Alienated

by Melissa Landers

  Aelyx gravitated toward the television, his limbs heavy as if moving underwater.

  “…when an armed militia stormed the boy’s home, they found scientific equipment and samples to indicate he’d tampered with the water supply…”

  Oh, gods, Eron must’ve snuck away from his guards to uproot his sh’alear.

  “…no news on the whereabouts of the female student in Bordeaux, who fled her home and disappeared after learning the news…”

  Syrine had evacuated to her shuttle and Eron was dead.

  “…the L’eihr ambassador has ended alliance negotiations and called for the immediate removal of the two remaining students…”

  And without the alliance, mankind would perish. Aelyx’s stomach churned, and he bolted to the bathroom just in time to heave into the toilet.

  Beads of sweat covered his forehead and upper lip while dry sobs racked his whole body. Every one of his muscles ached from holding the grief inside. Sacred Mother, what had he done? Turning to the sink, he splashed cool water on his face and rinsed his mouth of the sour taste of vomit, flinching when a fist pounded on the bathroom door.

  “Aelyx!” Cara rushed inside, half hysterical, with tears streaking her cheeks, her parents following closely behind. “You have to take me with you! They’re getting ready to—” She sobbed, choking on the next words, and he grasped her upper arms to steady her.

  “Getting ready to what?”

  Bill leaned one shoulder against the doorjamb. “They’re taking you to the nearest post. Right now. Another mob’s on the way.”

  If Aelyx listened over the pulse rushing in his ears, he could barely discern soldiers barking frenzied orders and the sound of armored vehicles roaring to life.

  “The alliance will never happen now,” Cara said in a blubbering rush. “If you don’t take me, I’ll never see you again.”

  Eileen wrapped one arm around Cara’s waist, but she pushed it away and threw herself at him, grabbing his shirt with both hands. “Please.” Her eyes brimmed with terror. “Take me with you.”

  “Think about it,” he told her. “Everything’s changed. If you go with me, you might never come back.” He bent low until they were level, delivering a solemn look. “Is that really what you want?”

  Tears leaked down her face, dripping from her chin in great turrets, but she didn’t hesitate to say, “Yes.”

  “Pepper, you don’t mean that.” Bill’s imposing form lost six inches as he deflated and turned to his wife for support.

  Cara spun around and buried her face in her father’s chest, her body quaking with sobs and apologies. “I want to go.”

  “No,” Bill said, still in a stupor. “Just…no.”

  “It wasn’t a question.” Cara’s voice hitched, but she met her father’s gaze. “I’m going, one way or another. At least I can make sure Troy’s okay.”

  Aelyx couldn’t let the Sweeneys think there was any danger of retaliation. “He’s safe. I give you my word.”

  “The sergeant wants to take us somewhere else,” Cara told him. “To a safe house.”

  And Aelyx knew Stepha would never allow Cara to board an official transport. That left only one way to bring her to the main ship—his emergency shuttle. “Do you remember what I said a couple weeks ago? Where to meet if we ever got separated?”

  She nodded vigorously.

  “Go there now and wait for me. It might take a while, but I’ll get away and meet you.”

  While Bill clutched his daughter tightly with one arm, he studied Aelyx in disbelief, scanning his face and surely calculating whether to trust him with her future. In the silence, Aelyx noticed the distant roar of frantic voices. The mob was approaching—they didn’t have much time.

  “Let’s go!” shouted a voice from the hall. A soldier shoved Bill aside and threw an oversize camouflaged coat and a black ski mask at Aelyx. “Put that on and get outside!”

  “Give us a minute to say good-bye,” Bill said as he ushered the whole family completely inside the bathroom.

  “I’ll give you five seconds.”

  Bill shut the door and held one hand out for Aelyx’s ski mask. “Gimme that. The coat, too.” He rummaged through the drawer beneath the sink until he found a pair of scissors and told Cara, “You’re not stuck there. If you change your mind—if there’s even one second of doubt—I want you to come home with your brother. Understand?”

  Cara nodded while the din of the crowd drew nearer. “They’re coming,” she said in a surprisingly steady voice. “Just like in Lanzhou.”

