“Stop,” I pleaded, but I was too weak to open the door.
“Here,” he said, grabbing a sweatshirt from the backseat. He folded it into a square and pressed it against my shoulder. The pain intensified, and I screamed. “Hold it in place. We got to stop the bleeding.”
“No,” I said as I placed my palm against the makeshift compress. “We…” But my voice failed. I mouthed the words as the engine started and then everything went blank.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Garran
If I moved my arms, the splintered plates pierced my muscles. If I tried to sit up, my internal organs would spill through the openings in my shell, so I lay motionless, listening first to the rain drops penetrating my weave of leaves, and then to the sound of my own breath and heartbeat.
Yes, I heard it—now that it was exposed—no longer muffled by my thick crust of shell. But I was unable to lift my head for an inspection, considering what that beast had done to my neck with its leap against my back and first bite at the base of my head.
But I had no regrets. It was my duty to take America home, and I’d do anything to protect her from a live dissection. Her soft skin, the fullness of her lips— I envisioned them now as I painfully closed my eyes against the harsh spattering of rain, her loveliness and making love to her a crisp memory.
I wish you could see me here on Earth, Father. This is what you wanted to do to America—cut her skin, crack open her ribs, and explore—a sick notion, especially for a king, and now it has happened to me.
If I was found by the humans now, there wouldn’t be much left for their research teams to do to me, considering the fact that I was practically already split in two. They’d just need to wait for me to die or kill me outright like my father would do to one of them.
So here I was, unable to move, my thoughts running wildly in my head, with nothing to do but ponder and question the wonders of the Millennius, hoping America found my ship and signaled Enestia. But even if she had, would my father send someone for me?
The alien moon. I could see it just barely between a light, leaf-laden branch, strategically placed by America as camouflage. Enestia had no moons, at least not like this barren, uninhabitable one circling Earth. Our moons were planets, planets with shelled beings genetically identical to Enestians, though shell color and sheen varied among the worlds in our galaxy.
Beyond our galaxy, there were more differences between shells than first appearance. The shells covering the beings in the next universe were thinner than ours, but still quite durable. The plates on the inhabitants in the second universe from Enestia were thinner still and rubbery, rather than rigid. Then came what the humans referred to as the Milky Way, the universe in which the only life-sustaining planet spun and rotated, Earth, which accommodated beings with soft, easily bruised skin instead of a protective shell casing.
And then it all made sense. How odd this all seemed before, and how clear it all suddenly became at this moment. Why didn’t I realize this earlier? The farther the planet from Enestia, the thinner the shells of the beings until shells didn’t exist at all. How interesting, yet baffling. Was my father right? Did our external covering make us superior over all living creatures? Enestians did have the strongest shells in the Millennius. Did this factor make it not only our duty, but our right to rule every world? To bully other worlds into submission?
No, of course not, but that’s what my father thought. I could hear his lecture now through the pulsing of my heartbeat in my ears: “My young prince, we have to explore, not only our universe, but the three alien universes on our border, snatching living samples to study and prove that we, the Enestians, are indeed the most advanced life-forms in existence.” But were we or was it only because of our hard exteriors, something that made us superior—but only physically?
Technologically, Enestians were certainly more advanced than the human race, but was it due to a superior intellect or being an older civilization, one that had more time to develop, invent, and progress? In a few thousand years, could Earth become as technologically savvy as my home planet? I believed it could. I was no smarter than America. I could argue that our levels of intelligence matched. The only thing that separated us was our appearance.
I vowed to stop my father’s experiments, end his abductions, and remove his crown, but now, with a broken shell, I was fated to die on this foreign planet, and my father’s cruelty would continue until his legacy was passed to the next royal in line—my sister.
My only hope was that the memory of America burned a soft spot in Murelle’s heart, and unlike my father, she’d find a way to maintain Enestia’s domination over the universe without threatening the weaker-shelled beings into compliance. That she would dissolve the Alien Abduction Program and replace it with one meant to explore and exchange technologies with other worlds, not to disable them and prove we’re better.
Two suns instead of one— That was another difference between us and the earthlings. Soon the foreign sun of Earth would rise, and still vulnerable under this bed of leaves, I would strain to live under its heat. The air was thick and moist from the rain, a small, simple shower compared to my planet’s violent downpours. The drops moistened my cracked lips, and a few made it to my tongue, easing my thirst.
Weak—so weak from my wounds, or was it solely from the loss of blood. I couldn’t tell. I only knew one thing for sure. I had no regrets. America was home.
But would she forget about me and leave me here to die, to be eaten by another mountain lion as it searched for its mate that lay dead to my right?
How many hours had passed? I couldn’t be sure, but my father’s warning pinged in my mind: “You can’t remain in that planet’s atmosphere for more than one day.”
The planet he referred to, Terinan, was in Sector Four, which meant it was geographically almost as far away from Enestia as Earth was. Why couldn’t we stay longer than one day? And if that bit of advice held true for that planet, did it mean the same for Earth? Was it dangerous to stay here any longer than a day? Could this Earthly sun be as hazardous to Enestians as our suns are to humans?
