SCAR PETALS

CHAPTER ONE

Haven?

No safe haven this. Blood, and smoke, and screaming. He will always remember the screaming. Things seem darker than before. The little dinosaurs are blackened by the smoke, their cute noses choked up with soot; they are knee deep in broken glass. So is he. Something felled the palm trees. Their lush green leaves are scattered over the pilot’s desk like splintered emeralds. He tries to reach for them, but he can’t move. His legs won’t move, and it’s like there’s a band of iron round him, round his chest, pinning his arms to his sides, pressing him back into his chair.

He can hear her screaming. Zoe, Zoe. And Mal, shouting. Don’t yell at her. Don’t YELL at her. He can’t open his eyes. There’s weights tied to his eyelashes, holding his lids down. Zoe. He has to get to her. Has to. Is she OK? Is she hurt? Why can’t he see, gorram it? All he can see is black, but inside his head, it’s red, bright scarlet, as if Mal’s reaver-paint job disguise has splashed into his skull and filled it up… Zoe…

Blinding blue-white pain sears itself into every cell, and there is only the bliss of sinking into sleep before he nosedives into oblivion.

“Reavers, Cap, fall back!”

Captain Malory doesn’t listen. She’s never obeyed orders, certainly not from her crew. It’s one of the things they like best about her. She cocks her gun, smells the cordite on the air. Not just cordite, neither. Blood. Red like rose petals in wine, catching in her mouth, shivering along her tongue. Red like her hair, blazing in the sun, a plait of flame bound with black cord and tamed at the base of her neck. The smell of blood hits the back of her throat as she breathes; strong, metallic, like copper. Like licking a penny. But the coin-taste sticks in her throat, and she coughs against the burning red scent, bringing her sleeve up to her cracked lips as if it will protect her. It won’t. There’s just her and her crew…

And - Them.

The Reavers pour across her vision, fluid, shimmering, a symphony of pain blisteri