“I hope that was okay,” he says, ending the kiss too soon.
Okay? I’d give anything for him to bring his soft lips back to mine. I want more of his touch, but he seems intent on gazing into my eyes, like he's trying to read my mind.
I know my eyes must look as manic as I feel. He's turned me inside out. Even his eyes are that cerebral shade of green that can only mean he's as affected as I am. I can't believe he's wondering if the kiss was okay. “You mean you've never kissed anyone before either?” I say, reliving the velvet warmth of his mouth.
He shakes his head. “I have kissed many women, but none of them made me feel the way you do.”
“How do I make you feel?”
He takes my left hand and brings it gently to his lips, placing a soft kiss on my knuckles. Our eyes meet just as he whispers, “Like for the first time in my life, I have a home.”
Chapter 11
∞
My eyes pop open to the sound of a heavy branch falling outside, or at least that's what I think it must have been that woke me up. I’m glad it did anyhow, whatever it was. I was dreaming that Van and I were married and having our first baby. Instead of coming out human though, it was green and lizardy.
It's daylight outside, and snow is drifting slowly down, only a few days until Christmas.
I remember sitting on the couch last night next to Van. He stroked my hand with his fingertips as we watched the night fall. Neither one of us wanted to move. And I remember wondering if it would be like that every day if Van were a permanent part of my life.
Van is still asleep next to me. The couch made a surprisingly comfortable bed. It's deep enough for two people to lay on.
Thoughts swirl through my brain, things I hope Van can't hear. The power is still out. The food will run out eventually. My greatest fear has come to life—Apocalypse.
As I lay here watching him sleep, the heavy rise and fall of his powerful chest with each breath, I make a decision. I’m going to trust Van no matter what. It's the only way.
I sit up and feel lightheaded (hopefully not from the decision I’ve just made). I realize I haven't eaten since breakfast yesterday.
In my rush to the refrigerator, I stumble over Van's boots. Afraid I'm gonna pass out, I grab the closest thing to me. A bowl of grapes sits just inside the door. Most of the them have begun to shrivel, but I decide to take a chance on one that looks okay. I'm so hungry, I pop it in my mouth. But after biting down, I have to run to the sink to spit it out. It's moldy and tastes like spicy dry wall.
I twist the tap to rinse out my mouth, but nothing happens. I forgot the power is still out. But it's not cold in the living room where we slept. Then I notice the fireplace. Van must have turned on the gas logs in the night to keep us warm. I go back to the fridge to see what else is in there. There are six bottles of mineral water, a six pack of diet lemon lime soda, a half-gallon of milk, which I won't fight Van for, and a quart of orange juice. I figure the power has been out for about twelve hours now. The food will stay relatively safe for about twelve more if we don't open and close the door too much. When our fresh food supply starts to dwindle, we'll have to use the food from the pantry, then the stockpiled food from the garage shelves. I tiptoe out there to make sure it's still there. Of course, it is. The major general has the place supplied like a military base. Powdered scrambled eggs, powdered milk, a thirty pound bag of dry rice, freeze-dried chicken and dumplings, and various other dinner foods in cans are stacked and ready for action. So, we won't starve as long as we have water, since most of the stuff is dried. The set of shelves next to the food holds about a dozen gallons of water. No, we won't starve.
I tiptoe back into the living room and hear a beeping sound. I realize it's coming from Van's jacket that's slung over the back of the couch. I think it must be some kind of homing beacon. But when I reach into his coat pocket, I pull out a regular old boring cell phone. It's nothing so remarkable as alien technology like I'd hoped. But if he has a phone, why haven't I seen him use it before? And why is the message from none other than my very own stepfather? At least, I think it is. The contact name is General MacArthur. It's got to be him.
She is expendable, is all the message says.
What does that mean? Me? I'm expendable?
My heart starts to race. I can't breathe.
No, I have to remain calm. I’ve decided to trust Van, no matter what. I must've misunderstood what it means, that's all. But how could I misunderstand something like that?
The last time I heard the word expendable, Van used it to refer to the way the Numen considered Porter disposable along with anyone like him with the human blood protein. It didn't matter whether any of them lived or died.
I'm expendable too?
My own stepfather wants me dead, or worse, left for dead? He wants Van to leave me behind?
Wait. I’ve got to think. The message could be code for something, and I’m just reading it literally. Or I could be reading it correctly. It's just the two of us here alone in this house. The neighbors are too far away to hear me scream. No one would notice if I disappeared. No one would even know where to look for me.
Right in the middle of my panic attack, Van opens his eyes and slowly stretches.
I try to play off the situation as though I haven't read what I just read and that my heart's not beating like a rabbit's. “You're a sound sleeper for a soldier,” I say as casually as I can manage, but my words come out sounding too breathy.
