by Zara Zenia
He shook his head in disbelief.
"They should have known I would defeat them, the imbeciles. They should have known I am no ordinary Orban. I am superior, the king of kings. I do not get outsmarted. Not ever!"
He began pacing the room with his hands clutched behind his back as he looked to the floor, his lips still curled up in a wry smile.
"Defeated?" I asked.
He turned his head to the side, finding my horror funny.
"Ha! Of course! Defeated. Your friends' plan failed miserably," he snarled, his eyes dancing with joy. "Miserably," he repeated. "I had them surrounded before they even knew we were there."
He cackled like a mad man and made his way back to the door.
"Wait! I don't believe you. If you knew you'd defeat them, why take me?"
He stopped in the doorway and looked over his shoulder.
"Contingency plan," he said and walked away, his laughter echoing down the hall as the door was slammed shut.
Defeated? No, that can't be!
It struck me that Ethan hadn't told me a thing about the fight. I was so overwhelmed by it all I was too afraid to ask, but now I cursed myself. Somewhere out there, Ethan and his friends might have been killed and I had no way of knowing where he was.
Is he really dead?
The tears began to fall as I thought about never seeing him again and the bread and water in my gut began to rise my throat.
Chapter 16
Ethazol
The sound of Benzen's screams was still echoing in my mind as I arrived in Washington. Of course, Draygus had insisted I stay with them as they prepared to flee but I couldn't leave Demi. She had to come with me.
Even as they all stared at me as though I was crazy, I held my ground.
"You're leaving us to meet up with some girl you just met?" Jarick had asked with a confused scowl.
"I'm sorry but... I must. I'll catch up with you."
And I'd walked away with the burning sensation of their livid eyes on the back of my head.
Now, as I stood in front of Demi's house, I sensed something was wrong. It was eerily silent. Not a single bird chirped in the trees, no children played in the street and no cars drove by. It was as though I'd arrived in a ghost town.
For a moment, I lingered at the front door. Something felt wrong. There was a heavy cloud of tension over the house, the magnetic feeling that something dangerous was lurking nearby. When I knocked, it sounded like it reverberated through a hollow, empty house.
"Demi?"
There was no response.
"Demi!" I called again and knocked louder.
Still nothing.
Making my way around the back of the house, I hoped to see her in the garden and looked for a flash of her fiery auburn hair but again, there was nothing but the wind whistling through the trees.
"Demi!" I shouted up to her bedroom window expecting her to pop her head out with a towel wrapped around her hair.
Only silence responded.
She wasn't here and I couldn't rid myself of the feeling that it was because of me. A shiver ran through me as the wind picked up. Taking a deep breath, I tried to calm myself or rather convince myself that she was okay, that she maybe left for work early or stayed the night at her parents’ house. But as I turned on my heel, something crunched on the grass. As I looked down, I saw shards of glass. Gazing up, I saw they covered the lawn like glittering, crystal snow. Breathlessly, I followed the trail until I arrived at the dining room window. The wind billowed through the curtains and kicked up the papers on her table. Peering in, I could see across the hallway to where a smashed vase lay on the floor. Behind it, the sofa lay turned over.
"Shit! Demi!"
I climbed in, frantic, following the trail of devastation until I reached the kitchen. A frying pan lay in the center of the floor with dried crusted blood along the base. I picked it up and stared at it in horror. Then something caught my eye, the smear of crimson blood along the pristine white tiles.
In shock, I slapped my hands to my head and ripped at my hair. What had I done? She was in danger, she'd been captured and it was all because of me. Where was she? There was no doubt Palzu had her but I couldn’t fathom what he was doing to her right now, I didn't want to know, couldn't handle the thought that she was being tortured. There was only one group of people who could help me. I needed my crew. Still, in a daze and with a sweaty, shaking hand, I reached for my phone.
"Draygus!"
"Whoa, buddy. Calm down."
"Fuck. Something's happened. Something really bad. I need you guys to help me. I need you to--"
"Ethazol! Take a breath."
I leaned my head against the refrigerator and looked back at the blood on the floor before clenching my eyes shut.
"What's the problem?"
"She's been taken! Palzu has Demi!"
I could hear him take in a sharp inhale of breath and whistle out through his teeth.
"Dray? Are you there?"
There was the sound of him sparking a lighter.
"Forget about her, buddy," he said, a little too calmly.
"What? Are you fucking serious?"
"Damn right I'm serious. The whole crew is in danger. We can't all just abandon the plan because you want us to save some girl."
"She's not some girl!"
Raging mad and shocked that he could think this way, I paced up and down the kitchen.
"Aren't you in love?" I asked.
"Sure," he replied. "But-"
"But what?"
He dragged on his cigarette and exhaled.
"But how well do you know this girl?"
"Well enough," I answered without missing a beat. "Well enough that I know I'm in love with her and that if I don't get her back from Palzu then... I just don't know what to do."
He paused and moved away from the phone. I could hear hushed voices in the background, the distant murmuring of him talking with the others. Eventually, when I was starting to think he'd forgotten about me, he came back on the line.
