I cross the room and drop to the couch beside her.
“Adam’s not giving this up, is he?” she asks.
“Um.” I search for words.
Stella breathes and rubs her forehead with her palm. “I thought we went over this.”
“I think you should talk to him.”
She closes her eyes and shakes her head. I shift back into the couch. I’m tired. So very tired. An ache throbs behind my eyes, and my skin is tight from the tears. “Laris had a family before me,” Stella says. “He had a wife and children. Two of them, a son and a daughter. She…his wife…she was human.”
“Was?”
“Laris came to Earth as a child over 200 years ago. Perseidians don't age as fast as humans. He was a refugee of the war going on back in Perseida. He was raised with the mission to find the Nexus and bring it back home and save his people. But then he met Kate and she and Earth became the only home he wanted. He turned his back on the mission. He thought he could protect them. That he would be enough.” Her lips quiver and unshed tears appear beneath her eyes. “But he wasn’t, and they killed them.”
“The Nexians?” I ask.
“The kids were toddlers. Only two and three years old. Aaron and Drew.” Ice slides through my veins and my heart hurtles through my chest.
“Aaron?” My whispery question goes unheard. That was the name of the brother Adam had mentioned. Aaron. But he was dead.
“When I met Laris, he was so broken and lost. And I was so young. He was determined to return to his planet, to save Perseida and destroy the Nexians. I thought I could fix him, take away the pain. I thought I could save him. When he asked me to have Adam, that a half-human, half-Perseidian was the key to saving their planet, I thought deep down that he'd fall in love with me and give up this mission he's been on. But he barely blinked when he came to get Adam.” She wipes a tear from her eye and presses her fingers to her temple.
“But he brought him back when he knew you were sad.”
“Yeah.” She rubs her hand along her face. “He did. But it’s different this time. He’s not losing focus of the mission. He'll never risk losing anybody again. There’s a contract, and he’s not going to let anyone break that. Especially not Adam.” She’s trying to tell me it’s hopeless, but it’s the hope I hear.
“But if Laris once turned his back for love, then maybe he'll understand why Adam wants to,” I say. “Maybe there really is a way for Adam to stay?” She turns her head and hides her face.
“No.” Her words are muffled. She looks at me, her face now sharp and stern. “No, I’m saying that. It doesn’t matter even if there is a way. Laris won’t let that happen. And if Adam keeps trying, Laris isn’t going to wait. He’ll take him now. Like he did the night he was born. Only this time, Adam won’t be coming back.”
She stands up and crosses her arms.
“My time with my son is limited as it is. Don’t take more away from me, please. Find a way to help him let go.” Without a goodbye or a glance back, she slips out our door.
After checking on my mom, I crawl into bed and stare at my ceiling. At my stupid non-glowing stars.
I really should take them down, but I can’t. I’m not ready. Not ready to let go of the woman who stuck them up there, the mom she used to be. I’m not ready to let go of the idea that my dad is really in the stars watching over me.
I’m also not ready to let go of Adam. I’ll never be ready for that.
Chapter Thirty-Five
They tear me apart. Twisting, ripping, sucking. I am stretched and bent and broken. I run through the trees while they watch me with eyes darker than the night.
It’s Adam I try to get to. Adam is in the distance, calling my name. I run for him, but I can’t reach him. Every step, every inch, he’s further away.
The trees go on forever.
I wake entangled in my bed sheets, caught between the dream and the real world. They both are nightmares.
I need to get out of here.
I jump from my bed, pulling on jeans and a shirt and a coat, and run out the front door. I run through the trees and to our beach.
It’s empty and the lake roars. A layer of cloud separates me from the stars, but I scream anyways.
I scream and I scream and I scream.
You can’t have him.
Chapter Thirty-Six
My voice expired hours ago. I wrap my arms around my knees and watch the water. Watch it crash and spray against the rocks. Watch it wash the shore and tickle my toes. Watch it recede, called back into its deep depths.
