Earth: Population 2 (Paradise Lost Book 1)

by Aubrie Dionne

  For the first time, Gale looked uncomfortable, and guilt panged in my chest for pushing him. “Listen, if you don’t want to talk about it….”

  “No, it’s okay. You’re going to find out anyway. Everyone always does.”

  My pulse increased. Find out what? Was he a secret ax murderer or something? It figured. Life never failed to disappoint me.

  Gale rubbed his forehead. “Have you seen Pirate Crusader?”

  My lips tightened. Don’t you dare tell him you watch it religiously every night, that you’ve memorized every word, every curve of his pirate hat. “I may have once or twice.”

  “Well, I’m an actor in that movie. This house is owned by one of the producers. That’s why I know the access code.”

  “That’s it?” I laughed. “I thought you were going to tell me some deep, dark, secret.”

  He loosened up. “No. Nothing like that. It’s just some people go nuts when they find out, and then they stop treating me like a real person. I know this sounds horrible, but I can’t stand those crazy fans. You know, the ones who worship the ground I walk on and scream uncontrollably in my presence like I’m some god.”

  I cringed into my seat and bit my lip. Note to self: don’t ever tell him about your wallpaper. “Yeah, that must suck.”

  We parked the car in this garage bigger than my apartment building next to a black Jaguar and a red sports car. “Why didn’t you take one of these out? They’d certainly drive fast enough.”

  “Like I said, cars make a lot of noise. The more you drive, the more Sparkies you attract.” He touched the shiny hood of the Jaguar. “Besides, I don’t have the keys.”

  “Bummer.” Guess a big movie producer wouldn’t just leave the keys lying around in the open, but they must be somewhere in that mansion of a house. I opened the trunk and showed him my supplies, not that we needed them now. This producer friend of his probably decked out his mansion with all amenities.

  “Great job.” He picked up two cans of SpaghettiOs. “My favorite.”

  “You’re not serious?” If we had one more thing in common, I’d die right there on the spot.

  “Yup.” He tossed the can in the air and caught it behind his back. “I eat these before every shoot.”

  Charmed to the core, all I could do was smile back like a big, goofy stuffed animal. If it wasn’t the end of the world, I’d be in heaven. “Guess dinner’s on me.”

  He typed another security code by the door, and we entered the mansion. The hallway opened into a massive living room with cool marble floors and a fur rug spread beside a stone fireplace twice my height. Antlers lined the walls like branches of trees had grown through the wood.

  “He’s kind of an outdoorsman.” Gale rolled his eyes at a giant stag head staring us down from the opposite wall. “Meet Bambi.”

  “Ha. Ha.” I tried to shrug off the luxury, but annoyance bristled the hairs on the back of my neck. Mom couldn’t afford a good fake leg, and one of those canoes hanging from the ceiling would probably pay our rent for the entire month. And he had six of them. Paintings of woodsy landscapes and game animals lined the walls. The animals seemed to stare back like they hunted me.

  “Hey, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” I shrugged off his hand on my shoulder before the blush working its way up my neck flushed my cheeks.

  “The Sparkies stung you back there.” He led me to a leather couch bigger than my bed. “Let me have a look.”

  Embarrassment threatened to stun me dead on the spot. No way I was taking off my clothes in front of Gale Williams. The room blurred, and dizziness sent me to my feet. This is so not cool. “I’m just tired, that’s all.”

  “Tired my ass.” His arms wrapped around me. He must have picked me up, because the next second I was sprawled on the couch. My boots trailed dirt on the white upholstery. I bet this producer wouldn’t cast me in his next movie. Then the world flashed out.

  A fire crackled beside me, the heat warming my cheeks. Was I back at the campsite? Had this entire nightmare been a dream? It would have made more sense than Gale Williams carrying me to a designer couch in some rich producer’s extravagant summer home.

  “Hey there, sleepyhead.” I couldn’t tell if Gale’s velvety voice came from my head or from the space above me. My vision cleared, and his gorgeous face hovered above me. This is no dream.

  He held a ceramic bowl with Native American artwork on the side. “I brought you some dinner.”

