by Maia Starr
“That’s impossible,” she said, plucking him up from the ground and holding him close to her body, cradling him like a child. “They’re extinct. You said so yourself.”
“I feel it,” I pressured. “Sidney, you have to trust me.”
“They’ve been extinct for years!” she shouted back. “You killed them, remember? And they don’t look like him, and he hasn’t even shown any sign of evolution or growth!”
“Where did you find him?” I demanded, and she became immediately standoffish, unwilling to share.
Finally, she relented, “Outside of your base.”
“Sidney, what reason do I have to lie about this? You have to trust me. I feel this pull at all times and even more so when he’s near.” I began to hyperventilate then: shaken. “I need to get out of here.”
Chapter Eleven
Sidney
Tessoul raged in his cell, his makeshift cage made of the bones of an old trailer, rigged up with an electroshock field and thick bars. Our militia had done everything possible to trap him, and while I knew it was once the plan to get a Vithohn in captivity and find out what he knew, it no longer felt like that was necessary.
Now Baxley expected me to get the information out of him, and all I knew was that there was a war coming.
I looked down at Ed, sweet and sleeping in my arms, and wondered how he could possibly be a Kilari. I petted his squishy head and rocked him in my arms before letting him loose on my bed to snuggle into me.
He had to be harmless.
My eyes shut, heavy and damp, and I slept hard for the first time since Tessoul and I had been apart. I didn’t know what to say to him after I’d left his cage and he’d only begun spouting off nonsense and looking out-of-body somehow.
My eyes burst open just hours into the night when I heard a crash outside and the unmistakable pops of our turrets. Not more fighting, I thought. Not again.
I raced up from my bed and peeked out the slatted blinds of my trailer; I watched as five Vithohn rushed our camp and started grabbing our women. Apparently, they wanted a piece of whatever everyone else was having.
One of the women was being pinned down and assaulted by the Vithohn, and I could hear Tessoul screaming—a harsh, vindictive cry from his cage—telling them to leave.
I raced for my boots and my gun and made my way out the door, firing at will as the cold hit my face.
The Vithohn looked up, and I started running toward the women he was touching, shooting at him and watching his force field come up over his body like a laser shell.
I shot off a few more rounds and watched as the militia gathered, several more of them being taken by the Vithohn as they tried in vain to help me.
Then Ed appeared, rolled out from my trailer, and sent a surge of pain through the Vithohn.
I ran to him, scooped him into my arms, and held him out toward them. Their reaction was as if I were holding up sonar rays that only they could hear: loud, painful ones. They bellowed and recoiled in pain.
The group of them retreated, grabbing our people as they did so.
I followed after them into the woods. Old familiar, I thought. I ran until my legs ached, feeling nothing but sweat even despite the cold breeze.
Baxley grabbed my arm, pulling me back and pressing his finger against his lips, trying to get me to quiet down. Years of being together had taught us how to fight side-by-side like some kind of well-rehearsed dance. He knew my thoughts and moves before I did, and vice-versa. We knew each other so well.
I watched as the Vithohn maneuvered through our series of booby traps: our pink lava designed to crush and burn them.
I wondered what would happen to the five women they’d stolen if they did fall in. Were we waiting to watch our friends die?
My arm jerked out of Baxley’s grasp, and I spun on my heel, turning back to the trailer park in disgust as we let the Vithohn leave: let them win yet another battle.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” I said sadly as Baxley caught up with me.
“There’s nothin’ we could’ve done,” he said with a reassuring hand to my back.
I shrugged. “I know.”
“We’re the same, you and me,” he offered, and I began to laugh.
“Oh no,” I smiled weakly. “Are we about to bust into an ‘old sport’ soliloquy? Because I don’t think I could take that right now.”
“Not fancy enough for a soliloquy,” he chuckled. “You okay, kid?”
