by Alex Hayes
She shakes her head. “But there’s always this pretense. Like they think I’m out to get something from them.”
“Azera, if you want to talk, then talk to me. I’ll talk shop all day long. You know I will.”
“It’s not the same.”
Frustration quivers through me. What is it with the female brain? Why do girls need to be friends with everyone?
“Maybe you should find other women photographers to hang out with.”
She stops short. “There aren’t any. Not in our profession.”
And for good reason. The paparazzi is made up of mostly jerks. And pretty nasty ones at that. I’ve been on the receiving end a time or two over the year we’ve been doing this. Come to think of it, I’ve delivered once or twice, as well. Every single shove totally justified, I might add. But women don’t stick at this job for long. Seems like they get tired of the muscling in and pushing around.
For some reason, Azera’s different. Most of the guys treat her with respect.
But that’s not going to last forever. The more successful she becomes, the more resentment she’ll run into. It’s a cutthroat industry, and it’s getting tougher every day.
“Maybe you should join a women’s group. There’s got to be an organization for female photographers.”
She grumbles softly. “I don’t have the time or money to join an organization. Besides, I want to be part of a community. Have a circle of friends.”
I really don’t like where this is going, but I need to keep my cool, make light of it, because angering Azera isn’t going to help. I give her a sideways glance, eyebrows rising. “What? I’m not good enough?”
She bumps into me. “You know that’s not what I’m saying. We’re family. A unit. That’s not going to change, but I need more.”
I hear what she’s saying, but I don’t understand it. We’re making ends meet. Which reminds me, “Did you get Maxine?”
Azera smiles. “Engagement confirmed. I got the rock on her finger and the smile on her face.”
All the pain suddenly seems worth it.
I lift a hand and she high fives me. “And you sold it?”
Azera’s smile stretches into a grin. “For three thousand.”
I blow out a breath. I love it when we score big. “Then I guess you’re taking me out to dinner tonight.”
Still grinning, she unlocks the car on approach and tosses me the keys. “What else have we got on tap for today?”
“A couple of celebrity arrivals at LAX this afternoon, and the usual slew of holiday parties. I’ve got my top picks. Figure on some late nights this week.” I slip into the driver’s seat and start the engine.
“Fine. Let’s go home.” She slumps and closes her eyes. “I need to sleep if you’re keeping me up all night.”
I pull into the street. “Hey, I’m sorry about that security guard.”
“It’s fine, Connie. Your eyes were on the prize. You can’t see everything.”
“Yeah, well, sorry, anyway.” Because I should’ve noticed that guy from the get-go.
She straightens in her seat. “We just made three thousand bucks. A security guard having a hissy fit isn’t the worst I’ve had to deal with. Not by a long shot.”
Well I know it. And if it weren’t for my healing ability, she’d have plenty of scars to prove it too.
We haven’t made it five miles when we’re greeted by siren wails. Ambulances and fire trucks.
I throw Azera a sideways glance. “I should check them out.”
She’s already sitting up, eyes scanning the road ahead. “Yeah, I guess.”
I pull into an empty restaurant parking lot and climb into the back of the car.
Azera takes the wheel while I pull off my hoodie and T-shirt, and turn invisible. My wings crumple around me. I adjust them and wiggle out of my jeans and underwear.
Naked, I check no one’s around, then push open the door and slip from the vehicle. “See you at home,” I murmur through the driver’s window.
She looks toward me, though she can’t see anything. “Just be careful and choose someone good this time. Drug dealers are a waste of space.”
“Hey, Jax is a good kid. He’ll change his ways. Guaranteed.”
Azera cocks her head. “Keep dreaming, Crow Boy.”
I jet across the parking lot and take to the air. The wind slices across my face, but in this form, the cold never gets to me. I could stay up here forever.
A rueful smile comes. The idea of leaving behind the weight of earthly responsibility forever is sweet, but that’ll never happen.
Some ties will always bind, but I’m a better person for having them.
Wheeling in a wide arc, I triangulate the siren songs and fly in their direction.
