Page 2 of Invasive Species
Yeah, like I’d fall for that. “What are you hiding in here, hm?”
He darts to me faster than I ever thought possible. I flinch on instinct, fists half-raised, useless—and then his hands are on my shoulders, gripping hard, pulling me flush against his chest. My brain short-circuits; no fight, no flight, nothing kicks in. I'm just a hedgehog in theheadlights.
Then hethrowsme—out through the slash in the rocket's side and into Ellen’s garden. I land hard, gasping, and before I can scramble up, he’s already with me, shouting something fierce and guttural in his language.
His green-black arms wrap around me, tight and unyielding. He ducks his head over mine, curling his body around me like a shield. A living cocoon.
“What are you doing?” I finally find my voice, trying to slip underneath like a bar of soap. He holds my full weight easily, like I weigh nothing in his huge strong arms. “Let me go, you?—”
A blast from behind knocks into him. Gara’s bulk lurches and we go down hard. He holds me suspended above the mud at the same time as his hand catches his fall in the squelchy earth.
My ears ring. Fuck! And I realize—he’s not attacking.
He’s protecting.
“Dom, Arture, get down!” he roars, too loud in my ear. I flinch and burrow my head in his chest.
Two more blasts and thunks as bodies hit the ground by the house. No. They’ve been hit!
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I babble, the words nothing more than a frantic mumble over the rapid drum of his heartbeat,thud thud thud thud, far too fast, the whirr of murderous machinery, and the patter of rain as the heavens open overhead.
The green alien above me goes still, his body shielding mine from whatever’s behind him. I slowly wrap my arms around his neck to support myself, and he whispers in my ear, “Stop… moving.”
Over his shoulder, a robot spider-legs into view, each claw clicking on the gangplank. The red beams on its barrel glow like Sauron’s eye, swiveling around in a slow scan, smoking after having fired at Dom and Arture.
Coldseeps into my blood and I freeze in place, hanging off Gara like a baby monkey.
Swallowing hard, Gara meets my gaze. There's real fear in his nuclear green eyes. He can make his scales go super stiff, but I’m guessing a shot at close range would still kill him.
I go as limp as I can, not even breathing underneath Gara's shielding body. His skin gets colder and colder, scales going from racing green to olive green, lowering his body temperature because that thing probably uses infrared. Cold sharpens my mind incredibly, but the adrenaline might also have something to do with it; nothing like a drop of fight or flight finally kicking in to increase focus.
A beam flashes over his shoulder and the robot’s barrel gun follows. Fuck. I tense but Gara’s utterly still, eyes locked onto mine. As if my brain is trying desperately to let me escape elsewhere, I start cataloging details like I'm preparing to paint him. He has little scales all over his cheeks and even across his eyelids, olive green right now but usually a rich jade, and he has hairy eyebrows like ours. A swoop of his chestnut hair, heavy with rain, droops down from his forehead to brush mine in little flutters as he breathes. His arms aren’t shaking even though he holds me up parallel to the soil. He’s strong as hell.
The robot clanks away, gun barrel pointed up the hills like a hunting dog's nose, and races off toward the sheep fields. Fuck, fuckity fuck.
“Is it gone?” I whisper.
Gara’s head jerks up, and he looks surprised to see me in his arms. Immediately he dumps me and jumps up like I’m a toxic substance he has to stay far away from.
I get to my feet and wring my hands, useless, searching for what to tell him. There's nothing to say, and I squirm under the intensity of the alien’s gimlet gaze.
“What happened?” Ilia bellows from the house, and Garasuddenly bolts for the downed aliens. As fucked as it sounds, I'd forgotten they were there, ADHD being what it is. Oh, shit, are they all dead? Arik, Dom, Nevare, Arture, they all lie where they fell, utterly still. Wait. I thought only Dom and Arture got hit?
Ilia strides up, Ellen behind him with her mouth in an ‘O’. So, her usual face when she sees what trouble I've gotten myself in.
Gara races from one to the other, getting to his knees and turning them over, going bright green as he triages their injuries. “Scout robot, it came out of the shell, shot Arture and Dom," he reports to Ilia. How can he be so damned calm?
I slap my hands to my face. “I was only looking, I didn't push anything, I swear! Are they okay?"
Gara doesn’t answer, but the look he shoots me over his shoulder is pure hatred, a heated glare like a plutonium rod about to meltdown all the shit.
Ellen looks from me to one of the purple aliens and chooses to help him. Yes, right, he needs help more than me. I take a step toward them but halt. Which one to help first? Which ones actually got hit? I can't decide, and my brain isn't helping my decision freeze.
“I can’t find any wounds,” Ellen tells Gara.
"That's because Dom took the blast," Gara mutters, pressing on Arture's chest. There’s a big bloody gash in it, a smell like burnt Twiglets in the air, but the edges sort of trickle together as they mend. "Ilia, how is Arik?"
"Same as Nevare, downed because Dom is. Thank the All-Mother, they'll be fine." Ilia sits back on his heels, his scales flickering bright silver. Glancing at Ellen, he explains, “Dom can tank a hit, and Arture can heal faster than any of us.”
