Chapter Seven

00oo00oo00oo00

Kahlo

I snort and step around the bend in the room, clearing the acrid scent of the poisonous smog from my nostrils. Cowardly. This creature must be human, or kig-yar. It cannot be sangheili.

If they are, I will fight them too. They cannot be allowed to escape.

The blue light of my blade scatters the shadows at the four corners around me as I slip through the threshold into the next room. The room is quiet, but I can still hear the whimpering of the woman in the other room, the sounds of a fearful mother.

Lacey is unconscious, and my teeth click as I remember how this came to be. I should not have left her alone. This would not have happened if I had stayed with her.

Shame, a trembling in my knees, but I can't let my anger and fear control me, even as I feel my lower mandibles shudder, teeth clicking against the upper tier, I continue forward, neck out, feet gliding carefully over the wood floor.

I move for the front door, prepared to face whatever is outside. I hope they don't try to run. I would like nothing more than to cut them down now and be done with it.

My long stride takes me past the stairs and towards the front door.

A punting metal noise and suddenly the entryway explodes in a storm of glass.

I purposely fall, turning one hip to drop into a roll, my body disturbing the carpet underneath, falling over my shoulder like a mantle as I scoot backwards towards the bottom of the stairs. I reach my feet, shrugging off the material and turn to face the window. Teeth of jagged glass glow under the streetlight, gleaming wickedly.

I crane my head and pause, wincing.

I clap a hand over my shoulder at a burning sensation, and fingers pull back to reveal the purple sheen of my blood. I grimace, mandibles splayed.

I wipe the stain off onto my leg. Merely an irritant. I step over the shards of glass that had been tossed at my feet, and continue forward.

I don't hesitate to pull open the door and step out, though the chill in the air reminds me that I am not fully equipped. My hardier armor is upstairs. I wear now, only thin plate, with a thinner leather at the skin.

If the enemy is armed, which is likely, they will have only that against me.

But they would do well to remember how swift sangheili are, especially one unburdened by full battle armor.

The street is empty but for two vehicles resting across the road. The neighbors seem unaware of the danger, and I spot no lights from their windows. I'm glad. Better to not encourage hostages in this situation.

There is a clattering noise and I curve my neck to regard the vehicle, what humans call a van.

I hear a soft sound, a quiet curse. Not soft enough.

I duck down, perched on splayed legs, and glimpse a long weapon barrel before it is quickly retrieved from the ground.

I don't hesitate. With a running leap I'm over the vehicle, sliding across the front, to tackle the figure to the ground.

He had lifted his head and his gun towards me as my shadow fell over him, but I had managed to jerk it out of his grip before he could fire.

The weapon crashes to the ground and I kick it away, forcing what I now see and smell as a male human, under my weight. He is fighting me with profane shouts and with a pathetic squirming, but is silenced and deathly still when a blue aura surrounds the both of us.

I pull back my shoulder and allow the edge of one prong of my blade to rest near his ear, the wider part sending a harsh light over his face. I see the whites of his eyes, his breath escaping in soft pants.

Definitely a coward, I'm almost disappointed, and then I remember Lacey, and I grimly acknowledge that the situation could be much worse.

My eyes draw across his torso and to his hips. I find what I am looking for, and rip it free. The pack is weighted, and I dump the contents onto the man's front, oblong shapes dropping down to bounce off onto the ground.

I select one with my free hand, holding it to my eyes in the light of the white street lamp above.

Smoke grenades. Unmarked. Simple black knobby forms, a crude human design. Mercenary grade?

"Fucking hinge head." The man almost spits, and I regard him again, almost amused by this sudden bravado. "You don-."

He does not seem to understand the positon he is in, and I turn my wrist to push my blade bodily against his neck and he screams piteously.

My upper mandibles gape in disgust.

I can smell it, sharp and acrid. I recoil with my neck and turn my nostrils up. The disgusting creature had pissed himself. Of course.

"Please, don't!" He begs, and I'm tempted to finish him by the sheer disgust I am feeling at being in the presence of such a weak louse of a human.

That and he is the reason Lacey is unconscious, possibly hurt.

Remembering this prior event, I have to talk myself down from cutting off the ugly round ears peering out from the sides of his head.

If he does not cooperate, I plan on doing just that. Damn the protocols. I leer down at him, baring my mandibles. Humans tend to fear the serrated mouths of sangheili. A predatory trait that makes me feel like a hunter, with a small vermin beneath me.

