by Ella James
“Get some rest,” he murmured, and he kissed my hair before he opened the door to the back of the cab. I climbed in, shoving sleeping bags and camping gear out of my way, making myself a small space in the corner, behind Nick, who slid into the driver's seat at the exact moment Vera scooted over to the passenger's side door and curled up in a ball of misery.
The rear bench was warm, and the pile of sleeping bags I found myself leaning against was soft.
I watched Nick’s shoulders as he pulled onto the road, and I wondered why I had ever thought the climax of our story was him liking me.
I was barely a verse in their space opera. Or maybe it would turn out to be a horror movie. Not a love story. I closed my stinging eyes, and I thought of Mom and Dad, and how when he died, she'd cried so long, I thought she might die, too.
Later, she had told me, “It was like I felt him leaving. I wanted to go with him, and I couldn't.”
I DREAMED OF Paul Revere. Torch flames dancing, horse shoes pounding on the old brick roads. I watched the horse, and its urgency became mine, and all of a sudden Nick's voice was in my ear. We were dressed like Star Wars, lying in Annabelle's pink bed, our legs tangled, Nick's big body pressing pleasantly on top of mine. He leaned down, and I thought he would kiss me, but instead he smiled, that soft, sweet smile I knew was just for me.
“Help me, Milo, you're my only hope.”
I opened my eyes, and I wasn't in Annabelle’s bed. I was in the backseat of a stolen truck, lounging on a pile of sleeping bags with my arms crossed tightly around myself. Nick was—not in the truck. The truck was parked, off the road at what looked like an abandoned gas station, and I was by myself. For a terrible moment I was absolutely certain that he was gone, and then I heard voices.
Angry voices.
Nick and Vera’s voices.
My eyes followed my ears, and I quickly spied them, on a slab of cement maybe thirty feet to the left of the truck—rolling on the ground.
All the blood in my head drained away in one second flat, and again I had that sick feeling of Nick isn't who I think he is and OMG, I am such an idiot. I think those feelings were just offshoots of a more vast feeling, which originated with Dad's cancer: Don't trust anyone or anything.
My eyes refocused just in time to see Vera come out on top, straddling Nick, then punching him. I gasped. Nick flipped her off of him, jumped to his feet, and started yelling at her, his hands animated in a way I had never seen before.
Vera shook her head. She took a large step forward and slapped him. Nick turned on his heel and strode toward the truck.
I laid back down and held perfectly still while I waited for him to open the front door and climb inside, not wanting them to know I was awake. I was surprised when he opened the back door.
I raised my head, our eyes met, and on my end, it was like a collision. He held out his hand and quietly said, “Let’s move you up front.”
I was sliding down into his arms as Vera got into the back seat on the other side. She slammed the door so hard the whole cab shook. I wondered what had happened, and I thought I was going to get an answer, but instead Nick deposited me into the front passenger’s seat with only a tired smile.
He hopped into the driver’s seat without a word, buckled his seatbelt, and fiddled with the radio, eventually settling on a station of piano music—playing Satie’s “Gnossienne No. 1”—before he pulled back onto a highway.
“We're almost to Gardiner.”
“Montana?”
He nodded, and I could see his right eye swelling. Stupid Vera. My fingers itched to touch him, to ask if he was okay, but Vera Vera Vera.
“Wow. I didn't know we were all the way up here,” I'd been coming up this way since I was a little kid. Sometimes when Mom wanted an art weekend, Dad and I would take off for the parks—Teton or Yellowstone, or both—sometimes in a little twin-engine plane he'd had before he decided it was too dangerous and sold it to stupid Suxley. Gardiner was a sleepy little town that harbored the only wintertime access to Yellowstone.
“We were being held near Jackson, Wyoming,” Nick said quietly.
“Oh.” I wanted to ask about that. About how he’d let them torture him, because they’d threatened me. About ‘fragmentation’. Aside from whatever it meant to them, it felt like a really good adjective for the state of my heart.