  “Sweeney family!” a soldier yelled from the hall. “Outside now, or we will take you by force!”

  “Coming!” Bill called over his shoulder while shrugging into the heavy coat. He tugged the ski mask over his head and motioned for Aelyx to turn around. As soon as Aelyx faced the other direction, his head snapped back as Bill yanked at his ponytail. Then with a few quick tugs of the scissors, his head lurched forward, free from Bill’s grasp and lighter by six inches of hair.

  Aelyx spun around in time to see Bill tuck what remained of Aelyx’s brown ponytail into the back of the ski mask so it dangled past his shoulder blades. Bill would easily pass for a L’eihr if he kept his freckled hands concealed.

  “Love,” he said to Eileen while zipping his coat, “I’m gonna run for it. That’ll stall ’em while the kids slip out the window. Make sure they get out, then you stay with the soldiers.”

  The noise was deafening now, the crowd nearly upon them. Gunfire popped from outside the house, and Aelyx darted to the window, hauled it open, and used both hands to push the screen to the ground below. An icy breeze frosted his cheeks. He pulled the fresh oxygen into his lungs so deeply he felt it in the soles of his feet.

  Eileen kissed Cara’s forehead and pushed her toward the window.

  Without wasting a second, Aelyx helped Cara out and then climbed through, joining her in crouching low among the shrubs along the back of the house. He heard the bathroom door open and the heavy clomp of shoes retreating down the hall. Outside, the setting sun sliced through the bare trees, illuminating the woods in its orange radiance and offering no concealment for at least another twenty minutes. More gunfire rang out, along with shouts of Stop! and Stand down! that led him to believe Bill had fled, enticing the soldiers and crowd to follow. Aelyx tried not to consider how far Bill would get or what the mob would do to him in the end. Now was the time to move.

  But his limbs froze. Cara’s parents had just risked their safety for him—an arrogant stranger who’d stolen their daughter away. Had he really once considered them ill-mannered and inferior?

  Thankfully, Cara brought him to his senses with a jerk of his hand. “C’mon!” She linked their fingers, and together, they bolted into the barren forest without looking back. From his periphery, Aelyx saw the first cluster of bodies rush the house.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Cara ran like hell.

  Her lungs screamed for air, and each icy breath stung her nose as if she’d snorted glass shards, but she pushed through the pain, desperate to put more distance between herself and the machine-gun fire crackling in the background. When the staccato chop of helicopter blades whirred overhead, she pumped her legs even harder and clenched her teeth against the acid burning through every muscle in her thighs. Soon, adrenaline took control, physical pain fading until nothing existed but the rhythmic clap of her boots pounding the frozen soil.

  Aelyx patiently matched her stride, barely winded, but his death grip said, Faster! He quickened his pace and propelled her forward until she was no longer running but stumbling at the speed of sound. At any moment, more than a thousand rabid Patriots and hundreds of soldiers would realize the masked man hauling ass in the opposite direction wasn’t Aelyx, and then they’d fan out and scour the woods. If they hadn’t already.

  She couldn’t dwell on what might happen to Mom and Dad—there wasn’t time. She focused on survival, pushing aside all thoughts except, Run harder!


  Shouts echoed from ahead, and Aelyx veered left, towing her off the main path and into the underbrush. A deep carpet of decaying leaves clutched her boots like mud, and the minefield of twigs, brambles, and fallen branches cracked so loudly beneath each step, they might as well send up a flare to announce their position.

  “Slow down,” she implored with a gasp.

  He gave her a brief reprieve, pausing to step over a rotted log and pushing chin-length locks of hair behind his ears before urging her on. “We’re almost there.”

  Soon, they reached the stream. As they plodded onward, two other landmarks came into view: the kidney-shaped bolder and the charred tree, cleaved in half by lightning. Cara breathed a sigh of relief but immediately wrinkled her nose at the musky reek of algae thickening the air. The green slime had completely taken over since the last time they’d been there. She tiptoed and hopped over patches that crept out of the water and onto the mucky soil and wondered how this stuff managed to thrive in the dead of winter.

  “I see what you mean.” She slipped on a green-coated stone and flailed her arms to steady herself. “It’s like a science experiment gone wrong.”

