Battlefield

by J. F. Jenkins

  Briefly her dark eyes met his hazel ones. “I think you’ve changed though.”

  “Really? Because I don’t feel different.” His eyes sparkled a little.

  “You are. You’re not being left out. We wouldn’t be able to do anything without you. You do realize that right?” She reached over and put a hand on his knee, giving it a gentle pat.

  JD stared down at her hand, and she noticed his own hands twitch at his sides, like he was thinking about holding her hand; then he stared into empty space.

  “I don’t realize it. You don’t get it though.”

  Her hand moved up to grab his so she could squeeze it. “Then explain it to me? I want to know.”

  When he didn't reply, she pressed a little deeper. “Please?” She would either break through, or he’d completely stonewall. Sometimes all it took was a little reassurance.

  His body tensed up, and he pulled his hand away from hers so he could grab his cocoa mug, taking a drink and using both of his hands as a cradle. He looked from the cup to her and then once more back at the cup. “It’s not important anyway.”

  It is, she wanted to say, but bit her lower lip and nodded instead. “I trust you when you say that.”

  Why isn’t he talking to me? She absolutely couldn’t stand this awkward silence lingering between them now, nor did she understand why he was looking at her so strangely, like he didn’t recognize her anymore.

  “Try not to change too much. Can you promise me that at least? Because I don’t know how much more of this I can take,” he said with a heavy sigh and put his now empty mug on the table.

  I’m not changing at all. I’m still me. “Yeah, I promise.” All he was asking her to do was try, right?

  “You done talking? You say everything on your mind?”

  “Yeah.” No. There were still a lot of things she wanted to tell him. She wouldn’t of course. Now wasn’t the time.

  She wanted him to know what it all felt like and for him to understand how scared she was. Constantly she learned something new. Information popped into her head every second. Even now, each thought sparked a new association for her that produced new knowledge for her to process. It was like her brain was attached to a constant Internet search, like she was Google, and she had thousands upon thousands of pages to sift through.

  She also hated how her logic was destroying her faith. Another thing he probably wouldn’t understand, however, simply because JD couldn’t possibly imagine what having no faith would be like. He was always so sure of everything and so easy to trust. She used to be the same way, and now the more she learned, the less she did.

  Alan. She wanted to trust him and give him the benefit of the doubt, and part of her did believe he had the best intentions at heart. What bothered her though was how he kept things from them, and it was so obvious, too. Did he actually think they were dumb enough that they wouldn’t be able to tell? Still, it wouldn’t be a wise decision to confront him on it, not yet at least. She was willing to give him until the end of this mission to decide what to do about these doubts. After all, she also understood his military logic, too. There were things she and the others didn’t need to know. Whether Alan was withholding the information due to orders or naivety was another story. He came across as being some kind of big, tough, all-powerful alien, but it was quite clear he was still a lot like them. This scared her most of all.

  “Are you sure?” JD raised his eyebrows. “I know you’re thinking about something. I can see your brain doing it. You also got quiet on me.”

  She decided now would be a good time to clean up their dirty dishes. She didn’t like lying to him. He’d pick up on it eventually.

  “I’m a woman. I’m always thinking about something.” Hopefully he would buy it.

  “And because you’re a woman, I know that when you say no, you actually mean yes. Why do you do that by the way? It’s frustrating and annoying.”

  “Sometimes it’s because we don’t want to burden you with our melodrama.” She faltered a little when she noticed him frown. Focus on the dishes. “I mean, our problems?” Would he be okay with that? Did it sound more like something she would have said before her vocabulary expanded so greatly? “Either way, you know what I’m trying to say. Other times we’re testing you. We want to see how well you’re paying attention, and sometimes it’s because we don’t think you’re going to ever understand it, so we say nothing because we want you to let it drop. You didn’t hear that from me though. I think I just broke the girl code. I’d feel pretty special if I were you.”

  “Oh yeah, I feel awesome. Thanks for the insight. So which one is it?” He stood, joining her in the kitchen. He had a tendency to follow her around the house if she was ever away from him for too long. For someone who grew up in a full house, he had a hard time with being alone. She’d certainly be begging for as much privacy as she could get.

  “Which one is what?” She turned and found him rather close behind her. He stared over her shoulder and watched her. That was when she realized she’d been washing the same cup over and over again.

  “Your reason for not telling me.”

  “A little bit of columns A and C.”

  “I guess I’m happy you’re not testing me at least.”

  “But?” She swallowed.

  “I want to understand.”

  She shut the sink off, dried her hands, and faced him again. Her hands shook a little, and then a lot when he grabbed them with his own.

  “Cadence, tell me.” His eyes were wide and pleading.

  “I’m scared.”

  He laughed. “We’re all scared.”

  “If you’re scared, if we’re all scared, then this is a bad idea.”

  “Or that means it’s more important.”

  That made no sense, and she was going to say as much, but stopped when the keys in the door turned. Mom was home. She pulled away and started to go back to cleaning.

  “Hi, Mrs. Sinclair,” JD said.

