One Starry Knight: A Scifi Alien Love Story (The Starry Knight Saga Book 1)

by Carrie Lynn Thomas

  “Exactly.”

  “And you think it will work?”

  “It worked on you.” He gives me a very un-Adam-like leer. I turn my eyes. It hurts to see that expression on Adam’s face.

  “Until you kissed me,” I wipe my lips. I can’t seem to get the taste of him out of my mouth.

  “I won’t be kissing Laris,” he says. “Maybe that Brianna chick though.”

  “Ewww,” I say.

  “Awww,” he says, rocking back and forth on his feet. “Don’t be jealous.”

  “Believe me, I’m not. You two deserve each other.” I stand up from the swing. “I’m going to find Adam. The real Adam. I’m not so sure about this plan of yours.”

  “Now, now, don’t do that. Trust me,” he steps closer. His face is close, inches from mine, and he’s going to kiss me again. I shiver and step back into the swing slamming it into my thigh. Ouch. I’m going to have bruises on the backs of my legs.

  “What is that supposed to do? You being Adam?” I ask.

  “You’ll be free to run off into the sunset with the real Adam.”

  “And we should go to the tree?”

  “The tree?”

  “That crooked one. It’s supposed to make him completely human or something, right? How am I supposed to save him?”

  “You’re not. All you need to do is lay low out of sight of Laris until Laris and crew are gone. Once that happens, once the Nexus is out in space, he will be fine. Trust me.”

  “That’s your plan?” I beat my fists against the bench. “You told me the tree was the plan. This—this is a terrible plan. Laris will never just leave without Adam and maybe you can fool him long enough for us to disappear but what happens when it comes time to use the Nexus. Because you can’t….wait. You can use the Nexus. You're not completely Perseidian then, you’re—”

  “No. You’re—.”

  “You're like Adam. You're his brother.”

  “No.” Zane looks away but not quick enough for me to see the truth.

  “You are. You are. We have to tell Adam. We have to—”

  “No.” Zane grabs my shoulders and shakes me. “One word and I'm out. You can kiss your precious Adam goodbye.”

  “But—”

  “No. Say anything and the deal is off,” he says. “If you want my help, Adam can't know who I am. Laris thinks I'm dead, and I don't want him to know otherwise until I'm ready.”

  “Laris—Laris is your dad. Is that why you're doing this? So you can be with your father?”

  His eyes darken and he looks away. “Something like that.” Pain edges his words, and my heart squeezes. There’s loss in his eyes. Deep loss. I know that loss, too well.

  “So what’s next?” I ask.

  “Go get Adam. Tell him everything. Well, except the part about who I am.” He points up the beach to the car pulling in. Brianna and Adam climb out, and my stomach collides with my chest. “I’ll meet you at your house in about an hour. I have one last thing to do before you leave.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Adam and Lucas carry paper grocery bags to the cabin. Brianna and several of her friends skip ahead of them, giggling and tossing their hair. I follow Adam. He’s like a moving stone statue with no expression, no feeling in his eyes. Like the Adam I’ve always known with the crooked smile and the laughing blue eyes has been carved out and left with emptiness inside. Hollow, just like the hollow ache in my gut.

  The girls all stop on the porch, parting to allow Adam and Lucas to walk through carrying bags. They whisper and giggle before following them inside and closing the door. I hide behind some bushes on the side of the cabin watching the front porch. I can see the parking lot, where Brianna’s trunk is still open. They must be coming back out.

  Adam emerges a moment later. “I’ll go get that last box,” he says, and shuts the door behind him. Nobody follows.

  This is my chance.

  I dart into the sun, catching him before he reaches the parking lot. He freezes when he sees me, and the stony mask melts until I can see the pain in his eyes.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “Now?” He looks around. “I’m sort of busy.” He circles around me and walks towards the car.

  “This is important, Adam,” I call after him, but he doesn’t stop. “Adam?”

  He pulls a box from the trunk, slamming it shut, walking by me again.

  “I know you’re leaving tonight.” Still no response. “Adam, please. I’m sorry. For every word I said. I’m so sorry.”

