Chapter Four
Kodyn
With one bite into Elise’s rations, my mouth was filled with dry, salty flakes that zapped the moisture from my mouth.
That was her name. Elise. The girl who crushed me with a space robot. I cringed inwardly at the thought.
Crackers, she called them, the rations. And then she laughed when I reacted to their awful, dry texture. I spit them into the air with a puff of crumb that seemed to evaporate
“Horrible,” I said, tossing the package back to her.
“Hey, you said you were hungry,” she laughed, catching the package mid-air.
We huddled around a fire she had made: a brief shield from the cold desert night. One of many I’d had since coming to this burial ground.
The young girl set the package down in a bag full of her things, and she began looking for supplies, burying her hands deep in the bottom of the bag before she pulled up some bandages.
“Let’s see about that side,” she said insistently.
She’d asked to bandage me up for hours now, but I’d refused her every time—still unsure what I wanted from her. I’d only taken her up on her offer to come back to her ‘camp.’
At no point during her offer did I think we would be staying in the middle of the desert. Call me crazy, but when she said ‘camp’, I assumed she meant some sort of hideaway, like the abandoned lots Fiona had stayed in. Not, ‘the middle of the desert.’
“So, why were you out here, anyway?” I asked stubbornly, my tone even as she cocked her head to the side, examining my wound.
“Um?” Elise said, sing-songing as she pointed behind her to the enormous mech she’d carted with us. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“You found a toy to play with,” I spat out. “How very human of you.”
“I would try and be more falcon, but I’m afraid of heights,” she said in her usual tone. It was fast and zippy: cheerful yet numb.
I stayed silent, and her green eyes met mine. She waved me off and said, “Never mind,” before pouring a cleaning agent onto my wound, causing me to take a sharp inhale of pain. “Yep! Looks like I got you real good. By which I mean bad.”
“See what I mean about human language?”
She shrugged: smiled. “Yeah. We are a confusing bunch.”
I scraped my sharp teeth against my bottom lip and looked her over.
“You’re pretty calm for someone in the presence of a Vithohn,” I said. It hadn’t been the usual reaction from humans.
“But you’re not dangerous,” she said matter-of-factly as she began wrapping my midsection with gauze. “Right?”
I blinked. “What makes you say that?”
“Well, you’re not… I mean, besides the initial aggression–totally called for given the circumstance—you seem to be pretty calm in comparison to most Vithohn. I assume that means you have a mate. Or, at least, you’ve slept with someone.”
I felt the skin in the corners of my eyes tighten as I returned to her gaze, feeling shaken. “Why is that?”
“Some theorize that the Vithohn seek females out. That they’ll do anything to mate with them, because somewhere in the back of their head they know it’ll get rid of…” she drew a blank and then began to wave me off with her left hand. “You know. Make you sane, or something.”
“Or something,” I snarked.
“So, who’s the lucky girl?” she grinned, patting down the gauze and pulling my armor back down over my midsection.
I watched as she took her place back by the fire and crossed her legs, staring across from me.
“How is it you know so much about it?” I asked, needling my brows at her.
“Well, we…” She cleared her throat. “We have one back at our camp.”
“A Vithohn?” I asked. “Huh.”
“See, you might grow to like us after all! You can even bring your girlfriend if you want!”
I breathed hard through my nose and thought on everything she had just said.
“She’s dead,” I snapped.
She died, and I was left without her.
To lose her seemed like an impossibility. It still felt like I could see her come up over the rocky hill any moment. In the moments of quiet, I could feel a panic rush through my body as though I’d forgotten her back near the mountains. Like I’d done a stupid thing by leaving her there because surely she couldn’t be dead.
I kept thinking how mad she was going to be when she caught up with me. How she’d laugh when I told her I thought she was dead.
But then reality would sink in like a heavy rock in my stomach, and the realization would hit me with a crushing blow. She was gone.
“Oh,” Elise said quietly, pursing her lips and looking down at her feet.
“I’d rather not speak of it,” I said tersely.
Her prodding about Fiona was doing her no favors, but the fact she had a Vithohn following her crew piqued my interest. Originally, I only agreed to follow her so that I could eviscerate her camp: find who killed Fiona. But now things were becoming interesting.
“Then we won’t,” she said.
