by Theresa Kay
“Yeah.” Thomas’ voice is shaky too.
I place my palm on the reader beside the door and wait for it to slide back. The command deck is empty and it looks…normal. I move to step inside, but Thomas throws his arm out to block me and shakes his head.
“I’m going first. You said if it made me feel better…” He smiles and winks.
I laugh as he walks forward. Just as he clears the doorway, a sharp, stick like appendage comes from above, spears him through the shoulder and pulls him up and out of sight. My laugh dies in my throat and it feels like the air is sucked from the room.
“Thomas!” I’m through the doorway before anyone can stop me.
Once inside, I see the bodies. Two…Three… no, four lining the wall just inside the door. The command team.
I tilt my head back to find absolute horror above me. A greenish Greesal holds Thomas with one leg while he tries to wrench out of its grip… and yank himself off its leg. One arm beats ineffectively against the hard exoskeleton while he pulls his impaled shoulder downward inch by inch.
My next scream brings his eyes to me and he shakes his head. “Eva! Get out of here!”
Two more Greesal skitter across the ceiling, their insect-like legs clicking against the metal in a terrifying beat, but their presence barely registers as there’s a squelching noise and Thomas screams, a sound of blind agony. Another one of the Greesal’s legs has impaled him, this time through his stomach.
I jump on the control board and reach for him. The Greesal twists the leg in his stomach and pulls it out, only to send it right back in. Pinned to the ceiling by both shoulders, Thomas can do nothing to stop the flow of blood from his midsection. Just underneath him, the hot coppery liquid rains down on me.
Soaked in his blood, Thomas’ name explodes from my throat over and over and over. It is the only word I know.
White hot screeching pain erupts from my stomach as one of the other Greesal stabs me from behind. And then again. Two black sticks protrude from my front, one by my shoulder and another in my stomach. I don’t even care. Woozy and delirious from pain and blood loss, my head rolls back.
Crack! My head rocks to the side and I raise it. Nathan’s shaking me and screaming my name. Why aren’t I dead?
Nathan shakes his head and motions for someone else. Harvey appears in my vision and I give my boys a smile. It turns into a scream when they pull me forward off the spines. The world goes white with pain and then black as I pass out.
The next thing I now Nathan’s leaning over me buckling me…into an escape pod? How long have I been out? Where is everyone? Wait. No. No. I need to go back for Thomas.I struggle to push his hands away.
“You have to go Eva.” He glances back over his shoulder. “It’s not safe for you here. I’ve programmed the pod to fly to the medical facility I recovered in…it’s two systems over. When you get there, ask for Celeste and tell her I sent you. Just hold on.” Tears leak out of his eyes and trail down his cheeks. “I’ll find you when this is over. I promise.” His lips brush against my forehead. “Hang in there. Do it for me.” He looks away and squeezes his eyes shut.
“Harvey?”
A pained laugh. “You know Harv. He’ll be okay.”
I pat his clenched fist. “Thomas?”
He shakes his head. “But you’re going to be fine. You’re going to be just fine.” He presses one last kiss to my forehead and steps out of the pod. As the door slides shut, a broken sob breaks out of his chest. “I’ll see you soon little spitfire.”
My fragile hold on consciousness breaks and I surrender to the darkness.
A jerk. A jolt. A crash.
Light. Sound. Voices.
“Who is she?”
“No clue. Not a scrap of ID on her.” Nathan stripped it from me. Why?
“And the pod?”
“Markings obliterated on reentry.” I’m on a planet. How?
“All that blood hers?”
“No, but she’s severely injured. Two large bore stab wounds, one in the midsection and one in the left shoulder.”
“Well, clean her up and stick her in stasis for healing. I’m sure someone will be along to claim her before too long.”
“Will do, sir.”
Two days before my twentieth birthday, they placed my unconscious body into an unmarked metal tube.
My friends don’t know where I am.
These people don’t know who I am.
And I will float in the nothing of stasis until someone answers at least one of those questions.
My last conscious thought is of ice blue eyes.
Thomas.
Eva’s Story continues in Bright Beyond, a multi-part novella serial.
Episode 1 is out NOW and is available to borrow for FREE through Kindle Unlimited!
http://smarturl.it/BB_Episode1
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Also By Theresa Kay
BROKEN SKIES
Plagued by nightmares and panic attacks, seventeen-year-old Jax Mitchell cannot sleep without her twin nearby... and he’s been kidnapped by the E'rikon, an alien race who settled on Earth after an apocalyptic event known as the Collapse decimated most of the human population. Her fierce loyalty to her kidnapped brother drives her to rescue him at any cost even if it means employing the help of a teenage alien boy with questionable motives.
FRACTURED SUNS
(Broken Skies Book Two)
ANTHOLOGIES
“Stability,” a short story included in The Telepath Chronicles
Cora has spent most of her life in a clandestine medical facility, isolated from the world and content to submit to tests and experiments at the request of her keepers. Content, that is, until the day she discovers their end goal: breeding her to create a more stable telepath. So when an attack on the facility gives Cora her chance at escape, she seizes it. But as she gets closer to freedom and learns more about the world outside, Cora finds she doesn’t know whether she’d rather be outside or in—or whom she can trust.
"Six Days," a short story included in The Z Chronicles and also available separately.
The longest anyone has survived a zombie bite before succumbing to the madness is six days. That means, if she’s lucky, Sarah has four more days before she goes full-on flesh eater and she needs every single one of them. The life of her infant son depends on her finding an uninfected person willing to take him before she loses her mind. Her husband is dead, her son is depending on her, and the countdown is on.
"Protocol A235," a short story included in Dark Beyond the Stars
Beth is a maintenance tech on the Genesis, the spaceship that will carry her, along with fifty thousand other passengers, to a new home in deep space. But when she comes out of cryosleep to serve her thirty-day solo shift, she finds the ship in disarray, its systems malfunctioning. Worse yet, a previously undisclosed protocol has been put into effect. Protocol A235. And now Beth finds herself facing much more responsibility than she signed up for.
About the Author
The only person she knows who had a subscription to Writer’s Digest at eleven and was always excited to write research papers, Theresa has been putting words to paper since a young age. She writes predominantly in the sci-fi and urban fantasy genres. Residing in central Virginia, she juggles two kids, a husband and a full-time job in addition to her writing and in her free time she reads almost anything she can get her hands on.
Okay, enough talking about myself in the third person… I love interacting with readers, so if you want to shoot me a line, you can connect with me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Goodreads. Even if it’s not about my books, I like chatting about my (many) fandoms, books and reading in general, or just about anything really.
www.theresakay.com
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