Steel at the Throat

"Survived being murdered once. Survived resurrection. Survived alien curry. And now the bloke who ordered my death is back for a second try. Really should've stayed on the mattress."

The growl woke me before I was ready to be awake.

Low. Guttural. Wrong.

I'd been dreaming of something—Mum's kitchen, maybe, or the depot loading bay, somewhere familiar and safe—but the sound cut through it like a blade, dragging me back to the tent, the mattress, the absolute darkness of Clivilius.

"Duke, stop it," Jamie hissed.

His voice was barely more than a whisper, but I heard the tension in it. The same tension that had been building in Duke all evening, that restless energy that had kept the little dog shifting and growling through the hours since we'd turned in.

Duke's head had been resting on Jamie's forearm—I could see the silhouette of it in the darkness, the familiar shape of ears and snout—but now it lifted with sudden alertness. Another growl rumbled from somewhere deep in his chest.

What's out there?

The thought surfaced before I could stop it, bringing with it a cold trickle of unease that settled in my stomach like ice water.

At my feet, the blanket moved as Henri stood, turned in circles several times pawing at the fabric, then promptly flopped himself back down in a tight curl. The ritual was so predictable I could have timed it with a stopwatch. Three circles. Always three. Paw, paw, paw. Flop. Satisfied snorts.

Dogs and their routines, I thought. Like delivery routes. Same pattern every time, and somehow it makes the world make sense.

"At least you're settled tonight, Henri," Jamie told him, while he stroked Duke's soft head and encouraged him back down.

I'd lost count of how many times since I'd come to bed that Duke had either wriggled about or growled. The pattern was unlike anything I'd seen from the little Shih Tzu in the brief time I'd known him. Duke's default state seemed to be relaxed contentment—sleeping at Jamie's feet, trotting along behind him, existing in that uncomplicated way dogs had of being present without anxiety.

This was different. This was Duke sensing something his human companions couldn't perceive.

Duke's unsettledness, it seemed, was making Jamie uneasy.

Making both of us uneasy, I corrected silently.

I lay there in the darkness, my eyes slowly adjusting to the dim shapes of the tent's interior. Canvas walls. The bulk of bags and supplies. Henri's compact form at my feet, already snoring softly. Jamie's silhouette on the other mattress, his hand still working through Duke's fur in that repetitive, soothing motion.

Like counting stars, I thought. Something to focus on when the darkness gets too big.

The tent fabric rustled in some barely perceptible breeze. Distant sounds from the camp filtered through—someone shifting in their sleep, the occasional pop from what remained of the campfire. Nothing that should trigger this response from Duke. Nothing that explained the tension coiled in my chest.

But bodies knew things minds didn't. Animals knew things humans couldn't.

Lois barked sharply from somewhere outside the tent.

The sound split the night like an axe through kindling—not the playful yapping she'd displayed earlier at the campfire, but something urgent. Alarmed. A warning.

Duke's response was instantaneous.

His body transformed from relaxed weight to coiled spring in the space between heartbeats, every muscle tensing with the intent to launch himself toward the sound. He was up and straining before I could fully register what was happening.

"What's happening?" I asked, tiredness tugging at my voice even as adrenaline began to cut through the fog of interrupted sleep.

"I'm not sure," Jamie answered, battling Duke as they rolled off the mattress and scrambled across to the other side of the tent.

The tent floor rustled beneath their struggle—Jamie trying to contain Duke's desperate energy, Duke straining toward whatever had set Lois off. I could hear Jamie's breathing, sharp and controlled, the sound of someone trying to manage a situation that was rapidly escalating beyond management.

"Hold Duke. I'll go and find out," he told me, pressing Duke into my arms.

The transfer was awkward in the darkness. Duke's body was a writhing mass of fur and muscle, surprisingly strong for his size. My hands found purchase on his chest, his haunches, pulling him against me even as every fibre of his being strained toward the tent entrance.

Hold Duke. Simple instruction. Should have been simple to follow.

But my arms were weak. My whole body was weak—still recovering from resurrection, still trying to remember how to be a functional human being after having my throat cut open and being dragged back from death. The strength I'd once had, the casual capability of a courier driver who spent his days lifting packages, felt like a distant memory.

Duke squirmed against my grip, and I felt my fingers slipping.

Don't let go. Don't let go. Don't—

The tent's floor rustled beneath Jamie's feet as he moved away. I stared intently in his direction, barely making out his silhouette in the darkness—a shape that was my father, moving toward whatever waited outside.

Jamie turned back in my direction.

