“The man. Step away from the man.” I mouth “Sorry” to Lyle.
Baldy nods toward my gun. He actually laughs. “You wouldn’t.”
Beefy Face starts quick-walking around to the front of the truck. I have no time.
“Fine,” I say.
I point the gun down at the feet of the big idiot who is holding Lyle. I hope the safety is off. My fingers squeeze the trigger. The noise is massive, fireworks in my ear. Pain from the reverb shoots up my arm and into my shoulder. My whole body bounces backwards from the force. I don’t see where the bullet goes, but Lyle is hurtling into the truck next to me, yanking the passenger’s side door shut behind him.
“Go, Mana!” he yells right into my ear, but I can barely hear him. “Go!”
I am basically standing on the accelerator trying to speed away. We lurch forward, finally gaining traction on the snow-covered ground. The truck zooms across the parking lot. Flakes smash against the windshield. Then I realize it: these guys might know something about Mom. I yank the wheel all the way to the right and hold it there.
Lyle braces himself against the dashboard as the truck turns a mighty doughnut in the snow. It squeals and fishtails, just a bit. Nothing huge. I swear.
Poor Lyle is screaming at me as I aim the truck straight for the guys. “What are you doing?”
“They’re our only link,” I grunt, trying to keep the big truck under control.
“Link?”
“To my mom.”
He disagrees. “China’s our link.”
He doesn’t get it. China is just one guy, hopefully on our side, but kind of in the dark about where my mother actually is. These guys are the enemy. The enemy is usually much more knowledgeable about the actual location of kidnapped mothers. It would take too long to explain.
“Whatever. The more links the better.” I slam my foot on the brake. The truck pitches. “I’m going to make them tell me where my mother is.”
I jam the stick into Park, take Lyle’s gun, and hop out. The two guys stand. They stare. One guy is balanced on one leg, holding his foot. I must have actually got him. I cannot believe I shot someone. My stomach lurches. I ignore it. I’ll be tough.
“You jerks going to tell me where my mom is, or am I going to shoot you?” I ask. Then I wink at the man doing an impersonation of a flamingo, only not so feathered or pink. “Again.”
Beefy Face glares at me and crosses his arms over his chest. “I think you’re bluffing.”
“You think wrong,” I say.
Lyle touches my elbow, probably remembering my pacifist tendencies. And yes, my hand trembles, but whatever. “Mana…”
“You want me to prove I’m not bluffing?” I ask, pointing the gun at Baldy and then at Beefy Face, slowly, deliberately. “Because I will prove it. Which one of you guys wants to be the proof?”
I feel like a bad rip-off of some old western, but it works, I think. Nobody moves. The wind blows the snow sideways now. It flashes between us, swirls in the air past our faces, seeming so clean.
Beefy Face says, “Your hand is shaking.”
I point the gun at him. “I’m thinking you, because, one, you’re criticizing a woman with a gun; two, all your toes are still there; and three, it wouldn’t be that fair to shoot Baldy again. A shot to the foot can do a lot of damage. There are bones in there. Or there were, until I blew them out.”
Baldy cringes.
“I’m sorry,” I babble. “I know ‘Baldy’ is offensive, but I don’t know your names.”
“Pronouns are so impersonal,” Lyle agrees. His body tenses up, and he’s pretty focused, like he gets right before a tough stunt or a killer tumbling run.
Baldy and Beefy Face glance at each other.
Baldy says, “I’m Brian.”
Beefy Face says, “Aaron.”
“Their names rhyme,” I mutter.
Lyle lets out a disgruntled sigh. “Figures. Villains are like that.”
“We aren’t the bad guys,” Baldy Brian says. A muscle near his eye twitches. “You two are the bad guys.”
Lyle and I glance at each other and burst out laughing.
“We are not the aliens,” I say. “We don’t drag people out of trucks. We don’t kidnap people.”
Beefy Face Aaron snorts and takes a step closer. “What? We’re the aliens? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“Not necessarily—” Lyle starts.
“Yes,” I interrupt.
