Page 43 of The Alien Who Saved Christmas
He gave her an incredulous look and stepped closer. “You must choose avoemont.” He whispered, like she’d forgotten.
Sadie had no idea what that meant. It wasn’t translating into any real word.
“Avoemont.” Xane repeated, sensing her confusion. He gestured to the Sesame Street collection of shapes and colors, pictured on the counter. “Bet on any one that is empty.”
Well, how hard could that be? She grabbed a handful of metal bits from the pouch Xane had stolen and dropped them all on a green triangle. It looked like a Christmas tree!
Xane let out a horrified wheeze.
Huh. Maybe that was wrong…?
Before she could reconsider her choice, armadillo-man turned towards the rows of clay pots behind him. Seemingly at random, he kicked over a brown one that looked just like all the others. A groan went up from the crowd, some men shaking their heads in disgust and other stomping away. Armadillo-man ignored their unhappy response and pushed all the metal bits on the counter towards Sadie.
Oh, did she win?
Behind her, Xane made a choked sound of disbelief.
Sadie stacked up her expanded collection of metal bits, doing her best to keep her human-y fingers hidden. There were a bunch of new types of chips added to her heap now. Some of them even glowed. Maybe they were different denominations or currency from other planets. Very pretty. She slid them all onto a blue square. That seemed like a luckyvoemont.
Xane cringed and reached up to grip at his forehead. His claws dug into his green skin, like he was literally hanging onto his sanity by his fingertips. The armadillo-man surveyed Sadie’s bet and grunted in approval. A couple of ceiling-fan-looking guys let out awestruck whistles. Even Elf’s right-side snake-head was suddenly giving her an appraising look.
Clearly, she’d just bet a boatload of cash.
Excellent. Reckless gambling was all part of her plan. Step two was somehow parleying that reckless gambling into shoplifting the key from Elf’s middle neck. She wasn’t sure how to do that exactly, but she was confident it would come to her. She’d taken an acting course in the fall semester. She was a natural at improv.
“Bold playing.” Elf’s right-head hissed.
Sadie gave a negligent “I’m too rich to even care about money” gesture, which would have beensomuch more effective in an awesome Bond-girl dress.
Elf’s middle-head turned towards her, breathing in her offensive scent and scowling. “Are all the hygiene chambers on your ship broken, Lythion?”
Sadie ignored that and kept her face hidden inside her stifling hood. She watched the armadillo-man turn back towards the pottery. None of it was blue or square. But then none of it had been green and triangle-shaped, either. It was all identical brown pots. Lord, this wassucha dumb game.
Another identical brown pot was kicked over. Another groan went up. Another huge stack of metal bits was pushed Sadie’s way.
Hey, she’d won again. Cool.
Xane didn’t move. His eyes were fixed on the counter in something like shock.
Sadie used her forearm to drag all her coins into a makeshift pile, because there were too many of them to stack, now. It was really inconvenient that they didn’t use debit cards.She should just bet it all on that red hexagon and then she wouldn’t have to deal with the…
Xane jolted forward. His hand reached out to grip her wrist before she could push the money onto the nextvoemont. “We are reevaluating this strategy.” He decided in a slightly frantic tone.
Maybe he was moving onto the part of their plan where he caused a distraction, so she could try and steal the key. If so, he was terrible at it. They really should have rehearsed his role some more, before they jumped right into the live show.
Xane began dumping the coins she’d won into the fur-lined pockets of her robes, which was really not distracting anyone except her. What in the world…?
Thinking that he must want to keep some of the metal bits, Sadie tried to fish them out and hand them to him. Heck, he could have them all, as far as she was concerned.
“No. Foryou.” Xane insisted, refusing to take the coins. “With this much money, you could hire a hundred pilots.”
Hire a pilot? No way! Sadie couldn’t speak without giving herself away, so she settled for shaking her head at him.Vigorously. They had to rescue Jynn from that mine. Lord C’don’s heart would break without his son.
Xane ignored her emphatic refusal. “What if you cannot get back to your home? You will need money to live, and this isa lotof money.” More metal bits got added to her weighed-down robe. “You must keep it all. I cannot bear to think of you hungry or in need.”
That was sweet, but Sadie didn’t want to keep it. She was going back to Earth, so none of this money was even real toher. She was trying to empty her pockets, just as fast as he filled them. It was a losing battle. His hands were so much bigger that he could hold a lot more coins.
Her fingers brushed something plastic in the depths of the pocket. Frowning, she pulled out the tube of hand sanitizer. She’d forgotten she’d hidden the squirty bottle in this robe, when she’d gone to the slave auction. It had melted the Lythions, so she’d figured it was the only protection she had against aliens. Now, she didn’t need it. She had Xane. He would protect her. …Even if his expression currently said he’d like to strangle her.