And I don't think he buys the nonchalant act because his eyes go straight to his phone sitting beside him. I didn't have time to put it back in his coat pocket. “As long as you are safe, I can sleep,” he says convincingly.
After all we've been through, I have to believe that Van won't hurt me. My life is in his hands.
He sits up and checks the message. After he reads it, he stands. “We have to get out of here,” he says with some urgency to his voice.
“We can't leave. There's food and water here. We'll be fine as long as we stay here.”
“The area is about to be put under quarantine by the United States Marine Corps.”
“Is that from my stepfather?”
Van nods but doesn't look away from his phone.
“Have you been in contact with him this whole time?”
Van's head pops up to look at me. His eyes are hard, unreadable. “I am on a need to know basis with Major General Hollins. Nothing more.”
I'm familiar with that. It's the way the M.G. has always dealt with me too. “Does he know about the Numen?”
Van bows his head solemnly. “Keeping what he knows from his daughter tore him apart. But he knew that if he told you, he would be endangering your life, his own life, and his wife’s.”
“My mother knows what they want too, doesn't she?”
“She knows about all of it. Because of the importance of her work, and because of you, she had to be brought into confidence.”
I can't believe this. My mother and my stepfather have known about this my whole life and never bothered to tell me!
The quarantine has already begun outside.
I trust Van. I keep telling myself that, even as I watch black SUVs surround the neighborhood fence.
Van says that the Numen know I'm hiding in Cedar Park. And the military, working with the Bastet, want to make it look like they're protecting me here, but I actually won't be here. I’ll be back at school with Van. It's a good idea that Van credits my stepfather with.
From my bedroom window, while I pack a few of my things, I tell myself that this won't be the last time I see my bedroom, but I’m afraid it will.
Van and I already had a huge fight over whether or not I could take George with me. Van is probably right, George will be better off with the mother cat who adopted him. The rescued animals from Antlia 2 were making strange noises, as though they knew something was about to happen. I just wish they could tell me what it is. I will come back for George as soon as this is all over. I promised
him.
Since Van doesn't want anyone to see us leaving, not even the neighbors, just in case, he says we should wait until nightfall. I can't sit around the house that long, waiting. So, I suggest we take the tunnel from the enclosure. We manage to escape out the back of the house through the underground tunnels into the screened areas in the backyard.
Now that we're outside behind the house, one of the black SUVs pulls up to the front. The men who get out of it wear black suits and ties with white shirts. They are carrying yellow tape that they begin to unroll around my house.
We duck behind a clump of boxwoods that hide the air conditioning units.
My neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Weingarten across the street start to come out of their house to see what's happening. Then more neighbors join them. None of them seem too concerned about it. They all behave the way the residents in Berryville and the students on campus did after they reappeared—nothing bothers them. I could say they act like zombies, but there's nothing menacing about them. They aren't looking for food or anything. They just are—and I'm supposed to go back to school and pretend to be one of them.
I shiver.
Van grabs my hand and starts to run towards the woods.
I take one last look back and among the crowd that's started to gather, I see someone I recognize. “Wait!” I stop in my tracks. “That's—”
“Anna! Porter said you were missing. What are you doing here? How did you find me?”
“Your stepfather called me and said you needed me.”
“My stepfather called you?”
I look to Van who very subtly shakes his head and gives me a warning look.
But I think I know a thing or two that he doesn't. Number one, Anna is my best friend. She was nowhere near the school when the rest of them were abducted. So, like Porter, she hasn't become one of them. And number two, she's got a secret tattoo—not because it's in some unmentionable place, but because we're not allowed to have tattoos at school, me and the girls who share our dorm rooms are the only ones who know about it, except for probably Robert Lansky by now.
I incline my head at Van as if to say, she's safe, because I remember what Van told me, that the Numen can't replicate anything not in a person’s DNA, which includes tattoos.
“What happened to you?” I say to Anna, trying to subtly spy the tattoo on her forearm.
“I didn't know what to think,” she says. “My mother all of a sudden has a virtuoso singing voice. My brother and sister can speak to each other fluently in French even though they both almost flunked out of that class when they were at Hawthorne.”
“The same thing's been happening here. Van has taught me Math and Latin just by touching my forehead.”
The look she gives Van is a little strange, as if he's her enemy all of a sudden. This is not like Anna at all, but we've all been through hell. She deserves the right to be a little off under the circumstances.
“You're supposed to be back at school,” she says.
I can't think of a reason that I can give her for why I’m here. I try to pretend that what she says doesn't frighten me, that the thought of returning to school with everyone acting so strangely doesn't make me want to run.
“You think that being human means having emotions,” she says, “and that being alien means you don't.”
“Anna?” I take a step back from her. “You seem angry.”
