Page 40 of Xefe (Nozaroc Alien Warrior #1)

V alentina?

My body seized. Everything around me blurred, even as the racers took off, and the crowd roared. I stood, shocked to my core. As if my feet had grown roots and planted me in the ground.

“Hera. Move!” Nieve shouted.

I couldn’t focus. Couldn’t think! Querida returned to my side, battling against competitors who rushed through the first part of the maze and pulled at my hand. Nheenya hovered halfway between us, clearly uncertain about what to do.

I stood. And stared. My sister. She’s here. My heart shattered into pieces as I saw her lying so still, clearly unconscious. Por favor, Dios. Please, please let her be alive. I ran my eyes over every inch of her. Long dark hair, creamy skin.

And Sunny, he wouldn’t meet my eyes. Instead, he paced behind the supreme and his guards. Leaving my sister alone with Freckles. Did he know? Had I made a mistake in trusting him? Had he overdosed again to numb his feelings for me?

My eyes swung back to Valentina. No movement. I was frozen in indecision.

Until… Freckles grabbed my sister by the hair and licked the side of her face. His eyes were trained on mine, and I understood.

He knows who she is.

Freckles held an injector above her face, poised to pierce her eye.

“Don’t you dare, you freckled fuck!” I screamed, knowing he couldn’t hear me.

I launched into action, no plan in mind.

But I couldn’t just stand there. I ran away from the maze and toward the empty space to the side of the arena.

My sister was floating above me, hundreds of feet in the air, so close yet impossibly far away. There was no way I could get up there.

As I ran, the rest of my group shouted after me. I kept my eyes trained on Freckles. He swung the injector up. No! Don’t! He lifted it and plunged the entire vial into Valentina’s eye.

I collapsed on the ground, knowing the pain my sister would be in. Her body immediately heaved and undulated, so much so that Freckles couldn’t hold her.

Nieve raced over. “Hera! What the hell?”

“My sister. He killed her!” I sobbed. Valentina was weak; her body had gone through so much. She battled a disease that slowly atrophied her leg muscles. How would she survive that amount of Oro?

Nieve and the rest finally looked up and gasped. “Holy shit. We have to get up there.”

“It’s too late.” I couldn’t think past the pain. I’d never felt so helpless, so powerless. And Sunny just stood there. Allowed Freckles to hurt the only person who’d ever truly loved me. “Valentina!” I screamed.

“Think, Hera.” Nieve shook me. “What are your abilities? Your big mouth, right? Get that supreme to notice you, and he’ll bring the platform closer. Do it! Say something.”

I heaved, fighting back the bile crawling up my throat.

I looked at Sunny one last time, waiting for him to show me something.

As if he’d heard me, he turned and speared me with his swirling gaze.

He wasn’t cold. He was alive , and he circled closer to the supreme.

Had he made his choice? Would he assist, or was he our biggest threat?

As if it were Sunny’s voice in my ear, I heard the word clear as day, “Fight!”

I tapped my palm and accessed my contacts.

An outline of a plan took shape. “Call Veras.” I had no idea if it would work, but the crafty alien had to have some way of letting me get in touch with him.

A grainy sound, with the supreme’s voice droning on behind him, told me Veras had picked up but wasn’t speaking.

“Get me access to the supreme’s live feed.

I don’t care how you do it. But do it, now!

” I tapped off the call and looked at the girls.

“Get ready. This is it. I’m going to kill Freckles.

I have to, it’s the only way Veras will help us get home.

But please, you have to promise me you’ll save my sister if I can’t.

” My voice broke. “Please. I don’t care what happens to me. ”

The three of them surrounded me.

“We promise,” Querida said.

“Of course.” Nieve nodded.

“With my life,” Nheenya added so reverently. “Who is your sister?”

For a moment, I almost smiled. It was the second I needed to reset. To remind myself that there were good people in the world.

“She’s on the stage. I’ll show you,” Nieve whispered.

My hand vibrated, telling me Veras had done his job. When I tapped it, the feedback roared through me. The supreme, who fancied himself a sports reporter and was giving a blow-by-blow account of the event, was cut off.

Gametime.

I took a minute to imagine the supreme, how he spoke, the repetitive way he muttered his screeches and clicks that were a shade different from other Aavvee.

Speech mattered. He chose to use a dialect that set him apart, made him special, aristocratic…

like a king. I would use this form of communication against him.

