“But I have to. He’s hurt. He needs me. I can’t let him down,” I rambled in one breath, my heart thumping up to my throat.
Atlanta crossed her arms. “You’re home. You’re safe. You need to get well. That’s all that matters. What you need to do is forget about the alien.”
I broke out of my whisper. “No. I can’t, and I won’t. He saved me. He risked everything to bring me back to Earth. If it wasn’t for him, I’d still be there, and I’d die there.”
Attie’s eyes widened, and she broke into a smile I could read a mile away. “You…”
“No, I didn’t,” I fibbed. My cheeks burned.
“Yes, you did, and now you’re in love with it.”
“Okay, okay, yeah, I did. I care about him a lot. I have to save him.”
“And what are you going to do—tighten your hospital gown and just walk out of here? This hospital is flooded with reporters waiting to talk to you and me, Logan, Kevin, your doctors—anyone they can grab a hold of and interview. They even cornered your mom at the hospital entrance, and your uncle had to push them away. On top of that, what about your infection?”
As for being septic, I’d just have to delay my treatment and hope for the best, but I certainly couldn’t have any reporters trying to follow me around when I was making my way back to the Laguna Mountains.
“Are they outside the hospital right now?”
“Not exactly, thanks to your uncle. You won’t have to worry about that, at least not for a while,” she admitted. “He filed a complaint, and now the reporters aren’t allowed anywhere near the hospital entrance. Now they’re parked across the street, and there’s a security guard checking IDs. The only people with permission to be here are family, close friends, and of course, the detectives.”
“Good. I’m going to need clothes.”
“Are you really going to do this?”
“Yeah, no matter what. I feel fine, really. Whatever they’re giving me for the infection is working.”
“For now, but if you stop—“
“I don’t care about that right now. Please. I’m going to need your help, and maybe Logan’s.” With my bum arm, there was no way I could climb to the ship, and Attie, she was the epitome of upper body weakness.
“Are you kidding? He knows how sick you are. There’s no way Logan will help us. This whole thing has put such a strain on our relationship that we almost broke it off.”
“Then Kevin, maybe he would. In fact, I bet he’d do anything to see a real space ship.”
“I’m not so sure. Not after what he’s been through.”
“We’ll need one of them. Neither one of us will be able to climb up to his ship, and if we have to move Garran, the two of us wouldn’t be able to do that, either.”
“Garran?”
“Yeah, his name is Garran.”
Garran’s face trickled into my mind, his eyes of blue and amber, surrounded by smooth, contoured shell. But the serene image didn’t last. My smile faded, and I shook my head as it was replaced with his badly broken body, the plates of his chin and cheeks shattered beyond repair.
“So what does—?”
“Attie, don’t you understand? We have to go—now. We’re wasting valuable time.” I gripped her arm. Hard. “Look, I’ll tell you everything later. First we need to figure out how to help him.”
Attie’s eyes shifted from mine to gaze at the floor, and with her arms still folded, she tapped her fingers against her upper arms, something she always did when she was holding back her words.
“What?” I snapped. “Just tell me.”
“Kevin’s waiting for me in my car. I didn’t want to come by myself in case I got ambushed by reporters, and I didn’t want to drive myself and deal with the traffic.”
“That’s great! Now we can do this for sure. I bet he won’t take much convincing to help us. We’ve got to go now. Please! Before my mom comes back. She could walk in here any minute.”
“Okay, okay. Let me think.” Attie stood and twirled a piece of her hair around her finger. She opened the closet, checked the bathroom, and returned with a frown. “Nope, nothing here,” she reported. “But…” Her eyes blossomed. “My gym bag is in my trunk. I have shorts, a tank top, tennis shoes—”
“That’ll work.”
We finalized the rest of our plan, and Attie rushed from my room to get her gym bag and returned as promised within minutes. I barely had enough time to shove her clothes under my sheets before a tiny nurse with a tight bun pushed her way into my room and Attie out of it, and lifted my chart from its place at the foot of the bed. After removing my catheter, she changed out the bag of liquid hanging next to me while I huffed impatiently, and before she left, told me the doctor would be in shortly.
