{Invasion Day | April 2006}

“The world can’t end this way.”

Sagan shook Rayne’s shoulders gently at first, then harder. “Rayne!” She rounded back to Xelan and the others perched safe and high on the roof. A few choice obscenities sprung to mind, but Sagan stopped short. She frowned and narrowed her eyes as the strangers beside Xelan departed via Icarean airlines A.K.A. they unfolded massive, angelic wings and flew away. “Fucking cowards.”

Sagan felt quite prejudiced towards Icari right now. Every slight cut on her body stung and ached. The gaping wounds in her midsection and back throbbed with a pulse almost separate from her own.

A pitiful sound snapped her head back to the girl on the pavement. Rayne’s black hair was matted to her bleeding skull, and bruises marred her sickly pale skin … Everywhere. Sagan couldn’t even look at her left arm. She thought she heard mumbling and knelt back onto the blood-soaked pavement. “Rayne, wake up.”

Nothing.

“We’ve got to go.”

The sound of Xelan’s deep, kind voice made Sagan slow to face him. Their “guardian” towered almost a foot over her. His long, dark hair framed features awfully similar to the man who all but beat their leader to death. As the dots connected, she let her fury show in her eyes.

“How. Dare. You.”

Xelan flinched. He kept his eyes on Sagan as he slowly approached Rayne’s prone and battered body. He said, “Sagan, please. It’s not safe. Let’s get her out of the open, and then the two of you can tear into me. I can tell you now,” he looked down at Rayne and continued, “that she will regain consciousness even with these injuries. Let’s take her somewhere safe.”

Anger didn’t cover it. Sagan was on fire. If not for the exhaustion after battling Icari for nearly six hours, she’d kill Xelan on the spot. Beyond him, the flaming building collapsed. The last ruins of J. A. Fair High School crumbled into a smoking cinder.

“Sagan.” Kyle approached them. She spared him a glance. His curly brown hair was soaked to his face with sweat and blood. One forest-green eye had swollen shut. His split lip bled and puffed. It must hurt for him to talk. Even so, he said, “We need to know what’s happening, and he’s our only resource.”

“I don’t trust him. He and his friends hung out on the roof while we—” Sagan knocked back a sob in her throat. “We—” She let out one shaky breath and gripped the axe tighter. It was her trophy. A testament to her survival skills. Even if its owner had apparently survived and would surely reclaim it one day. Her heart pounded at the memory of Korac emerging from the rubble. Alive. His eyes had pierced into her soul. Let him come.

Sagan gave the school her full attention. All that smoke and flame. All those bodies, and Nikki had never emerged from the fire.

Rayne.

Sagan stared down at her best friend’s body again. She needed a hospital, possibly surgery. “Convince me to trust you for Rayne’s sake.” So quiet. Did Xelan even hear Sagan speak over the blazing school?

His tone chilled her. “I didn’t wait eight thousand years to let Nox and The Brethren interfere with my bond to this unit at the breaking point of humanity. I will defend it as I have always done, and I will defend you. Give us the chance to prove to The Brethren that you can defeat the Icarean horde. Or you can take my head, yourself.”

Sagan’s eyes snapped up to meet his before she asked, “Why me?”

“I trust you to take it cleanly because that’s how I taught you to do it. If anyone has a right in this unit to kill me for her sake, it’s you.” Xelan was direct and to the point, as always.

Sagan nodded to Rayne lying on the pavement soaked in so much blood, asking, “Can you help her?”

Xelan said, “I think I’m the only one here with enough medical knowledge to carry her without causing more damage, and I can set the bone in her arm. It won’t be pretty. I refuse to lie to you.”

Sagan opened her mouth to argue, and Xelan raised his hand to stop her, saying, “I never lied to any of you. I will explain my absence later, but lying never happened.”

