Mark’s truck is missing from the driveway. The madman is already on his way to kill Adam. I run for the garage, combing through the tables and the floor looking for my phone. It’s not there. I dart into the house, for the kitchen phone, but when I pick it up there’s no dial tone. Damn it.
I have to run. Through the woods where the shadows and trees and branches are clawing and tearing at me. Where with every turn, I expect to see Mark. Waiting for me. Waiting for Adam. Where were they going to meet?
Stella is alone in the office when I arrive. The lamp on her desk is dim, and there are tearstains on her cheeks. Pictures of Adam plaster the top of her desk.
“Adam?” I ask her. “Where is he?”
“I told you he’s at that party tonight.” Stella’s expression combines pain with pity. “I’m sorry.”
“No.” I shake my head. “We need to warn him. Mark—” I run out of breath, and the words die in my throat.
“Warn him what?” Stella’s eyes widen and she stands. “Warn him about what?”
“Mark. He knows Adam’s an alien, and he plans to kill him. He claims to work for the government, but who knows with him. But either way he’s dangerous Stella—he’s got a gun. You should see my garage. He’s been spying on Adam.”
“I think he’s still at the party,” Stella says numbly.
“No, Mark called him. He called him and Adam went. He thought he was going for me.” I shake and scream the words, tears drizzling my cheeks. I need her to understand. I need her—. I shake my head and turn and leave.
I need to get to him.
I run for the crowd of kids and the bonfire sparking and flaming on the beach. Pushing through arms and shoulders. Somebody grabs my arm and I whirl around to find Lucas.
“What is it?”
“Adam. Have you seen him?” I scan the crowd. “I need to find him.”
“Is it…?” He leans into my ear and lowers his voice. “Something alien related?”
“He’s in trouble. I need to find him, now.” I shake free from his arm.
“Okay, I’ll help. Last I saw he was with Brianna.” My heart cracks, but I don’t have time to hurt. I need to find him.
“Okay,” I say with a deep gulp. “Where did you see her last?”
“She was—” He scans the beach. “I’m not really sure. I can help you find her.”
“No,” I say with force. “I don’t need your help Lucas.”
There’s a flash of pain across his face. “Sage, I—”
“I don’t have time, not now. I need to find Adam.” I’m turning in a circle, searching for the familiar hair toss.
“Then let me help you. I’ll go find Brianna. You wait here.”
“Whatever.” I nod without any intention of waiting.
Lucas disappears, and I wave through the crowd calling his name. The eyes of Brianna’s friends follow me, and their whispers reach my ears. “He’s probably hiding from the freak.”
“Yeah, I heard that she tried to throw herself at him today and he told her off. Brianna said it was hilarious.”
I breathe back the pain and the hurt, and the urge to turn around and pound my fist into their faces. Keep moving, don’t waste your time, find Adam.
Lucas finds me again, his forehead is wrinkled and he rubs his eyebrow. “I thought you were going to wait.” He frowns. “But I found Brianna. She said Adam left hours ago. She’s not too happy.” The last part makes me want to smile.
“Did she say where he went?”
Lucas shakes his head. “She didn’t know…she’s a little pissed. One of her friends thought she saw him head that way.” He points to the woods. The woods I came out of. The woods that go to my house. But I hadn’t seen or heard him. Where are you Adam?
“Adam’s not picking up his phone, and I can’t get a hold of Laris.” Stella says from behind us. Her eyes are watery and she’s running her fingers through her hair. “I’m going to go look for him. He’ll know what to do. You stay here, at the party. In case Adam comes back.”
“No,” I say. “I want to come.”
“I think you should stay here.” She gives me a hard don’t-you-dare look before she turns and walks away. I look at Lucas and shake my head.
“I’m not sitting around here. Can you wait for Adam?”
“Hold on.” He disappears into the crowd before I can respond. I don’t wait.
I go slower this time, calling his name into the darkness. The tall, dark trees limit my vision to what’s in front of me. There is no moonlight or starlight tonight. Only low, black clouds above the treetops.
