Page 17 of I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I’m Trapped in a Rom-Com (Cosmic Chaos #1)

Water rushed in from every direction, and an arm came around my waist and hauled me upright. I gasped for air as soon as my head broke the surface.

“What the fuck?” I cried out. My hands fisted a familiar green coat, and I nearly sobbed in relief when I recognized the gold stripes of Sol’s horns.

“Stop squirming,” he called over his shoulder. He elbowed a soldier out of his way and ran through the crowd like his heels were on fire. Toto tackled another man to the ground when he lunged for us.

A sharp whistle rang through the air, and the next thing I knew, the area was swarmed with men in red armor. They bulldozed through King Osid’s men like a group of linebackers on steroids.

Sol dodged to avoid an oncoming spear. The air was knocked out of my lungs when his shoulder dug into my stomach. Wet hair slapped right into my mouth. I spat it out and tried to call over the chaos but was drowned out by a scream as a body was flung over my head. “Wait, stop!” I tried again. “Sol, tell them to stop! We don’t have to fight, I know how to fix the fence iss— Ack!” My words were cut off when Sol swung me around, my knee connecting with the jaw of a soldier. With a sickening pop, his jaw dislocated.

Wasting no time, Sol threw me back over his shoulder and took off down the street. “Did you just use me as a weapon?” I yelled.

“They took my knives,” he said petulantly.

“Still, though!”

“Be angry later. Intern flew ahead to find Beast; they’re set to meet us at the front gate. Lok’s men won’t be able to hold off the bastards forever. We have to go!”

“What about Blair?” I asked.

“We got separated during the breakout.” Sol rounded a corner with Toto following closely and was met with the towering walls of the village border. “This would be easier if I knew where I was going.”

A shout drew our attention to four soldiers advancing down the alleyway. Sol turned to escape down the other path, but that, too, was blocked, by another soldier.

“What do we do?” I asked.

“Hold on, I’m thinking.”

“You don’t have a plan?”

“The plan was to break out and grab you. So far, it’s going great. We’re just in the middle of a little hiccup and need to find a way out, that’s all.”

“And an antidote.”

“Antidote?”

“Yeah, I kinda sorta got poisoned by wispfruit.”

His jaw dropped. “You were poisoned. How? You were out of my sight for no more than a few hours!”

“Really, Dory, you are not making this rescue easy,” Toto chided.

“Don’t gang up on me! How am I at fault here? A lot of things happened in those hours, all right?! I learned the king’s evil plan, had dinner, saw a torture, and…OHHHH! That’s right, the fence!”

“Dory, now is not the time to keep screaming about the blasted fence. We’re in the middle of a situation.”

“Which makes it the perfect time!” I snapped. I slid off Sol’s shoulder and faced our assailants, my hands held up in surrender. “Have any of you gotten the translator yet?” I asked. “Or be willing to hold still long enough for a quick smooch?”

“What are you doing?” Sol hissed.

“My job, kinda.” Conflict resolution wasn’t an uncommon job aspect when it came to being a wildlife biologist. It was often up to us to figure out how to develop strategies to mitigate conflicts between humans and wildlife, whether it was building an electric fence so the wildlife stopped eating crops, or even teaching scare tactics to countryfolk to stop them from shooting any predator that came near their sheep. I can’t say any of those countryfolk have ever held a spear to my throat or poisoned me, but life’s a bitch and then you die. So I may as well give it a go.

A spear embedded itself in the wall next to my face.

“You know what? You’re right, it’s not the time.” I bent down and tore at the laces of my left boot.

“Finally, you begin to see sense—” His body tensed when my hand gripped his shoulder to keep myself steady. “In the name of the old gods, what do you think you’re doing? They’re about to run us through!”

With a yank, I pulled my foot free of the boot, ripped off my sock, then raised my foot toward our assailants and screamed, “Hoof rot!”

The reaction was immediate. The faces of our attackers twisted into horrified grimaces. The two charging forward skittered to a halt; one slipped on the cobblestones and frantically crab-walked backward to get away from my foot.

For extra effect, I wiggled my toes and hopped closer to them.

The guard in the rear retched and took off running. I turned to wiggle my toes at the man in the alleyway, only to find him long gone, his spear clanking against the stone floor as if it had been recently dropped. The man on the ground looked up to see that he had been left for dead in the face of my disease-ridden foot, scrambled upright only to slip on his friend’s vomit, vomited himself, then tried again and took off. If he hadn’t just thrown a spear at my head, I almost would’ve felt bad for him.

Sol stared ahead blankly. “I…I can’t believe that worked.”

“Yeah, y’all got some serious issues with feet.”