Page 107 of Owned By Two

I grabbed his arm and dragged him down to crouch beside me.

He hissed through his teeth and grumbled something about me being too serious.

When our lives were on the line, I thought it was good that at leastone of uswas being serious!

I peered over the shuttle we were hiding behind and spotted our ship across the way.

It was parked on a quiet patch of ground, out in the open.

The worst possible place we could have left it.

“It looks clear,” Uhti said, getting to his feet.

I grabbed him and yanked him back down. “Look, maybe you don’t take survival seriously, but I do. We have zero chance of rescuing Lizzy if we’re dead. Understand me?”

“No one knows we’re here—”

“And I want to keep it that way. There’s no way of knowing if Qeyel set off an alarm or early warning system for security to fall on top of us like a ton of bricks. They could be out there right now and we wouldn’t know it until they sent a bullet our way.”

“But we don’t have time to waste. We need to get to Lizzy right now.”

I shook my head. “We need to take this one step at a time.”

Uhti looked me over before seeming to come to a decision.

He unshouldered the bag full of items and handed them to me.

“I’m not carrying your junk!” I growled at him.

“It’s not junk. If we’re going to have any chance of rescuing Lizzy, it’s going to be with this stuff.”

I frowned at him and fingered the bag open to peer at the items.

It really did look like a bunch of garbage to me.

“This stuff?” I said doubtfully.

“It will protect you.”

My ears perked up at the sudden shift from “us” to “you.”

“If you manage to rescue Lizzy, just do one thing for me, and tell her I love her. Tell her I’ve loved her ever since I first laid eyes on her.”

“Why would I need to do that?” I said. “You can tell her that yourself.”

“Maybe. If I survive the next few minutes.”

I realized his intentions the moment the words were out of his mouth.

I snapped out with a hand to grab him and prevent him from doing it, but he had already turned and run in the opposite direction, around the shuttle we were crouched behind, and toward our parked shuttle out in the open.

I spun around and perched with the plasma rifle in my hands, aimed toward the short squat set of buildings in case anyone opened fire on Uhti.

I swore to myself about how dumb this was, how only a moron would throw his life away so carelessly… but I also knew he was doing it because it saved time that might otherwise cost Lizzy’s life.

Still, I didn’t like it.

I watched with bated breath as Uhti drew closer to our ship.

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