He expressed his caution casually, as if there was no real danger, but I knew my father. He didn’t say anything without purpose or unnecessarily. There had to be a reason why we weren’t supposed to extend our stay on a planet this far away from our own.
America was injured. If she didn’t find my ship, if no one came for me, I’d die from my broken shell soon anyway, so I’d never learn the answer.
I could only hope that I’d die before I was found and taken to a lab to be examined like one of my father’s captives.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
America
I awoke in the warmth of a hospital bed. The thin, low-thread-count sheets, stiff mattress, and the distinctive disinfected hospital smell were a luxury compared to the hard floor and heavy air in my cell on Enestia.
My shoulder was bandaged. Long strips of tape wrapped my torso to keep the pads of gauze in place on my shoulder and upper arm. An IV led from the top of my hand to a bag of clear liquid hanging on a pole next to my bed, and when I lifted the sheet, I saw that I’d also been fitted with a catheter.
Garran— He needed my help! What time was it? How long had I been here? I sat up with a jerk that sent my IV bag into a swing and a sharp pain through my upper body. No money. No phone. No car.
“I’ll hitchhike if I have to,” I whispered to myself. Ignoring my aching shoulder and wincing, I lifted the edge of the white medical tape that held my IV in place. My clothes and shoes had to be somewhere in this room. As for the catheter, it too would be gone with a good yank.
Two knocks hit the door, and I dropped back against the bed. At first I thought it might be Attie or a doctor, but the knocks were too hard and determined, and whoever it was didn’t wait for a “come on in.” The door opened a slow inch before the face and the body of a man emerged.
“Hello, America,” the man said. “I’m Detective Lewis.”
>
Detective Lewis wore a tan suit and brown shoes. His belly was too big, and his blue and gray-striped tie was too short. When he sat down next to me, his brown belt disappeared under his gut, and his shirt un-tucked slightly.
It was obvious he was a man who didn’t like to be fooled, a person who enjoyed intimidating others. As his suspicious eyes fixed upon mine and his mustache twitched with each breath, I realized how easily this detective could make Logan and Kevin squirm during their interrogations and practically confess to something they didn’t do. Instantly, I didn’t like him.
“Hi,” I said coldly but politely. I needed to get rid of this guy as soon as possible, so I could get back to Garran in time. Play it cool, America. Throw him off your scent.
He didn’t offer a handshake. Was he already trying to set things up for playing the bad cop? He pulled a pen and palm-sized notebook from his coat pocket and gave the notebook a few flips, licking his index finger each time, then using it to turn the page.
“Has the doctor been in here, yet? Has anyone explained your injuries to you?”
“No. I just woke up, but sizing up these bandages, I’d say it wasn’t as bad as it looked.”
“Fifty-seven stitches and ten staples— Your mother told me, not the doctor. You know, that whole doctor confidentiality thing.”
“My mom’s here?”
“She was. She sat through the night with you. I just ran into her in the hall. She’ll be back soon. She’s just going down the street to get some breakfast.”
“How long have I been here?” Pushing up on my palms, I sat up in bed as another pulse of panic burst through my chest, but I fell back against the pillow as the pain in my shoulder returned. I swallowed hard, practically catching my heart in my throat it was beating so fast.
“You arrived last night.”
“What time is it?” I asked, noting the bright sun through the window in my hospital room.
He glanced at his watch. “Nine twenty-three.”
“Fuck, how do I call the nurse?” I mumbled, looking for some kind of button to push. “I want the hell out of here.”
“Why the rush?” asked the detective.
“I, um, hate hospitals.”
“And I hate not knowing the truth about what happened to you.”
“What do you mean not knowing the truth?” Damn Logan for bringing me here instead of giving me time to help Garran. If it had been space-crazy Kevin who found me, maybe I could have told him about Garran, and he might have believed me…helped me get back to the cruiser to call for help.
“Let’s do this. Why don’t we just start at the beginning? You were camping with”—he flipped through his notepad—“Atlanta Davis, Logan Gomez, and Kevin Bolts. The four of you started a campfire. Are we on the same page so far?”
“Yeah.”
“And then what happened?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember anything. I remember being at the lake. A mountain lion attacked me there. I got away, and then Logan found me and brought me here.”
“So you were able to get away from that mountain lion all by yourself? No one was there to help you?”
“No, it was just me.”
“You’re, what, about five-foot-eight and one hundred and twenty or so pounds, and you’re trying to tell me that you fought off a hundred and sixty, say, hundred and seventy pound mountain lion?”
“I didn’t fight it off. I scared it off. I screamed, and I, um, ran toward it instead of running away from it. It grabbed me, and I remember kicking at it and yelling, and then it let go and took off.”
“And you expect me to believe that?”
“Yeah, I do. Because it’s the truth.” His eyebrows lifted. What a cocky son-of-a-bitch. “You don’t believe that I was attacked? Ask the doctors. They’ll tell you these wounds are from a mountain lion.”