The sincerity in Xelan’s voice moved the part of Sagan which had loved and trusted him for the last four years. He continued, “Best-case scenario? She needs anesthesia and a surgeon. This scenario?” He spread his hands wide to encompass the shit-fest. “She’ll be awake until she passes out. I’ll set the bone, stitch the wound, and disinfect it. Heal time is likely two months, maybe longer. She’ll need a cast and physical therapy. It can be done.”

“I’m in charge until she wakes up.” Sagan spun the axe to emphasize her point.

Xelan straightened, pounded a fist to his chest, and held rank. “Lieutenant General.”

Sagan ordered, “Kyle, get the others. We’re moving out. Xelan, can you really lift her without—” The rest of the sentence caught in Sagan’s throat. Rayne’s body was so battered she couldn’t fathom a way to move her without inflicting more damage. Years of first aid and anatomy training screamed at her to find a stretcher and some splints.

Sagan glimpsed Xelan with his hand outstretched toward her as if he meant to place it on her shoulder in an act of consolation. He hesitated and thought better of the gesture. Despite their circumstances, she hated the slump of his shoulders, the sheen in his eyes, and the frown on his face.

Xelan cleared his throat to say, “Yes, I’ll collect her. May I borrow some supplies from your duffel bag?”

Sagan nodded. She wanted to speak to the students before they scattered away. Warn them of the dangers out there. Xelan needed strict supervision around Rayne until they resolved this clusterfuck.

Andrew came over and asked, “Can I help?”

Xelan nodded without sparing him a glance. “We’ll splint her arm. I know you’re practiced in the basics, but this is a protruding compound fracture. I’ll guide you.”

At the word, ‘protruding,’ the sky spun, and Sagan slammed her eyes shut. She took three deep breaths. They prepared for this, obviously not enough, but they were told what to expect. She understood war resulted in casualties. She’d just never expected something to happen to their own people. Never expected something to happen to their leader.

“Has anyone seen Nikki?” Sagan asked.

Everyone stopped. Eye contact passed between each of them, but no one said a word. The silence stretched as Sagan stared at the blood pooling in the parking lot.

“Sagan?” Tameka traversed the puddles of blood to reach her.

The moment of silence for Nikki had passed.

Sagan opened her eyes and faced concern in the redhead’s green stare. “Yes?”

Blood souped from the wound in Tameka’s right shoulder where a serrated blade had impaled her. Bruises marred her tawny brown skin, and she sported a trophy-winning black eye. Otherwise, for all the ass Tameka had kicked, she looked the best. She was a paragon.

The lines in Tameka’s face drew tight enough to stress her dark freckles as she said, “There’s something you need to hear.”

“Where?”

Tameka led her to Matt Anderson’s white Chevrolet Malibu. The grill was dented after he’d rammed it headlong into a small army of elite, Icarean soldiers.

Sagan rather liked Matt. The girl with him? Sagan wasn’t so sure about. “No time for pleasantries or explanations. I’m here for the message, and then you two are going home.”

Lucy and Matt exchanged glances. They had the same look on their face as Tameka—devastated. Sagan didn’t want to know, anymore, but Matt increased the volume dial.

“—river of lava.” Sagan’s heart raced. “I repeat Honolulu was swallowed by a river of lava. The eruption is massive, unprecedented.” Matt pressed the tune button, and the station changed. Static crackled, then came a light whisper, “—out there? I don’t know if there’s anyone left. Please help us. We’re at the 360 Amphitheater. As far as we know we’re the only survivors. If you’re here, please come to the Circuit of The Americas. If there are any other Austin survivors, you can find us—” Another station, another crisis. “It’s just gone. This is as close as I could get. I can’t see over the edge of the cliffs. There are so many people, it’s hard to push through, but I can see the ocean. Right outside Charlotte. We’re a couple hundred feet above it, but it’s there. As far as I can see. God save us all.”

Static.

Sagan didn’t realize her hand was over her mouth. Her insides twisted, and her throat congested with sobs. Vomit or cry? Pick one.

