Roth by Jessica Frances Page B

one of the guys who is going to help us. He’s a bit of an angry guy ,” I pointlessly tell him. I’m sure Marduke came to that conclusion very quickly all by himself.
    “I guessed as much. He came at you .” He wraps his arm around my shoulder, holding me close to him.
    “He’s not that bad, not really. He saw his girlfriend killed right before he was taken here. He’s just upset.”
    “That doesn’t give him the right to—”
    “Just leave it, Marduke. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you need to be careful around him. He’s looking for blood.”
    “I don’t want you being around him on your own.”
    I hold in my eye roll at his overprotective-ness, part of me actually enjoying hearing how much he cares. “I won’t be because I have you.”
    He smiles at my words, and I swear my heart skips a beat. I haven’t seen his smile in a long time. It makes him look even hotter. I have missed that smile and those delicious dimples.
    “So what are we going to do now?” Hank asks, Kane trailing slowly behind him. He’s watching us carefully with suspicion in his eyes.
    “We should check the other tubes, see if anyone else survived ,” I suggest.
    “Rob was as good as dead after all that blood loss, and John is dead,” Kane states angrily.
    “Yes , but there were also those two brainwashed humans on board,” I say, cringing as I wonder if they were Marduke’s friends. Has he lost more people, too?
    “Who gives a shit about them?”
    “They might know things. Maybe they’ll know why this spaceship crashed.”
    Hank sighs at me. “Does it really matter why it crashed? It doesn’t change our position.”
    “What if it was something more than just a weird fault or accident? What if humans brought it down?” I don’t r eally believe that since I doubt we could do it, but I know this is an easy way to convince them we need to take a look. If Marduke’s friends survived, they deserve to be found and helped, too. We’ll just have to try to keep Kane away from them.
    “Hank told me about what newbie over here heard . Is that true? Is there a rebellion happening?” Kane watches Marduke, no doubt searching for any sign of a lie.
    “I don’t know, but there might be.”
    Kane’s eyes narrow at him. “You know, you sound like one of those brainwashed freaks. Is that what you are? Are you spying on us right now?”
    This time , I pull Marduke away as Hank holds Kane back, quickly trying to calm him down again. “He’s good. I swear. He saved our lives back on Earth.”
    “Yeah , he might have been a good guy, but that was before those fuckers took him and brainwashed him—”
    “No, it wasn’t. They tried to change him, but it failed.” Hank explains his completely wrong theory. A theory I never dissuaded because I never thought it would matter.
    “What is he talking about?” Marduke whispers quietly to me.
    I just as quietly explain, “Your accent is a giveaway to everyone on this planet. They think your people are humans who have been brainwashed. They think the machines are the true aliens.”
    “My accent?”
    “Yeah, you all sort of sound French. It’s a little weird.” I wonder if the other people have come to the same conclusion as us. If they’re going by accents, I fear the French are likely having an awful time right now.
    “How did they brainwash you? What tests did they do?” Kane demands, his body taut and ready to lunge at Marduke.
    “I… I don’t know. But I am human , and I am on the side of Earth.” He speaks carefully while I reach down and hold his hand, squeezing it.
    “Listen , Kane, Marduke is as human as you or I. Now, let’s just drop this and search the area for those humans. Then we need to head back to camp. If a rebellion is really happening, we need to start preparing everyone. This isn’t just five of us against every machine out there anymore. It’s all of us against those machines now. We might actually win this, if we’re