We sat in silence for a while, the two of us thinking of things to say and then thinking better of it. Finally, she stood from her spot and
“Probably safe to go back now,” she said.
We’d been waiting for hours to make sure the mech army hadn’t followed us. Getting in the lit-up bot that Elise had found had been too risky to consider. But now that we’d been alone for hours, apparently it was time to leave.
I crawled into the strange machine with her. The Vithohn I’d stayed with had an army of the strange robots. We kept them in a hangar, and only a few of us bothered trying to learn how to use them. The rest of us preferred hand-to-hand combat over making a machine fight for us.
Not long after that, Elise brought me into her camp, which wasn’t a camp at all, as I suspected. It was a high-rise building with hundreds of rooms. The way the building lit up at night was like a crater of stars and light. We walked through large iron gates into the front of the building.
“Welcome to Scarlet Heights,” she said, pointing up to the wild double doors of the hotel.
I set a hand on my wound and limped in through the doors into the massive, scarlet-colored lobby. There were deep red walls and golden embellishments everywhere. People roamed the marble floors and stared at me with only mild curiosity as I walked in.
My whole body bristled as I watched the people congregate. I didn’t want them to be friendly; I wanted them to hate me the same way I hated them. I had every mind… every intention to do away with them right then and there.
Waves of fury and nervous energy worked through my stomach just thinking about it. I wanted to exact my revenge here and now.
Yet, as I began to channel the energy in my spires, Elise drew me deeper into the building, grabbing my hand and pulling me forward with an endearing smile.
Her people were surprisingly friendly, and it made me hate them even more.
Their commander, Liam Broderick, greeted me with a strange handshake and instead of fear, he began offering me hot beverages and fresh food.
I sneered at the offer, and still, he wasn’t fazed, even telling me where they kept their weapons if I wanted to hold watch with Elise tonight.
It was as though they all thought Elise and I had established a pact, of sorts. Something she didn’t seem to contradict.
Some time went by, and I felt reinvigorated by my decision to destroy them all: to make them pay. I roamed each floor to count them all: to get a lay of the land.
Yet here I was, still sitting down in their lobby and letting the humans live.
My curiosity was piqued only when I caught sight of one of the Vithohn. He had deep chocolate scales and tribal markings. He wore thin armor and walked hand in hand with a buxom human female.
It was obvious they were paired.
I knew the look of it.
The Vithohn made his way from the woman with an embrace, and my eye twitched at the sight of it. I looked away and gritted my jaw as I felt him approach me.
The man grabbed a glass of cool liquid and swallowed it down before setting it on the bar top beside me.
We sat in silence for some time, feeling one another out before I finally griped, “How can this be what you want?”
“I want all the Vithohn to know the alliance that could be made,” he answered quickly: friendly like the rest of them. “Daxarus,” he offered,
I looked down at the hand he had offered me and turned from it. “Kodyn,” I said. “Don’t you think this is already what our body’s commands of us?” I asked: demanded. “To find them? The girls?”
“Here’s what I’ve learned,” Daxarus said, jumping up on the stool next to me and setting his long arms on the counter. He stretched them out and toyed with a bottle cap, passing it from hand to hand before flipping it across his knuckles one by one. “Releasing that hate is not satisfying when you’re forcing yourself on a woman.”
I shrugged. “Isn’t the end result all that matters?”
Daxarus laughed and shook his head, though still avoided my eyes.
“Not here,” he said. “Not to them.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” I said.
I had forced myself on Fiona: found her in the desert and grabbed hold of her. My body craved her like something I was withdrawing from, like I already knew I needed her and had gone my whole life trying to stay away from her touch.
It was in my nature to take her, and she forgave that: loved me despite it.
“Where did you come from?” he asked.
He didn’t have to clarify his question. I knew he meant which Vithohn base. “Tenizi,” I said.
“Armor division,” he said with recognition. “Wow. You guys got Jareth, I heard?”
“Yep,” I nodded.
“Quite the character,” he said with a laugh, finally meeting my eyes.
I met his stare and cocked a brow. “He has… a lot of theories, that’s for sure.”
I smirked. Strange little bastard. He was a Yaclion. They were a short blue alien species with wispy, long arms and stubby legs. They were brilliant, or at least, Yaclion was. He could craft a weapon out of seemingly nothing and was always looking for ways to improve life on planet Earth.
