by Alex Hayes
Daylight robber. “How much?”
He’s smiling, a toothy grin that reminds me of a shark. “One-twenty.”
I dig in my pocket for the cash and hope to hell he gives me the right phone.
He hands over the device, and I examine it. “You sure this is the right one?”
The guy puts on a grumpy scowl. “Cute girl with blonde hair, right?”
Blondish. “Yeah.”
“Then it’s the right one,” Grumpy says.
Cadi told me the phone was new, so it should be the latest model.
I check, then nod at the guy. “Great. Thanks.”
He grunts and I head for the door.
My bike’s still outside, though I see a scruffy-looking guy eyeing it as he climbs into a beat-up truck. A shudder of fear runs through me, from my crystal. The guy looking over here isn’t that scary, so why am I feeling freaked out. Shaking my head, I mount and take off down the road.
As I turn the corner and look up the street, the Thorny Rose stands out like a beacon. Like home. God, I can’t wait to see Cadi.
My bike skids on a deep puddle of melting snow at the entrance. I swear and put my leg out just in time. The parking lot hasn’t been plowed yet. Not even in the half-assed way it was last time.
I walk across the blanket of white and notice tire tracks.
Marek must’ve swung back to check up on the place. We left in such a hurry. I shake my head. Too many things unsaid. I hope Cadi will forgive me.
Rounding the place, I notice how close the tire tracks run to the back door, and there are more than one set of footprints. Two, at least.
Did Marek bring Brianna by?
Then I notice two lines scraped in the snow, as if something was dragged through it. I reach the back door. It’s unlocked.
Shit. “Cadi? Cadi!” Silence.
I race downstairs. Cadi’s clothes are neatly folded on the sectional, alongside her toiletries and backpack, like she was getting ready to leave.
And now she’s gone. Without them.
Why would she leave without her stuff? Why was she leaving in the first place?
Because you’re an asshole. Because you accused her of stealing and then left her.
I run back upstairs and look around. John Sellers futuristic ray gun is missing from where I stashed it behind the bar.
Hands shaking, I text Marek and keep getting the words wrong.
He doesn’t answer. Panic clenches my gut.
I call him. Three times.
Finally, he picks up. “Id. I’m driving. What’s up, bro?”
“Someone’s taken Cadi. She’s been kidnapped.” Saying the words makes me feel sick to my stomach.
“What? Who has? Are you sure she didn’t just take off?”
“Her things are still here. Looks like she was about to leave.” Another wave of nausea washes over me. “But there are tire tracks and…and drag marks.”
“Christ. Okay, I’m coming up to Brianna’s now. I’ll drop her off and be right over.”
I’m sitting on the sectional next to Cadi’s stuff, hunched over, concentrating, and feel this tremble against my chest and a tug. The sensation’s like a string being stretched, tighter and tighter.
Something Cadi said slips into my mind. A tingly feeling…with a definite tug.
Her crystal — through my crystal — led Cadi to me, which means, maybe my crystal can lead me to her.
Marek arrives. He flies down the steps and lands with a thud on the carpeted floor. “Have you called the police?”
I look up. “To tell them what? They’ll tell me to wait twenty-four hours, and we need to go after her now.”
Marek freezes, mouth dropping open.
“What?” I demand.
“You’re…like normal.”
Jeez. I forgot he hasn’t seen me since I became human again. “Yeah. The crystal changed me back.”
My best friend stares in total confusion.
I’m on my feet. “That’s not important right now. Cadi is.”
Marek drops a hand on his forehead. “Yeah. Sure.” He shakes himself out of his latest shock. “Id, how are we going to track her without the cops?”
“They can’t track her, anyway. She doesn’t have her phone.” I squeeze my hands into fists. “But I can, and we need to hurry, before she gets too far away.”
Marek doesn’t question me. He just has faith, like a good friend would. “Okay. Come on!” He thunders back up the stairs.
As we head outside, I slap my forehead. “Shit!”
Marek locks the back door and turns to me. “Wassup, bro?”
“I’m supposed to be heading to the city with Dad at four-thirty to meet some Netflix producer. God, he’s going to kill me if I take off.” My heart hits the floor.
My best friend shrugs. “So, what’re you gonna do, bro?”
He cannot possibly comprehend what not going with Dad will mean to my life. The end of everything.
But Cadi is more important, and the sensation connecting me to her is getting fainter. I open the car door. “Let’s go before we lose her.” I direct him out of town and west on Twenty-Eight. “You got a full tank? ‘Cause Cadi’s miles ahead of us.”
“Yeah, but how do you know that, bro?”
I weave my fingers over my lap. “Remember how I told you Cadi found me? That the crystal led her?”
He throws me a sideways glance. “I didn’t believe a word of it, but yeah.”
“Well, it’s true. And I know where she is the same way.” I tap a rhythm on the dash for a couple of seconds, then pull my hand away. “What she didn’t tell us was, she has a crystal too. Embedded in her chest, right here.”
I yank up my sweatshirt and tee and twist my shoulders so he can see where the crystal has stuck itself to my breastbone and is slowly sinking into my skin.
