1942664419 (S) (31 page)

I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth. I would live. I had to. This couldn’t be the way it would end.

We slammed into something. I scrunched my face to keep my eyes closed. We thudded and banged again. And again. And again.

My eyes shot open. Dad’s lips continued to ramble words I couldn’t hear as we turned over more times than I could count. My mind reeled, focusing on everything and nothing. The edges of my necklace cut into my palm, but the pain was distant, ghostly.

We crunched to a stop.

The jolt tossed me toward the glass, testing my restraints.

Every muscle in my body quivered, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t feel.

I could see, but only directly in front of me. Only Dad. My eyes wouldn’t move anywhere else.

I was alive. Wasn’t I?

Dad blinked and pulled his arms free. With the grace of a swinging monkey, he pulled himself up and out of my line of sight. I wanted to look up, to follow him, to scream for help, but nothing worked. I was frozen.

A sizzle hissed and a pop burst above my head. Light flooded the chamber.

“Jess, you okay?”

I wanted to scream yes, but I couldn’t.

Maybe I wasn’t okay.

His hands crammed beneath my shoulders, and I rose from the ship and into the sunlight. I squinted as the rays reflected off miles of sand in every direction.

Dad shook me. “I said, can you hear me?”

I inhaled a deep, full breath that burned my lungs.

Air. Life.

My life. Dad’s life.

A few wispy clouds billowed overhead, somber among the blue sky.

“Oh, Dad.” I slid my arms around him.

“I got you,
Pequeña
. It’s okay. I got you.”

I sobbed into his shoulder. It wasn’t okay.

When we’d crashed on the green planet, David fled in an escape pod. This time, he’d given those escape pods to us. He saved Dad and me, knowing he’d have no way to save himself. How could I live with that, knowing what he sacrificed? I didn’t care what David said. My life was not worth more than his.

A flash of light beamed overhead, shining like a miniature sun. I tightened my grip on my father’s shoulders. He flinched and a tiny sound gurgled from his throat. The same sound he always made when the other team scored a winning field goal: the subdued sound of defeat.

Come on, David. You’re smart. A genius. Think your way out of this. Please, David. Don’t give up!

The light brightened, and my heart leaped. Had he found a way to stop his descent?

Dad’s arms turned to rocks and tightened. Something shot out from the brightness, trailing a fiery tail toward the planet. Then two bright specs shot out from the other side. I froze, stunned as David’s ship broke apart. Numbness crept into my depths.

“No,” I whispered, tears streaming into my mouth.

A pop rang through the sky, not much louder than a gunshot from that distance, and the bright spot burst like a firework in the daytime. Dozens of fiery trails reached out and sped to Earth.

“No!” My scream blistered my ears. “No!”

I tried to pull from Dad’s arms, but he constricted like a python.

This wasn’t real. It was a dream. A terrible nightmare. I needed to wake up. If I didn’t open my eyes, I knew I’d die. I couldn’t take it. It wasn’t fair.

Pieces of David’s ship splintered and burned to dust overhead. Trails of smoke spun to the planet, disintegrating with the last pieces of my heart, drifting into oblivion.

“No. No. No. No. No!” I beat my father’s chest with my fists.

“Shhhh.” He grabbed my wrists, and I fell to my knees in the sand. “He knew the risks, Jess. He knew the risks, and he still chose to save us.”

“He can’t be dead.” I searched the sky, but only fading lines of smoke remained. “This isn’t happening.”

Dad folded me back into his arms. “David was as brave as any soldier I’ve met. He made the sacrifice we all know we might have to make someday, and I owe him. I owe him everything.”

A burning cinder flittered from above like a feather and settled to the ground beside me.

David. A life so bright, now belittled to nothing more than ashes in the sky.

Only hours ago, David had cradled me in his arms, keeping me warm within our special alcove on the green planet. Space and time had halted, giving us one precious moment to be together. Just us. Was that a gift? Did God know we’d be separated? Was this the plan all along?

No. I refused to believe that.

I broke away from Dad and ran into the desert.

“Jess, what are you doing?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t know. But I wasn’t going to just sit there.

Smoke trailed up from the dunes in the distance. I ran for it, not caring what I might find. Dust kicked up around me: a cloud adding to the haze that already seared into my soul. My chest burned, and I stopped, resting on my thighs.