After hesitating for a few seconds, I lifted the tape holding my IV in place, grabbed the tube, closed my eyes, and yanked it away. It hurt, but it didn’t bleed.
I dressed quickly and was out the door. The hall was clear when I left my room. Attie, I could only assume, was waiting for me at the car. A nurse turned a corner and bustled nearby with a cart of pills, but she was busy studying a chart and didn’t bother to look at me when I passed. A security guard was stationed by the elevator, but since I was going instead of coming, he only gave me a quick glance.
In the elevator and down five floors I went, sharing the car with first a family of four and then a pack of doctors in scrubs. They all ignored me as I kept my eyes on the floor and headed into the lobby.
The sky was bluer than it appeared through my hospital window. The breeze caught my hair, putting it into an irritating game of tag as it repeatedly hit against my lips, and I had to keep brushing it away from my eyes.
To the parking structure. In the elevator. So far, so good. Up one, two, three floors. “Almost there,” I half whispered. Attie’s car was right where she said it would be. Kevin caught my eye in the rearview mirror and started the engine as I approached.
“Thank you so much, Kevin, for doing this for me,” I said as I slid in next to Attie and closed the door.
“I’ve been studying the stars for most of my life. I’m only doing this for one reason. I want to see a fuckin’ alien and his ship. I’d risk anything for that, even going to jail, but I’m not sure I want to risk your life.”
“I’ll be fine, really. If something happens to me, it won’t be your fault. Now just go!”
Chapter Forty
Garran
Just as Enestia’s two suns were killing America, this Earthly sun, benign in comparison to the suns on my home planet, might possibly be contributing to my death now. It rose against the blue sky, and its harsh rays penetrated my blanket of leaves, baking the crusted blood that oozed from between the cracks in my shell. My tunic and leggings, clawed into shreds, did little to soak away the blood, so it held me together instead.
It was a strange sensation. First I felt sticky, the smell of blood thick and salty. But as my coagulated life fluid shrank and dried, sucking pieces of shell together and locking them into place, I almost felt whole again, solid and complete. But the sensation was a farce. One move from my extremities crumbled the caked blood, and I cringed as the sharp, jagged pieces of shell jabbed into my exposed muscle and organs.
And I was weak, so weak. My thoughts were jumbled but my senses keen, or were they playing tricks on me? How much blood I had lost at this point, I wasn’t sure, and trying to lift my head for an inspection would be futile, further damaging my insides and disturbing the dried foliage whose job it was to keep me from human and animal eyes.
I turned my head instinctively to a tiny noise to my right. A big mistake. My broken casing overlapped oddly, pinching what was underneath, and I imagined bands of red muscles and pulsing veins being poked and scraped.
The offender was a small creature, gray in color with big, black eyes and a long tail bushed with animal hair—fur. It scurried and stopped, scurried and stopped, shuffling along the forest floor and digging through the scattering
of leaves until it produced something round and brown in its paws, some sort of seed or nut. It gave the nut a quick nibble, its nose twitching, and after alerting to a sound behind it, pounced away, dropping the nut in the process.
The sound that scared the creature away came from a bird with wings made from something I’d never seen before but only read about. It wasn’t hair. It wasn’t fur, but it was soft, thin, and malleable none-the-less.
My curiosity wanted it to hop closer for a better inspection, but it fluttered off in the opposite way to peck alongside a fallen log. I thought of Murelle’s bird, Bell, and how it sat on her shoulder under her hood to keep out of the rain. Murelle. Had she already told her tale of my escape? Were she and Slaine being punished because of me?
Knock, knock, knock came a reiteration of sounds so close together it was impossible for me to count the number of hard taps. But I tried. It kept my mind from the fact that I was slowly dying.
