by Suze Reese
Mom laughed and pulled her head from below the bed. “Ah, my brilliant child.” She stood up with a belt in her hand and dropped it in the bag. “You said it, I didn’t. The Waikish Directive was just approved by the council. As of this week, we have to submit a request, accompanied by a body of evidence, before receiving permission to run any tests on a human or nafarian, even suspected rogues.”
“Waikish Directive?”
“Authority Yoseemer Waikish. You must have heard of him. He’s one of the humans’ biggest advocates.”
“Keddil may have mentioned him,” I said. I watched Mom for a few moments, frantically and randomly throwing clothes in her bag.
She looked and felt…nervous. Definitely an emotion I’d never seen in her before. “I didn’t realize you have even more stupid rules than I do,” I said.
“It’s frustrating, but the humans don’t even know they need their rights protected. They need people like Authority Waikish looking out for them. You know how easy it would be for us to take advantage of their kind.”
I picked up a silk blouse, folded it, and slipped it into a pocket in the top of the suitcase. “Oh yes, I know.” The many ways I was a threat to this planet was the primary focus of my training. My hand touched something hard in the suitcase. I pulled out a small weapon—a gun of some sort. I looked up, even more worried than I’d been seconds earlier. “Is this…human technology?”
Mom snatched it and put it back. “Don’t worry. I’m not likely to use it. It’s just a precaution.” She zipped up the bulging suitcase. “I’ve really got to go. Just remember—rules are good. Hang back and observe as much as you can and you’ll do just fine. I’m only a thought away.”
Minutes later, I stood in the driveway watching my mother’s car pull out onto the road. I knew I shouldn’t be angry. Mom had spent years training for an assignment tracking rogues only to be sent to Earth as just a babysitter to me. Nothing would thrill Mom more than uncovering an actual rogue. I should be happy for her.
I pulled out my cell phone and stared at the number two button. Pushing it would supposedly reach Lacey. I slipped it back in my pocket. I wasn’t that insane. Yet.
I thought about inviting Becca to come back, but that felt exceptionally pathetic.
At least with Mom gone I could eat my candy and watch my movie at the same time.
***
I was in the middle of Pretty Woman when I heard a knock on the door.
I scrambled to remember how to pause the movie with the remote control. The first result was a change in the channel. The second increased the volume. The knocking turned into pounding, from what sounded like multiple fists. I gave up on the television, but hesitated at the entry to the living room, until I heard Lacey’s voice calling my name.
I unlocked the door and swung it open. They were all on the porch—Lacey, Serena, and Camille. Their exaggerated clothes, hair, makeup and jewelry looked like an amateur version of the way the Skinnies dressed. Tiny Camille especially looked like a young child playing dress up. “What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Kidnapping you,” Lacey said. “You cannot miss this party. It is the party of the year.”
“Of the century,” Serena corrected her. A bead that was strung to a short lock of hair bobbed against her forehead.
“It’s impossible,” I said. “My parents have forbid—” I stopped, thinking of the words Geery would use. “They’d kill me.”
“Let me talk to them,” Lacey said. “I can make them understand. You’re new. You need this. Anybody who’s anybody is going.”
“They’re not here,” I said.
They smiled in unison.
I realized my mistake and considered just closing the door.
“Come with us,” Lacey said. “They’ll never know.” Her hands were clasped in front of her, begging. All three of their facial expressions shifted through several silly pleading faces.
I studied them, trying not to laugh. If I told the truth—that my dad didn’t live here and my mom was gone for the weekend—there was no way I could get out of going with them. Their excitement was palpable. My curiosity was getting the better of me. Being with a group, I reasoned, might be safer than staying home alone. Besides, I was supposed to hang back and observe. Those were my mother’s very words.
Before I could talk myself out of it I let them in and headed to Mom’s room to find some clothes.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
A short time later, dressed in one of my mom’s classiest outfits, I rode with my new friends through the dark night into an exciting unknown. I almost expected the windows of the small car to shatter with the pressure of the girls’ enthusiasm. This was apparently the first party of its kind any of them had attended. The mood sobered when the car turned up the steep road leading to the Los Robles foothills. Mansion after mansion blurred past us, hidden in a forest of massive fir trees.
“Wow.” Camille had her face pressed against the window. “Wow,” she repeated at each enormous structure that we passed.
I mumbled in agreement while fingering a rhinestone on the front of my borrowed blouse. It was easy to pick up on their anxiety, since I felt more of it than any of them. I should not be here. Should not be going to any party. Let alone one like this. If Mom found out—or even Dad—they’d send me home for sure, maybe worse. And it would be next to impossible to keep a secret this big from Mom.
