Chapter 9 Leena
LEENA
He moves before I understand why.
One second we’re crossing the dune, the next his hand is on me—harder than before, faster, no warning—and I’m pulled sideways, off my line and into his.
“Hey—”
The word barely leaves my mouth before he shifts again, turning me with him, repositioning me behind his shoulder so completely that I lose sight of everything ahead.
My heart leaps into my throat. Panic floods my brain, and I struggle without thought, needing to be free. He’s too strong. He can do anything. I can’t stop him.
“No! This isn’t—” He cuts my protest off with a hand over my mouth, muffling any sound I might make.
I struggle, staring at him, eyes wide, terror battering my thoughts. I’ve tried so hard to remain calm, logical, and to think things through, but this… this is final.
“Stay.”
The word cuts through everything. I stop. Not because I agree or the fear stops, but because something in the way he says it makes my body lock while my brain catches up. He moves, carrying me forward. Then sharply left.
Faster, without having to wait for me to keep up. This is far from the controlled pace with careful adjustments. This is something urgent.
He has me locked onto his side, rushing across the sand with an ease that belies his size and weight. His grip bites into me hard enough to hurt. He moves his hand off my mouth. I keep enough presence of mind to not scream.
“Stop,” I snap, breath hitching. “I can—”
He doesn’t let go, but his focus isn’t on me. It’s everywhere else—scanning, tracking, listening to something I still can’t hear.
He shifts direction and we drop off the side of the dune into a narrow cut between rock formations. I hadn’t noticed it from above. The sand is tighter, packed against stone, the space closing fast as he drives us deeper into it.
“Wait—what are you—”
He doesn’t answer. Of course he doesn’t. He keeps moving until the space narrows enough that the light cuts off. Shadows swallow us in a tight crevasse between two jagged rock faces. Then, abruptly, he stops. He sets me onto my own feet, but his attention is not on me.
“What is—”
His hand comes up, not over my mouth this time. Just there. A warning. I freeze.
My pulse is loud in my ears, my breath coming faster than I want. The sudden shift from movement to complete stillness is harder than it should be. Adrenaline chases at the edges of everything.
“What is it?” I whisper.
No answer. He’s completely still. Not just holding position. Locked. Every line of his body set, attention fixed on something beyond the narrow opening of the crevasse. I follow his gaze, but all I see is sand. The wind dragging thin lines across the surface. Nothing else.
“This is getting old,” I mutter under my breath, quieter this time. “You keep doing that—seeing things that aren’t—”
The sound cuts through the air, low and thin.
I go still because of that. It’s faint. Barely there. But having heard it, I can’t ignore it. That sound… it’s mechanical. My stomach drops. No. That’s not—
The sound comes again. A soft, mechanical hum that skims across the dunes, too controlled to be natural, too precise to belong to anything that lives on this planet.
Memory slams into place. Metal shadows. Fire falling from above. Invader ships cutting through the atmosphere like knives. Sweeping low over the sand. I swallow hard.
“No,” I breathe, shaking my head. “That’s not possible.”
We ended this. We—
The hum grows louder.
Instinctively I look toward the narrow slice of sky visible above the crevasse. Nothing yet, but I know it’s there. Somewhere. Moving. Searching. I look at him. He hasn’t moved. Hasn’t reacted to the sound the way I have. Which means he already knew.
“You knew,” I whisper.
His gaze flicks to me for a fraction of a second. Then back to the opening.
“Yes.”
My chest tightens.
“That’s not—” I shake my head, trying to push the memory back, trying to force logic into something that doesn’t make sense. “That’s not supposed to be here. We—”
The hum shifts closer. My words die in my throat. Because whatever we thought we ended is back. And this time it’s looking for him.
The hum sharpens, not louder, but closer.
It skims the air above the crevasse, a thin mechanical whisper that makes my skin tighten. I don’t move. I can’t even breathe properly. Because now I know what it means.
I’ve seen this before. Not this exact shape, but the pattern is the same. The way it searches. I edge a fraction closer to the opening before I can stop myself. His hand snaps out and catches my wrist.
“I need to see it,” I whisper.
“No.”
The answer is immediate. I tighten my jaw.
“I need to—”
The hum dips, changing to a lower pitch. And then it appears.
It glides into view above the dunes, sleek and narrow, its surface catching the light in sharp, controlled lines. Not bulky like the Zzlo ships or the ones that brought the Invaders. This is cleaner and more precise. It moves like it already knows where to look. My breath catches.
“That’s not—” I stop, swallowing hard. “That’s not anything I’ve seen before.”
No response, but he’s not looking at the shape. He’s watching the pattern. Tracking how it moves. Where it turns. What it chooses.