  “Hi,” her mom said, and went through her usual evening ritual of hanging up her purse and then jacket on the closet doorknob. “Work was slow so they sent me home early, especially since I’m pushing overtime for the week as it is. You kids up to anything fun tonight?”

  “No,” JD said and left the kitchen.

  Cadence finished the dishes and then joined them in the other room.

  “I was thinking about watching a movie. I just picked a few new ones up. I got some popcorn, too. You’re welcome to stay, JD, but you know you’re always allowed to stay as long as you want to,” her mom said.

  “I’d like to, but I should probably be getting home. I have a feeling I’ll fall asleep, and then I’ll end up missing my curfew. I kind of want to be able to use the car tomorrow night, so it’d probably be a good idea to not piss the parents off,” he said.

  “Next time then.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Cadence said and walked him to the door. She tried to not be too obvious with how much she wanted him to leave, but it was also clear he wanted to go just as badly. He’d never worried about curfew in the past, and they both knew his parents wouldn’t get mad if he was a little later than usual. There was nothing more to say though, so it all worked out. As soon as he was gone, she let out a quiet sigh of relief. She forgot her mom was still watching.

  “Did something happen? Was I interrupting a moment?”

  “No, we were just hanging out,” Cadence said. Sitting on the couch by her mother, she curled her legs in close to her body.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “We were.”

  “Okay, but you seem tense, and that’s not like you.”

  “Maybe I’m just changing. Am I allowed to do that? Do I have to always be the same?” Cadence snapped.

  “No, you can be different if you want to.” She spoke calmly, and Cadence instantly felt guilty.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what, honey?”

  “Getting defensive, I guess. JD keeps getting on me abo
ut being different, and I’m tired of hearing about it. It’s part of growing up. I’m not doing anything wrong.”

  Mom rubbed a hand over her legs. “No, you’re not. Sometimes it’s hard for other people to accept when their friends do change because they just don’t like what the person is changing into, or they’re afraid you’re going to grow apart.”

  The metaphorical light bulb turned on. So that’s his problem. “I don’t think I could get rid of JD even if I did want to. It would be too weird.”

  “Is school stressing you out again?” Her mom gave a small smile. Cadence wanted to always be cool and collected like her. The woman had gone through so much, and it was like she never batted an eye.

  For the first time in a long time, she lied to her mother. School was not a problem anymore. “Kind of. I have a lot of homework this weekend.”

  Her mom nodded. “Okay, well, tomorrow I am going to take you out for a little shopping spree, and before you fight me on it and try to tell me all the reasons you don’t need to, I’m going to tell you why you do. I have money because I got a bonus, and I want to spend it on you. I’m not talking about jewelry or a five-hundred-dollar dress, but lunch at some place that isn’t fast food and a decently priced treat or two will happen whether you like it or not.”

  “I guess I could indulge you.” Her mom gave her the same strange look JD had given her earlier. “What?”

  “I’m happy your studying is starting to sink in. I’m proud of you, honey. You’ve obviously been working hard. All the more reason for a reward.”

  “Thanks, Mom. I’ll start the popcorn if you want to put the movie in?” She was proud of herself, too. She was finally living up to the high bar placed over her. She hoped her Dad knew and was proud, too.

  Cadence got back up, feeling a little better. Her mom always knew what to do.

  In the kitchen, she pulled out her cellphone and texted JD. “You’ll always be my best friend.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Boooooooooored,” JD said and shivered a little as he watched the riverbanks. Something should have been happening. An hour had already passed, at least, and nothing was going on. “Okay, so if we’re supposed to be watching this team of other people show off their awesomeness, Alan, where are they?”

  They had carpooled from Orlando’s house to a nearby park and then hiked through the woods in the dark to their appointed station. It took a bit to adjust to the lighting, but the moonlight provided enough to see by. This portion of the park was elevated from the river. The water had carved its way through and made some fairly impressive hills and drops over time. Here the current was slower. Further north was a popular waterfall a lot of teenagers went to for dates and thus littered the park with their make-out sessions. JD once frequented the place with one of his ex-girlfriends.

  “Yeah, Alan, where are these guys? To think I gave up my Saturday night for this,” Orlando mumbled.

  “And what exactly were you going to do anyway? Did you have a hot date with your computer?” JD asked.

  He rolled his eyes. “Something a lot more entertaining than waiting for mosquitoes to bite me, I can tell you that much. What are you doing wearing that thing anyway? There’s nobody here.”

  JD pointed at his mask. “You never know who’s watching, man.”

  “Fine.” Orlando put on his mask and sat down in the grass, shivering.

  Alan sighed and paced around the area. “He did this on purpose.”

  “Who did?”

  Cadence said, “His superior. And I would hope he wouldn’t lie to you. Unless there’s something going on that we don’t know about?”

  More secrets, and JD didn’t like that. What did she know? Outside of everything.

  “If we’re out here for nothing—” Orlando said.

  JD rolled his eyes. “You need to take a chill pill, man.”

  “Shh!” Orlando waved a hand at him. “There’s someone down by the water.” He pointed down towards the river, and two forms in dark clothes were just barely visible.

