No response.
“Erik!” Pure, undiluted panic filled me. I didn’t see him. Where was he? My gaze landed outside, past the entrance that had been destroyed by the blast. I gasped, both relieved and horrified. Phoenix, Ryan, Cara, and Kitten had Erik pinned to the ground. But he was still fighting. With all of his strength, he was still fighting, his body bucking. His limbs flailing.
I wanted so badly to go to him. To help him. To do something, anything, to save him. He’d shown me some basics today, but I knew deep down such moves would never defeat these people. If I tried, I’d be captured, too. I knew it. He knew it, that’s why he’d told me to run. There was no denying it, no fooling myself. These agents were highly trained and by their sheer number they soon managed to subdue Erik completely.
I couldn’t help him and help the Outers who needed the Onadyn I carried.
Once again I was faced with a choice. I’d thought I’d made it, thought I was prepared to run, but seeing Erik so helpless…
I could let the aliens die or try and free Erik with no guarantee that I’d succeed, perhaps destroying this opportunity he’d given me. Evade capture now and you can fight to get him released later.
But I can’t leave him behind. Not like this.
You have to. You have to remain free, so you can rescue him and Silver and Shanel. He knew this would happen.
Unsure, I bit my bottom lip.
Erik wants you to leave. Think of all he’s done for you. Now you must do this for him.
That finally convinced me. More than anything, Erik wanted those Outers saved. He’d given up his life and his career for them. And now, I would give up my own desires for them. No, for him. For Erik.
Blinking back my tears, I spun on my heel and ran. Just ran.
When I hit a public street, I flagged down a cab. I told the driver to take me to the Southern District, and his mocha-colored face paled.
“Sure you want to go there?” he asked, his disgust clear.
I nodded. Sweat poured from me. Breath emerged shallow and quick. I constantly stole glances out the back window, expecting to see agents as we sped down the road. Thankfully, I didn’t. A thousand times I rubbed the back of my neck, my shoulders making sure there was no welt there. If they’d implanted a GPS chip…
I tried not to think about that. I tried not to think of Erik, of what was happening to him. They wouldn’t kill him. They’d said as much. Or had they been lying in an attempt to make him cooperate? They had what they wanted now. The lab. The drugs.
Please keep Erik safe, I prayed.
We reached the Southern District twenty minutes later and I paid the driver with cash Erik had tucked into my boot earlier. Just in case, he’d said.
Shaking, I stepped outside, already scanning for the apartment building Erik had mentioned. The night air was still cool, but it did little to soothe the burn of my exhaustion and fear. The cab sped away, tires squealing.
I spotted the building just ahead, and my stomach bottomed out. The Offworlder Apartments.
Crumbling, just as Erik had said. There were holes in the sides and one half of the roof was missing. I tentatively approached. A naked, drunken Mec was sprawled in front of the steps, snoring in his sleep. He’d thrown up on his own legs and bits of it were dried on his white skin.
Cringing, I hopped over him. I searched my brain, but couldn’t recall Erik giving me a specific apartment number. Damn this! If necessary, I’d knock on every door.
There was no one in the bottom-level rooms, so I took the steps to the second floor. Several of the steps were missing and others were simply broken slabs of concrete. Falling into a dark abyss was a very real possibility. Dirt and grime covered every inch of the place and the smell of urine, sweat, and rotting food permeated the air. The higher I stepped, the more I gagged.
I checked every single apartment on that floor, and then the third. I met some angry Outers who waved fists in my face and pushed me away from their doors. I even met a few humans who wanted to sell me their “services.”
I was proud of myself. I didn’t run away.
On the fourth floor, I encountered several different alien species, but all of them wore ragged clothing and looked thin as sticks. One brave soul, a male teenager protecting his territory, waved a knife at me. I showed him mine, which was bigger, and he backed away.
I didn’t want to hurt him; I wanted to cry.
I’d never seen such poverty in my life and everything inside of me was crumbling as surely as the building. No one answered the door at the next apartment and the door was unlocked, so I tentatively pushed my way inside. Death hung in the air, thick, black. Gasping moans echoed in my ears. In that moment I knew, knew, this was it.
A pale-skinned Zi Kara lay on her stomach, a cup beside her, liquid still wetting the dirty shag carpet. It looked like she’d been walking from the kitchen and simply collapsed. Her head was tilted to the side and I could see that her eyes were open, glassy, and fixed straight ahead.
Zi Karas were long and lean, with smooth gray skin, almost like that of a seal. Right now her skin appeared tinted yellow. Please be alive, I prayed.
Crouching down beside her, I gently rolled her over. Her lips were tinted yellow, too, and raspy pants, shallow and light, escaped. She was alive! Slowly her black eyes moved to me, beseeching, silently begging for help. Her cheeks, which should have been rounded, almost fat, were sunken in.
“Erik sent me,” I said, grasping her under the neck and lifting. My heart broke for her. So helpless. So near death. This didn’t have to happen. This should not have happened.
She opened her mouth to say something but no sound emerged.
I dug in my pocket and withdrew a vial. I popped the cork with my teeth, and a little of the liquid splashed on my tongue. Tasteless, I mused, a rush of dizziness hitting me. For a split second, my lungs froze, refusing to fill with air.
Panic didn’t have time to take root. A second later, I was breathing normally. Dear Lord. Was that what addicts experienced? How could they stand it?
Shaking my head to regain focus, I poured the contents down the woman’s throat. She swallowed greedily. At first, nothing happened. But slowly, so slowly, the yellow tint of her skin gave way to gray. Her glassy eyes cleared, making them appear like polished onyx.
“Children,” she gasped, her voice heavily accented. “My children.”
I pushed to my feet and hurried through the apartment. One child, a little boy, was sprawled out on the bathroom floor. The other, a teenage girl, was propped on her bed, staring out at the world silently.