Chapter 5
Chapter Five
My eyes flew open when Xelthar’s voice cut off and his hands released me.
I should’ve felt relieved. Instead, my body hummed with the aftershock, slow to catch up to my panic.
Xelthar’s calm was the giveaway that he hadn’t been helpless.
He’d been patient. Before I could push him away from my heated body, I saw that I didn’t need to.
Cair stood over the moaning Brakian, now kneeling on the floor at our feet.
I didn’t need to understand much about Elkathan body language to read the simmering anger.
“I will deal with you later,” Cair said in a flat voice.
My anger flashed to match his. “Deal with me? Fuck you. I just want to go home.” I lifted my hand, intending to step past the kneeling Xelthar and poke Cair in the chest.
Instead, I flailed backwards onto my ass.
Xelthar had popped up from the floor, not as discombobulated as I’d believed from his dramatic moaning. His motion propelled me back, and by the time I’d scrambled up to standing again, the two aliens were brawling.
Instinctively, I stepped even further away from the thrashing arms and legs of the huge aliens.
Xelthar wrapped his long arms around Cair and, with a mighty bellow, pushed forward, seeming in an attempt to knock Cair off his feet.
My stomach lurched; I wasn’t used to seeing strength like this up close.
The floor shuddered under the force, a low metallic groan traveling up my calves like the ship itself was bracing, felt rather than heard.
Cair, paradoxically, moved toward his attacker, further into the bear hug.
With a deep grunt, he swung his head back and then cracked his forehead into Xelthar’s nose.
A deep blue-hued blood poured out. I froze, caught between fascination and horror at the color.
Alien, yes, but still unnerving. The impact rang through the cramped space—wet and solid—and I flinched.
Blue blood didn’t make it less deadly; it only made the violence look unreal for half a second before my brain caught up.
Xelthar dropped his hands from around Cair’s midsection and, in a flash, wrapped them around Cair’s neck. The muscles under Xelthar’s black mesh shirt popped with the exertion of strangling another person. My throat went dry. This wasn’t a fight anyone could watch casually.
Cair’s breath turned ragged, a harsh rasp that scraped at my nerves, and Xelthar’s exhale was controlled, like he could do this all day. I took one instinctive step back, eyes flicking to the door I hadn’t figured out how to open.
Cair widened his stance, pressed his palms together at his chest, as if praying, then shot his hands upward between Xelthar’s arms, dislodging the literal stranglehold Xelthar had on him.
The release happened fast—one blink and the hold was broken—and the floor seemingly trembled again as their shoes scraped for traction.
I realized I’d been holding my own breath, frozen in place, waiting for the next impact like it was already on its way.
A fleeting relief surged through me. There was no telling who would dominate next.
The pair circled each other in the small space. I mirrored their circling, scrutinizing the bridge once more.
The air carried that strange weight again, and I couldn’t help wondering if it was a pheromone of some kind. If so, it wasn’t an aphrodisiac. The budding excitement from before had drained away entirely in the face of the grappling aliens.
I didn’t know who to root for. Cair kidnapped me from Earth, but that seemed to be a wrong-place-wrong-time type of miscommunication.
Xelthar promised to return me to Earth, but brought the ship here—wherever here was—instead.
And I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was always choosing the route that benefited him.
At this point, Cair seemed the one who could get me home the swiftest if I just completed his interrogation.
Or maybe afterward was the lie people told right before they stopped being useful.
My chest tightened. Every time I tried to help, tried to be the good person, it was like the universe took it as permission to hand me another problem.
On Earth, the rule was simple: don’t get involved.
Out here, survival had a different rule: pick the least deadly option and move.
Except I didn’t know how to help either one of them.
My now-completed second scan of the bridge hadn’t revealed anything of use in a fight.
And clearly (thankfully), neither of the aliens seemed to have a weapon on him.
I wondered if there was a weapon elsewhere on the ship.
My circling had brought me closer to the room’s door.
If I slipped through the door and vanished into the ship, I’d be alone in a maze with two aliens who seemed like they could track me down whenever they felt like it.
Would it be worth trying to escape? Maybe there was an escape pod on this vessel. Didn’t most spaceships in Earth’s entertainment have escape pods?
Xelthar uttered a hair-raising series of growls and yips, distracting me. The Brakian threw himself at Cair, who opened his arms wide to receive the assault. Cair then put a foot between the aggressor’s legs.
Was Cair trying to trip Xelthar?
My brain clicked into place like I’d finally found the right slot. One simple, human-sized advantage: leverage. For the first time since I’d been dragged off Earth, I felt useful. Smart. Almost brave.
