Hey there reader friend! In honor of National Sci-Fi Day, here’s a short story I wrote. If you’d like a free ebook version, sign up for my email newsletter (all my subscribers get a copy)! Happy reading!

SKY BLUE

The dusty street was crowded with people carrying as many of their belongings as they could. I hefted my bag higher on my shoulder and clung to my little sister’s hand. I knew that if I lost her in the crowd, I might never find her again.

Ari’s eyes were wide with fear as she desperately held onto me. Her other hand clutched my jacket in case our hands got separated by everyone jostling up against us. People were screaming and crying as they ran in every direction. No one knew what to do. The air was thick with fear – so thick I could almost taste it just like we’d tasted the dust and smoke that had plagued the city for weeks. Overhead, the sky was the same slate gray it had been since the attacks began. Even though it was nearly noon, it looked more like twilight because of all the cloud cover.

I shivered and adjusted my pack once again, the worn strap digging into my shoulder already.

“Rose, where will we go?” Ari asked me for the hundredth time.

I squeezed her hand tighter and tugged her after me down an alley. Garbage and worse things made us both pull our scarves up over our noses. We hurried to the other end of the street and emerged onto another main road that teemed with more people.

“Rose?” Her voice was soft but insistent. She wanted an answer.

“We’re going somewhere safe, Ari.”

“You keep saying that, but-”

I lost her next words when a loud rumbling began. The street beneath our feet trembled. People screamed louder, and I pulled her against the wall of a nearby building. Half a dozen aircraft thundered overhead. They were marked with our flag, but they were heading south, away from the fighting.

Panic grappled for control of my mind, but I took a deep breath and shoved it away. I couldn’t let the emotions of everyone around me overwhelm my focus.

Ari was the most important thing now. Her survival ranked far above my own, and far above anyone else in the crowd. Her golden eyes lifted to my face, and I gave her what I hoped would be a comforting smile. I felt her heartbeat slow a little, but her terror still ran close to the surface. Too close.

“Are they coming for me?” she asked once the rumble of the aircraft faded into the distance.

“They’re coming for all of us,” I said automatically. The lie came easily, but if anyone in the surrounding crowd knew who we were, who she was, there’d be no other chance for escape. I knelt on the broken street and put my hands on either side of her face. “I need you to be brave for me. I need you to be the bravest you’ve ever been.”

Her eyes filled with tears, but she nodded. “Daddy told me to listen to whatever you said.”

I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead against hers. Ari’s loyalty to our father could save us both. She’d never go against anything he told her. In his absence, too much had fallen on my shoulders. It wasn’t fair.

I shook myself out of my dark thoughts and took a deep breath. I nearly choked on the dust. It had been even thicker the last few days since they started to bomb the outside of the city. I’d kept the windows closed and shuttered since the first attacks came, but I knew all along that we would have to leave. The city was about to be taken, despite the aircraft flying over our heads, despite the soldiers fighting on the northern edge of the city… despite everything, they were coming.

“Are we going to find Daddy?”

Nodding in response to Ari’s quiet question, I pushed back to my feet and reclaimed her little hand in one of mine. I didn’t want to tell her what I suspected, what I feared the most, but I would follow my father’s orders. I understood what my father wanted me to do, and I would carry out my mission no matter what happened.

The energy in the streets suddenly changed, and I stiffened at the sounds of running feet and screams. I tugged Ari into another alleyway and watched as dozens of men, women, and children began to run down the street to the south. The cloying scent of desperation permeated the air and overpowered the smell of smoke.

“Rose!”

I turned at Ari’s shout and saw a contingent of soldiers approaching from the other side of the alley. Their black masks and uniforms had haunted our dreams for over a year. My hands began to shake, and I lost control of my thoughts.

My heart slammed against my chest, and my face tingled. I smelled sweat and a strange, sickly sweet cologne that brought back nightmares from my darkest days.

