I push the feeling down and wipe my hand over my pant legs. “Hi.” Doing this is so awkward I can’t even think about how intense it is to be near him.
“Hi,” he replies and wraps up a talk with Collins. He gets up as they conclude and walks over to where Marc is sitting at a different table with others.
I stare, and not once does Marc look my direction. He chats, nods, or shakes his head with his new friends. He doesn’t speak to me, and I rarely see him. We live in the same house, but he goes out of his way to avoid me. He makes me feel like that hole in the wall we all avoid looking at because we know we can’t fix it.
If I go to him, he won’t embarrass me in front of the entire mess hall.
I stand, gaze locked on him. His eyes immediately rise, meeting mine the instant my spine straightens, as though he’d been watching me the entire time. His lazy gaze morphs into a glower. The muscles in his face relax, but the glimmer of hate and disgust in his glare is like a knife to my gut. He discreetly shakes his head, rejecting my approach before I even attempt to execute it.
I mouth, “Please?”
“No,” he mouths back and looks away from me to Gia. Gia laughs, shoving her bouncy brown curls over her shoulder. She got all the phenomenal Creation genes, feminine curves, a smile that makes the boys stare while in her presence, and a personality that’s as courageous as she is genuinely kind. I’ve never been kind just because; my smile is crooked because of my repaired jaw, and if a guy is staring at me, it’s because he’s afraid of me.
I squeeze my eyes shut to keep from rolling them. How can Marc not understand that I did what I did for him? That I sacrificed everything Luke and I have built for him?
I pivot on my heels and march for the doors.
“Where are you going?” Cory asks, smile peeking out from behind his scarf pulled over his mouth. He opens the door for me as I’m heading out.
“I’m going back early to get some target practice in.” I need to let off some steam, firing off a few shots.
He follows me out, strutting at my side with his shoulders drawn back and his head held high. “Everything okay? You haven’t been yourself the last few weeks.”
“I’m fine, Cory.” I survey his sudden diversion from going into the mess hall to striding at my side. “You’re coming with me?”
“No, I have to be with Haut’s group after lunch.”
“Kylie?” Luke barks.
I grimace from the disapproving tone in his voice. “Talk to you later,” I say to Cory before turning to Luke. “Yes, Luke?” I answer, frustration lacing my singsong tone.
“You keep pushing it.”
“I didn’t come up to him. He came up to me,” I defend, pointing at Cory’s back as he’s entering the mess hall. “You’re always pointing the finger at me, Luke. Get off my case!”
“Stop whining, Ky! You need to watch your back with him.”
“Luke,” Marc calls from behind us, cutting Luke off. I twist on my heels. Luke faces him. His eyes squint against the sun.
Neither of them speaks before Luke nudges my shoulder. “I’ll talk to you later.” He jogs toward the rec hall of the Normals, leaving us alone.
Marc steps in front of me, arms folded across his swollen chest. “What?” he asks, rasp thick in his throat. He wears no facial covering, which would help shield me from his subtle, though exigent attractiveness. His head tilts back a bit, and his shadowed eyes cut me open.
“Can we move from the middle of the road?” I ask nervously. “So we are not heard if someone walks by.” We get an hour for lunch, and there are thirty minutes left. Someone is bound to be passing soon.
He marches toward the training hall. I follow behind him, keeping a good enough distance for his comfort. I don’t want to make him uncomfortable by crowding his space.
I grab his arm when we make it to the side of the building.
Before I can speak, he yanks it away. “Don’t touch me, Kylie,” he warns quietly.
“Marc, I’m the same. Stay,” I insist and bite my tongue to prevent myself from saying what I truly feel.
“I don’t care. You know what you are, and I’m not okay with that.”
I don’t know what to say to make him get it, to make him get me. “I can’t talk to you here.” I drag my palms over my already smoothed down ponytail, sighing heavily.
He shrugs once. “I don’t want to talk to you at all.”
His rejection cuts me deeper than before, and the jitters in my stomach kick-start, making me nauseous. I breathe away the discomfort that will not dwindle. “Can I come talk to you tonight? Later? So I can explain.”
