“I don’t care what you have to do, keep her out of here!” Ali hissed. “My sister can’t see this stuff. She’s too young, and I don’t want her to see all this!”

Indri sighed. “Look, Ali, I won’t be the one denying one of the investigating team the rights to come in here. You’re in charge of this team, so lead it! If you don’t want your sister in here, fine. Give her something to do somewhere else. But I will not keep her out of this place just because you feel overprotective. That’s your call.”

Ali rounded on Indri, gesturing wildly at the bodies. “These were people once, sir! Now they can’t even be recognized as the people you say disappeared nearly a month ago! They more or less appear to have been run through a meat-grinder. Should I let a sixteen-year-old girl look at this stuff?” He gave Indri a hard stare.

“As I said, Ali, it is your call.” He turned to leave, but just as he stepped out of the room, he turned back to look at Ali. “But, I think that your sister is more prepared to handle this than you think. Perhaps you ought to let her grow up, Ali. Being overprotective can cause more harm than good.” Indri gave Ali a small smile, and then he walked off.

“I’m not being overprotective!” Ali shouted after him. “I just don’t want her to be hurt.” He whispered.

He sunk down into a chair, gazing at the wall, and trying not to think about the pulverized bodies lying on the tables behind him.

***

“Hanna, you know… Whatever happens here… I love you.” Alonzo whispered.

Hanna nodded. “Yeah, I know.” She whispered back.

The tearstains on her cheeks were gradually disappearing. Ali had gone straight to the room where the bodies were being kept after Indri briefed them, but he had told the two of them to go settle all their equipment and other belongings in whatever quarters Indri had provided for them.

As soon as they were in the room, Hanna had broken down, much to her mortification. Alonzo had quietly wrapped his arms around her, letting her weep into his shoulder.

Now they were sitting next to each other on the sofa, talking.

“Alonzo, that person… Not that they could be called a person… I mean… What could have done that?” Hanna tried to keep her breathing calm, but it was becoming increasingly difficult.

Alonzo’s steadying pressure against her helped to calm her though.

He shook his head. “I don’t know, Hanna.”

She shuddered. “I’m going to be seeing that form in my dreams for months.”

“Yeah, me too.” Alonzo admitted.

She rested her head on his shoulder, pressing closer to him. Now that she had admitted her feelings for him to herself and to him, she couldn’t help wanting to spend as much time with him as possible. Deep down, his love for her seemed so wonderful, so unexpected, that she was afraid she might lose it and him. That was something she couldn’t bear to live with, and she didn’t even want to think about it.

“Don’t worry. We’ll pull through this all right, Hanna.” Alonzo turned to face her, wrapping his arms around her.

She looked up into his face. “Promise?”

She knew asking him to promise was silly. He couldn’t control what happened to them. But she needed to hear it anyway.

He nodded. “I promise. I’ll do everything and anything I can to be sure we both get out alive and okay.” He bent closer to her, lips meeting hers.

She kissed him back passionately. When he drew away, she looked into his face. “That’s all I ever needed to know. That you’d be helping me.”

He smiled. “Count on it.”

She laughed. “I will.”

She kissed him again.

Ali walked in just then. He took one look at them, raised an eyebrow, and disappeared into the bathroom.

Hanna drew away from Alonzo, embarrassed. Somehow, her brother’s presence made her feel strange about kissing Alonzo.

Alonzo looked down at her. “He doesn’t care.”

She frowned. “What?”

“Your brother. He doesn’t care. In fact, he practically forced me to tell you.” He smiled.

She laughed. “What!”

“Honest! I wasn’t sure I could tell you. But he said if I didn’t, then we’d spend another night freezing in the jeep. Why do you think he agreed to a fire? It wasn’t just because he was cold too.” Alonzo grinned at her.

She smiled back, one eyebrow raised. “So… Ali blackmailed you into telling me that you were in love with me?”

He looked down, forehead pressed against hers now. “Yeah, that’s pretty much it. I hate to admit this, but I’m a little frightened of you.”

“Really?”

“You have a certain…. Spark of fire about you. I was afraid to detonate it.” He whispered.

“And?” Her breath caught on the words.

“Oh, with some pushing from Ali, I detonated it all right.” Alonzo smiled softly.

“Are you happy with what you started?” Hanna whispered, breathless.

“Yes.” He laughed. “How could I not be?”

