Page 34 of Galactic Sentinels: Vol 2
He looks drugged.
Honestly, he doesn’t look much worse than usual.
Drunk, probably. Or maybe these guys roughed him up.
“Remember my name, kiddo. I’m Buddy the Fierce. Starting now, I’m running this little aphrodisiac powder business!”
“Well... Buddy... since you’re so fierce, why don’t you go hunt Nalgous yourself and rip off their horns?” I snap.
“Oh wait, maybe because they’ve already been over-hunted and now they charge at anyone who gets near them?”
Buddy flushes with anger and raises a fist.
“You’ll be singing a different tune when I get rid of your old man. I’ll be back in a hundred—you better have product ready, or he’s dead.”
I stare in horror as they walk off toward the greenhouses.
A hundred? A hundred what? Days? That’s insane.
I turn to my dad.
“You okay?” I ask.
“They roughed me up a little. You’ll have to stay a few days to help. If I’m gonna hunt more Nalgous, I won’t have time to cook.”
I stare at him.
This coward let me face those thugs alone—pretending to be unconscious when he clearly heard everything.
“Weren’t you just knocked out?”
“Course not,” he snorts. “They barely touched me. Playing dead’s a solid tactic, trust me.”
Unbelievable.
Once again, my father has managed to disappoint me. I tilt my head.
“Then where’d those scratches and blood come from?”
“Oh that? It’s nothing,” he says, eyes shifting guiltily.
Which means: it’s definitely something.
“Tell me—or I leave you here to walk home by yourself.”
“But Samantha—”
“Now.”
He glances toward a nearby thicket and sighs.
“You’re gonna freak out. Just like Olivia would’ve. You two are so sensitive...”
Exactly what I thought. He did something stupid again.
I walk toward the bushes. Crouch down. Something glistens on the dry earth—blood.
A little, but enough to tell me this Gouzil burrow was attacked.
