Heart of the Beast

by Sonia Nova

  There was no way she was going to let anyone die today, not because of her. The thought of more women and Ezak-X, separated by thick cell walls, trapped, confused, scared, wondering what the hell was going on and if they would ever see daylight again…

  It crushed her.

  She couldn’t get to that hallway fast enough.

  CHAPTER 23

  XEEGAN

  Xeegan strode out onto the sidewalk and barely had time to take stock of the Alliance operation before Zorq came running out of the shadows.

  “Xeee!” he exclaimed as he loped forward on all fours. A couple of nearby Alliance agents paused what they were doing to stare at him.

  “Move on,” Xeegan said. “He’s with me.”

  The agents nodded and went on their way down the sidewalk, toward the group of freed prisoners. Xeegan had his guard up – he remembered how the Alliance military had eyed Zorq when they first took down the Krezlian facility where they were being held. He was not in the mood to deal with any ignorant or inconsiderate Alliance officials now. Thankfully, no one seemed too concerned about Zorq after Xeegan explained.

  “Excuse me,” a somewhat familiar, nasal voice said from behind Xeegan’s shoulder. He turned to see a short, stout Ghelian male with curly hair. “I don’t recognize you, but you also don’t look like a prisoner.”

  That voice… It was the contact Kira had been giving updates to.

  “I’m with Kira–”

  Xeegan was about to explain, when he suddenly stopped cold at the realization that Kira wasn’t outside with them. He tuned into his every sense, straining to try to hear her talking to the prisoners or detect her small frame in the crowd of people on the sidewalk. There was a stale sweet scent lingering in the air by the empty doorway leading back into the hanger, but… that was it.

  “I’m Agent Grimmor. Thank you for your help in moving the mission forward,” the Ghelian said. “Kira never mentioned your name,” he continued, but Xeegan wasn’t listening. His thoughts were moving at a million miles a second.

  Someone had just yelled something about explosive drones. Xeegan hadn’t paid much attention – the Alliance could end this operation however they saw fit, just as long as no Krezlians made it out of there to take any more prisoners ever again. But now that Kira wasn’t in sight…

  “Kee… rah?” Zorq asked, tilting his maned head.

  The Ghelian stopped talking, probably realizing Xeegan wasn’t listening and wasn’t going to answer his questions.

  “She isn’t out here,” Xeegan said, his chest tightening. He finally looked back at the Ghelian agent.

  “Kira? I thought I saw her…”

  “No. She isn’t here. I would smell her if she–”

  “Sir! Sir!” Two human operatives suddenly ran up to the Ghelian agent. They were both out of breath. “Sir, one of the agents just ran back into the building. She said the cellblock hadn’t been cleared, but we’ve already initiated the drone protocol.”

  Chills ran up Xeegan’s spine.

  One of the agents? Kira?

  “What do you mean an agent ran back into the building?” the Ghelian asked harshly. “And why wasn’t the cellblock cleared? Wasn’t a team sent to check in the area before the drones?”

  “We thought she was a part of the team!” The male operative looked panicked. “We thought the area had already been checked.”

  Xeegan’s heart froze. Even the Ghelian agent looked stricken.

  “You have to shut down the drone protocol,” Xeegan said, not trying to hide the panic in his voice. “She’s in there. Kira.”

  “Yes, shut it down!” the Ghelian commanded the drone operator. “Now!”

  “It’s… easier said than done.” The male operative looked uncomfortable, while the female was frantically fiddling with her tablet. “The drone protocol is automatic after initiation. To shut it down, we need to take manual control of the drones. Individually.”

  Xeegan’s heart sunk in his chest and everything seemed to disappear around him.

  This wasn’t happening. Kira was still out there…

  “Well, then get to it!” The Ghelian gritted, and the drone operatives said something but Xeegan hardly heard the rest of the conversation.

  He couldn’t give her up. Not like this. Not ever.

