“Stop!” Eric demanded. His shoes scuffled and scraped right beside her ear, but the sensation flew to her mind’s periphery as she struggled to breathe. Nothing existed but her need for oxygen—even pain gave her a temporary reprieve while she opened her mouth wide, coaxing air into her flattened lungs.
That first glorious breath tasted sweeter than ambrosia, but relief lasted only a moment before agony returned with the fury of ten nuclear bombs. Eyes watering, she cried out and pushed backward, away from the grunts of the boys fighting inches from her head. Each movement sent barbs skittering across her raw nerves, but she scooted across the soil until her spine met the resistance of solid oak.
The second her vision returned, her eyes found Aelyx. He’d reached the shuttle and held one palm against its invisible hull, but his gaze darted back and forth between her and the violent shoving match nearby. She didn’t need Silent Speech to understand his dilemma: should he stay with the ship or come down to defend her?
Cara shook her head, scraping her temple against a pillow of dried twigs. Don’t do it, she silently implored. Get the ship down! Before long, more Patriots would find them, and she couldn’t run anymore. She couldn’t even sit up.
Suddenly, Eric’s body hit the ground and skidded to her side, spraying her with dirt and cracking her shoulder with his discarded baseball bat. Before he could scramble to his feet, Marcus cocked his rifle and pointed it at Eric’s chest.
“Just stop, man,” Marcus said, panting. “She’s the enemy. You’re thinking with your wang!”
Brandi pointed her golf club at Cara. “She’s been banging Aelyx for months. You think she gives a damn about the rest of us? My mom says we’ll end up as slaves to the L’eihrs, cranking out their half-breed spawn, and she’ll be safe on the other side like the traitor she is.”
“Exactly,” Marcus said. “She’s not human anymore.”
“Take your head outta your ass!” Eric pushed off the ground and charged Marcus again, shoving aside the barrel and then pointing at her. “That’s Cara. The same girl who let you cheat off her in sixth grade. My girlfriend for three years! She’s one of us!” He turned to Brandi and said, “You used to be friends.”
Brandi joined her boyfriend and raked a disdainful gaze over Cara. “Not anymore. She’s been up the alien’s ass since he got here.”
Cara couldn’t draw enough air to say, You’re one to talk, but it must’ve shown on her face because Brandi made a disgusted noise and sneered, “I was never into him. As if I’d let an alien touch me.”
Eric muttered, “Her mom’s head of intelligence for our chapter.”
It seemed so trivial now, but Cara remembered the day she’d caught Brandi trying to shove a note in her locker. She really was behind the threats—she’d probably followed her and pushed Ashley down the stairs, too. And for what? To gain her mom’s approval and to date the homecoming king?
Marcus hocked a loogie and spat it at Cara’s feet. He pointed his rifle at her. “Where’s the L’eihr?”
Cara shook her head against the ground and wheezed, “The army took him.”
“I think she’s lying,” Brandi said. “Or she’d be with them, too.”
Marcus slid his hand along the rifle stock. “I’ll get it out of her.”
“No.” Eric scrambled in front of her and did something far worse than kicking Cara in the chest. He pointed to Aelyx in the treetop. “He’s up there!”
When Marcus tipped back his head and spotted the left half of Aelyx’s body disappearing into thin air, he didn’t stop to question the validity of what he’d seen. Instead, he tucked the rifle stock into his armpit, raised the weapon, and squinted one eye to take aim.
Cara didn’t hesitate, either. She curled her hand around Eric’s fallen bat and pushed onto all fours. She gritted her teeth, ignoring the flames lapping at her ribs, and swung with all her strength at the side of Marcus’s knee. His leg cracked and he collapsed, skewing his shot as he pulled the trigger.
Gunfire pierced her eardrums, followed by Marcus’s screams of agony. Dropping the bat, Cara crumpled into a heap and began dry heaving. How was it possible to suffer this much without passing out? She curled into the fetal position and darted one last glance into the trees—seeing nothing. Aelyx had made it into the cloaked shuttle.
