Alienated

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 boulder 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 if 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.

“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.