Chapter Thirteen

 

“Where have you been?” I demand, staring right into Kaliel’s beautiful eyes and not feeling even a hint of a zing.

Kaliel shrugs. “Trying to get back here. After I lost my lifejacket, I floated until I washed up on the southern island. I hiked inland, found a village, and the guy who handles their package delivery service was kind enough to fly me back here.”

“This happened after you were attacked?” Dghax looks skeptical.

“Attacked?” Kaliel laughs. “It was an accident.”

“But we found your blood all over the rigging and a puncture in the oxygen tubing,” Dghax says.

Kaliel smiles, but it looks Tawny-level fake. “I had some of those food sticks they use as treats for the squids, and when I was lowering it into the water, one of those curly-horned dolphin things leapt right up onto the rigging to get it. A horn went through the tubing and put a big scratch in my neck. I was so startled, I fell in, and my life jacket got tangled in the horns of another one, and it dragged me around the point before the straps broke.”

Dghax looks over at Jimena. “What about the Krom’s bloody towel and the murder weapon?”

I squeak, “She’s the witness?”

She was supposed to be in the hospital. What had she been doing at the hotel? Had she just wandered out of her room, delirious with fever?

Brill whispers, “I swear I saw this on En la Falta de Flores.”

In Want of Flowers is one of the biggest cheesecasts to come out of Mexico in the last five years.

“Ga,” I whisper back. “That character had amnesia.”

“Evidence of what?” Kaliel’s staring at the photograph of himself propped on top of the coffin. “Who’s in there?”

“Your pilot’s license and your boots.” My voice sounds strange, halfway between a laugh and a wail. I’m relieved and freaked out and confused, and for once, stronger than the need for the Invincible Heart. “You know what? We should celebrate Kaliel’s return with those cookies we made for after the funeral.” I dash through the curtain to the kitchen and come back with one of the silver trays, offering them to various Zantites as I make my way back.

Fizzax pulls me off to the side. He bites nervously at his spongy lip with his razor-sharp upper teeth. “I just want to ask. Are you sure Brill didn’t see what actually happened to Kaliel?”

“Sí. He would have told me. Que?” It shouldn’t matter, now that Kaliel’s been cleared of murder.

Pero, Fizzax lets out a sigh, like I’ve just told him he’s safe. Extraño, no? He stammers, “No, no reason. Just an impression I had from the first time I talked to him.”

I blink, confused. “So what happened to your last-minute rescue? Or did you somehow know Kaliel was coming?”

I mean that last part as a joke, pero half of Fizzax’s cabeza blushes green. Did he know?

“Oh, look. Cookies.” He shovels in a mouthful, basically changing the subject. He chompcrushes once then swallows, and a look of dismay fills his huge whale eyes. “Did those have chocolate in them?”

“Sí.” I take a cookie for myself and break it open. I hope he’s not allergic to chocolate! “They’re inside-out chocolate-covered cherries, with cherry-infused cookie dough. Oye! Where are you going?”

“I have another case to deal with,” he says, without looking back.

Extraño. Pero, I’m not going to try to stop him.

Mertex sidles over to me, a plate of food in his hand. He points with a shrimp-like geskk at Kaliel, who’s chatting with Minda. “That story he told us doesn’t make any sense. He wouldn’t have wound up on the southern side, which is why we didn’t even look there. That’s not the way the currents work.”

I’m just glad that Kaliel’s alive, and that no matter how jumbled his memories are, he didn’t claim anyone tried to hurt him.

My hand goes to the pendant. I look down, realizing I’ve grabbed it, then I look over at Brill, and suddenly, I’ve had enough. Of this place, of this day, of this whole loco situation.

I turn and walk out of the room. Mertex is following me – he’s not very subtle – pero he doesn’t try to stop me, just trails me all the way back to the hotel.

I pull on the tall, heavy front door. I’m starting to get used to the scale of everything around here. Once the door closes behind me, he doesn’t keep following.

My sublingual rings. It’s Chestla. Hey! I have news about Kaliel.

She’s a bit late on this one. I know he’s back.

He was gone? Chestla sounds confused.

What are you talking about?

I think I know why he got set up to blow up the SeniorLeisure vessel. He’s a Sunrunner. It’s like an extreme sport. HGB nearly fired him for slingshotting too close around stars to save on fuel. So the guys who set him up probably picked him because HGB already thought he was a hot-head.

Brill just now told me to stop digging into this. Pero – that was when he thought I was going to be on my own. No?

I sigh. He can’t expect me to give up on finding out the truth about HGB. But I can’t expect him to be able to protect me from Frank – or whatever other assassin HGB might send.

I can’t right now, chica. I need to think of a safer way to find the truth. Brill told me to tell you to stop looking into it.

Chestla’s disappointed noise bubblechatters through my brain. I thought he was more supportive than that.

She has no idea.

 

When the knock on my door comes, it’s Brill. I can just see Mertex’s back retreating down the hallway. At least he trusts mi vida to protect me.

Brill wraps me in a crushing hug. We stand that way for a long time.

Then I move over to the dresser and pull out a casual top, since Brill’s alive to take me to dinner later.

Brill turns, looking at himself in the mirror, then sneaking a look at me in the reflection. “Don’t wear the pendant.”

“OK.” I take it off, start to hand it back to him, pero he balls his gloved hands into fists, which must hurt.

“Ga. I’m not asking you to give it back. But if you wear it, it’s like you’re asking for us to be separated. You can wear it if I’m dying, or give it back if I break your heart. Because once you’ve worn it, it goes back in the box when you’re over me, vivo o muerto.”