“You idiot!” Brandi raised her club to strike Cara, but Eric shoved her aside and bent low to snatch his bat off the ground. He should have gone for the rifle. By the time he realized his mistake, Brandi had beat him to it. She raised the barrel in line with Eric’s belt buckle while he dropped the bat and held both palms forward.
“She dumped you for an alien,” Brandi told him. “And you’re still defending her?”
Eric backed away. “Jus—”
Before he got a word out, the air around them warmed to the temperature of a scorching July afternoon and vibrated so thickly Cara’s teeth rattled. Brandi scrunched her forehead, darting narrowed glances in every direction, while Cara and Eric exchanged a knowing look. She wished she hadn’t told him about the ship, but there was nothing she could do about that now.
Cara’s left eye had begun to swell shut, so she used the right one to scan the clearing for a spot wide enough for Aelyx to land the shuttle. There was only one place—right on top of the stream ten yards behind Marcus’s now-limp body. Oh, sure, he could pass out.
“What’s that?” Brandi demanded, hands trembling as she cocked the rifle and pointed it at Cara’s face. “What’s the L’eihr doing to us?”
Cara floundered for a lie—something so clever it would send Brandi running—but apparently, the simple act of remaining conscious had drained all her brainpower.
“Make him stop!” Brandi screamed, half hysterical. If she shuddered any harder, she’d pull the trigger whether she meant to or not.
Shaking her head, Cara held up one hand in surrender. “I don’t—”
“I’m gonna count to three,” Brandi cried, “and if it doesn’t stop, I’ll kill you. I swear to God!”
“Whoa, whoa, calm down.” Eric approached Brandi, but she stepped back and pointed the rifle at him in warning before turning it on Cara.
“One!”
“It’s just the ship!” Cara said.
“She’s right,” Eric echoed. “You can’t see it ’cause it’s cloaked.”
“Two!”
“Jesus Christ, Brandi, I’m telling the truth!”
“You gotta chill out.” Eric inched toward Brandi like she was a wounded animal. “You don’t wanna shoot her.”
“Three!”
Clenching her eyes shut, Cara curled into a ball and wrapped both arms around her head as if she could block the bullet with her sweater. Her life didn’t flash before her eyes like she’d expected. Instead, her heart pounded painfully against her cracked ribs and her whole body flashed cold, despite the sultry air. She heard Aelyx call her name and then a shot, and she flinched, waiting to feel the bullet’s impact.
But it never came. After several seconds, it occurred to her she hadn’t been hit. Tentatively, she peeked out from under one arm.
Eric had Brandi pinned to a tree, but he struggled to hold her as a bright spot of blood blossomed out from a hole in his shirtsleeve.
Aelyx dashed into view, kneeling on the ground and gently brushing back her hair. “Can you move?” he asked.
She pushed him aside, whispering, “Eric’s shot.”
“The bullet just grazed him,” Aelyx said in a rush. “We have to go. Hold on to me.”
The slightest movement brought searing pain, but she wrapped her arms around Aelyx’s neck and held her breath while he carried her past the scuffle to the spacecraft and set her gingerly atop the passenger seat. While he strapped her in with the greatest of care, she peered out the open door at Eric, who’d managed to wrestle the rifle away from Brandi. Clearly outnumbered, Brandi turned tail and bolted, leaving her injured boyfriend behind.
Aelyx climbed over Cara and into the pilot’s seat.
Placing the pads of his fingers lightly against a steely panel that reminded her of a dashboard, he whispered something in L’eihr and the doors began to hiss closed.
She watched Eric nod good-bye. With half a smile and watery eyes, he mouthed something she couldn’t quite interpret, and for just one second, she saw a flash of her old friend.
And then she was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Cara gasped when a pair of cool metal shears brushed the skin on her abdomen, causing the L’eihr medic who wielded them to pause and offer a questioning glance.
“Sorry,” Cara said, “it’s just cold.”
The medic, a soft-spoken girl with the longest eyelashes Cara had ever seen, continued cutting away Cara’s sweater, sending a tiny pearl button clinking to the examination table. When the last remaining wool scraps had fallen, Cara’s chest broke out in goose bumps. The air—or, rather, the lack thereof—sixty miles above Earth was brutally frigid, despite the heated ventilation.
