by A. G. Wilde
“Is there anything else you need?” Xid asked.
“So you can swindle more credits? No, thank you.” He fastened the messhi around his face once more. “Let’s go,” he said to La-rhen and she slipped her hood over her head but not before he caught her searching gaze.
She was anxious about the language upload.
She wanted to speak to him.
For someone who hadn’t wanted to speak with her before this day, why did that terrify him so much?
“Where are we going now?” Lah-rehn’s voiced reached his ear and he glanced down at her.
He was thankful she couldn’t see his face because he didn’t know what to think right about now. There were too many conflicting emotions created by just the sound of her words.
Riv paused for a second, looking down at her.
“What happened back there at the Isclit merchant’s stall?” he asked instead.
He wanted to know.
Her reaction had been too…alarming.
“Isclit?” She looked up at him. “Wait, can you understand me now?”
He didn’t answer. Couldn’t.
He couldn’t help but stare at her, watching her lips move as she spoke.
“Guess you can’t yet.” Her shoulders fell and what looked like sadness passed through her eyes as she averted her gaze to the ground.
“I can.”
Her head snapped up then, her eyes widening as if that’s the best news she heard in a while.
It made something within him develop a strange, unwanted ache.
“What happened at the Isclit merchant’s stall?” he tried again, zoning in on her as he ignored the steady stream of beings passing by them.
“Nothing happened. I don’t know what you mean.”
Was she going to start trying to deceive him with her lips now that he could understand her?
Something had clearly happened at the stall.
“Nothing happened? It sure seemed like something was happening. I couldn’t purchase the cloak fast enough. You looked as if you were ready to flee.” The anger and irritation that’d been missing from his tone was coming back.
“Oh.”
Her shoulders suddenly stiffened again and she seemed to sink farther into the cloak.
Releasing her hand, he crossed his arms over his chest.
He could still feel the imprint of her hand against his palm, almost as if her touch had left a lasting mark.
“Explain.”
She shifted, glancing around them.
“Can we talk about this later?” Her gaze head-hopped again. “Not here. Not now.”
The talkative human didn’t want to talk.
He could sense that whatever she was hiding, it was deeply serious.
Nodding, he glanced around them too.
They stood in the middle of the throng with beings moving around them, and he spotted where they needed to go.
He couldn’t believe he was about to do this but he started moving before he changed his mind.
“Where are we going now?”
“Home.”
They were having a conversation.
Before, her nonsensical nattering had been easy to ignore. But now he could understand her and ignoring her wasn’t so easy.
“So…” She paused.” Will I be staying there, then?”
Riv swallowed and forced himself not to look at her.
He didn’t need to see hope in her eyes.
It would only make things harder.
Nothing had changed between them. She was still leaving. Maybe not today but maybe tomorrow or the next day.
She couldn’t stay.
“Until I can get rid of you, yes.”
She glanced around. His words must have affected her for she was silent for the next few moments as they walked.
“This is the way to your hovercar?”
No, it wasn’t.
As they turned a corner and headed down another side of the market, it didn’t take her long to see where he was taking her.
This side of the market had garments and living things.
“Choose what you need. Enough for a few days.”
La-rehn stopped and froze on the spot, and it wasn’t until he’d taken a few steps ahead that he realized she’d stopped walking.
What now?
When he moved back to her side, his face set in a frown, big brown eyes met his.
“Thank you.” Her voice was low in the surrounding din. “This means a lot.” She paused. “I’ll pay you back somehow, I promise.”
She smiled at him then and his frown disappeared.
No reply came forth.
Her smile had him transfixed for a bit and he didn’t look away.
Couldn’t.
…didn’t want to.
19
To her surprise, Riv actually let her shop.
Whatever she picked up and asked if she could get, he only shrugged.
To test him, she even picked up what looked like a very expensive garment based on the trimmings and the golden material. When she turned it to him, his gaze flicked to the thing only briefly before returning to her, and all he did was shrug.
She wished she could see his face because the shades and face covering hid a lot, but as they moved through the market, she could feel his attention on her and on her only.
He was like a rock. Unmoving and dangerous if you pushed too hard.
Whenever she moved to a stall, picked up something, and turned to glance his way, he was always hovering there like her personal guard.
He had no idea, but this little shopping trip, this little sense of normalcy, was rescuing her from a terror she hadn’t known she’d been running from.
She didn’t say it to him, but it felt good having him there.
After she’d seen that alien slug hovering on the light-blue ring, it had brought back memories she thought she’d overcome.
It was the same race of aliens that had abducted her from Earth and seeing one again so close had made all her systems set to FLEE.
It had taken everything within her not to dash across the market and keep running.
