I bite my tongue.
We’d trespassed on their land, and now they want reparations. Reparations or death.
The striped alien had the technology we came here for.
He knew where it was.
And he knew how to use it. Or so he threatened. It was enough to catch Peter’s ear.
Right now, lost Lurker technology is the single most sought-after thing on this side of the universe.
Who cares if Daisy and I are the price for it? She’s quiet under my arm now, and I hope she hasn’t gone into shock.
Have I?
I glance out the window of the skiff as we descend. We’ve flown to a plateau with a clearing. The skiff lands soundlessly, and I immediately search for the locals.
Swallowing against the lump of fear in my throat, I see the red one, and my heart plunges to my stomach. Staring at me and only me, his eyes blacken out the color of him, stealing my awareness momentarily.
How can he see me? The glass is shielded.
His eyes are darker than I remember, black as the abyss and framed by deep shades of red. Above was a smattering of short black hair. Holding a spear, he rises on his tail as my eyes trail down his body, strutting like he knows I’m looking at him…
He can’t see me through the glass, can he?
I barely notice the two males beside him. I don’t want to see them. I have enough nightmare fodder clogging up my mind already, but one is the male who threatened us, and the other is a deep, sapphire blue—with a startling orange face that practically glows amongst the hue of his indigo scales.
The door to the skiff opens, and Peter grabs my arm, dragging me out. Daisy’s hauled out next with a cry. I tear my eyes away from the group.
I don’t quite know what will happen next, but I know I don’t want the red one to catch me… Not him. When I run, taking the chance I can reach the transport ship, I don’t want any of them to catch me, but that’s especially true for the red one.
He eyes me like I’m already his.
My throat tightens.
He’s been haunting me. He’s done terrible things to me in my sleep. He’s made me scream, beg, and run as if my life depends on it. The only reason I’m not running now is that I don’t want Peter to shoot me in the back. Because he will.
Daisy wipes her nose on the back of her hand and straightens. I’m proud of her. I wish I could be proud of myself.
But I’m scared, a lot more scared than I’d care to admit.
“You still have the knife Shelby gave you?” I whisper.
Daisy nods. “Yeah.”
“Good.” If my voice trembles, she doesn’t acknowledge it.
Collins glances over, and I go quiet until he turns back to the aliens. He’s speaking to them, but I don’t listen. I scan our surroundings.
The plateau we’re on is high up on a mountain, but there are possible trails along the ledges for a quick descent down from it. If Daisy and I ran for one of the ledges, they would return us to the facility the quickest, but we would be exposed for the entire climb down. Not only that, below is a river that we’d also need to cross. If we managed to make it there, we’d have the cover of the forest on the other side. But there would only be one path—and every alien would know it because the forest lies in a gorge and on every side? Mountains.
Mountains and forest as far as the eye could see.
The cliffs stop Daisy and I from making a quick getaway back to the facility, but ahead and on either side of us, beyond the clearing, are ledges and the forest. We’ll have to detour, find a different route, if we want to escape this fate.
We’ll need the cover of the trees for any hope of that.
“We’ll stick together,” I tell Daisy. “We can get out of this.”
“How?”
“The first chance we get, we run, we fight,” I lower my voice. “Once we’re in the trees, the ones to our left, we can hide. We’ll make our way back to the facility from there.”
“Pointless,” she breathes. “Peter and Collins and the others will just give us back.”
“Not if we get to Shelby first. Not if we sneak onto the transport ship and send a comm to The Dreadnaut. They don’t know what’s happening down here.”
Daisy stops. “They don’t know?”
“No.” I can see the spark of hope that ignites in her at my words. It buoys my own hope. “We just have to make it there. That’s all we have to do.”
“Okay.”
Peter and Collins turn our way, and I shut my mouth. They grab Daisy and me, forcing us over to where the aliens await.
We’ve been stripped of everything but the clothes on our backs—Peter didn’t allow us to pack, or bring our com-ware. Our knives were smuggled to us by Shelby this morning, slipped into the shower units we were allowed to use one last time before being forced into the skiff.
The big one with the cowl holds a metal box in his hands. He scowls when his gaze roves over me, but he hesitates when he sees Daisy. His eyes harden, and his hold on the box strains. “You,” he hisses.
Daisy cowers.
“Where isss the third female?” the male suddenly barks, jerking his head up. His cowl flutters.
Collins stiffens. “She is not for you.”
“We were promised three females,” another male says, the deep blue and black scaled one with a burst of bright orange coloring over his face. “Give us the third or we take our secrets to the grave.”
“She is not for you,” Collins snaps. “She is pregnant with my child, and we’re soon to be married.”
The blue one coils his tail. “Do you think I care? We still want her. She is oursss.”
The red
