Enslaved

by N. W. Harris

  When her slave persona was awake, Kelly felt like she competed for control of her body. Now, with the slave asleep, she sensed her connection to her muscles growing. Suddenly, she remembered the curved sword in her hand, swinging downward. The razor-sharp blade barely slowed on impact with Ethan’s neck. The hilt vibrated when the sword hit bone, separating the vertebrae. His head fell to the ground, sounding like a melon that fell out of the back of a truck. What if they made her return to the arena for an encore? What if they made her kill Jules?

  Damn it!

  She’d lost her focus on her body, recoiling from fear and the painful memories. She was jealous of her slave persona, who’d completely forgotten everything. How could she override the slave’s control of her body with her mind clouded?

  She tried to calm herself, remembering Nat’s voice, which always sounded like a delicate crystal bell to her. As she thought of her little sister’s smile, she extended her focus out into her limbs once more. She couldn’t give up. She’d keep trying until she regained control. The battle for her body was the only thing that mattered at the moment, and she had to forget everything else if she was to succeed.

  The narrow street concentrated the sound of weapons fire, making Shane’s ears ring. He swung his backpack around without lowering the barrel, retrieved another clip, and slammed it into his gun. The smell of spent gunpowder made his nose itch, and he could feel heat rising from his weapon. He and his friends slaughtered the skin-faces, and yet, they kept coming. Their minds were so unhinged that death didn’t deter them.

  More lucid than he cared to be, Shane couldn’t become jaded to killing. Though he couldn’t see their faces, he knew they were just kids hiding behind those horrendous masks. They were teens who might not harm a soul if it weren’t for the Anunnaki scrambling their brains. Each shot he fired found flesh, and a body dropped. Each death seemed to chisel away a piece of his soul, leaving cold darkness in its wake. He knew he’d remember every kill he made, that they’d all haunt him for the rest of his life.

  “I’m good,” Tracy growled from behind him. “Get out of my way and let me fight.”

  Her voice came like a shot of light through the darkness. He glanced over his shoulder and saw her pushing Dr. Blain aside. Tracy’s color hadn’t fully returned, but it wasn’t enough to keep her down.

  “You alright?” Shane asked.

  “Didn’t I say I was?” she snapped, sounding agitated by the question. “I was good before she shined her magic flashlight on me. You saps gonna stand here and fight these freaks all day, or are we going to get the hell out of here?”

  “Ever the badass,” Steve shouted, grinning.

  “Back down the street,” Shane ordered. “We have to create some space before we make a run for it.”

  His team obeyed, firing their weapons at the closest skin-faces and hopscotching around abandoned cars. When they had a twenty-yard buffer, Shane switched his weapon to fully automatic.

  “Go,” he shouted, pointing at an alley. “Through there.”

  Tracy led the charge toward safety. The skin-faces seemed to realize their prey was escaping. Their screams and howls swelled and became more fraught. They surged forward like ants, crawling over cars and the bodies of their fallen companions. Shane ran after Dr. Blain, bringing up the rear and making sure none of his team got left behind.

  The street narrowed and the echoing hammer of gunfire muffled the sound of the deranged screams, taking on a maddening rhythm. Shane aimed, pulled the trigger, and dodged cars all while keeping an eye on his team. The skin-faces barely slowed when the bullets hit them. One fell, and it looked like ten more stepped up to take their place.

  Shane entered the alley and raised his gun, smoke rising from the barrel.

  “Hold this line,” Jones yelled.

  The captain fixed a block of explosives onto the building to Shane’s left.

  Shane dropped to his knee and took aim at the street, praying he wouldn’t have to fire another shot. How many lives had they just taken? It made him sick to think of it. They had no choice, it was the skin-faces or his team, but it didn’t make it easier.

  “The charges are set,” Jones said, rushing past Shane.

  They ran through the alley, spilling out onto the street on the other side. Shane’s backpack felt light, and he could see that his friends’ packs looked flatter than they had when they left the hotel. They’d spent most of their ammunition. If they didn’t get away from the hoard soon, they’d be forced to fight hand to hand. Shane pivoted and raised his weapon. The skin-faces spilled into the alley.