"You will talk." I say quietly. "I will listen. If I don't like what you have to say, I will use crude but effective methods to ensure that you provide me with better information."

I give him a sangheili smile. It is closed off, but I can smell his fear still.

Too easy.

"We begin now."

00oo00oo00oo00

Lacey

"Is she waking up? She's waking up. Can I not—"

I hear mom. It's her voice, and something is wrong. Her voice is pitchy, scared. My eyes slip open and I close them again. The light is bright, too crystal bright.

I groan as my senses return to me. My head feels foggy, my nostrils dry. I lift a hand up to reach for my face, to press fingers against my nose to relieve some kind of pressure at my head, and I feel a pull and a sting at my arm.

My eyes open and I'm not home. Definitely not home.

I'm at the hospital again.

Why?

I look at my arm, and at the plastic band around my wrist. I see the middle name, and a few numbers. There's a needle taped into my arm, an IV.

"Lacey." I can hear the emotion in her voice before I turn to see the tears roll down her cheeks. Mom steps away from the doctor standing nearby and leans over my bedside. "Baby, I'm so glad you're awake."

I remember. I remember the kitchen window exploding in a flurry of glass, and the praying voice of my mother in my ear, her hot breath tickling my cheek.

"What happened?" Kahlo flashes into my brain, the events last night. Was it last night? How long have I been asleep?

I try to sit up and mom pushes out the pillows behind my head to assist me.

"Don't move too quickly. Dr. Rose says you're bound to be a bit light headed for a while. Nice and slow honey. That's it."

Soon I'm sitting on my rump, my head resting against the plastic bed rest, the gurgling of a machine catching my attention. I watch the little pump inside and the liquid drip in a stream to the smaller glass part below.

Poisoned again. I might as well rent a room here.

"Where is Kahlo?" I ask. Mom is well, but I don't see the sangheili anywhere. He had made us wait in the back room and then he had gone after the bad guy. That much I remember. All I can remember.

"He's fine." Mom is smiling, but her eyes look sad. "He arrested the man who did this to you. They have him in holding." She grabs up my hand in her own, and I let her, even as the chill of her fingers makes me shiver.

Why are hospitals so cold?

"You're awake. I'm glad."

I eagerly turn my head towards the doorway, where two nurses step bodily out of the way of the sangheili entering the room.

Kahlo is wearing the same light armor as that night, and seems uninjured, although there is a slight stoop to his posture. He steps around to the other side of bed, to my right, shadowing me.

I smile up at him. "Hey."

"How are you feeling Lacey?" He asks warmly, and he rests a hand on the cloth over my knee. "You have not been awake for many hours. I was concerned."

His hand is hot on my leg, heavy, with long splaying fingers. My eyes linger on the warm golden brown between his digits and across the side of his palm. He seems to notice me watching them, and pulls his hand back.

I'm disappointed. He wasn't really bothering me, and I look up to make sure he doesn't feel that way.

Kahlo isn't looking at me though, his head is turned towards mom.

"I have a request Miss Drake."

"Alright Kahlo." Mom smiles, though she looks uncertain in the quirk of her lips. "All ears. You did save us last night."

"We leave this city today."

I twist my neck sharply.

"What?"

I sit up fence straight, and I don't even wince at the IV's tug on my arm. "What do you mean Kahlo?" He can't mean move…I have a job here, a life. Friends...a career, well, not quite that developed, but the promise on the horizon.

I can't just pack up the dog and leave.

His dark eyes are clear under the bright white light of the hospital room and I can see evidence of the dark reptilian arcs at the center. He releases a short exhale and lowers his head to regard me, equal with my eyes. "You cannot stay here Lacey. It is not safe."

"So they attack the house…did we not foresee that possibility?" I insist, "If you caught the guy, this is almost over, right? Home free and everything?"

Kahlo shares a glance with mom. They look worried.

"What?" My voice rises. "What are you not telling me?"

Mom squeezes my hand again, and makes a move to sit on the bed. I shift my leg to allow her room.

"Honey, last night there was also an attack at the studio office. They…burned it down."

Burned? What was burned? "Can't they just fix it up, I mean it can't be…" My voice trails off. The look on mom's face already tells me what I refuse to believe. I can't possibly…

"Employees are insured by the company, they can recommend you to another network if you like. Maybe put you in an editing position in my city."

