Chapter Fifteen

Marley

The moment I looked up into those light gray eyes I knew he was one of them. One of the enlil. I moved my hands down his large, thick forearm, digging my nails as deep as I could—drawing blood if I had to.

His grip was unforgiving, but not deadly. If anything, he looked more frightened than I was, though I wasn’t sure how that was possible. I was pretty damn scared.

“What did you do to Brae?” he hissed through his teeth.

“N-Nothing!” I gasped.

“Liar,” he seethed, “it’s all over you. You’re bleeding it.”

Was he talking about the oculus? Could he somehow see its power in me? Before I could explain, a crackle of electricity surged from his right arm. The sparks danced over his skin, down his forearm, and across his wrist, headed straight for my face.

The searing white light almost blinded me, and I squeezed my eyes shut. Something hot brushed against my neck and then—

CRACK.

The sound of lightning erupted around us, then a rush of wind flattened my shirt against my skin and blew my curls off my shoulders. It was so strong, in fact, that I almost fell back from its force. When I opened my eyes, the alien who’d had me by the throat lay on his back in the living room. Their once fancy French doors had been blasted to bits.

What just happened?

I let out a cry as two pairs of legs dropped right down on either side of me. The fact that the legs belonged to Brae and Alessi didn’t even register until Brae had his hands on my face and tilted my chin up. His gaze raked up and down, as his warm, callused fingers brushed across my skin that was already stinging from my assailant’s hold. How was this the second time he’d touched my face within the hour?

As soon as I’d thought it, he dropped his hands and moved away, quickly stepping through the broken doors and headed straight for the alien on the broken couch.

He began shouting in some language I’d never heard before.

Alien. It’s an alien language. Duh, Marley.

I was no expert, of course, but it sounded unlike any language I’d heard. Except maybe elvish or Parseltongue. From what I could tell, their words were punctuated by the first consonant and smooth at the end, usually with a soft vowel. As a result, their conversation felt rhythmic and fluid, and it reminded me of some Buddhist chants I’d heard on YouTube.

“Marley, are you all right?” Alessi’s strong hand on my shoulder shook me very gently to get my attention. “Holy shit…your shirt is charred.”

“What?” I asked dully, still staring at the two young men shouting in the middle of the living room. When I felt her tug on my shirt, I looked down, and sure enough, my bright neon work shirt was brown and black, already cracking with flecks of ash.

Except my skin looked completely normal. No sign whatsoever that my shirt seemed to have been burned to a crisp by some kind of…lightning blast?

“What are they saying?” I asked, pointing to the two aliens still yelling at each other.

Alessi rolled her eyes and shouted, “Guys! Calm your tits!”

That shut them both up.

Brae looked away from the new guy and turned back to me. He trudged through the practically destroyed living room and stopped before me. “Are you okay?” he asked.

I leaned to the side, peering around Brae’s legs. “Um…is he?”

“Don’t worry about him. I’m asking if he hurt you?” He knelt down so his gaze came to my level, his arm resting on his leg. His eyes were so sorrowful that I lost what I was going to say entirely. I hadn’t seen eyes that sad since I’d told my brother what I wanted to be when I grew up. Later, I’d heard him telling Carter, “Storms took our parents…are they really going to take her future too?”

“Marley?”

“I’m okay,” I said. My neck was sore and I might have a bruise or two there, but all things considered, I felt fine. “You owe me a shirt, though.”

His eyes widened as he noticed the state of my clothes. “What the…what the hell happened to it?”

“Her lightning happened to it, that’s what,” came a deep angry voice.

The new alien appeared in the demolished French doorway.

Half his shirt was also charred, though it was hard to tell because it had been black to begin with. He wore black jeans and black boots and looked like a guy right out of a romance novel about bikers. He looked either Alessi’s age—which I took to be early college—or closer to mine. His tanned toned arms, almost as nice as Brae’s, flexed as they crossed over his chest. “Hey. Brae. What the hell is a human doing with lightning?”

“If you’d have thought for a freaking second, I would’ve already explained everything to you, Kai,” Brae growled back, getting to his feet.

The enlil named Kai stepped out onto the porch and thrust his finger at me. “She is covered with your energy. What the hell was I supposed to think? Especially after Alessi texted me with that cryptic message.”

Brae twisted around and grabbed Kai’s shirt collar. “You’re a part of my clan. Which means you don’t hurt a human. Ever. No matter what.”

Kai met Brae’s gaze and the two of them looked so hard into each other’s eyes, I wasn’t sure if they were about to make out or throw a punch.

Kai finally looked down. “I wasn’t thinking,” he said in a low voice. “I was worried about you.”

“That’s so sweet,” I said, accidentally out loud. But honestly, when you saw that kind of honesty and angst between two guys, it made your heart swell a little. I mean, that’s how the CW show Supernatural got fifteen seasons.

