Chapter 3
THREE
LAURA
Frack. I spent too long with Arabella, and lingering with the purple aliens means I need to step on it to get back to my apartment in time for the remote meeting.
Fortunately, I make it with seconds to spare and dial into the conference call, and it’s not one Morgan attends.
As everyone introduces themselves, my mind swirls around Arabella, trying to hold the farm together on her own, and a wall of purple scales.
I tap my pen on my desk. Okay, yes, the extra-terrestrials have done nothing threatening.
Gara’s busy downloading books about, ahem, human relationships, so I’m less worried about Arabella’s safety.
While they’re huge and packed with muscle, with those scales which no doubt act as protection, I get a kind of feeling when I’m with them.
They don’t meet my gaze easily, they respond to every question as if it’s an order, and that one—Dom, with the purple eyes—actually fell to his knees on the gravel.
The crunch made me wince in sympathy for his poor joints.
I can’t believe how fast he dropped when I told him he'd scared me.
He hadn't, not really; having a big purple guy run at me like that was unexpected, that’s all.
I pull out my papers, running my fingers along their edges to straighten them out. I rub my fingertips together, then trace the ripples of the wooden desk.
The scales on his cheek started hard as oak, then softened into warm skin. I was expecting him to be as cold as a snake. He wasn’t. Not at all.
His lilac eyes haunt me. Soft, brimming with pain.
Pain at the very idea of scaring me.
And I wanted to wipe it off his face, clear the suffering from his gaze.
“Laura, the inquest starts at what time on Friday the thirtieth of March?”
“9 sharp,” I answer easily. Nine days from now. Not even aliens will distract me from my work, I won’t allow them, empathic knee-jerk reactions notwithstanding.
I lace my fingers together while someone else drones on, repeating things I already know about the case.
Arabella has done an Arabella thing. Her modifications are way outside the specifications the local council granted Ellen permission to do to her heritage barn.
The permissions are fixable, maybe, if I put in a variation application, like, yesterday.
For that, I’ll need access to Arabella’s drawings and pin her down so she doesn’t make any more changes. Best if I’m there to supervise.
While I’m there, I can investigate what’s going on with these aliens. What exactly happened to them to make them fear us?
In the last ten minutes of the conference call, when no one's really saying anything of importance anyway and it's just the other senior partners trying to stay relevant on my case, I mute myself and move around my apartment.
I pack the basics: changes of clothes, my toiletries, and my deluxe top of the range espresso maker and travel bean grinder. Can't live without that.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, I haven't even got a plant in the apartment to worry about while I'm away.
I'd love a pet but I know my lifestyle of work hard and then work harder doesn't suit animals, even for a cat.
Plants have a special place in my heart, but I can't promise to water them on time.
Maybe I'll get a succulent, or a house-leek. They seem sturdy.
Once the call is done I pull off my headphones, gliding my fingers together through my hair. My fingertips tingle as if they're skimming lavender scales, their hard, sharp edges softening. Warming under my touch. His eyes turning liquid and fathomless.
As if he was trying to tell me something.
Shaking my head, I pack my vitamins—can’t afford to get sick right before the inquest—and gather together the charging cables for my various phones. A notification flashes on my dating phone. Swiping it open, my heart leaps.
“You have a match!”
Still haven't got round to closing down the account for now, but… what harm can looking do?
I open it and my neat kitchen floor seems to fall away from me. “Oh, shit,” I mutter.
John. John, the barrister I work with.
My work phone buzzes with a message. My stomach swoops, palms going clammy as the words blur. “Hey, Laura. We just matched on Bristol Meet. Rofl!”
Uh, yeah. I'm not laughing, more like curling on the floor in utter shame. I don't mix work with my friends or my love life. Everything stays separate and organized. Has to.
I type back, my thumb trembling as I jab the keys, “So I see. However, company policy dictates strict rules on how colleagues interact.”
“Should have known you'd quote the book to me. :) well, I thought it was funny.”
Argh. My skin prickles hot. Is this going to ruin our working rapport? This is why everything has to be kept in compartments!
When I get to Ellen's farm it's past sunset, and there are no lights on in the house.
My car lamps strobe over the shadowy shapes of the corrugated steel shed where Ellen parks her heavy machinery and into the lean to, where I expect to see the aliens all piled together and sleeping soundly.
