Species Traitor: A Science Fiction Dystopian Novel by Kate Mary (universal ebook reader .TXT) 📗

up at him. “What was that? Your girlfriend? We’re just humans trying to live our lives? You think you can speak for me?”

“I wasn’t trying to speak for you.” He ran his hand over his closely cropped hair and let out an exasperated sigh. “I was just trying to get us out of there safely. When it comes to that kind of thing, you have to say whatever you can to get away.”

He had a point—even I could admit that—but I wasn’t ready to let him off the hook. While most people probably would have thought it was just an innocent lie, to me it felt like standing up with the enemy, and that was one thing I wouldn’t do.

“I’m not the type of person to sell my soul just to save my own ass,” I said firmly. “Understand?”

“Shit, Ava, no one is asking you to sell your soul. I was just trying to keep you safe. You can’t reason with a mob.” He let out a frustrated sigh. “Trust me. I’m at the gate every day. It’s turned into a fucking circus.”

I pressed my lips together while I thought about it. Everything he was saying rang true, but there was something else bothering me. Something I should have asked him before I’d left the walls with him. Hell, I should have asked before ever agreeing to this date.

“Do you believe in Veilorian rights?” I pinned him with a serious look. “Or do you think Veronica Waters is right?”

“I’m not going to lie, Ava.” Dean exhaled again and ran his hand down his face, looking suddenly exhausted. “I think, as a human, I should put humans first. Do I agree with everything she says? No. She sounds crazy most of the time. But do I think we’re in danger of running out of resources? Yes. Even you have to admit that.”

“Yes, I do, because I think we should be working with the Veilorians instead of against them. They could help us fix things. Their technology is better than ours, and they understand ours more than we do. They could even have stuff on their ship that would help us, but not only have we done nothing to try, we don’t even allow them access to their own belongings!”

“I’m not going to argue with you on that point.” Dean lifted his hands like he was trying to surrender, or maybe even appease me. “But saying and doing are two different things. Even if half the population agreed with the idea of trying integration again, the other half would riot. There would be a civil war, and that’s something we can’t afford. Humans are already on the brink of extinction.”

I exhaled as I thought it over and tried to decide what to do. On one hand, the things he was saying made sense. But on the other, I wasn’t sure if he was being honest about how he felt.

As if sensing my hesitation, Dean gave me a tentative but genuine smile. “Come on. Let’s get dinner and talk. Get to know each other. If by the end of the night you think I’m a bigot, you can call it off. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said, but it was reluctant, because I still wasn’t convinced the man in front of me was someone I wanted to spend time with.

He held his hand out the way he hadn’t earlier, leaving the decision to take it up to me. I stared at it for a moment, once again thinking, but after a few tense seconds gave in and slipped my hand into his. A girl had to eat, after all. Plus, he was right. If by the end of the night I wasn’t sold on him, I could end things before they really started. It wasn’t like I was losing anything with one dinner.

Dean smiled as he started walking, pulling me with him. “My motobike is this way.”

Like I’d thought, the congestion in the city had eased by the time Dean and I set off. I was behind him on the motobike, my arms wrapped around his waist as he swerved between slower vehicles. My dark hair streamed behind me like a banner, flapping in the wind and getting tangled, but I didn’t care. It was the first time I’d been on the back of a motobike, and it was exhilarating.

The only birds that hadn’t died off decades ago were terrifying, carnivorous creatures that lived in the wastelands, but even so, I’d always envied the way they soared through the air, and I thought this was probably the closest I’d ever get to flying. Plus, with my body pressed up against Dean’s, the feelings from the other night in the bar had returned, reminding me of the way my leg had tingled when he’d put his hand on my knee. How warm his skin had felt against mine.

It took less than two hours to get across the city, which was a miracle—crossing seventy miles in that time had to be some kind of record—and we ended up in an area I’d never been to before. It was immediately obvious by how packed together the homes were that it was as low income as my own neighborhood, though, which made me feel almost at home.

The piles of dirt from the sandstorm the other night hadn’t yet blown away, but they barely concealed the garbage and other discarded items lining the sidewalks, and the houses were all as rundown as the ones on my street. Dirty kids played on crowded sidewalks, barefoot and dressed in threadbare hand-me-downs, while mothers sat on stoops, talking and laughing and smoking, glasses of what had to be moonshine in their hands. It was like a scene from my own childhood, minus the laughing mothers—at least not my mother.

“I grew up here,” Dean called over his shoulder as he slowed the bike and turned left. “I moved closer to the District after my dad died.”

“It’s not that different on this side of the town,”