Chapter 26 Zoey

Clark had a black eye, which looked suspiciously like he’d been in a fistfight.

We were in his office, and Sasha, one of his right-hand men, had just stormed off. I wondered if it had been Sasha who’d given Clark the black eye, but it wouldn’t bruise that quickly.

“I’m glad I finally have a chance to talk to you alone. I’m not sure if you knew, but Connor and I were close.Connor was my brother-in-law. It was one of the reasons why he never settled down here. He saw my sister every time he saw me. It was hard on him.”

I’d known Connor was married before the bugs and that he loved and missed his late wife very much, but I hadn’t known she’d been Clark’s sister. “He mentioned her from time to time, but no, I didn’t know she was your sister.”

“Last time he was here, he mentioned he planned on visiting New Franklin to see if the rumors were true. This group Heather joined claims they’d come from there. You’ve been to their camp. What do you think of these people?”

“I like them,” I said honestly. “And if Connor was still around, I believe he wouldn’t have hesitated to join them. He was always talking about making a difference. And these people do.”

Clark scratched his beard, which was starting to grow in. “Then why come here?”

“Because Riley’s here, and I promised her.” It was only half the truth.

He asked me more questions about Harb’k’s group, and I answered without saying too much. I certainly didn’t tell him about Mina.

“Do you remember a kid named Caleb?” Clark’s question caught me by surprise.

I started to shake my head but then remembered a kid who disappeared a few years back. “The one who disappeared?”

“Yes. He’s living with his mother with a group in the Rockies. He’s a young man now, and”—Clark held up a cell phone—“according to the man I spoke with there, already a great pilot.”

“Really! Wow! That’s great.” I hadn’t known there’d been more than one contact in the phone they’d given him.

“This Great Plains group… would you like to go back and visit?”

“Yes,” I said carefully. “As I said, they’re good people.” I didn’t understand where he was going with this.

“I’d like to appoint you our official ambassador.”

Well, that was a surprise. “Does that mean you plan on allying with them?”

“I liked their leaders. Mo is sensible and action-oriented. And Aaron from the Rockies group can think circles around me. We all know we have to fight smarter, not harder.” The corner of his lip lifted, and so did mine.

Connor had said that often.

“And the hunters aren’t bad. My foragers tell me they see them fighting the bugs every day. It would benefit us to ally with them. You said so yourself, they are good people, and I trust your judgment.”

“Thank you.” That was a compliment coming from Clark. “But wouldn’t this cause issues internally? I know some here have a hard stance against aliens.”

“I have Sasha and Gabe working on it. They know who amongst their ranks are most likely to cause issues.”

Sasha and Gabe were heads of the guards here, with Gabe usually managing the force that policed inside the walls and Sasha managing the ones who protected us from outsiders.

“Isn’t Sasha an alien hater himself?”

“He was,” Clark said. “Sasha has fought the mutations from that nest, and so have his men. He was the first to cast his vote to join the fight. A solid group of his men have already volunteered to fight at the nest.”

I was still doubtful, considering all the anti-alien rhetoric I’d heard from him. But then again, people change.

“And it’s time we branched out. We need trade to thrive.”

I nodded. “You guys did amazing with what you had. Sanctuary isn't half-bad.”

He raised his brow. “Even without the video games and water showers on demand?”

Of course, of all the things I had told him about the camp, he’d focus on the video games. Men.

“The showers were pretty good.”

“I will give Mo a call and let him know we will accept the offer and that you will be joining them as our ambassador. I’m also sending you to that Trader’s Market of theirs. No one else knows about it yet, not even Gabe or Sasha or the advisors. We won’t have anything to trade this year, but—” He shrugged, a hopeful look on his face.

“What about Riley?” I tried convincing her to travel with me New Franklin, but she was adamant that she’d done enough moving about for a lifetime and just wanted to settle down here.

“She’ll stay here. I’ve talked to her already. She’s tired. It was hard work you did connecting communities in such a harsh landscape. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

I found Riley chewing her nails and waiting for me outside of Clark’s office, and by the look on her face, she already knew what we’d talked about.

She put her hand out. “I am not saying no forever. Maybe one day, I’ll feel like getting out there again. And this way, you get to come visit every month or so. It’ll be great.”

“I get it,” I said, giving her a hug. “Sometimes, I want to settle down too.”

And that had me thinking of Harb’k. I was going to have to face him if I was going to be Sanctuary’s ambassador to their camp.

We walked through the foyer toward the door to help the survivors clear out the winter crops. With the help of hoop houses and greenhouses, Sanctuary was able to farm the land around it year-round. They’d even had to extend their fences to include another converted block since the last time I was here.

It was late afternoon, so everyone was doing their best to get everything that needed to be done finished before sunset.

“So what are you going to do about… you know?” Riley asked as she pulled up more radishes sweetened by the cold.

