Chapter 4 #3
Public Transport.
She sprinted toward it, weaving around meandering shoppers and bystanders.
Shouts and curses from behind her called her attention back.
She glanced over her shoulder to see the azhera burst out of the crowd, knocking over at least three pedestrians in the process.
He came to an abrupt halt, snapping his head from side to side with his nostrils flaring as though he were scenting the air.
His gaze swung toward Shay and locked with hers. Reflected light from the myriad of signs and holos all around set his eyes aglow. He broke into a run, gaining more speed in his first few strides than any being his size should’ve been able to.
Releasing a sharp breath, Shay turned her face forward, let go of her belly, and pumped her arms, pushing her body as hard as possible. The impact rattled up her legs and through her body each time one of her feet came down. She felt it in every joint, in every bone, right up to her damned teeth.
When she reached the sign, she turned into the wide corridor it pointed toward. Her feet skidded, threatening to slip out from beneath her. Underestimating just how much her belly had disrupted her balance, she overcorrected, only to nearly fall in the opposite direction.
She could see the azhera barreling toward her from the corner of her eye.
Shay stumbled forward, grabbed onto someone’s coat to steady herself, and hurried down the corridor.
Alien faces, bodies, and colors zipped by on all sides, their details swallowed in a blur of motion.
She could only focus on the place up ahead where the ceiling hit an angle and sloped down—the stairs to the tram station.
It was the quickest route, but it was also the place where the foot traffic looked the most congested.
It’s still better than stopping and waiting for an elevator, isn’t it?
Prickles of heat spread across her back and crackled up and down her spine.
Even were the grunts and cries from the crowd not giving away the azhera’s approach, Shay could feel him drawing nearer.
In a few more seconds, she’d feel his breath on the back of her neck.
Then his claws would tear into her skin.
The stairs were only a few meters away now, close enough for her to see how crammed full of people they were on both sides of the center divider.
“Stop, female!” commanded the azhera from directly behind her.
Sure thing, azhera.
Shay didn’t allow herself a moment’s hesitation.
When she reached the steps, she slapped her hands atop that sloping central divider—which was perhaps two-thirds of a meter wide at best—and used her momentum to vault onto it.
Every muscle in her legs screamed in protest as she swung them up and to her front. She landed atop the divider on her hip.
All the grace of a watermelon, Shay.
The azhera growled. Shay glanced back as he lunged, reaching toward her with his large, unarmored right hand. His fingertips brushed the fabric of her hood. Before he could take hold of the garment, Shay’s momentum—and the power of gravity—carried her out of his reach.
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit shit shiiiit!” she whisper-shouted as she sped down the divider. She wrapped her arms around her belly to shield her unborn child and, somehow, twisted so she was sliding on her ass.
The people on the either side of the stairs, several of whom had limbs hanging over the divider or were leaning on the attached railings, recoiled as she passed.
She reached the bottom within a few seconds.
For an instant, she was airborne, and it felt like she nearly broke her back getting her legs beneath her and her torso upright.
Shay landed on her feet with a jolt that clacked her teeth together.
Her momentum forced her forward, and her torso pitched forward.
The only thing that stopped her from falling face first on the floor was the massive body of a tralix—he had to be nearly three meters tall and built of solid muscle.
Fortunately, she managed to throw her arms up and let them take the brunt of the impact as she struck the tralix’s backside.
She eased back from him, clutching her belly and groaning at the sharp pain in her pelvis. She sucked in a shaky breath and let it out thickly, willing the discomfort away.
A low, rumbling growl in front of her called her eyes up. She tilted her head back to meet the gaze of the irritated tralix, who had turned to face her.
The tralix leaned toward her. “I should crush you, you—”
“Nice ass,” she said, offering the tralix a wink.
His brow furrowed, and his skin—a mottled blend of purples and blues—darkened as though in a blush. His lips curled in a surprisingly soft smile.
Shay made herself smile back despite her lingering pain and turned to seek her pursuer.