  “Dinner?” I sat up, and a patchwork quilt fell off my legs. “Have I been sleeping all day?”

  “Most of it.” He handed me the bowl. SpaghettiOs. How could I refuse? I picked up a silver spoon weighing enough to be made of white gold.

  Gale sat beside me. “I checked your wounds. You have a few bruises where the Sparkies hit you, but I think the effects of the electric current have subsided. I tried plugging the lamp into your arm, but nothing happened.”

  I almost dropped SpaghettiOs all over the fancy white couch. Gale Williams checked under my clothes?

  He smiled innocently. “It was a just a joke. Eat up.”

  I stirred the Os with my spoon. He’d cooked them just the way I liked—nice and steamy. It was the first time any guy had given me anything, besides a tongue lick. “What about you?”

  “I’ve already eaten a whole can.”

  “A whole can?” I dropped my mouth open in melodramatic shock. “Do you always eat so much?”

  “No.” He shifted closer and elbowed me in the shoulder. “Sometimes I eat two.”

  Yup. Just as charming in real life. No disappointment here. I stuck a spoonful of SpaghettiOs into my mouth, hoping not to dribble on my chin like an idiot.

  I needed to focus. The entire world had disappeared, and here I was worrying about tomato sauce on my chin?

  I swallowed and readjusted myself on the couch to face him. “So what are we going to do?” Not that living out the end of the world in seclusion with Gale Williams was a bad thing. But I needed to find Mom.

  “Come up with some sort of plan.” Gale put his feet up so his socks bumped against my boots. “You know, find out where everyone is, defeat the aliens, save the world. The usual.”

  His nonchalance unnerved me. “You say it like it’s impossible.”

  Gale shrugged. “It’s not that. It’s just I have no idea where to start.”

  “We have to come up with something. My mom is disabled, and she’s out there somewhere, probably scared out of her mind. My best friend can’t even stand her own parents arguing, and the Sparkies might be torturing her as we speak. Not to mention all the other people in the entire. Fricken. World.” Tears burned in my eyes. I couldn’t believe how much of a baby I was, and in front of Gale, no less.

  He reached over and put a hand on my arm. “Hey, if there’s a way, we’ll find it. I lost people, too, you know.”

  I put the bowl down on a glass coffee table resting on a tree stump and dug into my backpack. I pulled out my extra clothes, the second gun, and two rolls of toilet paper before I found the rock. “The way I see it, the Sparkies wouldn’t be so concerned with us if we weren’t a threat in some way.” I held up the rock. “They attacked me because they wanted this.”

  He took the rock from my hand and smoothed his fingers over the markings.

  “You said you had one, too, right?”

  He nodded. “Mine is exactly the same. But, what are two rocks going to do against an entire world invasion?”

  “I don’t know.” I buried my head in my hands and rubbed my temples, trying to make sense of everything I knew. “The Sparkies wouldn’t want them if they didn’t hold any power. Maybe they’re some kind of power source or ID tag or key?”

  Gale rubbed his forehead. When he gazed at me again, his eyes held an intensity I’d never seen before, not even in Jay Dovetail. “After you finish your SpaghettiOs, I have something to show you.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  PURSUIT

  My bowl clanged as
I dropped it on the thick glass table. “I’m done.”

  Gale raised an eyebrow with suspicion. “You didn’t eat even half.”

  “I’m not hungry anymore.” A sense of urgency seized me until I could do nothing else but follow him. “Not all of us are SpaghettiOs junkies.” I gave him a teasing glare.

  “Hey, that’s not a crime.”

  “Never said it was.” My tone grew serious. “You said you had something to show me.”

  “All right.” Gale stood. He offered his hand.

  Why not? Sure, he could help me up. Like he said, I had been stung by the Sparkies multiple times. I slipped my fingers into his. He pulled me up, and we stood a breath apart, like in the movies before the actor and actress kissed.

  We froze, and his breath touched my lips. I trembled a little inside. To my great disappointment, Gale released my hand. He gestured toward the large spiral stairway in the hall. “Come on.”

