Orlando glanced up at Alan from his plate and made a quiet noise that sounded like, “yeah?” to acknowledge him, before going back to eating.
“Yes.” Alan nodded. “We celebrate it earlier during the harvest, but the concept is the same.”
“Cool.”
Alan frowned. JD was right, something was different about Orlando. Granted the guy didn’t talk to Alan all of the time, but he usually was more inquisitive about Altura as well. There was a thirst for knowledge inside of him, and Alan enjoyed quenching it. Talking about home helped him to remember, and it made him feel less far away from everything he knew. But how did he bring up the problem?
“I can tell you more about it later,” he said and put his fork down so he could take a break from eating. “You wanted to talk?”
Orlando’s blue eyes met Alan’s gaze for a moment and then he looked back down at his plate. “Yeah, there was something Angela and I didn’t mention last night about our...adventure with Bean and Sprout. We found out their identities.”
“You did? This is excellent. Why didn’t you say something about this last night?” A huge leap in progress, that much was certain. With two key team members identified, Alan’s tribe could plant spies and gather more information, as well as gather enough evidence and man power to stop them once and for all.
“Because I wanted to talk to you about it alone.” Orlando pushed his plate away. “Between me, you, and Dale, I think we need to start a support group called ‘My Girlfriend is an Evil Super Villain and I Don’t Know What to Do’.”
“You mean...”
“Yeah, it’s Tait and her brother. My girlfriend and her brother.” He waved his hand as if it weren’t a big deal. Alan knew better. He understood the pain all too well.
After a moment of silence, he spoke. “I suppose it’s good you found this out now before you two became more involved.” From what he knew about Orlando’s relationship, it was in the beginning stages. There could have been a lot not being shared of course, but it didn’t seem like the two had been together for long. A few weeks to a month. Orlando liked to keep his personal life private. Alan wouldn’t have even known the guy had a girlfriend to begin with if JD didn’t tease him about it every so often.
Orlando shrugged, but didn’t say anything.
“But it’s painful all the same,” Alan added, not wanting to come across as cold.
“Confusing.”
“How so?”
“Because I don’t know what to do about it. Do I pretend everything is fine and enjoy our time together while we’re...normal? Or do I break up with her? She doesn’t know who I am or that I’m involved. And it makes things complicated. She lies, a lot, so she can do her work for the tribe. Most of it is disgusting. At the same time...”
“When you are just being a regular teenager, things are fine. And there is the emotional connection to weigh as well.” Alan nodded slowly. They were questions he had asked himself not too long ago.
“Right, emotional connection.” Orlando said it in a way that was hard to tell if there was sarcasm attached to the words or not. More often than not, he was being sarcastic with just about everything. But would he continue to do so even though they were having a serious conversation?
When in doubt, Alan asked questions. “Are you not emotionally connected?”
“We are, but I’m not sure how much. She said she loves me, but she hasn’t told me yet. Whereas, I’m not sure what I feel for her.”
“If you decide you wish to keep being romantically involved with her, I will not hold it against you,” Alan said, and hopefully that helped with the boy’s inner turmoil. He then added, “So long as you keep your work and your personal life separate. Though that will be hard to do, given all you know about her and what she’s done.”
“Yeah, another dilemma. She’s done some bad things, stuff I don’t agree with. It’s hard to tell if she’s acting on something she believes in, or if she’s been brainwashed or manipulated into it. Kind of like what you said they wanted to do with Dale. I need to know.”
“You do not have to make a decision right now,” Alan said quietly.
He’d never seen Orlando look so sad. For the most part, he came across as tough and strong. Alan had seen him afraid, but never sad. It was a strange first, and not an emotion that fit the teenager. He hoped for Orlando’s sake that the girl had been used and manipulated. Hearing Alona say the horrible things she had nearly destroyed Alan. To find out the woman he loved believed hurting someone else was okay was not an experience he wanted the teen to go through.
He also secretly hoped they would stay together for rather selfish reasons. A more direct connection to the opposing force could give them an advantage as well. But Alan didn’t want to stoop to Alona’s level. He didn’t want to use his charges or their personal lives for his own gain. But it was for that reason he hadn’t flat out forbidden Orlando from seeing her again even though he knew he probably should have. Maybe we could convert her, or...
Orlando only nodded and started to eat again, taking rather large helpings of the meal he’d made. A good sign he was feeling better, so Alan must have done something helpful. “I’ve got more going in the oven, so help your—”“ He stopped when the doorbell rang. With an eye roll he stood up. “Who’s coming over now? Don’t people have lives or something? I’ll be right back.”
His heavy footsteps disappeared down the hallway, and Alan could hear the door open followed by some muffled voices. Orlando came back to the kitchen with JD and Angela.
“We come with gifts,” she said, and thrust out a container of some orange looking fruit. Or maybe it was a vegetable? Alan couldn’t tell, but he could see it covered in what looked like brown sugar.
“Yeah, go ahead and add it to the pile,” Orlando said and went back to his plate. “I thought you guys were going to be with family or whatever today?”
