Page 27 of Fifth (Intergalactic Warriors #5)

HANNAH’S MOTHER sobbed into her husband’s shirt, soaking the fabric until it darkened. Hannah reached for her but stopped, pulling her hand back. She wrapped both arms around herself so she wouldn’t fall apart.

Locus placed his palm at the small of her back where her spine curved and the pulse hid in bone. He felt the beat. Steady. Rage hadn’t broken her. It had sharpened her—and his hand lingered, registering the warmth of her body under his touch.

“You’re going to take me to her,” Hannahsaid.

“No,” the headman answered brightly. “I’m taking you to the only thing that matters to my investors.

Afinale. Your sister’s garnish. The audience wants meat.

Last night’s numbers won’t satisfy them.

The final Challenge runs today. You’ll face it, and we’ll see if the hungry man with the white hair can keep you whole when the odds are honest.”

“You and I have different definitions of honest,” Locussaid.

The headman bared his teeth in a smile. “Obviously.”

A hum stirred in Locus’s right palm, where the gauntlet circuit lay dormant under his skin.

The current thinned and thickened like a tide.

He didn’t move. Sixth waited in the street a block over, disguised in an ordinary jacket, still as any parked car.

There was a pull in the air that meant transport fields were primed, ready to seize everyone inside the house in an instant and carry them out.

He would welcome it under normal circumstances.

But not now. Not with Emmy headed for vexx -knows-where.

Locus lifted his chin, his eyes darkening to shadow. He opened his mouth and let his voice carry into the air the way men once spoke to night when they prayed, each syllable laden with command. “Stand down.”

The hum in his palm faltered, then ebbed away completely, the current releasing like a wrist unclenched after too much strain.

Outside, the drone’s lens blinked in mock amusement, recording every flicker.

The headman tilted his head, as though listening to a private frequency only he could hear, and after a moment he nodded once, pleased with what he’d beentold.

“Good news for you,” the headman said lightly, mocking.

“My people confirm your friends have stood down. Dangerous friends, too. And this is why we’ll do things my way.

You’ll walk out of this house into cars I’ve provided.

You’ll ride to a plane I’ve provided. You’ll fly to a place the buyers approve.

You’ll enter a Challenge designed by men who crave blood without boredom.

Your friends won’t transport in unless they want to watch a neighborhood turn into a wake. ”

He flicked his gaze at the window across the street, his meaning clear. Locus didn’t grant him the satisfaction of turning hishead.

“Do you understand me?” the headman asked Locus, his voice soft. “I can ruin seventeen families with one breath. Ican spatter them across cul-de-sacs and make your woman despise you forever. Don’t tempt me to entertain myself.”

Hannah’s father shifted, the smallest movement of one foot. Arifleman lifted his weapon, aiming at his chest. Locus stepped into the line, taking the bead himself. The man’s finger tightened on the trigger, then eased. The headman wanted a tidy story.

“Stop pointing guns at my husband,” Hannah’s mother snapped. Her voice burned with fury, enough that the headman looked at her. She planted her hands on her hips, spine rigid. “Look at me when I tell you this. Get out of my house.”

“Soon,” the headman promised, patronizing now. “You’ll have your living room back, your daughter will go to my contest, and you’ll weep for the cameras. My buyers and bettors will watch those tears in primetime.”

Hannah laughed, the sound jagged and sudden. The room startled at it. She shook her head and turned her gaze to Locus, eyes that should’ve been shattered but weren’t. Eyes that pulled at something he couldn’t cage. “I’m not giving him what he wants.”

“You will not,” Locus said. “You will give him what he deserves.”

“And what’s that?” the headman asked, curious.

“Silence,” Locus said. “From guns that will never fire again.”

The headman clapped once, sharp. “I do enjoy your speeches.”

“Then listen closely,” Locus said. He stepped forward. Rifles lifted. He stopped just inside the line he had measured from the start. Close enough to kill the nearest man in one strike. Not so close that three other blades could cut him and steal the seconds he needed towin.

He locked his gaze on the headman. “Hear me, because I’ll only say this once.

If her family is harmed, Iwill take you apart piece by piece.

Iwill strip you of every weapon, every ally, every ounce of power you think you hold.

Iwill make certain your investors watch as I end the empire you built on cruelty.

They will know you not as master, but as ruin.

