Page 34 of Claimed By the Alien Assassin
I whisper, “Disrupt relay in three... two...”
Josie leaps in beside me, voice gentle. “Do it.”
I press the release. Sparks flick like fireflies trapped in wires. The lights scream, flicker and die on the grid. A low buzz becomes a dying howl of malfunction.
The lights die. Silence spreads through the workshop like dust settling. The kids stare. Breath held.
I lean back. “Grid’s down.”
Hargon hoots. “That was...”
“Awesome?” Tessa finishes, wide-eyed.
“You’re more than awesome,” I say, voice low.
They beam. My chest thunders—not from mission success, but from what it cost: trust earned.
Josie bumps my arm. “See? Not a sexbot.”
I flash her a rare grin.
The teens scramble away, whispers bouncing behind them, hope buried now among the locals.
I turn back to her. She’s smiling—soft, warm, unstoppable.
I reach for her and find that I don’t need weapons when I hold her. I just need her heartbeat under my palm and the hope I see in her eyes.
“Tomorrow,” I murmur, “we’ll step harder.”
She nods. “Together.”
And the world outside our workshop waits. For the revolution… and for us.
Morning light slants across the workshop floor, carrying the smell of warmed metal and renewed purpose. The sensor grid’s down, but the energy in the air is something else—something alive. I breathe it in, letting it settle in my lungs like a promise.
The workshop door opens, and Josie strides through before me, boots slapping against the concrete, hair spilling like black flame. Her grin cuts through the gloom.
“Dayn!” she exclaims, voice buoyant, as two miners dart in behind her, carrying paint – one has a can of yellow, the other red.
I watch as they set to work on the wall—brushes flicking bright petals with fire behind them. A flower, yes, but not just a flower; a firebrand, a declaration.
I step in fully. “You planning a war of aesthetics?”
She laughs, that laugh I’m learning to lock into my soul, and slaps my arm. “It’s called symbolism, genius. And yes, I’m plotting revolutionandmurals.”
I admire the wall. Bright orange and yellow, petals sharp like spears. A flower that burns, not wilts.
A kid with soot-stained cheeks—Tessa, the same one from last night—skips forward. “It’s the Snowblossom Reborn,” shesays, breathless. “Like you said.” She points to Josie. “She’s making us believe again.”
Josie inclines her head. “That’s the mission, kiddo.” She looks at me. “See? This is what we did.”
I swallow. Iseeit. I feel it. The shift changes everything.
People won’t whisper to me, not yet—not the assassin. But they talk around Josie like she’s a solar flare, drawing everyone within orbit. She greets workers, asks about mechanics, jokes with engineers covered in grease—and they laugh. Real laughs, not survival coughs.
I stand back and watch her–the way she leans in when someone tells her about broken ration units, the way she touches shoulders with reassurance, the way she speaks of hope like it’s currency.
My chest tightens. I’ve trained to kill. I’ve trained to vanish. Ihaven’ttrained to stand by while a woman I love becomes the living spark for revolution, standing at the front of a dozen trembling flames squeezed into every cracked corridor of this colony.
