Zola Flash (The Zola Flash Series Book 1) (2 page)

“FIND HER!” ONE OF the three men yells. “She can’t escape this ship!”

They exit and run in different directions, but in their rush, they forget to shut the door, a chance to escape, to find my baby sister lost in this war-torn world.

I slowly ease myself and Doodle from the vent and down the shelves. After quickly checking for incomers, I scurry down the hall with Doodle in my arms, pausing at voices off to the side, but only for a beat before I continue running. It seems as if the hall never ends.

“Secure the exit,” a distant voice wails behind me.

I race forward toward some lowering doors. Running. Faster.

Faster, still. Go! Don’t stop! Keep moving!

Before Doodle and I can reach the door, it seals shut.

Doodle leaps out of my arms, and I run to the left, toward a wide, circular window at the end of the hall. It doesn’t take long to reach it.

Looking out and down through the window, I see the ground of my beloved planet. It seems so far down, but I have little choice. If I want to find my sister, I have to jump.

As I look down once more, fear overtakes my body. Maybe there is another way off the ship.

Urgent voices come from behind me: “Get her!”

“She’s over there!”

Huge males come from all directions, ambushing me, leaving the ship’s round window as the only route out. 

As the soldiers close in, I scoop Doodle up and leap through the window.

We land on the slushy ground below. I scuttle us away from the Payohlini’s ship, but smoke from bombs, fires, and ashes blur my vision, causing me to trip over everything that comes in contact with my feet.

I fall to the cold, slushy ground with Doodle in my arms. Something keeps telling me I have to move, and though my legs ache, I continue on my way, keeping a ragged yet determined pace as I ascend a tall mound of earth off to the side. Upon reaching the apex, I can fully see the battle raging on the festival grounds. Grounds that were once the life of my planet, the most alluring and jubilant around. Now there is only ash, and the songbirds shall never blossom and grace us with their song ever again.

Unexpectedly, Doodle jumps from my arms and heads downhill. I follow, but stumble forward, and Doodle diverts back to me, nudging my legs, as if ordering for me to move faster.

I don’t understand what Doodle wants, though. If I keep going, I’ll be right in the heart of the battle.

A wholesome, hypersensitive cry of a young child calls for her mother and father, and I tilt my head, recognizing the voice instantly.

“Cleo!” I scream through the roaring of the warring crowd as I spot her, but she doesn’t respond, and I take off running toward the path she is cutting.

Mom and Dad come into view, and are closer to Cleo, but Cleo is headed right into a smaller battle. No way to get to her in time. If I call Mom and Dad, they could get hurt. But if I don’t cry out, my family could die.  

Doodle croons an eerie buzzing sound, pointing his snout behind me, and I glance backward.

The three soldiers I thought I had dumped are close behind me.

My attention flits forward again as panic kicks in.

“Mom! Dad!” I nearly burst my lungs to be heard over the murdering racket.

My parents glance up. “Zola?” my mom calls.

“Mom!” I point in the direction of my baby sister. “Cleo!”

Behind me, the three males are only a few feet away.  As the gaze of one of them slices toward my family in the field, the soldier starts to grin, until I’m unsure whether to watch my family or the males.

One of the soldiers grabs a bomb horn.

My eyes widen as my mouth falls open. They can’t. They wouldn’t.

A deafening ring come from the bomb horn, and shock sends me falling backwards.

The gooey green blood and wormy intestines of my parents splatter across the slushy wet ground.

Mom, Dad.
Tears wet my cheeks, sadness filling my whole body.

Two soldiers grabs me around the waist, as the bomb-wielding Payohlini rushes across to the field and grabs Cleo, while Doodle starts making his weird snarling noise again.

The world seems to spin, faster and faster and faster. Chaos swirls around me, Doodle’s buzzing, my sister screaming, and the paralyzing laughter of the three soldiers.

Too dizzy to hold on or to escape this chaos, my world begins to darken.

A SPLASH OF NUMBING water hits my face, and I wipe it away, my vision slowly becoming clear.

A small scream escape my mouth when I find myself faced with a room full of Payohlini males. They chortle, and for a nanosecond, my heart stops. Literally, I believe.

What’s going to happen to us?