“Yes, they are. The part that I’m having trouble swallowing is that you were alone.”
“I was alone. No one else was there until Logan showed up and found me.”
The detective looked up at the ceiling and moved his jaw like he was chewing a wad of gum. “Okay, so, for the time being, let’s just say that’s true. Now let’s go back a little. What happened before you were attacked?”
“I don’t know. All I remember is being at the campfire, and then the next thing I knew, I was at the lake and a mountain lion attacked me. Then Logan found me and brought me here,” I insisted.
“Well, I think you do.”
“Then you’re an asshole.”
“And you’re a liar,” he huffed.
“And why do you even care? Have I committed a crime?” My face was hot, and my shoulder throbbed.
“Look, two weeks of man hours have gone into your case.”
He pointed out the window. The sky was blue, wisped with circles of clouds. Was Garran gazing at the same ones, squinting in the glare of Earth’s sun, or was I too late, and he was already dead? “There was a candlelight vigil—your family, friends, people you didn’t even know crying over your disappearance. A pretty college girl disappears, and the people who last saw her claimed”—he snickered—“your friends, oh, boy”—he broke into a laugh I knew was fake—“when they were first detained and questioned, they told us you were abducted by a UFO.” He slapped the top of his knee. “Can you believe that?” His laugh faltered, and his stomach stopped bouncing. “But who knows, maybe you can believe it,” he said, leaning toward my bed.
“I don’t know what to believe because I don’t remember.”
“The media was all over it. We’re talking national headlines. Your friends were suspects. They—”
“Yeah, Logan told me what you did to them, and it wasn’t right or fair. I’m going to say this one last time, and then I’m not saying anymore.” I sat up and brought my face so close to Detective Lewis’s that I could see the hair in his nostrils. “I don’t know where I’ve been, but I do know this— Attie, Logan, and Kevin had nothing to do with it, so leave them alone.”
“Not only a liar but a selfish one, to sit there all high and mighty with your trap shut when your disappearance effected this entire community.”
“Get out of my room,” I screamed. “Now! And you’re not welcome to return. I’m going to make sure of that.” My voice crumpled. My lower lip trembled, and I sucked it into my mouth, tucking it behind my teeth, to hold my tears.
He shoved his notebook back into his pocket. “Your family deserves to know where you were and why you pulled this stunt. Everyone deserves to know.”
“Stunt? Go! Leave!” Tears came but I didn’t bother to wipe them away.
“Know this, little lady,” he said as he walked to the door. “This is not the end of this case. The FBI is already involved. You’ll be here for at least another week, so I’ll know where to find you.”
“A week?”
“Oh, yeah, that. I forgot to tell you. Your wound is also infected with some type of antibiotic-resistant staph, something that could kill you without continued treatment.” He tapped my IV bag. “You’d be a fool to leave this hospital.” And with that, he gave me a last peek through the crack of the door before he shut it behind him.
But Garran couldn’t wait another day, let alone a week or more. And what about me? An infection? Was he talking about MRSA? People died from that all the time. But I had to take the risk. It was worth losing a day’s worth of antibiotics or even more. Garran needed my help.
I scanned the room, looking for something—anything—that could help me get out of here: some clothes folded across the back of the chair, a pair of shoes, some kind of duffle bag with toiletries brought by Attie or my mother. But the room looked bare.
Just as I was going to unhook myself and push away from the bed, so I could check the small closet in the corner of my hospital room, there was a double tap at my door, and it opened a crack.
“Am?”
“Attie!”
“U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A.,” she chanted as she entered
and softly closed the door.
“From now on, you can call me U.S.A. anytime you want, and I’ll be happy to hear it,” I said.
“I thought I’d never see you again.” She bent over me and gave me a half-hug, so she wouldn’t touch the bandaged side of my body. “I didn’t think you were coming back. I thought you were gone forever.” Her strawberry smile quivered, and a tear fell to her cheek.
“I’m so sorry you guys went through all that you did. That all of this happened. That—”
“Hey, it’s not your fault,” she said, sitting down onto the edge of my bed and dropping her voice almost to a whisper. “Logan told me everything that you told him.”
“Everything?” I whispered back.
“Yeah, now we all know that we weren’t insane. That we really saw what we saw.”
My body tensed. “Did he tell anyone else?”
“No, at least that’s what he told me.”
“Attie, you have to help me. I need to go back there.”
“And help the…?” She blinked hard.
“Yes, we have to get to him before the authorities do. I need to get to his ship ASAP!”
“How? You’re stuck here. You could die, Am. You know you’re septic, right?”
“Septic? That’s serious.”
“No shit. People with weakened immune systems are usually the only ones who get it, so everyone was surprised when—”
“The radiation. It had to be the radiation,” I mumbled.
“What?”
“Nothing, nothing. It doesn’t matter. I need to—”
“No! You’re not out of the woods yet. There’s no way you can—”
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