It came again. Knock, knock, knock, tap, tap, tap. But this time a showering of pine needles accompanied the rustic tune. Oh, there it was. Another bird, but very different from the last one that hopped and pecked.
This alien bird was black and white in almost a spotted effect. On the top of its head was a patch of red made of the same soft substance that covered the rest of its body in overlapping layers. Feathers—yes! Now I remembered what they were called.
It continued its drumming after a scan left and right. Was it signaling other creatures of its type? Was it a call of love or a call of warning? Taking a quick breath of damp air from last night’s rain and this morning’s drizzle, I let out a soft sigh. The odor was fresh, heavy with soil and decaying leaves, but it was still pleasant, soothing in an odd way, though my battered body ached.
The sun cast a glow along the edge of the lion’s golden body, its limbs now stiff, its jaw frozen in a grimace of pain and the fear of death.
“I’m sorry I killed you,” I whispered. “And here I am, dying on foreign soil without the human girl I care so much about.”
I now truly understood how America felt, alone on alien land. This forest was my killer and my cell, as my planet was hers. But I was not sorry that our lives crossed paths. I believed, like she said, things happen for a reason. I only regretted that we couldn’t continue to be together.
Chapter Forty-One
America
“I’m actually going to be inside an alien ship?” asked Kevin.
“Yeah, Garran’s body is covered in shell, but it’s been damaged. He can’t walk, so I need you to climb up to his ship and activate the button that will send a distress signal to Enestia.”
“Yee-haw,” he said and smacked the steering wheel.
“Shell, and you fucked this thing? How?” Attie made a face and shuddered.
“Shhh.” I smacked the top of Attie’s thigh.
“He already knows,” she said. “I told him when I asked him if he’d help you.”
“Enestia,” said Kevin. “And it’s three galaxies away and has two suns?”
Good subject change. I described the planet’s surface, Enestia’s atmosphere, and how I became sick under its outpour of radiation. Kevin was so excited that the apples of his cheeks lifted and remained there, his accent becoming more prominent with each question, and I reminded him over and over again that he could never tell anyone about any of this until I was 100 percent sure Garran was back in his galaxy.
Who’d believe Kevin anyway? And even if they did, it wasn’t like we had the technology to fly beyond the Milky Way and try to take over the Millennius.
“This is so unbelievable,” said Attie. “An alien abduction, a space ship cloaked like a Klingon Vessel from Star Trek, a mountain lion attack, and a half-dead alien with a busted shell. Do you know how ridiculously messed up that all sounds?”
“Fucked-up but true. My whole master’s thesis will be based on this.” Kevin beamed. “My theory that cosmic radiation produced from the supernovae of stars combined with active galactic nuclei exist at intense levels beyond our universe, and that an adaption of skin, something hard and shell-like, a radiation-absorbing casing, could provide enough protection to sustain an advanced population of beings.”
“Remember, no pictures. Not with him in the condition he’s in. I would never disrespect him like that.”
“Okay, okay,” he said.
“So when they find out I’m gone, do you think anyone will think we came up here?” The look on my mom’s face when she came to visit me after breakfast, I wouldn’t want to see that. To disappear, get found, and then disappear again? The ache of guilt hurt worse than the pain in my shoulder and upper arm.
“No. I mean why would they?” said Attie.
“Maybe I should call the hospital and tell them that I checked myself out early, and to tell my mom that I’ll contact her soon.”
“It couldn’t hurt,” said Attie.
My message was semi-cryptic. It gave just enough information to let my mom know I was safe but not enough for her to know or guess where I was going. I repeated it to the receptionist twice as she wrote it down. Just as the receptionist said she wanted to connect me to the nurses’ station, I hung up.
But it wasn’t enough. Guilt continued to stir in my soul, and with my heart thumping in my throat, my hands shaking with nerves, and my whole body feeling sick, I prayed I wouldn’t find Garran dead and broken in the mass of leaves. Though he made the choice to bring me back to Earth, I couldn’t help but feel responsible for what happened to him, and if he died, that would be my fault, too.