The azhera glared at her from the top of the stairs with eyes narrowed and ears flattened. Fortunately, the space between the crowds on either side of the staircase divider was too narrow for his broad-shouldered frame to fit through, and—
The azhera leapt onto the divider and began a rapid descent.
“Fuuuuuuck,” Shay whined.
She spun away and hurried past the tralix, giving him a slap on the ass as she did so, and worked her way toward the platform, where a multi-car tram was loading and unloading passengers.
The azhera roared again, and some of the heat drained from Shay’s face.
She didn’t let herself stop; she could do this.
This was her element. It was no different than any major city she’d been to on Earth, despite the alien population.
She fell into the flow of boarding traffic, hurrying past the slower passengers.
“Terran!” The azhera’s voice carried to her over the din of the crowd, once again right behind her.
She chanced another backward glance to see him pushing through the crowd. He was rapidly gaining on her despite the thick press of bodies.
Shay stumbled through the open doors at the front of a tram car and—ignoring the protests of her aching legs and back—ducked to conceal herself amidst the bigger passengers as she hurried toward the opposite end of the car.
People frowned, glared, and swore as she slipped by, but she didn’t slow. She found herself both thankful for having never been claustrophobic and cursing her overly sensitive nose. The stench of sweating bodies and exotic perfumes and spices was amplified in this tight space.
“I can smell you, terran,” said the azhera from somewhere behind her. “No more running.”
He could smell her? Even amidst all this? How bad did she stink despite her shower this morning?
And does nobody in this city see a problem with a big ass azhera chasing me down right out in public? What a bunch of assholes.
A chiming series of notes sounded overhead—the tram was about to depart. Shay turned her head; she was near one of the tram car’s central doors. Beneath her feet, the tram’s antigrav engines began to hum, creating barely perceptible vibrations.
This was her last chance. If this didn’t work, she was done—she’d be caught.
The double doors began to slide shut.
Shay charged toward them, grabbing onto the people in her path to haul herself forward. The passengers’ protests undoubtedly caught the azhera’s attention. Heart racing, she flattened her arms against her sides and darted through the narrowing doorway.
The doors whispered shut mere centimeters behind her.
Shay’s skin felt like it was ablaze, and she was itchy from head to toe on top of her other discomforts. Breathing heavily, she slowly turned as the tram’s hum intensified.
The azhera forced his way to the doors and met her gaze through the view windows; this time, he was the one caged, not her.
Oddly, she felt no satisfaction at that.
The tram began its smooth forward motion.
The azhera pressed his hands against the doors as though to pry them open, his green eyes, hungry and burning, fixated on her.
Shay’s heart leapt into her throat, and she stepped back.
He was powerful and driven; she’d put her money on the azhera over the doors any time.
It was frightening, but she still couldn’t deny that thrill, that flare of eagerness.
She knew the hunger in his eyes—it said he wanted to devour her in all the right ways.
Right ways? Wrong, wrong, wrong, Shay!
He wanted revenge. He wanted blood. What the hell was wrong with her?
The tram continued forward. Baring his teeth, the azhera slammed a fist against the doors. They shook, briefly warping the reflections on the glass. The vehicle’s motion carried him out of Shay’s view. A few moments later, the last tram car vanished into the tunnel.
Everything inside Shay felt heavy as she stood there with her chest heaving.
She wanted nothing more than to allow her body to pool on the ground and give her screaming, trembling muscles a break, but she couldn’t.
Not here. The tram station was no safer for her here than it would’ve been on Earth were she to let her guard down.
Though the tram was the quickest route back to her apartment, Shay didn’t wait for the next one, opting to take the long way back. She couldn’t chance running into the azhera again. She didn’t have it in her to make another run for it.
She slowly climbed the stairs out of the tram station, following the crowd of disembarked riders, and pretended her body wasn’t in agony.
Keeping to the busier streets and well away from all the dark alleys, Shay wound through the Undercity.
Every step shot needling pain through her legs.
She’d overdone it today at work, and that chase had pushed Shay beyond her limits.