He hesitated. I had struck a nerve with him. He wasn’t going to let it show though, not for too long. “It’s tough times, we have to do what we need to do.” Garrick was putting on a front, I could see right through him. He obviously hadn’t thought about all the consequences of Senph’s big plan.
“You mean we have to pick a side,” I corrected him. I thought we already had – the right side. Apparently it wouldn’t stay that simple.
“They shouldn’t make us repress our powers. That is wrong,” Garrick continued, his eyes dark and brooding. He probably regretted entering my bedroom ten minutes ago.
“It doesn’t give us carte blanche to use them against the humans. Against people like Ella.”
“And Lochie.”
Hearing his name was like a sword through the heart. I pushed the thought of him away. Far away. “And Lola. And my parents.”
“So what do you think we should do?” He asked, turning the question back on me. At least he seemed genuinely curious about my answer.
I just wished I had one. “I don’t know.”
He stood. “Well, until you do, I’m going to put my money on Senph. I want my powers. You should too.” He left before I could argue, closing the door behind himself.
I snuggled into my bed, pulling the covers up to my chin. It would only be a matter of time before Senph and Rob demanded an answer from me. I needed to work out what I was going to do before that time ran out.
Unless… perhaps I could work for them both? Being a Department-Alien liaison would put me at a unique advantage to know exactly what Krom and the Department were up to. I would have access to information I could never dream of having otherwise.
And if I agreed to work with Senph and be her loyal disciple, I would know what she was planning in advance too. If I had forewarning, I could take action before anything happened.
It would mean being a double agent. I would have to play them both, keep so many secrets it would be difficult to keep them straight. Difficult, but not impossible.
Yet it all sounded like so much hard work. The alternative – much easier – option was to stay out of it all. If I told everyone no, then I could stay in my bed and pretend the outside world didn’t exist. Now that was a plan I liked.
I fell asleep sometime in the evening. I knew I skipped dinner but I wasn’t hungry anyway. The thought of eating made my nausea worse.
Something woke me up. I couldn’t see anything in the darkness. But I could hear. Someone was tapping on my window. Someone that always ended up to be Lochie.
Lochie.
I raced out of bed and hurried across the room, my eyes adjusting to the darkness quickly. I had to get to the window and open it to let Lochie in. I had to speak with him, I needed to hear him say his mother was lying. My heartbeat sped up as I moved. This was it, this was the time when all my pain would come to an end and I would get the truth.
Reaching the window, my eyes scanned the night as I lifted the sash. The moonlight was shining in the balmy night, still warm from the sun.
There was nothing there but a tree branch. No Lochie. No end to my pain. I closed the window again and sat on the sill. I calmed down while my heart stopped racing. It was so stupid to think everything was just a bad dream and Lochie would magically come knocking again.
He was gone. I needed to accept that. Yet a part of me was so angry about it, I wanted to scream. By not talking to me, Lochie had denied me being able to say anything. And I had a lot to say to him, believe me. It was cruel not being man enough to give me that opportunity.
I trudged back to my bed and picked up my cell from the bedside table. I flicked it on, bringing up Lochie’s name. If he didn’t want to talk to me, I could still leave a message on his voicemail. He would probably just delete it before listening, but it might help to vent.
Once again, my thumb lingered over the call button. I closed the phone again and dropped it onto the table. Blowing up on Lochie’s voicemail would only be proof of how much he got to me. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
As soon as the sun started rising, I went for a run. The music pumped in my ears, setting a fast pace. I pounded along the pavement, wishing it was Lochie’s head under each of my footsteps. I was still so angry I didn’t know what to do with all the emotions.
Normally, when I got so angry about something, I would fight with Lochie. He would make me even madder before saying something adorable and catching me off guard. Then I would calm down and we’d hug. Hugging would lead to other things…
I ran faster, pushing myself harder than I had before. I was still surprised by my level of fitness. Clearly I had spent too much time exercising over the last three weeks. Perhaps that was a good thing. At least I would be prepared if anything happened this time. If I needed to run, I would outrun them all.
I half expected to find Lola along the track but there were only a few other dedicated morning people. Those that recognized me gave me a wide berth, lest I suddenly attack them because I was an alien.
I had to admit, the thought of Lochie cuddled up to a human wasn’t making all my thoughts about the race any better. His new girlfriend was probably as anti-alien as his mother was. She did gush about how great she was, after all.
The route looped around to where I had started the run in earnest. I kept going, pushing myself to do the whole thing again. It was that kind of a morning.
The sun was beating down, starting to warm the day. It made the exertion of the run that much more satisfying. It was close to ten a.m. when I finished the second circuit. With the adrenalin pumping through my veins, I was starting to feel better.
After guzzling a gallon of water, I jumped in the car and drove home. As I started approaching, a familiar car was parked out front – Rob’s. I slammed on the breaks and turned around. He hadn’t given me much time to consider the job offer. One day wasn’t enough for something so huge.
There was nowhere else to go in my gym gear. I had a few changes of clothes in the trunk if I stopped somewhere – the result of another lesson learned from the past few months. You never knew when you had to get out of town without a moment’s notice.