“Ky, there is nothing to talk about. Thanks for helping my brother, but we have nothing, we are nothing, and never will we be anything. I don’t fuck with traitors,” he says quieter. “Stay the hell away from me, Kylie.” He bumps my shoulder on his passing. “And don’t come to my room,” he adds over his shoulder. “Stop looking for me. Fuck off.”
I break my gaze away from his departure.
Frustration warming my neck, I lean against the wall and slam my fist against the brick. I hurt myself more than I hurt the wall, but the pain makes the nausea go away.
Gah. What a punch in the gut. He doesn’t have to be that callous. I’m not a sensitive person. I’ve been through enough to gain a hard exterior, but it doesn’t appear to be thick enough to block that out. To block him out…
There’s a howl, growing near instead of echoing off into the distance. Around the corner of the building that’s holding me up from crumpling to my knees, heat waves hover over the dirtied red land.
A coyote races toward me. The image rolls in heatwaves until it comes into clear view. It stops at the edge of the building and stares.
“I don’t have time to visit with you right now,” I tell it. “Shoo.”
Its head lowers, and a soft snarl erupts from its muzzle.
I ram my fist against the wall again and kick the dirt. Approaching it, I ask, “What?”
It gags and barfs up three balls, each dark with blue and green glistening dust-like particles within them.
“Yuck. You want me to touch those?”
It yaps once.
I rip off my scarf and snatch up the slobbery marbles in the cloth. Taking a quick glance at my watch, I see there are ten minutes left before the end of lunch. “Happy now?” I ask the animal, and it takes off. The answer is enough for me.
I hurry to our house, to the sink in the bathroom to wash the marbles, and then to my room to stash them and grab a new scarf. Dropping the balls into a pair of socks, I stuff that sock in another before shuffling them around, nearly confusing myself as to which pair holds the alien goods.
Chapter Three
“Only those of you who are Creations will I attempt to kill…and Danny. The others, you all are safe from being knocked out or having something broken,” I announce to my team as we stand in the middle of the empty field. “Anyone have any questions or would like to back out now because they think they can’t take it?” Nobody responds. “I’m taking your silence as a no.”
“Correct,” Adam cuts in with a round of applause. “Because if we were to object and tell you we want to back out, you, precious leader, would make us fight you anyway.” Adam’s a Normal who learned quickly, but his timing is just as bad as Sean’s when it comes to his jokes.
“Adam, sometimes it’s better to let me interpret your silence the way I’d like to interpret it. When I need an explanation, I’ll ask you for it.” He rolls his eyes and shuffles to the back of the group. “Okay, now that Adam has lightened my mood, who is going to be the first I pummel? I can call out or take volunteers.”
My favorite evil twin is the first to raise her hand. Jesail. The Creation with the greatest improvement since arrival. She and her sister have stopped wearing their hair in pigtails and now wear one French braid down the middle. They tuck the tail of the braid beneath their vest, and this keeps it from being snagged or snatched in battle. Cracking her neck
, Jesail steps before me. She doesn’t hold back. Blow for blow, she shows everyone what it takes to climb the ladder. She throws a punch, which I dodge before realizing it is a diversion so she can swipe her leg under mine and knock me off my feet.
“Damn, that was a good move,” someone says from the crowd, and I must agree. I bless her with a quick nod and smile. But that’s the only move she has up her sleeve. Instead of taking her out, though, I teach other techniques and maneuvers she can use to knock me out or keep me down.
I’ve dubbed her as my protégé, and I’ll help to make her better in any way I can. Because of her change in attitude, I don’t knock her out when I can, but I let her know I have her, extending my hand to help her from the ground. “You are getting better,” I tell her, pulling her to her feet.
She pumps her fist. “That’s good.”
“We’ll continue to work on it, and if you want and can keep your attitude in check, we’ll build you up to become a female leader.” She nods and limps back to the group. Her sister takes her spot.
I fight five before taking a break.
