Chapter 35
My hands were shaking as I gently stuffed Sal into the wrap hanging from my chest and turned to face the humans clustered together on the roof.
The turoch camp had felt so safe, just an hour ago.
We were in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by countless huge, friendly alien males, there was food and company. ..
That sense of safety had shattered the moment Tovis had caught sight of the sytos. Yet another bubble popped. But this time, it didn’t feel like my world ended and I was lost in a new reality. I had people here, that safety I craved had to be earned, but it wasn’t a pipe dream.
Taz crouched over a large cardboard box, her eyebrows lowered as she turned one of her lip rings with her teeth and sorted through narrow boxes of ammo.
There was a dozen guns laid out around her, and she was stacking ammo beside each gun.
Penny’s father and brother squatted down and started helping.
Amy was propped up on her cushion, a baby cradled in each arm as she looked over the edge of the roof and an elderly woman sat beside her, fussing with her blankets.
It was the first time I’d seen all the humans in one place. With my back to the camp, I could almost imagine aliens didn’t exist. But that was a world where I didn’t have Tovis, so I turned around and shielded my eyes as I searched the crowd of red males for my mate.
I found him standing at the edge of camp, bulky horns tilted back as he looked back at me. I smiled and waved once, and he lifted his fist in reply.
“Quit mooning over your man and grab a gun,” Taz called. I dragged my eyes off Tovis and made my way to her post in the center of all the guns.
“I don’t know how to shoot,” I said hesitantly.
She quirked a brow. “Point and pull the trigger, preferably at the bad guys. Hope and I have been practicing, so we’ll try and pick off sytos that aren’t near our guys.
Kyle and Troy are pretty solid shots, so they’ll do the same.
Everyone else?” she looked around the roof.
“Shoot if they come up here, but don’t risk missing and hitting someone important. ”
Penny’s dad, Troy picked up a gun and nodded. “Friendly fire isn’t helping anyone. If you have to shoot an alien, don’t panic, don’t jerk the trigger, just breathe and squeeze.”
“Breathe and squeeze,” I repeated, patting Sal’s round back through the wrap and trying to convince myself I could handle this.
Troy cast a long look at Amy, his weathered face creasing with worry before he hid the expression. “Little Mama, you just sit and keep those babies happy. We’ve got you.”
Amy managed a wan smile, her eyes watering as she looked between the twins and took a shaky breath.
Taz grabbed two guns and passed one to Hope, who finished tying her long hair back and accepted the weapon.
“Troy, can you show Jessa the basics?” Taz asked, her eyes narrowed on the approaching mass of sytos. They were getting close, close enough I could tell that the Kwin had at least doubled her numbers since we’d escaped.
Troy eyed the remaining guns and picked up a long black rifle and a curved magazine? Clip? I had no idea. The closest to gun I’d ever been was now and the one time I shot tin targets with a pellet gun at the fair. When I was twelve.
Penny’s dad fiddled with the gun and beckoned to me, and I minced past the sprawl of weapons.
“Keep it tucked tight into your shoulder,” he told me, his voice gentle despite the rising war chant coming from the turochs below. Dozens of huge males bellowed in unison, the sound rose from the camp like a wave, rhythmic and primal.
I shivered at the intensity in their voices. I trusted Tovis, trusted that they could handle the fight. I didn’t like that it was happening or that Tovis was going into battle, but I couldn’t help but think that the sytos had to be insane to hear that chant and keep coming.
Troy handed me the gun and I put it to my shoulder like he told me.
“Finger off the trigger until you’re ready to shoot,” he said, acting like this was all target practice and he couldn’t hear the reverberating stomps joining the chanting below. I blinked hard, trying to absorb every word he said.
“This right here is the safety,” he continued, moving my finger to a small button. “It’s on right now, the gun can’t fire. Press that before you pull the trigger and don’t point this at anyone you want alive.”
“Don’t point at people, safety,” I nodded, so utterly out of my depth I could feel my fingertips going numb. Sal honked, protesting the bulk of the gun encroaching on his space.
“This gun has thirty shots, okay?” he prompted gently.
“Uhuh,” I managed. Thirty shots. I hoped I didn’t use one of them. But I would, if it was me or the sytos, Tovis or the enemy.
“You have to squeeze the trigger for every shot,” he continued. “Remember that. Squeeze. One shot.”
Squeeze, one shot.
I could do this. I could handle this.
“Here.” He led me to the center of the roof and positioned me so I was facing the steps we’d walked up a few minutes ago.
“Don’t shoot anything unless it pokes its head up onto this roof.
Make sure it’s blue, not red.” He hesitated.
“Make sure it’s not Gigi or Uriish or Jiith, too.