How could my body give up on David, when he’d sacrificed everything for me? I scuffed forward two steps before clutching my chest.

Dad appeared beside me, my backpack slung over his shoulder. “You can’t exert yourself like that in this heat. Your body isn’t used to it.” He rifled through my pack and handed me the canister of water I’d thrown in there while cleaning up our campsite on the green planet.

The clear liquid swished inside the nearly opaque flask.

David had left that canister on the ground. He’d been the last one to hold it. I snatched the bottle from Dad and pulled it to my chest. As burnt as my throat was, how could I drink?

Dad’s eyes narrowed. “That’s water, isn’t it?”

I nodded and slipped the bottle back into my pack. “It was David’s.”

“Do you really think he’d want you to die of thirst after he … ” Dad looked down. “Never mind. I get it.”

He helped me limp to the base of the smoke trail. A small, twisted piece of glowing metal winked out as we approached. Hardened, like Earth metal. Dead.

I shielded my eyes from the sun and kept walking.

40

Dad kicked over the eighth piece of the ship we’d found, snubbing out the glowing embers. “I’m not sure what you think we’re going to find.”

I hugged my elbows. “I don’t know. I just … I don’t know.” I wiped my damp forehead on my sleeve. Every one of these specs of shining dust, every one of these dying embers, were a piece of my life. A piece of the life of a man who’d turned my world upside down, and then saved humanity and me. Twice. How could I give up on him, even if he were gone?

I shivered despite the heat.

Gone.
Such a horrible word. So final. It all seemed unreal—even the desert sand. But the scorching grains beneath my sneakers were real. And blazing hot. I couldn’t dwell on the past until I dealt with the present. “How are we going to get out of here?”

“We were falling into Earth’s atmosphere in an alien spaceship. I’m sure NASA tracked us.” He squinted into the sky. “I’m surprised our boys aren’t here already.”

I kicked up the sand at my feet. The desert sprawled around us, not even a cactus in view.
Maybe they couldn’t get to us
. “Oh my God. You don’t think we’re in Iraq, do you?”

A smile almost touched his lip. “I don’t think so.” He inched beside a small boulder and sat, leaning back on the rock. He patted the sand beside him.

I shook my head. “I can’t.” I choked down a sob. “I just can’t. I need to do something.” I tugged my hair. “Anything. I don’t know!”

His eyes softened beneath beads of sweat along his brow. “I’m not saying we stop. Let’s rest for a second. Get our bearings.”

I nodded and rubbed my eyes. The wind swirled across the top of the sand, forming majestic ripples. So simple, nature. Life goes on. The world goes on. I cleared my throat and forced a gulp, trying to ignore the pain.

The emptiness inside slithered, dug, and crawled through my bones. There wasn’t much of me left after Mom died, and now the remaining pieces unraveled. I held my breath as the pain simmered into a tangled ball in my chest.

I slumped to the ground and flopped my head on Dad’s shoulder. The sob finally broke free.

David was gone. It was over. Agony played soccer in my body, dropkicking my heart and puncturing my lungs. I couldn’t lose someone I loved again. I wasn’t strong enough.

Dad handed me the water bottle again.

“I can’t.” I hid further into his shoulder.

“What would David have wanted you to do?”

He’d want me to live. But I wasn’t sure how I could do that without him.

Dad waved the bottle in the air. It reminded me of that day at the lake when I was ten, when Dad and Mom played monkey in the middle with a water bottle. As usual, I was the monkey. Dad’s expression today was soft, loving. Just as it had been so many years ago. Maybe I did have something to live for.

I took the canteen, popped the lid off, and handed it back to him. “David would want me to share.”

Dad’s grin reached inside me and stole the pain. Some, but not all.

Tears streamed down my face as he took a sip and handed the bottle back. My hand trembled as I brought the canister to my own lips and let the warm water blanket my throat like a kiss from beyond. I swallowed another gulp, and nearly choked myself as a sob burst from the base of my spine.

Drinking the water seemed so final. Like I’d given up.

My blurry eyes scanned the miles of sand around us. As hard as it seemed, I needed to come to terms with …

The boulder behind us shifted. Dad startled and grabbed for a rifle that wasn’t there.