  “Blow it now,” Shane ordered.

  Jones stood next to him, holding the clacker that would ignite the explosives. The corner of his lips turned up slightly, not quite a smile. Was he enjoying himself? The skin-faces spotted their prey and spilled over cars in a tidal wave to get to them.

  “Now,” Shane yelled, about to tear the trigger from Jones’ hands.

  The captain waited until the teens leading the mob ran between the gray packs of plastic explosives, and then he detonated the charges. His mind seeming to slow time, Shane perceived the blast expanding, little white-hot stars pushing a visible wave of air ahead of them. Then a storm of fractured masonry swallowed the alley. The deafening sound of the explosion and a shockwave hit Shane and Jones at the same time.

  Shane turned and shielded his face from the pebbles and grit that ricocheted out of the narrow space between the buildings. When he looked back, dust filled the alley. The upper parts of the ten-story buildings were gone, turned to a pile of rubble blocking the alley. Shane couldn’t see any skin-faces and was deaf from the blast.

  He looked over at Jones, who wore a satisfied expression on his face. Why had the alien waited? He could’ve set the charges off earlier and just blocked them on the other side. Shane was pissed—not all those kids needed to die. He balled his fist on his free hand, but he suppressed the urge to punch the captain. The blocked alley would only slow the skin-faces; there was no time for questions.

  Turning around, he ran across the street. “Through the next alley,” he shouted, barely able to hear his own voice over the ringing in his ears. “Before they find a way around.”

  Shane led the way, running through the alley and up the next street. He kept them going diagonally across the city, hoping they’d make their way around the skin-faces and still get to their destination without losing too much time. At the corner of the building by the next side street, he stopped and turned back to make sure his team was still behind him. Tracy jogged a few yards back, doing a good job at keeping up. Her skin still looked pale from the blood loss, and he knew he had to be careful not to push her too hard. She’d keep going, ignoring any pain or weakness until she dropped dead.

  Laura came next, followed by Dr. Blain and Lily. Steve, Maurice, and Jones ran behind them a half a block down, guarding the rear. When Shane glanced at Jones, a confusing mixture of emotions boiled in him. During training, he’d come to respect the alien, and had even grown to like him as a person. Thinking back to the hand-to-hand combat exercises and the brutal flag games the Americans and the other six teams had been subjected to, Jones had always seemed to derive some pleasure, however limited, from the suffering Shane and the forty-eight other teens he’d trained with endured. With the casual way he’d behaved after killing the Anunnaki female they’d captured and with how he’d just waited until he could inflict maximum casualties on the skin-faces in the alley before he set off the explosions, Jones seemed like he enjoyed the violence and death a bit too much.

  Shane turned and ran alongside Tracy, slowing the pace and keeping an eye on her to make sure she didn’t drop.

  “You all right?” he asked, knowing she’d never admit if she weren’t.

  “Yeah. Are you?” she replied, a forced grin on her face as she pushed ahead of him.

  “Take it easy there, rock star,” he said with a relieved chuckle.

 
They turned left again at the next street, and all was quiet. Slowing his team to a jog, he stayed on the two-lane road between buildings. He didn’t want to get too far off course, but he wasn’t going to slow down until he was certain they’d lost the deranged mob. His stomach was knotted from the battle, from nearly losing Tracy, and from Jones’ disturbing behavior.

  Lily had fought alongside his team, carrying a rifle and shooting the skin-faces who’d gotten too close, yet he hadn’t noted any pleasure on her face. Dr. Blain had always perplexed him, but she didn’t fire a shot during the conflict, seeming to be incapable of inflicting harm.

  Letting Tracy go ahead so they could pass between two cars with a narrow space between them, Shane reflected on the simulations of the Anunnaki ships. The aliens were slavers who traveled around the universe bullying every species they encountered. They had a coliseum in each of their ships so they could watch their prizes slaughter each other. Their lust was not only for conquest, but also for blood and violence. It seemed like it was a part of their nature that may not infect their entire population, hence Lily and Dr. Blain, but it obviously was a trait in enough people for them to decide killing billions of adults on Earth was a good idea.