I’m good, but not good enough to fight more than twenty of them with no adrenaline and no drive. I’m bruised, and my muscles ache. I’d usually be rapt, able to get them quicker than I did or fight more of them. But with Marc upset with me—still upset with me—it’s distracting. If he would let me explain, I could change this. But he’s too stubborn. He has to know I wouldn’t turn on my country. That I wouldn’t turn on him.
But then again, I don’t even know that for sure. Would I turn on my country? Would I turn on the Vojin? After hiding that they are responsible for the murder of our parents, I should be instantly willing to, but I don’t know. Maybe it’s me who I must turn on, my thoughts finally mixing with the implant. Ugh. I press my fist to my forehead and breathe deep.
I leave the training room, searching for Luke, and find him coming out of Jord’s office.
“Hey,” he greets.
“Can you take care of these deep bruises?”
Luke folds his arms in front of his vest, straightening his spine as he looks down at me through thick lashes. His eyes narrow into a piercing glare as he replies, “Are you going to talk to me?”
For what? So he can tell me over and over again how bad of an idea saving Sean was? Or how I need to learn how to overthrow these stupid feelings of affection, like he did with the girl he killed because he believed he loved her?
“What do you want from me, Luke?” I roll my eyes. “Are you going to tell me to let it go, leave it alone, blah, blah, blah? Or express your disapproval in me asking you to make them help?”
“I might.”
I open and close my fists, tearing my gaze away from him for a split second. It makes my blood boil that he keeps holding this over my head. “I don’t want to discuss that, Luke. I messed up, should have let his brother die and us kill him. Does that make you happy?”
“I would say that, Ky.” He grabs my hand, aligning our palms. “Tell me where you hurt.”
“I get it.” I gesture to my busted lip and my right shoulder. But I’m not like him, I can’t turn a blind eye like he did. Or pretends to do.
“What did he say to you earlier?” Luke asks once he finishes.
“He doesn’t want to have anything to do with me.”
Luke heads off to the training center, and I follow behind him. “You think he’s wrong for feeling that way?”
“He is,” I exclaim peacefully. “I’m not what he thinks I am.”
“Yes, you are, Ky. You are exactly what he thinks you are.” He lifts his gaze to the sky. “Not to make you feel better or give you hope or anything. But Marc likes you. He’s just angry right now. He’ll get over it. Don’t crowd him, leave him alone until he comes to you.”
“I’m caught up in my feelings?” I ask, feeling my attraction increasing into an affection for Marc. I need to talk to him. I need to explain who am—what I am. And the decisions I made that night were to save his brother because he picked me, and I didn’t want to see him suffer through losing his twin.
“You are,” Luke responds. “And you look bad. I told you to stand down, Kylie,” he scolds. “I told you not to take it this far. But no, you wanted to sleep in his room and kiss him and save his damn brother. And he’s as dumb as you are after what he did.”
“Can you not be a jerk about this?”
“Whatever, Ky, I need to follow up with the Creations departing this evening.” Turning around, he heads in the opposite direction. He discards me, as though I’m not worth his attention. I should kick him in the back, but I wouldn’t want to attack him without him expecting it.
I open the door to the training room, remembering I forgot to tell him about the marbles. I can bring it up tonight. Right now may not have been the best time anyway.
“You weak today, Ky?” Gabe asks when I return.
“You all have a lot of fight. I’m never weak.” I stretch my arms over my head. “So who’s next?”
Chapter Four
After dinner, I go to my room, curious to find out more about the marbles. There are no locks on the doors to alert me if someone opens it. I stick my helmet at the edge of the door so I’ll hear it tumble over should someone enter.
Shaking the marbles from the sock, I nervously drop one on the floor. It shatters on impact, splattering its glistening contents onto the hard wood and forming a small circular puddle on the floor. I hover over it, examining the swirling shades of blues and greens daring me to dive into the pit.
There’s a knock on my door. I panic. Racing to the light switch, I turn it off, hoping to hide the pit, but the pool has a faint illumination. There’s a distant whistle, likely from the atom-sized dust particles scraping against each other as the pit swirls in invitation to be teleported to the Vojin’s desired destination.
