Stolen - Nhys Glover Page 0,1

face red and sweaty from her run, her eyes on fire.

“What are you doing?” she cried, challenging the Victims.

“This is supposed to be the Women’s Compound. He shouldn’t be here!” Linda spoke up from the back of the group, her expression surly.

“So, what, because he’s playing with the boys you think it’s all right to yell at him and throw stones at him?” Piety cried in fury.

I had never seen the Aussie girl lose her temper before, no less yell. She tended to be shy and humble, having been brought up in a religious cult until her Danans found her. Her confidence should have grown since then, but it hadn’t. Largely because she’d chosen to stay at the Women’s Compound to help with the Victims, and those women treated her like dirt. Okay, maybe I had treated her like dirt, too, before I got help.

It wasn’t fair to treat Piety so badly, but people in pain rarely considered what was fair to others.

I must admit, before Kius started healing me, I couldn’t understand how Piety could have chosen Danans and their world over Earth and humanity. Now… Well, I may still not understand, but I held no animosity toward any of the women who had chosen that path. Especially not Piety. She definitely didn’t deserve to be rejected by her own kind, after the life she’d already led.

“Mind your own business, Jesus Freak! Your men shouldn’t be allowed to come here either. That green one who calls himself our liaison talks pretty but he’s no better than the rest!” Hayley snarled, turning her attention from the boys to Piety.

Piety and I had moved in to scoop a boy onto each hip. The white Danan took up the last of the five. The boys were frightened and confused. They knew fighting and yelling, but not like this. Their lives were filled with love, not hatred.

“You have been hurt, I understand that. But being hurt doesn’t give you permission to hurt others, especially not innocent young who can’t defend themselves!” Piety cried furiously, clutching at the boys on her hips like a mother lion with her cubs.

“We weren’t hurting the boys!” Summer whined.

“That stone could have hit any one of them. And what about the ones you’re holding? What happens when one of those stones misses its mark and takes out a child’s eye?” Piety exclaimed, showing no sign of cooling off.

This incident must have reminded her of her own recent past. I didn’t know all the details because the girl always seemed uncomfortable when the subject of her cult in the Australian bush came up. Too uncomfortable to share information about that life. But people were stoned in those fanatical groups, weren’t they?

“And it’s not just the physical threat you’re posing to the children, and a youth of six years old, it’s the damage you’re doing to their souls,” Piety went on, saying more than I’d ever heard from her in the month or more I’d known her. “You’re teaching them that human women are dangerous, violent creatures. They’ll grow up hating our kind because of the actions of you few. Does that sound familiar?”

They looked at each other and then down at the ground. One by one, the rocks fell from their hands.

“I know it doesn’t feel like it, but you have been avenged. The Danans who hurt you are dead. My podmates did that for you, and for Wraith, who also suffered unbearable pain because of those bastards. The only place they’re still alive is in your minds. You keep them alive. Marissa and Jenna have realized this and taken steps to be free of them. When you can see past your anger, you might do the same. But until then, keep your venom to yourselves. No one here deserves it!”

Grumbling under their breaths, the Victims turned and drifted off. I didn’t think they were convinced by Piety’s speech, but I thought they now had food for thought.

Piety turned from the women to look at me and the youth. Her cheeks were still flushed and her eyes held a manic gleam, but I could tell she was working hard to calm down, probably for the children.

“I’m sorry they did that to you. Ignorance and pain are a bad combination,” she said to the white Danan who still looked concerned.

I took him in more closely. He’d shown no fear, as the boys had, when the women were yelling their abuse at him. His expression had been uncertain, as if he