“Arrrrrrrghhhhh!” Draven screams, slumping to the ground.
“No!” I shout.
With Eileen bawling madly, I scramble on the ground to where Draven fell, finding him in a silent heap a few feet away. “Please please please please.”
Draven coughs and sits up. “Get behind me,” he orders before bringing his gun up again. To the person—or whatever it is—behind the door, he says, “Come out! Slowly.”
“Is that you, Phalix? I’ve been looking for you.”
Phalix?
Draven shoots to his feet so fast it’s as though one second he’s sitting and the next, he’s standing. A man steps down from the vehicle, one who looks like a mort, like Draven when he’s in the throes of madness, but worse. So, so much worse.
No outer gear. No mask. Just walking about freely, breathing the air like it’s not going to kill him at any second.
“Phalix?” Draven says, the tip of the gun dipping. Then realization dawns. “Lox? You crazy mortarekker. What the rekk do you think you’re doing? How have you survived since you left Sector 1779? And without your zu-gear or rebreather?”
Sector 1779. Where Emery and Calix had encountered that mad mort who’d killed Calix’s father. The mad mort who was now holding a gun at the both of us. When Draven told me about what happened with them, I’d been horrified.
“Never mind that,” Lox says. “The two of you will take me to the facility.”
“You’re not going anywhere near the facility,” Draven growls. “Calix told us what you did. That you tried to kill him and his mate. Stay where you are. If you come any closer, I’ll blast your rekking nog off without another thought. But if you come quietly, I will speak with Breccan to figure out what we can do with you, so no one has to get hurt.”
“You think I care about Breccan? He’s just as bad as Phalix, leaving me on this planet to rot. You don’t give me orders, you do what I say. Or like I did with Calix, I’ll take your pretty little alien mate and leave you for the sabrevipes.” He motions toward us with his gun. “Now you’ll give me the female. She can ride with me while you and the rogcow lead the way to the facility.”
I see the internal struggle on Draven’s face. “It’s fine,” I tell him. “I’ll go with him.”
“The rekk you will,” Draven growls. Crack crack crack. The sub-bones in his neck begin to straighten, and his ears squash against his head.
“We have to get back to the mortling,” I insist, passing Draven Eileen’s lead. I take a step closer to Lox and the vehicle. The only way we’ll get out of this is for me to take myself out of the equation. Draven and the rogcow are the most important things. “I can take care of myself.”
“Enough,” Lox shouts. He snatches me by the arm, and I let him pull me to his side. “She’s coming with me whether you like it or not.”
“No,” comes a new voice, “she’s not.”
Then all hell breaks loose.
Lox grips my arms and positions me in front of him. Two figures emerge from the shadows, and my bones turn to jelly when I recognize Calix and Emery from the other’s descriptions. Emery’s about the size of Eileen, not that I’d tell her that. What the hell was Calix thinking, dragging her out here?
“Calix,” Lox says as though greeting an old friend. “I thought I left you for dead.”
“You wish, old mort,” Calix replies. “Let her go, or we’ll make you let her go. You tried this once already, and you failed. You’ll fail again because our mates are our family, and no one, not even you, will harm them.”
“I was your family!” Lox shouts. “And you left me for dead.”
“We would have rescued you, but you’ve spent too much time on your own. You’ve lost what little sense you had, if any. Let’s work this out, so no one has to get hurt. There are morts counting on us.” Draven takes tentative steps closer.
Lox raises his gun threateningly. “No. You think I care about you when you’ve shown me such disregard?”
Then Eileen is running, but not away from us. She charges toward Lox, who is still shouting, not realizing the rogcow is aiming straight for him. She headbutts him directly in the stomach, causing him to fall in the ground. Her powerful hooves—all freaking eight of them—trample over his emaciated body. I close my eyes at the sound of bones snapping.
When it’s over, I crack my eyelids and find Eileen at the rear of the vehicle, inching her way back toward me, her one red eye blinking solemnly. I lift a hand and say, “Shh, girl. It’s okay. Come here, sweet, brave girl, I’ve got you.”
Calix and Draven crouch over Lox’s still body. Blood leaks from the corner of his mouth, his eyes still wide-open, looking at the sky.