Page 96 of Aviatrix

“It’s creepy when you guys do that.” Thea shivers.

Gary clears his throat. “What did they want?”

They. The aliens. Second contact.

“They want me to find what they were looking for in Langdon’s control tower,” I say, keeping things vague.

“They also threatened her this time,” Eli adds. “Said she’d be next if she didn’t find it.”

Gary goes pale. “They threatened her?”

My foot bounces under the table, relentless and involuntary. Eli places a hand on my knee, comforting me.

“You have any leads?” he asks Gary.

Scooter answers instead. “We’ve put out feelers. Only got one thing back.”

“What is it?” I whisper.

“Just an address. Some old warehouse outside D.C.”

Eli and I exchange a glance.

“Oh no,” Thea says, snapping her fingers. “I know that look. You two know something.”

“We talked to someone,” I say cautiously, glancing around the mess hall. I don’t know who’s listening. Or if Lark has this base wired as tightly as the desert one where I found VAL. “He said the thing we’re looking for meets once a month, but didn’t know where.”

“And you think this warehouse might be the meeting spot?” Scooter asks, connecting the dots.

“Only one way to find out,” Eli replies. I know he wants to go check it out. But we can’t. Not with Lark breathing down our necks.

“But how?” I shake my head. “Now that we’re on Alien Warfare, we’ll never get out of here.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Gary says firmly. “In the meantime, eat. There’s a briefing in ten. And guess who the Colonel just added to the Alien Warfare team.”

“Stupid Alien Warfare,” I groan, stabbing at my oatmeal. “Are you on it?”

Gary lets out a haughty laugh. “I declined the invitation.”

“So did I,” Scooter chimes in.

“I accepted,” Thea says, raising her brows like she just won something. “We get to formulate a plan to takedown aliens? Totally badass.”

I take a bite of oatmeal. It burns on the way down.

Eating is… not easy. I don’t know if it’s the memory of Langdon burning, bodies falling, or the fact that the alien threat hovers like a gnat that won’t quit. But I have no appetite. It was like this when Dad disappeared. Stress. Grief. Uncertainty. They all hit the same way, right in the gut.

The door swings open, high heels slapping against the concrete like rapid-fire shots.

We all turn.

Eli mutters a curse the second we see who’s waltzing into the mess hall.

Sasha Ivanov. My former nemesis from the Academy. And Space Command’s most notorious force of nature.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I breathe, leaning back in my chair.

Space Command’s involved now? Honestly, their division is just a shiny title slapped on a panic response when the skies turn hostile and the Air Force can’t keep up.