  What did he have upstairs? A Sparkie tied to the railing? I wanted to ask, but the way his eyes lit up made me realize this wasn’t something he could easily explain.

  Marble steps covered in a thick, flowery rug led us to a balcony overlooking the main audience hall. I thought he’d stop here, but instead he climbed to what could only be an attic.

  I stopped in my tracks. Too many scary movies about attics flashed through my head. “Where are we going?”

  “To the roof.”

  Did I trust him? Even though he was Gale Williams, I’d only met him that day. He could be crazy for all I knew. A lot of actors were crazy, according to TMZ.

  He unlatched a hatch in the ceiling. “Are you coming or not?”

  Crazy actor or not, he saved my life. He was willing to help me find Mom. And whatever was up there might be the key. I wasn’t a risk taker by nature, but this I had to see for myself. “Lead on.”

  A rectangular shaft with a ladder led up to another hatch. Gale popped it open and pulled himself up. Once again, he offered his hand.

  I could get used to this.

  A penthouse with a pool and a putting range spread across the rooftop.

  I blinked in disbelief. “Why would someone keep such a wonderful place secret?”

  Gale shrugged. “When you have the whole world looking at you, there’s only so many places you can truly call private.”

  I gasped as I turned toward the edge of the pool. A massive alien spaceship—probably the same one I’d seen from Maine—spread across the horizon beyond the trees. So close, it seemed like I could almost touch the elusive shape if I reached out and wiggled my fingers.

  Gale pulled me to a lookout point behind a stone bench. From there, I could make out the lines of the structure, and some huge circular gear churning away. Doing what, I could only guess.

  “Look there.” Gale put his cheek next to mine and pointed to the left.

  An oblong shuttle detached from the large structure and flew in an arc around the front.

  “What is it?”

  “A smaller ship. They come out of that bay at the top. I think that’s how they transport themselves to the ground.”

  I held my breath, trying not to hope too much. “That’s our way in.”

  He gave me his sly half smile that looked oh so sexy. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  “Everyone I know could be in there. We have to try.”

  I thought he’d argue with me, but, instead, he nodded, as if thinking it over. “All right. What should we do? Follow one and steal it when it lands? Or blow one out of the sky?”

  Wow. He was serious. He would help me get one of those ships. Of course, he wasn’t doing it for me. He’d lost people, too. His mom and dad? A girlfriend, perhaps? Jealousy ripped through me, and I buried it. Did I really think I had any chance with him at all? This was the end of the world, for Pete’s sake. How could I think about my dating prospects when my mom was still missing?

  I scratched my head. “I don’t know. How hard are they to track?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve never tried to track one.”

  “Now’s a good time as any.” I watched the ship dive toward the coast. “Over there. Can you get us to that beach?”

  He squinted then nodded. “That’s on the Cape. I can get us there, but any place by that large ship is swarming with Sparkies. It’s not going to be easy.”

  “Who said life was easy.” My life had never been easy. I tapped his shoulder. “I’ve always wanted to visit Cape Cod. Come on.”

  We climbed back down the hatch. I paused on the stairway, eyeing this producer’s display of hunting rifles. Gale raised an eyebrow as I pulled a smooth, wood-stocked Remington from the wall.

  “I’m not stealing it. I’m just borrowing it.” Jeez. It was the end of the world and, as far as we knew, this producer could be dead already. Besides, wouldn’t he want us using his guns to save his butt?

  “It’s not that. It’s just….” He trailed off like when Jay Dovetail had something to say that shouldn’t be said out loud.

  “What?”

  “You don’t strike me as the gun type.”

  I laughed and shook my head. All of a sudden he was some expert on me? What exactly was the gun type, anyway? “I’m not. I used to hate guns. Let’s just say the apocalypse has inspired me.” I tested the weight in my arms. The kickback would hurt my shoulder, but I could pull it off.

  “I think he stashed the ammo in the hallway by the kitchen.” Gale reached above me and pulled his own rifle from the wall. “Can’t hurt to have two.”

  Counting the guns I already had, that was four. If only we had more people to hold them. “I think that will be enough.”