A branch breaks from behind me, and I freeze. I don’t breathe for several moments, the only sound is my pounding heart.
“Adam?” I hiss.
Nothing.
I take another step and a branch snaps again. My heart is jumping and my stomach is a hurricane. I scan the woods and am about to step again when I freeze.
And from behind a tree, he emerges.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Lucas,” I scream, my heart nearly hurling from my chest. “What are you doing?”
“I’m coming with you,” he says. “You’re not going through here alone.”
“No. Go back. I don’t need your help.”
“Sage—”
“Go, Lucas. Go.” I turn my back and walk deeper into the trees.
He falls in step beside me. “So what’s the big plan?”
“One that doesn’t include you. You come around, acting like we’re all friends again and just like I said, the minute Brianna waves her finger—.”
“That’s not what happened,” he says. “I wasn’t there tonight because of Brianna. I was there because of Adam. Because I was hoping to change his mind. The only reason he went was because he was mad at me for going along with your little ‘charade’ the other day. Well that, and a few other things I said.” He frowns.
“Lucas, go back to the party. You belong with them.”
“No. I meant everything I said. I am on your side. I swear I am. You’re like my sister, Sage. When I had nothing, nobody, you and Adam were always there. Let me be there—”
I pause. Did a branch just crack? “Shhh.” I plant a finger on my lips.
There’s another crack, and I look to him.
“Was that—?” My words die on my lips when I see Lucas’s face. It’s squeezed and contorted, and he holds his head. “Are you okay?”
“My head. It...ahhhhh.” He falls to his knees and presses his hands against his eyes.
“Lucas?” I run to him and crouch down. I pull his hands, but they’re stuck to his face like super glue. “Lucas, tell me, what is it?”
“Ahhh.” He cries and rolls to the ground, writhing and screaming. His red face drips with sweat, and my heart thunders in my chest. What is happening? What is happening? He kicks and flails and there’s high-pitched terror in his voice.
“Lucas? Talk to me.” I tug at his hands and his arms and his fingers. But he is like a two-year-old stuck in a perpetual temper-tantrum, only his cries are pierced with agony. I stand up and turn around, staring into the silent blackness. They’re here. Their voices are in his screams, and their faces reflected in his eyes. My brain flashes and I’m behind the red metal counter in Nebraska again. I’m holding the girl’s hand while she squeezes through the pain, her nails tearing into my flesh. I’m watching her die. Her dark eyes fade into the golden brown of Lucas’s. The pain. I know his pain.
“Where are you?” I scream. My eyes scan the woods for them. They’re in the shadows, their smell of sickly cologne wafting into the woods. “Where are you? It’s me you want.”
Lucas’s cries fade, but he still holds his head. He still shakes. I bend down to whisper in his ear. “I’m going to lure them away. Once they start chasing me, they should leave you alone. When you can, go get help.”
“No.” But his voice is weak and lacks conviction. He turns his face and then breaks into a scream.
“It will be
over soon, I promise.” I run away from the beach. There are too many people there I care about. Faster and faster, like a bullet of courage and fear, I streak through the forest. The road is close, and I hear a passing car. If I could just—.
I’m grabbed from behind and thrust into a tree. Hands, wrapping around me like thick vines. I kick and scream, but my voice is drowned by the emptiness of the forest. “Got her.” Warm breath that smells of fish and smoke and rotten meat invades my face. He’s large and thick, with black soulless eyes.
“Good,” says the man with him. He wears a flawless black suit. Gray hair slicked back over his head. The perfect toothpaste smile. Good ol’ Brian Holmes. I was right. The Nexians somehow got into Star Harbor.
“What about the other one?” the one with the bad breath asks.
“Max and Rye are bringing him back.” I’m knots inside. Knots and twists and tears. Lucas. They caught him.
“Leave him alone. Let him go.” A large dirty hand covers my mouth and there’s a hiss in my ear.
“Shut up.”
