by A. G. Wilde
“There’s something I have to deal with.” Sohut breathed. “I don’t know when I’ll be coming back to the Sanctuary.”
“Something like what?” Riv asked.
“Remember that exotic animal I’m here to catch?”
“Yes…”
“She’s not an animal.”
“She?”
Sohut gulped.
“She, brother. She. The same species as Larn.”
“You mean La-rehn?”
“La-rehn. Yes.” Why was saying this so hard? “Well, I helped capture one of her kind and…” He paused. Saying it was like admitting that he was really weak.
“…I phekked up, brother. I think I’m going to have to do something stupid,” he finally said.
He could hear the silence on the other end of the line.
“Explain,” Riv growled after a few moments.
“No time. I have to get to the exchange.” But there was no longer the low crackle of the connection.
Glancing down at the device, he realized it was out of charge.
It seemed the phekking mogs had detached the sol battery.
Phekking little fat excrement holes.
Gritting his teeth, Sohut pushed forward.
He’d get to the exchange, get a distorter, and find Clee-yo.
As he slipped the sat phone back in his satchel, Sohut gulped.
That might be the last time he ever heard his brother’s voice but now he only had one objective and she needed him.
Clee-yo.
He was going to find his Clee-yo.
28
Cleo’s eyes fluttered open and for a second, she didn’t know where she was.
The lighting was different, the smells different, the sounds…all different.
Anxiety made her sit upright immediately.
She was in a…
Looking around, her eyes widened.
It was a like a magical garden for fairies.
Purple blooms that resembled sakura trees hung over her and there were actual butterflies.
Real butterflies.
She stared at them…unable to believe what she was seeing.
What were monarch butterflies doing on an alien planet?
The soft trickle of a stream caught her ear and she stood on shaky legs.
Was she dreaming?
Was she dead?
Reality slammed her like a semi out of control.
Sohut!
As she dashed from underneath the trees, her heart in her chest, she noticed two things.
One, she really was in a magical fairy land.
Two, she wasn’t alone.
In front of her, huddled together, a group of aliens sat on the rocks.
Something within her chest clenched.
“She’s awake,” one of the aliens murmured.
As her eyes darted from one to the other, Cleo took them in.
Their features were soft, and they didn’t look threatening.
Females.
They were all females, Cleo assumed.
Some had strange fleshy bits on their heads that reminded her of Medusa and others were bald-headed.
“Hey.” One with the Medusa-head turned and looked her way. “Are you okay?”
Cleo just stared at them.
What in the actual fuck was happening? What the hell was this?
Something moved to her left and her head snapped that way.
There was a clear panel there.
It looked like glass and it rose against the wall, separating the magical garden from whatever was on the other side.
“Where the hell am I?” She breathed, moving toward the glass.
What she saw on the other side almost made her collapse and it was only because she pressed her hands against the glass that she didn’t.
There were toads, walking toads on the other side.
Toads dressed in white robes, all walking around as if they were viewing goods…viewing her.
Cleo took a step back.
There was movement to her right and her instincts took over as she snatched whatever was coming toward her.
It was an arm. The arm of the female that had spoken to her, and the woman looked at her in surprise.
“It’s okay. Calm down. You’ve been unconscious for a few days. Take it easy.”
A few days?
Glancing at her hand holding the woman, Cleo let go and took a step back.
“Who are you? Where am I? What are you doing here?”
The woman gave a small smile. “My name is Lee-yunna. I was chosen just like you were.” She motioned behind her. “Me and the others.”
“Which sector did you come from?” one of the other females asked.
“Sector?” Cleo took another step back, the reality of the situation weighing on her mind.
She’d been captured…again.
And Sohut…he was probably dead.
The thought made her want to collapse.
“I wasn’t in a sector, whatever that is,” she replied, threading her hands into her hair as she stared wide-eyed at the ground. “I was free.”
“I know you’re probably in shock right now—”
“What is this place?” Cleo turned her wide eyes to the female in front of her. “Where am I?”
“This is our terrarium. It’s where they’re keeping us before the auction.”
Auction?
She was in a cage.
There was that feeling around her neck again and she touched her neck as she took a step toward the transparent barrier.
She could just about see her reflection in the glass and there was a thin blue line around her neck.
It wasn’t solid, but it felt like it.
It was a clasp of some kind and memory of the moments before she was taken came rushing back to her.
Sohut.
Slamming her fists against the glass, she screamed at the beings on the other side.
She wasn’t an animal, goddamnit!
She wasn’t going to be caged, auctioned, and bought!
She’d die first.
As the beings on the other side paused to look at her, some coming close enough she could see the sores on their bodies, she looked one of them in the eye.
On the other side of the glass, the toad-man smiled.
Lee-yunna took a step toward her, causing Cleo to step back farther.
