บท 37: Chapter 37: One of Us

Alex pushed the metal door to the lab open. Jack smiled at her from across the large room. He sat on a patient bed with a white felt tab stuck to his temple. Ellie was behind him looking at the monitors.

Alex frowned back at him and made her way over.

"I thought you would be happy to see me," Jack said.

She slapped him on the cheek, soundly but not hard. "What were you thinking? Don't these people have teams that you could have gone with? Why were you down there alone?" Alex's face flushed with anger.

He just smiled back at her. "I'm okay. See? One piece." He patted his dirty shirt. Cobwebs hung from his beard and hair. She spotted a few blood stained slashes in his shirt sleeve and a double puncture wound on his left forearm.

"And what about this?" She grabbed his left wrist and held it up. She pulled back the sleeve to have a better look at the two holes. They were a dark angry purple with red rims. "It looks like poison. What bit you?"