Page 71 of Taken to Heimo
“Hexa, but quicker. Friend. No space between the first syllable and the second.”
“Vriend.”
“Perfect. Exactly perfect.”
I shake my head as the shooter detaches. “I xokinglawvyou.”
Svera giggles and wraps her arms around the rug she’s got fixed to her chest. “I really love you, too.”
And then we’re cruising. And then we’refalling.The turbulence in the shooter is jarring and forces me to cry out, “Ireallyloathe your hybrid!”
My filthy white hair is whipping around my head just as Svera’s matted curls whip around hers. It’s been three solars and we’ve been no closer to a wash room than when we started. Ashmara, the despicable cretin, didn’t wish to waste the water on us. The most we got from her were a few cans of rust-water and a couple protein bars that tasted like shit.
And now,this.
“Xoking Ashmara!” I roar as the shooter bangs through space, like we’re hitting a thousand asteroids on our way to the surface.
There’s no window or view pane. Just black and rust-colored metal.
Over the sound of chaos, Svera shouts, “Xoking Ashmara!”
I close my eyes and clench my teeth and pray to the God that watches over Svera that we’ll get out of…
Whoosh! Bang. Clang. Thump.
Suddenly the ground that we were supposed to meet is repelled away from us and we’re shot back into space.Thrusters. That was Ashmara’s big plan? Thrusters?!
She called it a shooter for a xoking reason and I vow that I will kill her the next time I see her. The thrusters are the only thing we’ve got to break our fall, but the violence of our change in momentum is enough to break Svera’s xoking neck. I scream her name as she vomits to the side of her seat. Her head is held back against the metal curve of the chair by the velocity with which we fall, but when we land, I pray. All I can do is pray.
My eyes slam shut as we make impact. I keep my jaw clenched so I don’t bite off my tongue. I hold every screaming muscle in my body together so tight, I can feel the wound in my stomach reopen. Agony slices every inch of me until finally, it all splinters apart as the front half of the ship explodes open.
Pieces of metal go flying and I roar out my rage. “Xoking Ashmara!” A single piece of shrapnel could slice Svera’s throat. Just like the shrapnel that finds my right thigh in three places and my stomach near the wound.
Fine. I’ll take all of it, just please let her keep her xoking neck!The pain radiating through mine is unbearable and I feel my own stomach turn with the desire to purge.
“Aaugh!” I roar, trying to fight back the desire to close my eyes and keep them shut and sleep.She needs me.She needs me.
Smoke and burning metal waft in through the open sides of the shooter. Xoking Ashmara. Evil xoking hybrid. But beneath that, I smell sand. I triple checked her coordinates. We’re here. We made it.
“Svera,” I croak, but her hair blocks my view of her face. And then my gaze drops and everything inside of me turns to the sand I scent on the breeze.
Past the curtain of her hair, a huge piece of metal protrudes from where her chest should be. Xok. Nox. Nox, nox, nox.
Panic claws angrily up my chest and I reach for the straps holding me against the chair and quickly break them. My feet thump down onto mashed metal and sand.
I buckle, catching myself on a piece of metal so hot it scalds me instantly. I jerk my hand back and kick it, but that hurts just as bad because the xoking female and her Eshmiri band of goons took my boots — along with thirty thousand credits. Enough to buy at least another half dozen of these cursed death traps.
I curse under my breath as I wade through the wreckage, burning myself half a dozen more times by the time I make it to Svera’s body hanging limp overhead, looking frighteningly like a corpse.
She’s just low enough for me to reach her feet, but not low enough for me to reach the straps binding her and the metal…Everything in me stills.
There is a piece of metal sticking out of her. Is she…
Nox. Nox nox nox noxnox!
I glance around, looking for something that isn’t going to flay the skin off my feet to stand on. Seeing nothing that matches that description, I look up, push the pain radiating through me into little cubes and swallow them, then I jump.
I bury my claws in the outsides of Svera’s chair and climb until I’m high enough to be able to pound my claws into the back of her chair and grip the outer edges of her seat between my knees. I hold on so hard I hurt, but it’s nothing compared to the sight of the blood dripping from her nose and the metal sticking out of her chest.
