Page 87 of Xefe
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 wasalive, 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 theAavvee, I had others to convince—others who were used to taking orders from those who spoke like the supreme.
“Hear-hearme, warriors. You-youhave been lied to. Told…untruths.” Hopefully, they were as obsessed with honesty as Sunny. “You-youare slaves to a system that has manipulated you from birth. You-youwill 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-theyhave 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.