Just stay calm, and don’t shoot unless you see a blue face you don’t know. ”
“Stay calm, blue, squeeze,” I repeated.
“You’ve got this, girl.” He patted my back and grabbed his own gun, moving to lay on the roof, looking over the edge.
I didn’t have to guess when the fight started, even out of sight, the initial contact was audible.
The rhythmic war chant dissolved into a tangle of angry roars, screams of pain and shocking percussions that had to be the stunners.
I remembered seeing one of the human men who’d attacked the strip club, body crumpling midair like he’d been hit by an invisible car, and swallowed hard.
A shot rang out, cracking over the melee below, then another and another. I flinched with each one, keeping my eyes fixed on the top of the steps. Picking off sytos from the roof was outside of my abilities, but I could guard the backs of those that could.
“Got one,” Kyle said.
“Don’t get cocky,” his dad snapped. “That was fucking close to our guys.”
“Right.”
Conversation ceased as shot after shot rang out, the fight on the ground reaching a fever pitch.
“Fuck yeah, gett’em, babe,” Taz crowed. I risked a look at the shooters plastered to the roof.
Hope and Taz laid side by side, their rifles tracking the sytos below as they took shots.
Troy was nearly melded with his gun, utterly motionless except for the flicker of recoil he absorbed with every shot.
Kyle stood at the corner of the roof farthest from me, rifle tucked into his shoulder as he watched the fight. He moved his gun in a slow, smooth line and I spotted a blue form lifting a shock stick before Kyle shot. The syto fell backwards, body spasming.
I stared at the dying syto, the only part of the battle I could see from the middle of the roof.
It was awful. After escaping with Jiith, meeting Gigi, I couldn’t just see an enemy.
That was a person, so lost he'd marched all the way to a camp full of turochs at the word of an evil female who’d kill him for entertainment if she got bored.
Maybe he deserved it, but maybe he was like the other sytos who’d joined the turochs, just one decision away from ally.
But the middle of the battle wasn’t the place to be appealing to better natures.
The rusted metal railing attached to the side of the building shook and I heard that short popping percussion I’d come to recognize as the sytos weapons. There was a grunt from below and then a thud.
My fingers clenched around the black metal of the gun as I heard steps pounding closer. They were coming.
I knew I should call out and warn the others, but I stood frozen, one finger sliding over the tiny bump of the safety that Troy had shown me. I pressed it and a blue head rose above the edge of the roof.
Not Jiith, not Gigi, not Uriish. The world seemed to slow as big dark eyes scanned the roof, skipping over everyone else, their attention on the fight and not the stairs. The stairs I was supposed to be guarding.
The syto looked nearly identical to Gigi and Jiith, but he was dressed in a grey uniform, not a loincloth, and he clutched a stunner in his hands. His eyes locked onto me, and I felt my lungs spasm as my finger slid over the trigger.
He raised the stunner.
Breathe. I reminded myself. Squeeze.
I pulled the trigger. The gun kicked back into my shoulder and I staggered, my ears ringing at the shot. The syto stared back at me in shock, red blooming over the middle of his grey uniform as he dropped his weapon, wavered back a step and fell backwards down the stairs.
“Holy fucking shit!” Taz yelled, her voice muffled by the ringing in my ears.
I let the gun slide down my front, and it caught on Sal’s wrap. The baby percer honked in fear and tumbled off my chest, leaving a trickle of pee on my shirt as he bolted for the stairs.
The shock of what had just happened vanished as quickly as it came as I dropped the gun and ran after him.
“Jessa!” Someone called after me. I knew it was stupid, but I couldn’t risk Sal falling off the roof and hurting himself. I’d shot the syto, as long as I caught Sal on the steps, we’d be safe.
I grabbed the railing and swung onto the steps, coming face to face with another syto.
His tentacles flared with surprise as I crashed into him, and we tumbled down the steps together.
My body slammed into the ground and the air burst from my lungs.
I gasped in pain, desperately trying to suck in a breath as blue hands descended on me and I was surrounded by sytos.
The one I’d shot lay in a boneless heap on the ground, blood pooling beneath him. A red body was sprawled under the stairs. Tine, the turoch who’d been guarding us.
My chest finally expanded and I inhaled, letting out a scream as two of the sytos grabbed me by my arms and started hauling me away from the building.
“Jessa!” I looked up and saw everyone watching in horror. Kyle lifted his gun and Troy grabbed the muzzle.
“Don’t shoot,” he ordered, “you might hit her.”
My heels dragged in the dirt as the sytos ran with me. I couldn’t see Sal anywhere and I hoped he hadn’t been hurt. But right now, I had to worry about myself.