by Owner
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and wetter, than others. I searched the outside pockets first. Nothing. Not even a gum wrapper or credit card receipt. Then I wrinkled my nose, held my breath, and sent my hand into the pocket inside the jacket. And there, I met with success. No change or random phone card, but a cell phone, one of the tiniest I'd ever seen. But definitely Earth-made. It said Motorola right across the back of it. An alien with a cell phone, how bizarre was that? No, a telepathic alien with a cell phone, even stranger. I'd have to ask him about it, if he didn't die, that is. And if I could figure out a way to bring it up without tipping him off that I'd found it while snooping.
I flipped it open and pressed power. It sang its little opening sounds which I tried to muffle by closing the bathroom door. I started to dial Scott's number and then stopped. All cell phones these days, even my antiquated one from last year, allowed you to program in numbers so you wouldn't have to remember them or dial while driving. What were the chances that an alien with a cell phone would have preprogrammed his most important numbers?
I cleared Scott's number off the screen, then I pressed 1 and held it down, hoping this phone worked like mine. After a second, a number with an area code I didn't recognize flashed across the screen, followed by the designation of "A." I nearly hung up right then, but when it started to ring, curiosity got the better of me. Who would he have programmed into his phone?
It rang five or six times and right as I was about to hang up, someone answered. A woman.
"Who is this?" she demanded. Her voice was rich but deep with suspicion.
I snapped the phone closed immediately, my heart pounding in my chest. What was I thinking?
As I stared down at the phone in my hands, I wondered if she had Caller Id, and how long it would take for her to try this number back. Hastily, I opened the phone again and dialed Scott's 54
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number. If Caelan had call waiting on this thing, I wouldn't answer it and if she left a voice mail, assuming he had that feature...well, I'd worry about that later, I guess.
"Hello?" Scott answered. He didn't sound sleepy, which he should have at–I checked my watch–four-thirty in the morning. Actually, it was three-thirty in the morning for him.
"Scottie, it's me."
"Zara. What the hell is going on? Are you okay?" Scott sounded angry and scared at the same time.
"Yes, I'm fine. I'm going to come home as soon as I can. I'm not sure I can explain all this over the phone," I said.
"You better try," he snapped. "They've got people out looking for you."
Panic clutched at me. "What? Why?"
"Brigham called me a couple of hours ago. He thinks you've been kidnapped or murdered or something."
"Oh, crap."
"Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. Where are you?" I started to answer and then looked back toward where Caelan still slept, even though I couldn't see him. "I don't think I can tell you that."
Scott lowered his voice immediately. "Are they holding you hostage? If they are, just say...potato." I fought against a hysterical giggle. "No, I'm fine, Scott. There's just some...alien trouble, I guess you could say." Silence hung heavy for a moment, then he sighed. "Oh, Zara, not again."
Stung, I almost hung up on him right then and there. "No, Scott, this is different. This isn't some nightmare or delusion, okay? I'm with one of them right now and another of them is trying to kill me." I didn't even get to the secret power part before I realized how crazy I sounded.
"Look, just tell me where you are. Stay put, and I'll come get 55
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you when I get home. I'm at the airport now. My flight leaves in an hour." He sounded weary and overly patient, like he was talking to a small child. Or a crazy person.
"Never mind. I'm fine." For now, I almost added. "Just listen to me. If you see an alien, an Observer named Nevan. He's got silver hair and–"
"Silver eyes, yeah, I know. Just like the other ones at the house?" Scott had been witness to too many of my episodes. I'd run out of the house in my nightgown. After that, I'd started sleeping in my clothes.
"Listen, I'm serious, okay? Stay away from him." He didn't say anything.
"Scott?"
"Yeah, I'm here." He hesitated, then continued, "I can see why Brigham believed you. You sound so...convinced that it's the truth."
"It is the truth," I shouted, forgetting that Caelan still slept nearby. "And what do you mean about Brigham believing me?" I hadn't talked to Brigham since he questioned me about the diner blowing up.
"Zara," Scott said, exasperation plain in his voice, "he issued some kind of report saying you'd been kidnapped by an Observer." Oh, God. Brigham had put two and two together and gotten three. He knew what had happened at the diner earlier with Caelan saving me and when he'd heard about the mess at my house and me being gone...
"What did he say the Observer looked like?" I demanded.
"What? Why?"
"Just tell me, damnit."
"I don't know. Six feet tall or so, like the rest of them, but dark hair not silver. It's all over the news." My heart stood still for a second. "What?"
"When word got out that an Observer was somehow 56
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involved, all the media people picked it up."
"I've only been gone two hours!"
"Yeah, but there's something about suspected violence because of the house." He paused. "What happened at the house, Zara?"
"Nothing." I ran my hands through my hair distractedly.
"Look, Scott, I have to go. But I'm fine, okay? Tell them to call off the search."
"Just come home and tell them yourself," he said, starting to sound upset.
"I can't, not yet." The words were out of my mouth before I even realized that I'd decided what to say.
