Page 6

E mily

The medic hut feels more cramped than ever. The space is filled with the soft rustle of fur blankets and quiet voices as everyone settles in for the night. With the arrival of the new women, space has become even tighter with single beds lined up like we’re in some sort of dormitory back on Earth.

Most of the women talk in hushed voices, their exhaustion evident. Some sit on their beds, braiding their hair or rubbing sore muscles, while others lie down, staring up at the wooden beams above them as though trying to pretend they’re somewhere else and not on an alien planet.

“I heard the chief has already sent out warriors,” Morgan says, arms crossed over her chest as she leans against the wall.

Unlike some of the other women in the hut—those who crashed with me—Morgan is one of the newcomers Mara and Sorrin’s group found.

We share the same nightmare of being abducted from our planet by the Zyfeliks, but we lived through different versions of it.

With her piercing dark gaze and her commanding presence, it quickly became obvious that she is the leader of the newcomers.

“They’re going back to search the area where that big bird took Lily,” she continues, before crossing to the bed nearest to her and perching next to another newcomer, a woman with an injury she sustained just prior to being abducted.

The lime green cast she arrived in has been removed and replaced with pale, cream-colored bandages that Warrix, the tribe’s medic, said would only have to be in place for a short while longer.

No one replies right away. A few of the other women glance at each other, but the hope in their eyes is dim. The group with Mara and Sorrin searched the area before they left, and they found no signs of Lily. What makes this attempt any different?

“That thing was so big. Did you see its teeth?” one of the new women whispers to another.

I stiffen, but I don’t say anything.

Crystal, sitting cross-legged on her bed, scoffs. “So what? That doesn’t mean we give up.” Despite her sharp exterior, I’ve come to know Crystal well enough to hear the emotion running beneath her words.

“No one’s giving up. But…” Morgan hesitates, carefully weighing her words. “It’s been days.”

I swallow hard. No one here knows Lily is my cousin. I still haven’t told them. Not even the women I spent endless hours with in the cargo bay of the Zyfelik ship. The same women who looked after me when I was injured after the crash.

Why?

Because I can’t stand to see that look again. The pity. I saw it after my parents’ funeral, and again, years later, when we buried my grandparents. That look makes me feel small and helpless, and I’ve had more than enough of that to last a lifetime.

I stare at the ceiling, the weight of the room pressing in from all sides, while the others keep talking around me like it’s any other night.

Across the hut, Aria flops down onto her mattress with a huff.

She’s been the optimist in our group from the very beginning.

“But it could happen. She could be out there somewhere, just waiting to be found.” She glances at Rose, who is lying on her side with Zoe curled up against her, the little girl already asleep. “Right, Rose?”

Rose sighs, her hand smoothing over Zoe’s curls.

She was Zoe’s teacher back on Earth, and they were taken together as they waited for the little girl’s foster parent to pick her up from school.

Rose has always been the maternal sort with a giving, comforting nature.

And now, with a baby growing inside her, a baby she learned about the same day she was abducted, she’s become the mother hen of our group.

“I hope so,” she murmurs. But she doesn’t sound convinced.

The hopelessness in her voice tightens the ache deep in my chest. They’ve already given up on her.

I press my lips together, and my nails dig into the fur blanket covering me. An image of Lily rises in my mind. Her easy, confident smile and her brown eyes laughing at some silly joke only she could make sound funny. Memories and thoughts of her flash through my mind like a slideshow.

Like when we were teenagers, and I was on the verge of backing out of a spring break trip to Panama City Beach.

Because what if something went wrong? What if I embarrassed myself?

What if, what if, what if… Lily had sighed and said, “ Em, if you take a chance, sometimes good things happen, sometimes bad things happen. But if you don’t take a chance, nothing happens. ”

My fingers tighten around the blanket. I’ve racked my brain all night to come up with a plan, and I finally have one. It’s not the best plan, but it’s better than doing nothing.

My satchel is already packed with extra clothes and supplies I think I’ll need and hidden beneath my bed.

I even pocketed a knife at the evening meal, slipping it into the makeshift bra I wear made out of material the Laediriians gave us.