The drone slows, just enough to shift from movement to intent. My stomach drops.
“It found something,” I whisper.
His grip tightens a fraction, which I take as agreement. The drone tilts slightly, angling toward a stretch of open sand a short distance away.
At first I don’t see anything. Then movement as a guster crests the dune, cutting across it in an arc, fast and smooth. The drone pauses for a heartbeat, then a thin line of light snaps downward. No buildup. No warning. Just impact.
The sand erupts into the air. Not like a collapse. Not like a predator strike. This is controlled and focused. The guster doesn’t even screech before it’s gone. No struggle. No escape. Just… removed.
The sand settles and silence slams back into place. My pulse is pounding so hard I feel it in my throat.
“That—” My voice shakes before I can stop it. I swallow and try again. “That wasn’t a weapon.” Because weapons miss. Weapons allow for reaction. That was something else. “That was….”
I trail off because I don’t have words to define it. Cold crawls over my skin. My eyes burn, but I don’t blink. I have to see this. Have to know what happens next.
The drone hovers for a fraction of a second longer, then shifts and continues its sweep like nothing happened. Like it didn’t just erase something that should have been impossible to hit.
I tighten my fingers around him. I don’t even remember moving, but my hand is on his arm, gripping hard. Grounding or maybe making sure he’s still there. He doesn’t pull away. Doesn’t react beyond that same subtle shift I’ve felt before.
His focus doesn’t break. Still tracking. Still measuring. Still preparing.
The drone passes overhead. Close enough that I see the underside clearly. No markings. No insignia. Nothing that tells me who built it. Only having seen it do I know what it does and what it will do again. The hum fades as it moves on. Not gone, but farther away for now.
I don’t let go of him because now I understand something I didn’t before. This isn’t a possibility. This isn’t a theory. This is real. Whatever that thing is, it’s not just looking for him anymore. It’s hunting. It kills.
I don’t move right away and neither does he.
The crevasse holds the heat. The air is tight and still around us.
The space is too narrow to ignore how close we are.
Out there, the sand looks the same. Unbroken and empty, like nothing happened.
But I know better. I force myself to breathe slower, deeper, dragging control back where it belongs.
“That thing,” I say quietly, eyes still on the dunes. “It wasn’t searching randomly.”
“No.”
Flat. Certain. I nod once. Of course it wasn’t.
“It locked,” I continue. “Tracked. Selected.”
“Yes.”
The word carries more weight than ever because now I understand what it means. I shift my weight. The rock at my back grounding me in a way the sand can’t.
“We drove them off,” I say. “The Invaders. The ships. That’s what the bomb was for.”
Silence. I glance at him. He’s still watching the opening like the drone might turn around at any second.
“That was the end of it,” I press. “There shouldn’t be anything left to come back.”
“I was held.” The words cut across mine, simple and direct. I stop and look at him. He doesn’t turn. “I was held,” he repeats. “Above.”
The pieces click. Hard. Fast. Not just one group. Not just one invasion. Something else. Something watching from outside all of it. Waiting. Learning. My stomach tightens.
“They weren’t part of the war,” I say slowly. “They came after.”
“Yes.”
That means—
“They know about Tajss now,” I whisper.
“Yes.”
The certainty in that single word settles like weight on my chest and shoulders. This isn’t a possibility or a guess. This is a fact.
I finally pull my hand back from his arm. The space between us shifts, that subtle edge returning to him as soon as the contact breaks, but it’s different now. It’s not as sharp and immediate. As if something in him holds a fraction longer before resetting.
I notice and file it away because while I see it, bigger things demand my attention right now. Fears that I thought were done. I push off the rock, stepping forward enough to look out into the open again.
Nothing. No movement. No sign of the drone, but that doesn’t mean anything.
“They’ll come back,” I say.
“Yes.”
I exhale slowly.
“We can’t just keep running.”
His gaze flicks to me, then back out again. No argument. He’s waiting for me. The realization hits quiet, but solid. He’s not deciding this part.
I look out over the dunes. The empty space that isn’t empty anymore. The silence isn’t safe. My people will be looking, but that drone is looking too. And whatever is behind it is already here.
“We need somewhere they can’t see from above,” I say. “Not just dunes. Not open terrain.”
No response, but I feel his attention.
“There was a city,” I continue. “Ruins. Structures. Stone and metal. We were heading there.”
His focus sharpens. More than before. Interest.
“Cover,” he says.
I nod.
“Yes. Real cover. Not just sand.”
He blinks slowly, then he moves. Stepping past me and angling toward a new direction. I follow without hesitation. Because this isn’t about getting away from him anymore.
I take one last look at the sky before I turn. Empty. Quiet. Wrong. Then I move with him.
Because I know exactly what happens if I don’t.