  Aelyx muttered something unintelligible and jogged to the tree where his “getaway car” hovered high among the branches. Peering up, he patted his back pockets and froze, wide-eyed, before frantically patting his front pockets and the ones on his shirt that didn’t even exist. Cara’s stomach sank. This was universal body language for, Oh, crap, I lost my keys!

  “Fasha!” he shouted. “My electron-tracker’s at the house. My com-sphere, too.”

  Those sounded pretty important. And judging by the distant shouts of angry men and the whir of approaching helicopter blades, the head start Dad had given them had officially expired.

  “We can’t go back,” she said.

  “I know.” He cursed again and returned his attention to the sky.

  “Please tell me you’ve got an extra set of keys stashed somewhere.”

  “The tracker’s not a key, more like a remote control. It brings the shuttle down and into view.”

  “So you don’t need it?” Maybe they weren’t screwed after all.

  “The shuttle’s programmed to respond to my touch. If I can reach the damned thing, I can get inside and pilot it.” A twig snapped from about fifty yards behind, and Aelyx crouched low. “How good are you at climbing trees?”

  Her only experience with the act had resulted in two sprained ankles and a bruised tailbone. “Not very.” Automatically, she scanned the small clearing for a place to hide, coming up empty. Winter had stripped the trees and shrubs of their leaves and flattened the tall weeds that typically covered the ground, offering no shelter.

  “Then you’ll have to wait here.” Their thoughts must’ve traveled on the same wavelength, because he darted a glance in every direction and scowled. “Just do your best to stay low.” He found a pebble and threw it into the air to gauge the shuttle’s position. It bounced back after about thirty feet—a long way to climb considering he’d be exposed, too, but he didn’t waste another second deliberating.

  The ease with which he scaled the tree both impressed and annoyed her, mostly the former since their lives were at stake. While he continued his slow-but-steady ascent, she knelt on the ground and hugged herself as a shiver rolled across her body. The adrenaline rush had worn off, and her sweat-dampened clothes leeched the frost from the air like a suit of ice cream.

  She’d just wrapped both arms around her knees when crunching footsteps caught her attention. Her head snapped up. As the footsteps drew nearer, she could make out snippets of conversation.

  “…freezing my ass off…”

  “…shoulda brought my other coat…”

  The voices were deep, male, and very familiar.

  “…starvin’ to death…” She’d know that voice anywhere—Eric.

  “…I’d kill for a basket of wings right now…” And Marcus Johnson.

  A female voice joined the conversation. “Seriously? Is food all you ever think about?”

  Cara craned her neck and glanced at Aelyx, halfway up the tree. His frozen posture told her he’d heard the voices, too. When she peered in the direction of Eric’s voice, a few glimpses of his blue jacket flashed through the trees. If she could see him, it only stood to reason he could see her—and Aelyx.

  The boys shared a laugh and Marcus said, “No, I think about lacrosse, too. Oh, and ass.”

  “Male or female?” the girl teased. “Not that I’m judging or anything.”

  “Chillax, Brandi,” Eric said. “I’m pretty sure it’s your ass that’s on his mind. Though I have caught him staring at me in the locker room a couple times…”

  Brandi?

  Cara held perfectly still, watching Eric and Marcus pick their way through the woods. The girl closed the distance behind them, and Cara squinted at a familiar puffy white coat. It was Brandi…with her hand curled around the iron shaft of a golf club. She linked arms with Marcus, who toted a hunting rifle. Eric gripped a wooden baseball bat, and the three of them slung the weapons casually over their shoulders like kids strolling to the local fishing hole.

  Without moving an inch, Cara turned her eyes to Aelyx, whose black shirt and dark jeans camouflaged into the scorched wood, but his arms were trembling from holding still in such an awkward position. He’d pressed his forehead against the bark as if trying to become one with the tree. Just then, one of his shoes skidded against the charred bark, sending debris raining down on her and pelting the dried leaves on the ground.

  Eric’s gaze immediately fell on hers and locked there for one eternal moment. Her breath hitched and she bit her lip, praying that Marcus and Brandi hadn’t heard it, too.

