Sea of Stars(30)

 Standing outside of my body, I’m a horrified observer of the scene. I know it’s me, but it doesn’t feel like it’s happening to me. I feel nothing. I feel numb. Next to me, a feminine voice says, “How do you like my gift?”

 I turn my head; the lovely, fragile image of the Bee stares back at me. I recognize her as the priestess who blasted me out of the space station earlier today. Attired in the same waspish dress as before, she’s now made of light and air—a perfectly formed nightmare.

 “How did you find me?” I ask her.

 She doesn’t answer my question but says, “I was told you can’t swim.” She watches as the medic inside the cell works to revive me. That battle doesn’t seem to be going well. Nothing he does is bringing me back to consciousness.

 “You did this,” I accuse her. “You filled my cell with water.”

 She gives me a maleficent smile.

 The soldier extracts the snake-bot from my esophagus, looking grim. My lips and my skin have a bluish tint that bodes ill for me. When Trey notices the medic sit back on his heels and shake his head, he loses his mind. He becomes a raging bull, tackling the soldier next to him. Trey wrestles the tricked-out freston from the startled hand of the soldier. Turning the weapon on my limp form upon the floor, Trey fires a yellow lightning electro-pulse straight at my heart. The electricity flows through me, and then through the water as well, shocking everyone in the room. My spirit self is ripped from the air and stuffed back into my body with the force of a cyclone.

 Wide-eyed, I gasp as my back arches in agony and I writhe in pain. My heavy, granitelike lungs don’t feel as if they can process air. Above me, the Bee comes into focus over the shoulder of the soldier who’s patting my cheek.

 With a look of disdain, the Bee says, “You’ll live.” She sighs in frustration before her sapphire-blue eyes narrow in contempt. “If Kyon brings you back here, I will kill you,” she promises. “Run, little Kricket. Run far away.”

 “Who are you?” I whisper through cracked lips, but I never hear her reply. She evaporates into the ceiling and is gone. The chaos of Trey’s cell becomes loud and disorienting. Soldiers who have roused from being shocked are trying to subdue Trey, who’s pointing his freston at the head of one of the soldiers he’s taken hostage. The soldier next to me has recovered somewhat from his shock as well. He pulls the trigger on a gunlike syringe he has inserted into my arm. As the drug he gave me careens through my arteries, I slip into darkness.





CHAPTER 5

 THE DISHERY

 I suck in my bottom lip as I awake to aching muscles and a stiff neck. A dull pain in my upper arm makes me lift my chin off my chest. A smirking soldier draws a gunlike syringe away from my skin. Trying to move, I find my hands are restrained above my head. I breathe faster through dry, cracked lips, and there’s a saliva trail running over one side of my cheek. I squint, disoriented, my eyes unfocused; I’m aware enough to realize that there’s a metal post against my back.

 I push up onto my feet, which relieves some of the pressure on my arm sockets, but I’d give anything right now to be able to put my arms down. Looking up, I find my hands are shackled and latched to a metal peg on the post. The post goes up for as far as I can see through a hole in the ceiling of the room. I’m terrified. I pull as hard as I can against the restraint, hoping it’ll loosen or break. It does neither.

 The soldier who revived me walks away. He crosses out of the circle of light in the center of the room, moving into the shadows toward a door on the far wall. As he leaves the room, I think for a moment that I’m alone, until I hear a male voice say, “Your name is Kricket?” It echoes in the open space.

 I squint, trying to locate the voice. It’s in the darkest part of the room. I taste blood on my lip. My voice is hoarse and raspy when I answer, “Yes.”

 “Do you know who I am?” he asks.

 “No,” I answer. “But I’ll be your best friend if you let me go.” He laughs, but I’m not kidding. “How long have I been out?”

 “You mean unconscious?”

 “How long?” I repeat with growing panic.

 He sounds amused as he says, “I was told that you’re psychic. You’re not omnipotent, then?” He moves away from the far wall, closer to the circle of light I’m in. He’s slight in stature in comparison to all the Rafian men I’ve encountered. He’s only a few inches taller than me. To them, he’s probably a curiosity—being short. He stays on the fringes for a moment, walking around me in a circle. I wait to see what he’ll do next.