by Marie Dry
“If you tell him about me, I will kill him,” Zanr said. There was a merciless quality in his voice she’d never heard before. There was no doubt in her mind he’d do what he threatened.
“You don’t really mean that?” A small mean part of her wished he’d rough up Morgan a little. But she couldn’t let him kill Morgan. Being an asshole wasn’t a criminal offense.
“I do. He could be working with the humans who want to detonate bombs.”
She never liked Morgan, but she didn’t think he’d kill people. His hatred seemed reserved for her. He could almost be a second brother.
“Fine. What do you suggest I say when he asks where I’ve been?”
“Tell him the truth. You were taken to our stronghold, but you escaped. Tell him nothing more.”
He pulled her tight against him. “Betray me and you will be punished,” he said in such a sinister voice, goose bumps broke out over her body.
“Fine,” she snarled.
They walked into the bar and split up. Rose went to the scarred wooden bar and ordered a drink. She stared down at the rough surface beneath her elbows. This place had to be either centuries old or the owner had found the wooden counter somewhere. This last century, wood had become scarce and very expensive. After an hour sitting on the bar stool, her back was aching and her head felt funny from the sips she forced herself to take from the drink served in a glass that didn’t sparkle with cleanliness. Although several of the men looked her over, they always changed their minds and turned away from her. Rose didn’t turn around, but she had no doubt it was Zanr’s doing.
Hours later Morgan still hadn’t appeared. She wouldn’t put it past him to stay away and make her come back on purpose. The whole time she sat perched on the bar stool, Rose argued in her mind, going in circles. She wanted to help her family. Prevent the bomb from going off. But she also didn’t want to assist their so-called conquerors in any way. At what stage was she a collaborator?
When the tall man with the leather jacket paid for his drinks and walked to the door, she stood and left. Two men got up and followed her, and she had no doubt about their intentions. Outside she turned and sighed when she saw them right behind her. The way they looked at her made her skin crawl.
“This will not end well for you,” she warned.
“It will end very well—” His eyes widened and then he crumpled to the floor. His friend joined him half a second later.
Rose smirked down at their unconscious bodies. “Told you it wouldn’t go well for you,” she muttered and took Zanr’s hand and carefully stepped over their unconscious bodies.
“I am pleased by the confidence you show your warrior.”
“You do know that referring to yourself in the third person is creepy, right?”
“Nothing a Zyrgin warrior do is creepy.” They walked in silence for a while. “What is creepy?”
She burst out laughing, and she was still trying to explain it to him when they reached the building where he’d parked the shuttle. This time he picked her up and something shot out from his sleeve. Rose closed her eyes and clutched at him for dear life. The wind blew over them and she heard a whooshing sound. She opened one eye and moaned when she realized that they’d reached the top of the building and that he was hanging on with one hand and holding her with the other. She squeezed her eyes shut again, and the next moment she stood on the roof of the building.
She staggered to the shuttle, her knees shaking. “You’re an adrenaline junky, aren’t you?” she accused.
“Is that a good thing to be?”
“No.” She held up a hand. “Never mind.” Nothing she said would change his danger-loving habits. She tottered over to the shuttle and the door opened smoothly to allow her in. Rose sank down on the bunk in the shuttle. “I can’t believe he didn’t pitch. A whole day wasted.” She glanced around the small space. Where did he plan for them to sleep tonight?
“Pitch what?”
“It’s a human term—it means show up for a meeting.”
“If he does not show up soon, we will find him and we will find the weapons,” he said so calm she wanted to shake him.
“Are you hungry?” He went to the wall on the left side of the shuttle and grunted at it. A shelf appeared.
“Oh yes. I would kill for some tomato soup.”
He turned to face her, cocked his head. “What is toh-mah-doh soup?”
She ran her hands through her hair. “Not that again. Tomato soup—everyone knows it.” She spelled it for him.
He grunted at the wall and it pushed out two meals.