“You?” I asked.
“Vortuna,” he said. “You ever hear of the Kilari?”
“I’ve heard,” I said.
He nodded: tapped his glass. “You feel the pull?”
The Kilari were an ancient race of aliens who were once bitter enemies of my people. We long ago exterminated them. Long before we came to Earth, even. Yet, some Vithohn had spread a dirty rumor that the Kilari followed us to Earth: that they were planning a great war. Some even claimed that they could feel a pull that drew them toward Kilari spawning grounds.
It was ridiculous.
A human rumor created to separate the Vithohn: to convince us we needed a human alliance.
“No, I don’t,” I said firmly. “Do you?”
He laughed then and shook his head. “No.”
Daxarus stared at me for a long time and then something seemed to dawn on him.
“You’re a Voth,” he said with a surprised laugh. Suddenly, he looked honored to be in my presence.
I stared down at the table and didn’t confirm or deny his question. I just shrugged.
“Var’tousa, brother,” he said: a Vithohn word demonstrating the highest level of respect.
I nodded my thanks to him, and he looked up at me with reverence.
“What do the Voth say about it?” he asked and then clarified, “The pull?”
“Different things,” I shrugged.
Daxarus gave pause, his eyes scanning the room before beseeching me. “You can trust me, brother. We are the same, you and I.”
I nearly laughed. Then the thought of Fiona’s dead body returned the rock to my stomach and pulled the corners of my mouth back into a frown.
“Not anymore,” I said simply.
“Maybe more so than you think,” he said.
I gave a large sigh. “Some of the Voth think it was a humor rumor, designed to separate us. Make their alliance seem more appealing.”
Daxarus snorted and slapped his leg. “Well, then it’s working. Do you have a lot of Vithohn left at your camp?”
“Many,” I said. “Hundred, maybe more.”
“Wow,” he exclaimed. “Well, I’m from Var’tousa, and half of our camp left when Rebecca,” he stopped to point out the woman across the lobby, “came to our base. We made treaties with the humans. That’s what we’re doing here, you know.”
“Is that right?” I scoffed.
“It infuriated our camp. But it’s what we seek, isn’t it?” he asked. “A body?”
I grunted.
“So why not come straight to the source?” he simplified, extending his arm around the room as if to tell me we had our pick. “That’s what I thought when I first came here. Yet here I am, still vowing to provide for this base.”
Vows, I thought. The word had such a lovely ring to it.
I vowed myself to Fiona. I vowed to protect her, and now she was dead. I vowed to protect her humans, and now I was at a human base determined to kill them all.
“I found a human.”
The words spilled from my mouth unintentionally as I thought of Fiona.
Daxarus spun in his chair and turned to face me. He looked across the room and offered a large grin.
“Elise?” he asked.
No, I thought, but said nothing.
“I think it’s fairer to say that she found you,” he said, and we both looked across the room to regard her. “She’s like that. Keep an eye on that one if you plan on making her your own, if you haven’t already. She’s made a lot of contacts.”
“What does that mean?”
He shrugged, knowing he said too much.
I looked over at Elise with mild curiosity. She had oversized teeth and a square jaw that opened wide when she spoke, like she was trying to steal all the air from the room before announcing herself.
“Is she dangerous?” I asked, already believing the answer to be a resounding no.
He shrugged again. “She’s met a lot of Vithohn. Could be a runner.”
I narrowed my gaze at her. No way, I thought.
I watched as she talked to Rebecca, laughed a loud, hard laugh with her. She had white-blond hair that was shaved up one side of her head and hung ear-length on the other side. She was flat chested and short, but alluring somehow. Sexual, yet kiddish.
“So, whose side are you on?” I asked with growing curiosity.
“I’m on my own side,” he said. Then he pointed to Rebecca. “And hers.”
“So you believe in this alliance?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “But they do, and they haven’t been wrong about much.”
I raised my brows and then quickly lowered them. “Thanks.”
I stood from the bar counter and grabbed my weapon, fixing it back into the holster at my side. Fiona’s pistol. I began to walk away and only turned when Daxarus called for me one more time.
“Kodyn,” he repeated, “you raise hell with these girls… you deal with me.”
I smirked and gave him a nod. “Right.”