Chapter 8
WAR OF THE WORLDS
I was still thinking about it hours later.
Mostly because I didn’t have a choice, thanks to my company.
I sat at the specimen table in the anthropology lab, sorting through pottery sherds from a nearby Paleolithic site. The overhead lights buzzed slightly, just enough to be annoying.
Not nearly as annoying as the subject at hand, though.
Across from me, Landon Martz filed his nails.
“And Louisa May—you know, the clerk at the gas station? She said there are, like, twenty different YouTube videos of it up now. They’re calling it the One Willow Visitation.” He made air quotes. “Pretty badass name, if you ask me.”
I hadn’t. But that didn’t stop him.
“How cool would it be to see a real-life UFO? Ugh. I wish I hadn’t been elbows-deep in the new season of Put a Ring on It.”
No. It was not cool. I could confirm firsthand: it was very uncool. Terrifying. Unsettling.
Not “badass.”
I bit my lip and bent over the next pottery piece. “Yeah, I don’t know, Landon. It all just sounds so…”
“Awesome?”
I closed my eyes and counted to ten. I was so done hearing about this. Worse, I was starting to wonder why I was the only one not convinced.
Maybe I was in denial.
But I’d done the research. I’d read the studies. I’d found an explanation. Ball lightning and atmospheric interference. Stress-induced hallucination, if I wanted to get psychological about it.
I wasn’t going to let Kelly and the rest of the internet loonies drag me down into the void with them. Whatever mass delusion was sweeping through One Willow—the world—I refused to be part of it.
I adjusted my grip on the tweezers and focused on the sherds. “You know what this sounds like, Landon? A hoax. An internet-fueled case of mass hysteria. Ever heard the story about the original broadcast of War of the Worlds?”
Landon’s brows rose. “The what? No. I have no idea what that is.”
“In the 1930s, they aired a fake alien invasion as a radio drama. But people didn’t realize it was fiction. They tuned in partway through and thought it was real. People thought we were being invaded by monsters from outer space.”
The scraping sounds of his nail file stopped. “No shit?”
“Real shit. It caused panic. Tons of chaos. Pissed people off, too. But my point is a lot of these alien stories work the same way. One person’s nightmare gets blown out of proportion.
They talk, it gets passed on, and someone else’s brain latches on and builds it bigger.
Alien abduction dreams? That’s textbook phobia manifestation.
Shared hallucinations. And now, with all the crap online, it spreads even faster. ”
When Landon didn’t reply, I looked up.
He crossed his skinny arms over his black My Chemical Romance tee. “Anybody ever tell you you’re a nerd, Raven?”
“Yes, actually.” I sniffed. “But that’s rich coming from you. Don’t you have a World of Warcraft raid to get to?”
“Not on Wednesdays,” he shot back, resuming his manicure with a scoff.
Technically, he was supposed to be helping. We both got credit for this extra lab study. But we also both knew I was better at it, and I worked best when I ran the show. So instead, Landon hung out and provided commentary while I cataloged the collection, and everyone stayed happy.
Except for today, that is.
He finished shaping his nails and pulled out a bottle of black polish. “Hey, speaking of nerdy, did you hear about the prof’s new project?”
That piqued my interest. I looked up from my sorting. “No. What is it?”
“That’s the thing.” He swiped a stripe of paint on his middle finger and squinted at it, then met my eyes with a dramatic head tilt. “Nobody knows. It’s some hush-hush thing. Rumor is it’s connected to the base.”
“The base? The military base?” I rolled my eyes. “Why is everyone suddenly obsessed with that place? It’s been on life support since before I was born.”
“Apparently not enough for them to stop running secret experiments.”
I snorted. “And those would be…?”
“Nobody knows. It’s top secret.”
“Of course.” I raised a brow and leaned back on my stool. “But if that’s true, how do you know?”
“I have my sources.” At my look, he smirked. “I don’t kiss and tell, beautiful.”
I rolled my eyes. “Uh-huh. And your source says there’s some mysterious project happening right here in One Willow?”
“With Professor Stern of all people.”
“Wait. Stern?” I straightened, my sneer fading. “The paleoastronomer? Why?”
That was such a specific niche. Basically the study of how ancient civilizations viewed and tracked space.
How they incorporated it into daily life.
Of course, it required way more math than I cared for, but it was still fascinating.
And totally out of place here. TWU was a good school, but not exactly a research titan. This wasn’t Harvard.
And the claim that the base was involved? No way.