“But you could be in cahoots with the aliens,” Lyle finishes.
Baldy Brian bounces on his good foot, trying to stay balanced. “Cahoots?”
He lunges as he says it—dives, really, right for me. I twist away, trying to escape, but he tackles me despite my efforts. His shoulder smacks my side, and just like that, I’m down. My knees and hands hit the freezing concrete first. The gun skitters out of my hand and slides across the parking lot. Beefy Face Aaron snatches it up.
“Mana!” Lyle’s trying to yank Baldy Brian off of me.
“Enough!” Beefy Face yells. “Everybody up.”
We all haul ourselves back into standing positions. Two wet circles darken the knees of my jeans. Scrapes redden my hands and there’s a little blood in the snow. Shaking from fear and pain and adrenaline, I am completely and totally annoyed at myself.
“I cannot believe I dropped the gun.” I cross my arms in front of my stomach, which threatens to explode.
“It’s okay,” Lyle says. He puts an arm around my shoulder. “I would’ve dropped it, too.”
“Really? Are you just saying that to make me feel—”
“Enough,” Baldy Brian says again. He points at Lyle, which is kind of insulting, if you think about it, because I’m the one who had the gun before. You’d think there would be some reciprocal gun pointing going on. Why is Lyle considered more worthy of the gun point? Probably because he’s a guy. I hate that.
“Let’s bring them in,” Beefy Face Aaron says, pushing me forward toward the back of the store. Old mattresses lean up against the back wall. A couple of ratty tires are propped up next to them. Broken glass litters the parking lot, half hidden beneath the new layer of snow. I bet rodents love it here.
I stumble a little bit and grunt out, “Is that where you put my mom? In that dive?”
Beefy Face yanks me by the shoulder, whirls me around. “What are you talking about, kid?”
“My mom…” I stare at his meaty lips. “You took her here, too, right?”
He cocks his head. Snow falls down. It melts in his hair. “Who is your mom?”
“Melissa Trent.”
Baldy gives a little whistle.
“Melissa Trent.” Beefy Face turns me around, but not before I catch a tiny smile playing at the corners of his lips. “I should’ve known. You fight just like her.”
“You know my mom?” I can’t even breathe. Everything inside me clutches up.
Beefy Face doesn’t answer.
I spit out the threat before I think about it. “I will kill you if you hurt her. You got that? I will kill you.”
Lyle whispers, “Mana.”
“What?”
“They’re the ones who have the guns.”
CHAPTER 11
Every year, for my birthday, my mom would make me a homemade peanut butter cake with salted caramel frosting (also homemade, thank you very much) and this toffee crunch stuff between the layers. It was a big deal because she never baked a cake from scratch the whole rest of the year. Even last year, when you’d think I would be more excited about the whole sweet sixteen birthday party thing, I was so psyched about this cake that I actually stood there leaning against the counter and watched her whisk the eggs, peanut butter, and butter (yes, real butter, not the Smart Balance Light spread stuff) all together.
“Does your wrist get tired, doing that?” I had asked, poking my finger in the bowl.
She bumped me away with her hip. “Absolutely. But you’re worth it.”
I licked my finger and l
aughed. “Oh, right…”
And she stopped right then, propped the whisk up in the gooey goodness, put both of her hands on either side of my face, and kissed my forehead. She said in this super-serious mom way, “You are.”
It was so normal, so Mom normal, and now, remembering it, I’m like, How could she have done all that normal mom stuff and been tracking down aliens at the same time? How could she have not shrieked and screamed and given up, gone ballistic on the street corner by Hoyt’s Cinemas, and yelled to the world about the aliens coming? Sorry. Scratch that. How could she have not shrieked and screamed and given up, gone ballistic on the street corner by Hoyt’s Cinemas, and yelled to the world about aliens being here?
But she didn’t. She held it together. She worked against how overwhelming it all was. So that’s what I will do, too. I won’t start hysterically crying as Baldy and Beefy Face, also known as Brian and Aaron, push Lyle and me into the building. I will not gasp from the stench. I will not wet myself when they force us down these rickety steps into the basement, where they will probably murder us. I will brave myself up.