Attie’s phone sounded with a rap tune. “It’s your mom,” she said, glancing at its screen. “See, she got our message.” She turned off her phone and shoved it into a pocket on the driver’s side door.
We were on the curvy part of the highway now, weaving back and forth up the mountain on a two-lane road lined with pines, and I broke into tears, making hardly a sound, muffling my sniffles with my hand.
“What’s wrong, Am?” asked Attie, hugging me at the waist.
“What if we’re too late? He snuck me out of the lab, stole a ship, and brought me back to Earth, knowing he’d lose his title as prince and wouldn’t be able to return to his planet without being punished for treason. I can’t let him die.”
“He’s a prince, too? Damn, this couldn’t get any better,” said Kevin.
We drove past the lake, the bait shop, and the general store. Garran, we are almost there. Hold on. I sniffled and dabbed my nose with a tissue I found in a crushed tissue box on the floor of the back seat.
Kevin drove into the campsite and parked in the—thankfully—empty dirt lot. Being a weekday and past spring break, it was like a ghost town. “He’s down the trail. Come, on. Hurry,” I said as we slid from the seat.
I sprinted toward the trail, bracing my arm. The combination of deep breaths and the morphine still in my system made me woozy, and for a moment, the trees began to spin. Controlling each breath to keep myself from fainting, I continued running as Attie and Kevin’s footsteps sounded behind me.
“Am, wait up,” I heard Attie call, but my legs kept going, as did my heart and faith that Garran would still be alive.
A body lay buried under a bushel of leaves like a corpse dumped into a makeshift grave. “Garran,” I said, coming to a stop and walking forward slowly with everything trembling, my arms, my legs, and my bottom lip.
“America?”
“I’m here,” I said, dropping to my knees. “I came back, just like I said I would. Don’t die. Please, don’t die.”
Most of the leaves fluttered away with the wave of my hand and a gentle brush, but the dead leaves on his face were stuck to his shell with the glue of dried blood. I picked away what I could but left the ones that would hurt, like it would to peel away a Band-Aid.
“You’re well and safe?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d return.” His voice was raspy and I could see why. One big plate of br
oken shell bit into his neck, slowly suffocating him.
“Of course I would. I could never leave you like this.”
“Oh my God!” Attie dropped to the ground next to me; her hand smacked over her mouth. Behind her stood Kevin, his jaw lowered and his eyes full of disbelief.
“Garran, these are my friends, Atlanta and Kevin. They’re here to help you, too.”
Garran’s plates clacked when he tried to smile. “Don’t move, and don’t talk unless you absolutely have to.”
Kevin gave the dead mountain lion a kick with his shoe and mumbled, “Unbelievable.”
“Attie, you stay here with Garran. Come on, Kevin.”
I grabbed Kevin’s arm, and we jogged to the clearing. “See that tree? You need to climb to that limb.” I pointed.
“Where’s the ship?” His eyes scanned the tree line as he took in a deep breath.
“It’s there. Trust me.”
He grabbed the first branch and pulled himself up, easily making the climb that took him parallel to what I thought was the location of the opened door.
“I feel it,” he said. His palm hit against what looked like open air space, patting up and down and then smoothing against it. “Where’s the door?”
“It should be about right there. Hold on.”
With my left hand, I awkwardly pelted pebbles at the ship like I had done before. “If one goes farther than the others, it’s cleared the door.” But each pebble pinged against the side of the ship and ricocheted away. Kevin snapped a long branch from the tree and used it to run the length of the ship’s side, but it ran against the ship’s metal with an eerie scraping sound, never finding an opening.
He climbed down and scaled the next tree while I tossed pebbles, but his new location took him even farther away from the ship. “I give up,” he said and jumped down from the tree. “There’s no door. It must have closed.”
We found Attie still at Garran’s side. She stood up, blinking away a tear, and whispered, “He’s beautiful, Am, even like this. I understand now.”
“Thank you. Thank you for being here and helping me.”
Gamma Rift Page 24