Both looked at me, seeming genuinely confused. Maybe heartfelt admissions like that happened every day between them. I could’ve sworn Alessi covered a laugh by clearing her throat.

“So who is she? And why is she drenched in your electricity?” Kai asked, his eyes narrowing down at me.

“She is Marley. And she doesn’t like being talked about as if she’s not here,” I replied.

“C’mon.” Brae tugged on Kai’s arm. “I’ve got loads to tell you.”

Alessi jumped to her feet. “Brae—”

“Go find Marley another shirt, Alessi,” Brae ordered. Without waiting for her to respond, he and Kai stepped through the broken door and headed for the kitchen, their shoes crunching broken glass.

“Unbelievable.” She tsked. Then she looked down at me. “Can you stand?”

“Oh, uh, yeah.” I got to my feet, surprised at how steady I was. I’d been telling the truth to Brae. I really did feel fine. But how was that possible? It’s like I shot lightning at Kai, without meaning to, of course.

“So what did Kai do?” Alessi asked me as she led me up the stairs and into a living room with a massive table and twelve chairs.

“He grabbed me and, um, I think he tried to shock me. Or electrocute me or something.”

“He what?” Alessi stopped halfway through the room and shook her head. “Brae is going to murder him.”

I thought for a moment as we continued into what looked like a bedroom. Just a bed, dresser, and windows. Nothing else, nothing personal.

“Look, Marley, I’m sorry.”

I tore my gaze from the bedroom to find Alessi standing next to a closet door, biting her bottom lip, and her long arms folded awkwardly. It was weird to see. Alessi always stood with her back straight and her eyes level. She oozed confidence and strength.

But now she looked remorseful.

“About what?” I asked.

“Um, everything? You getting involved with us, putting you in danger because of our oculus, Brae and Kai, especially Kai. And um…lying to you about what I am.” Her eyes dropped to the floor. Like she couldn’t even look at me.

I swallowed and pushed my curls back, just to give my hands something to do. “Alessi, don’t…don’t be sorry about that. I totally get why you wouldn’t tell me. Why you couldn’t. I wouldn’t have believed you anyway. Besides, we just work together. It’s not like we’re besties…”

I regretted the words as soon as I said them. There was a flash of hurt on her face that I hadn’t been expecting.

That’s when I realized that maybe she had thought we were real friends, and not just work friends. After all, how many friends did an alien get to make? And how easy could it be?

God, I’m such a loser I can’t even recognize a real friend when I have one.

“Right, yeah, I know. But I’m still sorry for everything else,” she said quickly, then pulled open the closet door to reveal two rows of clothes hanging neatly.

I had no idea what to say or how to take it back. The truth was, if she’d referred to us as real friends before all this mess, I would’ve been super happy. If I’d known we were close, I might’ve plucked up enough courage to see if she wanted to catch a movie. But now…

I wasn’t sure I wanted to even work together, let alone be her friend. I wanted to not be prejudiced against extraterrestrials and let bygones be bygones, but their alien power was inside me. Their living room was demolished because of it. It was dangerous. And though she’d never hurt me yet, she could be dangerous.

I cleared my throat. “Not that I’m complaining, but what was that whole you’re a part of my clan and we don’t hurt humans ever thing?”

Alessi gestured me to pick from the selection of shirts in the closet and I stepped inside. They seemed to all be various sizes and styles—as if ten different people kept spare clothes here. What exactly was this house?

As I began to sort through them, she leaned against the doorframe of the closet. “So. Something else about the enlil. We have clans. Factions. Tribes. Whatever you want to call it. It’s based on family bloodlines that share the same affinity.”

I pushed back a corset-laced top—not my style—and gave her a look over my shoulder. “Affinity?”

“Yes, like our clan is skilled in controlling electrical currents in the air. We’re good at calling down lightning in storms.”

The whole electricity thing was starting to make a lot more sense. “Okaaaay.”

“But there are other clans. One can control wind, another can control rain, and another can control temperatures. It’s not that we can’t do those other things, but we’re better at the one thing. Does that make sense?”

Finally, I yanked the plainest looking shirt I saw off a hanger—one with a light daisy pattern. “I think so.”

“Well, anyway, I strayed from my point. The point is that there are other clans who are…not as nice to humans.”

My skin suddenly went cold. “What…what do you mean?”

Alessi frowned. I could tell she was beginning to regret this conversation. “Exactly what I said. Brae enforces a strict code with our clan, but others…don’t. Their storms hit towns. They use their powers without thought or caution.”

Slowly, I leaned against the back of the closet wall, clutching the daisy shirt to my charred chest.

How was it just now beginning to hit me? I’d been so consumed with the fact that they were aliens that I hadn’t stopped to consider what they could actually do.

They caused storms. Twisters. Lightning.

Big destructive things that wrecked cities and demolished towns.