I opened my mouth. The heaviness inside my chest moved into my throat. I could feel it on my tongue, but I couldn’t get it out. I felt vulnerable and small, so very beholden to Nick, not because of what he was, but because of who he was—to me.
Snow began to fall again, huge, fat flakes that dotted the windshield and overlaid the gauzy night beyond.
I was staring blindly at that night, wondering how on earth—indeed, on earth—this could ever end okay, when Nick took my hand and leaned near me, speaking softly in my ear. “I'm sorry for this. So sorry.”
I wanted to ask what exactly he was sorry for, but I could hear Vera stir behind us, and anyway, we were getting near downtown, so Nick had to focus on other things.
The foothills rolled around us, bathed in bright starlight that lent the falling snow an ethereal glow. I stared through it, at the ice-crusted firs, remembering the last time Dad and I made this trip—six days before Christmas 2008. That was the last year he’d been able to grow his winter beard.
The way I remembered it, the worn road would take us through a quaint community and over a small river. Once you crossed the river, storefronts became sparser, and the slim ribbon of asphalt led you south down 89, to the historic, brick archway that marked the north entrance to Yellowstone.
I battled feelings of painful nostalgia; this was the first time I’d been back, and the familiar slant of the mountains brought tears to my eyes. I tried to fight my anxiety, too. Nick seemed confident we were safe.
It was harder because he hadn’t explained how. And even if we were safe—it was temporary, unless Vera blew the whistle again and called the summons off. I didn’t think she would.
The worst part, the absolute killer, was not knowing when they were coming. ‘The Rest.’ What if I never saw Mom again? Or Halah or Bree or S.K.? Did the Mackris family even know about their cabin yet?
I actually smiled a bit when I wondered, because it was the least important thing I could have wondered. The whole world was going to be that cabin if Nick couldn’t convince Vera to blow that whistle.
I didn't want to talk to Nick in front of her, but I didn’t think I could stand not knowing anything any longer. Everything—literally everything—was hanging in the balance, and the longer I thought about that, the more confused I felt.
Didn’t I have an obligation to every other person on the planet? Shouldn’t I be Paul Revere? I glanced at Nick and felt how awful it would be. But even if it would be awful—even if he was the Nick I thought he was, and everything was innocent and genuine and true where he and I were concerned—I was nothing to Vera, and humanity was nothing to Vera. And the rest of Nick’s people?
I took a deep breath, because that’s what Dr. Sam had taught me to do if my thoughts started going to dark places. And they were. I wanted to disappear out of existence, or fall asleep and never wake up, because I simply couldn’t stand the wondering.
The town of Gardiner was all around us now. Lots of oversized shutters on big windows, swinging doors painted cowboy red, celebrity-dressing-room style light bulbs around windows that said things like, “Town Café-Casino” and “Reds Blue Goose Saloon.”
My gut clenched when we passed a little Sinclair gas station and I spotted a police cruiser next to a pump. I thought I might pass out when it pulled behind us.
“It’s okay,” Nick said, but I could hear the shortness in his otherwise even tone.
“We need to get across the bridge,” I said, breathless. “I think this is the—” right road. I trailed off when I spotted the bridge, just beyond a traffic light. I glanced in my side mirror, in time to see the cop turn off onto a side street. �
��Thank you, God.”
In the back, Vera was slumped against the rearmost window, sleeping or pretending to. She seemed completely unperturbed by the danger we were just in—but to her one cop was hardly dangerous.
It took us another few minutes to reach the park entrance, during which a thick fog rolled in on the road. It looked about knee-high by the time we reached Roosevelt Arch, a thick, stone brick archway over the northernmost entrance to Yellowstone. Inscribed at the top was: For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People.
Neither of us spoke as we rolled closer to it. I couldn’t breathe until I saw there was no ranger posted at the entrance. Nick cut out the headlights just before we reached it. “Just in case someone’s watching,” he said.