Brill’s taking our relationship a lot more seriously than I realized. “Where’s yours?”

“Back in the box. Which I shouldn’t have for another century, unless I was an invalid.” His jaw is tense, and he’s trembling. “I wasn’t supposed to survive this day, and now everything feels wrong.”

“Pero, you did survive. And I for one am happy about that.” I wrap my arms around him, pressing my cheek against his jacket.

He rests his chin on the top of my head. “It’s just – I was holding that syringe and I couldn’t go through with it.” He drops his arm lower on my back, against one of the worst bruises, pero I don’t flinch. “I thought – this is kalltet – but I thought that if I loved you enough, that when you grow old, and your life ends, that I’d want mine to end too. That it would be even. And fair. But I can’t promise you that.”

“I wouldn’t want that.” I turn mi cabeza, so that my forehead’s against his chest, feeling his hummingbird heartbeat. The pendant’s chain still dangles from my fingers. “You couldn’t give yourself that injection because you never give up hope, no? Even when it was hopeless.”

I feel him laugh. I look up at him, and he tilts his face down towards me, pero before our lips touch, there’s a knock on the door.

“Who is it?” I call. Please don’t let it be Tawny.

“Is tis a bad time?”

“Tyson!” I hug Brill harder for a second, then I let him go and hurry to open the door.

The Galactacop’s standing there, wedge-shaped reptilian head ducked forward, spine compressed down so that he’s only about six and a half feet tall. He’s another leather jacket, jeans and boots guy. He sweeps me into a hug that practically crushes me, then he lets me go. “I am so sorry. I don’t blame you if you don’t forgive me for letting you down. It’s only dumb luck Brill’s even still alive.”

“La, not dumb,” Brill says. He snagged the pendant from me, and I didn’t even notice. He’s sliding it into a dresser drawer.

My relationship with Tyson – who’s a Myska, one of the galaxy’s most lethal beings even without his toxic bite – is one of the oddest friendships I’ve ever had. Before I’d succumbed to the Invincible Heart, just looking at the guy’s fer-de-lance face had rendered me unable to move.

Now, I give him a hug. “We’re all headed down to the club to celebrate Kaliel’s return. You have to come with us. Por favor.”

“But I’m not needed here,” Tyson protests.

I shrug. “You have to at least stay in town long enough to see me graduate, no?”

“Graduate?” Tyson catches his reflection in the mirror, brushes something I can’t see off his gray and green facial scales.

Brill says, “Bo’s going to get credit for doing the show, and they’re teleconferencing in some of her teachers.”

“También,” I add, “Minda’s got some mystery guest star that she says is going to make the audience go loco.”

Tyson’s reptilian tongue flicks between his lips. He has no front teeth. Hence, his inability to say th. “How could I miss tat?”

He still doesn’t come to the club.

Kaliel’s there though, dancing with a stick-like orange-skinned offworlder. Her tall boots and short skirt make her look even more like a go-go dancer than Minda had.

I turn to Brill. “I promise I won’t dance with him.”

“Go ahead, if it’s to this.” Brill’s eyes are violet with amusement. This dance has more of the uncoordinated throwing about of limbs of the Chicken Dance than the scintillating romance of the samba or the tango.

“If that’s what you want.” He probably didn’t actually mean for me to do it, pero I walk over to Kaliel, who turns away from stick girl. She huffs, then turns and steals another dance partner, and I try to copy Kaliel’s movements. There’s no real pattern to what he’s doing.

“Have you heard from Kayla?” I shout over the din of the music.

“Why? She broke up with me, remember?”

“Pero you seemed to be happy the other morning, before you went squidriding. I thought she might have called.”

“My mom sent me a message. I had asked her permission to get my grandmother’s ring out of the safe deposit box when we got back to Earth, and she’d said it was cool. I assumed at that point that Kayla just needed to calm down, so I was still excited. But she’s not going to get over it, and I have to deal.”

I’m flailing my arms in the seemingly accepted manner, pero I hit a passing Zantite in the chest. “Lo siento. Sorry!”

The guy just keeps dancing.

“This dance is stupid.” Kaliel stops flailing. He grabs my arm. “There is one thing.”

I follow him away from the dancing, to a quiet little corner. He must have realized something about what happened to him, something that can help solve the mystery of why everyone’s been acting so extraño.

I go to sit in one of the chairs, pero before I can he grabs me and kisses me. It’s nothing like before, when his lips had been gentle and sweet, yet on fire with need. Even closed-lipped, Kaliel’s current beso is invasive, and when I squeak a startled protest, he sticks his tongue in my mouth. And that’s a lot less coordinated – and far more slobbery – than last time, too.

I push him away.

He wipes at the corner of his mouth. “I’m sorry. He… I really wanted to do that.”

“He?”

“You’re so beautiful, and I think about you so often.”

“Stop it. I’m with Brill.” Where’s the zing I used to feel for Kaliel? Where’s the temptation?

He doesn’t walk, talk or act like the same person. En serio. It’s like Kaliel came back from the dead as his own evil twin. And if that’s not a true soap opera moment, I don’t know what is.

Brill’s walking over towards us, and he looks deep-maroon mad. I move to intercept him.

“Don’t say anything, por favor.” I link my arm through his. “We barely survived the last fight you two had.”

It takes him a moment to calm down. Even when he does, concern still lights his eyes honey-hued. “You don’t look OK.”

I shrug. “Would you think I’m loco if I said I’m afraid my life was turning into a telenovela?”

“Not if it means we get our happily ever after.”

It’s cheesy, and perfect. And the closest he’s ever come to a proposal.