Chapter 35
CAN YOU CALL IT AN ALIEN ABDUCTION IF I’M ON BOARD?
Somebody was pounding a snare drum. Loud, hammering thuds in rapid succession. I groaned, then grimaced at the grit coating my tongue. My aching head felt like it had been stuffed with cotton. My mouth, too.
Then memory slammed back: the midterm, the Enil, Sky.
I gasped and bolted upright.
Only to be yanked back by a strap across my chest. Exhaling shakily, I reached for it as my vision cleared. Seatbelt. One of these days, I’d unbuckle before trying—
Wait. What was that?
I held up my arm. A thick, purplish-blue band of metal wrapped the wrist below my marked palm, gleaming dully in the dim light. It looked like it had fused right there, molded close but loose enough to slide up and down a few inches. No clasp, no buckle. Just smooth, seamless, otherworldly metal.
I curled my fingers around the edge and tugged. It didn’t budge.
“What the hell?” I whispered.
“Easy,” said a rough but familiar voice.
Slowly, I looked up…and locked eyes with Sky.
My heart gave a hard thump against my ribs.
I was in the passenger seat of his SUV. That drumming was rain beating on the windshield. Night had fallen, and taillights blurred past in streaks of red, flying along a highway I didn’t recognize.
Which meant we’d been driving for a while.
He was dead.
I nearly died.
“Sky?” I rasped. “What is this thing? Where are we? How…?”
He tore his eyes from the road long enough to glance my way again. “The cuff is an inhibitor. A signal blocker. And we’re safe for now. Are you okay? You fainted.”
Fainted. Or knocked myself out on the snack machine. One or the other. Either way, my head hurt like a bitch. I touched it gingerly. No blood, but even the barest pressure hurt.
Was I okay, though?
Yeah…
Well, no. I didn’t know. Something was building in my chest, growing too fast. Squeezing like an iron vise.
He’d died. The Enil had come for me. They were after me.
Panic. That was what this was. It was a volcano of…of feeling—
“No,” I wheezed, scrabbling for the seatbelt. Nope, I was so not okay.
I was going to be sick. Right here. I needed air. There wasn’t enough air.
“Shit—hang on.” Sky let go of the wheel and reached for me, but I cringed away.
I didn’t want him to touch me. I might shatter if he did. I was too brittle, too wound up, too stretched out and thin.
My stomach heaved. I slapped a hand over my mouth, breathing in stilted gasps through my nose.
Sky drew back, wrenching the wheel. “Hang on, I’ll—”
We swerved. That panic clawed its way up, scraping my throat.
“Air. I need air.” I fumbled blindly for the window control, then the door handle. I needed to feel the wind and rain. My body tingled, and a creeping numbness was spreading.
I’d nearly died. The Enil really were after me, and I’d thought Sky was dead.
I was a walking, talking alien beacon. Sky was right. Nowhere was safe. There was nowhere I could go. I’d tried to fight it, and I’d nearly gotten killed. Nearly gotten him killed. Had anyone else been hurt at the university?
Because that was my fault. My fault for not listening.
My vision began to tunnel. I finally got my fingers curled around the handle, and I yanked. The car’s alarm dinged, but I barely heard it. I was going to throw up if I didn’t get out of this damn seat right now. Wind blasted in through the cracked door, bringing with it icy droplets.
“Hang on, Rae,” Sky bit out. The SUV lurched as he slammed on the brakes, and I was only vaguely aware of shapes and lights flying by as he cut across lanes of traffic, jolting onto the shoulder.
The moment the car came to a stop, I shoved the door open the rest of the way and half-fell out, ignoring his shout.
Wind and water slammed into me. I gulped air, clinging to the chill, the stinging on my bare skin. Doubling over, I braced my hands on my jelly knees. I couldn’t seem to breathe. Rain soaked through my shirt, my jeans.
The storm raged, so cold and so alive.
I was alive.
Somehow, I was alive.
My heart beat like it was trying to punch its way out of my ribs. Straightening, I managed two staggering steps away from the SUV, puddles splashing my ankles, before Sky rounded the hood.
“Rae!”
I looked up, weaving a little. Bright headlights tore by on the highway beyond. Two of them. Like green eyes bearing down. Sharp claws—
I clutched my chest.
And then Sky was there, tall and broad, blocking some of the fierce wind as he pushed close.
“You’re having a panic attack,” he said, tone pitched low and calming.
I shivered as he reached for me slowly, but this time I didn’t shrink away, and his warm hands closed on my upper arms, dodging the lurid bruise on my bicep.