  With a barely perceptible shake of her head, she asked him to keep walking.

  “Hey.” Marcus halted, bringing one hand up like a defendant swearing an oath. “You hear something?”

  “Yeah.” Eric broke eye contact and pointed to a ravine in the opposite direction. “Over there. Sounded like a squirrel.”

  “Naw, man. It came from that way.” Marcus nodded ten yards ahead of her position, and Cara held her breath, willing herself invisible. She’d picked the wrong day to wear a pink sweater—it was a miracle Marcus hadn’t spotted her yet.

  “You wanna split up? I’ll check over there”—Eric hooked a thumb toward her—“and you two head that way.” He pointed to the ravine.

  “No,” Brandi said. “If our team’s gonna bag him, we should stay together. It’s the only way to take him down.”

  “She’s right,” Marcus said, absently rubbing his upper arm. “That bastard’s crazy strong.”

  Eric laughed dryly. “Scared? You’re the one with the gun, for chrissakes.”

  “No, dickweed.” A tremor in Marcus’s voice betrayed his fear. “I was trying to help you, but whatever. Good luck with your pansy-ass Louisville Slugger.” He stalked in the other direction and Brandi reluctantly followed.

  Once they’d moved out of her line of vision, Cara released the breath she’d been holding and watched as Eric made his way to her in slow, deliberate strides. He crouched down and pretended to study tracks in the dirt, sliding his gaze to the side to observe Marcus as he whispered, “You can’t stay here. There’re more coming.”

  “Is my dad okay?”

  Using his baseball bat as a walking stick, Eric pushed to standing and stepped around her, making a show of inspecting a patch of thistle. “Guess so. Got the crap beat outta him, though.”

  She started to ask about Mom when more chunks of burned wood pelted her head, and she shielded her eyes and glanced up to see Aelyx resuming his climb. Eric flinched, noticing Aelyx for the first time.

  “What’s he doing up there?” Even in the lightest whisper, Eric’s unadulterated loathing for Aelyx came through loud as an air horn.

  “Getting his ship down.”

  Brows pinched together, Eric crouched low again, tipping his head and scrutinizing her face as i
f she’d grown a second nose. “Do you see a spaceship?”

  “I’m not crazy,” she hissed. “The cloaking device makes it invisible.”

  “You’re not screwing with me? He’s really got a ship up there?”

  She nodded.

  “Where’s he gonna drop you off? The base?”

  “He’s not dropping me off, Eric.”

  It took a few seconds for him to figure out what that meant. When the realization hit him, he rocked back on his heels and landed on his backside. “No effing way! They’re evil, Cara—they’ve been poisoning our water! Our crops, too! That kid confessed to it.” He turned his glare on Aelyx, and it didn’t escape her notice that his hand tightened around the bat with white-knuckled force.

  “It’s a lie. He was killed for no reas—” She bit short her reply when the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. The winter air had long since covered her skin in goose bumps, but something else had chilled her deep inside. She’d been so caught up in her conversation with Eric that she’d stopped monitoring Marcus’s and Brandi’s distant footsteps, and pure instinct paralyzed her once again. They were close. She sensed it.

  Eric must’ve felt it, too. Springing to the balls of his feet, he swept the forest with his wide-eyed gaze. He crept toward the ravine, calling, “Johnson! Greene! Find anything over there?”

  Cara’s heart pounded so hard her fingertips throbbed. She peered into the branches as if she could lift Aelyx to the top through sheer will. He was so close—just a few more feet. Flexing her fingers to restore feeling, she silently moved onto all fours and then crawled around the tree to reposition herself out of sight.

  That’s when she noticed Marcus’s size elevens planted right in front of her.

  With a gasp, she glanced up just in time to see Marcus draw back his rifle and slam the stock into her left cheekbone. White-hot sparks exploded behind her eyelids while the crushing force sent her head slamming against the frigid ground.

  “Damn, baby,” Brandi said from nearby. “You don’t mess around.”

  Cara’s lips parted in a silent scream. When she curled onto her side and covered her face, Marcus used the opportunity to kick her squarely in the ribs. She heard bones crack within her chest, her lungs emptied, and pure pain blinded her.