Chapter Thirteen
Elise
I woke up to a sound that was becoming all too familiar to me. A fight. There was commotion happening in the camp, and I raced to throw my clothes on, panicked as my mind registered that Kodyn wasn’t in our room anymore.
I ran outside, weapon in hand, and saw the chaos in the courtyard. Vithohn were raging against our people, and I instantly began to scream. I ran into the fray and caught sight of my beautiful Kodyn. “What’s going on?” I yelled, running to him.
“It was you,” he boiled, recoiling from me.
“...What do you mean?” I asked, tensing and trying not to burst into tears. “What’s happening?”
K: *whips a man to the ground*
“Your crew attacked Kodyn,” Daxarus offered, looking just as disturbed as I was.
I frowned deeply. “Last night?”
“No,” Daxarus shook his head and set a hand on my shoulder. “With Fiona.”
I felt my heart drop and I shook my head. “They wouldn’t do that. My crew wants an alli—”
“I’ve heard enough about your alliance,” Kodyn snapped at me, the love in his eyes completely lost.
“Kodyn, come on, listen to me, please,” I begged.
“I said it's enough,” he said, and I reached my hands out to him.
“There's an explanation, just let me find out and stop this,” I said in shock. I was mid-sentence when I looked around the camp and realized that the Vithohn had taken over: more must have arrived in the night, and now we were surrounded.
Except we weren’t surrounded, because it was very clear that Kodyn and Daxarus were fighting with their own.
“Kodyn, please. If you do this...” I began, tears spilling over now.
“Then what? The humans will never trust me?” He scoffed, “What a loss. We're taking the mechs.”
“Like hell you are!” I yelled and looked over to see Rebecca running up toward us. I ran into her arms, and she hugged me briskly. I could hear the familiar cry of battle raging in the camp: bone on bone and the screams of our militia. It wasn’t clear who was winning, but something told me the Vithohn definitely had the upper hand.
“Elise,” Rebecca warned. “Let them go.”
I frowned deeply at her, watching as the Vithohn began to storm the set of mechs that were lines in a row.
“Don't abandon the mission, ok?” she said desperately. “But we have to start fresh. They're not going to stop until they've had their revenge, and we have to get out of here. Bossman is planning an attack.”
I loved Rebecca, especially at this moment. She was giving me everything I needed to hear as quickly as possible.
“Why?” I shouted.
“The militia got word that a Kilari had shapeshifted and they freaked,” she said in a whisper, shielding me from Kodyn’s fury. “Apparently they were just supposed to get…” She sighed and looked around the camp, pulling us away from the bulk of the violence. “Look, Kodyn has a scanner.”
I exhaled, terrified. “Yeah, he told me about it. He stole a scanner…” Then it dawned on me. “That can show a Kilari?”
“No, babe,” Rebecca said quietly. “Kodyn is the scanner, and he was leaving the Vithohn fortress.”
I swallowed hard. I understood now. He was leaving because he didn’t want to turn in Ordyt.
“It doesn’t matter now,” she waved me off. “It’s Bossman; he’s launched an attack, and if we don't do something, this whole camp is going to get slaughtered.”
My eyes spilled over with tears; Kodyn had already left. I couldn’t even see him anymore. “What do I do?” I asked pathetically.
“Bossman likes you, babe,” she instructed. “You’re going to go have to beg.”
I felt my stomach turn and felt sicker by the second. Why did I feel like beg didn’t actually mean beggin in this case. Before I could respond, Rebecca pointed to the chaos in the city: Kodyn and Daxarus tearing apart our base and slaughtering our soldiers. “Whatever you do, you have to do it quickly.”
I found my way into Liam Broderick’s office in haste. I knew Kodyn was dead-set on revenge, and if these people really sought him out and killed Fiona, then I knew he would stop at nothing to destroy the entire camp.
I noted the men on either side of the room: Bossman’s guards. Ignoring them, I stormed into the middle of the office and pleaded, “What the hell are you doing?”
“So nice to see you again, my little runaway,” Liam cooed, mocking me.
“Bossman, you have to stop,” I begged. “They're going to tear the camp apart.”
He offered me a regal brush off as he said, “We already have men in mechs waiting for them. Tell them to make a move. I dare you.”
“I know you're afraid,” I said. “I know you’re looking for the scanner, but you don’t have to worry about the Kilari. There was one shapeshifter, and he was scanned and killed.”
Liam raised a curious brow and looked suddenly serious. “How do you know?”
“Because I was there. Believe me, I saw it with my own eyes... So stop this before we can’t win the Vithohn over.”
“Don’t you get it?” he said, making a face that made me feel like an idiot. “I don’t want to win the Vithohn over anymore. They’re dangerous. They took over this planet; they tried to wipe us out.”
“You’re putting all our lives at risk all for some petty—”
“Petty?” he repeated furiously, prompting his guards to jump and ready their restraints. “This is our whole world they blew to shit here, Elise! Tell me what else is worth fighting for?”
“They don’t want to fight us! They wanted to help us! And you’re ruining everything!” I yelled back.
Liam narrowed his eyes at me, shifting around his desk. “Is that so?”
“Please, call off your men, Liam,” I cried. “I will do… anything.”
“Huh,” he said, flicking his brow up and tapping his fingers along the desk. He looked at his guards and asked, “Anything, she says? And what about your little creature?”
I looked away. “He’s not my creature.”
“Vithohn are fickle things, aren’t they? And you know what’s funny?” he said with a tickle in his voice.
“Make me laugh,” I said with tears still falling down my cheeks.
“Fiona was the one who organized the strike that ended up getting her killed,” he smiled.
All of the air left my lungs, and I did a heavy heave, struggling for air. “…What?”
“She was so afraid of the Kilari’s invasion, she infiltrated the Vithohn camp and noticed one acting off-balance. She was the researcher, you know. She wondered if they could lend their DNA to others: shapeshift,” he explained slowly.
“She’d been reporting back to us?” I asked, in shock.
“See for yourself,” he said blithely and gestured half-heartedly to a stack of papers on his desk.
I blanched. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You’ve wanted to run since day one,” he said evenly, then laughed. “I didn’t think you cared.”
“That camp was my life,” I argued.
“Your life was in between your legs, for those... Vithohn. Screwing them has distorted your thinking.”
I gnashed my teeth, resisting the urge to fire my gun off into his leg. “I did that because I believed in this alliance, not because I liked it, Liam.”
He laughed hard then and exclaimed, “You don’t catch feelings, huh? What a modern woman.”
“Only with him,” I snapped.
“And look at him now,” he said smugly and pointed to the chaos out the window.
“Half this camp is against you and the other half only follows because you're controlling them with lies, telling them that the Kilari are coming and they’re not. These people will find you out, and they'll hate you.”
He turned around and looked at me, familiar eyes looking into mine. The guards in the corner of the room immediately subdued me, restraining my arms. The one smashed the butt of his gun into the side of my head, knocking me to the floor.
The next thing I knew, Liam had left the room and I was left there, alone.