The Rain: The End by Marietta Standlee (good summer reads TXT) 📕

sit up as high and straight as possible at the awkward angle, I forced my body into. With a defiant scream, I bring my interlocked hands down into his face while collapsing my twisted torso.

The combined strength of my attack pushes his tiny button nose right into his skull, driving bone fragments into his brain. I feel sticky green goo run between my fingers and swallow the bile back down that is coming up.

Shots ring out around me, but as long as I don't feel any pain anywhere on my body from an entering bullet, I don't pay it any attention.

Somebody kicks me in the kidney, and I see stars, accompanied by an immense pain spreading out all through my back. I need to get up.

With an effort, I twist back, just in time to see a foot coming right at my face. My arms instinctively move forward. My bound hands hinder me, but somehow, I manage to catch my new attacker's foot. Viciously I twist it around and are rewarded with a scream of pain, just as hands pull my hair again, jerking me up. There is nothing else I can do but to let go of the other alien's foot while trying to get on my feet. My hands automatically reach for my hair to relieve the pain.

A fist is rammed into my stomach, and I lose my breath. Bend over, I gasp. The hands buried in my hair pull me up brutally, and I stare straight into Quill's hate-filled face. Just as his hand flies forward and lands against my right cheek, catapulting my head into the alien holding me up by the hair.

My left cheek connects with the Gorongiath's chest and painfully scratches over one of his honor chains, wound around his torso.

With my cuffed wrists, my hands still hold on to my hair right over my scalp to ease the pain from the alien pulling on it. I hope for a lucky shot as I raise my right leg and kick out towards the general direction where I know Quill was. I free my face from the alien's chest just in time to witness Quill jumping back, avoiding my kick.

My leg strikes air, but I use the moment of Quill having stepped away from me to take care of the alien holding my hair. I prepare myself for the inevitable pain and force my hands to let go of my hair. Against my instincts, I allow the other alien to pull on it so hard I'm afraid he'll pull whole chunks out, but I can't think about this either.

Again, I interlace my fingers and twist around before hitting the Gorongiath with all my might in the stomach. With an oomph, he finally lets go of my hair. Free, I jump back, getting some distance between my attackers and me.

The battle still rages. Shots ring out but have lessened, as the combatants seem to engage more in hand-to-hand combat. The Gorongiaths outnumbers us by at least twenty, but I've seen the aliens fight and know we'll make up in skill what we lack in numbers.

What worries me, though, are reinforcements sure to arrive at any minute. I don't have time to look for McFarland, and deep down, I know he is dead. I watched him shot right in the head, but I have to make sure somebody takes care of him. He is our number one priority, the only reason we came here. Everything else is secondary. We need to get the President's son out of here, dead or alive.

Finally, from my peripheral vision, I spot Derek and one of the Marines—who came and arrested Colin and me a few hours ago, drag McFarland's bloody body towards our ship. Good.

A kick against my hip makes me stumble. While I was distracted, Quill and his comrade weren't idle and closed in on me. Before the second alien can hit me again, I deliver the hardest kick of my life into his never region. I put all my hate and disgust for these creatures behind it, and he goes down howling. Quill, in the meantime, has pulled out a knife and advances—more carefully this time.

My breathing is labored from the hits my body has taken, and I use all my willpower to assume a defensive stance; my eyes never leave Quill's hand holding the knife.

"You're better than you let on." His translator growls.

"You are easily fooled," I reply. My mind goes back to the interrogation he forced upon me. It was easy to antagonize him then, and it probably holds true now. An angry attacker becomes single-minded, making mistakes, and I need all the advantage I can get.

He feigns an advance towards me, I don't move. I knew he was still too far away, and I'm not giving away my defensive moves so he can calculate what I'll do next. He tilts his head somewhat, assessing me.

"Scared?" I taunt.

He jumps at me, but I sidestep him and manage another double-handed punch into his side. But the angle is all wrong and the blow isn't hard enough. It's enough to irritate him further, though. He spins around in the same breath and is ready to attack again. My foot comes up, but he swats it away with his other hand.

I'm more hurt than him, but I'm in a better physical condition, and my hate for him outweighs his for me. He might have been a good fighter once and has some decent tricks up his sleeve, but he has spent the last few years behind a desk, making him slower. Otherwise, instead of swatting my leg, he would have grabbed it, forcing me to lose my balance.

Somebody plows into me, and I'm thrown against a wall. I kick out again and catapult the alien who flew into me towards Quill. I almost feel sorry for the poor alien creature as he is tossed around like a ball after Quill swats him away like a pesky fly.

There is no time to find out