"I think it's just an approaching dust storm," he said.

Just a dust storm. The words should have been reassuring. They weren't. Something in the way he said them, something in the quality of the sounds outside, something in the way Duke was still straining against my grip with single-minded desperation—

Duke broke free.

I gasped noticeably, the sound escaping before I could stop it—half surprise, half failure, all guilt. One moment he was in my arms, the next he was gone, a pale blur of movement shooting toward the tent entrance.

"Duke! Get back here!" Jamie yelled, leaping through the tent's flap.

And then I was alone.

The silence that followed was worse than the chaos.

I sat there on the mattress, my arms still positioned as if holding a dog that was no longer there, my heart hammering against my ribs like it was trying to escape. The tent felt suddenly vast and empty, the darkness pressing in from all sides.

Henri hadn't moved from his bed. I could hear his soft snoring, undisturbed by the commotion. Either he was a very heavy sleeper, or he'd made the sensible decision that whatever was happening outside was Not His Problem.

Smart dog, I thought. Stay small, stay quiet, let the chaos happen around you.

Sitting with straightened back, I strained to hear what was happening outside the tent.

Voices. Loud, panicked, overlapping. I couldn't make out words, just the tone—urgency, confusion, fear. The wind was picking up, tent canvas snapping and shuddering with each gust. And beneath it all, that sound that didn't belong to wind or voices, something that raised the hairs on the back of my neck without my brain being able to identify why.

"I got him!" I heard Jamie call out from near the front of the tent's canopy.

Thank God.

The relief was immediate and overwhelming. Duke was safe. Jamie had caught him. Everything was going to be—

More loud and panicked voices joined the group outside.

The wind hit the tent like a fist, the fabric shuddering under the impact. Dust began to filter through gaps I hadn't known existed, fine particles that caught in my throat and made my eyes water.

Dust storm, I thought. Just a dust storm. Jamie said so.

But the sounds outside weren't just wind. Weren't just panicked voices dealing with bad weather.

There was something else. Something that sounded almost like... a scream?

"Duke, stop barking!" Jamie scolded from outside, his voice competing with whatever chaos was unfolding.

What's out there? What's happening?

Suddenly, it was as though everything went silent, and all that remained was my own heavy breathing as my chest rose and fell.

The screaming had stopped. The voices had stopped. Even the wind seemed to have paused, holding its breath.

Henri lifted his head from his bed, his eyes catching what little light filtered through the tent fabric. Wide. Alert. Suddenly very much awake.

That's not good, I thought. If Henri's paying attention, something's really wrong.

As I lay on the mattress, I couldn't shake the guilt I felt about having released Duke. My unforgiving mind flashed images of the small dog playing a game of chase across the vacant block next to Luke's house back on Earth. Thoughts of Duke running carefree towards a busy road sent an unnerving shudder across my shoulders.

My fault. If something happens to him, it's my fault.

The guilt was familiar, at least. I knew how to carry guilt. I'd been carrying it since I was seventeen—guilt about leaving school, guilt about Mum working too hard, guilt about not being enough, not doing enough, not being the son she deserved.

Add "let the dog escape during an alien dust storm" to the list.

"I must help my father," I muttered, throwing back the blanket and dragging myself to my feet.

The floor of the tent was surprisingly warm beneath my bare feet as I manoeuvred in the darkness toward the entrance. My legs protested—still weak, still unreliable—but I forced them to work. One step. Another. The tent was large; the entrance felt so far away.

Help Jamie. Find Duke. Do something useful for once.

Henri watched me from his bed, his eyes tracking my movement. He didn't follow. Didn't try to. Just watched with those sad, wise eyes that seemed to understand things humans couldn't.

Stay there, I thought at him. Stay safe.

I was almost at the entrance when everything changed.

The crash came without warning.

One moment I was reaching for the tent flap, the next I was on the ground, the breath driven from my lungs, a weight pressing down on me that hadn't been there a second before.

A man. A man had burst through the tent entrance and collided with me, sending us both sprawling.

"Jamie?" I asked, breathing heavily as I lay on my back.

Please be Jamie. Please be Jamie. Please—

Sensing a shadowy movement, my sharp eyes turned instinctively in the direction. And then—

Light.

A soft, warm luminescent glow lit up the face of the intruder as he towered over me.

And I knew that face.

No. No, no, no—

The recognition was instantaneous and absolute, cutting through the confusion and fear with the precision of a surgeon's scalpel. That face. Those features. The cold, steel-blue eyes that caught the bioluminescent glow and reflected it back like chips of ice.