“Stay away from me,” she said, as her gaze darted around the fairy forest.
It was all for show.
There wasn’t anything magical about this. That reality was making panic rise within her.
“I have to get out,” Cleo murmured, her gaze still darting around.
“You’ve been unconscious for a few days…” Lee-yunna said. “Come sit with us. We will explain it to you.”
The female smiled at her and Cleo nodded slightly before she allowed the alien to lead her over to the other females.
They were all sitting on a set of rocks out in the open and as she and Lee-yunna approached, the conversation didn’t wane.
Whatever they were talking about though, Cleo didn’t hear.
Her focus was on the transparent glass and the many toad aliens she’d seen on the other side.
“How long was I unconscious for?”
“We are not sure,” one of the females stopped talking with the others to answer. “We are sometimes drugged after their tests. It is hard to tell the time, but the drugs don’t seem to affect Lee-yunna.”
Cleo’s eyes moved to the female who’d spoken to her first and Lee-yunna smiled.
“It’s been at least five days.”
Five days?!
Alarm made Cleo rise suddenly.
Sohut.
“I need—” she stuttered. “I need to get out. There’s somebody out there. Somebody I need to get back to.”
“There’s nobody to get back to,” one of the other females said. “You will be the property of a Tasqal in a few moons. They are all.”
The thought ma
de Cleo feel sick.
As reality slowly settled within her, she frowned.
“You can understand me. How?”
“You were not awake for the tests. They update everyone’s language chips. It makes the process easier, in case you are bought with another…”
She didn’t say another what, but Cleo knew.
Another slave.
Lee-yunna reached a hand toward her. “There’s no escaping this. We are sacrifices, given by our people for the safety of our people. It is an honored tradition. Surely, your people told you this before they sent you off.”
Cleo couldn’t breathe.
Sacrifices?
Her people?
When Lee-yunna smiled again, she realized she’d spoken out loud.
“Our people have given us to the Tasqals in exchange for peace.” Lee-yunna’s smile waned a little. “It is an honor.”
No.
“Do you really believe that?” Cleo asked the female.
Lee-yunna blinked and forced her smile wider. “Yes.”
Something made Cleo believe what she really wanted to say was “no.”
Cleo sat because she was sure her legs were going to give out.
“What is it?” One of the other females frowned. “You seem perturbed by this.”
Cleo swallowed down the lump in her throat.
“My people didn’t send me here. I was taken.” The females around her glanced at each other and when she met their gazes, she was sure they could see the resolve in hers. “I was taken, and I’d rather die than be a sacrifice to one of those things out there.”
29
It’d taken him far too long to reach his destination.
Trekking through the jungle back to the road that ran through it had taken days. More days than he had the heart to count.
And the longer he was away from her, the more terrified he became.
What if he was too late?
Sohut let out a breath as he stood in front of the exchange.
Before him, hover vehicles zoomed in and out carrying shoppers, all unaware of the fact that before them was a Merssi with his world crumbling around him.
As he moved forward, there was only one thing on his mind.
It kept him focused.
Focused enough that he could walk into the exchange hardly clothed and injured.
He was drawing the attention of the beings around him.
The exchange was packed. There was hardly even space to walk.
Yet, the crowd of shoppers parted to let him through and he could feel their gazes.
Or maybe it was the fact he had an adorable slizz on his shoulder.
Either way, the beings around him were not his concern.
After buying a fresh healing serum and administering it, he’d moved through the sketchier sections of the exchange searching for a distorter to purchase.
Distorters were rare illegal tech but he was sure he could find one.
Word from some of the sellers suggested the stall he was in front of might have exactly what he needed.
Rapping on the metal window of the stall, Sohut waited.
After a few moments, a slot opened in the window and the seller spoke.
“What.”
Great customer service.
“I’m looking for a distorter,” Sohut spoke in a low tone.
There was a pause before, “What do you want it for?”
Sohut’s jaw clenched and he resisted the urge to reach his hand through the slot and close it around the seller’s throat.
“None of your business.”
“Fifty teruva coins,” the seller said after a few moments.
Sohut’s jaw clenched again.
Nobody had fifty teruva coins just hanging about and he didn’t have time to phek around.
The seller was mostly hidden and the slot that he looked through from his stall was only on the level of Sohut’s chest.
“Three thousand credits.” Sohut’s voice was like ice. “Three thousand or I can introduce you to my little friend.”
As soon as he said so, Wawa climbed down his shoulder to look straight through the slot in the stall.
There was an exclamation on the other side and the sound of things falling.
“Deal. I don’t want trouble here.”
Good.
As soon as the transaction was over, he stepped away from the stall, gripping the distorter in his hand.
He’d use the device to distort his image when he needed to.
That was the second part of his plan.