Cara picked up the button and rolled it between her thumb and index finger while glancing around the immaculate gray-walled exam room. A variety of foreign instruments hung on the walls, and she tried to guess their purposes. Tilting her head, she leaned to the side to inspect a polished metallic rod. Aside from delivering a good bludgeoning, she couldn’t imagine how it was useful.
“Please be still,” the girl said in a thick accent similar to French-Polynesian. “This will be uncomfortable, but traveling at light speed will widen the fissures in your ribs if we don’t mend them first.”
“We’ll reach light speed?” That surprised Cara, since they weren’t going directly to L’eihr. Aelyx’s leaders were bringing Troy and meeting them halfway for an emergency hearing.
The girl smiled, but her eyes were vacant. “Yes, now hold still.”
Vacant stare or not, Cara welcomed and reciprocated the smile. It was the first she’d received since Aelyx had smuggled her aboard the main ship an hour ago. Even the withered old ambassador with dead eyes had straightened his spine and puckered his mouth when he’d caught a glimpse of her. He and Aelyx had engaged in the most intense staring match she’d ever witnessed, and though she hadn’t been able to sneak a peek at their thoughts, she’d felt the message loud and clear: she wasn’t welcome. She just hoped nobody flushed her out the airlock like people did to their enemies on Battlestar Galactica.
“Sit up straighter, please.” The medic placed a hand on Cara’s back and helped her lean forward on the exam table. Then she wrapped a flexible pad around her chest and secured it in the front. Moving to a control panel on the wall, the girl warned, “This is slightly unpleasant, but try to relax.”
Cara nodded, preparing for the worst, but to her surprise, the wrap warmed like a heating pad. Tipping back her head, she closed her eyes in rapture and groaned, “Ah, that feels aweso—”
Suddenly her fist clenched around the pearl button. The warmth shot from soothing to unbearable in an instant, as if the medic had turned a stove burner from low to volcanic. Her skin burned while scorching heat filled her lungs, forcing up ripples of nausea. She swallowed down bile as beads of sweat dotted her upper lip.
Then an ungodly tightness squeezed her chest like a blood pressure cuff, stealing her breath and forcing the heat into her face, where it settled inside her throbbing cheek. Slightly unpleasant, my ass! She closed the one eye that hadn’t already swollen shut and tried to stay calm, but the pain was too intense. Just as she was about to cry out, the pressure released and the wrap cooled just as suddenly as it had flared.
Relief was instantaneous, but Cara inhaled deeply through her nose to clear away leftover queasiness. The medic removed the wrap and encouraged Cara to stand. “Move around and tell me if you feel any pain.”
She hopped down from the table and twisted her torso from side to side—tentatively at first, but then with more enthusiasm. “Wow, that’s amazing! I feel perfect.” Whoa, almost. The walls began to blur and swirl around her. She grabbed the edge of the table and cupped a hand over her swollen eye. “I’m still a little dizzy.”
“I haven’t scanned your head yet,” the girl said, reaching for the metal rod Cara had noticed earlier and then holding it to the back of her skull. “Just a fracture of the lateral orbital rim. It won’t take long. Then we’ll start on your bruises.”
“Oh, the bludgeoning stick’s an X-ray machine.” She’d never have guessed it.
“Pardon?” the girl asked, looking from the instrument in her hand back to Cara.
“Nothing, just talking to myself.”
After using a less painful, headband-size heated wrap to mend Cara’s fracture, the medic pulled a clear gel pad from a drawer beneath the exam table and filled a hypodermic needle with milky fluid. She shook the gel pad, and it began to emit a purple glow.
“This,” she said, holding up the needle, “will help your body reabsorb the blood from your bruises. And this”—she nodded toward the pad—“will heal the underlying tissue. Watch.”
She began with a softball-size bruise above Cara’s waist, injecting the white liquid until a pocket bubbled up from her skin. It stung, but this was a mosquito bite compared to getting dropkicked in the chest. Then the medic rested the glowing purple gel pack lightly atop the bruise and applied gentle pressure, pushing down a little harder as the seconds passed. When she lifted the pad, all traces of the bruise were gone.
“Wow,” Cara whispered.
