Leaning forward, I scanned the skies through the vehicle’s front window.
Nothing.
Whatever the Alveron Horde had been doing in the Chicago skies, their Hordeship was nowhere to be seen at the moment.
My wrist com buzzed against my skin, and I glanced down at it.
A voice message from Wex.
Deciding it was safe enough to stop for a moment, I turned the wheel of the car sharply to enter a paved area with the building set far back from the road. The car made a screeching sound, and Amelia echoed it. After a glance ascertaining that she was frightened rather than hurt, I ignored her, instead scanning for enemies before halting the car. A few empty vehicles dotted the open space, another designated spot to leave human vehicles.
“Why are we stopping?” Amelia asked anxiously.
I waggled my wrist com at her, and she nodded in comprehension.
When I tapped in the instructions for the com to play the message, Wex’s voice came out against a backdrop of battle sounds. My heart rate increased just hearing it.
“We would love to come help you, sir, but we are under attack in Las Vegas right now. I repeat under attack—” Wex’s voice was cut off in the middle of his next sentence by an explosion, and then the com gave me nothing more but static on the message.
I checked for any other messages. Nothing.
Was that explosion an indication that my crew had been destroyed by a Hordeship? I had to find out. But I had no way of doing so—not without giving away my own location.
I did some quick calculations. If I was right, the ships that attacked Chicago would have had just about enough time to make it to Las Vegas after it left Chicago, arriving in time to cause whatever it was that had made my team lose contact.
I banged my hands against the steering wheel in frustration, and it made an ominous cracking noise.
Amelia reached one of her small, slim hands over to rest atop mine, which were currently clenched around the steering wheel. “What happened?”
As if I could tell her. My frustration increased, and I waved my wrist com helplessly.
I tried to pantomime it as I spoke. “Alveron.” I made a flat plane of my hand and streaked it through the air. “Las Vegas.” I stopped my hand and dropped it quickly, opening it as I made an exploding noise.
“The Alveron Horde attacked Las Vegas?” Amelia asked, her expression startled.
I shrugged, hoping I was remembering the human gestured for uncertainty correctly. Then I patted my chest. “Zont team. Las Vegas.”
“Your team is in Nevada and got hit by them?” Amelia gasped.
I nodded my head slowly, exaggerating the gesture, tapped my temple, and shrugged. “Yes?”
“Are you saying you think that’s what happened?”
I nodded again. “Yes.”
“That’s horrible.” Amelia slipped her hand down to my forearm, where she gave it a little squeeze of sympathy.
When she withdrew her comforting touch, I felt strangely abandoned.
I tried to send out a message to Station 21, but the wrist com’s range, while certainly better than anything Earth had, wouldn’t reach quite that far.
The Alveron Horde probably took out some of the relay systems Earth had in place.
I growled in frustration and realized Amelia was watching me with worried eyes. “Is good,” I tried to reassure her.
What can I do?
I was stuck on Earth with my mate who was a runaway Bride Lottery candidate, in a car stolen from a nearby garage, and almost certain to be searched for soon, either by Earth officials or by the Alveron Horde, if they’d realized I was here. I couldn’t get in touch with anyone higher up, and my team had been almost certainly shot down, perhaps even killed.
I should have felt daunted by all of this.
Instead, as I considered all the problems I faced, elation ran through my veins.
This was what I had trained for. I was a Special Ops soldier. We lived for setbacks like this.
Granted, most of the training had assumed my back-up team would be available, but I knew how to get by while I looked for them.
First, I had to go back to Las Vegas. I wasn’t about to abandon my team—even if they were a temporary crew.
Leaning forward, I pulled up the vehicle’s automated map features and began working out the coordinates I was looking for.
Amelia peered closely at the screen, too.
“Seriously?” she demanded. “Las Vegas? Why should we go back there?”
We desperately needed to get her some way to understand me when I spoke.
“You’re going to Las Vegas? Isn’t that where your team just got shot down? Isn’t that what you’re telling me?”
I nodded decisively at her.
“Zont save team.”
“That’s all well and good,” Amelia said. “But can you drop me off somewhere along the way? I don’t think it’s a good idea for the two of us to make a cross-country drive when Alveron ships are attacking major cities.”
One sentence in her little speech hit me pretty hard. Just drop me off somewhere.
There was no way in hell I was willing to let Amelia get away from me. Not after what it had taken for me to get the chance to come down here and find her.
I shook my head forcefully. “Amelia. Zont. Go Las Vegas.”
Amelia scowled at me, crossing her arms over her chest. I immediately recognized it as a defensive move. Something I was saying was upsetting her.
“But why do I have to go? I won’t be any help while you’re fighting the Alveron.”
“Amelia, Zont. Mates.”
Amelia stared at me with wide, fear-filled eyes. “You can’t be serious. We aren’t mates. We just met—we don’t even know each other. We’re not married, and we’re sure as hell not destined for each other in any way.” Then, almost as if muttering to herself, she said, “It was just one kiss. Sheesh.”
I reached over and placed my hand over hers, where she was anxiously knitting them together in her lap. I had to find a way to reassure her. “Zont save Amelia. Zont save team.”
I didn’t
