Superstition

Anna hated threes.

When she'd been a child, she'd gotten it into her mind that three was an unlucky number, and the idea had been with her ever since. Part of her insisted that it wasn't such a foolish notion. She and her younger brother, Richard, had both been three when they'd contracted their first serious illnesses. Their mother had died birthing their third sibling, also stillborne. And on her thirteenth birthday, she'd climbed a favorite tree to have one of the limbs-a thick, formerly sturdy branch with no signs of prior strain-break without any warning.

And three months after *his* thirteenth birthday, Richard had been killed by Desians.

Anna had first suspected something was wrong when some of the men from the mayor's office came to see her father. Rebellious when told curtly to leave the house, she'd crawled under an open window where she could hear most of the conversation between the three men. One of them had accused her father of not paying his taxes for the previous three years.

Anna felt her gut tighten, insisting inside her mind that she was just being silly. She was only a few weeks from being eighteen, an adult. She was too old to be holding on to such superstitions. But no matter how hard she tried to convince herself, her heart still trembled.

The word 'prison' jolted her back to attention, and as she listened, she realized that they intended to take her father into custody. And these days, 'custody' didn't mean a nice little jail cell. Luin had an agreement with the local human ranch; anyone guilty of a crime got a free, one-way trip there. It sounded harsh, but it kept the Desians away from most of the population unless their mysterious 'quotas' weren't met.

What met her ears next made her heart nearly stutter to a stop, as she heard her father asking-no, begging!-them to take her-his own daughter-instead.

She was so shaken by the betrayal that she couldn't even move, at first. She simply shook as she listened to the raucous laughter of the other men. A hand from behind clapped over her mouth, muffling her startled scream before she recognized Richard's voice, whispering that they had to leave. Now.

She trustingly followed her little brother, too shocked to really absorb what was going on around her. They made it maybe halfway down the hill before they were spotted. Apparently, the mayor's men had alerted the Desians beforehand. The conclusion was forgone.

Anna was held down and forced to watch as they beat both her father and Richard. The first was because of his 'cowardly attempt to escape justice,' and the other for trying to 'conceal potential Desian property.' Both charges were just a thinly veiled attempt to make themselves look righteous, and Anna-all fear forgotten in the face of her baby brother's suffering-said as much to them. She even took the blow to the face with as much dignity as she could muster while on her knees in the dirt. She glared up at him, unrepentant.

The Desians 'attending' to her father suddenly stopped, one muttering an 'oh, shit,' under his breath. The other straightened and snapped a salute to the one that had struck Anna, "S-sir! He seems to have died."

Anna gasped, peering around the man's legs. Even knowing he'd been willing to trade her to save himself didn't deaden the impact of seeing her flesh and blood lying so still on the ground. His face was nearly unrecognizable.

'Her' Desian sighed, and seemed to be rolling his eyes, though under that helmet, she could only really guess. "Good thing we're not over the limit. Yet. Still, that's one less test subject. We'll definitely have to take one of these other two, now."

Richard struggled to lift his head from where he lay. He gave a ragged, blood-choked cough, spewing blood and bile. "M-me. Taa-take . . ."

No, Anna thought desperately, but before she could say anything, the Desian began to laugh.

"Trust me, you pathetic creature," he mocked. "You won't survive the night. Looks like your sister's going with us, after all." He seemed about to turn away, but thought better of it. "Kill him."

The other Desians glanced at one another. "Sir?" one asked, hesitantly.

He just shook his head. "Trust me, people love a hero. And who makes a better hero than an orphan fighting to save his sister from certain doom? We don't want to give these inferior beings any such . . . inspiration." He glanced over at Anna, who'd renewed her struggles against the ones holding her. "Look. See what I mean? Hope. It makes them struggle, makes them too stupid to realize just how helpless they are. Well, watch this, little girl."

Anna screamed as she watched that pointed, metal-tipped boot smash into her baby brother's skull, knocking him to the ground. She couldn't even form words to adequately express the rage and pain and helplessness as she looked into her brother's eyes for the last time, right as the Desian's full weight was slammed down onto his neck, breaking it.

She fought. Mousy, quiet, little Anna fought against six grown men, screaming and biting and kicking. It wasn't until she was finally knocked unconscious, the world slowly fading from her sight, that she felt a morbidly hilarious thought:

Of all the family she had left, she would be the third of them to die.