“Rose Vareen.”

I flinched at the smooth voice that said my name and gaped as one soldier allowed his helmet to recede into his nanoarmor. I hated the pale face that appeared. The rest of his nanoarmor vanished as well, revealing a white suit and pants that gave him the appearance of goodness. There he stood, the man who’d practically owned me for years, looking as smug as a cat that swallowed a canary.

“How fortuitous to find you here before the Death Squad could.”

Blood ran down my knuckles from how hard my fingernails pressed into my palm. My clenched fist ached, but I ignored the pain and pushed my little sister behind me. I dropped my pack on the ground to be ready to run if need be. I’d regret it later if I couldn’t find food, water, or other supplies, but I had two breakfast cookies in my jacket pockets that would last us a day or two if we rationed them. Ari’s backpack had two bottles of water. We could raid empty houses on the way.

“It’s time for you to come home, Rose. Those soldiers won’t know the treasure you are when they kill you.”

“I think you underestimate me and what I’m capable of.”

“I made that mistake once. I won’t let it happen again.” Paxton Cruz’s eyes were the same color as the nanoarmor, black as night and soulless. The contrast against his almost colorless skin had always made my skin crawl. Even now, as he watched me with a sickeningly confident smile on his face, my nerves tingled with the need to run from him.

“Who’s the girl?” he asked.

I ignored the question and went for distraction instead. “You know what I can do. Stop where you are!”

“You lost that ability the last time you used it.” He laughed. 

I shivered. He knew the truth. I forced myself to smirk, to lie with my eyes. “Are you sure about that?”

He hesitated.

My heart stuttered in my chest as I heard the blaster fire begin in the distance. Screams rent the air, still far away, but the soldiers would only come closer. Ari clung tightly to my arm. Her fear roiled under her skin, but she was doing a good job of managing it.

Paxton’s eyes glittered coldly. There was no hesitation in him now. He nodded and started closer to us, his pack of soldiers shadowing his movements. “You can’t control it, Rose. If that little girl is as important to you as I think she is, you’ll never unleash your power with her so close.”

I lifted my hand and opened my fingers, palm up to the sky. “Are you sure about that?”

Paxton stopped and threw up a fist. The men with him slammed to a stop at his wordless order, and I read his uncertainty like a book.

“You see, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen you. You have no idea what I can do now.”

His lips curled into a sneer. “Your skills have been plotted. You can’t-”

“You need to remember who my father is.”

Paxton’s eyes widened. But then his face tightened with resolve. “You forget who I am.”

I squeezed Ari’s hand. “No fear,” I whispered to her.

Her head nodded against my hip. She knew. She understood what I meant to do.

Paxton’s gaze shifted to Ari. I didn’t need empath skills to read the look of shock and triumph on his face. Ari’s golden eyes gave her away as easily as my silver ones did.

“Give her to me, and I’ll let you go,” Paxton said. “You’ll never have to look over your shoulder again.”

I shook my head. “No deal.”

“She’s-”

“A child. Like I was.” I turned the palm of my hand toward Paxton and his men. Paxton drew back, and his men went into defensive positions.

As if it would help them at all.

Ari let out an earsplitting shriek. Paxton and the black-armored men went to their knees as their nanoarmor malfunctioned. One soldier grunted as sparks flew from the neck of his uniform.

I got down low so Ari could scramble onto my back and then took off in a dead sprint. Ari’s arms clutched my shoulders, but she knew not to hold so tightly that I couldn’t breathe. I pumped my arms as best as I could with her on my back.

“Good job, monkey.”

She giggled in my ear, and I smiled.

But then she jerked against my back, and even her slight weight made me stumble and go down hard to the pavement. I couldn’t stop my fall, and my chin smashed hard into the rubble on the street. Ari cried out and then went silent.

It took a moment for my head to clear from the blow I’d taken. I looked to Ari, but her golden eyes were fixed on the soldier standing over us with a blaster held to my head.

