With every passingsiv, Rykal was growing more and more anxious. He couldn’t afford to waste any more time.
He released the human, who coughed. His face had turned a bright shade of pink. “O-okay.” It was as if fear had suddenly turned the lights on in his head. “Wait a second.” The human tapped a device in his ear and spoke in his language. Rykal understood nothing but Arin’s name.
The peacekeeper ended his communication and took a deep, shuddering breath. “She’s gone down to the cargo hold,” he said. “Something about some guys who are trapped down there. Please don’t hurt her.”
“Idiot,” Rykal said. “Why in Kaiin’s name would I hurt her?”
Rykal shook his head and ran, dodging panicking humans who were streaming out of the damaged transport. He headed towards the cargo hold where he’d been ambushed by those foolish human peacekeepers.
She should have listened to him, but she wasn’t the sort to blindly step back and follow instructions.
Those pathetic humans were Arin’s people, and he’d locked them away. Now she was going to rescue them, no matter how useless they were, because she was a noble creature, much more noble than her insipid masters on Earth or any of the Kordolians themselves, including Rykal.
If he didn’t get her back, he would remain the same unhinged, empty creature he’d always been, a half-soul with fractured memories and the body of a monster.
With dark urgency thrumming through his veins, Rykal ran faster, ignoring the burning pain in his side, pumping his legs until he became nothing more than a grey blur amidst the chaos.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The cargo hold was as dark as midnight, and to her surprise, the lights didn’t automatically turn on when she entered. Maybe they’d malfunctioned, like almost everything onboard this aging, dilapidated freighter. Arin flicked on her guide-light as she made her way amongst the empty cargo containers, searching for her squad.
She cursed herself for not making arrangements to retrieve the boys earlier, but amidst all the chaos, with the Xargek breathing down their necks and everything going to shit in the central hold, it had slipped her mind. Of course, it hadn’t helped that she’d seemed to have the undivided attention of a certain grand distraction named Rykal.
That Kordolian. He was at the center of everything, and now more than ever, her independent soul longed to have him by her side.
A soft snort of disbelief escaped her. Since when had she relied on anyone else to keep her safe?
Arin crept forward, flashing her light into empty cargo containers. Stripped of their contents, the large cage-like structures gaped at her, the coalescing shadows making them appear all the more vacant.
The hold was quiet, eerily so. Arin’s vision was limited to the cone of light provided by her link-band; beyond that, there was only darkness.
Her instincts screamed at her to get the fuck out of there. The Xargek had appeared from nowhere and infiltrated every part of the freighter. By going it alone, she was taking a big risk.
But all she had to do was get her guys out of there, and they would be fine. All it would take was a quick in-and-out, and then a short run back up to the docking bay.
She thought about calling out, but if there were Xargek down here, even larvae, she didn’t want to alert them to her location. Instead, she crept along with her plasma gun raised and her senses stretched taut, listening carefully for any signs of life.
She’d mapped out a clear route to the exit, so if she encountered anything, if she heard that hair-raising skittering noise, she’d be out of there in a flash.
Arin reached one end of the hold and doubled back, having found nothing.
“Sarge!” A loud whisper broke the silence, coming from one of the containers up ahead. “You gotta get us out of here!”
“Decker?” Arin recognized the voice. She ran towards it, watching the floor carefully for signs of Xargek as she approached. “Where the hell are you?”
“Over here.” For some reason, he was keeping his voice down.
Arin reached the container and, to her immense relief, saw all six of her team members through the metal-cage doors. They were sitting with their backs against the walls of the container, looking haggard and fatigued.
Dekker stood, rattling the cage in frustration, his oversized frame hunched under the low ceiling of the container. “The monster locked us in,” he snarled, humiliation twisting his features into an ugly frown.
“Fucking alien,” grumbled another peacekeeper, a tall,athletic guy called Okello. “I didn’t know they could see in the dark.”
“Well, now you know,” Arin said dryly, as she studied the doors of the container. It seemed Rykal had gone and found a stray piece of Armium pipe somewhere and actuallytwistedthe metal around the door handles, binding them together and trapping the peacekeepers inside.
Their weapons had all been removed and were stacked neatly in front of the container.
“Freak,” Arin muttered under her breath as she tried to figure out the quickest way to get her people out. “Stand back,” she warned loudly as she raised her plasma gun.