Thinking my options through, there was only one person who I wanted to see – Lola. I crossed my fingers that she was home and drove across town to her house.
Lola’s car wasn’t in the drive, but she sometimes parked in the garage so I wasn’t immediately dissuaded. I knocked on the front door and waited.
It was Lola herself who answered. “I slept in,” she said, checking out my gym gear.
“That’s okay, I’m not here for exercise. Rob is at my house, I didn’t want to see him so I kind of ran away.”
A wide smile lit her face. “You want me to harbor a fugitive now? Geez, do your illegal activities ever stop?” She stepped away from the door to let me in.
“You signed up to be my partner in crime years ago. You should have known better,” I pointed out, following her into the living room. Mr. and Mrs. Newell weren’t home.
“To be fair, I didn’t have all the facts back then,” Lola continued her charade. “You never said you were an alien.”
I shrugged nonchalantly. “You never asked.” We both laughed and it felt so good after the few days I’d had. I was so lucky to have a friend like Lola, she was truly one in a million.
We sat on the couch. “So, what’s new?” She asked, all joking gone now.
I must have run out of adrenalin because the moment Lola asked, all those emotions I had tried to shoo away all morning bubbled to the surface. There was nothing I could hide from her.
My head started shaking from side to side before I could even put the words together coherently. She hurried to sit beside me with an arm around my shoulders. “Ame, seriously, what happened?”
“Lochie has a new girlfriend. He’s cheating on me,” I sobbed out. It felt horrible to stay the words out loud. I hadn’t told anyone about the conversation with Mrs. Mercury. Somehow, saying it made it all that mu
ch more real.
“How do you know? Did he finally call?”
“I went around to his mom’s house and she told me.”
Lola sighed, she knew the special kind of trouble Mrs. Mercury was. “Have you spoken to him?”
“What’s the use? He obviously doesn’t care anymore.”
“What’s with these guys? They think running away is the way to break up with someone?” Lola had to be thinking of Asher, she’d gone through it all only three weeks ago. But at least Asher hadn’t already moved on before he broke it off. Lochie kept that honor for me.
“I can’t believe he did it,” I mumbled, wiping at my tears. I took a few deep breaths so I could hold a conversation. Once I started delving into that kind of grief, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to emerge from it again. I could drown in all that pain.
“He can’t get away with this,” Lola declared. “You need to go see him.”
“He’s not going to want to see me.”
“So? Since when should he get to decide that? There were two of you in your relationship. He can’t just ignore you and pretend that’s it. That’s not how life works.”
The thought of seeing Lochie and hearing him say the words to me directly was not a good image. I didn’t want to see the look in his eyes when he said it. There wouldn’t be any love there anymore, just something else. Something like pity or disgust.
“I don’t want to see him,” I whispered.
Clearly, that angered Lola. “If you don’t confront him about this, you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life. You need to tell him exactly what’s on your mind. Don’t let him off the hook so easily. Think of everything he’s put you through. Get angry, Ame. Don’t be a doormat.”
“I am angry.”
“Then do something about it. Stand up for yourself.”
Standing up for myself was one thing, but I didn’t want to make a fool out of myself either. I didn’t want to be the kind of girl who went all crazy over their boyfriend. I wanted to be cooler than that.
But… there was so much I needed to say to Lochie. Lola had a point. I probably wouldn’t regret it for the rest of my life, because, well, that was a really long time. But it would eat at me for a long while.
And Lochie didn’t deserve to get away with it. He hurt me, damn it. I had a right to be angry and want some kind of an explanation. I deserved that much from him. After everything… I deserved that.
“The campus is three hours’ drive from here,” I pointed out.
“Well I haven’t got any plans for today, do you?” Lola stared at me expectantly. I kind of wondered if her insistency was because she had missed the opportunity with Asher. He had taken off to Los Angeles when we were on Trucon. He had slipped away without any fanfare, not even a goodbye.
My anger, hurt, and upset were outweighing my sensibilities. It was starting to sound like a good idea. That was dangerous.
“What do you think he’ll do if we show up there?” I asked, my voice conveying my doubt.
“He’ll do some explaining if he knows what’s good for him.”
“What about if she’s there? His new girlfriend?”
A sly smile crept over Lola’s lips. “Leave her to me.” I didn’t want to know what that meant. Judging by the glint in her eye, something told me I should probably feel sorry for the new girlfriend.
I stood up. “I want to do this. I want to go confront him.”
Lola stood too. “That’s the spirit. Let’s go.”
We charged to my car, full of gritty determination and empowered with the fact I was doing the right thing. It was Lochie that had done everything wrong, not me. He was going to have to look me in the face and admit how badly he had screwed things up.
Lola flicked on the radio in the car as we sped off down the road. She adjusted the dials until she found a serious, old time rock station. The Red Hot Chili Peppers were playing.
We rocked it out down the highway, conjuring up some girl power as we left Portview. It felt good doing something about Lochie. I shouldn’t be a doormat. Lochie owed me an explanation and I wasn’t going to leave until he had given it to me.