I stared, twirling my gun in my hand, checking the rest of the camp for anyone who might be hurt. In truth, the rest of the militia had fled to their trailers to grab more guns or simply to hide. The Vithohn knew where we were now; they were after our females.
“The girls,” I shrugged.
“They’re getting aggressive,” he said and then clarified, “The aliens.”
I nodded.
“I’m sorry you had to go through all this but,” he brushed his arms, “Hell, you’re stronger than anyone else here. You can take it.”
He paused then, and we spent the next twenty minutes checking the camp, making sure everyone was alright. We lit a fire and reset the turrets; I looked at Tessoul with pleading eyes, and he wouldn’t even look at me. He was shaking.
He needed to leave, and I knew I had to find a way to convince Baxley, which would be especially difficult given what had just happened.
Baxley nodded toward Tessoul’s cage as we ended the far corner of the park and said, “You get any more information from him? He know they were comin’ for our people?”
“He’s not speaking to me, really,” I said coldly.
“Aww,” Baxley mocked, punching my arm lightly as if he were about to call me ‘slugger.’ “You in a fight?”
“Hey, why are the girls there?” I asked, watching as two women had walked up to Tessoul to speak with him. “Trying to extract information?”
Or just making sure he was alright?
“Yep, that’d be my guess,” Baxley said with a cold plume of smoke to the air as he puffed on a cigarette: his anxiety relief.
“I thought that was my job,” I argued.
Baxley laughed and began to walk away from Tessoul’s sight until he saw that I stayed put. He took large steps and dragged his feet in the mounting snow, walking back over to me. “You’ve done enough,” he said and then on a more serious note shared, “We were so, so worried about you, kid.”
“What’s he doing?” I ignored, pointing at Tessoul, who was shaking in an explosion of emotion. It was the pull; I knew it.
“I don’t know. He keeps raging; it’s insane. We need Karen. We gotta bring her back and study him, find out what’s setting him off. We keep having to zap him.”
“You what?” I spat out in disgust. “Karen was right about them, B. I saw it with my own eyes. They’re tame. He’s tame now.”
“Yeah, I talked to the thing, I get it,” he murmured.
“And I saw more at the base,” I reasoned. “If we can figure out what makes them settle down on a larger scale—”
“Without opening a brothel,” Baxley interrupted, taking another drag.
I snapped my fingers in agreement and continued, “Then we can really start something. I mean, he’s really calmed down. He feels a lot of guilt over everything that’s happened. He was even talking about gathering females to try and steady his crew before I ever brought it up. I didn’t even have to sell him on it.”
“I bet,” he scoffed.
“I don’t think he has any secrets, B.”
“That why you keep comin’ back with nothin’?” he needled.
“Well, you know what? You didn't even give me a chance to talk to him before you went ahead and shot him! Okay?”
Baxley laughed, hard. “What, you think he would have willingly got into the cage? Let us poke and prod at him?”
“I think none of this was necessary any longer, yeah,” I seethed.
“With that?” he pointed to the center of my legs. “That w
hat you’re gonna convince him with?”
I set my jaw, balling my fists. “You need to back off.”
Baxley stared at me then, and his eyes fell away from the glaze that had just covered them when he said such awful things to me. He’d never spoken to me disrespectfully, ever.
“I’m sorry,” he said stoically; ashamed. “You’re right. I’m off. I’m way off. You’ve just been gone so long, and everyone’s been… well, we’ve been a mess, kid. Now he comes back with you, and you’re all…” He gestured his hands to me and couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence.
“Wasn’t that the point?” I argued.
“No. The point was to study him and find out what he knows. Not screw him in your trailer.”
I licked my lips then and felt them chap immediately against the air. I spun on my heel.
Baxley followed beside me, watching as I crossed my arms, and he said, “You don’t think I have the right to say that, soldier?”
“I think you went about this the wrong way and I think we need to let him go, right now,” I fumed.
“Are you kidding me?” he breathed, incredulous.