"You really love her?"
"Yes!"
Again, he mumbled something to someone before returning.
"Okay... This is the plan. While you were making your way back to Washington, Jarick and Voland were hard at work. They located Palzu's ship."
"They did!"
"Your girl… if she's anywhere she'll be there and of course, so will Palzu. There's a neat phrase I picked up while living here. Ever heard kill two birds with one stone?"
"No..."
"It means achieving two goals with one method. We'll attack Palzu and get your girl back at the same time."
I breathed a sigh of relief but the calmness wouldn't last.
"We have to fight again. What if we don't make it?"
"We will buddy, we will. How soon can you make it back to the Montgomery Forest?"
"I'm on my way," I said as I headed for the door. “Wait for me.”
Chapter 17
Ethazol
"So, you're telling me Palzu is in there?"
I lay on my stomach with the cold mud seeping into my sweater as I gazed through the trees. A ship lay in the distance, its matte black body barely giving away its location. A window covered the front and I tried to see inside but all I saw was more blackness. Draygus pulled his binoculars away from his face to reveal two red circles around his eyes.
"No, he's not in there. That would be too easy. This is a minor troop transport ship."
He placed the binoculars down on the ground and sighed as he rubbed his eyes.
"Palzu is at the flagship, he's too smart to just be lying prone in the middle of nowhere."
"The flagship?"
This was getting more complicated by the second.
"It's not far from here," Voland explained. "We located it about twenty miles northeast of here."
I looked back at the ship in front of us and felt my chest tighten. This was going to be the fight of our lives and I had no idea what cra
zy strategy Draygus had concocted.
"So, where's Demi?" I asked.
"At the flagship, most likely. I imagine Palzu will want to keep her close."
The thought of him being near her made me sick with rage. I jumped up, spurred on by anger and ready to go.
"What's the plan?" I asked "Let's do it. Right now."
Jarick stood up and brushed the grass from his shirt before clapping a hand on my shoulder.
"Stay calm, we need you to be cool, okay?"
I nodded and gulped down my anxiety.
"I'm cool," I said. "I'm okay."
"Right, here’s what we're going to do," Draygus stepped in between us and gathered us into a circle. "We enter this ship at the rear and don't hold back. Once the guards are either captured or dead, dead preferably, we move toward the captain's deck. There we'll fly to the flagship. They should give us permission to dock. There's no reason for them to assume the ship has been overtaken."
It sounded too dangerous, but with no other option I said, "Who's going to fly us?"
Draygus slapped Voland on the back.
"This is our man. Now, are we ready?"
He tossed me a rifle and I held it close to my chest.
"Ready!" We all yelled, anger and adrenaline coursing through our veins.
Two guards were stationed at the rear. With bated breath, I leaned against the tree and nodded at Draygus. He gave me thumbs-up and I pulled the trigger twice in quick succession, the bullets whistling through the silencer. The guards hit the ground in a heap. That was easy, I thought. Let's hope the rest of the mission runs as smoothly.
Creeping to the entrance, I lifted one of the dead guard's hands and pried apart his fingers. They were cold already, his blue skin feeling icy against mine. Pressing his fingertip into the scanner, I waited for it to recognize his imprint. A second later, it beeped and the doors glided open.
"Okay, we're in."
The hallway ahead of us was long but narrow and, in single file, we walked slowly with our guns still raised.
“I can hear something,” Jarick whispered from the front. “The rest of the guards are on the captain’s deck.”
Draygus led from the back, keeping a watchful eye over the proceedings while I stood in front of him, proud to say I was defending him.
“How many do you think there are?”
Jarick halted and raised a hand as we reached the end of the hallway. Peeping around the corner, he then turned back to us and raised four fingers.
“That’s one each,” Draygus said. “Are you all ready?”
I nodded and the others followed.
“On the count of three,” he said and raised a finger. “One. Two,” he held up his second. “Three!”
We charged onto the deck in a hail of gunfire. The guards didn’t have time to realize our presence and hit the floor before they even realized they were dead.
“So far so good,” Voland said and kicked at a nearby body. “Now all we gotta do is get this bad boy to the flagship.”
The captain’s body was slumped in his seat and Voland pushed him off and took his place.
“Sorry pal, nothing personal,” he said as he looked down at the body while he activated the engine.
The floor shook beneath us. It had been so long since I had flown anywhere that I’d almost forgotten what it felt like. As we lifted off the ground, I thought about the very second we escaped Orba and how we were all so fresh-faced and young, so eager for adventure. Now looking at the rest of the crew, I saw how much we’d all changed from the struggle of being fugitives. New lines were etched into Draygus’ face while Jarick was twice the size he used to be. Voland, with his eyes looking far off into the distance and his hands working their magic on the controls, looked like a professional.
“You look like you’re enjoying yourself,” I laughed as I clapped a hand on his shoulder.
“I missed this,” he said. “I’ve spent too long on solid ground.”
As the trees passed below us, I pressed my hands to the window and looked down.
“Brace yourself,” Voland said. “We don’t have much time for sightseeing. Look.”