But there's just two of them, one of the big purple ones who's passed out asleep, and the tall one with metal limb replacements, Arture.
The headlamps reflect off his bare arm as I park, and then my eyes struggle to adjust to the sudden darkness when I turn off the car completely.
“Good evening,” I say, getting out. It's raining, so I open an umbrella with a snap which seems to echo against the machinery shed behind me.
Arture says nothing, watching me warily, so I leave him alone and get my bags out of the trunk. Hoisting them up, I try not to totter on the gravel up to Ellen’s house; walking in heels on gravel is awkward at the best of times, but in the dark it’s a recipe for a broken ankle.
I unload my bags at the door and push it open. Immediately the smell of paint hits me: Arabella making herself at home.
“Hi!” I call out as I shake the umbrella out the front door, listening carefully for an answer.
Nothing.
“Arabella?” I slip off my heels and pad in my pantyhose along the cold kitchen tiles. “Where are you?”
The house remains silent and, worse, still. It felt empty without Ellen, but now it’s really barren, ringing with only background noises of the kitchen grandfather clock ticking and a hiss in the ancient heating pipes.
“Fuckity fucking shit.” I shove my shoes on and stab my umbrella up in the air, thrusting the plastic up like a war pennant as I march back to the lean to.
“Where’s Arabella?” I snap at Arture.
He eyes my umbrella, but he doesn’t move to defend himself from it as I level it at him. “We don’t know. Gara went to look for her.”
“So now two of my friends have disappeared along with two aliens. No, wait, four, because two of the purple ones are missing.” The tip of the umbrella shakes, so I adjust my grip.
It’s a shit weapon, but it’s the only one I have.
“Explain yourself, now. I’ve got a button that will alert the police so they’ll be here in minutes, and I’m not afraid to use it.
” I’m lying about the last part, but he doesn’t know that.
The other purple alien stirs. “No you don’t,” he says, voice a mumble.
He massages his temples with a wince before his storm gray eyes lock onto the machinery shed.
His eye color tells me he’s the one called Nevare, who always seems like he’s listening to something else.
He cocks his head now, as if he’s hearing a sound I can’t.
And then I do. A sharp crack like someone snapped a branch, coming from inside the machine shed.
“What on this green earth are you up to?” I snarl at them, marching straight for the barn. I half-expect one of them to run after me to stop me, but all that follows me is Nevare’s voice.
“He needs you,” is all he says.
I’ll puzzle out whether that was meant for me or Arture later, stomping across the yard with my umbrella thrust out in front of me.
Rain drenches me instantly but I don’t feel cold, just pissed.
I stumble but right myself before I can slip on the wet gravel, and the automatic sensor lights flare on.
Is this throat-clutching sensation terror or anger?
Either way, if they’ve got Arabella in there, I’m getting her out.
I throw the shed door open and dart inside, pulling the umbrella back over my shoulder to use like a bat. I manage three steps before I stop.
And stare.
The two purple aliens are in here. One stands a few feet in front of Ellen's tractor, a metal cylinder in his hand. From it drapes a thin blue line that glitters and shimmers with its own light, and it drags to a halt as he stops moving.
It’s an alien whip. I stare at it, then at the scene lit by the pool of light from the floodlights peeking through the missing panels at the top of the shed.
The other big purple alien hangs by his hands from the steel beam across the roof.
His legs dangle in the air, a foot from the concrete, his weight dragging him down so his back is stretched taut.
His wrists aren't tied that I can see, he’s just got an iron grip on the metal beam.
He lifts his head with effort, one purple eye flashing over his shoulder at me, his expression slack as if he’s totally relaxed.
He lets go and drops to the ground, staggering a step to the side before he catches himself. “Oh-Law-rah,” he grates out, as if his voice is hoarse from screaming, and he turns to face me. Sweat stands out in perfect beads on the scales of his bare torso.
“What’s going on here?” I ask. Somehow, my voice comes out calm but firm. “Stop this immediately.”
The one holding the whip gets to his knees slowly. Once I see his eye color I know which one it is: yellow is for Arik, and usually he’s smiling but now his mouth hinges open and shut. “He… I…”