2
Rowan
Violet eyes glow, menacing. Then flare like fireworks.
I cry out and find myself running through a dreamlike forest, a shadowy realm more sinister than the real world. I know this place too well. An urgency I can’t resist pushes me forward, toward danger.
I reach a bend in the trail, veer around the corner and slam into sinew.
Steel arms close around me. Four of them, as thick as spruce trees. And a fear I’ve felt a thousand times before trickles down my throat.
My gaze tracks up a bare blue chest to the cloven chin of a face that holds four iridescent eyes, each with an hourglass pupil.
I scream. My breath dies and my throat chokes. I can’t escape him. Even so, I beat the chest before me.
The monster lifts a hand the size of a baseball mitt. Webbed fingers close over my forehead and a turbocharged vacuum inhales, sucking gray matter through my eye sockets.
Pain. Unadulterated. Awful.
Frosty white stars overwhelm my vision.
My defenses kick in with the heat of red-hot terror. A blaze ignites from my hands, bringing the scent of seared skin.
Flesh bubbles and blisters beneath my palms, followed by a baritone wail and weightlessness.
I’m flying.
My senses explode in a cloud, expanding until the vapor stalls—like a pause for breath—then re-enters, sucked inside me like a genie back into its bottle.
I gasp, clench my hands and teeth to still my shaking bones.
The steam on the bathroom mirror fades, and a haunted face stares into mine, dark circles beneath her eyes. Slow to recover from the recurrent daymare, I press that harrowed face into my palms.
It’s been six months. Weeks since the last replay. I’d hoped they had come to an end, but who am I fooling? The headache persists, hanging over me like a smoky cloud, and the strange sensation that my mind hasn’t entirely returned to my body.
With a hollow sigh, I head into the hall, determined not to say a word about this episode. If I do, they won’t let me take this trip, and I’m determined to go.
The aroma of food greets me as I jog downstairs, head held high like nothing’s wrong.
The Jacobsens’ opulent log home smells of forest campfires and Thanksgiving dinner. But as soon as Mr. Jacobsen brings in the pine boughs, holly wreaths and tree, the place will ooze family tradition and holiday charm. Things about which I have little experience, apart from those TV Christmas specials I’d catch from time to time, in one foster home or another.
I step across the cool slate floors and handwoven rugs of the living room to gaze out the front window.
Dean and Mr. Jacobsen perch on ladders, while Dean’s younger brother, Ty, stretches to his limit to hand them strings of Christmas lights and glittery plastic icicles. I’d help, but I can tell Ty’s enjoying his assistant role too much.
“Holy-moly!” comes a huffing voice from behind me.
I swing around, shoulders tensed and heart racing, primed for a violet-eyed Evatenon to attack me. Then I blink.
Cadi grips the rail as she shuffles to the base of the staircase, her green eyes narrowed. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.” The word shoots from my lungs. “A lit
tle edgy, that’s all.”
She rubs her rounded belly beneath an overstretched pink tee. “I thought you were getting better.”
“I am.” I head to the couch. “How are you doing?”
Cadi totters over, collapses into a seat at the other end and drops her head against the pillows. “After the first three months, I thought the morning sickness went away and pregnant women were supposed to feel a surge of energy. I’m approaching six and feel more exhausted than ever.” She huffs again. “I’m tired of being tired.”
With effort, I relax, releasing the tension from my shoulders and neck. “So the prospect of seeing Idris tomorrow hasn’t pulled you up?”
She gazes at me with sleepy eyes through a cloud of mussy dark-blonde hair. “I want to see him so badly it hurts, but the prospect of a two-hour drive to the airport and three flights to reach LA.” She groans. “I’m exhausted just thinking about it.”
“Cadi, dear?” Mrs. Jacobsen calls from the kitchen.
I smirk at my friend and stand. “I’ll see what she wants.” I stop at the kitchen entry. “Cadi’s too tired to move,” I tell Mrs. Jacobsen.
