wouldn’t let Zac get toys, and she wouldn’t take him to his parents. Why did she have to like the aliens better than her own brother?
He wanted to cry, and that infuriated him. Instead, he ran to Tina, balled up his fist, and hit her on the arm. Callie, held by Tina, startled and began to cry. Zac ignored her.
“Toys now!”
He wasn’t sure what happened next. His surroundings whirled and blurred, then he was standing on the balcony outside. He turned, and Osopa, who’d not been in sight when he’d thrown the fit, closed the glass door between the balcony and the living room. The terrifying Nobek stood over him, staring.
Behind the glass, Tukui was keeping Tina from running out to join them, talking to her. Yorso was rushing from the kitchen, his expression alarmed.
Osopa stepped closer, blocking Zac’s view of the inside. Zac backed to the iron railing and looked at the apartment building’s grounds. He would have yelled for help, but there were only other Kalquorians roaming in sight. Zac cringed.
Osopa crouched. Even then, he was taller than Zac, a purple-eyed giant who could squash a human boy like a bug.
“Unacceptable.”
The single word was spoken quietly, not yelled. Yet Zac detected a hum underneath, similar to a live electrical wire. Zac had once seen such a wire that had been knocked down by a fallen tree. Daddy had explained how deadly live wires were, and to avoid them at all costs.
Osopa didn’t look angry. He didn’t look as if he felt anything. But that sense of a hum told Zac there was danger.
“We are men. Men never hit women in anger. Especially women holding children in their arms. No matter how disappointed you are about the situation, your behavior is an offense.”
Daddy had taught him not to hit girls either. It was wrong. Zac dropped his gaze from Osopa’s, the rising heat of shame making him angry and sick at once.
It’s not fair.
Osopa’s voice kept coming, kept hurting him despite how quiet it was. “You saw my men yesterday. How fierce and ready to battle they are. Not one of them would hit a female. Only weaklings do such things. Are you a weakling, Zac?”
Zac shook with humiliation and fury. He wished he was grown. He wished he could teach Osopa a lesson. He wished he could shut Osopa up.
But he was a little boy. He couldn’t make anybody do anything, including sending him home.
“My daddy’s going to come and get me. When he does, you’ll be sorry.” As he uttered the threat, Zac pictured his father. Daddy wasn’t as tall or as muscled as Osopa. He was kind of fat.
But he was the only protector Zac could imagine. Hot tears scalded the child’s cheeks as he stood up to the Kalquorian, his heart pounding as he waited to be destroyed. He repeated, “He’ll make you sorry.”
“Until he does, you’ll behave with decency towards your sisters. You won’t raise a hand to them again, or there’ll be consequences. Do you understand me?”
Osopa didn’t tell him what the consequences would be. Zac could imagine some pretty awful punishments, though.
He hated Kalquorians. He especially hated Osopa.
“Do you understand me, Zac? I’m waiting for your answer.”
Hating, hating, hating. But Zac was a weakling, so he had to do what the awful man told him to, at least for now.
“I understand.”
* * * *
Late in the afternoon, Tina entered the cafeteria to reclaim Zac from Mr. Garcia. Callie chattered on her hip, fresh and smiling after her nap in the crib that had been set up in Yorso’s office.
Tina was rejuvenated after her day off too. It was amazing what a little rest could do for a person’s outlook. The morning’s unpleasantness with Zac wasn’t the cataclysm it would have been a couple days before.
He’d been good as gold afterward, helping her post talent show flyers around the site. Zac had been even better when she’d dropped him off with the Garcias, excited to paint his Tyrannosaurus puppet.
“He’s feeling guilty over having enjoyed himself with his rivals yesterday,” had been Yorso’s opinion as they’d worked. “He looked as if he’d hadn’t gotten enough sleep either. Hey, I have the ingredients for that pizza he’s been begging for. That should put him in a good mood.”
Tina hoped her Imdiko was right, and that the coming evening would be nice for the family. Yesterday’s positive strides couldn’t have been an anomaly. It had to work out between Zac and her clan.