Human Pet Prison (Possessive Aliens #7) - Loki Renard Page 0,32

that you use. It was a different kind of charge. A temporal one. There weren’t really many people on the planet at the original time of the explosion,” he explains. “Those who came before were affected in various ways. Some ceased to exist completely. Others had all their atoms taken apart and were turned into small dogs. Some live on a planet eating slugs and cabbage…”

“Everything you say sounds like a lie,” I growl. “Except for the slugs and cabbage. I know a hundred ways to cook those two ingredients.”

“That’s the problem with the truth. It is often unbelievable,” he says. “That is why I want to hear your story.”

The last minutes with my daughter…

I’m back, watching the stars in the mid-day sky. But they’re not stars, of course. They’re ships descending toward the ground. I do not have a good feeling about this. We see ships passing above from time to time, but they never come in to land.

“Go inside, Ella.”

“They’re so pretty, Mama!”

She’s never done as she is told. I guess I’m not very good at making her. Ella and I are a team. We have each other, and that’s all we have. And that's why she needs to go inside. Now.

I reach to grab her, but she’s faster than I am.

“No, Mama! I want to see them!”

“It’s not safe, Ella. You need to go inside. Right. Now.”

Ordinarily, that change in tone would make her listen, but the stars are too bright a distraction. She darts away from my outstretched hand and she runs. She can run like a hare, and she knows this place like the back of her hand. She disappears into a small drainage tunnel. It’s big enough for her, but not for me.

“Ella! No! Come back!” I call after her in vain.

“I want to see the pretty stars!

“They're not safe, Ella. We need to go inside.”

“I am inside. A different kind of inside.”

This girl loves to argue with me. I usually think it is cute, but not today. Today, it’s not cute. Today it is going to cost us both everything.

Warden

“The ships landed, their bellies opened, and warriors streamed out and started killing.”

She says the words so boldly and simply. There’s a blankness in her eyes, as if she's not really here with me anymore. She’s lost in the memory.

“I need details. I need to know what the ships looked like. What the aliens looked like.”

“They were scythkin,” she says. “The ships, I don’t remember them except for how bright they were as they descended. But I remember the beasts who came down, grabbed me, and destroyed everything else with fire. Everything. Else.

So far it is sounding like a scythkin mating party. But our kind would never do that to a human planet. There are trillions of planets with next to no life to conquer, and almost the same number with species we do not regard as sacred. There is no reason for our kind to ever attack humans.

“Did they raze all flora to the ground with acid secretions? Did they burn everything in their wake?”

“They covered everything in fire. Everything. When they took me onto the ship, I could see out a window. The fire went on forever. Nothing could have survived that. They took me and left the charred bones of my baby…” Silver turns her head to look at me.

“I swore on that day, that I’d get my revenge.”

Her story is horrible. I want to wrap her in my arms and make her feel safe, but I can feel the invisible blades all around her. She doesn’t want to be touched. Her arms are wrapped around her chest. She wants to protect herself from me. From everything. All I have now are words.

“Vengeance is good, but you are not looking for it in the right places. Whatever attacked you was not scythkin. We do not slaughter humans, and we do not set fires. I suspect you were the victim of a false flag, an attack designed to make you think an ally was an enemy.”

Silver

“A false flag?”

I had not considered that as a possibility before. Even if I had, I don’t know that I would have cared. The moment I lost my daughter, I lost everything, as far as I was concerned. I didn’t care who or what I took vengeance on. I wanted all existence to pay for my loss.

“There are suits,” he says. “They allow one species to look like another. We use them extensively, and they are usually