I could feel my heart rate increase when we drove through the rows of cars lining the narrow road. My stomach clenched when we walked up the drive, the heavy beat of rock music growing louder with each step, stars twinkling through the branches of the tall trees. Everett greeted us at the door, making a point of hugging each girl. He whispered something in their ears that made them each giggle or blush in turn.
I stayed out of the way, circling behind the group to get into the large entryway, complete with a crystal chandelier, just like on The Beverly Hillbillies.
My eyes automatically scanned the crowded living room looking for Jesse. I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or disappointed he wasn’t there. It was stupid to even look. He’d been pretty clear about his contempt for Everett. Of course, so had I, and yet here I was. I realized then that the unlikely chance of seeing him was the actual reason I’d wanted to come in the first place.
Noises of laughter and clanging came from various parts of the expansive house. I followed the girls into the closest room where laughing teenagers were gathered in a circle, playing a game that seemed to involve asking each other embarrassing questions. The girls I’d arrived with all found an opening in the circle to squeeze into. Everett dropped into a space apparently saved for him—between Hailey and Dionne. They both grinned at him before giving me looks of contempt. I remained in the threshold of the odorous room. I wasn’t about to get that close to those two, let alone the boys in the room. Their minds were clearly not on the game.
Lacey looked up and patted a small space on the floor next to her. “Come on!” she said.
“That’s okay.”
Just then, a boy went through the doorway. He held a bottle of beer, which I recognized as at least one of the unpleasant odors in the house. He brushed against me, sizing me up with his gaze, which added to the potpourri of offensive smells invading my nostrils. I ducked past him and plopped onto an overstuffed leather chair in the corner, though it was hard to bend in Mom’s stiff jeans. I wriggled into a more comfortable position, but was only in the safety of the chair a few minutes, watching the ridiculous game, when Nick—the flirt who had a locker near mine—startled me by sitting on the chair’s armrest.
I turned my head away, breathing shallow, and did my best to ignore him.
Without warning he slid into the tiny space between my hips and the armrest. I gasped and scrambled to stand up.
“Hey!” he called. He reeked of alcohol and lust—laughing and clutching at me, trying to pull me onto his lap. I pulled away and hurried out of the room, no longer worried about offending him. W
hat was I thinking even coming to this place? I glanced back at Lacey, who was laughing at something Everett had said. She was obviously not ready to go home. I’d just have to find a place where I could keep my distance from everyone.
I followed the smell of food and found my way to the kitchen, which was filled with human delicacies. Unfortunately, it was also filled with humans. I made a note to keep an eye on the area for later. A little further down the picture-lined hall was a room even more crowded than the first. A group in one corner played a video game. Another surrounded a table with spinning knobs. In the far corner, two boys at a large table hit a ball back and forth. It was that Forrest Gump game, ping pong. Except they were hitting the ball much slower than Forrest ever did. It was a lot like a game back home called Smash—with a round table, four players, four balls, and two paddles each. I wound my way across the room to the table, engrossed in the slow-moving game of ping pong.
One of the boys hit the small white ball with his paddle in a move he was apparently quite proud of.
“You wanna play?” the other boy said.
“Me?” I looked behind me. He held the paddle out. I hesitated but decided that at the very least the game would keep me a reasonable distance from everyone else. It took some time to get used to the slow rhythm of sending the ball across the table and waiting for it to come back. I lost the first game and barely pulled out a win on the second. Keddil’s words that my mediocrity would be an asset began to make some sense. Many of my friends would have looked superhuman playing this game. When I was on my fifth game, Everett came into the room, flanked by the group from the living room.
“Movie’s on!” he announced.
“You coming?” Lacey called out to me.
“No thanks.” I had lost two and won two. This would have been the tie breaker. But the room was emptying. My opponent put his paddle down. As tempting as a real-live movie sounded, the small-space thing could not be a good idea. But no one else looked eager to play, so I reluctantly followed Lacey into the home theater.
It was bigger than I expected. Outrageously big for a residential domicile—with seating for at least forty people. Even so, I hadn’t been wrong about the odor. Too many people in the audience had their minds on the opposite sex. And their intentions were much too primitive for my taste. “You go ahead,” I whispered to Lacey, my voice strained. “I just need to find something.”
I tiptoed through the empty game room, making my way back to the kitchen. There were still several hu—kids—visiting and talking. But the bar was expansive enough for me to fill a plate without getting near them. The question was where to go after that. A wall of windows in the kitchen framed the sparkling blue-green water of a large brightly-lit pool. I considered finding a secluded lounge chair outside. But then some boy—he looked kind of like Nick—picked up a fully-clothed girl and tossed her into the pool. I ruled out sitting anywhere near the pool.
