Page 12 of Nanny for the Alien Prince (Alien Recruitment Agency #4)
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AMELIA
We were getting so close!
The soldiers seem to move even faster now, striking down the Ordres the instant they saw them.
It was all I could do just to keep up with them.
As we descended deeper into the building’s bowels, I began to grow more and more hopeful.
I couldn’t be with a better team. They were killers, and they were all on my side.
Finally, we came to a single door at the end of a long hallway.
An Ordres stood on either side of it and they opened fire the moment we came into view.
It was the only time I saw the elite squad open fire with live weapons.
They were just as quick and efficient with them as they were with their handheld weapons.
The Ordres were dead within seconds.
Before their bodies even hit the floor and realized they were dead, we raced down the hallway toward the gray door .
Blue patched into the security system, overrode it, and the door slid open.
Grey and Yellow, as always the tip of the spear, took point and raced inside.
This was it, I thought. This was where Elijax would be.
He would be curled up in a ball in the corner of the room, to be used as a pawn in the Ordres’ plans.
I felt nothing but revulsion at the Ordres and how they could treat a living being as nothing more than a piece in a game.
Two soldiers remained outside the room, keeping guard.
I slipped past them and joined the others inside.
Grey crouched over something in the corner.
I moved around him, tears leaping preemptively into my eyes…
But nothing could have prepared me for what was awaiting me.
It wasn’t Elijax at all.
In the captain’s hand was a small circle of metal.
The beacon bracelet.
Elijax was no longer wearing it.
He was nowhere to be seen.
No… I thought. This can’t be right. This can’t be…
“Where is he?” I said, desperation dripping from every word. “He should be here. Where is he?”
Grey turned to the others. “Search the other cells. He must be here somewhere—”
“Arrghh!”
A tiny figure rushed from the opposite corner of the room and lashed at Grey with a length of discarded bone .
He brought it down on Grey’s helmet and suit over and over again until the bone snapped off… and then kept on beating him with the harmless stub.
“Hey, hey, hey!” Grey said. “We’re here to rescue you! Calm down! Stop!”
But Elijax kept on beating at him.
“Elijax!” I said.
And Elijax stopped immediately.
He looked up at the soldiers, certain of what he’d heard but unsure which of us had spoken.
Elijax had tears in his eyes that formed dirty rivulets down his chubby cheeks.
I reached for my helmet but couldn’t figure out how to remove it.
Green took it off me.
The moment my hair was free, Elijax let out a whimper, dropped the stub of bone he still had clutched in his tiny hands, and ran at me.
I swallowed him in my arms and knew I would never let go.
He cried. I cried. Even a couple of the battle-worn soldiers cried.
“Let’s get him back to the shuttle,” Grey said.
Elijax wouldn’t let go, so I carried him in my arms.
After the earlier firefight, the Ordres bore down hard on us but the Death Squad cleared them one hallway at a time.
I never stopped walking.
“Where’s Nath?” Elijax asked during a momentary reprieve.
“He’s negotiating with the Ordres,” I said.
“I hope he wins.”
He was the missing piece to our perfect family. My voice caught in my throat. “So do I, Elijax. So do I.”
Elijax was asleep by the time we returned to the shuttle.
I strapped him into a chair as Grey took us from the planet.
I didn’t like that we were leaving Nath alone to deal with the Ordres, but this was his plan, and if I trusted anything, it was that he would come through in the end.
We accelerated into the atmosphere, the forces pressing me hard into my seat.
Elijax had his eyes shut tight and gripped my hand in his.
The turbulence abated and we rose into the infinite blackness of space.
“And… we’re safe,” Grey said.
“I’ll inform the prince of our success,” Yellow said.
“Tell him Elijax is healthy and well,” I said. “He’ll want to know that.”
Yellow nodded and bent over her communicator.