Page 96 of Sworn to the Alien

If anyone was going to take him out, it had to be me.

“All right,” I said. “But I’m coming out with my blaster.”

“Drop it.”

“Nope,” I said. “If you’re going to shoot me, I’ll shoot you too. I’m coming out now.”

I stepped through the hole, slowly, my blaster trained on my target.

By the way he’d been shouting, I could triangulate his rough position.

There was a large monster skeleton there and I knew he must be hiding behind it.

I proved to be right.

I kept my pistol trained on him.

He kept Layla between us and I could barely make out his head over her shoulder.

To fire and strike him without harming Layla was too risky.

I rounded the skeleton until I could see both of them clearly.

I kept my eyes on him at all times.

There was a fiery, desperate look in his eye that I had seen many times during my years as a Space Marine.

It made him unpredictable and hard to gauge.

He could doanything.

We’d been trained to never engage in such hostiles but I wouldn’t leave Layla’s life in the hands of this creature.

Then my blood turned cold.

I could hardly believe it was him…

But itwashim!

The very same scoundrel pirate that had kidnapped my ex-wife, the very same bastard that had taken her life from me…

“You…” I gasped breathlessly.

“Me?” he said, taking a moment to peer over Layla’s shoulder

“I’ve dreamed a thousand dreams about what I would do to you if I ever set eyes on you again.”

He peered at me more closely. “Do we… know each other?”

How could it be that he didn’t recognize me on sight?

I hadn’t aged that much and didn’t look all that different.

Or was it because he had done so much evil over the years that all his victims morphed into one?

I could recall his faceexactly.

All save for that ugly scar across his cheek — the scar that my wide shot had caused.

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