“I don’t know. How could you be?” Her voice lowered. “I mean… You’re so much smarter and stronger than I am. So much better. How could you love someone like me?” She looked away from him.

“Hanna, you’re one of the smartest people I know. And you’re stronger than all the girls I know. You’re also the most beautiful one.” Alonzo gave her hand a squeeze.

She blushed.

“Honest!” Alonzo tilted her chin up so that she was looking him in the eyes. “And, if I ever lost you, I don’t know if I could survive.”

“You’re just trying to be romantic now, Alonzo.” She whispered, eyes dropping away from his again.

“No, I’m not. I’m being honest with you.” He whispered back.

She looked up into his eyes, startled. “Really?”

“Really.” Then he was kissing her again, long and hard.

Hanna thought she might never have been happier at that moment. If it weren’t for all the trouble hanging over her head, her ecstasy would be complete.

***

Alonzo stood in the room of bodies. “So, are you going to let Hanna see this?” He whispered, feeling sick.

Ali gave him a grim smile. “What do you think?”

“No.” Alonzo muttered.

“Precisely. She already woke up screaming last night. You think I want her seeing more stuff like this?” Ali turned to wave at the bodies.

Alonzo shook his head.

“Glad we’re on the same page. Now, we need to find some convenient excuse to keep her out of here. Where is she now, ‘Lonzo?” Ali turned to look at the bodies in the back of the room. “The last thing I want is for her to come walking in here right now before we’ve come up with ways to keep her out of here.”

Alonzo shrugged. “She went to get breakfast, I think. She woke up late because she was up half the night because of the nightmares waking her. Took forever to get her to go back to sleep.”

Ali raised an eyebrow. “She woke me with the screaming at first, but then she seemed to calm down. So… What did you do?”

“Me?” Alonzo flushed, embarrassed.

“Yeah, you.” Ali rolled his eyes.

“I just gave her some sleep medicine and talked her back to sleep. Just like my mom used to do for me when I was little and scared of some nightmare.” Alonzo smiled tightly.

Ali nodded. “Okay. That explains why she was still asleep when I got up. How’d you hold up last night.”

Alonzo shrugged, smile evaporating. “Fine.”

Ali gave him a look, eyebrow raised. “You don’t say? Because… You know, I had awful nightmares.” He looked at the sterile table with their equipment, tracing a finger along the cool grey metal in feigned nonchalance.

“Fine… I didn’t do well. I just didn’t wake up.” He rubbed the back of his head with his hand. “I never woke up when I was little either. I just… Lived through the terrors till they stopped.” His eyes were tormented when Ali looked back up at him, and he wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans.

“That bad, huh?” Ali shook his head.

“Yeah.” Alonzo’s voice was tight and high. “Let’s just find a way to keep Hanna away from this. I don’t want to talk about last night’s dreams.”

Ali nodded. “I understand.” He sighed. “I think we should set her to interviewing people. It is important, but it won’t be anything anywhere near this.”

Alonzo shook his head. “I don’t know… I just don’t feel right keeping her from helping here. You know she’ll want to.” He muttered.

“Alonzo, get over it! Do you think she’ll forget any of this. That dead woman she saw? Do you think that’ll just fade from her memory? I don’t! She’ll remember that for the rest of her life. Do you really want to ask me to give her more people like that to become just one more nightmare in her mind for the rest of her life? How could you ask me to do that? If you love her, you’ll help me, support me, in this.” Ali hissed.

“Alright.” He nodded. “Alright, I’ll help you. You’re right. I don’t want to let that happen.”

“Good.” Ali turned away. “I’ll go find her and let her know what she’s going to be doing. You start preparing the body from yesterday for examination.”

Alonzo nodded, pulling on gloves, a mask, and a lab coat. “Okay. Good luck, Ali.”

“Thanks, I’ll need it.” Ali turned and walked out of the outer chamber of the lab.

Alonzo sighed. He didn’t know if he could handle all this. And what about Hanna? She was strong, yes, but strong enough to handle this? The waters here were troubled, very troubled. And he had to wonder if anyone could fix what was happening here.

 He shook his head, and turned to the young woman’s body. Grimacing, he began to prepare her for examination just as Ali had instructed.

He wished he had help, but the other scientists and lab workers were under orders to help only when asked. He and Ali had the training for this. It was one of the classes they had both taken. They had known that if they wanted to work on cases just like these, they’d need to know all about this sort of thing. Therefore, all that remained now was to apply it.

And apply it they would.