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A long swatch of red fabric fluttered from a smashed table below me, and I spotted them. D’unter swung closer, and we antagonized the beasts, driving them down the main street. The cantina’s sign dangled from a tooth dripping with saliva. I buzzed around a beast’s head, doubling my efforts to minimize damage to the storefronts. Hill and Saluda flanked either side of the pack, and Efred brought up the rear.
My team, in my heart anyway, fired laser beams from the blasters Bonic had delivered, but the hellsna’s gelatinous skin absorbed the shots with no actual damage. Instead, they kept the monsters angry and surging forward, and that was crucial. I wanted those blanting beasts out of my town and as far away from Ginger as possible.
D’unter and I dove and swooped. Sweat dripped from my forehead ridge, and I swiped it off while pulling my ringed hood on. I nose-dived at a gyrating head. Its fetid breath soured my stomach, and the rings of razor-sharp teeth that circled deep into its belly urged me to move faster. It would be like going through a meat grinder. There would be no coming back once their mouths caught you.
Bright afternoon sun beat down, turning my head slick. Why didn’t this mutant variation stick to the blanting rules and stay bedded down while the sun shone? Scanning the horizon, I recognized the rocky outcrop in the distance. If our luck held, we’d corral them into a herd of grazing mantu.
Every time I dipped down to tease one of the five gaping maws, the sun blinded me. My heart pounded for D’unter’s safety as he circled and taunted, risking himself for the people of Tern in ways no one should have to. My young team was fearless.
“Foul, Sola-rotted beast!” One of the hellsna broke off from the herd and swung back toward Yurstille. I charged after it, gesturing for Hill’s team to carry on. Why, by the infernal fire of the ancestors, was it heading back to town?
20
The thick odor offear soured the room’s stagnant air. A thin bead of lights embedded in the ceiling’s loose soil cast a dim glow over the less than welcoming space. Sully paced before his younglings as TeyTey settled them against the rough-hewn wall. She swiped a tear from below her youngest’s eye and leaned into him. “We’ll be safe in here.”
TeyTey waved me to her side. I lowered my weary body to the floor beside her. Besides the odd heap of piled earth and the layers of cobwebs netting every crack and crevice, the space was empty. The coppery tang of blood trickled into my mouth. Ihadn’t realized I’d gnawed my cheek raw.JayJay and his damn heroics. He better be careful out there.
Mutters laced with fear filled the hot air as soil rained down.
TeyTey scanned the ceiling as if it might collapse any minute. “If the town plans on using this space as an emergency shelter in the future, it could certainly use some work.” She snorted, dusting off the heads of her children. “You’re a designer. Maybe you have some ideas?”
“Of clothing TeyTey.” I appreciated that she was trying to distract us as the vibrations from the hellsna rattled the half-constructed building loose, but I couldn’t muster one iota of interest about fabric for future curtains with JayJay out there.
As hours passed and the settlement’s siren rang on like a constant drone in my already agitated mind, one need became paramount—my full bladder.
“Fata.” YimYim shifted on his feet. “I gotta go.”
The sentiment seemed to echo around the dusty space as bodies wiggled to get comfortable.
“Tino and I will take people up one at a time to relieve themselves,” Sully announced. Faces relaxed, legs stopped wriggling, and a trickle of tension leaked from the air.
D’ovey clambered up the metal staircase after Sully. His bulk squeezed like a sausage in the protective ring that circled the vertical stairs. Tino took up the rear, prodding the old Boola’s butt through the tight space. Despite the tension, laughter burst from me when the good-natured Boola waved to the crowd from the top rung and flourished his new linobee hat.
When my time arrived, the sense of doom that had been building deep inside me set me on edge. My sweaty hands slipped on the rung and Tino reached up to steady me from below.
“You okay, Ginger?”
I nodded, but each heightened nerve screamed something terrible had happened to JayJay, that he needed help. And I was trapped in what would be the equivalent of an unstocked bomb shelter on Earth.
I climbed the last steep rung and exited through the hatch, then walked to a long trench bathed in dark shadows as Tino kept his back to me, watching for hellsna through a crack in the barn-style doors. The siren’s blare, so much louder on the surface, overrode all my other senses, and I hustled to relieve myself. A notification flashed red on my wristport. JayJay? Maybe the threat had passed…
“Damn it,” I muttered at the stupid bedtime reminder to take my medicine. I tapped Tino on the shoulder to let him know he could take me back down, but we both froze when the blaring alarm turned to a harried announcement.
“Immediate diversion required at the cantina. Medical attention required.” The siren resumed its awful drone.
“Is your hoverbike outside?” I asked Tino, my voice a cool contrast to my racing heart. Without a doubt, I knew something terrible had happened to JayJay. Every part of me demanded I help him.
Tino scrubbed a hand over the tattooed firebrands on his dusty head, not suspecting a thing. “Sully had us park them in the shed around the side.”
Taking advantage of everything I knew about Rock Dwellers, I kissed him square on the lips and then dashed for the crack in the doors. I’d already slipped between the gap and rounded the corner before I heard his footfalls behind me.
“Ginger, I can’t let you go out there!”
Inside the shed, I skidded to a stop and jumped over the hoverbike’s saddle.
He rubbed a thumb over the spot my lips had touched. “Females are prized. Let me—”
And pressed the starter.Sorry,I mouthed to Tino as I hit the throttle, choking him in a cloud of pink dust. A quick shoulder check showed him sitting on another hoverbike, forehead ridge high, and tapping out a com on his wristport. Tino would follow in my wake in seconds. I wanted the backup, but I couldn’t afford to waste time convincing him. He’d forgive my devious tactics.
