“I know you haven’t received any training.” General Fox held her stare. “I get that you’re not a Marine or a member of the armed forces. But one thing I think you can agree with me on is that for any team to be effective, there has to be a level of trust. The Marines preach this day in and day out until it’s so ingrained into your soul there is no question that the Marine beside you has your back. The trust we have for one another goes far beyond words. My men know that whatever comes, we’re in this together. When you and Tistan Duel used our information to teleport and took it on yourselves to face the Vilmar alone, you broke that trust.”
“I know—I know and I feel horrible for that.” Emma cringed as she grasped the full magnitude of the position she had put General Fox in. “I’ll prove to you that I can work as part of a team, but right now, please. If you’re serious about us moving forward, please don’t do this.”
“I’m not one to hold grudges.” General Fox reached for a cigar in the front of his shirt pocket and a lighter. He bit into one end of the cigar and spat the edge into the bushes in front of him. “I address issues, we learn, and we move on. I know you haven’t known me long enough to see that’s how I operate, but you will.”
“Okay, okay, good.” Emma heaved a sigh of relief. “I wasn’t sure how pissed off you were going to be about the whole thing. Thank you. I spoke with the dean at the Academy, who contacted the Alliance, and they want to meet with you to talk about Earth joining the coalition. But seriously, if we could talk about this later? My dad is going to be home any minute.”
General Fox still didn’t move. He sat puffing on the end of his cigar as the yellow flame from his lighter stoked the tobacco inside the rolled husk.
“That…” General Fox spoke slowly, exhaling the smoke and enjoying the flavor. “…is some seriously great news. We can build trust from this point going forward, Emma. As far as me not telling your father a thing about this? I give you my word. You can tell him.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Emma saw movement from the street. Her father’s black sedan that was already nine years old with a white scrape on the passenger rear side where someone had opened their door too fast pulled into their driveway.
A light bulb clicked on in Emma’s mind as she understood everything the general wasn’t saying. He was prepared to forgive her and move on, but not before she paid for what she had done. Technically, it was Tistan who had teleported them to fight the Vilmar, but Emma was guilty by association.
The general was going to be true to his word and not tell her father. However, he wasn’t going anywhere and that would force Emma to tell her father everything anyway.
You can just grab him with your vambraces and force him to leave, Emma thought to herself as her wild imagination took off. You could grab him and teleport him away right now.
11
For all the reasons Emma wanted to escape, she understood why she couldn’t. She was part of something so much larger than herself right now. And if she was honest with herself, she had wanted to tell her father from the beginning. He was her best friend. She had shared everything with him, even the embarrassing stuff. There wasn’t a moment in her life when he had let her down.
Richard Jackson exited his vehicle holding a battered backpack he used to carry his teaching materials at the college. The plain jeans and button-up shirt made him look as though he could be a student of one of his own classes instead of the teacher. His short hair and a shorter dark beard covered his face.
His eyes sparkled when he saw his daughter, then transitioned to confusion as he caught sight of General Fox.
“Hey, Em.” Richard Jackson smiled at his daughter, then looked over to the general as he approached. “Hello.”
“Hello.” General Fox stood from his seat and extended his hand. “General Fox. I’m pleased to meet you, sir.”
“Uh, me too, I think.” Emma’s father shook the man’s hand, looking over to his daughter for direction. “Is everything okay here?”
“Yeah—yeah, it’s—it’s great,” Emma lied, trying to think of how to even broach the subject. Her stuttering would be a telltale sign to her father that she was lying. Instead of lying to him further, she word-vomited the truth. “Dad, I love you. I haven’t been honest with you over the last two months. I never went to a science camp. I’m half alien. I went to a place in space called the Academy to train. There was an alien force coming to invade Earth and I fought them back. Along the way, I discovered I’m part of a universal protection corps known as the Arilion Knights.”
Emma paused to take a breath, unwilling to look her father in his eyes. Instead, she pulled up the sleeves of her dark hoodie to reveal the purple vambraces on her forearms.
Finally, she looked up at her father. Richard Jackson’s mouth was open as he marveled at the pieces of armor on his daughter’s forearms. He looked at Emma, then to her forearms, then to the general, and back again. More than once, he looked like he was going to say something but didn’t.
“Are you okay, Dad?” Emma asked, biting her lower lip. “Sorry, I know I kinda dumped on you right now. Say—say something.”
“I—did you say you were half alien?” Richard Jackson shook his head, beginning a nervous laugh. “Emma, is this some kind of joke? It’s a joke, right?”
Emma just shook her head. She couldn’t imagine what was going on in her father’s mind right now. She had turned everything he thought he knew upside down in the space of a few sentences.
“It’s not a joke, Mr. Jackson,” General Fox looked over at Emma. “You really laid it on him thick, kid. Maybe we should go inside, sit him down for the rest.”
“There’s—there’s more?” Emma’s father licked at his dry lips. “Emma, what’s going on?”
“Yeah, good idea. Let’s go inside and get you to sit down.” Emma guided her father into the house while the general put out his cigar. The sun was setting fast already, ushering in long shadows that would herald the approaching night.