Rose gratefully accepted the bowl of fragrant tomato soup. Steam wafted from the bowl. She inhaled and almost groaned. The bar had only had some sickly-looking peanuts she didn’t want to chance eating. They’d looked like they’d been canned a century ago. “You have to explain to me how that works. I’m not much good at cooking. I’d love to have a gadget like that.”
“It is not a gadget, it is Zyrgin technology, and we have one in our dwelling.” He sounded excessively proud of that.
Rose didn’t know what to say to that, and they ate in silence. Afterward, she leaned back against the uncomfortable seat, wishing they could open the door—that it wasn’t stinky with dangerous winds outside.
“I’m not tired yet. What can we do until it’s time to go to bed?” She bit her lip. Why did she word it like that? Now he’d think she was coming on to him. But the shuttle was too small with no room to pace. She couldn’t breathe in here. Every moment inside it felt like the walls were shrinking in on her.
“Would you like to watch episodes of The Space Ranger?”
“Do you have unaired episodes?” What she really wanted was to be outside. If she could sleep out there, maybe the nightmares wouldn’t come. But the smell and the wind up here made that impossible.
He cocked his head. “It is in my computer; it does not need to breathe air.” He said it as if questioning her sanity.
Rose giggled, picturing TC files desperately trying to breathe. “I meant episodes that have not been shown before.” Suddenly the air in the shuttle felt a little less stifling. “Or a nature program about the big five before they became extinct.”
“I have several. I will show them to you.”
“Zanr?”
“Yes.”
“I’d like to call my family.” She had to warn them. If he tried to stop her, she’d find a way.
“I have brought a TC you can use,” he said to her surprise and handed it over. “You cannot warn your family. The traitors will detonate the bomb if they try to leave.”
She wanted to argue that they weren’t traitors, but they threatened humans and not aliens. That did make them traitors. “My brother is away at school. They won’t notice my father leaving. He travels a lot on business.”
“He is a high-profile human and takes many humans with him, wherever he goes. The traitors mentioned him among those they are watching. If they try to leave, they detonate the bomb.”
It was chilling that he knew her father’s habits so well. But Rose was skeptical. Why would the terrorists go to the trouble to watch her father? “All right, I won’t warn him, but I want to talk to him.” He didn’t have to know that she was lying through her teeth.
As a child, she and her mother used the word “lollipop” as their secret word for danger. Her father had to remember that. Didn’t he?
Rose put in her father’s office number. He got really mad if she tried to phone him at home.
“I’m sorry, Rose, your father is in a meeting right now.” His secretary said all the right words, but her tone was frigid. She sometimes wondered if her father only hired assistants who were capable of freezing out his daughter.
“Please, it’s urgent.”
“It always is.” The TC disconnected.
She threw down the TC and paced up and down in the shuttle. The walls were closing in on her again; the air around her thinned. She wanted to do something wild, like shoot the alien or—she turned
and looked him over—what she needed was a good fight.
“You wish me to convince him to talk to you.” From the tone of his voice, she had no doubt about what form his convincing would take.
She sighed. “Thanks, but no.” The walls rushed up to her and she took a deep breath, reminding herself that it was just a shuttle and not a big coffin.
“I will always care for you,” he said. As if he could see the raw, open wound in her heart where her family’s love and support should be.
“Yeah right.” Until the first time she proved herself unworthy of being the breeder of a superior warrior. She’d been eight years old when her actions had caused her mother’s death and her father had never forgiven her.
“Exactly,” he said, as if she’d agreed with him. “I will start the nature program and then we can see a Space Ranger episode.” He grunted and the episode started. Before she knew what he planned, he pulled her to lie with her head in his lap. She sighed when she felt him undo her braid. She should probably object, but it was soothing having him play with her hair. She could breathe a little.
She fell asleep watching The Space Ranger.