I gasped softly, covering my mouth with the shirt.

The storm that Pat, Gerry, Trav, and I had chased the other day. Had that been a storm caused by an enlil? By Brae? It had been the lightning crater from that very storm in which I’d found the oculus. That storm had nearly killed us.

Somehow, it was one thing to risk our lives in the face of nature and the pursuit of science, but we’d been riding into a storm that was caused by a supernatural being. It was danger and destruction on a whole other level.

“—ley? Marley?”

Alessi was waving her hand in my face. I didn’t even know how long she’d been trying to get my attention.

“Are you okay?” Her brows were all scrunched together in concern and her light eyes seemed to glow in the shadows of the dim closet.

I nodded.

“Are you going to change your shirt?” she asked, tilting her chin to the shirt I still held to my face.

“Yep,” I said, my voice tight.

She gave me another concerned look and turned her back so I could quickly swap shirts. We’d changed in the locker room together at work all the time so it was no big deal. Except my bra was completely charred, too. It was like anything that had touched my upper torso had been burned to a crisp.

Yet, I felt fine. Weird.

“Um, do you think there’s a spare bra or extra camisole?” I asked, holding the shirt to my bare chest.

“Sure, probably, let me just—whoa. What’s on your back?”

“What?” I tried to twist around to see, but it was impossible.

“Mish dal alvele…” I felt the ghost of her fingertips trail across my back. From my shoulder to my hip.

“What? What is it?” I asked.

“Come look.” She gestured for me to follow her and I did, into a bathroom with a standing shower, two sinks, a jacuzzi tub, and a long mirror that spanned from wall to wall.

I looked at my back in the mirror and let out a rush of breath, then a laugh of disbelief bubbled up from my chest.

It was a Lichtenberg scar. Of course I knew of them. They were top of the list in interesting storm facts. Occasionally, when a human survived being hit by lightning, a pattern formed across their skin. Literally a lightning scar—not like the simple Harry Potter version. They looked like real lightning.

Marks spread out in a branching pattern of electrical discharge. On fair skin, they usually came out to be light red, a pinkish tone. Mine, however, was a soft purple. I moved my fingers across the scar and felt a slight tingling sensation.

“Could that have happened downstairs?” I asked.

Alessi just shook her head, still staring at my back’s reflection in the mirror. She seemed to be at a loss for words.

I swallowed. If I could render an alien speechless, I was in big trouble.

“It has to be from the oculus,” she said finally. “Kai isn’t powerful enough to produce that kind of charge.”

That made sense. It felt like I’d been struck by lightning when I picked up the crystal. And if I hadn’t already believed that some kind of power was inside me, this would’ve been the coup de grace.

Swiftly, I pulled on the shirt, forgoing the bra. Fly free, ladies.

“I’d like to go home now,” I stated.

Alessi opened her mouth to reply but I was already out of the bathroom, through the bedroom, and storming down the stairs before she could reach me.

“U-um, Marley, we still need to talk.”

“No, no, we don’t. We’ve talked a lot, as a matter of fact. Really, I don’t think you’ve ever said so many words to me in one day.” I reached the bottom of the stairs just as Brae and Kai appeared in the kitchen doorway.

Kai was looking at me with alarm and fury in his eyes, hands curled into fists. It reminded me of the way Brae had first looked at me when stepping through the door to Kansas Mountains.

That solidified it. I was going home, even if I had to walk.

“Brae, Marley wants to—” Alessi started.

“I’m going home,” I said.

Brae looked to Alessi, then back at me. Once again, I felt his gaze scan me up and down like he was trying to diagnose the problem on my skin. I ignored the tingle at the base of my spine.

“We still have…” he said slowly, “a lot to talk about.”

“Fine, I’ll call an Uber,” I said, pulling out my phone and opening the app.

“We made sure this location wasn’t detected by satellites,” Kai said. He sounded smug.

Sure enough, the app kept searching for my location. Thirty seconds later, it gave me an error. “How did you even…” I shoved my phone back in my pocket. “Never mind, I don’t want to know. I’m walking home, then.” I started for the door, but Brae was there in half a second. He was so fast, my hair blew off my shoulders. Had he used the wind somehow?

He slammed the door just as I was pulling at the knob. “Sorry, but you can’t go, not until we come up with a plan. Not until we figure out what to do with you.”

“Do with me?” I raised my voice with each word until it was practically echoing through their ridiculously big house. “I’ll tell you what you’re going to do with me. You’re going to drive me home and we’ll continue this conversation whenever I damn well feel like it.”

Brae squeezed his eyes shut in a wince. “That was the wrong way to put that.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

“Do you have any idea the power we have over your kind?” Kai seethed. I could almost feel the electricity radiating off him like waves of energy on a cartoon character.

