“Your father permitted you to look at naked males.”Kaelen’s outrage was hilarious.
Neither Dad nor Uncle Saul knew about Kaylee, Sarah and Samantha taking me to Studs to watch the male strippers.“They’re quite talented dancers.”
“You are forbidden from watching them again.”
Totally ignoring him, I continued,“It’s called girls’ night out and it’s necessary for my mental health. It’s not like I touched them, nor did I want to take them home with me. They took my mind off the Tai-Kok for an hour or so.”
“These girls’ night out are with General Jones’ females?”
“Yep. We try to do something fun once a month.”
Kaelen asked indulgently.“What do you consider fun?”
“Horseback riding, kayaking, or a spa day. Sometimes we watch old movies, eat lots of popcorn and just talk.”
“The Jones females are warriors like you?”
I grinned.“Hell yeah. Kaylee’s a kickass cop; Sarah’s a fighter pilot and Samantha’s a special forces sergeant.”
“I approve of your friendship with them.”
I snorted. Like he had any say in the matter.
“My ship is under attack. We will speak again.”
Alarm knotted my stomach.“The Tai-Kok?”
“No. The Rodan.”The image of a weird creature flashed into my head. It was a combination of a rat and a dinosaur. With lots of teeth and claws. Kinda reminded me of a pint-sized t. rex with scaley purple skin.“They are eaters of flesh like the Tai-Kok.”An alarm sounded and Kaelen vanished from my mind.
A wave of horror swept through me at the thought of Kaelen getting hurt or dying. Damn. Could I survive without him? And when did my link with the battle commander become a necessity like breathing?
“Lexi!” Dad bellowed. “Quit daydreaming and get your ass in gear. You have eleven minutes to complete your run or you’re out of the academy.”
I increased my speed and finished in eight minutes.
After six hundred and seventy-two hours of training, I graduated at the top of my class. I was assigned to District Six, which included the west side of Phoenix, all of Glendale and Peoria. Since the Tai-Kok had bombed the area and the roads were in poor shape, we drove armored ATVs.
I wanted to be partnered with Kaylee, but Uncle Saul put his foot down. “The two of you working together is asking for Armageddon.”
Hey, our kill rate was higher than most military platoons, but he refused to budge.
Kaylee now works the twelve-to-midnight shift on the east side of the valley. I reported to work at the crack of dawn and if I was lucky, I’d get home by o-dark-thirty. Who did they partner me with? Yep, my father. Talk about a buzz kill.
Chapter Ten
Two years after the Tai-Kok invasion…
I soon discovered that people were crazy. I mean, seriously, did they put something in the water? When the warning sirens sound, you are supposed to head to the nearest bunker. Who the hell keeps shopping? And the looters! God, it drives me nuts. You’d think after two years of attacks, they’d get it. But nope, there’s always a bunch of morons out there with the attitude of“it can’t happen to me”and we’re risking our lives to save their miserable butts.
The emergency tone blared from our radios and the dispatcher announced, “The market at Seventy-fifth and Glendale Avenue was just robbed. The suspect is described as a four-hundred-pound Hispanic male armed with an assault rifle. Adam-30 and Adam-31 I need you to respond.”
I keyed my mic, “Adam-30 and Adam-31 copy.”
Dad hit the siren, and we zoomed over and around the debris littering the streets.
“Gotta be Benny Soliz. He probably ate all his rations again,” I said and ducked down as bullets suddenly shattered the windshield.
“I’m shooting the sonovabitch this time.” Dad swerved into an alley and pulled in behind a big metal dumpster filled with smelly garbage. Bullets pinged off the metal.
