Broken Skies (21 page)

* * * * * * *

After I explain the dreams I’ve been having about Jace, Flint leans back in his chair and lets out a long sigh. He doesn’t question. He doesn’t look confused. He just looks relieved. Flint is taking this whole dream connection thing better than I did. Strange.

I’m the one that did the explaining, why am I the one that is left confused? “So, you believe me? That I’m really dreaming about Jace?” I ask.

“Yes.” He nods and clasps his hands together behind his head, tilting the chair backward onto two legs.

“Just like that? No surprise? No argument? No telling me I’m crazy?” Flint’s taking it better than Lir and the alien actually has experience with something like it. Unless… “Has this happened to Jace before?”

Flint sits up again and swallows loudly. “There’s something you should probably know.”

The words send ice into my body. Whatever he has to tell me is bound to be something I don’t want to know. “And what is that?”

He exhales and looks at his hands. “You should know about your mother.” His eyes slide over to Lir and he swallows again. “About what she was.”

All I can do is stare at him blankly. Things are clicking into place in my head as I put it together for myself, but…no. That can’t be right. I shake my head softly.

When I don’t say anything, he continues. “She was one of them, an erk. Here on some sort of early arrival program.” He purses his lips and stares into my eyes. “My father thinks you’re some sort of weapon. Quicker, able to blend in and not dependent on the cuffs. ”

A rock settles on my chest and I close my eyes. Breathe. If my mother was E’rikon then… I open my eyes and search out Lir. “Did you know? Is that why…” I clench my jaw and breathe slowly, fighting the burn in the back of my eyes. “Is that why they took him? They knew what he was. They were looking… They were looking for us?” I try to ask the question as calmly as possible, but my voice almost breaks at the end. The pain of betrayal is ten times worse than the snake’s venom. “You lied to me.”

Lir steps forward. “No. There are rumors. I had suspicions…” He places his hands on my cheeks, peering into my eyes. Searching. Waiting. I look away.

“So you knew?” Hope dies in my chest leaving a hollow feeling.

Lir pulls my chin up until I’m looking at him again. “About the rumors, yes. About you? No, not for sure.” He runs the back of his hand down my cheek and I fight the urge to lean into it. “If I’d known I would have told you. This changes everything. We have to get to the city right away.”

I pull away from him. Confusion rolls through me. He wants to get me to the city. He wants me to be their weapon. “I’m not doing it. I won’t. I’m not a weapon.”

Understanding washes over his face. “No, that’s not what I meant,” he says. “You weren’t meant to be a weapon. You were meant to unite us.”

Flint breaks in. “How do you know all this, alien?”

Sliding his eyes to Flint, Lir tenses. “Considering it has more to do with my race than yours, you seem to know quite a bit about it as well, human. How do
you
know all this?” I’m interested in Flint’s answer to his question as well.

Flint shuffles his feet against the floor and his eyes dart between me and Lir. “Jace told me.” I don’t know if I’m more surprised that Jace told Flint or that Jace knew at all. “After…. What happened…Jace didn’t know what to do. He was taking care of you by himself and you needed him almost constantly. You couldn’t even sleep without him, wouldn’t let anyone else near you. He had no time to hunt, no time to do anything really but care for you. I helped as much as I could…”

“I don’t remember any of this,” I say. Lir gives my shoulder a gentle squeeze from his position behind me.

“You were completely out of it. Eventually, you’d let me sit with you for short periods so Jace could gather supplies, but never long enough for him to really get ahead. Winter came. There was no food left and he had nothing to trade. He turned that cabin upside down for something he could use to barter for food. Your father had a little hiding place under the floorboards. Not much useful to him at the time, mostly a few old notebooks, but there was something he thought he could trade— a bracelet, at least that’s what he thought it was.” He takes a deep breath. “My father knew what it was and put the pieces together almost immediately. I don’t know how, but he knew…things…He’d been searching for the alien hybrid child for years, only to find out there were two. He offered Jace the chance to move into Bridgelake. Jace accepted.”

“But I was only out of it for a few days…”

Flint’s eyes hold a mixture of remorse and sadness. “No, you were near comatose for months.”

“Why didn’t he tell me?” Had I known, I would never have chased after that ship, never lead Jace right into their trap. We would be at home right now and Jace would be safe.

Flint shrugs. “Even when you woke up, you were so distant and just broken. Once he figured out what was going on, he also figured out that you weren’t… functional? Jace was already paying the price. We decided it was better to leave it be.”

“Functional?
We
decided…What the hell Flint?”

His face goes red and his words start hissing through his clenched teeth. “You have no idea how hard it was for him, what you went through… He wanted to tell you about this, but he also wanted to protect you. We didn’t think any more complications would be good for you.”

“Who were you to decide what was best for me?” The realization that Jace could hide so much from me stings like salt in a wound.

“You checked out. You left him. He didn’t know what to do. He did the only thing he could— for you. No matter how much it hurt him, he protected you. Took care of you. Watched over you. My father is not a good man and the price he asked of your brother was high. The things he did to assure
your
safety have about destroyed him.” The bitter anger in his eyes cuts like a knife. “It was always about you.”

Suddenly I see our last conversation at the lake in a new light, Jace looking forward to a shopping trip, Jace telling me it couldn’t be just us forever… Jace stepping in to distract the aliens. Bile rises in my throat. I stand and half step half stumble backwards with my hand over my mouth. Always for me. Always about me. All my fault. Everything. I don’t even bother trying to hold back or hide my tears, just let them trail down my cheeks and bite down on the side of my hand, shaking my head back and forth.

Flint moves up from his chair and moves toward me.

“Get away from her.” Lir steps up to stand in front of me. “She doesn’t need to be yelled at for things beyond her control.”