She lowered her hand to ask what in the hell was going on when Matt shushed her gently with a single finger to his lips. A strong and sure voice permeated the airwaves. The bass and tone were soothing. The inflection that of a gently reasoning parent explaining to their child, ‘We are punishing you for your own good. This hurts us more than it hurts you.’

It could only be Nox.

“Earthlings, humans, homo sapiens, we have weapons capable of destruction you cannot imagine. As you can see.”

Matt raised a hand to change the station.

“No, don’t—” Sagan started.

But he held up his hand to stave her off and pressed the button. The same message continued. “We demand surrender from your leaders. The sooner they deliver this surrender, we can begin administering mercy. Not a moment before.” He changed the station again, and it went on. Every single station. “If you resist, we have no choice but to provide another demonstration and another. If you surrender, the populace will suffer almost no casualties. We want the human race to live. Surrender.”

Sagan reeled back to Xelan, waiting for his input.

He said, “Nox isn’t lying, but he’s not telling the whole truth. The human race will be enslaved.”

Nox carried on, “We are merciful rulers. Allow us to grant you that mercy.”

“That’s played every thirty minutes in the last two hours.” Matt turned the radio off and asked, “Who is he? Why is he referring to us as ‘Earthlings’ as if he isn’t human?”

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Sagan turned back to the baseball player with auburn hair and freckled skin. She said, “I can’t spare the time to explain more to you about Cinder and the aliens. There’s also the chance you’ll be safer without all this information.” Placing a hand on his shoulder, she caught an indecipherable shift in his brown eyes at the contact. “Thank you for everything you’ve done, today.”

Lucy hopped out of the passenger seat and approached Sagan. The dark blue-eyed, blond girl with a history of snitching on Sagan to her abusive ex looked downright grim. Lucy blurted out, “Justin’s dead.”

“I know.” Sagan avoided eye contact. Relief, shame, and guilt consumed her all at once. She lowered her eyes to keep the others from seeing it. Justin had hurt Sagan. She loved Rayne for standing up for Sagan six months ago, but Sagan had always feared his retaliation.

Korac had given her Justin’s head. Did he realize how much it had meant to her? His other gift—a braided lock of his hair—pressed into the pocket of her skirt. She’d rather lock axes with the Icarus again than catch J. A. Fair’s football star glaring at her across the lunchroom, biding his time.

Korac had physically disarmed Sagan with the attraction between them. Justin had taken her power in another way. Never. Again.

Sagan ignored Lucy, saying, “I need to get back. Be safe.” Without another glance at them, she left for Rayne’s side.

Andrew and Xelan had patched her up, thoroughly. Strapped in ace bandages, bound by splints, and blood-stained gauze had reduced their mighty leader to a frail child in desperate need of her mother’s affections.

“We uhm…” Andrew glanced from Xelan to Sagan. He seemed unsure about which one to address. He decided on her. “We really need to get her out of here.”

Sagan said, “Well, we know for sure we can’t all fit in my car.” She tried to imagine everyone squeezing into her Mazda Miata. Despite this madness, she giggled.

Andrew’s head snapped up, and he looked her over, probably checking for cracks. Then he chuckled at first. As the sound carried on obviously despite himself, he let it merge into a deep laugh.

Tameka approached with a hand on her hip. “You two are scaring the civilians.”

Andrew said, “She just suggested we all get in her two-seater to get out of here.” He sighed as his laughter calmed.

“What?!” Sagan looked at him, incredulous. “I definitely did not. I said there’s no way we’re fitting into it.”

He cleared his throat and stifled another chuckle. “There was an implied, ‘But we will if we have to.’” He stopped resisting and snickered.

Sagan swatted Andrew. Even though he shielded himself from her painful batting, he laughed harder.

Tameka rolled her eyes and admonished, “Children.”