“Humans are the only species to deny their feelings,” she continues. “They use religion, work, television, shopping, sex, life-threatening sports, food, drugs, and alcohol to numb their feelings, to run from them. You think that being alien means you feel less?” Anna laughs. Now I’m really scared. “It doesn't. It means that you feel more, because you let it happen. Once you learn to see feelings as transient, they become much more manageable, not something to run from, but to look forward to.”
Her words sound true. In fact, they sound like things my mother has said to me to try to get me to open up, to not deny my feelings.
Van can see that I’m affected by what Anna says, so he catches my attention by clearing his throat. Then carefully, he mouths the words, “That's not Anna.”
I shake my head back at him. He's wrong. I know my friend. She's just under stress.
“You live so far from here?” I say to Anna. “How did you get here?”
“I found out you were missing when I returned to school to retrieve these for you.” Anna hands me my binoculars.
She knows how much they mean to me. I feel this overpowering sense of gratitude towards my friend and reach out to her. Van will see that it's her. “I'm so happy you're here,” I say as I give Anna a hug.
As we end the quick embrace, I look down at her arm where her sleeve has inched up ever so slightly and a chill runs down my spine. There, on the arm of the only friend I’ve got, the tattoo of the Bengal tiger is missing.
I can't speak.
Anna doesn't react. If she can read my mind, she knows that I know.
“Lily,” a very familiar male voice calls out.
“It's my stepfather,” I say to Van in disbelief.
As he approaches, out of the corner of my eye, I see Anna take a step back.
“You're still my best friend,” she says, “no matter what happens.”
Before I have a chance to react, my stepfather grabs me into a bear hug, which is very unlike him. But it's been so long since we've seen each other, and according to Van, he has been worried about me. The major general still holds onto me as over his shoulder I can see that one of Anna's brothers has appeared out of nowhere. She goes to him. He must have brought her. This is too weird. All of this is.
The M.G. finally lets me go after Anna is out of sight.
I look at him up close. He looks the same. He doesn't have any distinguishing marks that I know about, so I can't learn it that way. I want to test him, to see if it's really him by asking him things only he would know.
“When did you meet my mother for the first time?”
“I was there in the hospital when your father discovered your paternity.”
“Why were you there?”
“I was assigned your mother's case when you were born. Your mother holds a sensitive security position at Earth-Skylabs. Everything the employees do is monitored by the government.”
“I didn't know they monitored births,” I say, incredulous.
“Yours was a special case.”
“Who told you?”
The major general doesn't answer. He didn't earn his high rank by running his mouth when he should keep it shut.
“It was her psychiatrist, wasn't it?” I say.
“I don't suppose it matters if you find out now.”
“I'll take that as a yes.”
“It got pretty ugly for your mom. She almost lost her job. We had to step in and make sure her work continued. Your mother's case is something I take very seriously, since she was sixteen and that tracking chip was put under her skin.”
“By the Numen?”
The M.G. doesn't answer, which I find highly suspicious unless it wasn't the Numen who were responsible for tracking her, but the military.
“How come the Numen are after me?”
“You're familiar with artificial selection, the process of selective breeding. We use it on plants for speedy growth and on animals for usefulness or beauty. Numen are concerned more with blood type than the color of someone's eyes. When you turned sixteen, you became of age.”
“You mean they want to use me as a surrogate.” It wasn't a question, because I knew the answer in every fiber of my being. “Why did they take mom when she was a teenager?”
“They took her because of her blood and because they knew that she would grow to become a world-renowned biologist, one that would give birth to—”
“Don't tell me I'm some star baby with a higher purpose and that's why I have to go back with them. I don't want to be a cliché.”
“They knew your mother would give birth to a new discovery
, one that would reveal the purpose of the ninety-eight percent of human DNA that has been a mystery up to now. In doing so she would make it possible for man to tap into all the powers that the Numen already possess.”
That's why the Numen want to get to her—she's discovered their secret. “I want to speak to my mother. Where is she?”
The major general's eyes change. “Somewhere safe.”
“If you know where she is, why can't I speak to her?”
“The work she's doing is vital to all of us. Do you have a message for her?”
“Tell her that I can see that crease between her eyebrows because she's been working too hard.”
For a moment, my stepfather looks startled. Maybe he realizes that I know things I shouldn't. But like a good soldier, he doesn't give anything away.
“That crease between her eyebrows is from worrying about you,” he says.
“Tell her that I know who I am.”
Now there's a crease between the major general's eyebrows. He looks to Van, who's been standing beside me this whole time, and his expression becomes angry. “If she could speak to you now, she would tell you that soon the things that used to matter to you won't anymore. You'll finally have the life you so desire, a life free from troublesome feelings. And you'll be better off.”
That doesn't sound like my mother. I thought that was true once, that I’d be better off if I shut myself off from my feelings and from the rest of the world, but now I know different. I met someone just like me.
“Once the Numen are finished, everyone will be like them.”
The Bodyguard: an alien romance Page 15