  He stops, but doesn’t turn around. It may be his back, but it’s all I’ve got, so I let the words gush. “I’m sorry. It was part of the plan. Zane said the only way to convince your dad was if you weren’t with me anymore. And—”

  He turns and his eyes are like shattered glass. “Don’t—” He shakes his head and rolls his lips together. “Don’t say it. You don’t get to sit there and say it. Not when you can’t trust me.”

  “No, I do. I’m trying to save you Adam.”

  “No, you don’t. You never trusted me. If you did, you wouldn’t be playing these games. Lucas told me what you tried to do. Who does that to a friend? Who are you?” His words are nails and his voice the hammer, and I close my eyes to stop the tears.

  But I fail.

  They rush like waterfalls. Through them I can see Brianna standing on the cabin porch, her arms crossed, her face bright and smiling. I want to sink into the ground.

  “Adam, why her? Of all people why are you spending tonight with her?”

  His eyes soften for the briefest moment. “It’s not to hurt you. I needed something to do—this party, these people. They won’t tempt me to change my mind and stay longer.”

  “But why can’t you stay longer? Why tonight?” Tears drip off my cheeks and my nose and my chin. I’m sure my face is red and puffy, and I look crazy. But I need to get through to him.

  He sighs, glancing across to the cabin where Brianna waits and back to me. “I’m trying to give you what you want. Because no matter what, you’re everything to me. And if you can’t deal with the risk of things not working out, then I’ll make this easier and go now.”

  “Adam, please.”

  His eyes grow cold and hard. “Don’t do this.” He shakes his head. “Stop now.”

  “But there’s a plan now. There’s a way for you to stay.”

  “I’ve tried to say this as nicely as possible, but you’re not getting it. Go, get out of here. Go live your normal happy life where nobody ever leaves you again. Forget about me.”

  He turns his back to me and walks to her. I press my hands against my face to staunch the flow of tears. When he reaches the porch, Brianna whispers into his ear, and he responds. She lets out a loud giggle.

  I should go. But I can’t move. I’m welded to this spot on the ground and like a heavy anchor, I can’t move until he lets me. Until he tells me. Until he—.

  My stomach shakes and my head crackles. What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? I had not planned on this, not even considered it. And now, oh god, what do I do? They disappear into the cabin, and I sink onto the walkway between cabin three and the parking lot.

  I think I just lost Adam.

  Chapter Fifty

  I go to Zane. He’s all I have left. It kills me to think that, but he’s it. My only hope at getting through to Adam. He said he would be at my house, but there is no sign of him when I get there. I scream at the woods and the sky and the empty driveway. I tear through the house. The kitchen, living room, my room.

  Empty.

  I claw my hands against the side of my head and fight the tears and the cries erupting inside of me. Twitching inside and trembling outside. How can this be happening? Where did I go so wrong?

  I run to my mom’s room. She’s curled in a ball in bed, passed out, dead to my screams. An empty wine bottle sits on her nightstand. She must’ve had another fight with Mark today. I check for a pulse before tiptoeing back to my room, nearly tripping over my bac
kpack. It leans inside my door, stuffed with the clothes and pictures I had planned to take with me when Adam and I ran away. We were supposed to be meeting Zane now. Maybe even gone by now.

  My backpack. Ready. Waiting. Waiting for me to run with Adam. I yank it from the floor and dump it on my bed, breaking the zipper as I rip out all the contents. They fall across the mattress and to the floor, and I fall with them. Breaking.

  How could I have been so stupid? Zane’s plan. I could’ve never run away. What about my mom? And Stella would’ve seen right though Zane’s disguise and realized he wasn’t her son. This is all my fault, my stupid fault. I should’ve trusted Adam to begin with.

  I lay on the floor, my cheek pressed into the carpet, my eyes open but not seeing. I don’t want to see anymore. My cheeks are no longer wet, but sticky from my dried tears. I have nothing left in me to cry. I let out a gust of air and something tickles my cheek. I grasp at the air in front of me, pinching paper between my thumb and forefinger. A picture. The newspaper photo Lucas gave me of Laris and Vin.

  An empty bubble of pain bursts in my heart, and I close my eyes. I hate you Laris and Vin. I hate you, and all that you stand for. Part of their image still glows on the back of my eyelids, and I open my eyes again. What was that? Laris’s finger. There’s a ring, several large diamonds cut into a star. It’s huge and gaudy, and I wonder how I missed it. My heart thunders as I remember where I saw it before.