  His eyes met Zorq’s, and he could tell immediately that his friend knew exactly what he was thinking. They both turned away from the agents and took off at a run towards the door to the docking bay, Zorq leading the way as he loped on all fours.

  They had to find her.

  “Stop!” The Ghelian yelled after them. “You can’t go after her! We have to disable the drones first!”

  Xeegan didn’t listen, he just kept running. Soon, the agent’s protests were nothing but distant cries as he followed the trace of Kira’s scent back inside the building, through the docking bay and down the hallway. An explosion detonated somewhere on the other side of the building, and he picked up his pace.

  Zorq led them through the doors into the cellblock and skidded to a stop. He straightened onto two legs and looked around, sniffing the air. Xeegan caught up and breathed in the air as well. There was the scent of burning building materials from areas the Alliance had already bombed, the metallic scent of the blood of the guards who had been killed, and…

  There. Kira’s scent was all around them. She had to be nearby, because her scent was strong enough in the area that there wasn’t a clear direction she could have gone in. But then, where was she?

  “Kira!” Xeegan roared into the empty cellblock.

  A second of silence passed, and Xeegan started to run to the nearest cells, looking inside. Maybe she was hurt, captured, or…

  “Xeegan!”

  The tightness in Xeegan’s chest started to loosen in relief. Her voice was coming from somewhere close. He jogged down the hallway with Zorq at his side, past the corpses of the pirates and Krezlians he had taken out earlier, and saw that Kira was down the hallway to his left.

  “I needed to check this hallway!” she called to them. “We’re all good, there are no more prisoners!”

  She gave Xeegan and Zorq a smile and started to run down the hallway toward them when a loud buzzing caught his attention. He looked up at the sound. A drone.

  An explosive drone.

  “Run!” Kira screamed, catching up to them. “We still have a minute,” she told him between breaths. “It’ll analyze the area first.”

  “You shouldn’t have gone back in here,” Xeegan admonished. He knew she wouldn’t care how much she had terrified him, but he couldn’t stop himself from telling her.

  Proving him right, she just ignored him and started to run. They all dashed around the corner and toward the cellblock exit. They were almost to the next corridor when Xeegan looked over his shoulder, his heart leaping in his chest.

  The drone had followed them.

  “Shit,” Kira said, taking just another moment to realize what Xeegan had seen. “Shit. Shit.”

  There wasn’t anything they could do except try to get out of the building before the damned drone made up its mind. Zorq led the way, falling to all fours. With her shorter legs, Kira started to fall behind and Xeegan turned toward her, about to grab her and carry her out once she reached him.

  But that’s when it happened.

  The drone flew past Kira and settled between them. A loud beeping sound emerged from it, quickening in frequency.

  It all took mere seconds.

  Xeegan saw a look of shock spread across Kira’s face when she realized the situation. Zorq grabbed Xeegan from behind, pulling him out of the cellblock and around the corner into the next corridor, just as a billowing cloud of orange, red, and white erupted in the hallway.

  Even around the corner, the pressure of the explosion hit Xeegan like a collision with a sharply tipped Ghelian speed racer. He lost consciousness for a split second. Everything was black as he awoke with a panicked start.

  Kira!

&
nbsp; His heart raced in his chest. She had been in the hallway with the drone. Where was she now?

  He blinked rapidly, his vision coming back to him in splotches against the darkness. The base of his horns ached from the fall to the ground and his skin prickled at the intense heat.

  Heat?

  The explosion replayed in his memory: the horrified look on Kira’s face, the detonation, her expression, the explosion, again, and again.

  It took him what seemed like an eternity, but Xeegan finally managed to scramble and push himself into a sitting position. Coughing as smoke filled his lungs, he reached up to use the wall next to him to pull himself to standing.

  Zorq whined quietly behind him, and as Xeegan turned to him, he could see that some of Zorq’s fur was burned. Long tongues of flame snaked toward them from the cellblock. As Xeegan peeked around the corner, all he saw was red and fire. Sheets of smooth metallic material had been blown off the walls of the cellblock and dotted the hallway, smoldering.