I. Deserved. It.
After two hours and covering two-thirds of the route, I pulled over at the next gas station I saw. My car needed some food, so did we.
“I’ll pump, you grab something good,” Lola said as we jumped out. I left her to it, heading into the small store.
Gas station food wasn’t exactly known for its nutritional value and this one was no different. I grabbed some chocolate bars and a few sandwiches that looked like they might have already been a week old. Desperate times did call for desperate measures. And I was pretty hungry.
I waited in the short queue as Lola finished with the gas. She climbed back into the car while I was still waiting.
“Mommy, she’s got the triangle. She’s an alien.” A little boy was eyeing me suspiciously in the line. He couldn’t have been more than seven years old at the most.
“Get away, come here,” his mother scolded him, tugging him away from me. I suddenly had a lot more room in my vicinity as everyone took at least one step back.
“Is she going to hurt us?” The kid again. Man, did he have a big mouth. I normally still covered my tattoo out of habit, doing something for seventeen years kind of did that to you. But this morning I had only been intending to go out for a jog, I didn’t bother putting on bracelets.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said, in the gentlest voice I could muster. “I’m just the same as you and your mom.”
“Ignore her. Don’t talk to her again.” His mother tugged him away further until she was standing between us.
All the instincts of Project Integrate kicked in, reminding me to be polite and have them like me. Unfortunately, that meant I couldn’t tell them what I really thought of their reactions.
My eyes remained fixed ahead so I could pretend they didn’t exist. I even tuned out all the continual mutterings about me from the others in the line. As much as it happened, I never got used to it. I doubt I ever would.
Finally, I reached the counter and placed the food items on the bench. “Gas pump number nine too, please.”
The attendant, a man in his mid-fifties if I had to guess, looked me up and down. I wasn’t sure if the scowl on his face was especially for me, or whether that was his usual look.
I got my answer about five seconds later. “I’m not serving you. You don’t belong here.”
“I need to pay for the gas. It’s already in my car.” Did he seriously think I was going to siphon it back out again?
“Well then, we’ve got a problem here. I’m not serving you.” Where did people get off being so rude? We could have been done already. I would have been out of his life and he would never have to see me again.
We had a stare down until I broke his gaze. I needed to be on the road, not arguing with a racist. “My friend is in the car, I’ll go get her.” He said nothing as I walked out, leaving the food on the counter. I wasn’t quick enough not to hear the comments from the others in the queue. Apparently they all thought he was a hero.
I tapped on Lola’s window until she slid it down. “I need you to go in and pay for everything.”
“Why?” Her brow wrinkled in confusion.
It was humiliating admitting the why. “Because he won’t serve an alien. Please, will you just go?” I held out the money. Lola didn’t hesitate in getting out and taking it.
I got into the car and watched what was happening inside. Lola didn’t walk, she stormed in. As she approached the counter, she held up her left wrist, proving she wasn’t an alien. I could tell by the tilt of her head and posture that was she giving the guy attitude. It bought a smile to my lips. At least there was one human with a heart of gold.
She handed over the money, took the food, and stormed out again. She threw herself back into the car with a humph. “I should get a medal for that. Because I so badly wanted to punch that guy and
I didn’t. You are welcome, you old bigot. Now he can crawl into the backward hole he came out of.”
I turned on the engine, keen to put some distance between us and the gas station. Only partly because I was worried Lola might change her mind and want to go back in for a second round.
“I’m sorry that happened,” I started. Not only was I humiliated, but embarrassed too.
“Don’t be. The problem isn’t you, it’s him. He’s the one who should be sorry.” At least she was calming down. She handed me half a sandwich. It tasted like cardboard.
As I drove, I couldn’t shake what had happened at the gas station. All kinds of doubts about what I was doing suddenly filtered through my thoughts. “Maybe we should turn around and go home.”
“What? Why?”
“Because that kind of thing happens all the time.” I wasn’t sure how I could explain what was going on in my head. When I spent time with Lochie, Lola, or my family, it felt like everything was normal. Like that’s how the rest of the world would treat me. It lulled me into a false sense of security.
When I went out in the world, there were gas station attendants and kids that didn’t know any better everywhere. I only had to walk down the street to encounter a dozen people just like them. It was never going to stop, even with Senph’s crazy plan.
I tried to find the words to make Lola understand. “If I love Lochie, I should let him go. Without explanation. Because of everything he’s put up with by being with me.”
“Pffft. That’s ridiculous,” Lola said, making a disgusted face. “Lochie is being a douche. Whether he got it on with an alien or not, that kind of behavior is out of line.”
“But-” She cut me off.
“But nothing. Get over it. We’re going and that’s all there is to it. Lochie had plenty of time to walk away if he wanted to. Instead, he went out of his way to stay with you. He jumped on a freaking spaceship for goodness sake. He can’t get out of it that easily. He owes you.”
The extent of Lola’s loyalty never ceased to amaze me. If my hands weren’t on the steering wheel, I would have encased her in a huge hug. She was the only thing keeping me sane in all the chaos that was my life.
Project Integrate Series Boxed Set Page 92