Chapter 23
EXPOSITION, BUT MAKE IT EXTRATERRESTRIAL
The words hung between us. My heart bucked in my chest like a startled horse.
In danger? Me, specifically? Not the whole human race? Was this because I’d seen him? He’d said he wasn’t here to hurt me, but—
“Are you…” My voice cracked. “Are you threatening me?”
“Am I threatening— No!” Sky stared at me like I’d grown a second head, then scowled. Another crackle of thunder rattled the windowpanes.
When I shrank a little against the wall, clutching the mace tighter, Sky blew out a breath and looked at the ceiling like he was summoning divine patience. Like he was the one dealing with life-altering reveals tonight.
It was enough to annoy me, and I straightened a little. “Then what did you mean by that? Why am I in danger? Because if it’s just because I saw you at Oasis, I promise I won’t tell anybody—”
“You know,” Sky ran a hand through his soaked hair, mouth twisting, “I rehearsed this conversation in my head. It didn’t go anything like this.”
The idea of confident, calm Sky rehearsing any conversation was ridiculous enough, I huffed.
“That’s kind of how my whole week’s been.
” He sent me a wry look that said, oh really?
A tremulous smile threatened to curve my mouth.
A little of my trepidation faded, and I sighed.
“Look, if you’re just here to make sure I’m not going to tell anyone, you don’t need to threaten me.
Your secret’s safe. Trust me, I’d rather forget all this—”
“I didn’t threaten you at all. God, Rae. You jumped to that conclusion. Can you give me a chance to explain things?”
“I am!” I protested, throwing out my mace arm. “You’re really sucking at the whole explanation thing for someone who just said they were going to tell me everything!”
“I said I’d tell you everything I could.” He moved toward me, and I immediately took a step back, lifting the canister and phone in warning. He stopped short, a faint scowl tugging his mouth down.
I waved the pepper spray, refusing to apologize. “I let you in, didn’t I? You’re the one dripping all over my floor instead of talking.”
As if he’d just realized it was there, he eyed the small puddle beneath him. With a muttered word I didn’t catch, he turned away and crossed to the window, flicking apart the blinds and peering out. I breathed in through my nose and out through my mouth, watching his every move.
After a long pause, he said flatly, “A week ago, a scout for an alien race called the Enil landed on Earth.”
Despite his oh-so-nonchalant delivery, his words struck like bombs. I’d known it was coming, but it still sucker-punched me.
“A…what’s an Enil?” I forced out.
Blank. My mind was blank. It was full of that snowy static, like an old TV. Or Faith’s radio if you tried to listen to any station but the local one since the antenna had rusted off.
Sure, I’d wanted answers. I’d known they’d be wild. But hearing it out loud ripped all the air from my lungs, leaving me light-headed and floaty.
Aliens. Alien scouts, no less.
I leaned hard on the wall, keeping Sky in sight. He wasn’t looking at me, his attention on the rain-drenched night. He kept talking, though, in that same eerily calm tone. Like dropping life-altering revelations was just another item on his to-do list.
“There are a lot of complicated aspects to all this…too complicated for me to explain, even if I was allowed to.”
That was enough to snap me from my haze. I clicked my tongue in annoyance. What, had he signed an intergalactic NDA?
“Allowed to? What does that mean?” I asked.
He took me in over his shoulder. “There’s only so much I can tell you, Rae.”
Definitely an intergalactic NDA.
“You just said…” I tried to steady my breathing, shaking off the dizziness. “Why don’t you tell me whatever you’re allowed to say?”
“Technically?” He turned away from the blinds, exhaled roughly. “Technically, I’m not allowed to say anything. We have a very strict non-exposure clause. It’s part of our Creed. Non-interference.”
Oh, great. Now we were getting into sci-fi prime directive territory.
“Okay,” I said slowly, dragging out the word. “Then let’s try this. Who is…we?”
Even as I asked the question, I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer. Sky stiffened, and his midnight gaze grew penetrating where he stood in the center of my living room. With his back to the window, he was outlined by my tiny lamp. The glow burnished his dark hair.
He didn’t say anything for another moment. I barely dared to breathe. A furrow cut deep between his brows. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was angry.
Like this—this whole conversation—was an inconvenience.
Well, same, buddy. Try this whole week.
And yet I couldn’t seem to stop staring. For an alien, he certainly had human mannerisms down. He radiated broody, moody man vibes right now.
It was a lie, though. I knew what lay beneath. When I blinked, I could still imagine the silver sheen to his skin, the black-on-blue, inverted eyes. Not a man at all. I shivered.
