blond hair back from my face. He pinches my nose and breathes into my mouth. Soldiers open both of our cells. The water rushes out of the opening and falls through the metal grated floor outside.
Trey lays me on the floor. My face is pale and my eyes are closed. He begins chest compressions on me, but a few soldiers grab him, hauling him back from my supine form. As Trey struggles against them, savagely fighting them off in an attempt to get back to me, he renders a few of them unconscious.
One soldier doesn’t join the fray; instead, he kneels down beside my unconscious body. With quick fingers, he pulls something from a shiny silver case. It squirms and slithers, wrapping itself around his hand like a live, albino snake. It’s not an animal; it’s a twisting, writhing snake-bot. The body is smooth and alabaster with pink lights within it that glow with an eerie fire. The Brigadet holds the gruesome sidewinder near my mouth. The snake-bot opens its wide mouth, clamping onto my face and ratcheting my mouth open. From inside the skin of the snake-bot, a smaller, slimy, internal snake-bot slides out into my mouth and down my esophagus. In the next moment, water is pumping out of the other end of the snake-bot like a primed hose.
Standing outside of my body, I’m a horrified observer of the scene. I know it’s me, but it doesn’t feel like it’s happening to me. I feel nothing. I feel numb. Next to me, a feminine voice says, “How do you like my gift?”
I turn my head; the lovely, fragile image of the Bee stares back at me. I recognize her as the priestess who blasted me out of the space station earlier today. Attired in the same waspish dress as before, she’s now made of light and air—a perfectly formed nightmare.
“How did you find me?” I ask her.
She doesn’t answer my question but says, “I was told you can’t swim.” She watches as the medic inside the cell works to revive me. That battle doesn’t seem to be going well. Nothing he does is bringing me back to consciousness.
“You did this,” I accuse her. “You filled my cell with water.”
She gives me a maleficent smile.
The soldier extracts the snake-bot from my esophagus, looking grim. My lips and my skin have a bluish tint that bodes ill for me. When Trey notices the medic sit back on his heels and shake his head, he loses his mind. He becomes a raging bull, tackling the soldier next to him. Trey wrestles the tricked-out freston from the startled hand of the soldier. Turning the weapon on my limp form upon the floor, Trey fires a yellow lightning electro-pulse straight at my heart. The electricity flows through me, and then through the water as well, shocking everyone in the room. My spirit self is ripped from the air and stuffed back into my body with the force of a cyclone.
Wide-eyed, I gasp as my back arches in agony and I writhe in pain. My heavy, granitelike lungs don’t feel as if they can process air. Above me, the Bee comes into focus over the shoulder of the soldier who’s patting my cheek.
With a look of disdain, the Bee says, “You’ll live.” She sighs in frustration before her sapphire-blue eyes narrow in contempt. “If Kyon brings you back here, I will kill you,” she promises. “Run, little Kricket. Run far away.”
“Who are you?” I whisper through cracked lips, but I never hear her reply. She evaporates into the ceiling and is gone. The chaos of Trey’s cell becomes loud and disorienting. Soldiers who have roused from being shocked are trying to subdue Trey, who’s pointing his freston at the head of one of the soldiers he’s taken hostage. The soldier next to me has recovered somewhat from his shock as well. He pulls the trigger on a gunlike syringe he has inserted into my arm. As the drug he gave me careens through my arteries, I slip into darkness.
C HAPTER 5
T HE DISHERY
I suck in my bottom lip as I awake to aching muscles and a stiff neck. A dull pain in my upper arm makes me lift my chin off my
Trey lays me on the floor. My face is pale and my eyes are closed. He begins chest compressions on me, but a few soldiers grab him, hauling him back from my supine form. As Trey struggles against them, savagely fighting them off in an attempt to get back to me, he renders a few of them unconscious.
One soldier doesn’t join the fray; instead, he kneels down beside my unconscious body. With quick fingers, he pulls something from a shiny silver case. It squirms and slithers, wrapping itself around his hand like a live, albino snake. It’s not an animal; it’s a twisting, writhing snake-bot. The body is smooth and alabaster with pink lights within it that glow with an eerie fire. The Brigadet holds the gruesome sidewinder near my mouth. The snake-bot opens its wide mouth, clamping onto my face and ratcheting my mouth open. From inside the skin of the snake-bot, a smaller, slimy, internal snake-bot slides out into my mouth and down my esophagus. In the next moment, water is pumping out of the other end of the snake-bot like a primed hose.
Standing outside of my body, I’m a horrified observer of the scene. I know it’s me, but it doesn’t feel like it’s happening to me. I feel nothing. I feel numb. Next to me, a feminine voice says, “How do you like my gift?”
I turn my head; the lovely, fragile image of the Bee stares back at me. I recognize her as the priestess who blasted me out of the space station earlier today. Attired in the same waspish dress as before, she’s now made of light and air—a perfectly formed nightmare.
“How did you find me?” I ask her.
She doesn’t answer my question but says, “I was told you can’t swim.” She watches as the medic inside the cell works to revive me. That battle doesn’t seem to be going well. Nothing he does is bringing me back to consciousness.
“You did this,” I accuse her. “You filled my cell with water.”
She gives me a maleficent smile.
The soldier extracts the snake-bot from my esophagus, looking grim. My lips and my skin have a bluish tint that bodes ill for me. When Trey notices the medic sit back on his heels and shake his head, he loses his mind. He becomes a raging bull, tackling the soldier next to him. Trey wrestles the tricked-out freston from the startled hand of the soldier. Turning the weapon on my limp form upon the floor, Trey fires a yellow lightning electro-pulse straight at my heart. The electricity flows through me, and then through the water as well, shocking everyone in the room. My spirit self is ripped from the air and stuffed back into my body with the force of a cyclone.
Wide-eyed, I gasp as my back arches in agony and I writhe in pain. My heavy, granitelike lungs don’t feel as if they can process air. Above me, the Bee comes into focus over the shoulder of the soldier who’s patting my cheek.
With a look of disdain, the Bee says, “You’ll live.” She sighs in frustration before her sapphire-blue eyes narrow in contempt. “If Kyon brings you back here, I will kill you,” she promises. “Run, little Kricket. Run far away.”
“Who are you?” I whisper through cracked lips, but I never hear her reply. She evaporates into the ceiling and is gone. The chaos of Trey’s cell becomes loud and disorienting. Soldiers who have roused from being shocked are trying to subdue Trey, who’s pointing his freston at the head of one of the soldiers he’s taken hostage. The soldier next to me has recovered somewhat from his shock as well. He pulls the trigger on a gunlike syringe he has inserted into my arm. As the drug he gave me careens through my arteries, I slip into darkness.
C HAPTER 5
T HE DISHERY
I suck in my bottom lip as I awake to aching muscles and a stiff neck. A dull pain in my upper arm makes me lift my chin off my
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