  Jones had rebelled against that system. He’d made a conscious decision that the Anunnaki way of doing business was wrong. Perhaps he continued to battle something ingrained in his DNA, some demon that always pushed for control and was hungry to watch others suffer. Shane’s anger and confusion transformed into pity. This alien, this man who he’d come to respect, was not the even-keeled person Shane had thought he was. He had a dark side. Shane couldn’t allow that to be turned on the innocent teens whose minds were broken by the Anunnaki.

  After jogging for twenty minutes, he stopped his team. The ringing in his ears diminished, and sweat made his clothes stick to his skin.

  “Give me your weapons,” he said to Jones, immediately wishing he’d used more discretion and tricked the captain into surrendering his rifle and pistol.

  Jones looked at him, blinking his eyes several times.

  “You killed those kids in that alley for no reason,” Shane firmly said. “You could’ve blown the buildings and blocked them before they entered.”

  “What?” Jones sounded confused. He rested the barrel of his rifle over his shoulder as if he wasn’t planning on surrendering it any time soon. “I did what had to be done.”

  “You did too much,” Shane replied, casting Steve a glance that demanded his help.

  Steve looked as stunned by the request as Jones. He had been guarding the street beyond the alley, and Shane doubted he saw what took place. Steve stepped closer to the captain. Shane knew he’d obey his orders to disarm Jones, whether right or wrong.

  “What’s going on?” Lily asked, stepping in on the other side.

  Unlike Dr. Blain, who’d never seen combat, Lily appeared calm. Jones had talked about some of the rebel missions they carried out back on their home planet, and how the rebels had to lead normal lives, hiding amongst the enemy and attacking when the time was right. It must’ve taken nerves of steel to do what they’d done, and what happened since the Anunnaki had landed wasn’t enough to faze them. But at least Lily only seemed to fight out of necessity. She didn’t seem to enjoy killing like Jones.

  “He murdered the Anunnaki prisoner in cold blood,” Shane said. Emotion made his voice sound higher than it should. Jones had been in the teacher role long enough to make Shane nervous at the thought of challenging him.

  Lily and Jones looked at him, their expressions saying so what? Steve raised his brow as if to say he hoped Shane had more of a reason than that.

  “She didn’t need to die,” he said, focusing all of his attention on Jones and his rifle. “We should have kept her for interrogation.”

  “She had to be eliminated, Shane,” Jones growled. “I thought we’d discussed it. We wouldn’t have made it through that mess with her in tow.” He pointed in the direction from which they’d come. “And we couldn’t have learned anything more from her than we already know.”

  “Yeah,” Shane said, trying not to sound intimidated. “But then you blew up all those kids.”

  “Again, it had to be done,” the captain replied.

  Shane could see Jones’ grip was light on the rifle, and he didn’t appear to be worried about losing this argument.

  “You like killing a bit too much,” Shane continued, his voice growing steady. “I don’t give a damn about the prisoner you shot, but I’m not going to allow you to kill any more humans than necessary.”

  “I wouldn’t say I liked it.” Jones sounded insulted. His expression softened. “Look, Shane, if we are going to take back this planet and free your people, we’re going to have to do some pretty horrible things.” His tone became condescending. “I’m determined to do whatever it takes to defeat the Anunnaki and to free Earth. I’m not enjoying this—I’d rather it never happened. I want nothing more than to go back to the way things were before your parents died.”

  “I told you to blast the buildings before those kids were in the kill zone.” Shane narrowed his eyes. “You murdered them.”

  “I’m sorry you see it that way, but that was not murder,” Jones said with a warning in his growl. “I did that to protect us, to keep you and your friends alive.”

  Shane studied Jones’ face. Though he was physically much stronger than the alien was, Shane had seen Jones handle a gun. He was fast. Fast enough to whip the barrel around and shoot Shane and Steve if they tried to disarm him.

