Untaken (40 page)

“It’s pretty cool, this music,” I babbled. “I didn’t think I liked it to begin with, ya know? But when you listen to it, it’s not that bad.”
Just shut up
, I told myself, but my mouth didn’t seem to be on Team Brandon any more than my fumbling hands were. “I mean it’s not really party music, but it’s good for dancing.”

“Is it okay that I kissed you?” asked Gracie.

“Holy crap! Why wouldn’t it be?” I gaped at her. Had she seriously never guessed how much I cared about her? An even more amazing thought: had she been feeling the same way about me all this time?

She shrugged, her eyes on the floor. “I figured you wouldn’t want me to…you know.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Well I thought you thought I was a pain in the ass. A bossy nerd.” She hitched at the dress as she said it.

I wanted to tell her all sorts of things then. How good she looked, how cool she was, but what came out was, “Well you are a bossy nerd, but I guess I’ve grown to like it.”

She cracked a smile and I let go the breath I’d been holding.

“You didn’t get any birthday gift,” she said.

“I wouldn’t say that,” I said, winking at her. Smooth.

“Don’t,” she said, groaning. “I meant a real gift.”

I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. And, actually, I did find something while I was going through Uncle Bob’s stuff.”

“What?”

“It’s a photo.” I pulled it out of my pocket and handed it to her.

“Who are they?” she asked.

“That there’s my dad. And that’s my mom, and the kid is me.”

“It’s really cool,” she said, quietly. “I don’t have any photos of…of my family.”

“Well, I never had many of Mom. Even before. Dad didn’t like to talk about her. She got sick when I was just a kid.”

“She looks like you. Your eyes are the same.”

“Dad always said that. I looked so much like him I never believed it, but I guess it was true. He said I took after her.”

“Well, you have his smile. And his hair, minus the sick disco sideburns.” She smiled.

“I mean, personality-wise. He never took shit from anybody, you know?”

It wasn’t good to be thinking on Dad like this. I wasn’t sure why I’d even shown her the photo, but her laying herself open by risking the kiss seemed to have triggered something similar in me. “God’s honest truth, I don’t know why you’d kiss me. I’m such a fuck up.”

“You’re not,” she said, putting a hand on my arm. “You’re always saying that, but you’re not a fuck up. We wouldn’t be here without you.”

I knew she was trying to make me feel better, but there was this big black feeling rising up in my chest and I had to turn away from her.

She tried to reach out for me again, but I shrugged her off. “You’re wrong. I screw everything up sooner or later. Everything. I killed my own Dad. It was my fault he died.”

“Whoa, where did that come from?” Gracie’s eyes were wide.

“Where do you think?” I said. “Do you think I just forgot about it? After we ran away and left them to burn his body with all those other poor fucks? Sorry if my memories aren’t all happy Hallmark moments like yours.”

She glowered at me. “Don’t be a jerk.”

“I
am
a jerk,” I told her. “I don’t know why you haven’t realized that yet.”

“You’re not a jerk. And you didn’t kill anyone.” She put a hand on my shoulder. My first thought was to shove her arm away, tell her I didn’t need her pity, but her hand felt good, like it was stopping the jagged hurt inside me from tearing free and running crazy.

“He’d still be alive if I’d just stayed in the basement like he told me. If it had been me that had gotten sick and him taking care of me, he never would have left me with those Center guys. I tried to be like him. All this time, I’ve tried to do what he would have done, but I’m not him. I’m just a loser.” A tear tickled my nose. Jeez, I was crying. Could things get any more humiliating?

“You really think any of that was your fault? You didn’t make the Space Men come. You didn’t make those government guys do those things. You did the best you could to get through this. We all did. And guess what? We’re still here. How many other people are still here? We made it—you said so yourself. You have to stop with this whole loser complex you have. I think…I think you’re awesome.”

I opened my trap to argue—

“Shhh! I’m talking now.” She gave my shoulder a shove. “And you’re
more
awesome since you stopped doing that whole Captain Lightning ‘Big Guy in Charge’ thing. If that was being like your dad, then I’m glad you’re being you. I like
you
, Brandon.”

“I guess I like you, too,” I told her.