  While Gale dug through the hallway closet, I opened a few of the kitchen cabinets. I wasn’t sure what to search for. Who stashed ammo in their silverware drawer? But, I felt as though I should be doing something to prepare.

  I sorted through some party favors and tinsel and came across a small plastic box with a button on it. Every nerve told me not to touch it, but I pressed the button anyway. A car beeped from the garage.

  Gale ran into the kitchen with two boxes of ammo.

  “I didn’t mean to. I pressed the button by accident.”

  He shook his head then stared at me like I was the luckiest girl in the world. “No way. I’d know that beep anywhere. You found the key to the Jaguar.”

  “Well, at least we’ll die in style.” I gestured toward the door. Mom was waiting. “Let’s go.”

  As much as I wanted to drive, Gale was the only one of us who knew where we were going. I handed him the key.

  “Pete’s gonna kill me.” Gale opened the passenger door for me.

  I assumed Pete was his producer friend. “Not if you save his life.”

  “You’re right.” He waited as I slipped into the sleek leather seat then closed the door behind me like a gentleman. Could Gale be more perfect? No.

  He rounded the Jaguar and slipped into the driver’s side. When he turned the key, the engine purred with a luxurious hum. Gale opened the garage by a remote on the key, and we sped down the drive.

  I settled into my seat, watching the gates part before us. “So how long till we get there?”

  He pulled onto the main road, and the iron gates closed behind us. “I’d say an hour.”

  So we had a lot of time to talk. Either that or sit there waiting to battle an army of Sparkies, just to hijack a ship and fly into more. Best come up with conversation.

  Too bad I fixated on one thing. “So, who are you hoping to find up there?”

  Gale glanced over at me as if debating what to tell me. He sighed, focusing on the road as we turned a sharp corner. “Besides Pete?”

  “Yes, besides Pete. Unless he’s the only person you care about on this world.”

  “I have a mom, too, you know.” He ran a hand through his wavy hair. “And we didn’t part on the best of terms.”

  “Why not?”

  “She wants me to do this new superhero trilogy. She thinks it
will skyrocket my career, maybe lead to movies where the Academy will nominate me for an award.”

  “That sounds great.”

  “You’d think so. Until you realize you have no life. Every waking moment is spent memorizing scripts, traveling to remote filming locations, and promoting your movies at press events.” He fiddled with the radio but all it played was static. “I haven’t even finished high school, and all my friends graduated last year. I feel like if I don’t fight now, my whole life will go by and I’ll be an old man who never went to a prom, walked on a college campus, or had a real job that could help the world.”

  I wanted to tell him how much his movies helped me, but then I remembered I was supposed to be the opposite of a crazy fan. Besides, the last thing he wanted to hear was how good he was at acting and looking hot. I tapped my fingers on the passenger door, trying to think of the best thing to say. “I know how you feel. All my friends are going off to college, and I have to stay behind because there’s no one else to take care of my mom.”

  Gale studied me with compassion then returned his gaze to the road. “Is she sick?”

  “In a matter of speaking.”

  He furrowed his eyebrows. “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s hard to explain.” I dug my fingers in my hair and pulled it out of the ponytail. Did I really want to get into this right now? Wasn’t I the one asking questions? Guilt snuck into my heart. Gale had told me his story. I owed it to him to tell him mine.

  I took a deep breath. “My mom lost her leg in a car accident. She was working two jobs to support me, and she fell asleep at the wheel. After that, she was…different. She lost her jobs, got on disability, and never wanted to leave the house. Now she can’t even go down the stairs. I have to get her medication and groceries.”

  “What about your dad?”

  I paused. What would he think of me? Some trailer-trash-poor-girl sob story like he heard every day in the news? No matter. I had to tell him sometime. It wasn’t like I was about to pull some snobby rich girl act just to impress him. If he didn’t like the real me, then he could find someone else to fight the aliens with. “She had me as a teenager. Dad split after twelfth grade. My mom quit high school and spent the rest of her life trying to make ends meet. After she lost her leg, I spent all my life trying to make it up to her.”