His fingers tightened, and he bent to meet my eyes. “It’s okay. You’re safe now. I’ve got you. Try to breathe.”
Safe. That word—and his touch—jolted me from the shocked haze. Just enough. Some of the blind fear faded, and without it, I was left with a tangle of feelings far too complicated to begin to sort out.
He was still holding me. I grasped his wrists in shaking hands, searching for an anchor. The rain swirled over us, driven to needle-sharp pinpricks by the cold wind. I trembled so hard my teeth clicked, but I forced words out. “They came for me. You were right.”
Thunder grumbled like a distant warning. Sky’s breathing was shallower than normal, like me nearly leaping from a moving vehicle had shaken him up.
“I know.” He gave me a light squeeze. His face was tight, eyes shadowed by the SUV’s headlights.
The downpour had washed the blood away, but the scrapes and bruises remained along his temple and cheekbone, the left side of his forehead.
With the injuries and his ripped, charred clothes, he looked like he’d survived a war.
Which was close to the truth. The memory of him crashing through that table, of flames leaping high above where he’d fallen…
“God, Sky.” I tilted my head back, chest constricting. “I thought they’d killed you. I thought you were dead.”
His throat worked, and he looked away, at the cars rushing past, the raging gale. Beads of water gathered on his lashes. He blinked them away before refocusing on me.
“They didn’t.” His lips twisted into something between a grimace and a dry smile. “It was close, but…they didn’t.” The trace of humor vanished. “Which is why we need to keep moving.”
“Toward what?” I pried my stiff grip from his forearms and hugged myself instead. The cold was sinking into my bones. “Where are we going? Where are you taking me?”
“I’ll explain everything.” He swiped a hand over his hair, slicking it back. His heavy exhalation came out as a white puff, and he reached for me, my shoulder this time, stopping short of actually touching me. “Let’s get out of this.”
“You mean you’ll explain everything you can,” I muttered. I hadn’t meant for it to come out bitter, but there was so much, and this was so overwhelming. Waking up alive and all-too-aware of how much my entire life had changed—
“No,” Sky said quietly. He dropped his arms. Somber. “I mean everything.”
That stopped me dead in my tracks. Squinting up at him, I licked my lips, tasting rain. Was he saying what I thought he was saying? The lightning washed his slick face in white, revealing his expression. Resignation. That was resignation.
“I’ll tell you everything,” he said again, this time a bit more forcefully. “If we’re going to do this—survive this—you need to know what we’re up against. I’ll deal with the Creed’s consequences. We need to stay alive first.”
It shocked me enough that the rest of the panic faded. He was going to break his rules. I stared up at him, that confusing knot of feelings tangling up even more.
Wind buffeted us, slashing my hair across my face. Another bolt of lightning speared through the sky, and we both flinched at the accompanying ear-splitting thunderclap. That one was a little too close for comfort.
“Ah, maybe we could do it in the car, though…?” Sky turned to look at the SUV. “If you’re ready to get back in.”
He didn’t push. Didn’t force anything. Just faced me again and waited, despite the fact he looked like he’d taken a quick dip in a pool with his clothing on. Now that the anxiety had lessened and I could feel my body again, I was freezing.
But I still hesitated.
Something about getting back in that car felt like acceptance. I wrapped my arms tighter around my middle, huddling against the cold and…well, inevitability.
“Come on,” Sky said when another moment had passed. He motioned me toward the vehicle. “You’re soaked.”
“So are you,” I pointed out, but I fell into step with him, picking my way through mud and puddles until we reached the SUV. He opened the door for me and waited until I’d poured myself into the passenger seat before closing it.
The thud when it shut felt like the period at the end of a sentence. Maybe one that said, Here we go.
After the howling storm, it felt oppressively quiet inside the car.
My clothes and shoes were soaked—ugh, soggy socks—and I swiped my wet sleeve across my eyes, clearing water from them before I tilted the car’s vent my way.
The warm air trickling out wasn’t nearly enough, but it was better than nothing.
When I drew my arm back, the shiny metal bracelet I wore slid down. Mouth dry, I eased back in my seat, spinning it on my wrist. It was kind of pretty in the dim light, shifting shades of iridescent purple and pink. Not bad for alien bling.
Everything.
Sky was really going to tell me everything. I was finally going to find out why these marks were so damn important, why Sky was actually here, and what the hell the Enil wanted badly enough to crash my midterm and destroy the university.
Because I’d been stupid enough to be there in the first place.