After healing her cheek and puffy eye, the medic concluded Cara’s treatment with a fahren wrap: tingling, muddy goop that smoothed every last cut and scrape from her skin, leaving it soft and flawless. Maybelline had nothing on the L’eihrs. After sponging off and changing into a tan and gray uniform, she pulled her hair into a low ponytail and grinned at her reflection in the mirror—the ultimate L’annabe, minus the spray tan. Ashley would’ve been proud.
“Thanks.” Cara hesitated, then touched the medic’s forearm. The girl might feel the same aversion to contact Aelyx once did, but Cara needed to express her gratitude, not only for the medical care but for her kindness.
The girl did flinch beneath Cara’s fingers and pulled away, but she softened the rejection with a gentle smile. “I’ll take you to Aelyx. I know he’ll be glad to see you.”
Flutters tickled the inside of Cara’s belly at the mere thought of him. She followed her guide along the winding corridors, finally taking the opportunity to study her surroundings. When they’d first approached the main ship, she’d been too busy trying to stop dry heaving to spare a glance out the shuttle window, and Aelyx had whisked her away to the medic right afterward. Honestly, though, there wasn’t much to see, at least not at the moment. Everything—halls, floors, doors—was a monotony of metallic gray. The transport was like a floating labyrinth, a maze of sleek and simple silvery passages. She wondered how she’d ever find her way alone.
“There.” The girl pointed to the end of the hallway, where Aelyx stood, locked in Silent Speech with a petite female Cara recognized as Syrine. Considering the rigid set of their folded arms, this wasn’t a friendly gab session. After a quick two-fingered touch to Cara’s throat, the medic left her and returned to the clinic.
Suddenly chilled again, Cara leaned against the wall and chaffed her hands while studying Aelyx and his best friend, the lovely emotional healer who saw into his soul. Not that she was jealous or anything.
Aelyx’s honey-brown hair, now too short for a ponytail, fell over his brow, and he shoved it behind his ears before resuming the “argument.” They were fighting about her. She knew it. After what’d happened to that poor boy in China, she couldn’t blame the L’eihrs for icing her out, but at the same time, she hadn’t expected such an evolved race to hold her accountable for a murder she didn’t commit. She’d stood by Aelyx even after her community shunned her—didn’t that count for anything?
Judging by the way Syrine had just shoved Aelyx’s chest, the answer was no.
Maybe she shouldn’t interrupt. C
ara hugged herself, shivering against the wall as she worked up the courage to keep moving.
Help you? Syrine pounded her fists against Aelyx’s sternum, reminding him of the time he’d taken Cara to the boxing gym to help her get back her “fight.” It seemed Syrine had returned from Earth with a little too much of it. You’re delusional if you think I’ll help you save the cretins who killed Eron!
So you’d punish billions for the crimes of a few?
Yes! This wasn’t the same Syrine he’d known for a lifetime—not this girl with snarled lips, her teeth bared like a rabid animal. I hate them all! Even your precious Elire!
He shrank back at the dark undertones in her thoughts. She’s part of me. Aelyx closed the distance between them and gripped Syrine’s upper arm. He had to make her understand. A threat against her is a threat against me.
Suddenly, Cara’s porcelain fingers curled around his hand, startling him into relaxing his grip. “You okay?” Tilting her head, she regarded him with wide eyes, her face radiant and healed and so stunning it made his breath catch.
He stepped back and took in Cara’s uniform as an involuntary smile played on his lips. The simple tan tunic seemed more out of place on her shoulders than the jewels on Mr. Manuel’s toilet seat back on Earth, yet the sight made his heart swell until it bumped his lungs. He loved seeing her in his people’s clothing. It was a reminder that she’d chosen a life with him, impossible as it seemed.
“Oh, this?” She posed like a fashion model, lifting her collar and shifting her weight to one hip. “Guess I’m an official L’eihr now. I’ll blend right in.”
“Aside from your skin, eyes, and hair, yes, you’ll blend right in.” He opened his arms and she rushed inside, locking their bodies together. “How’re your ribs?” he asked.
Resting her chin on his chest, she blinked up at him, smiling. “Hug me as hard as you can and we’ll find out.”
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