“I’m so happy for you, Lola. How did the Battle of the Bands go? I would have loved to have been there.”
“We came fifth,” she shrugged. “But we’re going to win next time. We had some serious competition, but I’m not worried. Give the Hooded Roses another year and we’ll own them.”
I didn’t doubt it. “Has anything changed at school?”
She proceeded to give me a rundown on all our friends and classmates. Some of it I had already heard from Lochie but most of it was new. Lochie wasn’t in the loop when it came to gossip. He probably didn’t know half of what went on at our school.
It seemed the yearbook committee were the ones that missed me the most. I guess I shouldn’t have volunteered to do so much with the club, now they had to find others to do my work. I felt a pang of guilt.
“Lochie is crazy without you,” Lola ended the story. “He’s been getting in fights and causing trouble.”
“He’s been fighting?” That didn’t sound like him. He could argue for a week with words, but actual, physical fighting? I couldn’t imagine him sparring with someone.
“You used to be the one he’d fight with. I think he’s angry you’re not here anymore. Not that it’s your fault, don’t get me wrong. He’s just kind of got a chip on his shoulder. You should visit him while you’re here.”
I didn’t want to confess I already had. Lola wouldn’t understand I was trying to protect her by leaving her out of what was going on. “I’ll try to see him. He hasn’t been hooking up with anyone else, has he?”
Her eyes widened with the thought. “Not at all. Girls try, they’re always batting their eyelids and tossing their hair at him, but he ignores them all. It’s like he’s a whole different guy. You changed him.”
He changed me too. I never thought I’d ever think that about Lochie. I don’t know how that hate had turned into love. I was glad beyond words to hear he wasn’t chasing after everything in a skirt. Despite his denial, a tiny part of me still didn’t believe it until it was confirmed.
“Lola, do you think he’ll still love me when I tell him what I am?” I asked quietly, afraid of the answer. Lola was the only human outside the Department that knew what I was. She had been accepting of my true race but Lola was an exceptional person.
She hesitated in answering, thinking it through thoroughly. “I really don’t know. He loves you because you’re you, I don’t think that could change just because he knows you’re an alien.” She whispered the last word.
“You don’t suppose he’ll think it’s really gross that he’s been kissing an alien? Most people think about little green men, he might think I’m really like that too.”
“I didn’t.” She shrugged.
“But you’re different. And you weren’t making out with me before you knew.”
“No, but we’ve been best friends for five years. I’ve shared a lot with you. And I don’t think you’re gross. You’re just like us, only being hunted by several organizations.” She smiled, trying to lighten the mood. “Lochie will see through the alien stereotype, he’ll still love you.”
I hoped so. But if that were true, why did I still feel so apprehensive about telling him? I guessed with the meeting coming up at the Department, I might never get a chance to have that conversation. Maybe that would be a good thing.
Talking to Lola had certainly helped to clear my head and calm me down from my argument with Garrick. I knew I had come to the right place for solace. It almost felt normal being there with her, like everything that had happened was just a bad dream. That would have been awesome.
But it wasn’t a dream, it was real life and I knew it. Lola must have noticed my change in mood. “Is there anything else going on?” She asked, piercing me with her gaze. She would know if I was lying, I was sure of it.
“You know the guy I escaped out of the complex with?” I waited until she searched her memory bank and nodded. “We’ve been staying together. Everything has been fine but he kissed me yesterday. It came out of nowhere and now he’s being a real jerk about it.”
“He kissed you? He’s an alien too, right?”
“Yeah. It goes against all the project rules.”
“Is he cute?”
I picked up a cushion and hit her with it. “That’s not the point. We have to work together and I can’t even have a conversation with him now.”
Lola giggled, it took me right back to a few months ago. “So he is cute then! I knew it. Are all of you aliens good looking, or just the two of you?”
“I don’t know what to do, Lola. How am I going to work with him now?”
She caught her breath and calmed down a little. “Well, why did he kiss you in the first place?”
“He said he was just joking,” I sighed, remembering how he had said the words so lightly but they had hurt so much.
“Guys don’t kiss girls because they’re joking.” Finally, a voice of reason. “He was probably embarrassed about it. He knows you’re with Lochie, right?”
“He does.”
“He probably did it, hoping you would feel the same way. When you didn’t, he pretended like it was no big deal and he was just joking.”
The same thought had crossed my mind too. “So how do I fix it now?”
“Talk to him,” she shrugged. “Tell him you’ve got a boyfriend but you still like him as a friend.”
“I tried talking to him. We ended up fighting and that was the end of it. He won’t listen.”
“So do what guys do.” She paused, long enough for me to wrinkle my face in confusion. “Pretend it didn’t happen. That’s the way they deal with things.”
That was actually something I could do. If I could pretend the whole thing didn’t happen, I just might be able to get through the next week. Don’t they say that ignorance is bliss?
“Ignore it, I think I can do that.”
“Good for you,” Lola declared. “Any more problems I can solve for you?”
