here. We are severely outnumbered.”

Emily racked her brain trying to come up with a solution, but she was stumped. There was simply no way—

The ceiling!

Yes, the ceiling tiles. They might be able to crawl through those tiles to get to the empty lounge down the hall where there was a window and they could escape that way. They could not get to it now because the hallway was blocked. She could hear the footsteps coming closer, but she could not count how many there were.

But if Alex was scared then so was she. She had not seen what had happened to the other man in the hallway and she was not so sure she wanted to. If Alex had gone all Lion on him and ripped him a new one then she was going to live with the fact that he had saved her life, but she did not need to see it.

Emily pointed excitedly to the ceiling. Alex smiled, instantly getting the plan.

He hoisted her up so that she could remove a tile and then he pushed her body up through the opening where she finished hoisting herself into the ceiling. She considered giving him a hand to help him up, but his weight probably would have just pulled her down to the floor. Besides he had all of the strength and skill he needed.

Alex jumped up into the hole and was right behind her within seconds. She knew that they had to move fast because she doubted that the ceiling tiles were meant to hold so much weight and she had no idea how long it was going to hold out.

Emily quickly moved along as fast as she could from one tile to another. With each press of her weight onto another tile she had a mini heart attack as she felt it giving way beneath her; but nothing crashed. If they crashed or fell through the tiles she knew that they would be killed. They had no idea of where exactly these men were—were they men? She had not stopped to ask herself that question. They were part of a government agency but what if they were recruited from other worlds? What if they were cloned somehow by the aliens that had indeed landed in Roswell all of those years ago? Maybe they had been recycled and used for hundreds of intelligence missions and voyages to other worlds. What else was the government not telling them?

Emily could hear the men moving around beneath them as they went from room to room, opening doors, knocking over supplies, and generally ransacking her place of work that she loved dearly. She could also hear the beautiful animals in her care going nuts and she hoped that nothing happened to them. She tried to put the thought out of her mind as she moved.

She stopped about four tiles away from the end. As she looked at Alex she nodded indicating that she believed they were in the right place. But she honestly was not totally sure. Now how the hell were they going to get down without arousing suspicion? That was the question.

Emily hadn’t thought that far ahead, but she was happy to have gotten them this far.

Before she could ask Alex what he was going to do he slid the tile between them over and pushed it behind him. Then he whipped his body weight around and leapt down to the floor with the stealth of a ninja master. He did not make a sound.

“Jump!” Alex whispered to Emily.

She closed her eyes and leapt down through the hole. She expected to hit the ground and radiate noise everywhere to alert them where they were, but she landed safely in Alex’s arms. He lowered her to the ground gently.

Emily had to admit that was a lot of fun and it was always a pleasure to be in Alex’s arms.