“That’s exactly what they are.” Like a parent breaking up all the fun, Xelan’s voice cut through the conversation.

Sagan opened her mouth to argue. How dare Xelan interrupt a precious moment amid all this chaos and death? But when she looked at him, she couldn’t bear his expression. She was a leader. He expected her to take the role seriously, and he wasn’t verbally chiding her. He wasn’t even giving orders or taking charge. Xelan respected Sagan by letting her give the commands and plan the next move. She glanced at Rayne. They couldn’t afford these brief moments.

“Time to move out,” Sagan commanded.

Kyle collected the remaining weapons and tools, including the Icarean swords. John rested between Lynn and Pablo, his leg no longer able to hold his weight.

Kyle mused, “Too bad the school buses don’t stay at the school.”

Sagan nodded, saying, “I think we’ll have to take several vehicles.”

“If I may?” Xelan interjected, his voice gentle.

“Yes?”

Xelan said, “I brought transport. It’s a big van. Fits twelve.” There was no inflection or tone suggesting manipulation or persuasion. He stated harmless facts.

Sagan said, “We’ll discuss it.” She tried very hard not to notice how Xelan’s eyes fell, downcast. He was putting up a good front, but she knew this was killing him. She wasn’t about to ask her unit to travel with him under the assumed risk he’d almost let them die. They needed to vote. “I’m leaving this one up to you, guys.”

“Can we just fucking leave, please?!” John groaned from between his human crutches.

Tameka said, “I know we have good reason to be angry with Xelan, but I promise we know him. There’s something else going on which explains why he couldn’t help us.”

Kyle shouted, “What the fuck are you talking about? Xelan and three other dudes just watched us get our asses kicked—” Sagan winced at his choice of words. “Without raising a single finger to help us. And what’re you doing? Fucking dropping your panties for him.”

Andrew stuck his face right into Kyle’s. “Back. The fuck. Off.”

Everyone else took a collective step away from the bullshit.

Tameka didn’t care. She stepped right in between them, which also included pushing them apart. She always impressed Sagan with her reckless disregard for her own safety. The redhead addressed them both. “Rayne might die, and you two are not moving this ‘get the hell out of here’ plan forward. Andrew, thank you, but I can defend my own honor, especially against Kyle. Kyle, I know you’re pissed that most of your training sessions with Xelan ended with your face planted in the dirt, but this is the culmination. I don’t have time to fuck with you because we have to get busy saving the world. Afterward, we can have this out. Until then, you respect me as a member of the team. Let’s not take every opportunity to tear each other apart. I’ll try harder if you will.”

Kyle scanned her face, and Sagan watched the combination of hormones and emotions war inside him. “Fine.”

Sagan instructed, “Let’s do this. Sorry John, but this might cause you some discomfort. With no snarky comments or remarks, raise your hand if you want to come up with another plan which doesn’t involve Xelan.”

Kyle’s hand was the only one which shot up.

Sagan examined them. Lynn and Pablo both sagged under John’s weight. Their bodies and faces were covered in bruises and scrapes similar to her own. By the drawn lines of John’s angular, Osage features, the pain was exhausting him. His eyes when he looked at her held shining brown ice. He was angry with them. Tameka pressed her palm against the hole in her right shoulder. Sagan and Andrew both sported new piercings in their middles which needed more than a simple compress. His skin was pale, his teal eyes were dull, and he’d wrapped one arm around his middle like it was holding his guts in. Come to think of it, so was Sagan.

In pain, unsteady, and possibly dying, they looked to Sagan for the decision. She asked, “All for going with Xelan?” When five hands shot into the air, she ordered, “Let’s go.”

Xelan waited respectfully, but he never left Rayne’s side. Sagan hadn’t realize until that moment she’d trusted him to protect Rayne while they voted. It was an innate trust built over four years of training together. She wasn’t sure if it bothered her or not. Even so, she said, “We’ll take you up on the offer.”