He throws me roughly and I slam into a tree. The world spins and wobbles and stars dance in front of my eyes. My head falls onto my knees, and I close my eyes to keep from retching. Bad breath jerks my hands behind my back wrapping them in what feels like duct tape. It’s tight and thick and no matter how hard I try, I can’t wriggle even a hair on my arm. He’s much better at this than Mark.
“Come on girl.” Hands pull me by my hair to my feet. “Move.” I step forward, but my right leg is ripped with the force of a hundred of scalpel blades, and I fall to my feet.
“I can’t.” My arms encircle my leg.
He pulls me up by my hair again, and I’m forced to hop on my left leg. My body is covered in bruises, and my eyes sting with the pain of unshed tears. I fall. He’s tearing my hair from my scalp. I fall, he pulls. I fall, he pulls. On the ground, I wrap myself into a still, unmoving ball. A boot plunges into my back and I scream. I hear the hint of a satisfied grunt from above over the roar of the firestorm raging through my body.
The pain…too much. I blink. The forest floor is swimming in my eyes. There’s dirt and dried leaves. There’s a spider crawling across my fingers. A daddy-long-legs. Run spider, run, I think. But when he reaches the patches of leaves, between my hand and my head, a black boot falls. Crushed, the spider’s guts are scraped across the forest floor, his legs bent like a smashed accordion.
“Settle down there.” I hear Brian’s smooth voice from above. “Don’t kill the girl, at least not yet.” He crouches over me, his hand running along my temple. “Do you know where Adam is?”
“I-I- don’t know,” I say.
“Oh, going to make this difficult? We’ll see about that.”
There’s a loud thud and something drops beside me. Lucas looks back at me, his face stained with blood. Too much blood. Like the girl in the truck stop.
“Sage?” He erupts into screams. Shaking and tearing he spins on the ground. I try to move, to inch my way to him, to tear the tape binding my arms. But I can’t get to him. And he’s screaming and crying and exploding. Lucas, Lucas, Lucas. My dry mouth won’t let the words out. My head is swimming into a sea of black, dizzy with the sounds of his screams and his pain.
And the screaming and the screaming and the scream—
It’s quiet.
Blink. A face. Blink. Empty eyes. Blink. Not moving. Lucas’s not moving. Blink. Lucas, why aren’t you moving? Blink. It’s the spider, it’s coffee brown spindly legs blurring into Lucas’s hair. Blink. Lucas?
“Now are you going to cooperate?” Brian’s face is pressed into mine. “Or do you want to end up like your friend here?”
Oh god, not Lucas. No, no, no. I claw my fingers into the dirt and push my head up. I open my mouth to scream. Something hard slams into the side of my head.
Dust, and stars, and blackness.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Blue eyes, gray eyes, blue eyes.
He’s in my face, calling my name, shaking me.
“Sage,” he says. “Wake up.”
Adam hovers over me and we’re encircled in gold light. The forest surrounds us, but I don’t see the Nexians. Only trees and light.
I close my eyes again. My head explodes and tears and rips. And my body aches.
“You have to get up,” he’s saying again. And I blink. Gold light, so much gold light. And blue eyes.
“You have to run. I don’t know how much longer I can hold this.” There’s a trickle of sweat bordering his face and spreading into his hair. I taste his desperation, and I fight to get up, to run.
But I want to close my eyes.
“Please get up.” It’s more order than plea. I shake my hands free of the rope that had bound them. I sink my fingers into the ground to push myself up. I touch the side of my face. It’s hot and sticky and stinging.
“You need to run.” His hands are on my shoulders. “To the beach. You need to run.”
“Lucas?” I ask.
His eyes shrink and fall, and he shakes his head.
“I’ll take care of him. Now you, get up and go.” His arms are underneath me, and he’s lifting me to my feet. He starts to let go, but when the weight reaches my right leg, I shriek and collapse.
He catches me before I hit the ground and fumbles in his pocket. He pulls out a ring, and it glitters in his hand. All diamonds and stars.
Mark’s ring. Laris’s ring.