  Kira was nowhere in sight.

  No…

  Xeegan fell down to his knees on the floor, his chest constricting. A sudden sound from the cellblock caught his attention.

  “Xeegan!”

  Kira’s voice was weak and muffled, but Xeegan heard it all the same. His heart leaped at the sound. He pinpointed the location of her voice. It had come from a cell.

  “Kira!” he yelled back. “I hear you.”

  He ran up to the flames at the entrance of the cellblock – as close as he could before he started to smell the hair of his bangs start to singe.

  “Xeegan!” She screamed. Her voice was even more panicked this time. He had never heard her like this before. There was no veneer of professionalism, no “I can us get out of this” attitude in her tone. Her scream told him everything he needed to know: she was terrified for her life.

  “I’ll get you out of there!” Xeegan yelled through the flames. It didn’t matter if there was fire between them, or a hundred-foot chasm, or a troop of enemy soldiers… He was determined to save her and get her out of here, unharmed and, most importantly, alive.

  He glanced around the edges of the hallway, trying to find a gap in the wall of fire. The orange tongues of flame licked every surface.

  Kira whimpered from the other side of the explosion. “I’m stuck,” she said, her voice getting worryingly quiet. Even he could barely hear her over the crackling of the flames. “I locked myself in a cell to avoid the explosion, but I can’t get out now. The smoke… It’s coming in.”

  “Hold on!” Xeegan called, his heart starting to thunder in his chest as adrenaline built in his veins.

  Maybe he could take a piece of debris from the wall and hold it like a shield from the fire? He looked around desperately for the nearest slab of metal, found one sticking out from the flames and reached to grab it.

  He swore and let it fall from his hands, barely even getting a grip on the metal. His palms were stinging, already covered in red blisters against his gray skin. The material was hotter than anything he had ever touched before. He was tough – pain had taught him he was alive – but there was no way to keep a hold on something that would melt the skin off his hands. And if he couldn’t hold it, he couldn’t use it.

  Shit…

  Xeegan stared into the cellblock, falling down to his knees once again. There was simply no way to get through the wall of flames. He covered his face in his hands. He could feel his forehead and the back of his palms burning as the flames grew hotter.

  This was a nightmare.

  After how she had treated him so gently when he realized the Krezlians were behind all of this, after how she had welcomed him into her mission as a stranger, after the way she had kissed him, began to trust him… And there was still nothing he could do to save her now.

  “Xeee?”

  Xeegan dropped his hands from his face and looked beside him. Zorq had crawled to Xeegan’s side and looked at him with concern. The Ezak-T looked at the flames and back to Xeegan.

  “Kee… rah…?” Zorq asked, looking toward the thicket of flames. Kira’s sobs were somewhat audible through the roaring sound of the fire, but Xeegan wasn’t sure if he was just imagining it.

  “I can’t save her,” he said, his voice hoarse with emotion and as he nearly choked on the smoke from the melting industrial materials of the hallway.

  Zorq turned back to the fire and straightened to his impressive full height. He took a step toward the flames.

  “What are you doing?” Xeegan asked, panicked. “Stop! You can’t just walk into the flames! We’ll… We’ll get the Alliance, or…”

  He knew it was too late. By the time the Alliance got to her, she would no doubt have already suffocated in the small cell. His chest tightened at the thought and he could hardly breathe. What could he do?

  Zorq took another step toward the fire, the strands of fur on his face and the front of his arms and legs starting to burn. There were things his friend didn’t always understand about the world, Xeegan knew that. But he also knew that one of the things Zorq did understand was that fire burned.

  Still, he hovered by the edge of the flames. Zorq’s eyes met Xeegan’s, and there was a sadness in his gaze, a sheen of moisture gathering in his blood-red eyes. The way he looked at Xeegan now… It terrified him.

  It terrified him because he was pretty sure Zorq was saying “goodbye.”

  “No… Don’t…” Xeegan reached out to him. He couldn’t lose both Kira and Zorq. Not the only two people he had ever cared about.