"Mom. I'm not an editor, I'm a writer." The whine in my voice only weakens the argument. Of course I'm not. I never was. I wanted to be so much more, but now I wouldn't get that chance. All that work for nothing. Time wasted fixing other people's crap articles. Restless nights of resource research, piling on the hours, drunk on coffee alone…all that time, effort…

Nothing. It all came to nothing.

I wilt back into the pillows at my head. My eyes blink away the tears glaring in my eyes under the stern white hospital light. A big wake up call. One I hoped I'd never have to answer.

My voice is hoarse, I feel a soreness that wasn't evident until I began talking again, "I guess I have nothing left in this city but Leanne-oh my g-!"

"Leanne is fine Lacey!" Mom almost shouts, and she self-consciously flicks her gaze off to the side, suddenly aware that she was almost yelling. She turns back to me after smiling apologetically at the nearby staff. "She had no disturbances last night. She has security cameras, and told me no one attempted anything. She is in the lobby now if you want me to go get her."

"Please." My voice wavers, and I don't care to hide the tears in my vision. Why was this happening to me? We all have our moments of woe, but I was never the one for drama, especially when I was smack dab in the middle of it.

Would this nightmare ever end?

Mom leaves and it's just me and Kahlo. I meet his gaze again.

"Lacey, I know you are upset, but we have to talk about this." Kahlo says.

I don't really want to talk right now, especially not about that, "I can't just leave Leanne, this city. This is my city. I've lived here for years. This is part of my plan."

"Can you not make bigger plans?" Kahlo says. "You are living still. Can you not live somewhere else, and find a new way?"

I've never really been anywhere else, I felt that this was the place. Some of my biggest journalist heroes started here. A media hotspot, but how many opportunities were passed over me, held out of reach, taunting me like an animal? Making me question my own ability, my potential or lack of, for success. Could it really be so easy? Running away to start again?

Do I want this? I almost do. And this scares me.

Suddenly I feel my hand swaddled in warmth. Kahlo has taken my hand in his. My fingers curled against his palm. He's almost soft at the wrinkled turns of his skin.

His eyes meet mine again, "I believe in you. All you have to do is believe in me, trust me. I don't doubt you Lacey, you should not doubt yourself."

"Where will I go? How can I just leave Leanne behind? We've been friends for so long...I can't—" I continue to argue, although I feel my walls crumbling with each crack of my voice. I'm faltering. I'm giving in.

This is happening isn't it? Whether I want it to or not.

"We spoke." He says, and I stare up at him, incredulous. He continues, "She thinks it would be best. As you humans say, if you love something…you release it."

"Let it go, yes." I say, but I don't feel confident. I'm afraid. We run, but when does it stop? What if we can't outrun this?

"Where will we go?" I ask Kahlo this, just as a voice calls my name, and I see Leanne rush into the room.

As Leanne throws her arms around me in a tearful embrace, Kahlo responds to my question.

"Sanghelios."

00oo00oo00oo00

"That's impossible. Do you even—how can…?" My voice drops again. I don't know what to say. How can anyone respond to that?

Sanghelios. Kahlo's home planet.

Moving out of city is something else, but a whole other planet?

That's insane. I can't be the only one who thinks this.

"They breathe oxygen." Leanne said. "Do you see Kahlo flopping like a fish? You can eat the same kinds of foods, they're omnivores…you can even—"

"That's not the point Leanne." I argue, too anxious to care that I've cut her off. "It's a planet, full of-" I feel a pang of regret, and I look towards Kahlo, but he is not looking back. He had walked a bit off to talk with mom. I can't see mom from where I'm sitting, his form shadows her.

They're probably conversing about their plans to ship me off world.

I feel bad that I had almost referred to Kahlo's people as 'aliens.' Even if that is true, from an outsider perspective, he doesn't feel like alien to me. He doesn't deserve being titled like that.

Of course, I'll be the alien once we're on Sanghelios.

The thought of being shadowed by beings as large as Kahlo, and maybe not as friendly, has me shivering under the thin hospital sheet.

Leanne sits by me again, and she begins to play with my hair. Fingers sifting the folds off my center part. This is a common ritual with the two of us. We have always behaved like sisters, and this realization makes my heart clench even tighter.

"Listen Lacey." Leanne says, her voice is sad, but sincere, "You're like, my best friend. We've been friends forever, but I want you to be safe. If the guy protecting you thinks you'll be better off, than I say, let's do it."

"So you're coming with me?"

Leanne pauses in her hair brushing. I hear her sigh, "Lacey, I'd love to, but I have to head out of the city myself. Personal business."

"What is it?"

