The Secret of Zormna Clendar by Julie Steimle (best ereader for pdf TXT) 📕

“Ok—that possibility aside, do you have any other proof that the mark isn’t a fake?” the annoying man demanded. “I mean, let’s say the mark is real, but put there to trick us. A fake Tarrn as a lure. Aren’t there other proofs of her supposed Tarrn-ship?”

“Who in the world would purposely put a Tarrn brand on their—?”

“Forget it, Al,” Jafarr said, cutting off his friend protests. “He doesn’t understand how stupid that is.” Then he said more sharply, “You need proof, Asdrov? Here is my proof. One—her looks. She is an obvious ancestor of Clendar. Gorgeous to boot. Blond hair. Green eyes. Who is to say she isn’t the spitting image of the ancient queen? A Queen’s copy. And her name is Zormna.”

“Debatable,” the oldest man replied. “Nearly all girls named Zormna are blond-haired and green-eyed. She’s typical. There are a million of them.”

“Typical?” Al said, as if under his breath. “Are you kidding? No one is as hot as—”

“Ok… Fine.” Jafarr laughed. “There are lots of Zormnas out there. I get that. But this Zormna is fiercely loyal to Arras. I bet they had to drag her here, because she sure does complain a lot about being here. Todd says she’s been griping about it since she arrived, telling all of them she didn’t want to come. I mean, come on, after breathing real air and looking at a real blue sky and still yearning for Home? That’s insane.”

Zormna didn’t think it was that insane. This place just wasn’t Home. Besides, she vowed to her uncle that she would protect the people—be it as a cop or something better. She had thought being in the Surface Patrol fulfilled that promise.

“Then of course there is how she reacted when I said the name Tarrn at school. I’ve never seen her so terrified. It was instant.” Jafarr took a breath, sighing. “The fact is, I’ve been watching her and there doesn’t seem to be any—”

Something crashed in the living room.  

Zormna looked behind her. Darren’s leg was tangled up in a lamp cord near the fireplace. He had accidentally pulled it to the floor. His face was bright red, apologetically blushing with his hands up.

With a leap from the hallway, Zormna ducked into the kitchen, hiding just inside the dining room—right before six individuals rushed into the living room.

Jafarr went directly to the front door and locked it. Two other men Zormna hardly recognized—one redhead and one blonde, both old enough to have graduated college—grabbed Darren. They wrenched his arms behind his back, pressing their hands against his neck with most of their weight to keep him from running. Darren bowed over, yowling. His knees buckled.

“What are you doing in here?” the red haired, twenty-something man shouted at the boy, shaking him.

“I dunnu nu nu…” Darren whimpered unintelligibly, searching around for Zormna. He had not seen her slip into the dining room. He stared up into the redhead’s pale, freckly face, taking in the man’s light green eyes with horror and a flicker of intrigued understanding. Though the boy naturally stood taller than the red-head, Darren cowered. He’d probably grovel if it would save his skin.

 “Who is this kid?” The stocky blonde on his other side gave Darren’s shoulder a hard shake.

Al’s voice came from hallway with a derisive snort. “Darren Asher—known psycho and idiot. No doubt he was looking for aliens.”

Darren writhed, sobbing hysterically with searching eyes for the one who had come with him.

Zormna scooted farther behind the wall. Bating her breath, her eyes searched eyes all over the kitchen. All the natural ways out, windows and doors, were either too narrow or nonexistent. The nearest door was the front door. And the kitchen windows that did open would only allow her to stick her head through. And the dining room windows, she realized now, were the ones with bars.

Jafarr turned from the front door. His brows knit together as he examined Darren with those unfathomable eyes. Then he did the oddest thing. He tilted up his chin, and closed his eyes, almost sniffing the air. Immediately he turned to someone Zormna could not see. “Someone else is here.”

That blasted seer blood of his. Zormna had always suspected Jafarr was psychic. She had to get out now.

From her hiding place, Zormna could see the front door was just five paces away. Five paces could be covered in less than three seconds. The lock would take perhaps two more. That left her a five second window to cover the distance, unlock the door and escape into the neighborhood. It wasn’t much, but it was her only way out.

She bolted.

Each head in the room watched her leap out of the kitchen. She yanked on the chain to the front door, and attempted to turn the lock. But Jafarr slammed against the door before she could even turn the knob.

Zormna jerked away from him with a glance to the living room window. No hesitation, she plowed past him to the couch, grabbing onto the curtain to hoist herself up so she could break through the glass feet first. He dived right after her, wrapping his arms around her legs.

Zormna fell.

Jafarr tried to use a wrestling hold. Al joined him, seizing her shoulders and pulling her to the floor with him.

She kicked out.

But these were not inexperienced thugs that braced her to the ground. One was, after all, the state champ wrestler whom she had barely beaten in the tug-of-war pit weeks ago, as well as someone who knew how she fought. And they weren’t alone. The older man rushed over just as she blackened Al’s eye with her elbow. The man grabbed her so she would not do that again.