“If you were at our house, you’d wanna get away too. Thirty people don’t fit inside of it well. Mom and Dad said we could go after we did the obligatory socializing,” Angela explained and got her own plate so she could eat as well.
“It was the pits. Not that I don’t like the family, but lack of sleep plus ten screaming children isn’t a good time.” JD did the same, piling on large amounts of food. “I didn’t know you could cook, man.”
“I do need to eat,” Orlando pointed out. “Although, I do usually get takeout . Kind of hard to do today. I just made the potatoes. The chicken is from the grocery store kitchen, and I reheated it in my oven. The corn is frozen. Hopefully that all fits more with your image of me.”
“Nah, if I was you, I’d have like some world famous chef working here every day.”
“He has the day off,” Orlando said. It was probably the most in-character thing he’d said since the mission. He glanced over at Angela. “I told Alan, so I guess we can fill the others in now.”
“You sure?” she asked.
“Fill me in on what?” JD stopped eating and put his fork down.
“Bean and Sprout. We know who they are,” she said, so casually as if it weren’t a big deal. And she continued to fill him in on the details. Alan watched as JD’s face changed from all smiles to a deep frown, and his skin paled slightly in color. Every so often he would glance over at Orlando, and his mouth hung open and flapped closed as if he were a fish out of water. Angela did all of the talking, while Orlando ate as though nothing were going on, and once more put on his strong front.
JD whistled quietly through his teeth when Angela was done. “Things got a whole lot more interesting, and complicated all at once.”
Alan couldn’t have said it better himself.
Chapter Eighteen
“Tomorrow is the day,” the alien named Jaes said. He waved Dale over to sit next to him.
Dale did so, tired, completely beat. They had just gotten done with some “basic” training, and he felt like he had been hit by a bus. His body ached, his head hurt from using his powers, a
nd he was exhausted from training every night since Thanksgiving. Four days of cramming. On top of physical training, he had to work on conditioning his mind in case anyone tried to mess with it. School would begin again tomorrow, Monday, and he was nervous about seeing Tori. He’d sent her a message asking her to call him so they could talk soon. Dale would feed her the lie then, and hopefully he could sell it well. There were only a couple of times he’d lied to her outright. Most of which involved romantic surprises. Those hadn’t been difficult for him. He’d wanted to keep the secret to make her happy. This lie was drastically different.
“I’m ready. I can see her, and all of them,” Dale said confidently.
“Excellent. Now, I think you should call her while I’m here so we can get this part out of the way,” Jaes said.
“I asked her to call me when she’s ready. Wouldn’t that be better?”
“She won’t call you. She might not ever be ready.”
Dale hadn’t thought of that. For the most part, Tori was always withdrawn and stayed away from conflict. Aliens coming and taking over was a huge conflict. She’d probably try to keep pretending nothing ever happened. He was surprised she’d even invited him to meet with them in the first place. Someone most likely put her up to it.
With a sigh, he pulled out his phone, knowing Jaes was right. It’d be better to get the conversation out of the way sooner rather than later, and not do it alone just in case he messed something up.
The phone rang three times before she picked up.
“I was just about to call you,” she said, sounding tired.
“I didn’t wake you or interrupt anything did I?” he asked.
“We just finished watching a movie.”
“Cool, so can we talk about...stuff?” He didn’t know how to bring it up. Hopefully she would catch the hint by the serious tone in his voice alone.
She was quiet for a moment, so she must have understood. “Yeah, let me go to my room.”
He waited patiently for her to move, giving Jaes a thumbs-up letting him know everything was okay.
“All right, what’s up?” she asked, still quiet.
“Wednesday, you know, the night before Thanksgiving? I wanted to talk about that,” he started, hoping he was doing everything right.
“I figured as much. I’m sorry about what happened, I—”
“Shh,” he whispered. “Please let me say what I need to, and then you can have your turn.” He took in a deep breath and waited to see if she would reply. When she didn’t, he continued. “I don’t understand what’s happening, and the whole thing scares me. It’s a lot to take in. Those other people, they took me away and ditched me in the schoolyard. I’m so confused. Nobody is telling me anything. Tori, I need you. Because of you, I’m willing to listen, to try. A lot of crazy, scary things are happening to me.”
And then he waited, for a lot longer than he wanted, for her to say something again. Did she not believe him? He glanced over at Jaes who was leaning forward intently, also waiting for her response.
“I’ll pass the message along. As much as I’d like to help you, I’m not sure I can. There are rules,” she said quietly.
“Oh.” Dale couldn’t help but be stung by her lack of interest in helping him. Wasn’t she willing to do anything in her power to make things better? He would certainly do that for her. Not even aliens scared him enough to keep him from her.
“Honey, I...”
“Hmm?” He made sure the tightening in his chest was present in his tone, so she could know just how hurt he felt.
“It’ll be okay. Don’t be scared. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you,” she whispered. Her words were bold and they surprised him. As much as he knew he shouldn’t, he believed her.
He glanced over at Jaes again and nodded. “I need to get going, but we can talk more later.”
“I’m glad to hear you’re okay. That you weren’t hurt, and made it back home okay. I’ll see you tomorrow. By then I might know more. I’m sorry I can’t help you. Goodnight.”