“We will go to the bar again,” he said the next day. She’d woken on the floor of the shuttle, that had somehow become softer, a silver blanket covering her. He’d been sitting at the consoles grunting at it.
“Until Morgan decides to make an appearance, I don’t suppose we have much choice.”
He grunted and motioned to her hair. “I will do your hair.” He’d made it into one of his intricate basket weaves overnight. She’d been tempted to choke him when she saw what he’d done while she slept. She had no problem with him doing all the work undoing it now.
“Make a French braid, like you did yesterday. That works well when we are working.” If she couldn’t stop him messing her hair, she’d give him some directions. Lots of directions.
He helped her to sit on the bench and then went to work on her hair. “I am working; you are merely accompanying me.”
“Whatever.” If it made him feel better to think that, she wasn’t going to argue. It felt like hours later when he finished with her hair, at last. But she had no complaints; it was soothing having him work on her hair.
He grunted and the door opened, and Rose instinctively stepped back at the sound of the wind howling around the shuttle.
“Are we walking again?” she asked dubiously. The weather was even more unpleasant. Rose looked up at him and then stumbled back. He showed even more teeth than usual, and even in his disguise, it wasn’t a good look. “I have transport. We will cloak and use it.”
“Transport?”
He grunted something and the shuttle shimmered. She saw a faint shadow that grew as it moved toward them. Rose looked up. A large, silver thing, that vaguely reminded her of a hoverbike, came toward them at high speed. It was going to squash them like bugs. She opened her mouth to scream, but not a sound emerged; her blood literally froze in her veins while she waited for the heavy machine to crush them.
“Move,” she screamed at her feet, but they stood as if planted into the cement. The vehicle landed in front of them without so much as a squeak, and Rose almost sagged in relief. She wanted to scream in his ear, again. She pushed his shoulder instead, and of course, he didn’t budge. “Would it kill you to warn me?”
He picked her up and placed her on the seat, and got on behind her. His heat surrounded her and his breath warmed the back of her head. Her skin tingled where he touched her through her clothes, causing a delicious hollow feeling low in her stomach. “No, but it would be less fun.”
“Everyone will see us. We can’t afford to attract the wrong attention.” Fading into the background was crucial for someone with her job.
“We will be shielded,” he said close against her ear, and she shivered when his warm breath wafted over her ear.
“We’ll be invisible?”
“Yes.”
It was odd, riding at exhilarating speeds through the streets of New York with no one turning to look at them. Zanr drove above the cars, dangerously close to pedestrians sometimes. Rose lifted her face and enjoyed the freedom, the speed, and the open spaces around her.
At the bar he parked the hoverbike out of the way in an alley. She jumped off and looked around dubiously. “What if someone accidentally bumps into your machine? If they figure out there is something here, they might steal it.”
He grunted and it became invisible again. “I will be alerted if anyone attempts that.”
“Handy,” she muttered, but again some idea she couldn’t quite grasp tugged at her.
“I like these cloaking devices of yours. When this is over, I wouldn’t mind taking one with me.” It would come in handy when she went undercover to catch whoever was producing superman crack—a particularly nasty drug that gave the user super-human strength. For a while. She’d seen horrific images of the bodies of their victims and of the addicts. They died within days after causing unbelievable devastation. She’d read about one addict who’d murdered his own children, only to realize what he’d done in his last agonising moments when his brain cleared.
Something scurried out of the alley, red, beady eyes glowing in the weak light, and she squealed and jumped away. “I’ve heard the rats here were enormous, and it’s true. That rat was three times the size of that old oil drum.” Rats were a problem everywhere, but these looked like large cats.
“We do not have rats on Zyrgin,” he sneered.
“Yeah, yeah I know, everything is perfect on Zyrgin. That’s why you go out and live on other planets.” People who abandoned their babies in the desert weren’t all that superior in her eyes.
He turned to her, stepped right into her space. “You will speak of Zyrgin with respect.” He was really scary when he became all intense like this.
