Wicked cool.
“Aspiring runner? What does that mean?” He arched a brow curiously.
“It means I … I was good at running. Actual running, not this god-awful alien version. For a human, anyway.” Somehow, admitting that out loud made every muscle in my body feel heavy and numb at once. But I was remembering more and more now. And for whatever reason, it felt good to say it out loud. “I’ve been training every single day since I was in middle school. I started breaking local records and competing nationwide in high school. By graduation, I was an Olympic hopeful. Even got a scholarship to college. Full ride.” A sudden, sharp pain hit the center of my chest, stealing my breath for an instant as the rush of memories carried me away, even farther into my past. It was finally coming back. All of it.
Tears flooded my eyes faster than I could blink them away.
“You okay?” Phox asked.
I sucked in a shaking breath, trying to collect myself. “I-I, um, yeah. I’m fine. Anyway, I decided to wait on college. I needed to work. We … We needed the help. The money, I mean. Like they say, a scholarship pays for everything, but there are still expenses, and Mom already had two jobs, so I couldn’t ask her for more. Not when … well, there were other things we needed. More important things than running. Some people are lucky enough to get sponsors and stuff to help out with all the extra expenses so they can just focus on training, but I’m still considered pretty young and unproven in the sport.”
My voice caught as my throat went stiff. I couldn’t continue. Not with tears running down my face. Every word burned on my lips like sipping an acid cocktail. Besides, it wasn’t like he’d understood any of that, right? I sort of doubted aliens had any clue what human life was actually like beyond it being “primitive” and “under-evolved.”
And none of it mattered now, anyway. Even if I survived, even if we somehow got out of this mess, how was I going to get back home? And Mom … what was she doing right now? Did she think I was dead? Abducted? I hoped she wasn’t blowing all of our savings trying to find me. It had taken us so long to save up and we were nearly there. I might never make it back home, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t—
I hesitated. Staring back at my big alien comrade, a flurry of ideas stormed my mind. Hmm.
“How did you get to my solar system? That’s where the dredgers picked you up, right?” I asked.
He shifted and looked away. “It was, uh, part of my payment. My employer offered to outfit the mission completely—including setting me up with a star-skimmer, which is basically just a small interplanetary ship meant for deep space travel. It can hold up through a wormhole jump, too. Expensive as hell, though. I got a ship and a passcode to get through the jump-gate, both of which I could keep after I delivered my end. Hefty payment. I’ve been at this for years and never had enough to even buy a ship, let alone the passcode.”
“Then you lost both of those things.” I deflated. So much for that idea.
“The dredgers pretty much cleaned me out when they caught me breaking into their ship, so yeah. Lost the ship and the passcode,” he confessed. “And my reputation in the business. I doubt any of my former connections would come within a ten-mile radius of me. Not that it matters now, I guess. Odds are, we won’t make it to see the finish line.”
Okay, well, that wasn’t as promising as I’d hoped. But still … if he’d managed to get a job like that and acquired a ship that could cross into my solar system, then it had to be possible to get another one somehow. I just had to figure out a way to make that happen.
Oh, and survive the rest of the Renegade Run.
I glanced back down to the weapon resting in my hands. Balanced on its stock, it was nearly as tall as I was, and that was saying something. Going by human female standards, I wasn’t short. My long legs and willowy frame made me a better runner at a respectable five-foot-ten-inches. Mostly legs, but still.
“Come on. We need to get this done. And I gotta teach you how to not kill us both with that thing,” Phox grumbled as he hopped up onto the balls of his feet and stood in one fast, fluid motion. Somehow, despite his stature, he managed to be incredibly graceful even while scurrying over the smashed-up wreckage outside. It was hard not to admire that—as an athlete, that is. Not as anything else.
Definitely not. No.
Still not friends.
Donning my fancy alien sun-goggles, I followed him back out into the furnace. It actually felt a little less stifling, and when I turned to check, I noticed one of the suns had already set. The second largest one was sinking beyond the horizon, leaving only the two white dwarf stars to glare down at us with their burning vengeance. But if Phox was right—and he probably was—then the giant, swollen red “elder” sun would rise soon. The heat would spike again until the twin dwarves set. Then we got what passed as night on this miserable, godforsaken place.
Phox wanted us to be long gone by then, and I had to agree. It seemed more likely that other runners might come looking for us once the outside temperatures weren’t so brutal. They’d expect us to be out moving around in the open, too. I didn’t want to prove them right.
Phox set me up right behind where he would be working on the engines, propping the rifle on the stack of panels
