Chapter 24
Amina
It was easy to ignore her fatigue after the dose of ever-awake she’d consumed on the way down to the planet.
Moving through the tall bushes reminded her a little of exploring the grasslands back home when she was a kid.
She’d had fun with her cousins during their annual camping trip.
They’d pretend they were explorers and record everything they saw like it was an unknown species.
“Amina, stop,” Myrum whispered, tugging at her hand. She let him pull her down into a crouched position.
It took her a moment, but then she saw a small, furred creature with six spindly legs, giant eyes, and tiny, twitching ears rip apart a bundle of leaves to find the seeds inside. Bugs swarmed as soon as the seeds were revealed.
“Oh, they’re so cute!” she whispered.
Instead of ignoring the bugs, the rodent dropped the seeds, caught the bugs and shoved them in its mouth. When it was done eating the bugs, it gathered up the seeds and tucked them in a hidden pouch in its chest.
It was then that the adorable creature noticed them and scurried off.
“I can’t believe you noticed that little guy before we spooked it,” Amina said as they both stood back up.
“I’ll find more!” Myrum said. He grabbed hold of her hand again and led them further along the path at a fast pace. His head was on a swivel, looking everywhere.
“Hey, this isn’t a mission,” Amina said, tugging at him to stop.
He sounded a questioning rumble. “What?”
“We aren’t on assignment right now,” she said. “If we find something cute, great. If we don’t, then I don’t care.”
“But you want to see more of the small animals,” he argued. “I want to give you everything you want.”
She drew him around to face her. “I’m not a mission either.”
He seemed to struggle with that statement for a moment. “I don’t know how to live my life without a set goal.”
“Really? What about when you were recovering?” she asked.
He seemed to consider that for a moment. “I had a goal, to get stronger. Each day I’d try to be better. First it was simply moving my body. Then it was trying to cope with my broken brain.”
Amina nodded. “Those are all good goals, but you don’t have to do that with me. Let’s work on a partnership today. When Lorse gets back we’ll have to play our parts again, so we should spend this time relaxing together."
“What if serving you is relaxing for me?” Myrum asked. “Making you happy makes me joyous.”
“I have no idea how to answer that,” Amina admitted, throwing up her arms. “I was going to give you some big speech about learning to enjoy life, but who am I to argue with what makes you happy?”
“I’ve found something else that makes me happy,” he said.
She tilted her head. “Oh? What’s that?”
“When you agree with me.”
She barked out a laugh. “Don’t get used to it.”
His steps were light as they continued down the path. It occurred to her that he was probably relieved to be in a wide open space with skies above his head instead of surrounded by metal plating.
Something streaked across the path in front of them. They went still, and three more smaller bodies followed.
“Oh, I think those were babies!” Amina said.
“I agree,” Myrum said. “We could follow them off the path. I’m not the best tracker, but they have a distinct scent. I should be able to lead us to their den or nest.”
She went still, interested. “You can track things by scent?”
Myrum sounded a rumble of agreement even as he kept his attention on where the little creatures had disappeared. “Yes. This place mostly smells of plant material, so tracking something like those rodents shouldn’t be hard.”
“Um, what about, uh, tracking something bigger?”
He sounded a questioning rumble. “What do you mean bigger? Gis said there aren’t any larger animals than those little ones we saw. What else would I track?”
“Me?”
His gaze snapped to hers. “You want me to track you?”
The intensity of his eyes made her feel hot all over. “Maybe?”
A low, ticking growl rolled out of him. “Yes.”
She swallowed hard. Was she making a mistake? “Okay, uh, how do we do this?”
He bared his teeth and leaned over to put his face close to hers. “Run.”
With an eep, she sprinted off. She was wearing her normal work boots, which were perfect for ship duties but felt heavy and awkward here. At least she’d left her robe behind. That would've made running even harder.
Myrum sounded a loud rattle with a long beat between rattles. Then he sounded it again without as many beats.
He was counting down.
Excitement and anticipation made her body shiver even as she ran.
There was a decline she didn’t see until she was there.
She let out a surprised gasp and scrambled to keep her balance.
Once she was at the bottom of the slope, she realized this was a creek bed.