And yet, this version of him looked torn. Frustrated. Almost…pained.
He lowered his gaze to the ground, hiding the emotions flitting over his face too quickly for me to read. The storm’s wind battered the side of the garage, rattling windows like a phantom creature was trying to fight its way in.
After an eternity, Sky sighed and braced his hands on his hips. “I don’t have a choice,” he murmured, shaking his head.
I started to ask what the hell that meant, but then he looked up, focusing on me.
Despite the several stride-lengths between us, it felt like he’d grabbed me by the collar.
My question died on my lips, and I sucked in a breath.
Time itself seemed to pause, the entire universe waiting along with me and my ready-to-spray mace.
Sky lifted his chin and let ‘er rip.
“My race comes from a planet called Pladia. It’s roughly eight lightyears from Earth in a solar system your astronomers haven’t located yet.
I’m not from there, though. Those of us born during interstellar travel are called the Starborn.
I’m one of them. I was born aboard a transport ship in deep space. ”
My knees decided to melt, and all the blood drained from my head. The room tilted, and I fell against the wall with a strangled wheeze. Fuzzy spots danced in my vision. I blinked hard, willing them away.
I was not going to faint. I wasn’t a fainter.
Sky didn’t know that, though. He jerked forward like he planned to catch me. Pure adrenaline roared through me. I shrank away with a squeak, lifting the pepper spray.
“No,” I gasped out. “Stay back.”
“Okay.” He lifted his hands in surrender and didn’t move any closer, simply settled back against the counter again and folded his arms. That broody frown reappeared.
Pladia. Lightyears. Starborn.
My brain stuttered, and I opened my mouth but nothing came out. Giving my head a shake, I tried again. “So you really are…” I licked my dry lips. “You really are an…”
The word got stuck. My knees wobbled. I couldn’t say it.
Sky didn’t have that problem. He nodded once, slowly. “An alien. Yeah. A Pladian, if we’re getting technical.”
“An alien. Pladian,” I whispered. That word Pladian seemed to ricochet in my brain, echoing over and over. “How…? How is this real?”
“It’s a long story.” He rubbed at his temple and sighed, looking, for a moment, exhausted. For some reason, that sliver of emotion grounded me. It was familiar. Human.
It was enough for me to start reasoning out loud. “Okay. Okay, so you’re an,” oh God, “alien. And…what? Is this,” I gestured at him with the mace, “like a human suit or something?”
He looked down at himself. A hint of a smirk curled his mouth, breaking through his broodiness like sunbeams through clouds. “Close. My body is bonded with a biological synthesis suit. A synth-skin. So I guess you could say I’m wearing human skin.”
“A…what?” My composure abandoned ship. “Wait, is that somebody’s body? Did you steal someone’s skin?”
Was he walking around in some kind of stolen hot guy body?
“What? No!” Sky lurched, eyes flaring wide. “Why would you even…? No, Rae. It’s not like that.”
When I continued to stare in horror, he muttered a curse under his breath.
“No, it’s not somebody’s skin. It’s a suit.
It’s tech. The Pladians—my people—we’ve been explorers for eons.
This,” he indicated his long, unfairly ripped form, “has been used to blend into local populations so we can observe without disruption. It allows us to explore in a non-invasive way.”
Non-invasive. Sure. It was feeling pretty damn invasive right about now.
As if he’d heard the thought—or maybe read it on my face—his mouth pressed into a tight line. To his credit, he kept going. “Before coming to Earth, I went through a merging process. I bonded with the synth-skin and activated its shapeshifting biological interface.”
“Uh huh. Shapeshifting,” I echoed faintly. “Sure.”
His eyes flicked back and forth between mine, as if he tried to gauge my reaction. I was still firmly stuck on holy freaking crap.
“Shapeshifting,” he said, watching me closely.
“But it’s more than that. It fuses with its host, all the way down to the DNA.
It’s my skin now.” He presented one arm and pinched the back of his hand.
The skin bunched between his fingers, then bounced back when he released it. The white mark faded to red.
I stared at it. It was a hand. With skin. Normal, human skin.
“I can feel that,” Sky said quietly, as my panic gave way to cautious curiosity. “I feel temperature, pain. I’m ticklish. The suit restructures my molecules to match your biological signature. Helps that our evolutions took similar paths. That’s more common than you’d think.”
More common? As in, there was an uncommon option, too?
Too much. That was too much for the right now. I filed that little tidbit away for later. Focused on the current out-of-this-world exposé.