“Lucas! What are you doing here?”

“The usual. Saving your ass. Trying not to get thrown into a dark hole by NASA.” He grimaced. “That last one is a little more important than usual at the moment. Can we move? We should move.”

“You’re the one with the flashlight,” said Mandy. “You lead.”

Lucas nodded, angling the beam onto the steps, and we began to move, leaving the roar of the alarm and the sound of running feet behind.

Chapter 10

Tucson, Arizona: July 28, 2031

Ten days pre-invasion

1.

NASA’s alien-containment facility had definitely been designed by the lowest bidder. We continued down the stairs for what felt like a year, until we reached an imposing door. It was banded with metal and had a bulky keypad next to it, the sort of thing that belonged in a 1980s movie about nuclear bunkers and the Cold War.

Lucas pushed the door with his foot. He didn’t even touch the knob. It swung open easily. I stared, first at it and then at him.

“They never got around to installing locks in the sub-basement,” he said flatly. “I guess they figured a bunch of guards drawn from a non-military clerical pool and a team of scientists who thought aggression was something to safely observe from a distance would never let a prisoner get this deep.”

It was the first time he’d spoken since we’d started our descent. I swallowed, and said, “You don’t sound like you approve.”

“It’s bad design,” he said. “Never construct a prison you can’t actually use for its intended purpose.”

“Lucas—” I reached for his arm.

“No.” He shrugged off my hand, turning his face away so that I couldn’t see his expression. “Let’s get out of here. I don’t want to do this right now.”

“I’ve got you,” said Mandy, sliding her arm around my back, so that her hand was in my right armpit and my left arm was slung around her shoulders. It was the sort of hold that people use for someone with a sprained ankle, and it provided a surprising amount of support. I leaned in to her gratefully, trying not to dwell on Lucas’s reaction.

It wasn’t working. He wasn’t looking at me. He’d been willing to come here, to help break me out—that meant he couldn’t hate me for telling him the truth, right? We’d known each other for years. We were friends. And I had never lied to him, not once.