  JD's eyes practically lit up, and he crept closer to get a better look. “I see two of them. No, three. No, two.” He did his best to speak quietly despite all of his excitement. His heart was racing so loudly he almost couldn’t hear anything else over its thumping. “Yeah, it’s two.”

  “Glad we’ve established this.” Orlando stood behind him, also crouching down. “I wonder what they’re doing. Are these the people on the other team, Alan?”

  When the two teens stared at the alien, his face was pale. “This is who attacked me at your school.”

  “You serious? Bad guys.” JD returned his attention back to the duo. The most he could tell about them was one was male and the other female. Beyond that, there weren’t any other defining features to work with. Alan either had good eyes or good intuition. “You know, we should think about getting code names. Just saying.”

  “We can talk about that later. Shouldn’t we tell someone they’re here?” Cadence said. She stood back from the group and hugged her arms.

  Alan shook his head. “No, I was told to not interrupt their objective no matter what happened. We observe just like we were told to do.”

  JD began to creep forward again, finding a nearby bush and ducking behind it. “I’m going to observe closer then.”

  With a sigh, Orlando followed him, throwing up his hands in defeat. The two slowly and carefully made their way down the cliffside of the riverbank, trying to make as little noise as possible as they kept their footing while stepping on twigs, rocks, and leaves. How the other two got down so easily was a mystery, because without Orlando’s telekinetic abilities, JD was certain one of them would have fallen and broken something.

  “I think this is too close to the entrance. We’re not even a mile downstream from the park, and I don’t think it would be a good idea to—” they could now hear one of Alan’s attackers say. He didn’t sound much older than them actually.

  “The body will drift. The current is strong enough here that nobody is going to know. Unless you think it would be a good idea to carry him further down and then drop him in, but that might look more suspicious. Do you trust me, Bean?” the girl said.

  “Yes, Sprout, you know I trust you,” the boy said.

  The girl nodded and took a moment to pull her long, wavy blond hair back into a ponytail. The moonlight was hitting them just right, so that the two teens spying could get just enough of their physical features. Not that it made much difference in the end because the masks worn by the other two distorted anything remotely recognizable. All that he could make out was they were both tall, athletic, and blond.

  “Do what I say then. Help me with him,” she said and stepped back into the forest.

  “Code names,” JD mouthed to Orlando, briefly turning his attention away from the scene.

  “Dead people,” Orlando mouthed back and pointed back to the two.

  Dead people. It took a moment to sink into JD’s mind. He’d never been close to a corpse before; he’d never actually even seen one. Sure, he’d had relatives die, but more often than not he had babysitting duty for the rest of the family. The closest thing he’d ever come to death was a visit to the local mortuary for a school fieldtrip while his health class was studying mortality. Now there was a dead person nearby, and not one that was cleaned up. A legit person who may have just keeled over. It was hard to figure out what was more disturbing—the fact that he was close to this body, or that these two teens were completely unfazed by it.

  His stomach turned, and he literally started to shake when he saw that the two didn’t pull a body out from the wilderness. They walked out with a third, living one.

  “Please, help me,” the third person said in between sobs.

  It was a teenage boy, and it took a moment to figure that out because his voice was cracking so badly.

  Bean looked at his companion and opened his mouth to say something, but she shook her head, so he held it in.

  “Pl
ease?”

  JD faced Orlando and gestured silently, “Do something!”

  He shook his head. “You crazy?”

  JD sighed and made more gestures, illustrating that this boy was going to die if they didn’t do something—duh. How could Orlando not want to help? But the guy wasn’t budging, and they were running out of time. He picked up a rock and decided to take things into his own hands, literally. Right before he was about to throw it, Orlando grabbed his hand to stop him.

  He made a small gesture, and then the sound of a loud thunk was heard further away. Bean and Sprout both stopped what they were doing and searched around them. There were more thuds and thunks and rocks actually started to pelt at the two from out of the forest in all directions. Sprout let out a shriek of surprise, and JD gasped as she summoned up a protective wall of vines.

  “Who’s out there?” she yelled and slowly brought her shield down once the attack subsided.

  “Sprout, maybe we should—” Bean said.

  “Don’t be a coward. Show yourself.”

  Neither of the two boys said a word, watching and waiting to see if she would dare try to come after them. She didn’t move from where she stood. Instead, she turned her attention back to her captive. That was when JD stepped forward.

  “What are you doing? Are you nuts?” Orlando whispered.

  “I’m not a coward,” he said, not bothering to lower his voice. He didn’t care if she heard him, or if their cover was blown. They weren't going to kill that guy.

  Sprout had heard him, and she faced him, peering through the forest. “What was that?”

  “I’m not a coward,” JD said louder and stepped closer, carefully making his way down to the banks. The terrain was less steep here, so it was a lot easier for him to maneuver. He was pretty sure Alan and Cadence were watching and freaking out that he would do this. At the bottom he adjusted his jeans, but that was only to distract his mind from screaming at him. He was terrified. There was a snap of twigs behind him. Orlando was coming. JD smiled.