Ka'Cit's Haven (Riv’s Sanctuary #3)

“What? No. I’m not—I’m not with you.”

She tried to get out of their way and to safety at the side of the street, but there were so many of them, about twenty at least, and freeing herself from within their midst was proving difficult.

The frustration of being five foot five and thin hit her hard.

It was like being caught in a crowd of moving people who were headed in a singular direction while she was struggling to go the other way.

“Um, excuse me.” She struggled to find her footing and make it out of the middle of the group, but that wasn’t working. “EXCUSE ME!”

“Phek. It looks like this one drank too much. What an idiot.” The voice came from her right. It was so androgynous, she couldn’t determine if the speaker was male or female, but she guessed male. “He’s so phekked he’s speaking nonsense.”

There were a few grunting sounds that she assumed was laughter before she felt a hard blow to the back of her head. It almost made her lose consciousness and her vision swam in front of her.

You’d think they’d let her fall and leave her on the road so she could recover and crawl back toward Riv and Lauren, but no.

She stumbled a little from the blow and her feet dragged, but they collectively pulled her along.

“Stop!” Her head hurt and her shout wasn’t even a loud one. “Stop!” She dug her feet into the ground, but that didn’t hinder them. All it did was cause her to almost lose her shoes a few times.

“Keep going if you know what’s good for you, idiot.”

Arms held on to hers, forcing her along as panic arose within her like a cold icicle up her spine.

“You’ve got the wrong person. I’m not with your group!”

She tried to shake them off as she spoke, to no avail. These motherfuckers were strong.

They’d walked far enough now that she couldn’t see Riv or Lauren but she wasn’t sure if that was because of the distance they’d moved or if it was because she was so caught between the aliens that she could hardly see over their shoulders.

Her breathing started coming hard and fast, and Nia did the only thing she knew she could.

She put all her weight on the arms holding her and kicked the ones in front, trying to break free. That made the group lose formation for a little, and a few of the aliens stumbled.

“Phek!”

“Hold him down!”

Nia caught a view of dark faces before she screamed. “Stop! I’m not with you! Let me go!”

Surely, the aliens around her would realize something was wrong. Surely, someone would help her.

But she knew even as soon as the thought left her mind that this wasn’t true.

The Exchange was ruthless and one thing aliens did here was mind their own business.

“Hit him again. He needs to shut up. If the boss hears him blabbering when we get there, he’ll know all of us were drinking.”

As her feet hit the ground once more, she almost stumbled, but they were walking in such a close-knit unit that she was kept upright. One of her trainers almost slipped off her foot, and there was a moment where she was hop-hobbling, trying not to lose the shoe as they dragged her along. She’d bought the pair from one of her neighbors back on Earth.

The woman had been scammed into a Ponzi scheme, and it was the only way Nia had known how to help—even though the shoes were a size too large.

It was just bad luck they were the shoes she’d been wearing when she’d been taken. Digging down, she had to scrunch her toes in order to keep the shoe from falling off. When it settled back on her foot, her heel landed on something hard like a pebble, and Nia bit back a hiss of discomfort.

So not only was she hobbling now, but she was fighting against what felt like the current of a moving river. Struggling against the group of aliens pushing her along was like trying to swim through the rapids.

“Listen! I’m not one of you. Look at me! Please, just let me through!”

The aliens kept going, not listening to her, and Nia realized she was caught in a most unexpected of situations. She needed to do something.