Free Blood in the Fire (Timelaws Trilogy) by Marise Ghorayeb

measures keeping him, or us, here. My thumb ran along the side of the laser gun in my hand and I felt the smooth surface slide against my skin. The object seemed like a toy and didn’t do much to reassure me against the looming blackness stretched out before me. Mark’s got good reason to be scared, I thought privately. We’re going to need a lot of luck to pull this one off .

Chapter Thirteen
The Fire 1: Eln’s Rescue
     
    Prison Caves – November 2184
    Luke
     
    There was a time when I liked having a tough, smart baby sister. Sassiest five-year-old I’d ever met. Even in kindergarten, Liz didn’t take crap from anyone. Not me, not Mark, not the kids at school. But this 'I take care of myself' attitude, which I was so proud of when she was five, was not so hot at fifteen. She needed to be snapped back to reality.
    The problem: what reality?
    When she said we were going on a mission, I thought it would be a trip to the post office or something. Maybe, find some undercover aliens posing as mailmen and expose their evil plot to destroy letters. Honestly, I don’t know what I’d thought. I knew there was at least some danger or else she wouldn’t have ended up hospitalized. But I never expected this. The danger was too real.
    We weren’t on Earth. This rotten air was not Earth atmosphere. I used to think I knew where Liz was. Sure, she was a teenage girl, and I thought maybe she fibbed sometimes. I wasn’t delusional. But most guardians can narrow their teenager’s location down to within city limits. Not me. My baby sister didn’t just sneak into a club when she said she’d be at the bowling alley. She went to a whole different planet in some other year! And the kicker: I wasn’t sure I could stop her. Her eyes, like Mark’s, always spoke volumes on what she was thinking, and her thoughts on this matter were not even if you cement my butt to a pole. The girl was as stubborn as a buck getting milked. She was going to continue taking part on these missions, whether I forbade it or not.
    But how could I possibly allow her to do this? I’d seen the urgency in Anton’s expression when he’d watched her walk away into the darkness.
    “I don’t have to go anyplace special, but I can’t stay here,” she’d said to me with a smile before she left. I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out why she was smiling. Nothing about this looked funny to me. I hadn’t understood much when they were talking shop, but I did catch the fact that she’d transferred most of her power to Anton, keeping only what she needed to complete her part. That made one thing clear: we couldn’t afford surprises.
    Tamer and Anton wrapped up their conversation. My younger cousin gave Anton a reassuring pat on the shoulder and checked his watch. We still have three minutes and thirty-four seconds Earth time before Liz set off the alarm, he announced.
    Then he walked toward me.
    “Let’s chat,” the kid invited and tipped his head to indicate a corner away from everyone else. My eyes sought out Mark, who was sitting on the floor and tearing up a piece of paper he’d fished from his pocket. My brother could never just sit. His hands or his feet or some part of him had to be doing something. He shrugged, so I followed Tamer. I didn’t say anything, just thought about how weird he looked in that green uniform. It was right-on fancy and I was used to seeing Tamer wearing torn jeans and unclean t-shirts—even in winter. His face was the same though: dark and a little scraped up.
    “Do you know why you’re here?” he whispered. I remained silent, figuring it was a rhetorical question. “Cause Liz’s got more principles than will do her good,” he continued. “She could have wiped your memory. It’s allowed if it’s the only way to protect our secrets. Now, Liz ain’t a psych expert, but short-term amnesia isn’t hard to induce.”
    “You have a point?” I barked, not itching to have my brain tampered with, especially by my