Marek’s eyes widen before he swings them back to the road. “Jeez, Id, what’s that thing doing?”
To be honest, I’ve no idea, but I hedge a guess. “Becoming part of me.” I scratch my head. “Why? No idea, but Cadi’s got the same thing in the same place.”
“And how, I’m asking, did you happen to be looking there?” He sounds all proper and outraged, but I pick up on the dig and give him what he wants.
“How ‘bout you mind your own business?”
Marek laughs and puts his foot down. “Well, if she’s your girl, then I guess the stakes have just gone up.”
I hesitate. My girl? Then I straighten my shoulders. Yeah. She is.
36
Cadi
Everything bounces. Worn plastic slides against my face and drool smears my cheek. Gross.
I reflex to wipe the spit away and find my arms are pinned behind me. Panic wells, making me struggle, then I realize I’m lying on the back seat of a moving vehicle.
The woman, who looked like my mother in lizard form, is now human again and talking. She glances from the driver’s seat at John who sits beside her. “She isn’t as powerful without her bond brother.”
I know for sure she isn’t my mother. Even if I barely remember Mom, I know from the whispers of memories I have that she loved me. Whoever this person is, if she can shape-shift between human and reptilian forms, then she can probably make herself look like anyone.
Wriggling against my bonds gets me nowhere, so I focus on the tie with my mind, try to feel my way around what I cannot see. The cord has a slippery snakelike texture.
Somehow, I have to get myself out of this mess.
“But we need her bond brother, too,” John says. He laughs, low and gravelly. “To make good stock.”
What? I don’t understand. Or don’t want to. Who are they talking about? Idris? My brother?
No, way. I wouldn’t feel this way about him if we were related. Would I?
I shiver and my attention shifts to my crystal. You’d tell me, wouldn’t you? If I wasn’t supposed to feel the way I do about him.
I remember kissing Dean. How the crysta
l had vibrated in an irritating door-buzzery way, like it didn’t approve. Its reaction had been the exact opposite when Idris and I made out on the bed, like its hum was waking a sleeping princess in me who just wanted to get laid.
The woman’s head turns towards John. “Yes, they’ll make better offspring paired correctly.”
God. What could they possibly want with our offspring?
“Look at me, after all.” The woman turns her face toward John.
He looks back and growls, or maybe that’s a laugh.
“Her mother. One of the most powerful Livran on Daïzani. And now I’ve assimilated her, that power is mine.”
Her words are full of conceit, and I want to stuff them back down her throat, because they can only mean one thing. That woman…person…thing…murdered my mother.
“But don’t worry,” she adds. “Chances are her bond brother will follow and save us the trouble of tracking him.”
The man cranes his neck to look over his shoulder.
I close my eyes.
“Do you think she’s listening?” he murmurs.
A short, smug laugh follows. “She’ll be out for another hour. Besides, if her crystal hasn’t fully fused, she won’t understand us, anyway.”
I resist the frown pressing at my forehead. I do understand them, so I guess my crystal has fully fused.
“I can’t wait to have my turn at a Livran,” John’s voice clicks.
That’s when I realize I’m hearing them filtered through my mind, not my ears. The sounds coming from their mouths are a rapid flurry of rolling Rs and clicking Ks and Xs.
“Too bad there aren’t any left on Daïzani,” John continues. “This body’s so weak. Still, it’s an improvement on the human female. She was too old. What a slothrig. Body never cooperated. This one’s a barrujitka by comparison.” He cocks his head in my direction. “Maybe I can put in for a hatchling from this one.”
My stomach clenches and a wave of nausea rushes through me. They want to breed me and take my children?
The woman laughs. “No fresh eggs for you, Corporal. Livran bear their young in a womb. Besides, you’ll need it half grown, unless you want to spend years as a bawling infant. They’ve a pathetically slow maturity rate.”
The sleazeball called John sighs and I want to kick him in the crotch. Time to think about getting out of here. I shift my focus to the snaky cord holding my wrists and try to untie them with my mind, but they resist, like something’s pushing back.
“She’s awake,” the woman murmurs with a series of rolls and clicks that are starting to grind on my nerves. She must be the one resisting me, with my mother’s abilities.
What are they? Some kind of parasite?
I’d like to run this vehicle into a wall or off a cliff. But the chances are this female creature could counteract anything I tried, leaving me unconscious and totally useless.
Keeping my eyes shut, I focus inwardly, searching for a solution. A rippling vibration issues from my crystal.
Idris. Or his crystal. Its signal is getting stronger and so is his worry. Wait. How is it I can sense his feelings? I purse my lips, eyes widening. His crystal must have sunk into his chest like mine did with me.
The Evil Bitch is right, and if Idris catches up, he’ll fall into the same trap.
37
Idris
As Marek takes off up the highway, I grab my phone. It’s dead.
No. Not my phone. Cadi’s. I plug the device into one of the snaking charger cables Marek has permanently hanging out of the dash and dig out my own phone.
The signal’s spotty but I call anyway.
Dad picks up. “Idris, where are you? It’s time to go.”
And I’m heading in the opposite direction. “Dad. Sorry. Something came up.”