I continued to walk away from him, incensed, and he grabbed my arm and pulled me hard so that I spun around. “There somethin’ you’re not tellin’ me, kid? You love this guy?”
I set my jaw.
“Maybe I do,” I said, and I watched his eyes crumble. “They’re going to keep taking our people, B. So, unless you want to see this camp disappear, he needs to get the hell out of here. They sense him; it’s a thing, okay?”
Baxley looked at me then and ran a hand through his dark beard. “No,” he said, dire. “We fight.”
“Stop this! You’re being stubborn, and I get it, but we have five pockets left! Just five groups living around the world. And from what I heard, the Lotus Group was attacked yesterday, and we still haven’t heard back from them. Get it? This could be it for us.”
“So you want him gone?” he repeated.
“I think we would be safer if he left. He goes back to his camp, we grab Karen and be done with it. Whatever the hell we decide to do, we need her with us.”
Baxley chewed his lip then, searching my eyes. I knew what he wanted; he wanted Tessoul to leave. Now that I admitted my real feelings, all he could think of was how he could say yes, send him away, without it looking so pitifully transparent.
“I want reports from the girls,” he began, all business as he pointed to the girls in the distance fawning over Tessoul, even despite his body arching and slamming against his confines; despite the attack we’d just witnessed. “They say there’s nothin’ he’s hiding then send him out. But I want Karen back tonight.”
“Fine by me.”
Chapter Twelve
Sidney
I used to enjoy crashing into Lele’s lab. It was a large purple trailer in the center of the trailer park with yellow stripes along the sides. It was home to innumerous stolen goods and tech.
Lele, myself, and Rebecca had gathered here with Ed so that I could test Ed: test his DNA against our database. Karen’s database of alien creatures we knew about. I needed to know if Tessoul was right.
“Where is Tessoul?” Lele asked, blinking curiously and looking around our makeshift lab as though he might suddenly appear.
“Released,” I said quietly and swallowed hard.
I hadn’t seen him since Baxley let him go, days ago. The conditions for jealous Baxley was that I was not allowed to see Tessoul; I couldn’t watch him go. I agreed, believing Tessoul would never allow it or that he might wait for me and tell Baxley he wouldn’t leave without me—his one true love.
But he did go.
Baxley said he headed to the mountains and my heart hadn’t stopped sinking ever since.
“I see,” Lele said, fiddling with the sample in her hands before setting it down on the table. “Will he be staying with us?”
“I don’t think so,” Rebecca said, her saucer eyes looking sad as she regarded me. It seemed that many of the girls had bonded with Tessoul before he left, Lele included.
“Then…” Lele paused, choosing her words carefully. “I am sorry. He had a kindness to him that was genuine. He seemed good for you, Sidney.”
“How’s that?” I asked.
“Oh, I don’t know, because you actually seemed happy?” Rebecca offered with a small, sad laugh. “How many of us get that in this life?”
“And stable,” Lele added. “You seemed very stable with him.”
Rebecca snapped her fingers in agreement. “And he seems a little more in your age bracket.”
“And out of my species,” I mocked.
Rebecca shrugged at that and began to spin in her stool. Balancing herself with the counter, she asked, “Where is he now? What’s the plan? I’m surprised Baxley even let him go.”
“Yeah, well, we can to an understanding. It’s called, ‘Get Karen or you’re dead,’” I mocked.
“Ah,” was all Rebecca said.
“Where is Tessoul now?” Lele asked.
The answer to that unnerved me. If he was really headed toward the mountains, I wondered if he was doing so because he was following his calling, if he were waiting for me, or if he was planning an attack on our camp.
“I don’t know,” I said lamely. “He’s been wandering off to that same spot where I found him. It’s been days.”
“Well,” Rebecca shrugged. “He’s pissed.”
“No, it’s something else,” I said, the worry paramount in my voice.
“Well I don’t blame him if he is pissed,” Rebecca spat and looked to Lele for visual confirmation. “Baxley’s a shit.”