A couple of the males untie and carry me to the front of the group.

“Sissy! Sissy! Help me!”

My head turns toward the sound of my sister’s voice.

My sister is chained to the floor. Tears streams down her soft, delicate, little face, and mine. No child should be tortured. What kind of people are the Payohlini?

Doodle licks the tears from my face, as I sigh, and say, “Cleo.”

The brutes laugh. “You wanted your sister, here she is,” says the man holding me.

“What do you mean? Are we to go free?” I ask with a sudden but dreaded hope.

“Just watch,” he says, holding me tighter. “Rican, it’s time.”

The males in the room fall back, but one of the soldiers near my sister pulls out a sword splattered with blood. My people’s blood. He wears the same armor as the rest of the soldiers, black and fitted to his lean body. From behind, the male has little hair on his head, making it so he appears almost bald. I try to inch forward, but the male holding me tightens his hold even more, and I silence myself. I can’t possibly face my sister and convey I’m the reason she is about to die.

My gaze moves to the male with the sword. “Please don’t,” I tell him. “Don’t.”

Sympathy flickers in the male’s features, and he turns toward Cleo. For a second, I think he might release her because she did nothing wrong, but he raises the sword.

My eyes fills with tears, and I try to turn my face, for I cannot witness this. Especially not after my parents.

The monster restraining me cups my face and forces me back around. “You must observe Rican.”

Swiftly, using both his hands, the male brings the sword down.

My sister’s blood splatters my armor, my face and hair.

Her head rolls to my feet.

Trembling all over, I fall to my knees. Though all my emotions try surging forth, I shove them back.

The one called Rican, wielding his sword, grabs me. I push him away, but the effort is heart-weakened, pathetic, and he only laughs. “Your turn, Victian Princess,” he says, grabbing me a second time.

I want to run, but with the Payohlini blocking the exits, there’s no place to run to.  It doesn’t stop my body from bracing, though, but before I can act, Rican yanks me closer. So close our body touch, like a father smothering his little girl, to keep her from growing up. So close, I’m unable to jerk away.

“No! Let me go!” I kick at him while screaming and pleading. “Please, let me go!”

“You wanted this.”

I thump my fists against his chest over and over. As hurt as I am, I’m even more infuriated. All I can think about is killing. Killing everyone in the room.

Rican’s hands suddenly drop from my body as if burned.

The other males in the room back away from me, as if defeated by my wailing.

I stare at them, the alarm in their expressions, wondering what just happened, what’s going on … until I catch a flash of white in my periphery and realize I’m surrounded by a full-bodied mane.

What had been my flowing, pale hair has expanded into an impressive halo of white strands. My manicured fingernails have grown into claws. Against the underside of my lips, my teeth are razor-sharp.

Panic engulfs me, setting my pulse soaring, as I try to take in the transformation, what’s happening to me—what I’ve become.

I’m an animal?

I SNARL AT THE petrified men and leap over the crowd, feeling every bit as terrified as they probably are.

Bursting out from the enclosed space, I race down the corridor, and with each step I take, I become aware of the ever-sharpening of my hearing.

“I thought they were all dead,” a distant voice says. “I ordered you to kill all of the shape-shifters.”

“I didn’t know she was a shape-shifter,” says another. “She’s a child.”

“I don’t care. Find her and end her!”

Shaper-shifter?

No.

Tears run between the fur that has grown over my face.

Erupting from the building takes me back into the cold rains of my war-torn planet.

I glance upward at a sky altered by ashes and smoke, and I know I will have my revenge on the Payohlini.

If it takes me my whole life, they will pay.

* * *

As I run farther and farther from the building of death, pain makes an indent in the pit of my stomach. It is way more painful than when I was bitten by a glumunk as a child, clenching as though forced by gripping fists, twisting as though tortured.

I fall to the ground, clutching my stomach, and lay on the slushy ground in a painful ball of fur. Death would be a much better feeling than this.

Right as a familiar sensation washes over me, a dark shadow approaches, until someone in dark, hammered battle armor stands over me.

I AWAKE TO BRIGHT lights, directed right at me, and a surrounding silence. The pain in my stomach is gone, and a quick body search with my fingers tells me I look as I did before. Back to normal, with long flowing white hair and skin without fur.