Somebody had to be lying. Exaggerating, at the very least.
Landon just waggled his brows, giving me nothing. I leaned forward and tapped the tweezers pointedly on the table. “You’re such a tease.”
“Guilty.” He beamed. “You know you love me. But if I hear anything else, you’ll be the first to know. Especially if it’s got anything to do with our recent ET guests. I know how much of a fan you are.”
Muttering a curse under my breath, I bent back over the tray.
His delighted laughter echoed off the lab walls.
I was not hiding in the work bathroom. For the record.
I was just…lingering.
I tucked a strand of honey-colored hair behind my ear and leaned closer to the mirror, wiping under my eye where my eyeliner had smudged in the kitchen’s greasy heat.
Satisfied that it was as good as it was going to get, I raked my fingers through my frizzed-out waves and fluffed them into place around my shoulders.
It would have to do.
I stepped back and gave myself a critical once-over.
My chin was a little too round, my eyes a bit too big for me to ever be called classically beautiful like Amelia or Kelly.
With a swipe of gold shadow and a heavy hand on the eyeliner, I could maybe manage the girl-next-door look.
If the girl next door wore training bras and didn’t know how to apply lipstick.
Sighing, I spun away from the mirror.
Not that it mattered how I looked tonight. I wasn’t trying to impress anyone.
Sure, Sky was coming in at seven. And it just happened to be six fifty-eight. Complete coincidence that my stomach felt like a butterfly exhibit mid-tornado.
I slipped out of the bathroom and detoured past my single table. My two margarita-loving ladies were still chatting away, so I left them to it and continued toward the kitchen entrance.
I nearly turned and walked the other way when I caught wind of the conversation happening by the prep room.
“I heard there were three ships.”
“That YouTube video looked like at least two.”
“Jackie’s dad chased it! He made it all the way to Lake James before it vanished into the clouds.”
I tried to ghost away, but Kelly spotted me at the edge of the group and lit up like a Christmas tree with perfect hair and too many teeth. “Rae-bae! There you are. Tell me you believe me now!”
“The truth is out there, Kelly,” I intoned, managing to keep a straight face.
If she caught the X-Files reference, she didn’t show it. I resisted the urge to snort.
If I was going to be trapped in this circus of conspiracy theorists, I could at least entertain myself.
“What, you don’t think it’s aliens, Raven?” Emily asked softly, peering at me through her thick-framed glasses. Her straight-cut bangs bounced when she tilted her head. “How come?”
“Rae-bae here is too scientific for aliens,” Kelly answered for me, rolling her eyes like having a logical mind and a healthy amount of skepticism was a tragic personality flaw.
“Right,” I muttered through gritted teeth, then turned back to Emily with more patience. “I just think there are better explanations than little green men zipping around One Willow.”
Kelly waved a hand like I was a lost cause. “Whatever. You closed last night, didn’t you? You see anything on your way home? This all happened right around that time.”
I hesitated. Just for a second.
But in that second, the image of that glowing fireball bearing down on me blazed to life behind my eyes. My mouth went dry.
I started to deny all of it—
And then my gaze snagged on a pair of dark blue eyes watching me intently from across the room.
The knot in my stomach unspooled into something light and floaty. Faintly effervescent, like I’d chugged a glass of champagne. Which, if true, would also have explained my thoughts blurring. But alas…no champagne.
Just Sky. And the effect he always had on me.
He leaned against the edge of the bar, a good ten feet from the group.
Far enough not to be involved, but close enough to be clearly listening.
His arms were folded over his chest, his gaze on mine.
There was no smile, just that quiet, unreadable intensity—the kind that made my pulse skip and brain short-circuit.
And, naturally, I stared back with my classic deer-in-headlights look.
Somehow, in the past twenty-four hours, I’d managed to forget just how absurdly attractive he was.
His gray button-down hugged his sculpted chest like it had been tailored for the occasion, sleeves rolled to his strong forearms, collar undone enough to show the hollow of his tanned throat.
Dark jeans. He was also very much looking in my direction.
And I was checking him out again. Subtlety was not my middle name.
I slammed my mouth shut and forced my eyes away. Tried to focus on whatever the hell Kelly was saying. I could feel him watching me.
I couldn’t help it. I risked another glance Sky’s way. This time, a slow sliver of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Not full-on smirk level, but close. He’d noticed my fluster.
Fantastic.
I turned stiffly back to Kelly. “Sorry. What?”