My blood is like the lake, roaring, bubbling, swimming. And freezing until I am numb inside. The wind blows and the sky clears. But there are no answers. Not in the lake. Not in the sky. Not in the stars.
“Tell me how to keep him,” I whisper. “Please.”
I drop my head to my knees and hug my neck and go back to the day we met. It was the week Brianna turned mean. On Friday we were the best of friends; on Monday morning she wrote ‘Sage Cassidy is a Fat Pig’ across the whiteboard. By lunchtime, my classmates were whispering and giggling and pointing.
On Tuesday, the last day of school, there was an October-like storm on the June lake, and the rain was blowing sideways. When the storm cleared, the sun appeared along with an unseasonably humid warmth that sent the temperature screaming into the 90s. Brianna and her friends invited me to the beach to lay out. I was thrilled. I remember dancing through the house, singing as I dropped off my backpack and slid into my swimsuit. I had never swam in Lake Superior before.
When I got there, the girls were all waiting in t-shirts and jeans. No suits, no towels. They dared me to walk into the water alone.
Walk until you can’t touch anymore and I’ll be your friend again, she said.
So I did.
Despite the heat, the water was like ice, scalding my skin and dulling my thoughts. I tried to turn back, but the lake had a hold of me. It pulled and dragged me, deeper and farther. My screams were drowned by water, my head hidden by the waves.
I was going to die.
But then he was there. Guiding me and saving me. Out of the lake. Onto a beach. Onto this beach. You’re okay now, he told me.
“But I’m not,” I whisper now. I pound my fist into the wet sand like a two-year-old in the midst of a tantrum. “It’s not fair.”
“And who said life is fair?” The voice comes from above me, and my heart shudders to see Zane standing over me. He wears a leather jacket, and his arms are crossed over his chest, his head cocked to the side, as if he’d been standing there for hours analyzing my every thought.
“Stay away from me.” I jump to my feet and back up. “Stay…stay away. Go away.”
“What the hell is your problem?” He holds up his hands. “I’m here to help.”
“No, you’re not. You kill people. I know that now. I know everything.” I say, stepping back as far as I can go. Behind me is only water and rocks. He blocks my only path from the beach.
“Whatever you heard is wrong.”
“I hear you’re Nexian.” He steps closer, and I step back.
“I wouldn’t say I’m one of them,” he says. Another step back. I’m inches from the water, eyeing the waves. “It’s a little cold for swimming.”
“Wh-what?”
“Swimming.”
“So what? I’d get in that lake before I’d ever come near you.” I step back again and the lake splashes around my ankle. “Did you kill that girl at the truck stop?”
“What? No.” He shakes his head. “I’m telling you what you’ve heard is wrong. Did Adam tell you that? Or his daddy?”
“Go away.”
“It was his daddy, right?” His lips are lopsided in a sardonic smile. “Figures.”
“Stay away from me.”
He steps forward, closing the space between us and wraps his hand around my wrist. I open my mouth to scream, but Zane presses a finger to my lips. “I’m not here to hurt you. I want to help you. I know L
aris believes otherwise, but I didn’t kill that girl. I’ve never killed anyone.”
Truth. Soft and silent like the first snowfall in the winter. I see it in his eyes. He tells the truth. His fingers slide down my wrist and curl around my hand. And I am jittery inside. “Why should I believe that?”
“Because you should.” He grins. “I am here to help you and Adam. As far as I know, the only one here to help you and Adam.”
“But why? What’s in it for you?”
His face darkens, and he steps back from me, releasing my hand. He scans the beach as if somebody is there, listening. Then he turns back to me. “Laris has something I want. Helping you and Adam will get me close enough to him to get it. Easy as that.”
“What does Laris have?”
“Yeah, not about to give away that part of the plan, sweetheart.”
“So you have a plan?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And what?”
I groan in frustration. “How am I supposed to trust you if you don’t share that plan with me?”
“Sometimes the less people that know, the better. Less ways for it to get back to Laris and all that,” he says. “And until I’m completely sure you’re with me, I’m not ready to trust you won’t go babbling to Adam.”