Right?
Right.
* * *
Lightbulbs swing over our heads, dangling by wires that seem like they will snap and burst into flames any second. Concrete walls bar our way out of the hallway that just seems to lead one hundred feet toward the center of the building.
I try to pause at the door. Beefy Face doesn’t let me.
“Get going.”
He pushes me in behind Lyle and Baldy.
“Don’t push her,” Lyle says. His hair flops over his eyes. I want to lift it out of the way, see him under there, figure out what he’s thinking. His mouth just presses itself into a line, coding his thoughts. I reach out and clutch his hand, cringing, expecting Baldy or Beefy Face to object. For some reason they do not.
“Go down the hall,” Beefy Face says.
“Or what?” I say.
Baldy laughs. “We’ll shoot you.”
He turns around and winks at me over his shoulder. I try to be all brave and to smile sassily back at his abductor self, but I don’t quite make it.
The hallway ends in stairs. We start down them. They’re concrete, too, hard, hard surfaces, ready to break bones if you step wrong or some giant thug guy decides to bash your head into the steps.
“Where are you taking us?” I ask Baldy Brian, who is kind of hopping sideways down the stairs, grunting. His foot must kill him.
“Down the stairs,” he says. Brilliant. The hand holding the railing shifts and moves as he hops down another step.
Some resolve in me softens. “You want to lean on me?”
His head snaps toward me. We make eye contact, real eye contact. “What?”
“Well, it’s hard to walk when your foot is hurt,” I try to explain.
He makes big eyes. “You’re the one who shot me.”
“I know…” I can’t really explain. “I’m feeling kind of bad about that.”
Baldy smiles. His teeth are nice and white and even, like movie-star teeth. He ignores me and says to Beefy Face, “She’s just like Melissa. Tough, then sweet.”
Beefy Face doesn’t say anything. Lyle squeezes my hand. He must be able to tell I’m about to haul out some badass cheerleader attitude on this guy for even talking about my mother. I take the hint: try not to incense the big, ugly men with the big, ugly guns.
Baldy throws open the metal door at the bottom of the stairs. “After you.”
Lyle looks at me. I look at Lyle.
Lyle goes in first. He doesn’t let go of my hand, and his muscles tense beneath my fingers. He lets out a soft, low whistle. I’ve never heard him whistle before, and I’m about to elbow him, but then I see what’s in front of us.
Computers and desks and monitors, about as high tech as they come, fill a massive room. Gleaming white walls reflect the overhead lights, and there are monitors all along two of those walls. What appear to be real-time images of space, spaceships, city buildings, and the White House flicker on the screens. One screen monitors the Weather Channel, for some reason, and two more are dedicated to world news outlets. Computer stations made of sleek black plastic hold shiny laptops and a couple regular old computers. The room buzzes with electricity.
“It’s like what you imagine at NASA, at the Johnson Space Center,” Lyle whispers.
“Where is that? In Texas or Florida or some big state with a lot of sky?” I ask.
“Yes. Only we’re in Maine, beneath a crappy general store,” Lyle says, still amazed.
Brian starts chuckling. “Move on in.”
We don’t move. We just stand there, staring at the two figures in the center of the room. One is familiar: China, my mother’s partner. He’s hunkered over a computer. His forehead is creased. He doesn’t even glance up when we open the door. But the other figure does. She stares at us. We stare at her.
It’s hard not to.
She is humanoid, but not human. Her skin is pale, ridiculously pale, and shimmering, like there are tiny crystals or fireflies embedded in her skin and eyes. Her hair is black. Her eyes flash from silver to black to an unsettling blue, like they’re trying on colors to see which one scares us the least. Tears come to the edges of my own eyes because she is so beautiful. She makes me think of fairies.
“Come in, Mana … Lyle,” she says.
China doesn’t look up.
Lyle doesn’t move.
“Lyle.” I tug him into the room with me.
