Taken by the Alien Next Door (Aliens Among Us #1) - Tiffany Roberts Page 0,131

instant the door was open wide enough, Dexter darted out into the back yard. Zevris stepped out behind him and took in a deep breath. The air was crisp and cool, but it did nothing to clear his head.

Dexter raced across the lawn, snatched up the worn tennis ball lying near the corner of the grass, and hurried back to Zevris. He ducked his head and dropped the ball at Zevris’s feet. It bounced twice and rolled until it bumped Zevris’s toes.

“You’re lucky I need a good distraction.” Zevris bent forward, grabbed the ball, and tossed it to the far end of the yard.

The dog watched the ball soar, keeping himself in place. Once the ball had hit the ground, he turned his head toward Zevris, tilting it questioningly.

“Go get it!”

Dexter sped off.

Soon enough, Zevris had lost count of how many times they’d gone through the throw-retrieve-throw routine. The yard was small enough that Dexter could make the trip both ways in a few seconds. Zevris would’ve preferred to take the dog out for a run, or to a park, but he dared not leave now. He needed to be here when Tabitha returned.

He checked his phone again sometime later. Another forty minutes had passed, and there were still no messages. Frowning, he brought Dexter back inside.

Anxiousness buzzed in his stomach like a swarm of agitated insects; he wouldn’t be getting any work done now. He sat on the couch, and Dexter hopped up beside him a moment later. Absently patting the panting animal, Zevris leaned forward, grabbed the remote, and turned on the television.

He scrolled through lists of movies and television shows on various streaming services, but the titles and images blurred together to the point of meaninglessness. By the time he’d selected a random nature documentary, half an hour had passed.

As the documentary played, Zevris repeatedly shifted his position on the couch, much to Dexter’s irritation. He bounced his leg impatiently, and his tail, which he’d again freed, lashed erratically atop the couch cushion.

When he checked his phone again, it was almost eleven o’clock. Tabitha had been gone for three hours.

He opened the messenger, entered his conversation with Tabitha, and wrote, Is everything okay?

The message sent, and he watched the screen. It dimmed after a few seconds; he tapped it to ensure it didn’t automatically lock. Seconds passed, each dragging on for what felt like a century. No response appeared, no message alert chimed, not even the three blinking dots came up on the screen.

Zevris turned off the television, leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, and pressed the call button.

There was no ringtone; the call went directly into voicemail.

The dread that had been roiling inside him all morning solidified into a boulder-sized chunk of ice and sank deep in his gut. Its chill flowed through his veins, flooding his heart and stealing his breath.

Dexter lifted his head and made that whining sound. His sad eyes did not appear to be an attempt at manipulation this time; he seemed to sense Zevris’s distress.

Zevris clenched his jaw and turned his willpower against that insidious cold. The first rule of dealing with a crisis—even one that wasn’t yet confirmed to be a crisis—was to maintain calm. He returned to the messages screen just in case she’d responded and he’d somehow missed the alert.

She hadn’t.

Her phone was powered off. That seemed the likeliest explanation. Of course, that only brought up a much more troubling question—why?

It could’ve been as simple as Tabitha having forgotten to charge her phone overnight. Considering the way they usually spent their evenings together, it wasn’t difficult to imagine either of them neglecting to plug their phones in before heading into the bedroom. Or perhaps she’d turned it off while consulting with the doctor to avoid being rude.

But wouldn’t muting the phone have served just as well? And he recalled plugging in both their phones last night before they’d gone up to shower.

“There are many reasons why she’d turn her phone off,” he said as he stood up and walked away from the couch. He opened the map application to search for nearby walk-in clinics as he moved. He selected the geographically closest clinic from the list.

Why hadn’t he asked which one she’d intended to visit before she’d left?

“Svesh,” he growled before tapping on the clinic’s listed phone number.

After holding for a few minutes—pacing from the living room to the front door and back again repeatedly as he did so—he was finally patched through to speak