“Who is it?” I ask with my hand on the knob.
“It’s me,” Luke says.
Phew. I wipe the back of my hand across my forehead. Cracking open the door, I yank him inside the room as I throw my index finger to my lips and look to the floor.
Luke shoves the door closed behind him. “What the…? How did this happen?” His whisper is laced with equal parts annoyance and astonishment.
“A coyote threw up three of these marble look-alikes.” I show him the remaining two. “I dropped one when taking them out. I think they’re calling us.”
Luke’s face contorts, frustration causing his hushed voice to rise in pitch. “There’s no way we can go there while we are here. Not with this stuff lingering around like this waiting for us to come back.”
“I think that’s why they gave us three.”
He rubs behind his ear before pressing the side of his fist to his forehead. “You go. I’ll have to stay around if I’m called. Leave me one in case you don’t come back.”
“I don’t want to go!” I lower my voice to a whisper. “I don’t care about what they want.”
He shrugs. “Well, what then?”
“Tell them to come here,” I suggest. “Through this orb so we can get rid of it.”
Shaking his head, he says, “That’s risky.” Rubbing his neck, he adds, “If someone sees them shining through the window or happen to bust into the room…”
“Luke, the Vojin,” I whisper the name, “should know where they are coming to since this is where those lying aliens are requesting us to come from. If not, whatever they want will have to wait.”
Luke slowly approaches the churning pit, looking it over as though he were peeking over a cliff. Squatting in front of it, he clears his throat and blows green and blue particles past his lips. It flows like smoke from his mouth into the pond. With a quick huff, he rushes the last of it out. A call to our extended kind.
He stands, backing away, and goes over to check the already closed curtain.
“Now, we wait,” I say, walking backward. “And hope no one needs us.” I lean my back against the door.
Two pi
nk lines of particles fluidly flow from the pit. Feet being the first to form, their feminine silhouettes slowly solidify as they take up a spot on the floor before the pit.
“Looks like we won’t have to wait that long,” Luke says in a surly tone, coming back over to me.
Two pink Vojin females stand before us, dark almond-shaped eyes looking us over. “Hi, Lukahn and Kylie,” they whisper in unison.
“You greet us so casually. Is this even important? Here is not a good place for us to speak,” Luke tells them. But it should be obvious, them calling a meeting on the Separation base is the world’s dumbest idea. They must be desperate.
“It is important. We would not have risked our lives coming here if it weren’t.” The female on the left steps a foot forward while her acquaintance rests in the background. Though her face lacks facial features to help me judge her disposition, her worried tone and the stressful way she hugs herself tells me she’s greatly concerned about whatever is so important. Their display of human emotions is only a manipulative technique to better relate to hosts who have been around such gestures for all our lives here on Earth.
I mentally scoff at the thought.
“I am Noranti,” the one who stepped forward says and points behind her. “This is Siona. Luke, Kylie.” She gestures toward us. “Things have taken a turn for the worse back home.”
Back home? That place was never our home. “In what way?” I’m unable to remember what their home looked like the one and only time we visited as children. We’ve always been treated like outsiders, not trusted or looked upon as their own. And I now know it’s because we never were. We’re just red and black checker pieces on their checkerboard.
“As you may be aware, domination over this planet was the original plan. After seeing how the humans live, poisoning this universe with hate, pollution, and selfishness, having the planet cleaned of them would be satisfactory. We saved this land after the invaders destroyed the majority of it, and they’ve made it worse instead of making it better.” Noranti bows her head and rubs her arms up and down. “Treason…” she utters the word in a remorseful tone. “That’s what changed.” Looking back at us, she continues, “Our leaders have been overthrown by the Volones rebels, and we have been instructed to destroy this planet, from the core to the atmosphere. Earth is only the first stop.”
Salient Invaders: A Young Adult Post-Apocalyptic Dystopian Series (The Separation Trilogy Book 2) Page 2
