Renegade Runner Nicole Conway (christmas read aloud txt) 📖

said I wasn’t gonna hurt you. And then I went and did it by accident. So … just … I’m sorry, okay?”

Wow.

That was, by far, the sloppiest apology I had ever heard in my entire life. But it was also kind of the best because the big idiot meant it. I could hear it in his voice and see it in the rather alarming shade of pink flushing across his cheeks and nose as he hung his head, his pointy ears drooping as he waited for my reply.

“What?” he asked when I didn’t answer. “You gonna forgive me or not?”

“Fine,” I squeaked, trying my best not to smile.

“Uuuuuggh, I knew it. I knew you’d make fun of me.” He grumbled and shoved the box in my face. “Just take it, all right? I don’t even know what it is. But you stared at all that stuff for a long time, so—”

“Stared at what stuff? When?” I hurried to open up the box, my breath catching when I saw what was resting inside.

It was an old smartphone. A human phone.

“You followed me?” I shot him an accusing scowl.

“O-Only because you went out by yourself and the port markets can be really dangerous. Seriously, you don’t even know, Brinna. I’ve lived around them most of my life. You almost got mugged about six times and you didn’t even know it. I had to drag one guy behind a—”

“You followed me and beat people up behind my back?”

“They were gonna rob you!”

“Why didn’t you just say something?” I sulked. “You didn’t have to follow me around like a stalker.”

“Because you were furious at me! Kinda like … you are … right now.” He cringed and rolled his eyes, his ears drooping lower as he began trudging back to the door. “Just forget it.”

I seized his arm.

Phox stopped, turning back enough that I could wrap my arms around his middle. I hugged him, still holding the box as I tried my best to squeeze him hard. My head only barely reached his chest and I felt every muscle in his torso go stiff and tense at the contact.

Maybe he wasn’t used to hugs.

“You are so stupid,” I murmured. “But please, don’t stick around with me because you feel guilty or like you owe me. Because you really don’t, Phox. I mean it. You have to promise, you have to swear on your life, you won’t do that.”

He grabbed my chin, tilting my head back to show me a slow, tired smile. “Fine. I swear.”

I smiled back.

“Guess this means I have an annoying human sidekick, after all.” He chuckled.

I pursed my lips. “Um, no? You are the sidekick. Not me.”

“Ha! No way. You’re way smaller. Also, you talk constantly and generally have no idea what’s going on. That’s classic sidekick stuff.”

“You’re impossible.” I pulled away and stalked over to my bedside, taking out the phone to look it over more closely. It had to be ten years old, at least. Maybe older. A first or second generation smartphone with only the most basic functions, an archaic camera, and maybe 4 gigs of storage space. No way it would actually work, though, right? God only knew whom it’d belonged to or what it had been through. I held my breath and pressed the on button.

The screen flickered, then flashed to life.

I couldn’t stop grinning. “It works!”

Phox huffed and crossed his arms. “Of course it does. Why would I give you something broken? Lot of trouble, though. I had to find a specialist on human artifacts to work on some of it. The power cell was faulty, so I replaced it with an Alzumarian one. It should last you a few decades.” He wandered over to lean down, peering at the screen in mystification. “So what is that thing, anyway?”

“It’s a little piece of home,” I said as I started scrolling through the apps, searching for any clues about whom it had belonged to before. There were plenty of pictures saved to it, but only a few had people in them. Most were of rugged, green mountain landscapes, forests, steep cliffsides, and shimmering lakes. Yosemite, maybe? The guy who sometimes appeared in the photos looked about my age, with a short beard and enormous backpack. Whoever he was, he clearly had a bad case of wanderlust. Not that I minded. His photos were beautiful, perfectly preserved morsels of the world I’d left behind.

“Is that your homeworld?” Phox leaned down even closer. “Earth, right?”

I swallowed back the hard knot in my throat and nodded. “Yeah.”

He made a thoughtful, approving sound.

Sinking down onto the edge of my bed, I continued to riffle through the phone. There were lots of traveling-type apps—ones for finding good restaurants, maps, hostels, and even a few games. On a whim, I opened up his music.

A barking laugh broke past my lips at his very first playlist: 90s Trail Jams.

“What?” Phox stared at me, his brows rumpled in confusion.

I opened the playlist and dialed the volume up as loud as it would go. Then I held the phone out so he could see and selected the very first song on the playlist.

Walkin’ on the Sun.

43

FROM THE FLAMES

Rout found her.

Days later, our resident Alzumarian team manager came swaggering down to the common area from his usual lair up on the top, the much more extravagant deck of his ship, to announce that he’d finally found Enola’s last known location. I couldn’t sit still as he gave a brief recounting of where she’d been sold—first to a labor broker and then again to one of the deep solar mines orbiting the cradle system’s twin white dwarf stars.

She’d been right, after all. And just the thought of it, of her face when she’d realized where she’d been going, made my stomach wrench into a thousand knots.

I’d spent my first days in Alzumaris fighting for my life in the Renegade Run. Enola had spent hers in the scorching heart of a star, operating the highly-specialized and delicate