“And I bet you know just what she needs, erk. To be carted off to live as a prisoner in your city? To fix all your problems? I’m sure Jace is having a swell time with your friends.” He steps forward, inches from Lir’s face. “What do you even care? What she doesn’t need is you.”

“I care about
her
,” yells Lir. The air leaves my chest in a whoosh. “Yes, I care about my people too and she’s obviously a part of that, but I won’t make Jax’s choices for her. You and her brother seem to have done enough of that.”

Lir and Flint glare at each other, their muscles visibly vibrating with tension. The pressure in the room rises another level, so I step between them, putting my hands out. “You two fighting is not going to help anything. I don’t like that you and Jace kept me in the dark, but I can’t do anything about it now.” I drop my hands and grasp Flint’s shoulder. “But there is something I
can
do. I can bring him back. It’s my turn to protect Jace and I’ll do it or die trying.”

“He wouldn’t want you to do this.” Hope and anguish fight for control of his features. “Jace wouldn’t want you to die for him.”

“But he would die for me.” I lower my hands and step away from the two boys. “Time is running out and there’s a lot we have to do.”

EIGHTEEN

Between Peter and Flint, my choice for a driving instructor is obvious. Being in an enclosed space with the chatty priest with my already frayed nerves would not work out well for Peter. The truck has to be running first though. Peter’s ‘upkeep’ apparently hadn’t been very recent.

We’re all standing outside now, Flint enforcing the uneasy truce with Lir.

Daniel is the only one here with any mechanical knowledge and he refuses to help with the truck. He keeps narrowing his eyes at Lir and then sending Flint loaded looks. Both are better than his expression when his gaze rests on me. Flint ends up pulling him aside and talking to him in low tones with a lot of head shaking going on. The two other soldiers follow.

Peter fusses over me, claiming my leg won’t be able to handle the stress of the clutch. I pull up my pant leg and show him the now healed wound. His eyes widen and he opens his mouth, but Lir pulls him to the side over by the truck and the two of them put their heads together, deep in conversation. Their conversation over, the four Bridgelake soldiers eye the duo and Flint breaks away and comes to stand with me.

“You sure about this?” he asks.

“I’m getting Jace. There’s no other choice for me.”

He sighs and runs a hand over his face. “Yeah. I know that. I meant are you sure about…the alien? Can you trust him?”

I watch Lir and Peter. Can I trust him? If Flint had asked me yesterday I would have said yes without hesitation, but he’s been distant and strange since the soldiers got here. Since he found out what I am. Of course, having guns pointed at me wouldn’t do anything good for my mood either.

Green eyes meet mine over the top of Peter’s head and he gives me a weak smile before shifting his gaze to Flint.

“He’s not too fond of me,” says Flint. I snort and the side of his mouth goes up. “Rather fond of you though. Wanna explain that?” He leans forward and turns his head to look at me.

Why is Lir fond of me? I mean, we’ve made huge strides lately and there was that super embarrassing kiss, but what is his interest in me? It’s not like anything else is possible between us. He’s got his world and I have mine, at least as soon as I’ve gotten Jace back I will. I shrug. “We’ve had to depend on each other. I’ve saved his life. He’s saved mine. We’re friends.”

“Friends?” Flint does his own version of the eyebrow thing.

“Yeah.” I try to avoid the heat that fills my cheeks and look away. “What else could we be?”

Flint doesn’t answer, just presses his back against the wall, folds his arms over his chest and watches Lir. “I’m worried about you,” he says after a few moments. “Something isn’t right in this situation. What was he doing out there? Why was he left behind? If you go into that city, they have both you and Jace. What if they won’t let you back out? Especially since that one knows what you are?”

“Lir’s different. He’s not like the rest of them.”

“How would you even know?”

He’s got a point. Lir and I have spent over two weeks together and he knows an awful lot about my life, but I know virtually nothing about his. I know how old he is and that he has a younger sister. I’ve slept curled in his arms, cried on his chest, even kissed him and I don’t even know his last name. Do the aliens even have last names? He’s known all along what my mission is, but never given me any idea of how or where I might find Jace, never even hinted at the layout of the city and how he’s planning on getting me in there.

We’d been shoved into an intense situation, well, I dragged us into one anyway. It’s only natural that we’d develop a strong connection, right? Only natural that guilt eats at me for not defending him to Flint more. Only natural that I’d like nothing more than to be curled in his arms right now. Have I been a total fool?

Flint breaks me out of my roaming thoughts. “There’s something we need to discuss before you head in there. Away from the alien.”

“Your buddies going to refrain from shooting him while we’re gone? I don’t trust Daniel.”

He presses his lips together and his eyes go back to Lir. “I’ll talk to them.”

I narrow my eyes and nod slowly. “Okay.”

Flint walks back to the rest of the soldiers. After a few minutes of intense discussion, Daniel and the other two walk away down the driveway.

Lir breaks away from Peter and opens the hood of the truck. Maybe that’s his job in the city, an alien mechanic. I can hope, right? He props it open with a block of wood the priest hands him and rests his hands on the raised hood, staring intently into the engine compartment. He turns his head to talk to Peter and I study his profile.

His hair looks ridiculous, but it doesn’t detract from his other features. He stands tall and confident even under the glares of the other humans. I’ve seen him scared and he doesn’t look like he’s worried, but I feel just the slightest edge of unease rolling off him and curling in my stomach. The familiar heat of anger is buzzing in my body too, but it’s not mine. It’s more of a slow burn than the sudden, intense flare that signals my own emotions. What is happening to me?

My breath stutters in my chest. This has happened before. Someone else’s emotions, someone else’s thoughts burrowing into my head. Unwelcome. Hurting. Knife. Blood.
Hands
. Hands on hair. Hands on neck. Hands on…Nonononono.