I heard Vera stir behind us, but I ignored her as my eyes swept the familiar, snowy landscape. You could still see some of Gardiner across the fields to the left. For the next quarter mile or so, I allowed my eyes to rove the flat, snowy fields around us. The scrubby brush that lined the road glittered magically. Across a swatch of brilliant white, a rabbit skittered, leaving a footprint trail. Nick steered us past a brown sign that said the park’s name, and I remembered something bad.
“In a half mile or so,” I murmured, “there’s this little wood cabin. In the daytime, at least, there’s always a park officer there.”
He nodded slowly. “I’ll take care of it.”
A few minutes later, I held my breath as we approached the official entryway: the road forked at a little cabin, which was, thank God, empty. A mechanical arm raised to let us through, and Nick winked.
I held my breath as he turned the headlights back on and drove us toward some little hills. I wasn’t sure how long we drove; my eyes were drawn to the stars, which more so than ever seemed both breathtaking and horrifying.
I wondered what we were doing here. I figured Nick planned to hide us here and work on changing Vera’s mind. If her mind could be changed. With several miles of Yellowstone behind us, the fog was thicker. It seemed to hiss and swirl around us as it drifted into the sky. I caught a glimpse of the sign for Mammoth Hot Springs just before we passed it.
Vera sat up, looking around. “Why are we at a park?”
“We're stopping here for the night,” Nick answered tiredly. “There are tents on this roof—we’ll pitch them, and you can get some much needed sleep.”
“Twenty-one hours, twenty-six minutes, twenty-eight seconds,” she said a moment later. Followed by a surrendering, “Whatever.”
A primal panic raged in my chest. Was she serious? Twenty-one hours, twenty something minutes! I glanced at the clock: 11:19 PM. So that meant….tomorrow around 8 PM. What would happen then!?
I looked at Nick, who looked apologetic but said nothing to reassure me.
“Let's find a camp spot near the springs,” he said.
He parked in a grove of Douglas Firs hugging the water where the steam was especially thick, and Vera was out her door in a breath, a giant duffel on her back. A second later the roof vibrated like a Vera-sized torpedo had hit it. I shuddered at the memory of the DoD helicopters, and Nick squeezed my hand as he lifted his gaze to the roof.
“She’s just showing off.”
Before I could reply, the roof shook again, and Vera was opening the truck’s toolbox, layered hair falling in her face as she jerked out a dark, round thing that might have been a sleeping bag and stuffed it underneath one of her slender arms. She slammed the door and strode into the fog, tendrils of it curling after her.
I looked down at Nick's hand, curled loosely around mine. I traced his fingers with mine, and I felt like I should say something, but my brain no longer seemed to work. I felt kind of numb inside; detached. Like I was flying on autopilot.
Nick tugged my hand over the console and pressed it gently in both of his. Then that warm gaze was peering right through me. His mouth shifted in a thoughtful twist, and he pressed my hand a little harder. “I assume you find all of this overwhelming.”
I met his eyes and nodded, because at that second, I felt close to tears.
His eyes looked sad as he leaned to kiss my hand. “We'll talk in a few minutes,” he said. “I won't leave you in the dark.”
Before I could ask, “Why not now,” Nick was out the door.
“I’ll pitch your tent,” he promised as he shut it.
I folded my arms as he pulled a tent from the roof and walked into the fog. It seemed too thin as he walked through it, and I was able to follow him all the way to his chosen spot, thirty or forty feet behind Vera’s tent, in a clearing between two scrubby-looking firs.
He crouched to unwrap the tent, the moonlight gleamed against his coppery hair, and I felt warmth spread low inside my belly.
Why did he have to be an alien? I imagined that in some other universe Nick was just a normal guy, and I was still a normal girl with two parents. And when we stood together underneath the stars, I didn't have to wonder if from one of them was coming earth’s annihilation, or if to one of them he would return.
NICK MOVED SLOWLY around the tent, giving it one final, thorough-looking inspection. It must have been a family tent, because it was at least three times the size of Vera’s. Did this mean Nick and I would share it?
My whole body was practically glowing as he strode back toward the truck. He slid into the passenger's seat, dark gaze gliding over mine as he reached into the back seat and pulled a bottle of water from the cooler. He took a long tug, shifting to look at me.