But I wasn’t interested in the Aavvee, I had others to convince—others who were used to taking orders from those who spoke like the supreme.

“Hear- hear me, warriors. You- you have been lied to. Told…untruths.” Hopefully, they were as obsessed with honesty as Sunny. “You- you are slaves to a system that has manipulated you from birth. You- you will never leave here because there is no home world to return to.”

The crowd went dead quiet, the entire arena silent as it looked at me, and heard me speaking the supreme’s language.

Then, like a crashing wave, the Aavvee hissed their displeasure, clearly agitated that I’d taken attention from the games.

But I saw warriors stream out of the woodwork and head toward me. Probably not to have a chat.

Hopefully, they weren’t too brainwashed to listen. We’d need a lot of help to get out of here.

“They- they have misled you. The Aavvee scientists and your supreme- reme .” I looked over at the floating platform. The leader was going ballistic, pointing down at me with one hand, attacking and hitting anyone near him with the other.

Warriors were now on hoverboards, similar to the one I’d stolen, racing toward me and the girls.

Loxo ran at us. Would he remember what I said? Or stop me?

“The- the supreme lied. You- you are all from this planet. Stolen as children from the Nozarocan people. This is your home planet- net . This is your land! You- you are proud Nozarocan warriors. Your knowledge about your almax , your one, does not come from the supreme, it comes from a deep knowing inside of you- you . In your DNA. But he will never let you have your almax . He will keep them from you. Because he will never let you go!”

The warriors roared, clearly reacting to my words.

I wasn’t sure in what way, though. The floating stage with my sister descended and dropped fast, getting closer and closer to me.

Unfortunately, the warriors were faster.

Their hoverboards had landed, and they streamed off, running at top speed to attack us.

Loxo jumped in front of us. “Stop! She speaks the truth.” His red eye swirled menacingly.

The warriors slowed and looked to their supreme, but he couldn’t communicate with them. I controlled the mic. The warriors continued to stare, focused, as if awaiting orders, only it wasn’t the supreme they looked to for guidance. It was Sunny.

“They are using your sperm, your DNA, when you make your donations in the lab, to create a race of super soldiers.” I dropped the Aavvee accent and switched into the warriors’ language.

“This is your future offspring that should be for your almax , not for the Aavvee to experiment on. Do you want your children under their control?”

The warriors shouted and growled, fighting amongst themselves about who to believe.

The supreme’s platform lowered to about twenty feet above me. I couldn’t see anything from this angle, now that it was right above us, but Sunny’s head popped over the side. Before I could blink, he threw Freckles over the edge, and he landed in the middle of the field in a crumpled heap.

The supreme screeched and ordered the guards to go after Freckles and bring him back. The platform landed with a thunk , about a hundred yards away from me. As soon as they set down, Sunny attacked the triad, the supreme’s personal guards. He methodically battled his way toward the supreme.

“Grab Valentina!” I threw over my shoulder to the girls and went for Freckles. Everything hinged on me ending his life. It was the only way Veras would help. To take my sister home.

Now’s my chance.

Nime stood in my way. “Halt, earther. You will be harmed.”

“Now you care? I am so sick of your shit. Get out of the way!” I hyper-focused my wrath and accessed every ounce of Oro I had.

I would use my speed, for however long it lasted.

“And I don’t want your stupid supreme. Sunny is going to take care of him.

I want him .” I pointed at Freckles and whizzed past Nime as he looked the other way. He had no chance to stop me.

I jumped on the disgusting lump of an alien, whose smell was so offensive I gagged even as I swung a fist to his face.

His skull and cheekbones were impossibly hard, like concrete, and they immediately shattered my knuckles.

I didn’t care. I kept going. Faintly, in the background, I heard my pangos cry. For justice.

“I know your secret, earther. You can kill me, but it is too late. You are compatible with the warriors. You can breed .” He gasped and screeched even as I went for his neck. “The experiments have already begun.”

“I hate you!” Right before I delivered the final blow, strong hands gripped my arm and threw me off Freckles. I did a back spin and landed on my feet. The Oro was pumping through my blood. I was ready to do battle.

The supreme’s personal guards, the triad, stood in front of me. Teal and gold with devastatingly sharp wings, they gleamed, quite literally glowing with power.

“Don’t make me kill you.” I pointed at each of them. “He is mine!”