She hadn’t seen one of those aliens since the ship had crashed and a part of her had naively believed she would never see a hint of them again.
So much for wishing to ignore her past.
She glanced at Riv nervously as he paid for some hygiene products.
He wanted to know why she’d reacted the way she had.
She wanted to tell him, but not here, and not before she accepted the reality that she’d have to talk about it.
She hadn’t spoken about it to anyone since it’d happened.
She hadn’t had anyone to speak with about it.
Glancing down to the hamper in her arms, she looked at the items there. A set of two shirts, or tunics as they called them, two pairs of trousers, boots, and the hygiene products. That’s all she needed for now and she was about to tell him this when an exclamation farther down the street caught her attention.
It took her a few moments for her to see what was happening but even then, she couldn’t quite understand it.
It seemed like a procession, as if a dignitary of some kind was passing through.
Whoever it was must be important because all the aliens around them were moving out of the way, plastering themselves to the side of the street as the procession came through.
But something didn’t seem right, and she realized what that was when she looked more closely at the aliens moving out of the way.
They weren’t moving out of the way only so the procession could pass.
They were scampering to safety, trying to wedge themselves in the spaces between the stalls.
Those who couldn’t do that were hurrying away in the opposite direction and others were plastering themselves against the stalls themselves as if they could become a part of the metalwork.
The merchants themselves looked frozen and some even looked like they’d gone pale.
Frowning, her eyes fell back on the procession and she almost gasped.
There were guards travelling with someone between them…and she recognized the guards.
She understood now why the other aliens were reacting the way they were because her fight-or-flight response was telling her she needed to run.
What were the chances of seeing so many things that reminded her of her abductors?
Coming down the street was a group of about twelve of the species of guards that had been on the alien ship.
They’d been the ones to help abduct her from Earth.
They’d been the ones who’d enforced order on the ship.
Lauren’s throat went dry.
They looked like alligators walking upright and they snarled at the aliens by the sides of the street…just as they’d snarled at her on the ship.
In the middle of the group was an alien type she’d never seen before.
And it was hideous.
It looked like an oversized green toad dressed in a lavish white robe. Its dark eyes flicked over the aliens along the street and she swore she felt the air become chilled.
Someone’s hand closed around her arm and pulled her toward them.
With wide eyes, she looked up into Riv’s face.
She couldn’t see his expression but she could almost feel the alarm emanating off him too.
“Whatever you do, try to blend in.” His voice was low and Lauren nodded. She didn’t need to ask why.
Terror was flooding through her veins.
She was never more thankful for the cloak he bought than she was then.
As she pulled the hood low over her head, she turned a little so she could see the procession move closer.
The street was clear except for the group walking down it and it didn’t seem as if anyone along the street was even breathing.
And that’s when it happened.
A round object rolled into the street.
She didn’t know if it was a child’s ball but it sure looked like a toy based only on the colors.
There was a sound and a small being with light-orange skin ran out to get the thing.
A collective gasp echoed through the crowd of onlookers and when Riv stiffened beside her, she realized just how close they were standing together.
It was a child for a bigger version of the little alien came hobbling toward the little being.
It was obvious the older alien was trying to get the younger one off the street but it took too long.
The procession came to a stop before them.
“You dare to block the way of Ambassador Klupengi, degenerate?” one of those horrible-looking guards spoke.
The old alien lifted its head, its body trembling as it tried to tug at the child.
“N-No. Forgive me, Ambassador. It will never happen again.” The alien tried to bow but, trembling the way it was, that action proved difficult. With a tug of his arm, he tried to pull the child out of the street but the little thing was stubborn as it sat in the street and played with its toy.
Lauren gulped.
“Move!” another guard ordered.
“I—” the alien began, but she didn’t hear the rest of what he said.
Her face was suddenly plastered against Riv’s hard chest as he pulled her into him, shielding her from what happened next.
She didn’t see it but she heard it.
That undeniable sound of metal unsheathing and then a sick squelch.
And another.
No.
It couldn’t be.
She tried to look but Riv held her to him, turning so his side faced toward the street as the procession continued and it wasn’t until the group passed that he let her go.
Her gaze flew immediately to where the alien had been standing with the child and her heart jumped and caught in her throat.
Green fluid stained the street and in the middle of it all lay the headless bodies of the alien and child.
20
Lauren looked out over the yellow-orange plain.
It was getting dark and the pink sky was slowly turning to a purple hue.
The hovercar sped along, heading back to the Sanctuary and she clutched the hamper holding the things she’d bought in her lap.
It kept replaying in her head.
The metal unsheathing. The sounds that came after.