It wasn’t that she was pretty, but her face was so familiar to me, the freckles on her cheeks, even the way her forehead creased when she was chewing me out, it was like everything about her face was
right
in a way that was better than plain old pretty.

I kissed her this time, and she let me, her eyes fluttering shut. She put a hand on my chest and I pulled her in closer. Was this really the wisest thing for us to do? Complicating things like this isn’t what a soldier would’ve done. Or what Dad would’ve done.

For fuck’s sake, just shut the hell up and enjoy something for once
.

Because Dad was dead and gone, and I was never going to be him. And, just maybe, not being him wasn’t the worst thing ever.

It was Dog’s barking that finally brought us back to reality. She stepped away from me, smiling. Her cheeks were red, and I had to shove my hands into my pockets so she wouldn’t see them shake with my need to pull her closer again.

“Jake? You there?” I called, my voice sounding clumsy and loud after the softness of the moment.

“Where did he go?” said Gracie. “I guess I kind of forgot about him. I hope he didn’t see us…you know.”

“Nah, he wandered off hours ago,” I told her. “Reading his comics, probably.”

Dog barked again, a high-pitched yelp of frustration.

“I’ll go check on him. Just in case he’s fallen asleep reading with the oil lamp on again.”

“And then come back?” she asked.

“Try and stop me,” I said. I knew I was grinning like a dumbass, but I couldn’t help myself.

The rest of the house was very dark after the brightness of the attic. Jake’s room was dark too. I looked for the hummock of Jake’s body under the blankets, but the covers lay flat. Dog whined anxiously at my heels.

Weird. Dog and Jake were never apart. Maybe he was in the can? I knocked on the bathroom door, but it swung open on another empty room. Dog whined and grumbled under her breath.

“Chill, you crazy mutt.”

Dog cocked her head and whined at me. She darted to the back door and leapt at it, scrabbling frantically, then looked at me and barked again. Well, jeez, I’d seen “Lassie.”

“Okay, I get it. He’s outside.” But why in the hell would Jake be outside on his own after dark? The kid knew better than that.

“What’s going on? What’s wrong with Dog?” Gracie padded down the corridor to join me.

“Jake’s not in bed.”

“He’s not?”

“I think he went out, maybe? He’s not in the house and Dog is going crazy to get outside,” I said.

“He’s got to be in the house. Where else could he be?”

We searched the whole house, Dog whining at the kitchen door the entire time, but Jake was gone.

“What now?” asked Gracie.

“I guess we follow Dog.”

Dog flew out the door as soon as I opened it, and darted off into the trees.

I didn’t know if the dumb mutt was actually leading us after Jake or just following the scent of a deer, but it was all we had to go on.

As it turned out, we didn’t have to rely on Dog for very long.

“Holy crap, do you see that?” I breathed.

“Yes,” said Gracie in a small voice. “Whatever ‘that’ is.”

Dog crouched, body low to the ground, whining way back in her throat at the entrance to what looked like a tunnel carved right through the woods. No, not carved, because the trees hadn’t been cut down. Instead, they bent and twisted away into weird fantastical shapes, leaving a clear path through the woods just the right size for a little kid.

I swallowed to steady my voice before I spoke. “Did you ever see anything like that in your whole life? What in the hell?”

“It wasn’t here this afternoon,” said Gracie. “What could have done that?”

I looked at her. “You know what. It was him.”

“Him?”

“Jake.”

Gracie shook her head. “That’s ridiculous. I don’t know what this is, but Jake couldn’t have done it.”

“Really? You’re really going to do this? I can maybe understand with the garden and the flowers and all that shit, but what in the hell else could have done
this
? Do you think there are any other freaky little alien kids living out here?”

Pain overwhelmed my senses. I clutched at my face, where the skin smarted and burned. “What the hell? Why did you hit me?” I yelped. I felt the familiar poisonous comfort of anger blooming inside me. It would be so easy to let it out, to hurt her the way she’d hurt me, easier than dealing with the fragile new feelings struggling to grow between us. But I wasn’t a coward no more. I tamped down my temper, and took her hand instead.

“Gracie, come on, get real.”

“Freaky little alien kid? He’s our friend. We’re the only people he has to look after him! And you’re talking about him like he’s some monster. It’s bullshit, Brandon. He’s just a regular kid.”