I grinned. “Can you get the Originals and the Department to stop hunting me?”
“I would if I could.”
She returned my smile and we hung out for the rest of the afternoon. I didn’t want to leave. Partly because it meant saying goodbye to Lola and partly because I didn’t want to go back to the trailer.
When it was dark and I knew I had to leave, a lump formed in my throat. Lola walked me out to my car and the realization that I might never see her again really sunk in.
“Cool car.” She ran a hand over the worn hood. It was missing paint in large patches and had multiple dents. Only Lola could find it cool.
I wrapped my arms around her, holding her tight. “Thank you for listening to all my problems.”
“Thank you for visiting me,” Lola replied happily. “When will you be back?”
I didn’t want to tell her the truth, that I probably would never be back. It would only start the tears in earnest. “I don’t know, but I’ll try to make it as soon as I can.”
“Good, I miss my bestie. You’re missing out on the whole senior year experience.”
“I know, it sucks,” I readily agreed. “Listen, can you please do me a favor?”
“Anything.”
“Can you look after Lochie? I don’t want him getting into trouble because of me. Especially if it takes a long while for me to come back.”
Lola nodded and gave me another hug. “I’ll keep an eye on him, slap him about when he’s being a tool.” I didn’t doubt she would. Poor Lochie.
“Thanks.” I got into the car before I completely changed my mind.
The entire way back to the trailer I let the tears flow. I wanted to get them all out before I got back to Garrick and he saw me crying. He would probably think it was about him and it wasn’t. I vowed to take Lola’s advice and ignore what had happened between us.
“You were gone a while,” Garrick greeted me.
“I visited a friend.”
“Lochie?”
“No, it wasn’t. Her name is
Lola.” Ignoring what had happened was going to be harder than I thought. “Have you had something to eat?”
“I had some left over soup. There’s still a packet if you want some.”
“I ate at Lola’s.” I grabbed my wash pack and towel. “I’m going for a shower.”
He raised an eyebrow and went back to watching the tiny black and white television. By the time I got back from the shower block, he’d gone to bed.
I was too wired to sleep so I picked up Lochie’s laptop and started scrolling through the documents we’d stolen from the Department. I wanted to have as much information as I could before going into the meeting. If it was all going to end badly, I wanted to ensure I did everything I could to give it the best shot.
Some of the documents were new to me, having been read by Garrick and determined they were useless already. I knew I was going over old ground, but I had to know everything I could. I was not going to be the reason why the meeting failed.
I opened up another document, scanning through the words like I did all the others. When I saw Garrick’s name, I stopped dead in my tracks.
The document was a request for transfer and reassignment. I’d seen a bunch of them already from at least a dozen of the Agents in the project. When the project was officially put on hold, many of the agents decided to take on new assignments so they could still stay active. What that meant for their adoptive alien children was up for debate. Many of the members had to be taken from their homes and relocated.
The document that mentioned Garrick stated clearly his parents wanted a reassignment. They were abandoning him.
CHAPTER 19
No matter how many times I read through the Department document, it was still a request for Garrick’s parents to be reassigned. They wanted to leave the project altogether, their son to be allocated to another host family.
Garrick had to have seen the request, he knew the files better than I did. My eyes flicked over the screen to see him sleeping soundly on the table bed. He must have felt like he was stabbed in the heart when he saw the document. No wonder he didn’t want to talk to his parents before the meeting, they had already moved on without him.
My heart broke for him. So many times in the complex he had talked about his parents and his little sister. He loved them like a family should, doted on them like a real son. I wondered if he even saw it coming?
All the anger that was still seething under my skin completely evaporated. I couldn’t stay mad at Garrick when he was hurting inside. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what he was going through. If my parents had abandoned me, I would be completely adrift in an ocean of despair.
I closed down the laptop and placed it on the bench, my mind wasn’t going to be able to focus on anything more tonight. The best I could hope for was a bit of sleep. But it wasn’t going to be easy, not with so much to stress about.
I must have fallen asleep some time because I was awoken by Garrick, tapping me on the arm incessantly. “What?” I mumbled, squinting as he opened all the curtains and let the daylight flood in. My pupils couldn’t shrink fast enough.
“We have work to do,” he said, as if that explained my early morning wake up. At least he didn’t sound as grumpy as he had the previous night.
I sat up and rubbed my eyes. “Okay, okay, I’m up. What work are we going to be doing?”
He threw my wash pack at me. “We need to plan for all contingencies. We’re going on a road trip.”
That sounded tiring. I picked up some clothes and hobbled to the shower block. Garrick was already dressed and wired, he had probably been into the coffee stock since sunup.
He was waiting in the car by the time I returned, a not so subtle way of telling me to hurry, I’m sure. I had to remind myself he was hurting about his parents, it wasn’t his fault he had suddenly turned into a bully.
My door was barely closed when he took off. The VW Bug rattled under his harsh treatment. “So where are we going?”
“The Department.”
