We're packing up when we hear human screaming. From the far side of the crater, Gresh appears, dragging his female. She's fighting now, the broken act abandoned.
“No! Not there! Please!” Her voice carries desperation that transcends language.
He's dragging her toward the crater edge. Toward the tubes. He means to use her as bait, but not the way I was used. He means to let them have her.
“Help me!” She sees us, reaches out. “Please!”
Khor doesn't move. “Not our business.”
“He's going to kill her.”
“His female. His choice.”
But when Gresh gets her to the edge, she does something unexpected. Produces a blade from somewhere, hidden all this time. Slashes his throat in one motion. He staggers, surprised, and she pushes. He falls into the crater, landing near the tubes.
The Sketh-kar emerge instantly.
I don't watch what they do to him. The sounds are enough.
The female collapses at the crater's edge, sobbing. Not from grief. From relief.
“Six years,” she says when we approach. “Six years of pretending to be broken while waiting for the right moment.”
“What's your name?” I ask.
“Does it matter? I was Sara once. On Earth. Now I'm nothing. No male. No protection. No way home.”
“Travel with us,” I offer before thinking it through.
Khor's spines extend slightly. Not anger. Surprise.
“You would take me? After what I did?”
“You survived. That's what we do here.”
We leave the crater as the sun sets, three instead of two. Sara walks behind us, silent except for occasional crying. Not sadness. Just the release of years of tension.
We camp at a thermal vent, the heat keeping night predators away. Sara sleeps immediately, exhaustion of freedom knocking her unconscious.
“Why?” Khor asks.
“Because she's what I could become. What any of us become if we choose wrong.” I pull out the extra vial I kept while he was fighting frenzy. “Like I chose to keep this.”
He looks at the vial of secretion in my hand. “You learn.”
“I survive.”
The celebration sex is different with Sara nearby. Quieter but not less intense. His knot locks inside me while steam rises around us, the thermal vent's heat nothing compared to what we generate together.
“Eighteen days until portal,” I whisper.
“Eighteen days to convince you to stay.”
In the darkness beyond our camp, I smell citrus and ozone. Vek, still following. Still waiting. Tomorrow he'll make his move.Has to. We're heading home with the payment complete. His opportunities are running out.
Sara whimpers in her sleep. Free but lost. Saved but homeless.
I hold the vial of secretion against my chest, feeling its weight. My final weapon, stolen while its owner was lost in chemical frenzy.
