The Outcasts by Alexa Black

Author:Alexa Black [Black, Alexa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781635552430
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2018-05-29T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

“Take me home,” Sue said. “Now.”

“Very well.” Kara tapped at the controls again and their craft zoomed into the air, too fast. Like Kara wanted to get out of here as badly as Sue did.

They rocketed toward a bay in one of the outer Rings. As before, Sue stared at the controls, the readouts, the scrolling glyphs. But before, she’d felt a pilot’s yearning. Now, she forced herself to focus on them, trying to ground herself. I’m a pilot. Even if all I do is fly a bus.

She took deep breaths, willing away what she’d seen and heard. Even after their craft had docked, she kept it up, inhaling and exhaling as slowly as she could.

Kara walked in front of her as always, a tantalizing shadow. But every time she looked over at the sway of her hips, she also saw a pair of milky, hazel eyes.

The door of Kara’s apartment opened. Sue walked in, her steps robotic. “Leave,” she said.

“This place is my home.”

“I need to be alone. I need to think about what I saw down there.” I need to be away from you.

Kara looked away. “I should never have showed them to you.”

“That isn’t the problem.”

Except that it was. Except that now her mind filled with images of a still and bleeding boy, the dark eyes she remembered replaced with the blank, shifting eyes of the damned.

“Please, just leave me alone, Kara. Leave me be. This is about me and my people. Not you.”

“Sue, I can’t do that. I chose to protect you.” She looked down. “And I failed. I can’t leave you alone now.”

“I’m stranded here, Kara. Stuck. In a place where my people are doomed. Are tortured.” The words poured out of Sue before she could stop them. “The last thing I want right now is to be around one of the people who does it!”

“We didn’t choose that. It was a decree.”

“But you obeyed it. Your people did it. You did it.”

“I’ve done many things, Sue Jones. Some of them I regret.” She looked down. “Like this one.”

Anger flared through Sue. She put her hands on her hips, knew she must look ridiculous, wasn’t sure she cared. “You don’t regret war.”

Kara’s head snapped up. Fiery light blazed between her clenched fangs. “I don’t regret fighting for my people. I don’t regret protecting them, as I tried to protect you. But I do regret war.”

Protecting them? Sue knew Kara wanted to protect her, like Sue might protect a dog or cat or exotic creature from one of the colonies. But what was this? “That’s not what you said to me before.”

“You’re right. It isn’t. But it’s true, all the same.”

Sue hung her head. What could she say to that? And yet…

And yet she glanced over at Kara’s hands and imagined them wrapped around the handle of a whip. A whip that tore people away. A whip that erased them.

“I need time,” Sue said. “Time to think. Time to rest.”

Kara huffed. “Very well.” She looked around.

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