No gloating, no hesitation, just acceptance. Xelan said, “Very well. It’s at the front of the building. May I lift her now?”

“Do you need any help?”

Xelan shook his head and held his hand out to her. “Best not.” The Icarus dangled the keys to the van for her. “This will be delicate work. If you could, please, open the van. That’s more than enough help.”

Sagan took the keys. “I can do that.”

He spared a glance at her exposed abdomen before turning back to Rayne’s prone form. With his eyes on the patient, he asked Sagan, “Are you sure you don’t need any help?”

Sagan said, “We’ll get to me after we make it to a safe location. Let’s focus on her.” She wanted to believe as Tameka did that Xelan’s concern was genuine, but she couldn’t afford to place her faith in him until they knew for sure what happened and why.

“Where will we go?” Kyle asked, his voice harsh.

The others gathered around as Xelan crouched to the pavement. “I have a command post ready for this, but—”

Kyle interrupted him, “No fucking way we’re going somewhere you set up like Jigsaw.”

“But,” Xelan punctuated the word with a heavy sigh. “I don’t think you’ll feel comfortable there until Rayne wakes up, and we all have time to talk. My next suggestion was the Callahan’s bookstore. It’s on the way to the post.”

Sagan asked, “Will we be safe there from like looters or whatever?”

Andrew scoffed, “Who would loot a bookstore during an apocalypse?”

Softly, Lynn asked, “Can we go home?”

Xelan reflexively went to answer, but caught himself and shut his mouth. He looked to Sagan.

She gave Lynn her best consoling face. “I don’t think it’s safe, yet. The news reports are scary. I think it’s best if we stick together until we can form a plan to get everyone home.”

Xelan took his time gently sliding one arm under Rayne’s legs, avoiding the injuries there. He didn’t slide the other arm under her back. Sagan’s confusion must have shown on her face because he said in a tight voice, “She has second-degree burns on her back.”

Sagan looked away then. She realized her hand went to cover her mouth, instinctively. She stopped herself. Don’t think too much about it. Don’t let it in. When she turned back around, Xelan cradled Rayne in his arms.

He nodded to Sagan, and she returned the gesture. He oozed sincerity, and she desperately wanted to give in and let him boss them around as usual. Aside from Kyle, they were all comfortable following his instructions. He was at least tens of thousands of years old, for fuck’s sake. Of course, he understood more about military strategy and medical treatment. He understood how to encourage morale and keep the ranks in line. But it’s that trust Xelan had instilled in them and that knowledge which possibly allowed him to manipulate them into fighting a losing battle. The thought made Sagan’s skin crawl, and her stomach tie into knots.

They arrived at the van. It was a Mercedes Sprinter and totally looked like a pedo van.

Kyle laughed. “Dude, a bit on the nose, don’t you think?”

Andrew snarled at Kyle, “Do you have anything better right now?”

Kyle shot back, “Well, what about you? Didn’t you drive here?”

“Something ate my car, asshole.” Andrew flipped him off.

The group rounded on him.

Tameka asked, “What did you just say?”

Xelan muttered to Sagan, “Can you open the door, please?”

As Andrew wove a tale of awesome monsters and crunched cars, Sagan followed Xelan to the driver’s side and unlocked it. She opened the door and watched him step up to the seat. She asked, “Do you want me inside? I can hold her.”

When Xelan turned to Sagan, she almost stepped back. The mask had slipped. The pupils of his black eyes contracted to small slits, and the midnight-blue ring on the outside swallowed his entire eye. Tears fell. This close, his skin radiated enough heat to warm their football field in the snow. She half-expected his wings to expand.

This was the most alien he had ever appeared to her. Atramentous. Rayne had told Sagan about it once. Changes in eye color and vocal pitch. Done at will, but often involuntarily as an emotional response.

Xelan realized what Sagan saw, and he twisted back to the van. In a voice thick with emotion, he croaked, “Yes, please. I think she needs that right now.”