“Sure. He’s just a regular little kid. And this is just a regular spooky-ass tunnel through the woods. If you’re not going to help, you go on back to the cabin and enjoy deluding yourself. But I know you’re smarter than that.” I let her hand drop. “As for me, I’m going to find Jake.”

I started to walk toward the tree line.

Gracie caught up to me after a few steps. “I’m sorry I hit you. I shouldn’t have done that. I was scared.”

I shrugged. This time it was her who took my hand.

“I don’t think you’re right about Jake, but we’re in this together,” she told me.

“Are you sure about that? Because you’re the one who smacked me in the face just because I told the truth.”

“I really am sorry, okay?”

I sighed. “Okay, I guess. I just wish you’d listen is all. I don’t mean it as a bad thing about Jake. It’s just…there’s no point pretending he’s normal.”

“How can that
not
be a bad thing?”

I didn’t have any answer for that at all.

We had to stoop low to follow Jake’s path through the trees. Gracie walked in front, holding the flashlight. The sun would be coming up soon, but the thick foliage overhead held on to the last of the night. Dog lurked reluctantly behind us, her fur standing up on the scruff of her neck, and her teeth showing in a nervous grin. I could sure sympathize. It was like there was a strange charge of energy in the atmosphere, similar to the feeling you get before a really big thunderstorm. My mind kept going back to that warm wind and burnt sugar smell of the ships, and the figures of people walking into the light.

When we finally got to the end of the tunnel, a still-green clearing opened up before us. In the center, a Spaceship lay tilted to one side in a mess of broken tree limbs.

I wasn’t entirely surprised.

It was one of the small, bullet-shaped ships; at least they’d looked small when I’d seen them in the sky. The thing had to be thirty feet long. The silver sides gleamed like a mirror, but nothing reflected in that strange metal. Small lights fluttered and whirled across the surface of the ship.

Gracie took my hand in hers, and gave it a squeeze.

“You think he’s inside that thing?” I whispered.

“I don’t know. But we have to find out.” She was out of the tunnel before I could stop her, striding toward the ship.

As she got closer, the lights on the sides grouped together, and moved around to where she stood, like the thing was watching her. I didn’t like that. I couldn’t let her go out there alone. I had to will my legs to march me closer to the ship. Gracie glanced at me as I stepped up beside her. Her face was white.

“Jake? Jake, it’s us. If you’re in there, you have to come out right this second,” she called.

There was a low sound from the ship, so low it was something I felt, rather than heard. Dog scurried further back into the trees.

Gracie started to walk slowly forward, until the nose of the ship loomed above her. Jeez, she was a crazy-ass chick!

“He’s in there,” said Gracie. “I don’t know how I know it, but I do. That sound. It…feels like him.”

I nodded. It was weird, but she was right. It was like that feeling you get when you know someone’s standing behind you, even though you haven’t seen them.

I cleared my throat and spoke to the ship. “Jake, buddy, if you are in there please come out. Just talk to us. We’re not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do, but you can’t stay in there. It’s not safe.”

“Jake!” Gracie called. “You don’t get to do this. We saved you. You don’t get to leave us. Jake? I’m serious!” She was yelling now, her hands bunched into angry fists. “Jake! You can’t just ignore us! We’re not just going to give up on you!” Gracie yelled. “I can’t believe this!” She whirled on me.

“Shhh,” I told her. “You can’t make him come out by yelling at him.”

“He’s going to leave, isn’t he? After all this crap, we’re going to lose him, too.”

“Maybe it’s for the best—”

Gracie pushed me away, hard. “No. It isn’t for the best. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. Sitting in that broken down ship. He could starve in there. And
if
he somehow gets that thing working, what then? He’s just a little kid. He doesn’t belong with them. He belongs with us.”

“He’s not a little kid,” I told her.

“He is! He’s not like them.” Tears streamed down her face.

I hated to see it, but I had to make her listen to me. “I don’t know what to tell you.” I sighed. “Even if you
are
right, what can we do? I don’t see any doors on that thing.”

“There might not be much you can do,” she shot back at me, “but I’m not letting this happen.” And then she was running, back the way we’d come.