  Glancing at his big friend, he saw Steve had crossed his arms and his lips were pulled tight into a frown of concern. He appeared uncertain that Shane was doing the right thing. He didn’t feel like he overreacted, but no one else took his side.

  “We kill as few of the kids as possible,” Shane said. “Is that clear?”

  “It’s been that way from the start,” Jones growled.

  Shane stared at him a moment longer, conveying he wouldn’t back down the next time. He turned and headed up the street, Jones and the rest falling in behind him. He hoped he’d made his point. If the crazies attacked them again, they were all better off with Jones having his guns. However, if the captain killed another human without good reason, Shane would disarm him—by himself if he had to.

  “Unimog, two o’clock,” Tracy said, pointing at a beefy green military transport with two tires in the drainage ditch. She and everyone else in his squad were drenched in sweat, and they’d slowed to a jog.

  “That should make it around this mess,” Shane said, dropping off to a walk. “If we can get it out of the ditch.”

  The truck leaned at a forty-degree angle in the drainage trench running alongside the road, and Shane expected the right side of it might be dug into the bank. It reminded him of the rainy night when they had to pull the school bus out of the freeway median south of Leeville. The chain had snapped, shearing Matt’s leg off and ultimately leading to his death. Not much time had passed since that horrible night, but it seemed like years ago to Shane.

  It was late morning, and they’d made it to the outskirts of the city, following a road running between two fields with wilted vegetables dying in them. Abandoned vehicles littered the pothole-ridden asphalt, but it was clear enough to drive on with a truck that could go off road to get around the spots with wreckage.

  “You don’t know much about Unimogs,” Tracy replied. She slowed next to him and put her hands on her hips, still breathing hard. “Hence, I’ll be driving.”

  “Damn it.” Shane feigned disappointment. Having come so close to losing her, he was thrilled to see her back to her cocky old self.

  “You know she damn sure ain’t letting anyone else drive.” Steve chuckled, stepping on the other side of Shane and looking around the perimeter of the fields as if he expected more crazies to spill out of the city or farmhouses and come after them.

  Random gunshots sounded in the distance, the deranged t
eens staying in Cairo where they could focus their attention on destroying each other. With each passing hour, his concern that there would be no one left to save increased. In the time it would take to get back to the hidden base and retaliate against the Anunnaki, the unhinged children might wipe themselves out. There was nothing that could be done for it. Shane’s only option was to push forward and focus on trying to save Kelly, Nat, and the others. There was a whole base filled with children back home, and Shane had learned the rebels had given earbuds to a small army of other teenagers scattered across the globe. He began to realize those lucky few chosen by the rebels were the only ones who had a chance at surviving.

  “I’ll get it out of the ditch,” Shane said, trying not to let the dismal thoughts distract him. “You don’t need to be hanging sideways in that thing with what you’ve just been through.”

  “What?” Tracy protested.

  Despite her halfhearted objection, she didn’t stop him when he walked to the vehicle ahead of her. Climbing up, he stood with one foot on the tire and one on the fuel tank. Bracing himself to see a corpse crumpled in the cab, he lifted the door open and was grateful to find the vehicle abandoned. He slipped into the driver seat and belted himself in so he could reach the controls without falling onto the passenger side. The old diesel wouldn’t start at first, but Shane found some ether under the seat and had Steve spray it into the intake.

  When it rumbled to life, everyone, with the exception of Jones and Laura, gave a little cheer. Laura stood off to the side of the group, leaning on her gun and looking more solemn than she had since his first chat with her outside the Leeville High Gym. Although she’d always dressed Goth and one would expect she was a downer, he’d come to see that she had a caring spirit once he got to know her. She was really good with the children, and he’d wondered why Jones and Lily wanted her on his team instead of back at the base taking care of the kids. That was, until he saw her in the fight. She was as fierce as any of them, and he didn’t think his team would have succeeded in the attack on the Anunnaki ship without her.