“What?” He follows my lead, hopefully snapping out of his shock or awe or whatever. “Yes, okay. Sorry.”
Baldy and Beefy Face let us wind our way through the computer monitors, following us right up to where China and the woman are working. But when we’re five feet away, strong, muscular hands land on our shoulders, holding us back.
“They’re fine,” China grumps.
The hands do not move.
Then the woman says, eyes shifting back to black, “Brian. Aaron. Let them be.”
The hands drop, but Brian says in a somewhat whiny tone, “She shot me in the foot.”
China finally pays attention enough to move his head and make actual eye contact. His lips purse together and squelch over to the side, like he’s trying not to laugh.
The woman focuses on me. I shift my weight.
“Why did you do that?”
“I thought they were kidnapping us,” I say. “They just yanked us out of the truck and yelled at us.”
“We thought they were hostiles.” Beefy Face shrugs. “The sensors went off.”
The woman straightens up, all business in a very stereotypically bitchy, fashion magazine editor sort of way. “They’ve been near hostiles, that’s why.”
Aaron continues, “She said she’s Melissa’s kid.”
China doesn’t even move or twitch or anything, just says, “She is.”
“She doesn’t resemble her,” Aaron says brilliantly, in an excuse me for making a mistake voice. Truth is, my mom and I have similar lips and body structure, so I know he’s saying this because my mom is white and I’m not.
A computer hard drive starts whirling somewhere, fast and overactive. It almost sounds angry. It’s the same noise my computer makes when it’s downloading a CD or DVD, but I know instinctively that’s not exactly what is going on here. I can’t imagine them downloading Vampires Suck. Maybe World of Warcraft or the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Collector’s Edition of Street Fighter.
The woman stares at the men, one at a time. She inspects me again, then addresses Brian. “Take care of your foot and stand guard. There is such a thing as diplomacy, you know.”
They scuttle away, Aaron to stand at the door and Brian to retrieve medical supplies from a cabinet along the wall. The entire room seems to vibrate with their actions and with the noise of the computers, just an underlying hum to everything, the sounds of drives whirling, activating, pausing. It’s like the computers have a life of their own.
“I am
Pierce.” The woman beckons us forward with an elegant flick of her right hand. “You are Mana and Lyle. China’s told me about you.”
“I’m sure he has,” Lyle says. He sways a little, like he’s lost his center of gravity, and shoots China a killer glare. China just smiles. “It’s nice to meet you and everything,” Lyle says, voice cracking, “and I don’t want to be rude, but what are you?”
She gazes at each of us for a second, holds our eyes with hers. The air calms, somehow, even though I know—I really, really know—that we should be screaming scared and running out of here. “I am fae. It’s an alien race. We’ve been here on the earth, forgotten by our people, for centuries.”
“That’s horrible,” Lyle says. I bump him with my elbow. He is so obviously in like. It’s disgusting. He’ll start drooling soon.
“Horrible or not, it’s a fact.” She lifts her shoulders in a shrug and then waves the thought away. “We don’t have the time to go into it. Suffice it to say that some of us are now working with humans like China, like your mother, Mana, to stop the devastation that’s going on.”
I gaze at her, really study her. She’s beautiful and shimmery. “But not all of you?”
“Some of us cling to the old ways.”
China’s forehead crinkles up. “We don’t have to go into that right now.”
“Why not?” I ask.
“Mana…” Lyle puts his hand on my arm, holding me back like I’m being rude, which I’m not.
“Because it’s not important,” China says, finally meeting my eyes. “I just came here to check in, get some supplies, figure out where the chip and your mom are, and get them, not to have you interrogate Pierce.”
“What? You know, China, you keep sighing like I’m such a pain in the ass, which I intend to be if we don’t start doing things, like taking action. You’re just sitting there at your computer checking your e-mail or something when you should be finding my mom!” I storm over toward them, crossing my arms in front of my chest.
“We are doing something, Mana,” Pierce says.
“Oh, really? What?”
She points to the monitor in front of her. “We are attempting to locate this.”