“Yeah, well I’m not about to trust somebody when I don’t know what their true motivation is. So,” I say, “we’re kind of stuck. I don’t trust you, and you don’t trust me.”
“Look,” he says. “You’re the one in need of help. Not me. Trust me or not. No sweat off my back.”
“Except that thing you want. That thing that Laris has.”
His eyes flash, and he looks away. There’s a touch of pain in his expression, it’s almost wistful. He does care. When he looks back at me, his eyes glow as if they’re buried beneath unshed tears. “I lost my dad a long time ago,” he says. “Laris has something that might help me get him back.”
“So why not ask Laris? I’m sure he’d—”
“Yeah, no. I don’t think so. Forget about it.” He turns to leave, his shoulders slumping slightly, his face drawn. I’m tugged inside, by my own memories, my own past. If I could get my dad back, wouldn’t I do just about anything? Wouldn’t I hope that others would help me?
“Zane,” I call. He stops and looks over his shoulder. “Does this plan involve hurting somebody else?”
His eyes glow with hope and he turns around. “I’ve never killed a human before. That’s the truth. I don’t plan on starting now.”
My eyes drift to the lake. The clouds are thinning and the stars appearing. My thoughts are at war within me. Adam’s warning still rings in my ears, but there is a growing bubble of trust in me that believes Zane. That believes he’s harmless. That believes not only can he help us, but we can help him. I need to hear him out.
I’m about to make the bravest choice or biggest mistake of my life. I close my eyes slowly and breathe in the night air. Adam will understand. He’ll forgive me. He has to.
“Okay,” I say. “Another question. Why can’t I tell Adam anything?”
“He’s too close to Laris,” he says. He walks back to me, closing the distance. His face lights up as he speaks. “He’s too close and believes him too much. He’ll never trust me. And even if for some crazy reason he does, Laris has a watchdog on him twenty-four seven. It will be harder to pull this off if Adam knows about it.”
“Will this work?”
“I think so.”
“Okay,” I say. “So what is your plan? What are you going to do to help us?”
He crosses his arms and sighs. “I can’t give you that yet.”
I groan. “We’re getting nowhere again. How am I supposed to help you and you help me if you can’t even tell me what the plan is?”
He uncrosses his arms and slides his hands into his jeans. “How about this? If this is going to work, first thing you need to do is to get Laris to ease up on Adam. Ever since your little road trip ended the way it did, Adam has not been out of Laris’ sight.”
“No way. I’ve barely seen Laris, and I see a lot of Adam.”
“Of course you don’t, he’s having you followed. Trust me. Laris has his guys monitoring Adam’s every breath.” The figure in the woods. Maybe it wasn’t the Nexians.
“So how do you plan to get Laris to back off?”
“That’s your job, sweetheart.”
“Well, what’s your plan for me to get Laris to back off?”
“Well,” Zane says, chewing the inside of his lip. “You need to get Laris to think that you and Adam aren’t Romeo and Juliet. Because if Laris thinks Adam’s not that in to you, he’ll be less afraid that he’s going to fight his fate, and less likely to keep the babysitter on him.”
“You want me to break up with Adam?” I hug my arms to my chest. The beach sways around me. “We’re not even going out.”
“Ha, yeah. Keep telling yourself that.” Zane crosses his arms.
“I don’t know. Adam doesn’t trust you. And Stella. And I just—” I gulp the lake air deeply. “Adam says he has other ideas.” Suddenly, I’m torn. Between Adam and Stella. Between Adam and Zane. I shake my head.
“Adam has no ideas. He thinks he does, but he doesn’t. Right now I’m about the only person who can help him out of this. Trust me.”
“You keep saying that. Trust you. But I don’t even know you.” His eyes dart towards the shadows, and his jaw flexes. He uncrosses his arms.