There wasn’t much water running at the bottom now, but it must’ve raged at some point, carving out this path.
Water helped cover scent, right? She thought she might’ve read that somewhere.
Splashing into the water, she walked downstream for a little while, the rattles echoing loudly as a constant reminder that Myrum would be coming after her soon.
Leaving the stream, she climbed up the embankment and noticed the easily visible wet bootprints she was leaving. Right, if she kept going, it would be easy for Myrum to find her without even needing to sniff her out.
She finished climbing up and looked around, trying to think of a way to cover her tracks. There was thick ground cover right next to the river. It didn’t leave any indication of her passage. Perfect!
She took a few strides onto it then stopped. Wait, wouldn’t it be even better if she could leave a false trail?
Walking backward, she took care to place her boots back into each earlier footstep back down the embankment and all the way into the water. Once she was back in the flowing creek, she turned around and ran upstream as best she could without splashing water up on the banks.
When Myrum’s rattling stopped, she froze. She needed to get out of sight.
Turning a full circle, she saw a spot on the embankment that was mostly plants and a few vines. Staying on the plants and using the vines as a handhold, she made her way up and out of the creek bed without leaving much trace.
There was nothing but tall bushes at the top, with the same kind of vines interwoven in them. Going to her hands and knees, she crawled into a space between two of the bushes, thankful nothing had thorns.
Something chittered at her angrily then disappeared with a rustle of leaves and branches.
“Hide here or keep running?” she asked the greenery around her.
She was right next to the creek, which wasn’t good. But this spot was perfect for hiding. Even if Myrum came upon the same place she did, he’d never see her. Her black long-sleeved shirt and pants helped hide her in the dark green plants around her.
Remaining hidden seemed like the better plan.
Her heart was thudding in her chest, and she was breathing hard.
Forcing herself to pull in deep slow breaths, she told her heart and body to calm down.
Sure, they’d just run when usually her idea of exercise was a brisk walk around the ship, but she could will her heart and lungs to obey. Wasn’t that how it worked?
The sound of splashing water made her go perfectly still, straining to hear more. Was that sound Myrum figuring out her ruse, or was that a little animals taking a bath?
The sound of pebbles rolling down the embankment came next. That could still be caused by an animals. She strained to hear more and watched the spot where she’d climbed up. She couldn’t see much through the thick leaves, but it shouldn’t be hard to spot a giant Talin stalking her.
A loud rattle sounded behind her, making her cry out and jolt forward.
“I hear you in there!” Myrum roared. She heard bushes being ripped from the soil. It wouldn’t be long before he cleared a path to her!
Scrambling out from her hiding spot, she kept moving and only caught a glimpse of Myrum’s hulking shape as she clambered down the embankment. When she got to the bottom, she jumped the creek and sprinted up the other side.
“How cute, the human thinks she can get away from me,” he declared loudly.
The sound of his heavy footfalls behind her was loud and terrifying. She ran blindly, twisting and turning around large groupings of bushes without any sense of direction.
Tripping, she grabbed hold of a nearby boulder to stop herself from falling. She expected Myrum to grab her, but when she turned around, he wasn’t behind her.
Gulping air, she turned in a circle, expecting him to jump out at her. Nothing happened.
The bastard was playing with her!
“You big—”
Her curse was interrupted when she heard a familiar ticking growl. Swinging around, she looked up to find Myrum crouched on the boulder. It was as if he appeared by magic.
She backed up, intimidated by his hulking form backlit by the sun.
“I think maybe we should talk about this,” she said.
Jumping down, he stalked toward her.
“Talk?” His voice seemed unnaturally deep. “No, my pet. No talking, only action.”
He reached for her, but she was ready. She tucked and rolled past him. Getting to her feet, she went to dive into the thick bushes next to the boulder only to have him catch hold of the back of her shirt.
The fabric tore a little as he lifted and turned her in place. When he set her back down on her feet, she was facing the boulder. With gentle but irresistible force, he pressed her front against the boulder.
“Stay there,” he snarled, pushing her legs apart with his foot.
“I’m not making anything easy for you,” she said, lifting her arms up and dropping to the ground. It wasn’t quite as smooth as she’d hoped, but she did manage to slip out of the shirt, leaving him holding an empty top.