But right now, he was searching for one particular group of aliens.
The healing serum he’d administered must be giving him a buzz or maybe it was the pure rage at the fact that he’d lost Clee-yo. Whatever it was, he welcomed it.
All he knew for sure was that he wanted to break some necks.
Donning a white robe he bought, he slipped into a side alley and tilted his nose to the air.
His enhanced nostril sensors would do most of the work now.
He knew their scent, his prey.
They couldn’t hide even if they wanted to and, as he wove through the exchange, it didn’t take him long to find the Gori he was looking for.
There were two of them, the two that had hired him.
Standing with their backs turned to him, they didn’t even hear him approach.
Wawa snarled at the sight of them, his teeth protracting immediately as if he knew the two males.
At the sound, one of the Gori turned, his eyes bugging out.
“A—A slizz!” The large male staggered backward, his midsection jiggling.
His companion turned with the same expression.
Sohut dropped the hood of the robe. “I think you have more than the slizz to worry about.”
At the sight of them, the other shoppers in the vicinity screamed and there was a flurry of feet as they tried to get away.
“Y-you!” one of the Gori exclaimed.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” said the other.
With one step forward, Sohut was in front of one of the males, his fist landing a punch that sent the male crashing into a wall.
Sohut cocked his head, a sneer on his face.
If only he wasn’t still healing; he’d have punched the Gori into tomorrow.
The other Gori put his hands in the air.
“H-hey. We don’t want no trouble, Merssi.”
“Where did they take her?” Sohut turned, raising his fist. On his shoulder, Wawa puffed up his fur, his teeth protracting even more.
“Phek,” the Gori muttered, raising his hands higher as he glanced in his friend’s direction.
“Tell me,” Sohut growled, moving too fast for the male as he closed his unclenched hand around the Gori’s neck. “Speak the right words or they might be your last.”
The Gori tried to swallow, his eyes darting to his companion, who was still crumpled on the ground.
“You don’t want to mess with the Tasqals, Merssi. It’s not worth it.”
“Wrong answer,” Sohut growled, his fist connecting with the male’s cheek. Dark-green blood spewed on the ground and even more shoppers screamed and ran away.
“I’m going to ask you again,” Sohut growled as he brought his fangs close to the male’s face. “Last chance.” He barely was able to say the words as he grit his teeth, trying to pull back the rage pulsing through his veins. “Where. Did. They. Take. Her?”
No answer.
Pulling his fist back, he punched the male again and the Gori’s head lolled a bit.
The Gori spat, some of his teeth flying. “To Sector 89. It’s an underground private auction. There’s no way you can get in.”
That one word made his blood run cold.
Auction.
“When is this auction?” In his peripheral vision, the male he’d knocked out was rising.
Wawa growled and hopped off his shoulder to stand in front of the male, his fur bristled making him appear l
arger than he was and his teeth were bared.
The Gori took one look at the slizz and stopped moving.
“Two moon cycles from now,” said the Gori in front of him.
Phek.
Two moon cycles to find a stronghold guarded by the secrets of the entire planet.
It wasn’t nearly enough time.
Cleo sat under the sakura-like tree, her eyes darting to look through the pink blossoms every now and then.
The other females were still huddled in the same spot they huddled in every day.
Between moving to get the food the guards placed in the enclosure and moving to the pool at the back to clean themselves, they always sat in the same spot, seemingly unconcerned.
It’d been days, too many days to count and the longer time passed, the more anxious she became.
Every time the guards entered the terrarium, she was sure it was time to get sold and her heart would lurch, but so far it seemed time was on her side.
She was still working on a way to escape her god-forsaken situation.
Eyeing the alien females now, Cleo pursed her lips.
They were mumbling to each other but she couldn’t join them in conversation.
They all seemed to have accepted their fate.
She did not.
She would not.
Reaching underneath her dress, she took out her lucky piece of metal.
It was always tied there, in that spot by a ripped piece of fabric, just in case she lost it.
Turning the thing over in her hand, she glanced through the pink blossoms again.
She needed a plan and, if she was going to escape, she needed more weapons.
Today just happened to be the day luck might be on her side.
On the ground beside her, there were hardly any fallen branches, but she’d managed to find two thin ones…twigs almost—they would just have to do.
With another glance through the blossoms, Cleo got to work, filing down the twigs so they had sharp ends.
She was working for maybe thirty minutes, refining the edges when a sound caught her ear and she looked up. Lee-yunna stood there.
“Hey,” Lee-yunna said.
Cleo glanced at her, before continuing to work. “Hey.”
“What are you doing?” She could hear the surprise in the female’s voice and it made her shoulders stiffen.
What if the woman gave her non-plan away?
But when Lee-yunna walked over, she saw that it wasn’t surprise in her eyes.