He cussed under his breath and pulled me to my feet. “That thing just moved.”

“I know.”

We backed up, but the boulder remained still. The rock was only about three feet wide. Could it have been one of those giant tortoise-things? Was there such thing as a desert tortoise? It wouldn’t look like a rock though, right?

A split formed on the top center of the rock. Dad splayed his arms, backing us both away. The split enlarged, forming a circular cut in the surface that popped up, landing askew across the hole.

I glanced at Dad, but he looked as dumbfounded as I was. He took a step closer but skipped back as the circle wiggled to the side and toppled off the rock.

A spindly, hairy black finger jutted out of the hole, then another. A tousled, dark mound appeared before three golden eyes reflected the sunlight.

“Edgar!” I darted to the boulder and pulled the huge spider into my arms. His rough, prickly hairs scratched my cheek, and I loved every second of it. “I can’t believe it!”

Dad eyed up the wiggling bundle in my arms. “I guess it’s safe to say that thing isn’t dangerous?”

“He’s fine.” I nuzzled my little friend. “He’s perfect.”

Dad stretched over the boulder. He pulled along the edges of the hole and felt along the sides. He sighed. “The rest looks pretty solid.”

I tightened my grip on the squirming
grassen
. I wasn’t about to let him go. Edgar was my last link to David, my last living memory of our final week together. I had to keep him safe. After a moment, the creature stopped struggling and hid his eyes in my armpit.

“So now what?” I asked.

Dad picked up the water bottle, looking deep into the glass. He frowned. There were probably only a few sips left.

“Well, staying put isn’t doing us any good. If they find the escape pods, they’ll be able to track us here.” He glanced at the sky. “I say we head west and see what happens.”

I nodded and fell in, walking beside him.

Edgar scrambled up to my shoulder and chirped in my ear.

“You’re not thinking of keeping that thing, are you?” Dad asked.

“His name is Edgar, not
that thing
.” I snuggled the
grassen’s
cheek, or where his cheek would have been if he had one. “And maybe I
will
keep him.”

Edgar’s coo turned to a growl as he bared his gargantuan fangs. He snapped, cutting my palm before I dropped him.

“What the … ” I flailed my hand as he scampered across the sand.

“You all right?” Dad asked, wiping the blood with his thumb.

“Yeah.” Only my pride hurt a little. I’d thought Edgar was my bud.

Dad followed the
grassen
back across our footprints, stopping at the boulder.

Edgar hopped atop the rock and whittled his mass back into the hole he’d emerged from.

Dad glanced at me before leaning over the hole. “I can’t see … wait.” His eyes widened. “Jess!”

I sprinted toward him, skidding beside the boulder as Edgar shimmied out of the hole butt first. The
grassen
grunted, pulling until the creature’s head emerged with violescent fingers clutched in his mouth.

“David!”

Edgar released his burden and backed away.

I grasped the lavender digits. Cold. So cold. “We have to get him out of there!”

Dad felt several points on the wrist. “There’s no pulse, Jess.”

No. I refused to believe that.

My father rubbed his hands along my shoulders. “That rock is solid. And small. If David is in there, he’s in pieces.”

I choked back a sob. I was better off thinking he’d burned up in the explosion. Finding pieces … it was too much.

Lost, weak, defeated beyond reason, I slumped beside the boulder.

Edgar hissed and lunged for the violet hand, sinking his teeth into the palm.

“Stop!” I sprang to my feet. “Don’t eat him!”

The
grassen
bit down again, then scampered to the ground and sat like a puppy waiting for someone to throw a ball.

What the …

Dark, bluish blood seeped from the wounds in the hand and dripped down the mottled, bumpy sides of the boulder.

Mottled and bumpy … not clean and flat like the other parts of the ship we’d found.

Part of my chest frayed away and sunk toward my stomach. “He wasn’t trying to eat him,” I whispered.

“What?”

I held my chest, gasping for air. “That’s not part of the ship!” I lunged for the hole, tugging at the opening.

“What are you talking about?” Dad pulled me back.

“It’s a cocoon.” I pointed at Edgar. “They’re the same as spiders. They stun animals and put them in cocoons so they can eat them later.” His brow furrowed. “Don’t you get it? Edgar knew the shell would be hard enough to stand reentry, so he bit David and sealed them both inside.”