Having identified my opportunity to help, I darted forward. My plan was to wind up behind Xelthar, acting like a fulcrum, so that when Cair shoved him backward, the Brakian would tumble across my bent-over figure.
I maneuvered into position, turning my head away as I bent at the waist. A body slammed into mine, and I hit the floor with a grunt. My shoulder screamed from the impact and pain blossomed in my jaw from my teeth clicking together. But it was worth it.
I was so pleased with myself.
Until I realized that I’d just inserted myself into a fight where half a second was an eternity.
Until I saw who was tangled up with me on the floor.
The road to Hell really was paved with good intentions.
As I’d scrambled behind him, Xelthar had spun out of Cair’s trap, reversing their locations on the bridge. I hadn’t tripped the Brakian. I’d tripped my only chance at getting home.
Cair’s murderous glare confirmed I’d fucked up.
I opened my mouth to explain.
The bridge tilted down.
I swung my gaze toward Xelthar, standing at the control panel.
Xelthar winked at Cair and me as we clambered up from the floor, struggling to maintain balance given the sharp pitch of the ship.
“What have you done?” I asked at the same time Xelthar offered us a wolf-like grin.
He held up the metal disc. “Thank you for this.”
Cair rushed the Brakian, who teleported off the bridge as Cair’s arms swallowed the empty space.
“Where did he go?” I asked.
Cair gifted me a look reserved for the supremely stupid and focused on the control panel.
A glance out the window startled me. Purple clouds and zig-zagging lightning flew by. The angle of the ship’s descent steepened.
“Wait.” Everything crystallized. “Are we crashing?”
Cair’s fingers flew over the controls on the console. I watched the lights change—pretty blues, greens, and yellows that mesmerized. Yes, I knew I was in major denial.
The ship’s vibrations intensified. The air took on a sharp, metallic bite—ozone and hot wiring—and the console lights began to flicker out of sync, like the ship couldn’t decide which reality to commit to. A sick feeling swamped me.
Was I going to die? Not in some dramatic blaze, not with meaning, but just slammed into a planet I couldn’t name.
A stupid, bright flash of Earth hit me anyway: Andrea’s laugh on a hiking trail, the smell of pine and sunscreen, my phone in my pocket like the world was always reachable.
I swallowed hard and couldn’t tell if the wetness in my eyes was fear or pure, furious disbelief.
“We’ve entered the planet’s lower atmosphere. Time to prepare.”
I snapped my gaze back to Cair at his shouted information and directive, then swung my head around the small bridge.
“How?” The question squeaked out of me. Panic clawed at my chest, my body seizing with the ship’s sharp tilt.
Instinct took over before he could answer: I stepped to the console, sank to the floor, and braced myself against the cool metal.
Not exactly heroic, but it was the best plan I could scrounge up under the circumstances.
Cair pressed a few more buttons on the control panel.
The ship’s descent and tilt felt less vomit-inducing; this was somehow worse, like the ship was lulling me right before it broke.
He closed the slight distance between us and stood over me, his hands planted on the control panel, knees bent.
Loose, but ready to absorb the impact, I guessed.
His chivalry in protecting me was surprising.
The ship bounced around like a rowboat in a hurricane.
A scream stuck in my throat. My body rose and slammed hard on the metal floor, sending waves of pain through my tailbone.
I pushed my back tighter against the bottom of the control panel’s console.
With my arms wrapped around my bent legs, I moved my bare feet further apart, trying to anchor better to the floor.
The futility of it hit me. We were almost certainly going to die in this crash.
If I were a religious person, now was the time to pray. Unfortunately, I wasn’t.
Any further unhelpful thoughts spiraling through my brain cut off.
A high-pitched whine flooded the bridge, climbing higher and higher, until it felt like it was inside my skull.
“Brace for impact!”
I closed my eyes, dropping my head between my knees.
The sound of wrenching metal tore through the bridge.
A moment of disorienting weightlessness as I lifted off the floor.
My body crashed back down as the ship lowered again.
More sounds of wrenching metal filled the small space.
Were we bouncing on the surface of the planet?
Another bounce threw me into Cair’s legs, and we rolled across the bridge.
I clung to his massive body, my lifeline through panic and fear.
Vomit threatened as we rose and slammed onto the floor a final time before, in a jarring stop, the forward momentum of the ship ceased.
Except I kept moving, unable to stay attached to Cair like the barnacle I tried to be.
I tumbled the final feet to the far side of the bridge.
My head struck metal, and the world went black.