A shaft of plasma zipped through the space where his head had occupied just a moment earlier.
Fiath extended his elbows and legs, stiffening them, forming a protective cage around me, and taking the brunt of the downhill roll.
He grunted and hissed through his teeth upon each shuddering impact. We wound down the hill faster and faster.
I screamed, not in pain, but fear of what Fiath was putting himself through.
The momentum slowed and Fiath’s head lolled back, losing consciousness. He lost his grip on me and I rolled under my own steam the final few yards.
I was up in an instant. My body ached and I had a slight limp but nothing was bent or broken the way it would have been if I’d been through what Fiath had.
Fiath shook his head, already coming awake, and pushed himself up. A bone protruded from his upper arm and was smeared with his blood. The rest of his body was already cracking and crunching.
Dislocated joints.
But they popped back into place without much effort on Fiath’s part. He clenched his teeth at the pain.
“My arm…” he said.
The bone protruded from his skin. What did he expect me to do about it out here?
“Snap it back into place,” he said.
Right. If it wasn’t in the right position, it couldn’t heal properly.
I held his arm and placed my foot on his elbow.
This was definitely not typical medical procedure.
I straightened his arm and stamped on his elbow, snapping the bone back—roughly—into place.
Even Fiath screamed at that one.
They might have super healing abilities but that didn’t mean it didn’t still hurt like hell.
Fiath relaxed. He needed to rest and recover, but we didn’t have much time.
“We have to keep moving,” I said.
I gripped him by the hand and helped him up. He wrapped his arm over my shoulders and together, we staggered into the forest.
The Changeling soldiers leaped over the hillside and sailed down it. Their limbs were long and rode it easily.
My heart sank.
There was no way we could outrun them. Not with our injuries.
The soldiers came to the foot of the rise and aimed their rifles at our chests.
“You gave us quite the runaround,” one of the Changelings said.
This one had a lump on one side of his head. He had to be the one Fiath struck with the bucket.
“But we have you now,” he said.
Fiath stepped toward them and held out his hands.
The soldiers stiffened, not letting him get close enough to disarm them the way he had the Titan farmer.
“Let us go,” he said. “I can give you whatever you want.”
“We’re already taking what we want,” the Changeling said.
“I’ve got an idea,” the other one said. “How about we say they ran and we failed to catch them? I don’t much want to show them mercy.”
“Sounds good to me,” the other Changeling said.
Their rifles whirred and glowed as they charged.
I’d seen what a charged plasma weapon could do. It would tear through us like a knife through potatoes.
There was no escape for us now.
We were going to die.
I was numb and struggled to compute what was about to happen to us.
Fiath wrapped me in his arms and took my face in his hands. He kissed me on the lips. He must have tasted the tears rolling down my cheeks.
If this was the end, so be it. I was in his arms. I wouldn’t have wanted it to end any other way.
Well, except to finish what we started in the barn.
I shut my eyes as the plasma rifles glowed so bright, they turned white and lit this corner of the forest.
Any second now, they would tear through us.
Thump.
Thump.
Something fell to the ground and the plasma rifles’ glow died.
Were the soldiers playing with us? Making us hope we might get out of here with our lives?
I turned and opened my eyes slowly.
I was surprised to find the Changelings lying sprawled across the ground, their green alien blood splattered over the damp leaves.
I shared a look with Fiath. What’s going on?
Half a dozen figures stepped from the brush surrounding us. The Titan at the front was squat, with a nasty scar across one eye.
He said, “Welcome to the resistance.”
When the Titans first announced who they were, I burst into tears. I was so resigned to my fate that it was a shock when it didn’t materialize.
Fiath hugged me so tight he squeezed the air from my lungs.
The Titans led us through the forest, their eyes sharp on our surroundings. Their leader was the Titan with the scar across one eye. His name was A’nshon.
“Are you from one of the tribes?” A’nshon said.
“From the Urcim tribe,” I said.
“Funny,” A’nshon said, “you don’t look like a Titan.”
“I’m not. I’m human. I was abducted by the Changelings and ended up here. The Titan tribe was good to me. Then the Changelings attacked and destroyed the entire tribe.”
“Not the entire tribe,” A’nshon said. “Some have already arrived.”
My heart warmed at the idea of the kind Urcim tribespeople reaching the resistance.
“The Changelings attacked many tribes that day,” A’nshon said. “Almost all of us. We fell back to the Fallen Temple and they’ve been flying overhead, combing the area, scanning for us ever since.”
“Have they come close to discovering it?” Fiath said.
“Close. But with any luck, they won’t. Not before we prepare ourselves to launch a full-scale attack with full force.”
Every twenty minutes, the armed Titans crested each hilltop and peered into the distance. “Clear,” they each said in turn.
“We have to take special precautions to make sure we don’t lead them back to the base,” A’nshon said.
“How much longer before we reach it?” I said.
“We’re already there,” A’nshon said.
He reached down to a rock and lifted it with one hand, opening a door into the mountainside. It wasn’t a rock at all. It was fake.
It looked so real from the outside.
A’nshon led the way into the darkness below. Once the other men had followed us inside, they shut the door behind us. But we weren’t left in total darkness.
Toward the bottom
