Seth turned back into his vile and demonic self.
“Absurd logic on your part. Why would a girl as hot as Phoebe Cook need the help of a weak, stupid, substandard, inferior, about-to-be-extinct failure like you? Phoebe was a test, Daniel. You failed. Miserably. Look at you.”
Whatever Seth had done to sap my power, it had worked. I was having trouble staying on my feet, or even focusing on his hideous horse’s head.
“Now that we’ve come face-to-face, Seth,” I said, staring steadily into his reddish-brown eyes, “my only regret is that you’re not the insectlike lowlife who actually killed my folks.”
“Oh, I just might be their killer after all,” he roared.
“No, you’re not,” I said with a shake of my head. “I marked that miscreant on his skull after he murdered my mom and dad. The creature who took out my parents, the one who is going to pay with his life, is The Prayer. You’re only sixth on my List, Seth. Dream on!”
“Isn’t that interesting?” Seth said. “You learn something new and useful every day. Speaking of which, maybe I can tell you something that you didn’t know, Mr. Smart-ass. You’re Number 1 on the Hit Parade of every alien currently residing on this backworld of a planet. We were hunting for you, young Daniel X. And I just won the jackpot. That’s why you’re still alive. I want to show off my prize. I won, you lost. Maybe I’ll drag you from galaxy to galaxy-in captivity.”
Chapter 51
“YOU’VE BEEN A WOEFUL, pitiful dupe all along,” said Seth. “I guess it’s to be expected, given what dullards your parents were. What were their names-Graff and Atrelda? Who can even remember? Who cares? The way I hear it, those two were actually too stupid to let live. They practically murdered themselves.”
If I’d been in fighting shape, I would have ripped a hole through the steel mesh to get at Seth’s lopsided face. My parents had been selfless protectors and friends of humanity, horrifically murdered by a misshapen monster without a conscience.
“I’ll admit it. You got me,” I said. “For the most part, you really did keep your thoughts consistent with a normal girl like Phoebe Cook. It was a pretty brilliant operation.”
“Please. Pulling the wool over your eyes was as easy as beating you at chess,” Seth said. “But what’s with the ‘for the most part’ rubbish?”
I looked at him as if I were suddenly bored… which I definitely was not.
“At Phoebe’s house that night, remember our sleepover? You let down your guard. You blew it, Seth. You had a dream. I scanned it. At first I thought it was a really odd nightmare coming from Phoebe, but now I realize that it was your dream. It all makes perfect sense. I know what your greatest fears are, Seth. Your deepest vulnerabilities, even what you’re going to do next. You’ll never get away with it. Won’t happen.”
Seth stared at me even more dead-faced than usual, seemingly confused for the moment.
His cronies were staring at him now, waiting for their leader to strike back.
“What dream?” Seth said. “What was in my dream?”
“That’s for me to know and you to agonize about, you donkey-faced freak,” I said. “I’ll give you a hint. Dumb-Dumb,” I whispered.
It sounded like a couple of grenades going off in the cage as Seth kicked it again and again. I stifled laughter, then decided the heck with it, and let myself crack up.
“Dumb-Dumb,” I repeated.
Chapter 52
“YOU READ MY DREAM, did you? I’m truly impressed.”
Suddenly Seth had a smile on his face. An awful, pinched smile, matched with an even more heartless gleam in his dark, demonic eyes.
“Wait! Maybe you’ll be impressed with something I have in the back room,” he said, clapping a claw to his head as if he’d been forgetting something. “Hold on, I’ll be right back. Don’t you dare go anywhere. You’ll love this.”
I didn’t like the sound of that one bit. Even his disgusting followers looked worried when he shouldered his way past them and disappeared down a long, dingy hallway.
They actually dove out of the way when he returned a moment later. He was holding something above his head. My eyes locked on it. Oh boy! An Opus 24/24 assault rifle.
“Say hello to my little friend,” Seth said. “Nothing like the cool steel of an Opus 24/24. And what a coincidence. I could be wrong, but isn’t this the same sort of weapon that did in your dear departed mother and father? I believe it is.”
The door of my cage screeched like a banshee as Seth flung it open. A chill raced down the ridge of my spine. Everyone was deathly quiet-the kids, Seth’s thugs, even Seth.
Slowly he raised the deadly rifle to his shoulder.
“What are you going to do now? Shoot me?” I asked with a fake smile.
A bloom of fire burst from the gun’s barrel. What felt like dynamite exploded inside my stomach.
“Good guess,” Seth said with a smile as I flew backward about fifteen feet and landed spread-eagled on the floor.
What can I tell you about getting gut-shot? It’s bad. About as bad as it gets. Excruciating is the tip of the iceberg. I could actually feel the bullet deep in my stomach, feel its heat, feel it burning into the torn tissue that surrounded it.
I slapped my hand to the wound as blood-red blood, not green or anything-started pouring out from between my ring finger and pinkie.
The most sickening sadness laced the pain as my vision started to blur, then flicker. I wondered if this was how my mother and father felt just before they died.
Talk about having a sucky last day, I thought, as I fell away into darkness.
And I had kind of liked Terra Firma too.
I would miss night baseball, sno-cones, Spider-Man, the Winter Olympics…
White Castle sliders, Bart Simpson, did I mention sno-cones?…
Chapter 53
I DON’T KNOW how long it was before I came to-I wasn’t even sure if coming to was what I was doing. All I knew for sure was that there was a worried face floating maybe a foot above me. The innocent face of a seven or eight-year-old girl.
I would have believed she was an angel-except for the terrible waves of pain throbbing in my stomach.
I looked down and saw that the girl had balled up my shirt and stuffed it into my wound. A tear rolled out of my eye onto the stone floor. Abducted, terrified, and most likely in shock, this little girl had probably saved my life.
Gestures like that were why humans were worth saving, I thought. Or even worth dying for.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “These ugly horse-heads better watch their step. They’re starting to get on my nerves.”
“Mine too,” said the girl.
“Hey, you! What do you think you’re doing in there?” came a voice. One of the aliens was crouching by the cell door. “Didn’t I tell everyone not to touch him?”
The little girl stared at him like a deer frozen in headlights, at least the way I’ve always imagined that cliché looks.
“Hey, give me back my wallet,” I croaked at her, loud enough for the thug to hear.
“Oh, why didn’t you say you were just robbing him?” the guard said, turning away. “In that case, go for it. You humans are lower than dirt. Tear each other apart. Go for it.”
Chapter 54
I SPENT the better part of the next hour lying there on the cold stone floor, writhing in pain, probably close to death. I’d lost what seemed like quarts of blood, and my intestines and vital organs must have been ripped apart by the gun blast.
Gut-shot down in the salt mine, I thought, starting to shake a little with the agony. Gee, my life had become the title of a country-and-western song.