Earth (The Invasion Trilogy Book 1) by Jessica Frances

We’ve designed them with the best technology available to us, and they do the rest without us having to lift a finger. They use their strength, inside information and exceptional weaponry to take down what we need them to.
    My brother and I have never been close, though no one in my family is. Not even my parents. We all know we have a duty to our people to run our planets so my father is rarely anywhere else other than his workstation. I have only seen him a handful of times in my entire childhood. We’ve been raised to be the perfect soldiers for our people. Not only do we have lessons on our family history and battle strategies, we are also trained much like the human military. As soon as I was able to participate in training, I was given a trainer and every day we ran drills.
    I’m incredibly fit, but Ival is even more so. He’s older, and he’s always been more focused than me. It’s almost always the first born son that takes control after the current leader steps down. However, it appears that my father named me as his successor. He’s not only going to shock our people, he’s sending out a clear message that Ival isn’t good enough, which doesn’t make sense.
    Ival might be a bit cruel and have a temper, but from what I know of my father, he does , too. Ival is smart and driven, and no one has ever considered that he wouldn’t be leader one day.
    Ival grins down at me, actually looking like he’s enjoying this. “I’ll tell them you died honourably, brother. I’ll tell them you deserve to be remembered well in our history.”
    I don’t want to die, which is probably why I give one last ditch effort to get away. I hit Ival in the chest several times, hoping to at least wind him . When that doesn’t work, I slam my fist down over his thigh.
    Ival just smiles , not moving an inch. I’ve never seen anyone beat him, not even his trainers when he was young could get around him. He has an incredibly high tolerance for pain.
    “Ival, please…” I gasp, not seeing his fist until it slams into my face.
    Blood fills my mouth , momentarily disorientating me and making me dizzy.
    “What’s going on here?” a man’s voice interrupts and then two pairs of arms grab hold of Ival, pulling him off me.
    “Let me go!” Ival demands . When they drag him away from me and let go of him, he slips the knife into his back pocket.
    “You okay, son?” One of the men, a police officer, steps up to me. His partner grabs hold of Ival again when he tries to get to me.
    “Yes.” I look away, trying to sound like a normal human as I attempt to stop the world from spinning.
    “If you want to press any charges, we can.” He stares at me , watching me shake my head no. “Good. I don’t really have time for this anyway. You might have been stuck in your own selfish bubble, but our entire city is suffering the aftereffects of an earthquake. You need to walk away from this now.” The man looks back at Ival, who continues to glare at me. “Right. Take off, kid. We’ll keep him here for a while. Go directly home, and try not to get into any more trouble today, okay?”
    “Thank you.” I take in the stranger’s kindness. I’ve been seeing more goodness in people since going to the park that first day.
    I turn and run, hearing a struggle going on behind me as Ival no doubt tries to follow me. He could take on those two men easily, but I ’ve seen the two guns strapped to their sides, and I’m sure Ival has noticed them straight away. Even if he is able to disarm the men, there are too many people surrounding him; it would be dangerous. All he’d need is for a few brave citizens to step in, and he’d either be killed or locked away. He can’t risk it. Besides, we’re meant to be blending in and not drawing attention to ourselves. In fact, with the invasion in motion, we should be getting off this planet. I know that isn’t an option for me anymore, which means I’m in as much trouble as these humans.
    I run for