"Mom is sick."

"You hate her." I don't mean it to sound harsh, but it's already out. It's true anyway. She told me that fact enough times. I can't imagine having a mom you hated so readily, but it was the situation for Leanne.

Leanne sits back against the wall. "She's my mom Lacey."

"I know. I'm sorry." I say. And I am. I'm sorry that we could never be true sisters, that she couldn't have a mom that did love her enough to stay, and that we would probably never see each other again.

Life really isn't fair.

00oo00oo00oo00

I didn't think it could get worse, but storm clouds like to block out the sun when I'm around.

I crouch and pull her head into my lap. I feel her doggy snout press up into my belly, and I want to cry again, like a child, being denied something else, once more.

"I'm sorry honey, I know this is hard." Mom is crying too. Tears sparkle in her eyes, and she flicks a finger at her nose as one disturbs the tip of it. She reaches for the leash and I allow her to take it.

Mr. Clint is standing nearby, an apologetic frown on his face. He had helped us sort through the documents, sign myself off to a new destination, a new life, one that was as uncertain as ever.

Clover wasn't coming with me. Foreign animals were not allowed on Sanghelios. She will have to stay with mom. I am leaving everything behind but a few over stuffed bags and a heavy heart that feels ready to burst.

Kahlo is holding his own belongings over his shoulder in a leather looking bag. The rest are already being hauled into the ship resting nearby.

He looks ready to move forward with all this, but I'm sick with grief, with fear, and the realization that soon I will be star bound. Stuck up in a black void, where up and down was so easily distorted. I've never left my planet. I've never left home…

I feel sick again, and I feel mom reach out to steady me as I try to trip on my feet again.

"Take the pills." Mr. Clint directs me again. "They will relax you."

Or you could try knocking me out. That might suffice.

"You will like my home Lacey." Kahlo says again. "I have already spoken with my mother, and my uncles. They will also be watching out for you. You will be safe with us."

"How long will I have to stay?" I ask again.

The same answer, "As long as it takes."

00oo00oo00oo00

Kahlo

Sanghelios. Home.

Too long has passed, and I feel unprepared to return. Lacey needs this, and my family opening up to her presence, was so much more than I expected. Although many of us don't hate humanity, rather try to work together with them, there are a few rotten fruits among the good.

I just hope those fruits don't sour the rest before we arrive.

I don't know where else we can go.

I can only remember that night. That mite of a male. Vermin.

I clench the arm of the seat most of my bulk is barely fitting. I catch myself too late when I hear a soft sound of fabric tearing under my claws.

I will have to add onto the bill before we depart this vessel. My nerves won't allow me to sit idly, especially after what I've learned. I'm too angry, unsettled.

So much more than Lacey realizes. She does not understand. She can't know.

His words still repeat in my mind.

"It's not what you think. This isn't about me. I'm not the guy you want."

I had pulled him up by the torn fabric at his throat, already cut into by the points of my fingers from our earlier struggle. "Then tell me, you quivering maggot, what I need to know. Then I will show mercy."

"Please." He trembles, and I snort, the salty scent of his fear, almost too much. "I was only a distraction. They were going to…"

"Who?" I roar, impatient, eager to end it. Only then would Lacey and her family, be safe.

"I'm an outer territory fellow, I was blackmailed. I swear. I can't say anything…please."

"Now!"

"You don't understand." The man wheezes now, his face contorting under the wet rivulets rolling down his cheeks. "Look…here…"

He reaches to the pocket at his chest, and I follow his hand with my own, ensuring he is not arming himself.

Instead he pulls out his fingers clumsily from the fold, and I see a square of paper. Shiny on the edges. What is this?

He holds it to his chest, fingers opening to me, and I receive it, eyes watching him warily as whatever this is, finds its way into my palm.

I glance at the card, and I feel a pulse between my two hearts. It cannot be.

A female human with a fluff of yellow mane is holding a small oblong shape in her arms. I know what it is, by the care the woman is using in her grip of it. The bundle is sheltered firmly in her arms, and by her leg, a smaller human boy shows his teeth in a human smile.

"My sister, her baby, and my son Milo." The man pleads anew, and I lower the picture to regard him.

"You dishonored your family. I hope your son grows into his own without faltering in his path like this father has." I say simply. Unwilling to be sympathetic with this small plea.

Most of us have families. We have roots. This matters not. Only an excuse. It's shameful.

