The Secret War - 1st novel in the Shadow Series

Chapter 32 .

Vai

"You can't kill him," I stepped into the room and put myself between her and the sleeping Starwatcher. Warpaint was quick to follow me and put himself between me and Esther. The Starwatcher had been placed on his back on the single bed in the room. Everything in the room was generic and boring. The only colors were white, gray and brown. The bedsheet the Starwatcher slept on was Gray with white trim.

"I need to kill you then," she said.

The red on Warpaint began to spread again.

"Wait, wait, wait." Owen came into the room and stood between Warpaint and Esther. He faced us as if he would protect Esther. The red on Warpaint retreated.

"Owen," I said, but he held out a hand to me as if that could stop all this madness.

Owen turned to the side so he wasn't facing anyone directly. "Why do you think you need to kill him?" he asked.

"You said you remembered me telling you about the dangerous aliens," she said.

"Starwatchers are not more dangerous than K'thaktra," I said.

"Not Starwatchers." She took a step to the side so she could look directly at Officer Hansi. She didn't take a step towards him or us. "The Corruption."

"The what?" Owen asked.

"He is a Starwatcher," I said. I looked at Owen. "I'm not sure she's all right, Owen. She might be dealing with some psychological trauma that is affecting her mind."

"I'm not," she said. "I know he's a Starwatcher. But the Corruption is inside him. They take over. They control you."

"Esther," Owen took a cautious step towards her, "we've never heard of the Corruption. There have been no reports of being taken over by an alien species."

Except...I tried to forget the drastic change that came over Thrissko, the pink fog of zek, the pain...so much pain it had caused me to scream for so long.

"Yes it has," Esther said. "Only it isn't known as the Corruption. It's known as zek."

"Esther," Owen said, "my friend, we've never heard of zek either."

But my blood went ice cold and tingled in my veins.

"Zek is a drug that was used by the K'thaktra during the war to build them up into a killing frenzy," Warpaint said. "It was all destroyed years ago."

"See, friend?" Owen said to Esther, but then he turned to me and said quieter, "You might be right, Vai, but that means she needs our help even more."

"No," I said. "I was wrong. She's not crazy."

Her face softened. For the first time since we meet her, her body seemed to ...well not exactly relax, but not be on such high alert.

"You know zek," she said.

"Zek was a real thing?"

"It was a real thing used in the war," I said. "I'm sure there must still be old videos of it. It was supposed to have been destroyed after the war."

"Your dad is very old. He was alive during the war. I'm sure he told you about it," Owen said.

I didn't say I was also alive during the war. I remembered vividly the videos of the K'thaktra surrounded by that pink sparkly fog as they tore humans, Bundu-jo and Starwatchers apart with their bare hands.

"Okay," Owen said when I didn't respond, "but it was a drug that was destroyed not some powerful aliens."

Esther looked at me. I looked at her.