"What do you mean, you can't!" Scott shouted on the other end of the phone. "Zara, for God's sake, they're bringing in members of the Council to investigate because they think an Observer is involved. Get home and straighten this out." The Council? At my house? No way. "I'm fine. I'm safe for now, okay?"
"Zara–"
"Just listen. Don't go home. Stay where you are, stay away from any Observers." Who knows, if someone else had heard Caelan's story about my special power or whatever, they might think it ran in the family. Or worse, Nevan might decide to find out what Scott knew about where I was. "I love you. Remember everything I told you. And don't talk to any of the aliens. I'll try to call you again soon."
"Zara, damnit–" He sounded like he was close to crying when I hung up. Tears stung my eyes, but I couldn't do what he wanted, not yet. Even though it killed me not to. We were all we had left. And we never turned against one another. Not when he got suspended from 10th grade for beating the pulp out of some kid who called him an orphan and not when Doc Heresford sent me to be tested for all manner of things, including schizophrenia. 57
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But right now, I had to find out what was going on and keep Scott safe. If I went home, he would come home, too. And if Nevan were still hanging around... I shook my head to clear the image. I didn't even want to think about the possibilities. Regret pulling hard at my heart, I turned the power off on Caelan's cell phone and dropped it back into his jacket pocket. I turned on the water in the sink, then washed my hands and splashed cold water on my face to keep the tears at bay. Drying my face on the hem of my shirt, I headed back out into the main room with Caelan's jacket and laid it at the foot of the bed. Caelan had slept through it all. With nothing else to do but wait, I turned on the television. I only managed to flip by two channels before I saw it. The local early morning news was running the story. They had my high school senior picture–does the phrase "big hair" mean anything to you–with the word
"Abducted?" plastered across it. Even on CNN–I couldn't believe this dump had cable–they had a blurb running across the bottom of the screen. "26 yr old waitress disappears from Silver Springs,
TX. Local authorities consider an Observer to be the primary suspect."
"Damn." I turned away from the television and went to the side of the bed where Caelan lay.
"Caelan?" I said softly. I didn't want to startle him or break his concentration, if that was what this absolute stillness was. His eyes opened for a split second, then closed again before I had time to ask him if he was all right.
I looked down to check his back, and I couldn't believe what I saw. Instead of the ragged and furrowed skin that had almost made me throw up, his back appeared smooth, though still bloody. Wherever there had been an injury with glass or metal or wood, only a healing pink line remained and near each of those lines, the piece of debris that had once been in his flesh. I picked up a shard of glass and stared at it. You could still 58
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see where the blood had clotted to the smooth surface. There was no question–it had once been under his skin. His body had forced it out like a splinter. Could they all do that? And if they could, what else could they do?
"No wonder everyone's afraid of you guys," I muttered. I saw the tattoo just as I started to move away from him. It was like none I'd ever seen before, and I've seen my share. In the small of Caelan's back, flames engulfed a bluish green planet. But the shades of blue, green, red, and yellow were so vibrant they appeared to be the color of his skin rather than dye beneath the surface. The blue seemed wet, that was how real it looked. And carving that image in two, right down the center of the planet, was what appeared to be a large piece of the diner's front window. It couldn't have been more than a half-inch from his spine. The wound still seeped blood, and the glass appeared firmly embedded.
"Oh, shit," I whispered. He shouldn't have been walking around with an injury like that. The glass could shift and damage his spine. He needed help for this one.
As if someone else were reading my thoughts, sirens sounded in the distance. I checked my watch again and swore. Ten minutes over the hour I'd paid for. Word of the diner disaster must have reached the woman in the motel office somehow. The police scanner, I realized belatedly, remembering the indistinct chatter emanating from behind the counter. No wonder the clerk had acted so strangely. She had known who I was from the beginning but waited to bust us until she was sure she wouldn't have to refund the $30. Humanity, ain't it beautiful?
I started to reach for Caelan to try to wake him, then stopped. He was badly injured. There was no way he could get up and out of here in time, and certainly no way I could move him. The decision had been taken from us. The police would come and get him and take me back home. He'd probably end up in jail for 59
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escaping from Brigham, and I...I might be getting another visit from Nevan.
"Screw it." I shook his shoulder a little harder this time.
"Caelan, they're coming."
"Zara," he said, but his eyes remained closed.
"We've got about three minutes to get out of here." I looked toward the door, ears trained on the sound of the sirens. "Maybe less."
He looked up at me then, his eyes beginning to focus on my face. "They're coming."
"Yeah, I know." I ran my hands through my hair.
"You have to help us. You're the only one who can." He sat up.
I backed away. "What are you talking about?"
"Listen, please. Two years ago, we woke here, four of us, with no memory of our lives before. Nevan is the only one we have met who seems to know us from the past. But he will not speak to us of it." Caelan moved his feet to the floor. His movements were quicker than before but still not faster than human.
"Wait a minute, wait a minute." I held up my hand to stem the flow of words from him. "You have no memories?" My heart landed with a sickening thud into my stomach. He'd lied to me.
"Nevan refuses to reveal anything. But we continue to pursue him. He will eventually kill us to keep us silent." He pulled his jacket from the foot of the bed and slid it on, pain tightening his face.