“You’re going to offer us up as sacrifice early?” I panicked, imagining driving through the Department’s security gates. The seventh of the month would come soon enough for that.
“Of course not,” he replied, setting my nerves a little at ease. “We need to work out an escape plan. I’d say there is a ninety-nine percent chance the Department won’t let us leave after the meeting. I say we make sure we do.”
It made sense, I had been having the same kinds of thoughts. We couldn’t blindly trust the Department like Kyle or our leaders. We had direct one-on-one experience with their underhand dealings and it wasn’t going to be as picture perfect as they all hoped.
It felt good being on the move again. I refused to think of the kiss and the argument Garrick and I had the day before. It was all ancient history. Ignorance was bliss, I just had to keep telling myself that. Lola’s advice was spot on, I was sure it would work.
“The hardest thing will be getting out of the building,” I started. “They’ll lock all the exits if we get a chance to run.”
“Do you think they’ll let us have weapons?” Garrick joked. “I could take the crowbar from the trunk, slide it into my pants.”
I laughed at the image. “I could take the pot from the trailer and wear it as a hat? They might not notice.”
“I’m sure they wouldn’t have a problem with that.”
“No, not at all.” The joking seemed to lighten the mood a little. At least we were talking to each other like normal people. “So how are we going to get through the doors?”
“We might have to wait until we are outside to make a break for it. They’ll have to transport us at some stage,” Garrick replied, serious again. We couldn’t forget about the dire situation for too long. “They can’t keep us at the headquarters forever.”
“They’ll probably separate us,” I pointed out. The Department liked to divide and conquer, always believing it was far easier to break down single units instead of one united front. That’s how they conducted most of their business.
“So we’ll need a meeting point.”
“There is plenty of land around the building, we can pick somewhere to wait.”
Garrick nodded. “We’ll need a way out of the grounds too. We’ll need to have a look at the fences and find a weakness.”
“I’m not good at climbing over fences.” I remembered my last attempt which ended up in my capture. Even though I was slightly stronger now away from the complex, climbing definitely wasn’t my strong point. Maybe I should have been doing pushups for the last few weeks.
“We’ll find a way to go through them then, even if we have to cut a hole today.”
“This is really going to happen, isn’t it?” I asked quietly. It was fine for Kyle to tell us we had to meet with the Department, but it was all starting to become real. We needed to have a plan to escape because we would need it, it wasn’t just a game of cops and robbers played in the backyard as kids. This was our reality. And it could also be our downfall.
Garrick placed a hand on my leg and squeezed it for reassurance. “We’re going to figure it out. We’re not going back to the complex, I promise.”
So many people made promises they couldn’t keep. I hoped Garrick wasn’t one of them. The best shot we had was being prepared and having a plan, just like Garrick said when he woke me up. I had to focus on the plan and not the outcome.
“So once we’re outside the gates,” I started. “We’re going to find each other at the meeting place. From there, we’ll need to run and disappear. They might have dogs to track us pretty quickly.”
“Water doesn’t take away scent,” Garrick said bluntly. “So we’ll have to move quickly and put distance between us and them.”
I looked around at the old car. “How fast do you think this can go?”
“Forty miles an hour on a good day.” I suspected as much. It wasn’t exactly Herbie the race car. “We’ll have to find something faster.”
“We could ask H
ayden to pick us up? He might have some more friends he could pass us over to. The more times we change, the less chance the dogs have of following us.”
“That’s a good idea. Do you think he’ll want to help again?”
We had already used up so much goodwill with Hayden and his friends, but it was worth a shot asking anyway. If he truly believed in the cause, then he might be stupid enough to help us again. “I’ll call and ask later.”
“Okay, so that’s transport. What happens after we get away?” Garrick asked aloud, but I think he was asking himself the question just as much as me.
“Hide out for a while?”
“Then what?”
That’s when the answers ran out. We would need to go back into hiding and then start all over again. The leaders of Trucon would have to be told of the Department’s betrayal and then the decision about how to proceed would be theirs. All options for a peaceful resolution would be gone.
I wondered how long it would take for the leaders to act. How long would it take them to raise an army and send them to Earth? Would they already have started the process? I felt envious of all the humans that didn’t know what was about to happen. Their ignorance was truly bliss.
“Hey,” Garrick started in the silence, stealing a worried glance at me. “Keep focused on the task at hand. We can worry about everything else later, after the meeting.”
I nodded. Once you started to think of everything all at once, your mind just exploded and then started shutting down. Mine was doing a good job of it.
I told myself to focus and shut everything else out. Once the panic truly set in, it would be more than difficult getting rid of it. “Okay, we have the meeting. Then we escape when they take us outside for transport to another facility. We meet up at an agreed point and then Hayden picks us up. We flee and go into hiding, contacting Kyle to tell him what happened as soon as possible. Is that about it?”
Garrick gave me a look of approval. “That about sums it up.”
We arrived at the road that led to the Department building, the one we would take on the seventh of the month to meet with them. For now though, we had to stay under the radar.
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