As the older woman chases a few gray hairs behind her ear with a forefinger, her eyes pinch. “I do worry about how little energy she has. Doesn’t seem normal.”
If we knew what normal was in Cadi’s case.
Mrs. Jacobsen adjusts the lid of a stainless-steel soup pot and turns down the heat on the stove. “Lunch is ready. Would you call the boys?”
She follows me to the living room and studies Cadi stretched out on the couch in jeans and her tight tee. “You should eat something, dear.” Mrs. Jacobsen rubs her forehead, expression thoughtful. “I wonder if changing into something more comfortable would help.”
Cadi’s pants do look tight, even with their stretchy waistband, but I doubt looser clothes will make a difference. She could do with changing out of her whole body.
Wait. What?
I facepalm my head. “Something more comfortable,” I almost shout.
Both women stare at me.
“Cadi, which form is your most comfortable?”
She frowns, not making the connection.
We’re aliens, for goodness sake.
All of us—Cadi, Idris and I—have spent most of our lives in human form, not in our natural Livran state. In fact, I don’t think Cadi’s shape-shifted for months.
“Maybe if you went Livran, that’d help.”
Cadi’s eyebrows lift, expression considering, then she nods and shape shifts.
Her body turns liquid silver and morphs into her reptilian form. She lifts a scaly hand to rub her neck and breathes deeply into expanded lungs. A smile curves her lips. “Rowan, you’re right.” She stretches across the couch, reminding me of a gecko sunbathing on a warm rock. “I feel better already.”
She relaxes back, eyes closing. “A short lizard nap and I think I might be fine.”
Mrs. Jacobsen pats my arm. “I’ll fetch her a cup of soup. Get the boys, there’s a dear.”
I nod and head out front to call the guys.
When Cadi wakes three hours later, she’s practically bouncing off the walls. “Oh my god, I feel so good. I can’t believe I didn’t think to try this. Rowan, you’re a lifesaver.”
I laugh at her energy. “Just don’t go crazy, okay? You’re still pregnant.”
She rubs the gentle curve of her belly and smiles. “Believe me, I haven’t forgotten.”
Her phone rings.
Figuring that’s Idris, I head to the kitchen to heat water for peppermint tea. Cadi’s favorite.
When I return to the living room with a hot mug, Cadi laughs at something Idris says. They talk every day. Even so, they’re on the phone for hours.
Once we’re in LA, I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t quietly disappear into their bedroom for an entire week.
I hold back a smile as I set the tea beside Cadi and turn to leave.
“Rowan, hold up.” She waves me into a chair. “Idris wants to play us a new song.” She sets her cell to speaker.
“Hey, Rowan,” Idris’s low voice sounds strong, despite its speakerphone quality.
I return his greeting, then he plays his music, a love song called “Won’t You Come Home to Me?” The sweet lyrics have a catchy tune that makes me want to sing along, except I don’t know the words. Yet.
As we’re listening, I hear this voice in the background, so subtle it’s hard to tell whether a girl or guy is singing. The words glide smoothly as if entwined in the tune. “If you can hear this, come find me. Los Angeles, California.”
The song ends.
Cadi squints at me. “You heard it, right?”
“The come-find-me-in-LA message? Yeah.” I shrug. “It was weird though, like I wasn’t really hearing the words. More like feeling them.”
“Through your crystal, right?” Idris calls from the phone.
I frown. “Yeah.”
“That’s how we’re gonna reach the other Livran kids,” he announces. “The only problem is distribution.”
I lean toward the phone. “I thought your two singles were getting a load of hits on YouTube.”
“A few hundred thousand so far. But that’s not enough. If we’re going to find all these kids, we need distribution in the millions. We need that song playing on the radio, in stores and on elevators.”
“In other words, you need to get famous,” I say. “Like Taylor Swift kind of famous.”
“Yeah. And fast. Without Mr. Scrim around to check on them, who knows what’s happening with those kids.”
Mr. Scrim was our carer. He hid us with the help of two other Livran carers. Forty-two alien kids scattered mostly across North America and Western Europe.