“Yeah, whatever,” she said, trying to sound casual but tough. Her heart was beating so fast, she was afraid it would jump out of her mouth. Hopefully he didn’t see how she trembled.
He stared at her with narrowed eyes for a long time and then turned back toward the door leading into the bar.
“Enter before me. Do not make conversation with males.”
Rose shook her head, but she didn’t argue. He had this weird but flattering idea that any man who saw her would instantly want her. She rubbed her chest. Every now and then it hit her. Her duty was—she would do what had to be done—to kill him and take as many of his gadgets she could get her greedy hands on. But she couldn’t imagine him dead. The energy and drive that made him stilled forever? By her hand? Maybe she’d just grab his gadgets and disappear.
He stepped in front of her when a group of rowdy men walked into the bar ahead of them. When he was sure they were inside and focused on their drinks, he motioned Rose inside.
She headed to the bar and went through the whole ritual of ordering a drink she didn’t want. She felt hungry, and the peanuts, that had seen better days, almost looked appetising. Again, Morgan didn’t show.
Hours later they returned to the shuttle. He drove the motorcycle thing right to the door of the shuttle. She got off and put her hands on her hips and tapped her toe. It only struck her now how unnecessary that death-defying run down the building yesterday had been.
“If that thing can drive up here, why didn’t we use it to get down yesterday?” She was tired and out of sorts and didn’t want to be trapped in the close confines of the shuttle. Its boxy shape reminded her of a coffin. Or a large suitcase. She moved her foot faster at that thought.
He stared at her tapping foot, then her hands on her middle. “Running down the building is more fun.” He grunted and the door to the shuttle opened and the motorcycle disappeared.
“I’m going to kill him so much,” she muttered.
He stepped inside the shuttle, making a snorting noise. “A puny human cannot kill a Zyrgin warrior.”
Rose stared at his retreating back and then followed him into the shuttle. She wouldn’t admit it out
loud, but riding that motorbike thing had been exhilarating. She sagged down onto the hard bench, as close to the door of the shuttle as she could manage.
“In my whole life, I’ve never smelled as foul a place as this area of New York.”
She’d thought the filter of the gadget the doctor had put on her would filter out smells, as well, but Zanr had told her smell was a necessary sense and though the gadget filtered the air, it allowed the breather to still smell his environment. She had to remind him to filter out the smell every time they went out.
“I have to agree. Even mud slugs are not as foul,” he said.
“Mud slugs?” She shrugged off her jacket. It was comfortably warm inside the shuttle, and she was so tired of walking through water and waiting for Morgan, who was probably making her wait out of spite. She just wanted to relax. Zanr shrugged off his jacket, and Rose tried to look at him without looking as if she wanted to fall on that perfect body. Now that she was used to his green-and-gold color, she could see how well built he was.
“They live in the mud on the home planet and have a foul smell. Zyrgins have been known to pass out from the smell.” He cocked his head. “Citizens, not warriors. And some citizens like Larz would not pass out.”
“Sounds disgusting.” Rose rolled her sore shoulders. “Wait, who is Larz?”
“He is my friend.”
“I see. I’m going to get clean and then I’d love some food from your wall thingie.” The boots and gadget had kept her dry and insulated from the filth around her, but she still felt dirty.
He came over to her and pulled off the thing the doctor had given them, and that Zanr had taken off yesterday and put on her shoulder this morning. His hand was big and warm on her skin. She wore a sleeveless, tight-fitting top, and she was suddenly aware of how low-cut the bodice was. These last few days were the safest she’d felt since she’d been eight yours old. He’s the enemy, the invader, the bad guy who wants to grab your planet, she chanted inside her mind. But an irritating voice kept saying, He keeps you safe. He’s one hundred percent focused on you and thinks you’re perfect.
“I brought some clean clothes for you.” Zanr opened a compartment and took out a frilly dress. “I set the heat higher for you—you will not be cold.” He held it out.