Hesitation wasn’t necessary. Sagan was warming up to Xelan again. She hopped up into one row of backseats and slid into the seat to receive Rayne. “She needs the entire seat, right?”

Xelan nodded without looking up from his task of carefully placing their friend into the van.

“Can her head be in my lap?”

Another silent nod. If this was an act, Xelan was good.

Sagan reached to help him lay her across the leather-upholstered bucket seats.

Xelan shook his head, refusing to look at Sagan still. “She weighs nothing.”

Was he saying that to explain why he didn’t need help? Or was Rayne’s slight frame so fragile to his kind that he mourned the excess of her injuries even more?

Xelan said, “I’ll lower her down. Minimize your contact with the base of her skull. Make sure her head doesn’t jar during transport, but the bracing should help with that. Do not touch her left arm. I—” He swallowed hard. “Setting it will be a delicate process. Any further injury to it will make it that much more difficult. Questions?”

“Thank you.”

Xelan’s head snapped up, then. His eyes had returned to normal. They were a little shiny and a little wide. He nodded and finally slid Rayne into the seat and rested her head onto Sagan’s lap, careful of her head wound.

Rayne stirred a little, and Sagan caught her breath. Was she about to wake up? It would be bad timing if she did. “Shh,” Sagan whispered to her. “We’re going to the bookstore, and then we’ll get you some help.” She spared Xelan a glance.

He mouthed, “Time. To. Go.”

Sagan agreed with a nod.

Xelan gave the signal, and the others climbed into the van.

John asked Sagan, “Do I get that kind of service?” referring to Rayne’s head in Sagan’s lap.

Lynn dropped her side of his weight. She took a seat in without sparing even a second glance to the boys she’d left behind. She looked done with the bullshit.

Pablo admonished, “Not the best time, man.”

Sagan began, “I know you’re in a lot of pain, John, so I’ll let that one go.”

John held up his head, visibly relieved.

Until Sagan continued. “Before you make that mistake again, remember, this is a war, and I’m in charge. If you don’t like it or you think it’s funny to make jokes while I’m nursing my unconscious, critically injured girlfriend, you can find another group to toil away the apocalypse with. Am I clear?”

Thoroughly admonished, John said, “Yes, ma’am. I get it. I just need to get off this fucking leg.”

Pablo was kind enough to sit in the back with John who stretched across the seats claiming three of them for himself. Sagan rolled her eyes. Fortunately, Andrew sat by Lynn.

Kyle climbed in next and sat behind Sagan, asking, “Is she all right?”

Xelan scaled the driver’s seat. It was an odd feeling: trusting him enough to drive them to their location, but not trusting him enough to assume he wouldn’t drive them off a cliff. Sagan’s chest tightened. This sucked.

“Do you want me to lie to you?” She eventually gave Kyle eye contact. His eyes were such a rich green this close. His pleasant features were contorted with concern.

Kyle sat back in his seat, letting it go. He stared straight ahead at the crack between the seats. Rayne’s bandaged arm settled, soaking through.

Looking forward again, Xelan’s eyes caught Sagan’s in the rear-view mirror.

She nodded.

At the same moment, the passenger side door opened, and Tameka’s beautifully sculpted face appeared. She asked, “No one called shotgun?” Tameka damn well knew the answer. She grinned with her full lips touched up with lip gloss. The apocalypse—the cataclysm of all things—and Tameka had found time to apply makeup.

Glancing between Tameka and Xelan, with surprise on his face and a near ecstatic expression on hers, Sagan stifled her bewilderment. She’d talk to Tameka later.

Tameka nestled into the passenger seat, buckled her seatbelt, and asked “All right, everyone ready to roll?”

Sagan caught the longing glance Tameka shot Xelan, who was too busy pulling the van onto the road to notice. Her crush on him was one more problem to add to the ‘most fucked apocalypse ever’ list.