  But his friend didn’t seem to listen. The Ezak-T took a deep inhale, staring at the approaching wall of flames with a determined expression. His muscles tensed as he readied himself to leap, and before Xeegan could stop him… He was gone. A wall of yellow and red flames closed after him.

  “No!” Xeegan bellowed, his thoughts going blank in horror.

  Not Zorq, too…

  He stared into the flames, feeling like his heart was going to simply break in two at any moment. The smell of charred plastic and burnt flesh was heavy in the air. He stared at the bright fire until the heat and light started to burn his eyes.

  Come back. Zorq… Kira…

  But it was impossible.

  They couldn’t come back.

  Xeegan barely had time to process what had just happened when the sound of footsteps emerged from behind him. He was barely conscious of the sound. Of anything.

  A hand suddenly touched his shoulder and he turned around. Two Alliance officials in giant fireproof suits stood behind him. His heart filled with hope, and he jumped up.

  “Through the flames,” he said. “Kira and Zorq – the Ezak-T.”

  One of the officials nodded, acknowledging she had heard him, and took out a scanning device. She pointed it toward the wall of fire.

  Why the hell wasn’t she just running toward the flames already?

  Her expression fell and she pressed a button on her helmet to activate the mouthpiece.

  “The temperature is too high,” she said sadly. “I’m sorry.”

  “Come on,” the other official said, reaching his arm out for Xeegan. “We need to get you out of here.”

  No.

  The useless Alliance was disappointing him all over again. It didn’t matter if was too hot. If it was impossible. There had to be a way…

  Xeegan took a step toward the flames, ignoring the burns forming on his skin. The smoke inhalation and heat made him woozy, but he wasn’t leaving here without Kira and Zorq. One of the Alliance agents grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away from the fire. He swayed on his feet, feeling dizzy.

  No…

  The next thing he knew, the two officials were doing their best to half-carry, half-drag him through the docking bay. His consciousness went in and out as they dragged him along and finally pulled him through the last doorway and out of the building.

  The temperature change of the cool outside air barely registered as Xeegan collapsed onto the sidewalk. A dea
fening explosion ripped through the building somewhere nearby and he was thrown onto the pavement between two Alliance vehicles. The Alliance officials in the fireproof suits fell into the crowd.

  Agents and prisoners gasped at their appearance. One of the rescued women started to cry loudly, but the rest of the group gathered outside the lab was dead silent. Shocked.

  A medic came up to him, but Xeegan waved her aside. He pushed himself off of the asphalt into a sitting position, leaning against the metal siding of the nearest vehicle. He stared blankly at the vehicle across from him. It was unmarked except for a small Alliance emblem right at his eye level: two curved lines that crossed over in the center.

  He shut his eyes. The design just made him think of Kira. And Kira made him think of…

  Nausea and dizziness overcame him and he gripped the ground on either side of him, spreading his fingers out to try to keep his balance. Two more medics came up to him, but Xeegan didn’t want their help. He couldn’t believe the devastation he felt as the reality of the situation hit him.

  Not only had he just lost the only female he had ever cared about, but Zorq. His teammate, his best friend, his brother who had never left his side since they had escaped their makers. Not for three cycles had they ever spent a day apart.

  Why?

  Why would Zorq sacrifice himself like that? Even if he knew how much Kira meant to Xeegan, how could he believe jumping into the flames after her would make any kind of a difference?

  Xeegan shut his eyes, unable to take in the world around him as his whole internal world came crashing down.

  “Look!” The nasal voice of the Ghelian agent cut through the hushed crowd and the medics buzzing around him. More scattered gasps came from the group outside.

  Xeegan’s heart started to beat faster. He stood up, ignoring whatever the medics had been attempting to do to him, and looked toward the lab – or what was left of it. More than two-thirds of the building had been reduced to smoking rubble, but coming out of that rubble was…

  His eyes widened and he took a step forward.

  How was this possible?