It’s a knife I hope I won’t need, but I’m willing to use it if I have to.

I wait, my heart pounding as I listen to the quiet hum of voices fading, one by one, as fatigue pulls the other women in the hut into a deep sleep.

Finally, when the last whisper dies and only the occasional soft snores remain, I ease out of bed and tiptoe to the door.

My heart is pounding so hard I worry for a second that someone might hear it and wake up.

But they don’t. The sister moons spill pale light through the windows, casting everything in silver-blue shadows.

I hesitate at the door to the medic hut, glancing back over my shoulder at my friends sleeping so peacefully.

My friends are going to think I’ve lost my mind for leaving the safety of the village.

Maybe I have, but I can’t just sit here, waiting for someone else to decide Lily’s fate.

What I’m about to do feels like a betrayal of everything—of my friends, of the tribe that’s fed us and clothed us and kept us alive. But I have to go.

I just hope when I make it back, they’ll forgive me.

I pull my shoulders back with determination and slip through the door into the darkness beyond. As I step forward, the crunch of the pebbles under my boots sounds deafening in the silence.

The village is quiet, with only the faint hum of the night guards at the gate breaking the stillness. If I’m going to find Lily and bring her back alive, I’ll need help, and there’s only one person desperate enough, reckless enough, and maybe angry enough to come with me.

Vrok.

It’s risky, but right now, he’s my only hope.

I glance to the lone hut at the edge of the village where he’s being kept.

No guards stand outside. There aren’t enough warriors left to post one, not with the group Draggar sent out the moment he heard about the missing human.

I’d overheard the talk during the evening meal, quiet murmurs laced with doubt and resignation.

Even now, I can still hear the tribe members’ hushed voices around the fire pit, their tones heavy with grim certainty. They don’t believe the search will amount to anything. To them, it’s a wasted effort. A mission doomed to end in nothing.

But I refuse to believe that.

The hut looms ahead, bathed in the eerie silvery blue light of the moons. My steps falter as doubts assail me.

Despite my earlier defense of him, can I actually trust Vrok? Even his own people don’t.

But maybe that’s why this will work.

If there’s even a sliver of truth to the claims that he’s a traitor, he might see this as an opportunity to escape. And if he’s innocent, well, desperation has a way of making unlikely alliances.

Vrok owes me nothing. He has every reason to refuse me outright. But if there’s even a chance he’ll help me, I have to take it.

An image of my cousin flashes in my mind.

Her wide smile, those laughing brown eyes, the way she’d call me a scaredy-cat with a grin, and then pull me into a hug.

She’d give me a pep talk, tell me I could do this.

If the roles were reversed, she wouldn’t even hesitate.

She’d have been out of this village the second she knew I was missing, and she wouldn’t look back.

“You can do this,” I whisper to myself before taking a deep breath and trying to force my nerves to settle.

With practiced ease, I slip my knife into the lock, the metal clinking as I work. After only a few seconds, the lock clicks softly indicating it’s unlocked. It’s a skill I picked up from a past boyfriend who didn’t always walk a straight and narrow path. I never thought I’d use it like this.

I grit my teeth and push the door open. Light from the Sister Moons spills inside, illuminating the interior of the hut.

Inside, the air in the hut is thick with dampness. The musty scent of aged wood fills my nose, layered with the faint, metallic tang of rust and a musky, spicy fragrance that I can’t quite identify.

Vrok sits against the far wall, his broad shoulders hunched against the rough-hewn stone.

Thick chains hang around his wrists and his ankles, and they rattle as he shifts.

My gaze involuntarily traces over the defined ridges of his abdomen, the way his biceps tense as he leans forward.

I hate myself for noticing, but I do. His sharp silver eyes snap up to meet mine, and I go still, like a deer caught in the headlights.

“What are you doing here?” His voice is low and rough.

I step inside and pull the door closed behind me. My heart is pounding so loudly I’m sure he has to be able to hear it.

Swallowing down the trepidation that makes me want to turn around and head back to my safe bed in the medic hut, I blurt out, “I need your help.”