Marek slams the heel of his hand on the horn. The offending vehicle returns the favor.
“Idris, are you driving?” Dad’s voice burns hotter than five-alarm wing sauce.
“No. Marek is.”
“Where are you? We need to leave right now.”
“I can’t go with you.” Shit. And double shit. “I’m sorry, Dad. I know you wanna kill me right now, but a friend of mine’s in danger and I need to help her.”
“Her?” The word comes close to a roar. “What is going on?”
“Dad, go to your meeting. I’ll explain everything when I get home. I know you think I’m full of shit—”
“Idris!” Dad shouts. He hates it when I swear.
“This could be a matter of life and death. Go to your meeting. We’ll talk when you get back. I’m really sorry.”
Dad says something I don’t catch, and then, “Idris? Just get home in one piece, okay?”
The worry in his voice rocks me. I swallow. “Sh-sure, Dad.”
He hangs up.
I throw my head against the backrest and slap my forehead. “I’m as good as dead.”
Marek knocks my arm. “Hey, he’ll get over it.”
“Yeah,” I say, but I don’t believe him.
38
Cadi
John drags me out of the car, an ancient Oldsmobile with balding tires. Evil Bitch retrieves the weapon John tasered me with. Twice. I really hope they aren’t planning to use that thing on me a third time.
The cord around my ankles falls away and I can stand.
I want to push Sleazoid John away, a couple of thousand miles, but that would be stupid.
He struts toward me. I try to dodge, but he catches my arm. I’m about to bite his nose off, when he tosses me, with no grace whatsoever, over his shoulder.
I wiggle and kick, trying to throw John off balance, until my larynx constricts, as if throttled by invisible fingers. I struggle for breath.
“Stop fighting or I’ll squeeze until you pass out,” says the bitch who killed my mom.
I go limp, like a sack of potatoes, and try to imagine myself as heavy as a lead statue.
Evil Bitch turns to John. “You could let her walk.”
He grunts and pats my butt. “I know, but this is more fun.”
Disgusting scumbag.
With a snicker, the bitch woman struts ahead of us, heels clicking across the soaked asphalt.
I swing my head around, taking in as much of the landscape as possible. We move alongside a gray building, some kind of warehouse. A dozen yards, and John stops outside a plate glass window beside a metal door.
Evil Bitch hovers her hand in front of the knob and the lock clicks.
Wow. I’m gonna have to try that trick. Assuming I survive this ordeal.
God, did I have to think that? Deep breaths as I contain my fear and focus on my crystal. It tells me Idris’s signal is getting stronger, bringing him closer to danger.
We pass through the doorway into darkness.
A passageway, more doors, and we’re traveling across a wide open space. Seems as big as an airplane hangar from my vantage point, with small vent windows that provide just enough light to see, now the sun has set.
A loud crunch comes from the floor.
John stops. “What was that?”
Evil Bitch lets out an irritated sigh. “The body of the security guard Corporal Lanx assimilated when we arrived.”
I make out the withered shape she just stepped on. Its hand has been flattened. Nausea builds in my throat.
John swivels to look, spinning me with him. My fuzzy hat flies off and hits the floor.
Reaching the other side of the room, Evil Bitch does the lock trick to a steel door. She steps through and John follows, carrying me into total darkness as the door slams shut behind us.
39
Idris
“We’re getting close.” The crystal’s string-like pull tugs me, and I point to an off-ramp ahead. “Take that exit.”
A feeling of disgust followed by panic rolls through me, but it isn’t mine. Then it dawns on me, I’m picking up Cadi’s feelings through my crystal.
My heart rate escalates. “And hurry!”
By the time we swing into the massive parking lot surrounding a row of rundown warehouse buildings, twilight is upon us. Wherever we are, there aren’t any people. Not for miles.
“She’s not far.” I point to the left. “Over there.” We catch sight of another vehicle in the light of the Toyota's high beams. “See that car?”
“Yeah.” Marek pulls up beside an abandoned Oldsmobile town car.
I’m out of the Toyota before he’s put it in park, heart pounding. Cadi isn’t far away.
The Olds is empty. I shine my phone light through the window and see something light-colored on the floor. I pull on the rear passenger door. It opens. The pale object is white and fluffy.
Cadi’s scarf.
I grab the length of knitted wool. My fingers dig into the weave as my hands tighten into fists. I stuff the scarf into my coat pocket.
“What’s this?” Marek picks up a length of cord. “Weird stuff.” He tosses it to me.
The cord squirms through the air like a writhing snake. I jump away, then take a breath and pick it up. It’s metallic and super flexible. An uncomfortable feeling sinks low in my gut. “Maybe they used it to tie her up.” I hand the cord back to Marek and look around. “This way.”
Marek nods and we head towards an open doorway. He pushes the door wider. “They weren’t worried about being followed,” he notes.
We enter a small lobby with a front desk. At the back is an open door. We edge through. The way ahead is pitch dark and could be a trap, but I’m willing to take the risk. Judging by the tug from my crystal, Cadi’s close. If her captors are with her, then we should have the advantage, as long as they don’t spot us first.
