Chapter 6

That was going to live in my nightmares for the rest of my life. I understood that removing Ram's arm had had to happen, that the fire was going to burn through him and never stop, but just… Fuck. That had been thoroughly and disturbingly gruesome.

At least it was an appendage? If it had been center mass, he'd be dead. I had so many questions about why his body reacted like that, whether his clothes were always fire-retardant, and if everyone knew that fire could do this to him. But he'd passed out just after I'd…I'd pulled his arm off. All I really knew was that his arm was across the room and slowly turning to ash. I'd literally put it in the old fireplace so it couldn't catch anything else on fire by accident. I was trying to ignore it, but I could smell the way it was cooking itself, and ignoring that was damn near impossible.

Ram hadn't bled for more than a few seconds, a testament to his rapid healing abilities more than my skills. I'd wrapped his shoulder with the old tablecloth—offered up a prayer that he wouldn't get an infection—and secured the cloth around him as best as I could. I was hoping he'd wake up soon and tell me it hardly hurt at all. What I really wanted, though, was to get him some professional help.

The temptation to head out to a distribution center was strong. I could tell someone who worked at one of those what was going on, right? They were supportive people and would jump on getting help for Ram's arm and his overall situation. Send in the cavalry and all that.

I was held back from leaving by the possibility that those four dumbasses could still be out there looking for us. I didn't want to leave Rampon alone now that Murray and his crew knew fire could make Rampon scream. They might not know how bad it could get, but they knew something.

I'd checked the news and local social media to see if a car chase, crash, and fight with a giant lizard had gotten any notice. While it had, it was all focused on who Rampon was and why he was hurting people. A rogue alien, they called him. Like Murray and Rex were the victims. Nobody was saying anything about them being in custody, so I had to assume there was a possibility that they were still driving my truck around and trying to find us.

I couldn't believe they'd stolen my truck. Could I even report the theft without going into all the other details surrounding it? Hell. Probably not. That would have to wait, then.

I checked my watch yet again. It was going on twenty minutes since Ram had passed out from the pain. I couldn't blame him at all, but it was starting to worry me. Should I wake him up? Let him sleep? He seemed comfortable, breathing fine, big heart thumping away. Maybe being unconsciousness was part of his recovery process? I didn't want to mess that up for him.

Leaning against Ram's good shoulder, I closed my eyes and tried to chill. With my cheek pressed to his scales, I was reminded of waking up on top of him not so long ago. I'd had plenty of one-offs with random guys ever since I'd figured out what my dick could do, but sleeping in with someone? That had been new. It was still blowing my mind that we'd fucked, but I also felt really safe with him. Trusted him.

When he'd gone after Murray and the rest, I could tell Ram was trying not to kill them. Knock them out, yeah. Incapacitate, hell yeah. But he'd held back and let them live. I think I might've fallen for him right then. He could do a lot of damage with those claws of his, but he chose not to. That was hero-level stuff.

And my goal was to get Ram back to his people. Hand him over and walk away. Because what? He'd visit me on the weekends? Fly down for a booty call in one of his shuttles? Please. We were in this conflict, and then we'd be out of it and go our separate ways. End of story.

That fucking sucked.

I heard a small noise and opened my eyes only to bang my head on the back of the booth as I gasped. Less than six feet from me were a pair of lizard aliens, claws out, fringes flared, and snarls on their lips. One held a baton with electricity crackling on the end pointed at me. I put my hands up so fast I nearly smacked myself in the face.

"What have you done?" the unarmed one hissed at me.

I shook my head. "Wasn't me. I mean, I helped, but he needed me to."

"Explain."

I gulped and tried to calm the fuck down. "There was a guy with one of those kitchen torches. A little handheld thing. He got Rampon with the flame right where he'd already been shot. He told me he had to amputate to stop the burn from spreading." I kept my hands up but pointed toward the fireplace. "His arm's still burning over there."

The one with the baton didn't even blink, while the one questioning me barked something and got an answer. I risked looking and saw— Fuck me, a whole damn company of soldiers had found us! There were lizard aliens everywhere. I was a shit Marine; I hadn't heard a thing until they'd had me surrounded.

"Get up," the interrogator ordered.

I did, hands still in the air. The one with the baton grabbed my right arm down and hauled me out of the way. I wanted to explain everything else, prove my innocence, but the crackle of electricity was beside my temple, so I kept my mouth shut for the moment.

The other alien sort of scanned Rampon with a little device attached to something bigger and a voice spoke from it. I had no idea what they were saying as the alien spoke back to the device, but the tension seemed to leave their broad shoulders after a while. The one holding me might've chilled some, too, since the baton wasn't right up next to my face anymore. Maybe it was letting them know Ram was going to be okay.

"Take him."

I gasped because that was Ram's voice. I watched his eyelids flutter before they closed again. Now I was relieved, too.

Except… Take who? Me?

Oh, shit. Yep, that was what they thought he meant because someone else grabbed my hands and locked cuffs on my wrists behind my back. Which was fine. Really, it was understandable that they'd want to get out of here with an injured comrade and take with them the one person who could explain everything. Just a little detention. They'd debrief me, and eventually Ram would let them know I was cool. It was fine.

No one spoke to me after that. I was just held off to the side by a hand gripping my biceps while they loaded Ram onto a floating gurney. They'd removed the tablecloth, rinsed the whole area, and put some kind of rubbery-looking cap on his shoulder. That they had that stuff with them told me this wasn't anybody's first rodeo with a fire-roasted limb. That they collected his arm in a metal box proved it, too.

I didn't fuss when they walked me outside to where a shuttle was waiting. In the distance, a line of cop cars flashed in front of a huge crowd of people and all sizes of flashlights—camera lights?—pointed in this direction. I hoped someone would set the story straight about what had happened. Last thing I wanted was for Murray to be portrayed as the good guy.

Everyone filed into the shuttle, and I had a moment of worry. I was about to leave Earth, go up to a spaceship, and get interrogated by aliens. Not the way I'd thought my weekend would go—ha! And also, oh fuck, I was going to go into space.

I distracted myself by paying close attention to the little things like how my cuffs could be separated to attach to the seat they pushed me onto. A five-point harness got strapped to me and tightened up. The alien who'd done all of that sat down opposite me, but their baton was off now and stowed in a sleeve down the outside of their thigh. Nobody got issued an oxygen mask or helmet, which felt wrong, but what the hell did I know? Last time I'd noticed, humans couldn't get more than, like, six people into space at once. There were easily fifty aliens on this shuttle with me and every last one of them was as big as Rampon.

The liftoff was smooth as shit, though. I knew with everything in me that I was not on any vehicle a human had designed—we were nowhere near this sophisticated with our space tech. Would we ever be? I'd thought I remembered hearing about negotiations for tech, but there'd been such a fight for everything else, I had no idea if we'd get more. And after an abduction and Rampon losing his arm? Fucking hell, it was entirely possible everything I did and said from here on out could be critical to all of humanity's relationship with the Norlons. No pressure!

"Quincy!"

I jumped in my seat. That was Rampon, and now he was thrashing on the gurney like he was trying to get free of the straps holding him onto it.

"I'm here!" I hollered toward him. "Everything's fine! Calm down, okay?"

He stilled again, the sheet covering him rising and falling with his big breaths. Everyone else was staring at me with questions in their eyes, but no one said anything.

"We're friends," I said mostly to my guard. "Seriously, it's cool."

They looked me up and down like they couldn't imagine why, but fuck 'em. I might not look like much in comparison to all of them, but I was the one who'd rescued Ram. I'd explain everything and be nice about it all, but they could also kiss my ass.