Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Killan
The house is silent as I slip outside. The wind shoves against me, and I quickly close my inner eyelids against the dust. My vision dims; the colors mute.
The ship’s hatch is open, and the gangplank is extended, but there are no signs of life. Still, I advance with caution.
Of the three women, Harlee is the tallest, and so it is her metal cutout I have chosen to be my shield.
Still, if I am attacked, I will need to hunch low to hide behind her.
And I cannot work out if it is better having the printed side facing me or facing away from me.
Facing me and it is as if Harlee is watching me, which is somewhat unnerving considering her eyes never blink and her smile never falters.
But facing away from me, it is as if I am tempting Atakis to shoot a female.
Then again, if he believes her to be the real Harlee, he might hold his fire, and so I turn the metal cutout until it is facing outwards, willing to use any tactics necessary to rescue my family.
I jog up the gangplank, checking left and right for movement but seeing nothing.
The hull is virtually empty. Whether that means Atakis delivered the algae harvest before returning with the intention of committing abduction…
I think not. More likely, he jettisoned the harvest, and the life-saving algae is drifting uselessly through space.
It is of little concern now.
I step from the cargo bay into the main body of the ship and hesitate.
This is the section I am unfamiliar with, having never needed to come this far inside.
The passageway is narrow enough that my shoulders brush both walls.
Ahead, at the far end, is a closed door, which I imagine leads to the cockpit.
If some of the crew have remained behind, it is in there they will probably be.
Regardless, I ignore it and instead focus my attention on the two other doors, which lead to… sleeping quarters?
This ship was never intended to carry slaves, which means there are limited places where captives can be kept. I approach the doors, but they do not automatically open, and I can see no handle or control panel which might give me access.
“Sorin?” I press an ear to the cold metal, hoping to hear signs of life. “Roan?”
“Killan!” It is Briar.
There are muffled footsteps, followed by what sounds like someone slamming their hands against the other side of the locked door.
“Is Harlee with you?”
“Yes. Sorin and Roan are here, too. But we can’t wake them up.”
“They are stunned,” I say, hoping I am making a correct assumption and not wanting to think about the other possibility. “How do I open the door?”
“I don’t know,” Briar wails. “Crocodile dude did something…looked at a screen or had his eye scanned. I don’t know.”
Scanned? I make closer inspection of the door and the surrounding wall. Akh, there is a section about half the size of my datapad set into the wall that is a slightly different texture. I jab it with a finger, hoping it is a touchscreen. It momentarily changes color, but the door remains closed.
Fek. I have not spent any amount of time learning about biolocks, never having needed to use one before.
“Give me a moment. I will—”
I cannot be sure why I turn. Mayhaps I heard something. Mayhaps the air pressure changed. Regardless, I duck behind my Harlee-shaped shield as I spin around. The cockpit door is opening, and Atakis fires a shot.
He laughs, a snapping sound.
“What the scudding fek, Atakis?” I demand, his humor feeding my anger.
He fires more shots, and they hit my metal shield ineffectively.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask, but as soon as the question has left my mouth I decide I do not scudding care. I ram forward before he can answer, raising the base of my shield until it is horizontal, and I slam it into him.
The narrow edge of the shield’s base hits his exoskeleton, and the impact jerks me back. I press into my heels, trying to keep my stance strong, and push harder. I can feel the metal threatening to bend, the makeshift shield fighting against Atakis’s protective covering.
He swears, dropping his gun in favor of pushing against the shield.
His two real eyes narrow. But it is his four fake eyes, which do not change, that almost convince me to stop my attack.
It is like looking at another cutout of a person, but then he snaps his jaw again, and I remember that this is the man who has put my family at risk. Who has threatened Lydia.
I shove harder, pushing with the last of my strength.
The shield bends at the center, collapsing in on itself, but not before the far edge cuts through Atakis’s exoskeleton.
He gives a grunt, a last strangled breath, and then he slowly slides down the wall, his neck devoid of strength and his head lolling lifelessly forward.
I stagger backward.
“Killan?” Briar’s voice is distant. “Killan, what’s happening?”
I grasp the shield and yank it from Atakis’s body. It comes away with a sickening sound, and I toss it aside, trying not to look too closely at the blood splattered over the floor.
“Killan!” Briar’s cry is demanding, her temper reminding me of Lydia. Lydia, who is still in the caves with three males, all trying to do her harm.
I grab Atakis by the shoulders and use my third hand to direct his head towards the smooth panel beside the door. It takes multiple attempts and much swearing, by both me and Briar, before the door slides open.
Her mouth drops open at the sight of me, and I quickly toss Atakis’s body away, not wanting any of us to have to see more than necessary.
“God, Killan,” Briar gasps. “You look like hell.”
“Harlee?” I demand. “My brothers?”
“Over here,” Harlee says, and Briar steps to the side, revealing the room behind her.
It is indeed sleeping quarters, with four hammock beds bolted to the walls and locked cabinets marked with individual names.
Harlee is kneeling on the ground beside an unconscious Roan and Sorin.
They look as if they are sleeping, their arms and legs arranged neatly, lovingly, by their Mates.
Blankets stripped off the hammocks are folded under their heads.
“They’re alive,” Harlee says.
I am probably doing a terrible job of disguising my fear.
“Good.” I want to check on them for myself, but—“Lydia needs me. Can you—”
“We can manage here,” Briar confirms before I am able to finish asking the question. She yanks another blanket from a hammock, rolls it into a ball and shoves it inside the doorframe so that, if the door was to automatically try to close, it would not succeed.
There are dark circles under Briar’s eyes and a bruise on her cheek, as if she fought against captivity and was struck across the face, but her shoulders are straight, and she meets my gaze with a reassuring nod. “Go!”
I rush from the Freighter and burst into my kitchen a moment later to find Lydia entering through the door from the forest cavern.
“Lydia.” I pull her into my arms, but she shoves against me, her face colorless and her breathing coming much too fast.
“W-we need—” She stutters erratically. “I th-think—”
“Briar and Harlee are well,” I tell her, hoping good news will help dissipate her rising panic. “Sorin and Roan, too.”
“I think one of the aliens drowned,” she says, the words falling quickly from her mouth. “They got all tangled in the net like we planned. The water isn’t even that deep, but the three of them were struggling so much that I think one drowned. I couldn’t see clearly.”
“And the other two?”
“They—” She licks dry lips, her sweat beading along her forehead. “They found their footing. They’re still tangled, but they’re standing up. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t get in the water to help—”
“No!” The thought is horrifying. “Briar has a bruise on her face where one of them struck her. And my brothers are unconscious.”
“Fuck.” Lydia releases a long exhale.
“These people were here to hurt us. We did what we had to, to save our family.”
“Yeah.” She nods shakily, then seems to steel herself, straightening her narrow shoulders. “Yeah, you’re right.”
And this time, when I wrap my arms around her, she tucks herself against my chest.