"I did it for them. Can't you see, you stupid squid." The man almost spits. "Money can't buy me. I got more pride than that…"

"To your point." I say, feeling exhausted in the drop of my mandibles. I already don't like where this talk is going.

"I'm his brother."

"Who—"

"Leeson. JACK Leeson."

I knew the details of the investigation. I knew that there was a brother to the murdered man. A coward who had departed to the shadows he had dealt with.

"My brother was arrogant. He was taking things he had no right to. Money. Tech. They didn't like it." The man exhaled, a ragged sound. "They told me that if I didn't come here tonight, didn't stage an attack on that woman's home, they would burn them. My family. The only family I have left."

"So you thought to protect them, by attacking an innocent girl?"

"I wasn't going to hurt her. That's not the point." His words fly out quickly, and I can see the panicked look on his face again. "Listen. If you can promise me you can find Luisa and the kids. Keep them safe. I'll help you."

"You can help yourself by telling me who is doing this!" I growl, purposefully flaring the fangs lining my jaws. I'm unwilling to blur the lines I see now. I cannot forsake my mission, Lacey's welfare, because a man has failed his family.

He's trembling again, but he does not look away from me. I am surprised to see something resolute there.

"You can kill me." He says weakly, "But they will die too. Their blood is on your hands."

Human blood. Red. Like a sun burning low on the horizon. Smelling of copper and peyrlite. I cannot stand the smell of it. I remember the cut on Lacey, her cry of pain, and I'm clear headed again.

"It is not my fault. You have killed them by being a weak brother, father." I tell the quivering human. A male's job is to protect his family, to do deeds that place them in favor, keep them nourished. In the old years of the sangheili, when a male failed his community, or his kaidon, his family could be put to death with him. You had to protect your own, sometimes by your own example. If you could not, the failure was yours alone.

"I did what I had to!" The man almost screams, and I want to shake him, but I do not. I just watch him, with pity, disgust. He is a quivering sack of flesh that leaks and does not give a straight answer.

All I can think of now is the image of the small human male. A son. How could he do this to him? Are humans really so weak? Does this woman not have any other relatives to turn to? Humans are so willing to break apart, deny one another.

We are stronger together.

"I need a name. This group." I say again, softly. Dangerously. Like a rumble from a storm closing in. I'm losing patience. "Tell me."

"They will know." He pleads again. "I wasn't supposed to tell you any of this! I'm weak. I'm sorry. Please, save them. You can still save them, can't you?"

"Tell me a name."

Suddenly the man shoots up in my grip, and I tighten my claws around his shirt. But he is not struggling with me, he is dying.

His eyes are whites, the colors of them drawn back into his head. A fountain of froth pours out from his lips, a hot gush over my fingers and I release him.

I step back and watch as he staggers forward, and drops flat to the pavement. His legs flipping around one final time, like a fish out of water, before he is as still as the air around us.

"Damn you." I hiss. Mandibles together, teeth cutting. Gnashing out in anger, frustration.

He has killed them. For what?

I cannot pretend to understand.

I did not expect this. I don't want to accept this.

We had to lie. Lacey could not know. That a man had died outside of her home, a man who was just as afraid as she was, of some unknown predator in the shadows. It would strike fear in a deep place, and she would never let go of it.

The man had a pouch planted within his body, full of a potent poison. A tiny explosion, like something under pressure, nothing he could feel for himself, nothing harmful, until it had released a quick killing agent. His body had slowly failed right in front of me, his system dying with each shock of nerve killing stream.

He was being watched. Someone knew what to do before he revealed the truth of it all. I could not detect them.

I have failed again. I cannot allow myself to fail again. If I cannot keep the shadows clean of them in this city, we must gain ground.

Humans know their worlds, their pathways, but Sanghelios is our hold. We know her waters, her sands, her forests. We build our keeps in her cliffs, at the edge of the crashing sea. The winds howl at our doors, but we howl back.

These humans underestimate me, and that is the last thing they will do. This is my home, my people.

"Kahlo?" There is fear in her voice, and I turn my neck to see Lacey sitting up in her seat, eyes wide. Awake from her short slumber. I see her gaze turned to the viewing port next to us.

"We are here." I say simply.

Already bathed in the golden glow of her aura from the small window.

"Sanghelios."

Sorry it took so long to get this out! I'm in college, and I'm having a busy semester. Getting my art projects out of the way. I hope you guys liked this chapter, let me know what you think! I appreciate the comments and feedback.

Will be working on one of my smutty stories next. :P

Until next time! :3