“Seems to me like I’m the one with the power. Remember when you tried to attack me and how that worked out?” I shot back, sounding much braver than I felt. The truth was that I was scared out of my mind. I had to clench my fists to make sure they couldn’t see my fingers shaking.

Alessi had made something very clear to me upstairs. And even though I should’ve realized it earlier, it was only now beginning to sink in.

You’re storms. You’re literally the most destructive beings on the planet. You can rip apart buildings with just wind and you can control literally one billion volts of electricity.

I wanted to scream it, and I wanted to run. But instead, I was standing there, demanding to be driven home like a pissed-off date.

Brae seemed to sense something had changed in me, because his brows were knitted together with concern. Concern over what exactly, I wasn’t sure.

“Okay…” he said slowly, his gaze shooting over to Alessi, “I’ll take you home.”

“Brae!” Kai protested. “You can’t just let her go. She’s—”

“Shut up,” Brae commanded. His voice was so rough and strained that I almost felt bad for the position I was putting him in. Almost.

Wordlessly, he held up his hand and Alessi tossed him the car keys. He gestured for me to walk ahead and without a word to the other two aliens, I stomped out the door and headed down the porch steps.

We got into the car—both of us slamming the doors—and we buckled our seat belts.

A heavy silence hung even as the sound of the car engine filled the air. He backed the car up and did a three-point turn and started down the long country driveway. I reached in the back for the bandana to tie around my eyes.

He reached over and pushed down the bandana. “Don’t worry about it.”

Surprised, I folded it in my lap with shaking fingers, laughing nervously. “Is that because you’re going to kill me?”

Brae’s hands twisted on the steering wheel and he stomped hard on the brake. We hadn’t been going very fast at all, but the seat belt still cut into my throat as we both jerked forward.

He leaned back and stared straight ahead. Completely silent.

“I was joking,” I said.

“No, you weren’t.”

There was a long moment of silence and then finally, he looked over at me, and his eyes were glowing again. If I looked hard enough, I could see little electric charges zapping between his fingers grasping the steering wheel.

Then the light faded, quite literally. But there was something else that seemed to go out in him as well. A spark or a flame that kept him moving forward.

It was that drive that everyone had at the beginning of a day, but when the world kept tossing shit at you, all you wanted to do was crawl into bed and never get up. I’d seen that look on Pat whenever new data got him excited, then turned out to be nothing at all.

His shoulders sagged and he leaned back against the car seat, his head gently knocking on the headrest, his eyes squeezed closed. It was the position of defeat.

“Marley, I’m not going to kill you. What can I do to make you not scared of me?” His voice was quiet, barely audible over the sound of the engine still running.

Before, I hadn’t exactly been scared of him. Freaked out, weirded out, maybe. But not scared. And then Alessi and I’d had that little chat in which I’d realized that I absolutely should be scared. Of all of them.

“Um…” I didn’t know that he could do anything. My heart rate was going about a mile a minute and I hadn’t stopped being able to picture that terrible twister that had almost touched down in front of us yesterday. And that lightning that had split the sky in two.

“What made you change your mind about the blindfold?”

Brae opened his eyes and looked at me. They were glowing again. “That request was back when I’d hoped I could get the oculus out of you. Now that it’s not going anywhere, there’s no point. You’re in this now. Whether either of us likes it or not.”

“Why not kill me?” I asked. “If this oculus is as important to your people as you claim, and as dangerous as you say, then wouldn’t it be safer to just…”

I drew a line across my throat.

His gaze drilled into mine, and I found it hard to breathe. The electric glow around his black pupils seemed to make them as endless as space. “Why do I need a reason to not want to kill someone?” he said. “Do you see me as that much of a monster?”

Immediately, I felt guilty. That wasn’t quite fair. “No, it’s not that, I just…”

“You want the logical reason? Not the moral one? Fine. There’s no guarantee that if I kill you, I’ll get the power of the oculus back. It might even die with you. I don’t know.” His gaze stayed on my face, and with every word, the electric glow in his eyes seemed to get brighter. “This has never happened in five million years of our people’s entire existence. And from the way it came out when Kai attacked you, I have a suspicion that the oculus won’t harm you. You’re its host now, so it will protect you as much as it can.”

Well, that was new information. “You mean, it won’t hurt me? Or like…anyone around me?”

Brae side-eyed me warily. “There’s no way to know that for sure.”

“Yeah, but like you said, it came out only when Kai tried to zap me. It was like a defensive shield,” I said excitedly, shifting in my seat to face him.

“That’s a lot to assume,” Brae said.

I didn’t disagree, but it was a start at least. It made me feel just a bit safer. Though not by much.

“Marley.” Brae reached over, and his hand hovered over mine. But then his fingers curled inward, like he thought better of touching me, and pounded his fist lightly against the steering wheel. He slid his gaze back to me and drew in a deep breath.

“I know you may not believe this, but I’d die before I let anything happen to you.”