The man from Berriedale. The man who gave the order. The man who—

Gasping with instant recognition, a terrified chill rushed down my spine.

This was him. The one who had stood in Luke's driveway, who had looked at me with those calculating eyes, who had given the command that ended with a knife across my throat. The one who had walked through the Portal while I bled out on the floor.

Dropping heavily to his knees, the aggressive man straddled my waist and leaned over my body.

The intimacy of the position was somehow worse than the violence. His weight pinning me down, his face inches from mine, his breath warm against my skin. I could smell him—sweat and dust and something metallic, like blood or copper or fear.

Maybe it's my fear I'm smelling.

The cold metal of the blade pressed against my throat and my heart raced with fear.

The exact same place. The exact same pressure. My body remembered even if my mind wanted to forget—the sensation of steel against skin, the moment before the cut, the instant when everything changed.

"I should have taken care of you myself," the intruder growled.

His words sent shivers down my spine as the rough voice confirmed my visual recognition from my previous encounter at Luke's house. It was the same man that had given the command of my death before walking into a blazing wall of swirling colours.

But I'm not dead, I reminded myself.

The thought was half defiance, half confusion. I should be dead. By every law of nature and medicine, I should be rotting in a grave or reduced to ashes. Instead, I was here, alive, with a blade at my throat for the second time.

What does that mean? What does any of this mean?

The man paused. The blade didn't move, didn't press deeper, but it didn't withdraw either. Something flickered in those cold eyes. Calculation. Curiosity. The gears of a strategic mind turning behind the ice.

"You should be dead," he said.

Not a threat. A statement of fact. An observation that seemed to puzzle him as much as it terrified me.

"I know," I managed, my voice a croak against the pressure of the blade.

"How?" His eyes narrowed, calculated. "They put you in the lagoon."

I didn't confirm or deny. Couldn't have, even if I'd wanted to. My throat was frozen, my body rigid with the anticipation of death.

This is it. This is where I die for real. No lagoon to save me this time. No miracle resurrection. Just—

But the blade didn't move.

His expression shifted. The cold calculation remained, but something else joined it—interest. The look of a man who had found something unexpected and was reassessing its value.

"Get up," he commanded, withdrawing the blade and extending his hand toward me.

Frozen and unable to move, I stared at the man with panicked eyes, waiting for my second death to come.

This is a trick. He's going to kill me anyway. He's just—

"You deaf, boy?" the man grunted, kicking my feet carelessly. "Come with me and I'll spare your life."

Spare my life?

The words didn't make sense. Nothing made sense. The man who had ordered my murder was offering to spare me? Why? What had changed between Berriedale and this tent?

The lagoon. He knows about the lagoon. He knows I came back.

I was valuable now. Somehow, impossibly, my resurrection had made me worth keeping alive.

"I can't," I whispered, and the words scraped against my damaged throat like sandpaper. "I can barely walk."

The man’s expression didn't change. No sympathy, no frustration, no emotion at all. Just that cold assessment, weighing options, calculating outcomes.

"Then I'll drag you," he said. "Either way, you're leaving this tent."

The hand remained extended. Waiting.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Henri. The little dog was pressed into the far corner of his bed, body low, tail tucked, eyes wide and watching. He hadn't barked. Hadn't drawn any attention to himself. Just watched with those sad, wide eyes that seemed to understand exactly what was happening.

Good dog, I thought. Stay quiet. Stay hidden. Don't give him a reason to notice you.

If the assailant saw Henri, if he decided the dog was a complication...

I took the man's hand.

Confused, but no longer paralysed, I allowed him to pull me up. The movement was rough, my legs buckling immediately, the man’s grip the only thing keeping me upright. Every muscle screamed in protest. My head swam. The tent tilted around me like a ship in a storm.

One step at a time, Mum's voice echoed in my memory. That's how you get through anything, Joel. One step at a time.

As I was dragged mercilessly towards the entrance, I knew that I didn't have the strength to fight the man and that even if I tried, I would likely just end up getting myself killed.

And next time, there might not be a lagoon.

The thought was cold, pragmatic, entirely unlike me. But survival did that to people. Stripped away everything except the essential calculus of staying alive.

I glanced back once, just before we reached the tent flap. Henri was still there, still watching, still silent. Our eyes met for a fraction of a second.

I'm sorry, I thought at him. Tell Jamie... tell him I'm sorry.

And then we were through the flap, and the chaos of the night swallowed me whole.

And Duke knew something was wrong.