Emma led her father inside, her hand gripping his own as it had for so many years. This time was different. This time, she was leading him, the calluses on her father’s palm whispering promises of her own future as she continued to train as an Arilion Knight.
Emma, her father, and General Fox huddled around the kitchen table in silence.
“And you?” Richard finally spoke, looking over at the general. “How do you fit into all of this?”
“I spearhead a movement codenamed Project Nebula. We’ve been tasked with exploring the universe using ancient spheres we’ve uncovered. I’m here on behalf of the government to extend a hand to your daughter. We want to help in whatever way we can.” General Fox leaned back in his seat before motioning over to Emma. “You should be very proud of Emma, Mr. Jackson. She’s not only turned an alien force back from invading Earth, but she’s been training every day to be the Arilion Knight Earth needs her to be.”
“The who?” Mr. Jackson furrowed his brow. “The Armadillo Knight? What’s an Armadillo Knight?”
“Arilion, Dad.” Emma placed her arms on the circular kitchen table. “These vambraces choose one Arilion Knight on each planet to serve as the planet’s protector. They select the people whose will is the strongest.”
Mr. Jackson sat quiet, trying to process all the news coming at him at once.
“You should be proud—”
“I am proud of my daughter.” Mr. Jackson interrupted the general before he could finish his thought. “I’m proud of her every day. I don’t need her to be some kind of intergalactic Jedi Knight for that.”
“It’s more like being in the Green Lantern Corps, but I guess Jedi Knight works too,” Emma said under her breath. “I’m fine, Dad. I have great teachers and now more Arilion Knights are being chosen by the day. I’m not alone.”
“You’re never alone, Em,” her father corrected her. His eyes widened as a light bulb clicked in his head. “The attack on the beach, last month. That was you, wasn’t it?”
“No, I saw it on my news feed on Facebook,” Mr. Jackson said, staring at Em again. “That was you, wasn’t it? I mean, all there was, was a few blurry images, but it was you.”
“That’s when the vambraces first chose me,” Emma agreed. “I think they picked me because they knew I wasn’t going to stop. They felt the fighting spirit within me. They knew I needed to turn back the invasion to protect our planet.”
Mr. Jackson slumped back in his chair. “Aliens.”
“Aliens,” Emma agreed. She rose from her seat and went to the counter to get her father a glass of water. The hardest part of their conversation was yet to come. “You’d like them though, Dad. They’re not all bad. I made some really great friends while I was at the Academy. I want you to meet them.”
“Right, alien friends.” Mr. Jackson accepted the glass of cold water his daughter brought him.
“You should tell him about reconnecting with your mother,” General Fox coaxed Emma.
Mr. Jackson coughed and spit out a spray of water as he choked on the general’s words.
Emma cringed inwardly. Outwardly, she glared at the general.
“It’s best to get it all out now.” General Fox motioned to Mr. Jackson. “You said you wanted to be the one to tell him. So tell him.”
Emma spent the better part of the next few hours telling her father everything. How her mother had been an alien spy that fell in love with him, married, and conceived Emma, then was called back to her home when the mission was over. She went into detail about the Academy, the battle with the Shay, and now the Vilmar. Her training, her instructors, how the vambraces worked; everything.
General Fox chimed in here and there with more information Emma didn’t even know. He told them about their own growing corps of Arilion Knights, their headquarters underneath the Hoover Dam at a place called The Den, and their run in with the Lord of Chaos.
For the most part, Mr. Jackson remained quiet, soaking in his new world. Things he had been taught as a child about the universe were being redefined and reshaped by the minute.
When the topics of conversation had been exhausted, the table quieted once more.
“And here I thought you were missing out on some of the best years in your life.” Mr. Jackson looked at his daughter with a shake of his head and a wince. “But here you are making friends with aliens, acting as savior to our planet, and—and reconnecting with your mother.”
The last part of what he said looked like it actually caused him pain. The way he pushed the words past his lips with the pain in his eyes was everything Emma feared.
“I don’t ever know if I’ve truly ever experienced a state of shock before, but this is the closest I’ve gotten to it.” Mr. Jackson forced air out of his lips as if he wanted to say more, but no words he could create could do the moment justice. “I don’t know what to say.”
“It’s a lot,” General Fox agreed. “The best thing you can do is take time to come to grips with the truth. It’ll take time to accept all of this.”
“I’m—I’m sorry, Dad.” Emma shook her head. She wasn’t a crier, but seeing her father going through so much emotional anguish felt like an ice-cold dagger digging into her heart. “I wanted to tell you so many times before. I just wanted to protect you from all of this.”
Tears pooled, then fell down Richard Jackson’s face. There was no sobbing or crying; just salty streaks of water making tiny rivers down his cheeks and into his beard.
“We’ll be all right, we’ll be all right,” Mr. Jackson said over and over again as if he were convincing himself of his own words. He rose from his seat and moved over to where Emma sat. “I get it. I’m not happy about you lying to me, but if this isn’t some kind of crazy dream, I get why you’ve kept this a secret.”