He pointed down below and for a moment, amongst the trees, all I could see was a gray mass. It wasn’t until we moved closer that I saw the flagship, large and foreboding in the darkness of the forest.
A voice crackled through the radio as we descended.
“Ship two four seven, this is the command quarters. Are you preparing to dock? You were not expected for another forty-five minutes. Captain Varinth is confused as to why you’re here.”
Draygus and I shared a nervous glance but Voland motioned for us to calm down and gave us a cheeky smile.
“It’s six fifteen, isn’t it?”
“That is correct,” the voice crackled back.
“Good, because I was given direct commands from Palzu to arrive. As far as I know, the captain was not given a choice in the matter."
I didn't think it was going to work. Surely the flagship would have more stringent security measures. Any second now they'd be onto us. They must know that we weren't scheduled to dock and that something must be amiss. The silence seemed to last forever with the constant crackling of the radio stuttering from the speaker.
"Okay," the voice said at last. "My apologies for the mix-up. You are cleared to dock."
We all breathed a collective sigh of relief. As we lowered ourselves into the flagship, we all knew there was no going back.
"We're here at last," Draygus said as she ushered us to the door. "It's now or never. We may never make it out of here."
"Understood loud and clear," Jarick said and placed his hand in between us.
Voland placed his on top.
"In it ‘til the end."
Draygus followed.
"I don't regret a thing. Coming to Earth has been the greatest adventure of my life."
I slapped my hand on top of his.
"The best adventure of my life too. It's been an honor to crash on Earth with you guys."
With no more time to spare, we whooped and cheered as we burst out of the ship, taking the two guards by surprise. Draygus took them out easily and waved us out of the docking area. As the official entrance to the flagship whooshed open, we stared in awe. It was bigger than we could have dreamed with high arches and priceless Orban artifacts framed on the walls. All the surfaces were crafted from the finest glowstone and the air smelled fresh and pure with the essence of something I'd almost forgotten about.
"Is that Seutune Fruit?" Jarick whispered as he breathed it in.
"I haven't smelled it in so long," I replied. "My mother used to keep some hanging above the front door for good luck."
"That stuff is expensive," Voland chimed in. "It's said to purify the air and kill germs."
Draygus stepped forward and pushed us further down the hall.
"Well, that rich son of a bitch must have spent a fortune on it because it's everywhere."
He pointed his rifle up and we saw batches of it draped from the ceiling, obviously placed there to protect Palzu from the Earthen air.
"We haven't got time to hang around and look at plants all day," Draygus whispered through clenched teeth. "We need to find the command quarters, that's where he’ll be."
With trembling legs, I placed one foot in front of the other following Draygus who seemed to be enjoying every second of the danger we were in. Meanwhile, all I could hear was the blood rushing in my ears and the sound of my own heavy breath.
"Shit... someone's coming," Draygus leaped back.
Figures rounded the corner and on instinct, I fired my gun in their direction but it did little to deter them. They piled on top of us. Too many to count and with their arms pulling at my limbs, all I could do was struggle against them the best I could as a boot pressed my face into the floor.
"Sound the alarm!" a voice called.
A second later, an ear blistering klaxon echoed through the ship as a red light glowed dow
n on us. I struggled harder, trying to reach for my gun but another boot kicked it out of reach before it stomped on my arm.
"Fuck!" I yelled. "Dray! Can you hear me?"
I could just about make out the sight of Draygus being punched in the face as two troops held him up by his arms.
"Bastards!" I yelled. "Hang on, Dray, I'm coming!"
A shot was fired and behind me, Jarick was yelling something over the commotion.
I kicked and fought as hard as I could and I managed to turn onto my back, kicking the soldier square in the shin. He collapsed beside me, the sound of his fracturing leg barely audible over his screams. In desperation, I leaned across him and reached for the pistol in his holster, but before I could pull the trigger, it was kicked out of my hand and another soldier descended on me, the cold barrel of his gun pushing hard into my temple.
"Move and you're dead," he said. "And so are the rest of your crew."
Chapter 18
Demi
I didn't know how long I'd been there. It could have been hours. It could have been days. All I had to occupy my thoughts was the darkness and the sensation of the rope burning into my wrists. I tugged and pulled at them until the pain became meaningless although there was the heat of blood running into the palm of my hand, the feeling that I'd scratched away my skin as I desperately tried to break free.
Not that I'd know what to do once my arms were untied. I was still locked in this room, in this place that smelled so strange where no one gave me a straight answer. I was deep within the Montgomery Forest but where was that? And what would I do if I got out of there?
My fingernail snapped as I pulled on the rope. I could feel the nail bed stinging.
"Ugh..."
I gritted my teeth as I tried to concentrate.
"Nearly there. You can do it."
My hands were twisted up at an unnatural angle, my fingers aching as I struggled.
"Fuck!"
It burned so much I couldn't stop the tears from soaking my blindfold but I was intent on escaping. In the moment, I was so scared and angry I was willing to do anything. There was no way I was just going to sit here and wait to die.