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“It means we’ve spent decades working to save the Empire – and now they’ve scorned us.”

Otho’s voice is a snarl. I can hear the agony in it – of facing his life’s work being obliterated; disintegrated as permanently as the chunks of rock and metal I’d used for target practice moments earlier.

Otho pulls his gaze back to me.

“Let’s go.”

His eyes drift down to my feet. He instinctively knows they’re aching and sore, and without a word he crouches down in front of me – offering his huge back to me like a warhorse awaiting its rider.

At this point, everything has become so surreal that I barely even hesitate before I clamber up onto his huge, broad back.

He lifts himself up, holding my legs, and suddenly I’m lifted seven feet higher in the air.

He begins to move, and I bounce with each of Otho’s steps as the alien jogs back to our underground hideaway. We descend the stairs, and he lets me down onto my own feet as soon as we’re safe underground.

Brennan is already waiting for us inside. He stands there like a silent, stiff statue – giving no indication that he even saw us enter.

He’s facing away from us, staring at the wall. I can see every line and sinew of his chiseled, taut muscles. He’s as tightly drawn as a bowstring.

I can’t stand the silence.

“Aurelian Law Enforcement is after us,” I stammer, my voice cracking.

Brennan doesn’t move. It occurs to me that he knew this already – of course he did. Otho or Lazar would have already telepathed the situation to him during our jog back.

As we stand there, Brennan slowly turns to face us. His slate-grey eyes have a far-off expression in them – almost wistful. I’ve never seen any of the Aurelians like that before.

It suddenly occurs to be that if Aurelian Law Enforcement ‘liberate’ me, I might never look into those eyes again. All this stress – this excitement, and all these vivid new feelings and desires – will all disappear from my life as instantly as they’d appeared.

I’ll be back where I started.

Safe.

Back behind the towering walls of my father’s estate. Hidden away again from the beautiful ugliness of the real world.

Sure, I won’t be killed in another escape attempt from an abandoned building – but I’ll be killed just as certainly on each and every day that follows – choked by the weeds of my empty, cold, sanitized life.

Brennan stares at me, and I see the agony in his gaze. “It’s not safe for you anymore.”

His words are certain. I can tell he’s been mulling on them this whole time, as he stared in silence toward the wall. He doesn’t want to believe them, but he does.

I take a huge breath, and it catches in my mouth.

“Brennan… Otho… Lazar…” I look at them, one by one. The haunted, chiseled features of Lazar and Brennan. The huge, strong jaw of Otho – and that jagged scar across his temple, which marks when he’d nearly lost his life.

The mark that could have made the difference between being here today, or never having met him.

The Aurelians pride themselves on hiding emotions – that much everybody knows about their species. They pride themselves on being aloof – powerful, robotic beings unfettered by such useless things asfeelings.

But I can see the pain etched on each one of their proud faces – carved into their marble features.

“You’ve set me free.”

Four words.

Four words truer than anything I’ve ever uttered before. I’d been kidnapped by these men. Imprisoned. Punished…

…and yet that all gave me liberty from the true prison I’d been locked in for my entire life.