Chapter 78 Bright
brIGHT
“Now I see why the Goddess told you to take the first shuttle you saw,” Bright muttered, peering out the cracked front viewscreen at the flattened wreck of what had once been a sleek black Earth vehicle.
Smoke curled up from beneath the Trollox shuttle’s reinforced landing struts, and the smell of scorched rubber and gasoline filled the cockpit.
The SUV had been reduced to a crumpled pancake.
“But are you sure you were supposed to land on their vehicle like that?” he added, still half in disbelief.
“You heard the Goddess—she told us to do it,” Burn said grimly from the pilot’s seat beside him. His big hands were still clenched on the controls, though the ship was now stable, its landing sequence complete.
His golden eyes burned with purpose.
“She said these men are evil and they all deserve to be punished ruthlessly—her words, not mine.”
Bright nodded slowly. The Goddess hadn’t just been a presence—she’d filled the shuttle with divine weight and heat, guiding Burn’s hands on the controls, whispering directions like a fire in their minds.
“And if they’re trying to hurt Noelle—”
“Look—there she is!” Bright cried, cutting Burn off as he shot upright in his seat and pointed through the viewscreen.
Outside, just down the cracked stretch of Earth street, stood Noelle.
Their Noelle.
Her coat was half open and her long hair gleamed darkly under the streetlamps as she struggled against a man nearly twice her size.
He had one meaty hand wrapped around her throat, his knuckles white with force, and he was yelling in her face, the sound muffled by the ship’s reinforced glass but unmistakable in its violence.
Bright’s heart stopped.
“Fuck!” Burn snarled beside him.
They both stared, frozen for a split second, as time seemed to slow.
“That must be that asshole ex mate she told us about—the one who used to hurt her,” Burn growled, already shoving back from the controls and reaching for the weapons locker behind their seats. “We have to get out there!”
Bright’s fingers shook as he undid the safety on his blaster. “Can you take him?” he asked hoarsely. “What if he’s armed?”
“Just keep him busy,” Burn said grimly, checking the charge on his own blaster. His face was a mask of fury and control—pure lethal focus. “Come on—let’s go.”
Bright followed the Dark Twin, heart pounding, boots thudding across the metal floor. The interior of the shuttle echoed with the sound of their urgency—doors hissing open, warning lights still blinking red from their collision-landing.
Outside, night had fully fallen.
The chill of Earth’s atmosphere wrapped around them like icy fingers as the outer hatch slid open and the boarding ramp lowered with a low hydraulic hissss.
“Move fast,” Burn barked, voice low and tense as he crouched and darted out first. Bright followed, muscles tight with adrenaline, every instinct screaming to get to Noelle before it was too late.
The cold air hit them like a slap. It was winter here, Bright thought distractedly.
Streetlights flickered as if responding to their arrival and somewhere nearby, a car alarm began to wail, a discordant cry that only added to the chaos.
The human man—Branson, Noelle had called him—whipped his head around at the noise.
His eyes widened as he saw the two massive Kindred sprinting toward him from the shuttle, weapons in their hands and murder in their eyes.
Bright only prayed they could get Noelle away from him in time.