The Breeding Prize - Aya Morningstar Page 0,40

excess calories, I send the energy into the higher dimensions. I begin to flare with higher-dimensional light.

Kiveta looks at me. “What are you doing?”

“Make yourself useful,” I hiss at him, pointing toward the Valittu.

The scythe is in his hand again.

I jump out of the window.

Fifteen

Annabelle

I try to look out the window, but Kula grabs my arm and pulls me back into the car. “Don’t Stay down! If you get hurt, Raiska will fucking kill me.”

Raiska’s scythe clips across the car behind us, then disappears in a burst of higher-dimensional light.

Smoke starts to come out of the pursuing car, and it wobbles and begins to sink.

“Raiska,” I shout, “you did it!”

Kula looks back nervously.

Higher-dimensional light bursts out of the car, and a few seconds later, Philos leaps out of the window. One of the little goblin things is wrapped around his waist, clinging on for dear life.

Raiska’s scythe flies forward as the gold-skinned alien’s hand grows and his arms stretch, bringing the massive fist toward us.

Raiska’s scythe hits the car just before the golden-skinned alien’s hand grabs hold of our car. His scythe doesn’t just graze the car this time. It’s a direct hit, and the car explodes. The explosion hits Philos just as his massive hand grabs hold of our car.

I don’t see what happens next. Some kind of emergency siren goes off, and the seat completely wraps around me like a piece of foam. It cuts off all light and sight and sound. I feel only the violent g-forces trying to jostle me around. My stomach feels like it’s on a rollercoaster, and I hate roller coasters.

I soon feel weightless, but not for long. My weight comes back fast and hard, and the seat wrapped around me tightens even more as I get much heavier than normal. The car must be making some kind of insanely sharp turn, or it’s managing to stabilize after dropping like a brick.

Just as my weight goes back to normal and I start to wonder if we made it out alive, I’m jolted again, and this time it feels like my body is trying to fly sideways. I nearly bite my tongue off.

I’m jostled around like this for the next several seconds. They are long seconds, because each second I’m almost certain it’s my last. I’m just waiting for us to hit a mountain or the ground, and for the seat wrapping me up like a big balloon to no longer be enough protection.

I don’t die though. Everything comes to a fairly abrupt stop, and then I see light leak in. Higher-dimensional light.

A hand comes in and pulls me out. It’s Raiska.

“Are you hurt, Muru?”

I look down at my body expecting to see blood and bruises, but I’m fine. “I...I don’t think so?”

“Come,” he says.

He’s holding his scythe, and everything around us is starting to burn. There’s a big sphere across from us, but it cuts open in a blast of higher-dimensional light, and Kula emerges with his axe in hand.

Raiska throws me over his shoulder and navigates us through the burning wreckage. Only after we’ve cleared all the shrapnel and debris does he set me back down.

We’re on a mountain. I can see the lights of the city far in the distance, and the fire from the other vehicle almost a mile away from us.

“Did you kill them?” I ask.

Raiska grinds his teeth together. “I don’t know. I want to think I did, but I’m not 100% sure.”

“It was a long fall,” Kula says, looking at the burning wreckage in the distance.

“So was ours,” Raiska says. “We’re all still ali—”

He grunts and doubles over in pain.

“Raiska?” I ask, putting a hand on him.

I look down and notice there’s a twisted piece of metal going through his leg.

“Raiska!” I look behind and see the piece of metal jutting out the other side. It’s going straight through his leg.

“He’s probably bleeding internally,” Kula says.

“I’ll be fine,” Raiska says, but his voice is strained. “We need to go down into that wreckage and kill them while they’re injured. Make sure they’re dead.”

“You’re injured,” Kula says. “You can’t fight like this.”

“I am Valittu!”

I put a hand gently near the point of entry, and Raiska’s entire body tightens. Every muscle flexes, and he grunts in pain. “You can’t fight, Raiska. You’re strong, but this isn’t the time.”

“This won’t kill him,” Kula says, “but we have to get that thing out of him, and then he’ll need to rest. I’ll carry you, brother.”

“You will not.”

“Stop being stubborn,” I plead.