Quick by Viola Grace Page B

for protecting us.”
    Cam moved fast but not fast enough to make breathing difficult for her passenger. “Thank you for reminding me that Namkor picked me. I forget that every now and then.”
    Her passenger wiggled to get down and embraced her mother. Everyone was crying with relief.
    Cam spoke to the police and explained that the dead man had had a gun in his waistband inside, and the little girl thought she saw it again. Her trauma could explain a number of scenarios, and the police officers nodded wisely as they wrote down the details.
    Mordem came up behind her and put his arm around her. “You are covered with brains and blood.”
    She looked down at his silver skin covered with glossy red blood. “Right back atcha. I need a lot of food and to sleep for a week.”
    “How about an energy bar and a night in my arms?”
    She leaned back against him and raised her chin for his kiss. “Sounds delightful.”
    He kissed her, both of them covered with gore and grime. It was not the most romantic of situations, but it was her new normal. She could get used to it.
     

Epilogue
     
     
    Kelmin rejected the Gift. He had never gotten used to the duality that had been forced on him.
    As the newest Guardians, Vendiuk and Camile had to take on the public speaking and community education portion of the duties. He was over at the boys’ school and she was at the girls’ school talking to an assembly of eager, young faces.
    After walking through the Guardian program on Namkor, she was taking questions.
    “What did it feel like when the Gift took you?” The earnest, young woman looked to be in her early teens.
    Cam smiled. “Because it is different for everyone? Right. Well, for me, the Gift was like giggles.”
    The room with two hundred girls giggled.
    “Yes. Like that. Each tiny impact of a piece of the Gift was like the brightest, happiest laughter you could imagine. It stuck to my skin, and I tried to brush it off, but it came faster and faster, leaving me covered in a roar of light and giggles that were filling me with energy.”
    She closed her eyes. “The sound and light pulled at me, hauled me upward, and the urge to move became overwhelming. It wasn’t like I wanted to run from the sound, I wanted to take it for a ride.”
    She opened her eyes. “It set me on my feet, and I ran. Across fields and over water, I ran. When the first burn was over, I turned and went back into the party where Guardian Mordem caught me because I couldn’t properly stop. I was going too fast.”
    One young woman raised her hand. “Didn’t you break bones against him?”
    Cam shook her head. “No, he caught me against his flesh form, jumped and twisted, letting physics do the work of stopping our bodies, rolling us to a stop.”
    “What happened on your first day at the base?”
    Cam grinned. “I ate everything and had to go and replace it so the guys could eat breakfast. My type of Gift is a direct exchange of calories for energy.”
    The girls were scandalized. More hands came up. Cam pointed to one.
    “You ate everything?”
    “Everything that my alien sensibilities could identify as food. I woke up and felt hollow. To answer your question, if I have use my Gift, I still eat three times what the male Guardians do.” She struck a pose. “Crime fighting—it’s how I keep my figure.”
    The teachers laughed.
    An older girl put her hand up, and the conversation turned to regeneration as well as top speeds.
    They talked about how fast she could move with her engaging in a few demonstrations by zipping over, putting happy faces on their note tablets and returning to the front of the assembly.
    When the question finally came, it wasn’t from one of the older girls; it was from a ten-year-old with dark-grey eyes in the front row.
    “Why did the Gift choose an alien when there was an entire world of eager citizens to choose from?”
    Cam knew that it was coming, but it still was hard to answer.
    “My best guess is that Namkor saw