“When you found me in your yard, did you have any idea how much fun you were going to have?” His smile and voice were sardonic.
“You should have come with a warning label,” I said. I tried to smile, but I think I just ended up looking sick, because Nick smiled for me, a small, tense, lips-closed kind of smile. “Let me walk you to your tent. We can talk there.”
Again, I imagined he was just a regular guy. The butterflies in my stomach, the warm tinglies, would be all I felt if he had just asked to walk me to my car after a party.
“Psh.” I batted his hard shoulder. “I can walk there on my own.”
He smiled, a quick smile, but a real one this time. “I want to.”
“Fine,” I said, “but you have to help me look through the truck first. For supplies.”
We grabbed two giant black duffels, a plaid sleeping bag, and a white fleece blanket. We left behind a kerosene lantern, not wanting to risk attracting anyone’s attention.
It was dark outside, but it wasn't pitch black. A three-quarters moon lit the fog and steam that swirled around us, lending the night a certain fragrance-commercial quality.
I followed a half-step behind Nick, moving slowly, because the ground was icy and my feet were seriously sore.
I’d forgotten how quiet it was here. The only noise was the gentle lapping of the springs, and behind that, a faint rumble. Helicopters? SUVs?
A waterfall, I decided after a moment.
Clutching the green sleeping bag to my chest, I thought of Bree's Miley Cyrus bag, of that last time the crew all spent the night: me, Halah, Bree, and S.K. at my house, the night before I met Nick. We'd eaten popcorn, stayed up talking late like when we were younger. Like it had always been.
I noticed, as we neared the tent, that the thick ice covering the ground was gone, revealing soft brown dirt. Nick had melted the ice for me.
As if he heard my thoughts, he turned and smiled. Another few steps and we were to the tent. He held the flap open for me and I saw that it was large inside, as far as tents went. I stepped in first, depositing my things beside the entrance. I saw that he’d already spread a thick-looking quilt on the floor, so I sank down on it.
There I was with Nick, having just walked into a steamy, CW drama-type situation, and I was driven to distraction by the memory of my childhood friends.
I wanted to tell myself it was just something about girls getting older: you turned into your own person and you needed your girlfriends less, but somewhere in the pit of my stomach I kn
ew that wasn't true. S.K. had chosen Ami over me. Halah and I had always been marching to the beat of different drums; hers was a lot louder than mine. And Bree? We were just too different to be good friends without the quad intact. Which was kind of sad, because Bree and I had both been ditched.
I felt stripped bare without my girlfriends, and only now, sitting beside two lumpy duffel bags inside a stolen tent in Yellowstone, could I really admit to myself that I had begun mourning the loss of our quad long before I shot Nick with the dart.
Nick was watching me, silent, respectful; he clearly knew I needed the quiet, even if he didn’t know why. He was willing to give it to me. To just be there with me.
Was that why I felt like I needed Nick so much? Because I needed to feel like someone was with me?
No. Lonely or not, Nick was someone I would have wanted whenever, however. And it was epic. I wasn’t being silly when I thought that. He had crossed time and space for me. He had broken rules older than humanity just to know me. And I felt, even after knowing him for just a short amount of time, like I would do the same.
Which was bad—so very bad, for so many reasons. But I couldn’t think about those reasons without losing myself in panic, and he was sitting right in front of me, after all, waiting so patiently.
“So…” I said, not sure how to begin a conversation that terrified me.
“Do you want to see what you got?” he suggested, nodding to the duffel bags.
What I wanted was to scream, because the pressure of not knowing my fate felt like it was going to pop my head right off my neck. But since I didn’t have the guts to ask, I muttered, “Sure.”
We moved the bags to the back of the tent, where I dropped to my knees and started sorting through...a prostitute’s shoe collection?
Maybe a shoe fetishist, or an actress in a film about feet. The first bag yielded tan Ugg boots, black Ugg boots, purple Gucci boots, ankle-high white suede boots, thigh-high crocodile-skin boots, and a newish pair of Nike running shoes.