“Get up,” he ordered. The nanotech garbled his voice, but it couldn’t disguise his anger.

“You are government property, Rose. Your father-” Paxton smirked as he stepped up next to the soldier, “-had a crisis of conscience. I’m assuming this child is another experiment he stole.”

Ari let out a violent cough. Blood spattered against the soldier’s boots and Paxton’s white suit pants.

“Ari!” I started toward her, but the soldier pushed me back and held the blaster closer to my head.

“Who fired that shot?” Paxton roared without looking away from Ari and the bloom of blood on the front of her shirt.

“Get a medic!” I screamed. I didn’t care if it meant we’d be back into custody. I didn’t care if it meant that I’d be a slave again, a weapon. Ari needed to live. Ari could end the war, could save us all, but only if she lived.

Paxton gave the order for a medic to come to our position, but I kept my eyes on Ari as she struggled for breath.

“Please, let me try to stop the bleeding,” I said. My throat ached, and my vision blurred with tears, but my hands felt steady enough to apply pressure to her wound. I would keep my sister alive at any cost.

She reached out a shaking hand toward the soldier. “Remember,” she whispered.

Chills ran up my spine. Paxton sputtered, and I spared a glance at him as his face went even whiter, if that was possible.

“I remember,” the faceless soldier said. His distorted voice was full of resolve and a dark promise. Without another word, he turned the gun from me to Paxton and fired a shot straight into the man’s chest.

The bloodstain grew in an eerie match to the wound on Ari’s chest. Paxton’s mouth gaped like a fish for a moment as he tried to draw in air. He clutched at the front of his shirt and then stumbled back two steps and went down hard on his backside. He looked at me one last time before he fell all the way flat and didn’t move again.

I took a deep breath and looked up at the soldier standing over me. His black helmet receded. His eyes were full of compassion as they met mine.

“The sky,” Ari breathed.

I turned to my sister and gathered her in my arms. She stared up at the sky above us. A small patch of blue peeked through the gloom. It felt like a promise, but with my sister’s blood seeping into my shirt, it seemed it was already broken.

“I forgot what it looked like.” It sounded as though she was apologizing. Her head moved against my shoulder, and I followed her gaze to the soldier. “His eyes are the same color as the sky.”

“So they are,” I said softly.

The soldier went down on his knees in front of us. He put his hand on Ari’s cheek, his black armor cold and heartless against her skin. “I remember because of you.”

He moved away slightly, and I watched as his armor disappeared, leaving him in the plain black two-piece uniform that all the President’s Marines wore beneath their armor. He pressed the tube that housed his armor into Ari’s hand and touched the button on top. The black shell closed over my sister’s body, encasing her in child-sized nanoarmor.

“It will keep her alive until you can find a doctor.”

I stared at the soldier. Through the suit, I heard Ari’s breathing even out as the nanotech stabilized her.

“You need to go now,” he said. “I’ll send them in the opposite direction of wherever you go.”

“What did she do to you?” I asked.

“She made me remember sky,” he told me.

“They covered your city in clouds, too?”

He shook his head. “My sister’s name was Sky.”

I didn’t miss the way he spoke about her in the past tense. I glanced over at Paxton’s body, covered in blood and the dust of the street. “Thank you.”

“Go. Now.” He nodded at me. “They’re coming.”

I squeezed his arm, wondering for a moment how he would explain everything to his commanding officer, but I didn’t want to be there to hear the conversation. I scooped my sister’s body into my arms and held her close.

“Go.”

I ran, only slowing for a moment to give the blue-eyed soldier a single backward glance over my shoulder. I could feel his eyes on me until I slipped around the corner of a bombed-out building.

He was right. The nanoarmor kept Ari alive until we found a doctor in a group of refugees just to the east of the city.

I’d remember him. I’d remember Sky’s brother and how he saved my sister’s life until the day I died.

THE END

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