Page 9 of Phoenix Fated (The Phoenix Guardians #4)

Maybe that was it. Morbid curiosity, to see if what I was thinking was true. It didn't mean I had any intention of following through. It definitely didn't mean I wanted it to happen.

The wood planking around me creaks as I feel the ship banking slightly, tilting me forward.

The chains pull taut and the cuffs dig into my bruised wrists.

I lurch to the side and spread my knees out to steady myself.

We're speeding up. The rhythmic thump from the phoenix furnace comes faster like a nervous heartbeat, and I hear muffled shouts through the opposing wall.

I strain against the shackles, turning my body back and forth in an effort to find some weakness in the chain, some way I might be able to slip out, even if it means breaking my fucking hands.

I'm suddenly slammed into the wall as the ship jolts violently from some kind of impact. It's not turbulence. Did we hit something? Or did something hit us?

More shouts from outside, followed by the thud of boots and paws on the floor above me.

Another hard jolt, and a loud bang from outside on the hull.

My stomach lurches. The ship is turning hard, like they've slammed it into one hell of a U-turn, or something is pushing us into a spin.

Then the floor tilts like a rollercoaster car ticking up for the drop, and I fall against the wall again.

All I can see are dim shapes in the darkness as everything not tied down slides across the room towards me.

"Oh, fuck!!"

A large crate flies at me like the grill of a semi-truck, and just before I'm turned into a Jackson pancake, the ship rocks again, throwing the crate into the wall a dick's width away from my head.

Then I hear something tapping on the opposite side of the wood behind me, like giant fingernails drumming it.

Suddenly, a spear of blinding sunlight shoots into the room from a hole punched through the wall.

Then another, and another, and then I'm thrown across the room as the wall comes apart, flooding the space with searing light.

I'm upside down and I can't see. Everything is bleached white.

My hands are still shackled tight, though the chain has ripped free from the shattered plank it was nailed into.

Wind roars through the room along with the sound of a million chainsaws roaring away.

My head is ringing. If I wasn't concussed before I sure as fuck am now. I force my eyes open. The hole in the ship's wall just looks like a huge spotlight pointed at my face, and bizarre shapes flicker in front of it like shadow puppets in a movie theater. And a weird smell, like fried electronics.

As my eyes come into focus, so do the dark shapes.

Oh god, what the fuck is that?!

A monster the size of a pig, like a cross between the worst parts of a lobster and a termite, with six segmented legs, dark orbs for eyes, buzzing wings and a thick exoskeleton covered with spines and bristling hairs.

It scuttles into the room, immediately followed by four others along the ceiling, their antennae waving as their heads bobble inquisitively back and forth.

Outside, there are hundreds of them flying around the ship, like mosquitos coming in to feed.

A cold chill goes through my body as the insect moves towards me, clicking its mandibles and shaking its head.

It moves like a machine without any emotion or thought, just impulses.

I try to right myself, but freeze in place, my legs hanging stupidly in the air over my head.

Seeing the monster upside down makes it look even more grotesque, like a hallucination from a nightmare.

My eyes are watering from the ozone stench radiating from its body, and as it leans closer its antennae whip across my face like a riding crop. Well, shit. Out of all the possible ways I imagined dying, getting eaten by a giant bug was not on the list.

It spreads its mandibles, revealing a disgusting, slimy maw.

Then, there's a loud crunch and a green flash, and I'm suddenly covered in tingling goo.

There's a huge chunk missing from the bug, and through it I see the silhouette of a man standing in the opening of the side of the ship.

The other bugs turn to attack him, but he dispatches them quickly with blasts of energy from the staff held in his hands.

My savior steps out of the glare, his golden hair pouring to the side as he tilts his head to look at me. Airos's shit-eating grin is both the most infuriating and the most wonderful thing I've ever seen. I'm thrilled to see him. I hate that I'm so thrilled to see him.

"Are you planning on staying like that, or...?"

"My hands are tied up, asshole," I bark. "Maybe you could fuckin' help me?"

With a laugh, Airos gets me upright. Then his expression goes stark serious as he looks me over. "Gods," he says. "What did they do to you?"