"If you don't remember anything, how can you possibly explain what's going on to me?" I crossed my arms over my chest, anger lifting my voice.
"We need your help," he said. "The gift you have been given, to become one with our minds, will be enough." I stared at him for a second. "Screw you. You tricked me into 60
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this. Why should I believe anything you say?" Vaguely aware that the sirens had stopped, I stormed past Caelan to the door, halfexpecting him to try to stop me. My fingers touched the doorknob.
"Two hundred and twenty-two," he said. I turned back around. "What?"
"That is the number of Observers believed to be present here on Earth, correct?" He started moving closer to me, the intensity in his face frightening.
I swallowed hard. "Yeah, something like that."
"I have seen more than twice that many myself in this province alone." He loomed over me now.
Province? He must mean country, I decided. "Not possible." I shook my head. "We would know about. The government–"
"How? Your government was never given a method to track or number us. None of the leaders on this world were given such a thing. Do you suppose that even if they attempted to determine the exact number that it would be allowed?"
"How could you stop them?" I turned my head slightly to one side, away from his eyes. He stood far too close to me now, his warm, bare chest only inches from my face. And rather than triggering my claustrophobia, as I would have expected, his toonear presence activated something I hadn't felt in a long time–a warm tightness, low inside me. A jolt of old fashioned lust. Not good, Zara, I thought, panic dousing the sensation almost immediately.
"I can demonstrate. I will tell you everything I know about us and show you more than you could have imagined." He pulled back from me a little to catch my gaze. "I may not know all that I once knew, but even still, I know more than you do now." His eyes on me no longer seemed frightening as much as simply too intense, hiding emotions the depths of which I couldn't begin to guess, nor did I want to.
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I twisted sideways slightly, away from that stare, to look out the peephole. I winced at the responding twinge in my ribs.
"They're out there, you know." Two police cars sat just barely inside the range of my fishbowl view.
He reached around me for the doorknob. I skittered to one side and away from that closeness. That was too much.
"Wait," I said. "What about the...what about your back?" I couldn't say "wound"–it sounded too gory and melodramatic.
"It will have to be for now." But he was beginning to shiver again. He stared at the door, not bothering to look through the peephole. "One of your officials has gone inside the office. The others remain in their vehicles." And then, to my shock, he started to open the door.
"They're going to see us before we get two feet from here." My heart pounded hard in my chest. Needless to say, he couldn't, and I wouldn't, fight them. I just hoped they weren't planning to shoot Caelan on sight.
"I will handle it." He walked out before I could protest further.
I held my breath and followed him outside, perhaps only five feet away from the nearest police cruiser. I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the cries of alarm and the command to freeze. But there was no shouting, only the sound of the birds beginning to chirp and police radios muttering to themselves. I took a breath and opened my eyes to find all the officers staring at us, but not moving. Caelan, still next to me, had one hand outstretched toward them.
I looked up at him. "What are you–"
"Move to the car now," he said through gritted teeth. "I will not be able to maintain this for long."
So we stumbled our way to the car and got in. I pulled out of the parking lot as fast as I dared without attracting more attention. A quick glimpse in the rearview mirror revealed all of them still 62
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sitting there, waiting for the first officer to c
ome out of the office. Once the motel was out of sight, Caelan collapsed back onto the seat, lowering his hand.
"How did you do that?" I kept my eyes on the mirrors for any sign of a chase, but so far, so good.
Caelan stretched out as he best he could in the confined space of the front seat, his shoulders turned to spare his back and his head almost in my lap. I could have suggested he move to the backseat, but I didn't think he could manage to climb over the front seat, and I was not stopping the car now.
"I made them see what they expected to see," he said, his voice muffled.
"What does that mean?" I frowned.
"It means they didn't believe we were there," he said.
"Sheryl's dragged us out here on a false alarm. Though I can't think she'd want us hanging around for no reason, it's bad for business. But who says this waitress is missing anyway? She probably just took off with the insurance check and her boyfriend." He recited their thoughts word for word in a flat tone, just as he'd done with Mike's thoughts at my house. It was creepy.
"They didn't believe we were there, so they didn't see us? Is that it?" I tried to wrap my brain around this idea.
"No. It would be difficult, much more effort than I am capable of now, to convince them that they did not see anyone at all. I merely showed them what they expected to see."
"Which was?"
"A man, many years older, and a woman, sharing your same number of years but much different in appearance." Some silicon-enhanced former cheerleader, no doubt. I pushed aside my annoyance to think about what he'd said. "So that's how you'd do it, hide in plain sight, I mean."
"Yes."
"So all those people out there trying to keep tabs on you 63
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folks–"
"Could pass us in a crowd of humans or an empty street and still not be aware of our presence as other, provided that we sensed the intent of that human to detect us."
"And," I added, the snowball of thoughts gathering speed as it rolled down a mountain of speculation, "even if a few of you were busy concentrating on something else, like you were with the sheriff, and they recognized you for what you were, it'd be no big deal." "Because that many more would have hidden in time."