  Pancakes. Maple syrup. My mom laughing and giggling, and Mark reaching across the table. Wearing that ring. Who is Mark, really?

  I’m on my feet, running through the house calling names, but nobody answers. Out the side door, down the steps, to the garage. I turn the handle, but the door is locked. I lean into it, but it doesn’t budge. Back in the house I check the key rack for the familiar blue and green lighthouse chain my mom kept the garage key on, but it’s not there.

  I push my hands into the wall and groan. Something is not right. I need to get into that garage. I need the other spare key.

  Our second year in Star Harbor, my mom locked herself out of everything. The house, the car, the bathroom. When she started repeatedly losing the spares we kept in the garage, I copied another set and kept it with me. But it had been a few years since it was last used. Where did I put it? The answer comes as I tear through the kitchen. I yank out the bottom drawer and reach in the back, my hands curling around the set of keys.

  Outside I fit a key into the lock and the garage door swings open. I flip the switch flooding the garage with hazy yellow light and—

  Images of Adam.

  Everywhere. The walls, the floor, the back of the door. He’s 11 and 12 and 13. He’s with his mom and Laris and me. Smiling, laughing, staring into the sun.

  Photographs.

  The garage is full of photographs of Adam.

  There are several poster boards strung up in the midst of the pictures. Charts marked with lines and dots, plotting dates and locations. The night Adam showed up in the lake. The day Adam rescued me from the beach. The year Adam was born.

  A long folding table is covered with papers and clothes and colored rocks. I walk over to the table and pick up a shirt. It’s gray with the word KNIGHT in block letters.

  There’s several radios and a box with a beeping blue light. It’s like a control center mixed with a shrine to Adam. Did Mark do all this? I need to go find Adam. I need to bring him back here. Then he’ll believe and he’ll stay and—

  “You shouldn’t be here.” My skin prickles at the deep voice behind me. I turn, slowly to find Mark filling the side door to the garage and pointing a handgun in my direction. The sun shines behind him, turning him into a dark shadow. He’s got crazy in his eyes. It glows across the garage. My throat closes, and my lungs stop. I hold up my hands, swallowing the fear that is threatening to overtake me. The garage spins around me, fuzzy, blurry. This isn’t real. This isn’t happening.

  “You shouldn’t have seen this.” He inches closer, keeping his arm and the gun in front of him.

  I shiver as I eye the metal barrel of the gun. Lots of people around here hunt every year. Lucas has a rifle that he uses to go hunting with his cousins every fall. I don’t know much about guns, but I know that Mark is no hunter. “Who are you?”

  “I told you. I work for the government. I’ve been tracking Adam for years,” he says. “I know what he is, exactly what he is.”

  “And what is that?” My teeth chatter, and I slowly back up from him. His steps are large, and I’m running out of room.

  “A foreigner who doesn’t belong here. He’s dangerous to mankind and needs to be eliminated.”

  “He’s just a teenager,” I say. “Adam’s not dangerous.”

  “My superiors would disagree. And I think you know more too, Sage, don’t you?” Mark keeps inching closer, pressing the gun closer. Sweat clings to my skin and my heart roars in my chest.

  “No,” I say. “He’s not dangerous. I don’t know—“

  “Shut up,” Mark slams his hand across my mouth and presses the gun into my stomach. “I know exactly what Adam is. He’s an extraterrestrial. The government’s been following Laris and his offspring for years.”

  “No,” I try to say through his fingers, but my words are muffled.

  “I said shut up,” he presses harder against my mouth. “I’m one of the good guys. Adam and his kind are dangerous, Sage. You hear me? I’m doing this to protect everybody—you included. Now keep your mouth shut and cooperate because I won’t hesitate to fire this gun if it means human lives are saved.”

  The edge of a table pushes into the backs of my legs. There’s nowhere to go. Mark releases his hands from my mouth, presses the gun into my arm and reaches around for a roll of tape. Duct tape.

  Oh god, he’s going to tie me up. I can’t let him do this, but I can’t move. Sweat pours from every inch of me, and my muscles are frozen in place. Black spots explode in front of my eyes.

