#WeWriWa - The Protector: Finding the Girls #sfr

Welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors, the weekly hop for everyone who loves to read and write! Writers share an 8 to10 sentence snippet. Be sure to visit the other writers. You can find them here.

This week's snippet is from my sci-fi romance, The Protector (An Outer Rim Novel). Last week, after Rissa helped two girls out the spaceport restroom window, the pilot accosted her, demanding to know how she stole the girls. After playing innocent, she was allowed to leave.

Forcing herself not to rush, Rissa strode through the hangar, but as soon as she was out of sight of the pilot and his men, she ran around to the back of the spaceport then called softly, “Girls, where are you?”

She raised her hand to shield her eyes from the Mid-Day sun blazing down on the planet—the wind whipped around the sand and blasted her face. Out in the open, the girls wouldn’t be safe from the desert heat, yet with no head coverings, no water, they wouldn’t do much better if they chose to remain hidden in the heap of scrapped speeders, starcraft, and assorted junk behind the spaceport. Pung rats and other more nefarious critters would make them wish they’d stayed aboard the ship.

No, anything was better than being sold as slaves or worse.

“Girls, I have to get back to my tavern—you have two mins to come out if you still want my help, otherwise, I’m leaving.” Not that she would, she just needed them to hurry.

The scrape of metal on metal heralded their approach—the tall girl still looked defiant, but Anaris, the little one, ran to Rissa and flung her arms around her waist, crying, “You came back, we didn’t think you would.”

Her emotions on high alert and still shaking in fury over the slavers, Rissa pulled the girl’s hands from around her back and said, “We have to go—when the pilot couldn’t find you, he thought I stole you and is very angry.”

The tall girl scoffed, “He’s afraid of getting in trouble with his boss—that’s what he said when we tried to escape before.”

As always, apologies for the creative punctuation, which was done to keep within the sentence limit.

Who knew rescuing two girls from traffickers would bring down a world of hurt?

After tavern owner Rissa Dix rescues two girls from a slave ship, she must rally the townsfolk to prevent traffickers from returning. Mining heir Dillan Rusteran has loved her for years. Little do they know that by rescuing more children they're tangling with a galactic trafficking ring.

Amazon ~ Kobo ~ Smashwords ~ B&N ~ iTunes

I forgot to sign up this week, but be sure to check out the other WeWriWa authors.