With my plate piled high, I meandered down a hallway and through the grand entry to the room where we’d started, which was now empty. I curled up on a large leather sofa, nibbled at the food on my plate, and checked the time on my cell phone. In eight minutes, at 12:30, I could reasonably stream with Geery. I’d have to wake her up, but it wouldn’t be outrageously early back home.
The room—the entire house in fact—felt packed with ornamentation. I wondered if it was typical of Earth homes. The agency had put appropriate tables and chairs into our house but hadn’t bothered with things like photographs and paintings.
Most of the decorations did nothing to tell the story of the family who lived here. The one exception was an ornately-framed family portrait on the wall across from me—almost life-sized. Everett’s father looked like a younger version of the millionaire on Gilligan’s Island. His mom could have passed for the millionaire’s wife, except with twice as much hair. And twice the jewelry. Everett looked just maybe a year younger than he was now, and was apparently the youngest of three children. Even so, he wore a smug expression that said he was in charge. Just like at school.
I wondered what I’d find if the house had memory cells, accessible to guests through their UNIDs, like back home. Most hosts would select the moments they were most fond of—or most proud of if they didn’t mind showing off—which were then accessible through our UNIDs. Probably this house would just have more grand and empty parties like this one. It was hard to imagine a young child running through these halls. Or the family frozen above me gathered around a table playing a game.
I rolled over, putting my back to the picture. Only three minutes had passed. But I couldn’t wait. I put a potato chip in my mouth and went through the lengthy process of opening a stream to Geery.
I smiled, feeling only a little guilty for startling her.
Geery gasped.
There was a pause while Geery collected her thoughts.
I insisted.
I protested.
Geery snorted with disgust.
I curled up on the couch and pulled the plate of food close.
I rested my head on the soft, overstuffed arm of the couch.
We were both silently laughing about the slow-motion game of ping pong when I felt a shift on the couch. My eyelids sprang open. It was Everett sitting on the far end of the couch. I sat up and pushed myself against the armrest.
“Hey,” he said.
I didn’t respond.
I kept my gaze on him and opened a visual connection for Geery.
“Didn’t like the movie?” Everett asked.
I shrugged.
Everett slid to the center of the couch just a foot away from me. “I’m glad I found you here.”
I pushed harder against the armrest, confused by the faint mix of emotions I sensed. “I…I’m not feeling so well,” I said, prepared to jump up if he moved any closer. “I’m just waiting for my ride.”
“Oh, that’s too bad.” He reached out and fingered a lock of my hair.
“Hey!
” I jerked my head away.
In a flash he was on top of me, pinning me against the couch, holding my hands down. I wriggled and pushed. Then relented briefly when two things struck me with complete and absolute clarity.
First, he did not have any sign of lust. He reeked, instead, of hatred.
Second, no matter how much I wriggled and pushed and shoved and kicked, I could not push him off of me or even release either of my hands or legs. Which of course was absolutely positively impossible.
My superior genes should keep me in absolute control of any physical altercation with a human. That’s what Keddil had said anyway. And he’d seemed sincere. That’s why my self-defense training had been so minimal. Why I’d been allowed to attend the school without an escort.
I was too surprised by both of these facts to do much of anything, even to call out for help. I heard screaming, which confused me further. Until I realized it was Geery, who could see exactly the same thing as me: Everett’s angry face in front of hers.
“Come on girl,” he said with revulsion-filled breath. “You know you want it.”
My breathing quickened. My throat tightened. With Geery’s screams echoing in my head, I was jarred into action. I struggled to bend my knees, to use my legs to push him off—the way I’d been trained.
But it was useless. I was mummified in his clutches. His right hand gripped the back of my neck, his left arm crossed my chest pinning one of my arms with his elbow and the other with his hand. His powerful legs pinned mine down onto the couch. He was just too strong. But how could he be too strong? Why couldn’t I push him off? Had Keddil lied about this too?
His free hand groped at my back, pulling my shirt up. His mouth was at my neck.
“Just relax,” he spoke gruffly in my ear. “You know this is what you want. It’s the reason you were waiting here.” His fingers traced my spine, under my shirt, past my bra and up to my shoulders, where they wrapped once again around the back of my neck.
I tried frantically but futilely to free my hands. To stop his fingers from their awful probing. They pressed painfully into my neck. I was too busy trying to figure out what to do to respond to Geery’s urgent calls. I tried calling out loud to someone who could actually help, but only a gargle came out.