“Where’d you get that?” I ask, but he doesn’t answer. Instead he slips it onto his finger and presses it into my leg. He glows with the ring, gold and white. He shimmers, like all those times he’s shimmered before, only brighter. And not blue. It hurts my eyes to stare too long so I cover them with my sleeve. Everything is slow, sluggish, like a dream.
Warmth spreads into my muscles, numbing the pain, and I’m pulled to my feet. The light’s faded, and I’m in Adam’s arms. He lets go of me, and I can stand. I can walk. Whatever that ring is, it healed my leg. I point at the ring and at Lucas still crumpled on the ground, but Adam shakes his head.
“Don’t think about him. You need to get out of here.” He lifts his hand and points towards a path splitting the woods. “Follow that path. Run. As fast as you’ve ever run before. Don’t stop until you hit the lake. Okay? Do you hear me?”
“Aren’t you coming?” I reach for his hand, but I can’t reach it. He backs up and the gold light around us fades. Images are seeping through, and I see the outline of several men around us.
“I’ll meet you there,” he says. “I promise.”
“But Mark. He’s after you too.”
“I know.” He lifts the corner of his mouth. “I’ve got this. Trust me.”
There’s something not right with his words, but the throbbing in my head blocks the answer.
“Now go.” He’s pushing me to the path, and I stumble. My hands scrape the dirt, but I keep myself on my feet. I turn back for him, but there is only gold light behind me.
And the path in front.
My muscles are heavy and fighting me, but I push my legs past the skinny trees and twisted branches. I follow the dirt, half-running, half-walking. As fast as my feet can propel me.
Lake. Get to the lake. I hear the party. I smell smoke. Lake, bonfire, beach.
The ground rises beneath me, and I wobble up the hill. At the top, I see the water over the weeds. I limp the rest of the way. Sweat is pouring off of me, and my heart crashes with the waves. I fall to the beach, inches from the shoreline. My ears buzz with the sounds of voices and crackling fire. There are people over me, somebody calling for help.
Faces swim above me. Hair and eyes and flesh. Stretched out noses and stringy chins, like I’m in a fun house. But when I find his eyes, the images clear.
I am okay.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Somebody touches me. My face, my hair, my hand. “Are you okay?” It’s a whisper. Adam’s whisper. Soft, warm. I want to bury myself into it. I blink several times
. He leans over me, his face clouded with concern.
“You got away.” I touch his face, running my finger across his lips. They’re real. Smooth like velvet.
“How do you feel?”
I push myself up on my elbows. I’m on a couch, pale peach flowers and green stripes. Stella’s couch. Adam perches on the edge, shifting to help me up until I’m sitting, my legs bent and my feet pushing into the cushions. The world spins for a moment and then steadies.
I rub my head, the pain dulling to a low ache behind my eyes. Images play through my head of the woods, of the Nexians, of Lucas. Lucas. I scramble to stand, but Adam’s arm stops me.
“Whoa,” he says. “You passed out on the beach. Don’t overdo it.”
“Lucas. He was in the woods. Did you get him too?”
“Get him?” Confusion passes across Adam’s face. “I didn’t see Lucas. It was just you.”
“But you were there in the woods too? Didn’t you see him?”
“Lucas.” He pauses. He looks worried. Voices drift into the room, and Laris and Vin appear. Adam looks from me to them to me again.
“What’s going on?”
“Hold on,” he stands up and crosses the room. He leans into them, whispering. There is nodding and shaking heads and more nodding. My head spins slightly and fear crawls up my spine. Something’s wrong.
The noises from the party drift in through open windows. The voices are a gentle hum, and I smell the smoke, taste the campfire. Lucas was with them. He should still be with them. But he’s not. Because of me. Because I needed to find Adam before Mark did.
Oh god, Mark.
I’ve got to warn him about Mark and then I have to find Lucas. Adam’s at my side before I can take a wobbly step. “Mark, he’s after you. He’s been following you for years. He knows you’re an alien.”
One Starry Knight: A Scifi Alien Love Story (The Starry Knight Saga Book 1) Page 24