The sight of the aftermath.
She couldn’t speak.
She’d been silenced since she’d seen the bodies in the street.
After the procession passed, the bodies had been quickly cleaned up, removed, and shopping had continued as usual as if the lives of the parent and child hadn’t mattered.
It was so unreal…so cold.
“Why,” she finally spoke. “Why did they do that?” Her gaze moved over the plain before them. “Why did they just…kill them like that? They didn’t do anything wrong. They didn’t…”
She glanced at Riv.
He had his head held straight—almost as if he hadn’t heard her speak but his body was rigid.
The scene replayed before her once more. She was sure it was going to haunt her forever.
Riv had turned her face away; he’d pulled her against him.
He’d known what was going to happen.
Her eyes widened a little.
“You knew.” She stared at him, horror flooding through her. “You knew it was going to happen.”
Riv’s throat moved.
“The Tasqals are not a forgiving species,” was all he said.
There was silence in the hovercar before he continued. “They take what they want, when they want it. They do not care about lives.”
“Those guards killed a child. There was no order to do so—not that it would have made it any better—but only a monster could do something like that.”
Riv turned his head slightly. “The Hedgerud guards are just as ruthless as their Tasqal masters.”
The Hedgeruds. So that’s what the guards were called.
More silence passed.
“I saw them before, you know. On the ship,” she finally said. Images of her time on the alien ship tried forcing their way through her memories to the forefront of her mind and she tried to keep them at bay.
“Which ship?”
He didn’t know, did he?
He had no idea.
With a deep breath, she gripped the hamper and continued.
“I was taken from my home planet. Abducted by those alligator guards and the aliens like the slug on the blue ring.”
The hovercar lost speed as Riv turned his head to look at her fully.
For several beats, he said nothing.
“Taken?”
Lauren nodded, the memories breaking through.
“I was heading home after going out one day and the next thing I knew I was waking up on an alien ship.” She paused. “That was a year or so ago.”
Riv’s throat moved again.
It seemed he didn’t know what to say to her and when she chanced a glance his way, she noticed his knuckles were turning light blue from him gripping the hovercar controls too tight.
“Taken,” he repeated, and Lauren nodded.
“That’s why I froze up in the market. I didn’t expect to see the same species again. Back in the zoo, I hadn’t seen them. I guess I thought they didn’t exist on this side of space.”
“Zoo?”
He was snarling.
She could see the imprint of his fangs against the cloth covering his face.
“I thought Geblit told you. He bought me from a zookeeper.”
Riv turned his attention back to piloting the hover craft but his entire body remained rigid, his knuckles light blue, his fangs outlined through the cloth over his mouth.
A few moments passed that turned into minutes and she thought the conversation was over when she heard him mutter something underneath his breath.
“Phekking Geblit.”
He turned to look her way and
she was sure his eyes were boring into her through the shades.
“I am sorry you were introduced to my world in such a way.” He growled the apology and the fact he was actually apologizing for something caught her off guard—even if he was apologizing for something he had no hand in.
She could sense his mood growing sour by the second.
“This complicates things,” he murmured. “They never like it when their slaves get freedom. They’ll always try to get you back no matter what.”
Slave?
She’d never thought of herself as a slave before.
Unlucky human? Yes.
But slave?
No.
It was clear La-rehn hadn’t understood what he’d meant, but he hadn’t had the strength of mind to explain it to her.
It’d brought back too many memories.
Memories he’d rather forget.
If what she said was true, she’d been trafficked from her planet by the High Tasqals.
If she’d ended up in a zoo, chances were she was unregistered with the Interplanetary Union.
She had no protection.
The Tasqals could claim her once more and there’d be little anyone could do about it because she was unknown.
Unless she was protected by the rebel group called the Restitution or by the Interplanetary Union, things didn’t look so good.
Laying now on his sleeping cushion, he stared up into the darkness.
Seeing the High Tasqal at the exchange had set him into high alert.
It wasn’t usual to see one at a low-level exchange such as the one on Hudo III and he’d known something terrible would happen.
He hadn’t been disappointed.
The Tasqals really had no regard for any life except their own.
The female Tasqal that owned the mines he’d worked in as a chid certainly hadn’t.
He wondered what had become of her.
After he’d escaped with Sohut and ended up at the exchange, he’d found himself making another escape from the beings who’d wanted to place them in cages for sale.
That’s when they’d seen a Torian pushing his huge wife on a cart through the exchange.
He and Sohut had hurried to hide in the cart’s basket before they were seen.
That Torian had turned out to be Geblit and when Geblit had noticed them there, he’d hid them from his wife till they were safe enough to escape into the plains.