He reaches up to touch my battered cheek and I pull away.

"I'm good. There are more important things we need to deal with, like these damn handcuffs. Can you get them off me?"

"Turn around."

I feel him grip the center of the shackles, pulling me closer to him.

"How did you find me?" I ask.

"Not without trouble," he replies.

"No shit."

Suddenly, a huge shining bird swoops up to the hole in the hull. It quickly shrinks as it lands, transforming into a man. It's Kalistratos and Tyler.

"Good, you've found him!" Kalistratos exclaims. "Let's go, while our new friends are distracted."

"Wait," I say. "We can't. There's?—"

But before I'm able to tell him about Dustin, the bugs swarm the hull with such force that I nearly lose my balance and slam my face into the wall.

As they pour into the room, Airos blows the door open with his magic and forces me out.

We all run as a tidal wave of bugs crashes into the hallway after us, scurrying along the walls and ricocheting off each other like manic, out of control drones.

"There goes our easy escape," Kalistratos yells.

The passageway opens up, and I realize that we're now in the lower level of the engine room. I look up to where the walkway and the phoenix furnace are, and out of shock at what I see I come to a halt.

The ceiling, the walkway, the furnace, all of it is a shimmering black mass of insects. They're pouring into the doors and holes punched through the walls, clambering to reach the very center. They must be drawn to the engine—the phoenix power.

"No time to gawk," Airos says, and he grabs me by the elbow and pulls me along with him.

The bugs behind us divert their pursuit and go for the engine too.

We exit the engine room into a hold filled with coils of rope and racks of clay pots.

Two guards rush in from the far entrance, but they ignore us and run past as more of the bugs chase after them.

We take cover behind rope thick as my wrist coiled into a tall pile, and watch as the wolf men flee into the engine room.

Their screams are quickly covered by the buzz of wings.

"Dammit, Airos, just blow a hole in the side and get us out of here," Kalistratos says.

"We can't leave," I say. "The other omega is here on this ship."

All three of them turn and look at me.

"Seriously?" Tyler says. "You're sure it's them?"

I give him a look, then trace the outline of my pregnant stomach. "Unless there's a bunch of other preggo guys from Earth, I'm pretty damn sure it's them."

"Valid."

"Do you know where they are?" Airos asks me.

"No." I point at my swollen face. "I tried to bust us out of here. Didn't work."

The ship shudders, and suddenly I have that uneasy feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you're on a plane that's changing altitude a little too quickly.

"This thing's going down," Tyler says.

"Then we find the escape flyer, as planned," says Airos. "That's where we'll find him." He turns to me to explain. "These large flyers typically have a smaller transport vessel aboard."

"The buzzer," I say. "Yeah, they have one. We couldn't find it."

"Follow me," he says.

"First, would you please get these damn cuffs off me?"

Airos grips the shackles again, and I'm alarmed by the sudden bloom of heat through the metal.

"Be still," he warns, gripping my forearm with his other hand. "I wouldn't want to take your hands off with them."

"You fuckin' better not, or else I'm gonna make you shake my dick for me every time I go for a piss."

My face flushes. Why the hell did I just say that?

It's a joke I would've made easily to any of my army buddies, but saying it to Airos immediately feels weird.

And to add to my embarrassment, Airos doesn't say a word in response.

He just lets it hang in the air with the sound of the buzzing insects and the dying ship.

"That's a vivid goddamn image," Tyler says with a laugh.

Pop .

The shackles fall from my wrists.

"Hm, too bad," Airos says. "That would've been very interesting."

"Let's go ," I groan.

With Airos taking point, we weave quickly through the underbelly of the ship, cutting through crew quarters where rows of empty hammocks hang at an off-kilter angle from huge ceiling beams. Anything not tied down has become a projectile we have to bound over or dodge, like a crazy obstacle course of death.

The noise from the bugs is now louder than the ship, and the sound of their march bangs through the floor above us like a million hammers.

The route we're taking is almost the exact same as the one Dustin had given me before, except one level down.

That's why we hadn't been able to find the buzzer craft—we were on the wrong floor.