Page 43 of Claimed By the Alien Assassin
He huffs, flicks a stray paint fleck from my temple. “Very effective.”
A crackle in my earpiece. Mara’s voice—urgent, raw: “They’re moving. Patrols are redirecting toward the east gate. They’re... coming fast.”
My pulse spikes. I press the mic. “Team A to central—code Ouchie is live. They move in.”
I spin away—rigid focus resumed. We rush to commands that matter more than kisses. The corridor buzzes with low, determined shouts. The kids scramble behind barricades. I lace into orders: sensor calibrations, team deployments. The world slides into strategic machinery, leaving only purpose.
But as I walk away, I hear Dayn's voice—deep, steady: “Pounce when ready.”
It echoes in my veins.
And even as the grid warns of advancing Vortax threats, I carry his promise—and the heat of his arms—into the fray.
This war is fire and laughter and revenge. It’s love.
And we’re ready.
I discover the first disappearance while dusting a supply crate in the hidden safehouse. The room is unnervingly silent, but that’s not unusual—quiet is protest’s shrine. Until I see the cracked holo-pad on the floor, shards of its shield clouding the dim floor-light. The blood-red smear trails toward the door. Hands reach forward—digesting the scene with ice-cold claws.
Empty mattresses. Ripped-open packs. A chair swiveled on its back legs. Uneaten rations rotting in open crates. The air tastes stale and heavy, rich with fear.
“Mara?”
My voice echoes back, thin and afraid.
No reply.
A bootprint deeper than the rest, dragged to the wall. I crouch and run a fingertip along the groove. The plaster crumbles under my nail. No supplies. No living breath. Just vacancy carved in panic.
It hits me like a railgun shock. The colonists are vanishing. Kid by kid, tech by tech—extracted in the dead of night as warnings for those of us still bold enough to fight back.
I step back, hand pressed to my throat, lungs twisting. This is the cost. Every choice, every spark of resistance carries a blood-price. I taste copper regret. The guilt tastes like swallowed acid.
My fingers itch for solder, for tools, for anything I cando. Because that’s who I am — the fixer. The retorter. The engineer who channels grief into machinery.
I turn and bolt for the door, falling into the night as night falls on fragile hope.
The blast doorshiss shut as I enter our command bunker. It’s warm with urgency, monitors flickering defiant glow across lean faces. Hargon’s eyes are hollow pools. Tessa only shakes her head in the corner. Even Dayn—he radiates storm-tempered steel, but this fracturing is more dangerous than any Vortaxian drone.
I drop into the holo-table—my tools clank against wood.
“Tell me what happened,” I demand.
Dayn stands. His eyes lock with mine. “Safehouse #3. We found it emptied at first light.”
Tessa blurts it out: “ mattresses stripped. Hoses cut. People gone.”
I press my palms into the glossy table, muscles burning. “No traces? No bodies?”
He slides a hand through his hair. “Just this.”
He taps the table. A flicker of comm-scan audio: the static-twist of panic, the scrape of boots, then silence.
My heart lodges in my throat. “He’s using terror to silence us.”
Dayn steps forward. “It’s not your fault.”
“Not my fault?” My laugh comes brittle, cracked. “This ismyfight.Mydesign. They’re vanishing because we dared to rise.”