“What does that mean?” I said.
Rebecca’s big eyes seemed glassy then, and she began toying with her hands, which made me nervous. “It means... I feel bad for the guy. It's like you took the blinders off him for the first time in his life, the guy feels this horrible guilt and you're the only solace he finds. Then you just ripped it away from him.”
“Hey,” I said sternly. “I love him, okay?”
“That is touching,” Lele said in a tone that read the exact opposite.
“That is actually amazing,” Rebecca added. “Why are you not together right now?”
“I’m gathering a diagnosis here, okay?” I breathed and pushed myself from the counter, pacing the trailer with mounting worry.
“Yeah, what’s this about anyway?” Rebecca said, tapping her fingers on the counter anxiously as though my impatience was contagious. “Whoa,” she breathed with sudden shock. “Are you carrying an alien baby? Are you a cute little baby-mama now?”
“What?” I laughed, horrified. “No! I brought in a sample, and I’m here to collect it from Lele. Not a pregnancy test, okay?”
As though it were possible for her to forget, Lele blinked in surprise and raced for the sample, watching the results form on the screen. She didn’t have to say anything after that since the answer was obvious.
“It’s a match,” she said.
“No,” I breathed and felt the air leave me; I felt my stomach sink into despair.
“Your sample from… Ed is an exact match for the Kilari,” Lele affirmed officially.
Rebecca had been petting Ed off and on since we all gathered in Lele’s makeshift lab. Her hand flinched away from the creature, and her eyes shot up to mine. With no small amount of panic, she stayed frozen in place, her arm behind her head as she said, “You’d better start talking right now.”
The fact that she was so repulsed by the creature only made me feel worse. It made me sad on some level, even though I knew that were I her, I would have felt exactly the same.
“Tessoul’s been acting really weird lately,” I explained slowly. “And he told me there’s a war coming. And…” I showed my palms to the girls before scraping my fingers down my forehead. “He says the Kilari are coming back to kill the Vithohn. They are arch-rivals or something from the past. They thought they were extinct. He told
me Ed was one of them, and he is.”
I said the words like I was a little kid in trouble, spitting out the sentences quick and short until I lost my breath.
Apparently, there was no need for me to explain who the Kilari were or what the longstanding war was about between them and the Vithohn. It seemed like I was the only idiot who’d never heard about it before.
“Then you’re in a quandary,” Lele said so seriously that it made me want to laugh, despite myself.
“How’s that?” I asked.
Rebecca cleared her throat and began, “If you tell Baxley, he's going to say to let them come; let them wipe out the aliens. Then we'll have a chance to reclaim Earth.”
Lele jumped in then. “If you say nothing, then we need a plan as soon as possible because we might have a worse enemy on our hands than the Vithohn. We just learned how to control the Vithohn.”
“Better the devil you know,” I said, but Lele just stared. I waved her off with an exhausted motion, and she suddenly looked saddened. “Right? I mean, we help the Vithohn, right?”
Rebecca slapped my arm, hard, and with wide eyes, she said, “Plus, you love the guy! I’m pretty sure that counts for something, doesn’t it?”
“So what do I do?” I said.
“First off,” Rebecca continued, “apologize your ass off. Because if he leaves us for good then we have even less of a chance to stop these things, whatever they are.”
Chapter Thirteen
Tessoul
I’d been coming to this spot for years now; I crept up to the foot of the mountains where the grass met the snowy base of a towering heap of rock and earth. Drawn by something, and now I knew exactly what it was. The Kilari were here, waiting to kill us all. And my love wouldn’t give it a second thought.
This would be the last time I came here, I thought. I was determined to end it this time, to make sure nothing bad came from this. I didn’t want what happened to the Vithohn to happen to the humans. They didn’t deserve that—not again.
"I'm afraid."
It was her.
She spoke the words and came up behind me. Her voice was as familiar to me as my own. She moved her hands over her heart. “To love you," she clarified. "I'm afraid."