She meant Harb’k. I’d told her all about him the moment we’d had some privacy.

“I don’t know. Tell him the truth, I guess.”

It wasn’t fair for me to just up and go, but I hadn’t been thinking straight. I imagined the sweet, funny, protective hunter finding out I couldn’t give him the family he’d always wanted and ran like a coward.

I’d had plenty of time to think over the last few days. Harb’k deserved to know all the information so he could make an informed decision. If he decided I wasn’t the right woman for him, then so be it. But if he still wanted me, then you betcha I was going to do everything in my power to make things work.

I’d all but given up on love since the bugs arrived. Friendship, yes. But romantic love? I never in a million years would’ve dreamt I’d meet and fall for a Xarc’n warrior.

“Holy shit,” I exclaimed.

“What’s wrong?”

Love. That was what was wrong. I wasn’t falling for him; I’d already fallen.

The sudden blaring of horns from the watchtowers sent panic through me.

I looked to the sky, expecting to see the scorpion-like flyers. But what I saw had my blood running cold. The bugs flying toward us didn’t look like anything I’d ever seen.

My initial reaction was: wasp! But the only thing wasp-like was the large abdomen and a tiny wasp-like waist; everything else was different. Their bodies weren’t striped or yellow but bright red, the same as I’d seen on those mutants with Harb’k. Instead of stingers, long whiplike tails stretched out behind them. I was willing to bet the tails were covered in scuttler toxin, the stuff that made fighting the bugs so dangerous.

“Quick! Close the cold frames! Secure the greenhouses!” someone cried.

That was the thing about the bugs. If just one of the nasty creatures died in the crops, the harvest was lost. Bug guts were teeming with the deadly fungus, and it stayed in the soil for months.

Riley and I ran to help someone spread a tarp over the nearest open garden bed but realized that there was no way we would be able to run back to the buildings in time. We decided to hide underneath the tarp.

Sasha called out an order from one of the watchtowers, and moments later two rockets flew out from the roof of the gatehouse. They hit their marks, and two of the creatures tumbled to the ground somewhere outside the walls. That didn’t stop the rest, though. There were almost a dozen of them flying toward us.

“Load them up! Again!” Sasha shouted.

But before they could shoot again, the nearest wasp thing whipped its tail around, aiming it at the roof of the gatehouse. There was a scream, and a man fell from it in a streak of red.

They managed to bring down one more of the creatures before they were too close to use the rocket launcher, lest they hit the buildings. The guards shot at them with armor-piercing rounds, aiming for the wings like they usually did for the flyers. Grounded flyers were much easier to deal with.

One of the creatures fell, but as it did, its tail swept out in a wide arc, sweeping several guards off their feet. I couldn’t see what had happened from my angle, but there was a lot of screaming. It was chaos.

Suddenly, one of the creatures just exploded in the sky. Then another, and another. Everyone went to hide under something so they wouldn’t be rained on by bug guts. Something was killing the bugs. Then we saw them: Xarc’n shuttles. Not one or two, but more than a dozen. They dropped their cloaks as they zoomed around, picking off what was left of the strange creatures.

When there was nothing else to kill, a loud voice announced in English that they’d be landing in the courtyard, and any hostility would be met with the same.

Clark and Gabe ran out from the main building, and Sasha came to join them, still carrying a rocket launcher. Farther behind them, milling by the door, were Clark’s advisors. I recognized the lady who was Sanctuary’s trade advisor.

“I say we shoot them purple motherfuckers,” said one of the guards.

“Hold your fire!” Clark bellowed. “These shuttles just came to our rescue.”

“How do we know they didn’t send those bastards here to begin with?”

“You still believe in that shit?” a woman asked loudly. “I don’t care what you think, but they saved our hides by showing up when they did.”

“Shooting now is an act of war. Anyone who does so will be immediately exiled,” Clark announced loudly. He turned to the guard who had made the remark. “We are not going to make enemies because you can’t hold in your hate for a few minutes. So hold your fire, or I’ll feed you to the bugs myself.”

That got the message across, and anyone who was jonesing to pull the trigger lowered their weapons.

There was movement from the shuttle that had landed closest to us, and the door slid open. It wasn’t a purple Xarc’n hunter who stepped out, but Mo. A Xarc’n warrior—I couldn’t tell who from where I hid—stepped out after him, his arms crossed over his chest.

More doors opened, and more people, humans and Xarc’n, stepped out. A buzz of conversation filled the courtyard. Everyone was surprised to see so many humans stepping out of the Xarc’n shuttles.

I couldn’t pay attention to it because my eyes were now on the warrior who stepped out of the shuttle to the far right. Harb’k’s eyes seemed to glow in the late afternoon sun.

I stifled a noise, but Riley caught it anyway and followed my eyes.

“Is that him?” she whispered.

“Yup,” I whispered back.

And he looked pissed.