“Thanks,” he said. They said goodbye, and then he hung up the phone.
“Do you think she believed you?” Jaes asked.
Dale nodded. “Yeah, but she still sounded hesitant. Like she doesn’t want me to be included.”
“Perhaps she doesn’t. You love each other, yes? Why would she want you in harm’s way?”
“True.” He sighed and ran a hand over his face as he tried to think. I’m not sure I want to be in it either, but I can’t protect her if I can’t stay close to her. They’ll let me in. They have to. And then I can get us both out again.
Chapter Nineteen
Time began to pass quickly, and Orlando was more than okay with it. Two weeks had already flown by since their mission at the park. Between homework, training Angela, and keeping his eyes and ears open for more hints and clues, he hardly had any time to think about Tait or see her beyond the school’s walls. When they were together, everything seemed normal enough. He was pretty sure she knew something was up. She watched him intently when she thought he wasn’t looking. But he was, and he noticed other things about her too, when she wasn’t paying attention. Like how distracted she was all of the time.
He realized she wasn’t taking notes in class; instead it looked like she was writing plans for something. Helping Alona perhaps? He couldn’t tell. She wrote in a code language and he never got to look at it closely enough to decipher what it meant. He also noticed how she clung to him every chance she had, as if she could sense he was slowly slipping out of her fingers. They didn’t talk much, mostly because he had little to say to her. Not to mention he made sure to keep their time together as limited as possible.
He couldn’t avoid her forever. After his class got out on Friday, he made the effort to go to her locker and wait for her to get out of Literature. When she noticed him standing there, the brightest smile lit up her face.
“To what do I owe this surprise?” she asked, shifting her backpack on her shoulder.
“Gotta keep you on your toes,” he said. Just be normal. This is normal. Everything is normal.
“I was starting to wonder if you were too busy for me or something.” She laughed.
“Funny, I was thinking the same thing about you. With cheerleading and being a girl, you’re hard to keep up with.”
“You’ll be happy to know that this is my last week of cheering, but I’m sorry. I’ll always be a girl.” She winked.
He sighed dramatically. “I guess I’ll manage somehow. It’ll be torturous, you being so curvy and cute.”
Tait leaned up and kissed his lips softly, and for a moment they lingered there. He’d missed kissing her, touching her. Why did it all have to be so hard?
“It’s short notice, but Lyssa wants to meet you. I don’t think I can put it off any longer. We had talked about doing dinner the weekend after Thanksgiving, but obviously that didn’t happen. So what do you say to this weekend? Again, short notice, I know, but I figure that gives us less time to get in trouble,” he said, hopeful.
She laughed, and then bit her lip. Did she feel guilty for lying to him? “This weekend is fine. I mean, Saturday will be okay. That’s probably the only day that does work for me.”
Got big plans to help Alona torture more teenagers? He forced a smile, hoping it was believable. “That’s the day she was hoping for anyway since it works out well for her boyfriend.”
“I forgot he was going to be there too.”
“Uh-huh.” Give me a sign, please. Anything.
“Maybe we can have some time alone?” Her bottom lip raked between her teeth after she said it, and he noticed her cheeks flushed slightly.
Orlando swallowed, not sure how to interpret her reaction. What exactly did she want to do with him? “I’m free tonight if that’s what you mean.”
“There’s a basketball game tonight. I need to cheer. If you’re still awake when it’s done though, maybe? It’s a girls’ game. Those tend to go pretty late. It mi
ght be past curfew then. Parents are getting tight on it and—”
“Don’t worry about it then. I’m sure there will be time Saturday too,” he said, and pulled away from her slightly. The basketball players were in uniform, so he wanted to believe her. At the same time, he couldn’t help but wonder if he should be staking out her house to make sure she was, in fact, cheering instead of going out to do her work.
She grabbed his arm, not letting him move farther away. “But I want to see you. I feel like...I don’t know...something changed over Thanksgiving. I’m not sure I like it. If something was wrong, you’d tell me right?”
Too perceptive. I need to not be so obvious. Orlando nodded. “Yeah. There’s a lot of things I want to explain to you, but I’ll do it when we’re alone. Because I don’t like talking about my problems where there are prying eyes and ears. It might destroy my image.”
“I’m sure it’s a big thing to have you trust someone with them, huh?” she asked, her voice getting quiet.
“Glad you’re picking up on things about me,” he teased. Don’t get mean with her, you might chase her away.
“I pay attention to a lot.” She narrowed her eyes and then nudged him hard in the stomach. “Which is why I can’t wait to give you your Christmas present. It’s pretty special and one-of-a-kind.”
He hadn’t even thought about what to get her. Christmas was generally a last-minute thing since he only exchanged gifts with Lyssa. Even then, that was usually only one present and they spent more time doing things together than anything else. He’d have a handful to buy for this year. Should probably make a list.
“I see by the slight panic in your eyes that you haven’t started yet. Such a guy, last minute.” She laughed and rubbed his arm.
“There is no panic. When I buy it on the Internet, everything comes on time,” he insisted. “I’m intrigued though. I’d try to torture it out of you, but I suppose the fun is being surprised, right?”
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