That is the price for touching what is mine to guard. ”

The riflemen’s hands tightened on their triggers, unease rippling across their stances.

Hannah’s mother gasped quietly, and her father’s mouth curved with grim pride.

Even the headman’s cheer faltered for a heartbeat, his eyes flicking at the men around him as if gauging their loyalty.

The tension stretched, thick as a drawn wire, before he forced a smile back into place.

Hannah’s father watched him, and something in his face shifted. Respect became recognition—this was a kind of love that had nothing to do with gentleness. The headman’s smile faltered. Cruelty knew cruelty and didn’t always enjoy being measured and found wanting.

“Fine,” the headman said. “Drama recorded. Audience loves drama. It boosts retention. Let’s move on. Time to say goodbye.” He looked to Hannah’s parents. “Say it now. Cameras are rolling. Make it pretty.”

Hannah’s voice cracked. “Mom. Dad. I’ve got to go for now, but I’m coming back. Ipromise. I’ll bring Emmy home. Hold on to me. Right now. Please.”

Her mother rushed to her, folding her in.

The two held on to each other like shipwreck survivors clinging to the last piece of driftwood.

Hannah breathed in her mother’s scent—soap, flour, the faint bitterness of tea leaves steeped too long.

Her hair against Hannah’s cheek pulled at every childhood memory, making her knees weaken.

Her mother’s hands were strong, clinging with desperate love.

Locus watched the father press both hands to their backs, one wide palm on each spine.

He memorized the tremor running through the man’s fingers, the way he held his women as if imprinting the moment on bone.

Locus forced his breath into calm rhythm—steady in, steady out—because if Hannah heard it falter, she’d break.

“You take care of her,” the father said. His voice was grief sharpened into command. “You hear me? Take care of my girl.”

“I will,” Locus said. “I swear it.”

“Bring my daughters home. Both of them. Don’t return without them.”

“I will not,” Locussaid.

The headman sighed. He enjoyed parents begging, but he enjoyed punctuality more. “Enough. We’re late.” He lifted his hand. Two riflemen moved on cue. Athird emerged from the kitchen, shadow thickening into a man. The drone’s red eye winked from the window and drifted upward.

“Let’s walk,” the headman said. “You first, alien. Then the girl. Then the parents to the porch, so they can wave and look sad. Once you’re outside with her, put her under your arm. Audience loves possessive body language.”

Hannah caught his hand before he could move.

She laced her fingers with his, pressed his knuckles to her thigh.

Not for the cameras. For herself. To affix herself to the only thing that held when the ground broke.

Heat surged through him, hard and undeniable.

The way she fit against him would always ruin him and save him at once.

Her skin burned where it touched his, the press of her thigh against his hand far too intimate for the headman’s stage.

The connection was dangerous, apromise no threat could sever.

They walked. Two riflemen in front, two behind.

The headman strutted backward three steps for the camera, then turned.

Hannah’s mother gripped the porch rail until her knuckles went white.

Her father wrapped an arm around her. He looked like a man who already had a tool in mind, ready to turn into a weapon.

Outside, three SUVs idled in the drive and along the curb, gray paint, dark glass.

Afourth idled at the corner, adriver in a Yankees cap slouched in boredom.

Exhaust clung to the damp air. Two houses down, awoman in pink slippers retrieved her newspaper without looking up. The camera liked her,too.

Locus placed Hannah in the middle SUV, then slid in after her, body filling the space between her and the door so no bullet could find her.

His thigh pressed firm against hers, aline of heat he refused to yield.

Arifleman rode shotgun, barrel aimed lazy down the line of the headrest. The headman rode in the lead car, enjoying first place. Engines revved. The convoy pulledaway.

Hannah’s hand didn’t release his. Her palm was cool now, steady against his. The seatbelt cut across her collarbone, aline he longed to taste. He dragged his gaze away, fixing it on the window, but every breath carried her scent.

“What’s the Challenge?” Hannah asked the rifleman.

“Need-to-know,” he replied, proud of his script.

“I didn’t ask you.” Her eyes cut to Locus, searching for truth andhope.

“They will not hand us a layout or directions,” Locus said. “They think surprise will make us bleed for them. They are wrong.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I will not bleed for their joy. Iwill choose my own wound, and I will turn it into a blade they never meant to give me.”