Cadi glances at me. “Or what their living conditions are like.” She rubs her arms. “Ours weren’t so great.”
My mind side-tracks to Conithar, my bond mate, who I haven’t seen since we were two years old. He’s the only one we’re confident we can find because of the link between his crystal and mine.
When we came of age, the crystals sank into our chests. At least, mine did. The stones can detect each other, even from miles apart. But sadly, I haven’t sensed Con’s crystal beyond a whisper.
A shiver of anticipation races between my shoulder blades. I’ll be able to find Con as long as his crystal settled like mine. Idris was separated from his stone, so it’s possible the same thing could have happened to Con. But I don’t want to believe that.
“I know what you’re thinking.” Cadi’s smile is sympathetic. “Mr. Scrim would’ve known if Conithar had lost his crystal.”
“Unless the stone was removed since Mr. Scrim last saw him.” I squeeze my temples, trying to ease the ever-present ache.
“How long ago was that?” she asks.
I pull in a deep breath and try to push away the worry. “Eighteen months.”
Idris’s voice rises from the phone. “And your crystal settled when?”
“Just over a year ago.”
“According to Mr. Scrim’s memories,” Idris continues, “Conithar’s would’ve settled at exactly the same time, given your crystals are twins.”
Cadi grips my hand with her scaly fingers. “That means only six months passed between the last time Mr. Scrim saw Conithar and when his crystal would’ve melded.”
I chew my lower lip, eagerness rising with the prospect of finding Con. My memories of him are scant. All I know for sure is he loved to fix things, and I loved to watch him work. But that idea is stronger than my actual memories. What he fixed, I don’t remember.
“I should have gone looking for him months ago.” But the Jacobsens wouldn’t let me travel. Not with the post-traumatic stress I suffered after that Evatenon tried to assimilate me.
The daymare I can’t put to rest and the PTSD they think I’ve recovered from.
“We’ll track him down,” Cadi assures me.
“Mr. Scrim said Con ran away from his last foster home.
” I look down at my hands gripping the curved edges of my cotton shirt. “What if he doesn’t want to be found?”
“Believe me,” Idris’s voice pipes in. “Once he meets you, he’ll be glad you came looking. Finding Cadi was like discovering a missing piece of me. You guys’ll feel better when you’re together.”
I force a smile which Cadi meets with a grin.
“Man, I can’t wait for you guys to get out here,” Idris adds.
“Tomorrow.” Cadi’s voice sparkles. “I’m so glad Rowan figured out what was wrong with me. Some time spent in Livran form, and I’ll be good to go.”
3
Connell
The sirens get closer. I’ve a few minutes at most before the emergency vehicles arrive.
I dart, light and birdlike, up the whitewashed stairs to peer through the back door window of a second-story apartment.
An elderly woman in pants and a blue sweatshirt lies on the kitchen floor, a Life Alert bracelet visible below her right cuff. If it weren’t for that wristband, an ambulance wouldn’t be on its way and I wouldn’t be here.
I lift a hand to the doorknob—unlocked. Breathing a sigh, I slip inside silently, the morning light streaming through me.
One touch to her head and I sense the problem. Lesions in the brain, most likely from a stroke. I check her heart. Beating. Rapid but strong.
Dropping to my knees, I push my voluminous wings out of the way and cup her head of fluffy white curls in my palms. The scent of Nivea and cocoa butter hits me.
I shift my attention to the work at hand. Healing flesh isn’t difficult. Surprisingly, internal injuries are easier to mend than epidermal ones. Bone and tendon damage are the toughest to fix.
A couple of minutes is all it takes to repair the burst blood vessels and damaged cells, and restore blood flow to the compromised areas of the brain. Her breaths deepen and she stirs.
Time to get out of here. Just need to unlock the front door so the paramedics can get in without breaking anything.
I slip through the peach-colored apartment. The place has seen better days, but it’s neat and clean. I reach the door as the sirens cut. An ambulance is right outside, two stories below. I release the chain, unlatch the deadbolt and turn the doorknob lock.