All three forced her to the floor. Another lamp smashed. Zormna kicked the couch over in an attempt to throw the older man off, knocking the coffee table off its perfect geometric placement. The glass orange juice spilled on the carpet. Bye-bye perfection.

The woman gasped. She broke into a quick jog straight to the kitchen where she fretted somewhere under the sink for carpet cleaner. The echo of her clicking shoes on the tile was entirely surreal to Zormna’s ears as she struggled against the fuzzy white carpet and three pairs of arms to get loose.

She thrashed with all the strength she had, but it was still not enough. Outnumbered and caught. Even masterful training could lose to sheer force. Someone tied her ankles together with a belt. Jafarr managed to tie her arms with the older man’s necktie, forcing them behind her back while nearly pinching off the circulation in her wrists. But Zormna did not stop struggling. She would have screamed, but what would have been the point? Who would she draw to the house? The police, maybe. But the FBI was more likely.

They braced to her against the floor, sharing looks with heavy breaths and sweat.

Zormna closed her eyes. This was the end. They were going to kill her. So close to the woods, they could dump her body in there and no one would find it. After all, no one knew where she had gone except for Darren. And what use was he? No one would believe a word he said, even if it were true.

“I was just playing a game. Lemme go!” Darren sobbed like a child somewhere near the back couch.

With a groan Zormna wished he’d quit blubbering. After all, he was not so expendable. He had family—people who would miss him. Her temples throbbed. A shooting pain split between her eyes. It was stress-induced, of course. 

Jafarr left Zormna to Al and the older man, and crossed the room to examine the space-crazed neighborhood nut. Narrowing his dark eyes on the lanky boy’s face, Jafarr thought a moment before speaking. “Were you spying on us? What did you hear?”

“I didn’t hear anything. I wanna go home!” Darren shrank down between his shoulders, hunching his head so low he could have been a vulture. His sobbing increased.

With a disgusted shake of his head, Jafarr shut his eyes briefly. He glanced back at Zormna. Sighing while pinching the bridge of his nose between his eyes, Jafarr gestured to the red haired man holding the idiot. “Let him go. He isn’t worth it.”

“Are you sure?” Al asked, struggling with one hand on the back of Zormna’s neck, practically crouching on her shoulder blades to keep her from rising.

Swinging both arms to one side, Zormna struck Al in the crotch then rammed an elbow into his chin. He crumpled on top of her, groaning.

But the older man wrenched Zormna’s arms back together, heaving her up with a professional police-style pinch hold, then shoved her down until her face pressed hard against the carpet. She could not move at all now. The circulation in her right arm pinched, causing it to go numb. She glared at him.

With the man’s face close, she finally recognized who he was. He looked older than his picture, but she had seen his ID photo dozens of times in old People’s Military records—a never caught, but highly dangerous fugitive from the government. And a former police officer. Officer Orrlar, she thought his name was. His reputation was tremendous. In the past, she had admired his guts for fighting alongside the rebellion for the freedoms of their people. And in any other situation she would have bowed to him with respect, but right now she only wanted him off her neck and back.

“Are you ok?” Jafarr helped Al off the floor.

“I’ll recover,” Al muttered, stumbling as upright as he could. He glanced back at Zormna with a hunching limp. Then he gestured to Darren. “What about the dork?”

 “Who’s going to believe him anyway?” Jafarr said.

He took Darren from the redhead’s grasp and dragged him to the door by his shirt. He tossed Darren out of the house with a good shove. Zormna could hear Darren tumble out onto the lawn then spring back onto his feet, running away from there as if an alien army were after him.

“You don’t think he’ll run to the FBI?” Al still asked.

Jafarr shook his head, watching Darren go. “Nope. He doesn’t trust them either.”

He closed the front door. Once he locked it, Jafarr eyed their captive.

And she glared right back.

He just shook his head at Zormna and let out a huff.

“Take her into the back room,” Jafarr ordered as one who had the right to boss around the company of people in the room.

The two college-aged men joined the former police officer, each seizing a part of Zormna. Tied, three-against-one, she was a fly all wound up in a spider’s silk thread, struggling in vain. Still, if she was to face death—which would probably be in about five minutes—she would do it fighting. The moment they lifted her from the floor, Zormna kicked her legs together to knock down the blonde. He barely caught them, wobbling on his feet.

The redhead tightened his grip on her front half.

They hauled her directly into the first room on the left. Everyone else followed and closed the door to keep their actions private.

This room was dark in comparison to the living room. The curtains were permanently drawn closed and only light came from a singular fluorescent lamp set over a wide drafting table next to the door. On it was a dissected ham radio and some kind of drafted plan of an undercity neighborhood. Charts and maps covered the walls like wallpaper, along with maintenance maps of the underground city drawn on old Arrassian glow paper—illegal artifacts that ought not to have been brought to this world at all. But then the rebellion would not be concerned with keeping the law, really. Several pegs stuck into the maps with flags, each tagged with strips of sticky notepaper. Constellations of holes dotted these maps where pins had once been—changed and repositioned frequently. Zormna recognized a few of the places, but not all of them. But none of these places looked Earth-bound. All were of the