Page 28 of Claimed By the Alien Assassin
It’d be funnier if it wasn’t so terrifying.
Colonel Kernal is making his message very,veryclear.
We see you.
We suspect you.
We own you.
“He’s getting desperate,” I murmur, watching as ration carts—once neutral and boring—now trail the parade like prizes behind a carnival float. People clap, but the sound is hollow, forced. A man near the rear of the crowd claps so hard his hands turn red, lips pressed into a trembling smile that doesn’t touch his eyes.
Dayn follows my gaze. “Fear burns fast. So do performances.”
“Still. It’s working.” I grit my teeth. “People were starting to believe. Now they’re scared again.”
“Not all of them.”
He says it like a promise.
And I feel it—like a vibration in the bones of my spine. He’s right. I saw it this morning when Mara slipped me a coded message inside a protein ration. When old Bosh fixed the loudspeaker to blastaccidentallygarbled Vortaxian commands. When the teenagers painted the colony’s old emblem in invisible paint across the admin building’s wall.
People are scared. But they’re also remembering how tohope.
And hope’s a lot like fire. You don’t need much to start a blaze.
“Do you think he suspects me?” I ask quietly.
Dayn shifts beside me. “He suspects everyone.”
“Yeah, but I’m pretty loud.”
He actually chuckles. “You’re subtle. Like a plasma torch to the face.”
“I’m trying,” I protest, but my grin gives me away. “It’s just… I can’t stand watching him play nice with our people while planning their chains.”
His eyes meet mine, serious again. “Then we keep moving. Faster.”
We lie flat as a Vortaxian scout drone whines past overhead, its scanners twitching left and right like an indecisive housecat. Dayn’s body is warm where it touches mine, radiating calm despite everything. Or maybe not calm—just focus. He’s always focused.
Still, his arm brushes mine again. And stays there.
I don’t move away.
Beneath us, the parade collapses spectacularly as the bassoonist trips—again—this time over a rogue streamer. His purple plume goes flying, tangling around a flag-waving toddler who promptly sits down and starts screaming.
It’s chaos. Beautiful, ridiculous, unraveling chaos.
Dayn exhales slowly, voice low in my ear. “You still think they’re winning?”
I laugh, and it tastes like oxygen after a long dive. “They’ve got brass and bluster. We’ve got brains and bad luck.”
He hums. “Then we’re even.”
We lie there a few moments longer, the wind tugging at our clothes, the dust whispering through the cracked rooftop tiles. I should feel fear. Or guilt. Or pressure.
But right now, lying next to this strange, dangerous man with his unshakable calm and eyes like storm-split skies—I feelready.
Let them parade.