“Okay then,” he sighs. “Go with Adam’s brilliant ideas. But if his best plan involves a crooked tree on the north shore, come find me. You know how.” He turns to leave. An image flashes into my head of a floor and blood and of the girl’s lifeless eyes. The images shift and fade until it’s the diner around me and Amber’s lifeless eyes in front of me. Oh god, would he hurt her?
“Zane, wait,” I say.
“Yes?” He raises an eyebrow.
“What are you doing with Amber?”
“Having fun,” he says. “Lots and lots of fun. And don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt her. Despite what you’ve heard, I’m not that bad of a guy.”
With that, he turns his back to me, retreating into the woods. I am alone again with the lake, which is calm and quiet and peaceful.
I am anything but.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Adam knocks on my door early. Too early. I barely slept two hours, my encounter with Zane pressing into my thoughts. There’s coffee in the coffee pot, so I fill a chipped, faded mug and answer the door.
“Want a ride to school?” He’s bright and smiley and it hurts to look at him.
“I guess,” I say. “Just give me a minute.” I guzzle the coffee down, lukewarm and always too strong. Dropping my cup in the sink, I check on my mom. Mark is gone and she’s in front of the bathroom mirror, layering on the makeup. Her eyes are heavy with a hangover, so I step back silently, grab my backpack, and follow Adam out the door.
“You look tired,” he says when we’re in the car.
“I’m fine.”
His eyes study me carefully. “Did you sleep okay? Did Mark wake up?”
I nod. “I think so. He was gone before I woke up.”
Adam exhales. “That’s good. I was worried he’d be out for longer than the night.” He starts the car and backs out of our driveway.
“He won’t remember, will he?”
“Not a thing.” Adam lifts the corner of his mouth. “He’ll think he drank too much and passed out. And even if he does remember, it’s going to feel like a dream to him.” He pulls the car onto the main road where slivers of early morning sunlight flash through the trees.
Adam’s jaw is tense, the way it gets when he’s worried about something. I bite my lip. “Do you think Mark knows?”
“About what?”
“You. The way he was asking questions.” I shudder at the memory of Mark’s creepy eyes. They’re too small and protrude too much for his round fleshy face. Like
fish eyes.
“I don’t know, but that’s not what I’m worried about. I think you should go to the cops.”
“No.” My stomach rolls. Why did he have to bring this up? “He’ll be gone soon. He’ll get bored—they always do.”
“Sage?”
“Adam, don’t.”
“You need to tell somebody. Go to the cops.”
“No. If I do that, it will be like last time and he’ll sweet talk my mother into not pressing charges and she’ll believe him. Then the minute nobody’s looking, he’ll beat the hell out of her. It’s better to just get through this.”
“No, it’s not.” Anger thunders in his voice.
“Please drop this. You promised not to call them.” His face tightens and he frowns.
“I promised not to call them. But I didn’t promise to not push you to.” He lets go of the steering wheel long enough to squeeze my hand. I unwrap my fingers from his and he moves his hand back to the steering wheel. “Fine. I’ll drop it. Truce, okay?”
Without meeting his eyes, I nod. An awkward silence follows, and I twist my fingers in my lap while my heart ricochets against the walls of my chest. New subject. I need a new subject. “You said you had leads. What are they?”
His face lights up like streetlights at dusk. “There’s this legend,” he says. “I’ve been digging up tons and tons of stories about it. There’s this tree in Minnesota, on the north shore of the lake. Some call it the witch tree, but the Ojibwa call it Manidoo-giizhikens. It’s hundreds of years old.”
A crooked tree.
My heart falls. Falls through the car floor and to the road. Falls until it’s flattened by the moving tires. Adam talks about how this tree can make him fully human and without Perseidian blood in him, he'll never be able to leave Earth. And I sink.
A crooked tree.
We pull up to the school, parking along the curb in front of the two tiers of steps leading to the red brick building.
“I can show you the info I found after school,” he says. “Do you want me to pick you up?”
One Starry Knight: A Scifi Alien Love Story (The Starry Knight Saga Book 1) Page 18