From the unmade, black bunks and green lights lining the walls of the room, I presume I’m in a spaceship. I start to rise but something holds me put, and my gaze darts to the side, where it lands on the body I’m pressed against. A body dressed in dark battle armor. A body with perfect cheekbones, and eyes I realize I recognize.

Gasping, I crawl off his lap and across the room away.

The male slowly walks to me, but I pat the ground for ammo and throw whatever my hands touch at his approach.

“Calm down, Zola.” Holding his hands up to ward off my thrown missiles, he continues coming. “Just calm down and, please, stop.”

“Why would I, when I awaken in the arms of an enemy?” I snap at him.

“Calm down, settle yourself! I could have left you on the filthy, wet ground, but, instead, I brought you here! You should be thanking me!” He barks back.

“Thank you? I would never thank a Payohlini!” My gaze searches for the ship’s exit, and quickly notice Doodle isn’t in my arms. Doodle isn’t even in the room. I whip my head back toward the soldier. “Where’s Doodle?”

“You mean that annoying emp?” At my nod, he says, “It was getting on my nerves, so I threw it in another room.”

I thrust up from the floor and charge at the male, but his reflexes are too fast. He captures both of my arms within his hands and restrains them behind my back. I struggle against his hold, but his grip tightens.

I moan in pain. “That hurts.”

“You throw punches like a man, expect to get treated like one,” he replies.

“Doodle is the only thing I have left.” I whimper.

“You refer to that thing likes it’s a person.”

“Doodle is the only thing I have left,” I repeat.

He narrows his eyes at me, but releases his grip on my arms. Heading toward the door, he gestures for me to follow. I do, and we end up in a hallway that leads to a red entrance through which sounds can be heard.

My smile spreads as I recognize Doodle’s buzzing.

The male seems to be watching my expression really closely as he uses a key in the lock. Nothing happens with the turn of his wrist. He turns the key again, then again. Still nothing.

My smile turns into a frown, and I slide down the wall.

He stares down at me. “Um . . . grabbed the wrong key.”

“Well, find a way to get in! I want Doodle.”

The male bursts into laughter, and I tilt my head up at him.

“What is so funny?”

“I was joking. The door is open.”

He reaches out and swings the door open, and Doodle wobbles out, immediately trotting over me and licking me.

“I missed you, too,” I say, scratching his head.

The male extends his hand, and giving him my attention for a second, I take hold and let him pull me up.

Doodle leaps into my arms. “I’m grateful I have Doodle back,” I say. “He means everything to me right now. With everything going on, you know.”

The male smiles.

“So . . . um, you apparently know who I am, and I know nothing of you. What’s your name?” The last thing I want is to feel like I owe anything to a Payohlini.

“Pin.”

“Pin?”

He nods. “Pin.”

I look away from him and down the length of the hallway we just entered. I start to walk away, when Pin stops me. He throws me a couple of things, and though I don’t really want anything from him, I unfold them.

“What is this for?” I ask, holding up new attire.

“I didn’t know what size you wore, so I grabbed that. You can’t go back out there dressed in battle armor.”

I eye Doodle for a response, but he nods as if in agreement with Pin. I start to think about the pros and cons of wearing my armor. The cons outweigh the pros, especially with a war roaring outside. Eventually, I concede. “Okay, I’ll wear it.”

“Good, ‘cause I didn’t feel like fighting for your life.”

I stare at Pin. He stares back. Doodle looks from Pin to me.

Pin starts tapping his foot, and I sigh, lifting my eyebrows. “What are you waiting for?” he asks.

My cheeks heat. “I need privacy.”

“Oh . . . um . . . sorry.” He ducks through and open door.

Doodle leaps out my arms and nudges the door until it closes before wobbling back to my side and buzzing at me. With a final glance at the door, I quickly assemble my new habiliments and march through to Pin.

After seeming to check me over, Pin starts walking in the opposite direction, and I follow.

He turns a corner but backs up fast, and holds out a hand that prevents me making the turn.

“Why did we stop?” I ask.

“Stay here until I come back.”

“Why?” I ask, but as soon as I hear the voices, I know.

Glancing in the direction of the voices, Pin walks away, leaving me standing there. Alone.