At the sight of her father crying, the familiar sting of tears also touched Emma’s eyes. She refused to give them the satisfaction of making their way down her face.
Emma rose from her own seat. She embraced her father, burrowing her face into his chest. His familiar smell was comfortable, something like worn clothes that weren’t quite dirty but carried his scent.
Emma and her father broke their hold a moment later. General Fox jumped up from his seat, sending his wooden chair skidding across the tile kitchen floor.
His eyes were wide, a hand already at the small of his back where Emma knew he kept his sidearm. She followed his gaze to the kitchen window. There was nothing out of the ordinary that she could see.
They had been talking long enough at the table where the night had shifted from a descending sun to a full moon showering the neighborhood with its silver light. It looked normal enough. A view of their front yard let out to the street and the houses on the opposite side. No one was in sight.
“What?” Mr. Jackson looked over to the general. “What is it?”
Instead of answering the question, General Fox lifted a finger to his ear. “Laloyd, come in.”
Emma couldn’t hear the Draconian’s voice on the other side of the conversation, but she could guess what he was saying as she listened to General Fox.
“Nothing? You’re sure?” General Fox moved to the window, looking out to the dark night beyond.
Footsteps reached their ears from somewhere on the second floor of their house. So faint, Emma had to look at her father to confirm he had heard the same sounds.
Mr. Jackson furrowed his brow; instinct took over as he pushed Emma behind him. He placed himself between her and the foot of the stairs.
General Fox joined Mr. Jackson and Emma, removing the black Remington 1911 from its holster at the small of his back. “I take it you’re not expecting any visitors?”
“Nope,” Mr. Jackson said under his breath.
As the two men spoke, Emma caught movement from her peripheral vision. Her father had installed motion-detecting lights around their house as an added safety precaution only a few months prior.
The light at the front of the house that reacted to motion went bright. For the briefest of moments, Emma caught sight of a thick man with blood-red eyes staring at her from the front window.
He was gone a moment later.
“The turned, maybe Desmond himself is here,” Emma said, channeling a sword into her right hand and a dagger she held blade down in her left. “How did he find us so fast?”
Without waiting for an answer, she placed herself alongside her father and the general.
More noise came from the back of the house. It sounded like someone scratching long nails across their back door. Multiple steps could be heard overhead as more feet hit the floor above.
Emma could hear Laloyd’s excited voice talking to General Fox via his implanted comm unit. What he was saying was lost on her, but she could imagine.
“Yes, we’ve gathered that.” General Fox placed himself at the foot of the stairwell, aiming down the sights of his weapon. “Call in backup and stay in the vehicle.”
The handle to their front door jiggled as someone or something tried the lock. Emma exchanged her position beside her father and the general to meet the attack from the front door and the kitchen window if necessary.
Like an old friend calling for a visit, fear tingled down Emma from her head to her toes. Her heartbeat picked up as she had to remind herself to breathe.
Easy, Emma warned herself. Easy.
The fear that came for her this time had an extra edge. Her father was with her now. If anything happened to him, she didn’t know how she would be able to go on.
“Does, does someone want to tell me what’s going on?” Mr. Jackson asked.
There was no time. The sound of breaking glass as the kitchen window exploded inward accompanied General Fox’s discharging weapon.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
12
Two turned stumbled into the house via the w
ide kitchen window as the front door shuddered from the impact of others. Emma didn’t have time to see how many were coming down the stairwell. She had her hands full at the moment with the turned in front of her.
Compared to the other turned she had faced earlier that morning, these were very different. There could be no mistaking these beasts for humans. Sharp teeth and red eyes gave them away as something far more sinister than the average Joe.
They moved faster than the other turned as well. Emma could only assume that with this ability of speed came enhanced strength.
Emma charged her pair of enemies with abandon.
You’re not getting to my dad, you’re not going to lay a finger on him, Emma roared in her head. I’ll kill every last one of you if I have to.
Emma slashed at the charging turned on her right. He was a hulking beast of a man that could have easily been a body builder in his life before being infected by the Vilmar.
He caught Emma’s blade in both hands, ignoring the pain the sword must have caused. Rivers of blood fell down his hands and arms as he pushed forward. Instead of trying to force her opponent back, Emma took the opportunity to plunge her purple dagger into the right side of her enemy’s head near his ear over and over again.
The turned fell on top of her, pinning her to the ground.
This took only a matter of seconds. Even as Emma was falling backward under the dead turned, she saw her second opponent race past her and lunge at her father.
This enemy was already out of her reach. If she was going to save her dad, it would have to be with her vambraces.
Emma shot her left hand out, constructing a purple rope that wrapped around the turned’s left ankle. She jerked hard, sending it flying backward as it tried to swipe with a clawed hand at her father’s face. It was only inches away from taking off his nose.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
General Fox’s sidearm continued to roar in the space of the small kitchen. Emma’s eardrums were screaming at her as her hearing took a beating.
Burn the Night Page 7
