Page 39 of Rebel
The blow was sudden, and my ears rang with it.
“Shut the fuck up.” He hissed the words. “Open your eyes and watch them die.”
The sound of safeties being disengaged filled the air, and my heart leapt into my mouth.
The guys raised their heads, eyes on me, and I locked gazes with them one by one. Xavier, Vex, Tide, and Lore. My guys. Mine.
Something inside me snapped, heat flooded my body, and a roar surged up my throat and echoed around the quad. Marick’s grip loosened, and I spun and throat punched him.
A gunshot went off, and my heart stuttered, and then a gust of air flung me back as the whirr of an engine filled my head. A shuttle, huge and blue and above us.
Marick picked himself up off the ground. “Athions!”
21
XAVIER
The Athion ship is here for us. It must have caught the signal before we shut it off, just like the bastard Marick had. The Trad guards open fire on the ship.
“Rogue!” Vex sprints toward her.
I focus on Tide. This is the moment he makes his choice. He looks to the ship, then to Rogue, and then determination slides across his features.
“Let’s get to the shuttle in Bay B,” he shouts over the commotion, and the knot in my stomach melts away.
Vex and Rogue zigzag through the fray, which is now focused on the ship descending toward us. Lasers burn the ground.
Lore takes Rogue’s other hand, and we run for the shuttle bay, we run for freedom.
22
Tide’s body was tense as he piloted the shuttle, and Xavier was practically thrumming with nervous energy as he typed code into the ship’s computer.
We’d exited the planet on the dark side of the star, and the main Athion and Trad ships were too busy engaging to spot us. But there was no breathing a sigh of relief until Tide said so. He kept sliding looks Xavier’s way.
“Stop it,” Xavier said. “I can’t concentrate when you hover.”
“Work faster.”
“I am,” he bit out.
We sat in silence while Xavier fiddled with the controls. “Signals jammed,” he said finally. “We’re ghosts.”
Tide exhaled, and his shoulders sagged in relief.
Xavier sat back, hands in the air, a huge grin on his mischievous face. “I told you we had this.”
“No, you didn’t tell us anything,” Tide pointed out. “That was the whole problem.”
“You want to change your mind?” Xavier challenged.
Tide exhaled through his nose. “Shut up.”
Lore cleared his throat. “What now?”
“We need to get a ship,” Xavier said. “We dump this shuttle at the space port and use our credits to buy a ship.”
“And our government will be able to trace the payment,” Lore pointed out.