  “Hmph. I can’t have you getting in the way. And you’ll make the perfect bait. Just as stupid and dumb as your mom.” He sets down the gun and reaches for me. Now’s my chance, I slip underneath his hands, running for the door. My legs strain, my heart races. I can make it. I will make it.

  Hands clamp around my arms, strong hands. Too strong.

  I’m not going to make it.

  Mark squeezes my wrists and twists them behind my back. The tape squeaks before it’s slapped onto my skin and wrapped around my hands. Again and again. The stickiness digs into my wrists. I scream and kick my legs, but his arm wraps around my waist and cold metal presses into my back.

  “I would stop if I were you.” His words drench the fight in me and he shoves me into a chair. He’s rough, wrapping my arms and legs in tape. I feel like a mummy. I give a final cry as he turns me around and stretches a long slice of tape across my mouth.

  He takes my phone from my pocket, turning it on, thumbing through the messages. Then he glances at my neck, and almost as an afterthought, rips my locket from my neck. I try to cry through the tape, but it’s only a whimper. Tears drip from my eyes, running down my cheeks and pooling along the edge of the tape.

  Mark holds my phone to his ear. “Adam this is Mark, some strange guys showed up here and took Sage. I’m really worried about her. They said that you would know what they want….what?…yeah…I’ll meet you there…” He shuts off the phone and laughs. “That was easy.” I try to talk against the tape again, but my lips are stuck. Rubbing my wrists together, I try to loosen the tape around my hands.

  “Now, what am I going to do with you?” He watches my struggling hands. “It won’t work to leave you here.” He pulls me from the chair, dragging me. My ankles scrape across the garage floor, burning and twisting. Outside the garage, the sun has set, and Mark and I are one shadow moving across the driveway. He leans me against my mom’s car and pops the trunk.

  Oh god, he’s putting me in the trunk.

  I cry and squeak through the tape, but I barely make a soun
d. He lifts me in. I try to kick my legs, but they’re stuck together. I’m stuck together. I can’t do anything.

  I’m curled in the back of my mom’s car with my hands tied behind me, my feet tied together, and my mouth gagged in duct tape. And the trunk door slams, locking me in the darkness.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  This is how dying feels. Thin air, empty lungs.

  I try to still the anxious flutter in my heart by imagining myself with Adam. Far away. Where there aren’t other planets to be saved, and enemies, and Mark. Where we can be happy, all the time. An endless summer. He smiles at me, that familiar curl in his lips. His eyes smile with him, and he laughs. It’s like a melody, soft, sweet, the best part.

  He frowns in my vision. Like the frown he gave me on the walkway between the cabin and parking lot. No, you don’t. You never trusted me. I do now Adam. I have to get to him and convince him. I have to warn him about Mark. I wiggle my feet. The tape is tight, too tight. So I focus on my hands instead, bending and flexing my wrists. It helps to have tiny hands and fingers. I can feel the tape easing, slowly giving way. Keep moving, keep bending. Get to Adam.

  The tape loosens more, and I can move my wrists wider. A little more….a little more….there. I slide my hand through, fighting and stretching and squeezing. My thumb and then my fingers and freedom. I pull my hands forward and rub the raw ridges in my skin left by the tape. Okay, now my feet. Images of Adam waiting for Mark in the woods flash through my mind as I reach down to free my feet. Gunshots. Adam, crumbling to the ground, bleeding. Oh god, I have to get to him.

  Once my feet are free, I push against the trunk to stretch my elbows. Remains of the tape dangle from my right arm, and I shrug them off and roll onto my hands and knees. Now the hard part. I take a deep breath and close my eyes before tearing the tape from my mouth. I let out a small scream and rub my wet, stinging eyes. I’m free…almost. Running my hands along the back of the trunk, I search for the key to my last barrier to freedom. I push and pull at every bit of metal until I find it. I remember Lucas telling me two years ago about one of his cousins getting stuck in the trunk. Did you know your mom’s car has a trunk release inside the trunk? he had said. Thank you, Lucas. The lid pops and air rushes in, filling my lungs. I drink the freedom in as I climb out, taking heaving breaths as I double over and shake.