CASSIE
In school the next day, my phone buzzed with a message.
I found a shirt. Sign out of school and meet me here.
I ignored Dad’s text, and my phone buzzed again. This time with a picture. My dad holding up a blue shirt, the one Jason had worn the day he’d rescued Micah. I remembered him taking it off so the paramedics could treat the scratches on his back. Oh, my God. I sucked in a breath. This wasn’t good. I had to warn Jason so we could come up with a plan to deal with the shirt. It was fifteen minutes until class ended. but I didn’t want to wait that long.
Gathering my stuff, I walked to the front of the class and faked being sick. Because I was the good girl who never pretended to be sick when she wasn’t, the teacher shooed me out of the room.
I hurried down the hall to where Jason had biology and hovered outside the door, trying to peek into the tiny window to see if I could see him. A fluttering feeling began in my stomach when I spotted him. He’d called me late last night and we’d talked about nothing and everything as we’d continued to work on the assignment. I was keyed up after the conversation, like I’d binged on energy drinks and couldn’t crash.
He was in the third row, head bent, reading a textbook. I stared at him, and as if he sensed my stare, he looked up. I made a frantic come here motion, then ducked back against the wall as his teacher turned toward the window.
Seconds later, Jason joined me in the hallway. “What’s wrong?” Concerned, he, touched my arm.
I showed him the text and accompanying photo. “Tell me I’m overreacting,” I said.
He put his hand on the small of my back and guided me down the hall and into the janitor’s closet. Switching on the light, he locked the door behind us. “I wish I could. When he tests the shirt, he’ll know the blood on it isn’t human.”
“How?”
“Tazavorn blood cells have protective barriers around them that human blood cells don’t have. It’s why we don’t get sick the way humans do.” He rubbed his jaw.
“I think I have an idea. I woke up early this morning because my parents were arguing. I tried to ignore it. Even covered my ear with my pillow but I could still hear them and—”
“Cassie,” he said impatiently. “What does that have to do with this?”
“They were fighting about how little he’s home. So he said he’d come straight home after he went to the cliffs. Then she said no he wouldn’t, that he always found some rock or twig he had to rush to the agency instead of coming home. So then he said—”
Jason put his hands on my shoulders and his touch chased fire along my nerve endings. It made me breathless. “The point?”
“Sorry. He said he would come home even if he found something, which means I’ll have access to whatever he finds, including the shirt.”
He stepped back, shaking his head. “He’ll know if the evidence goes missing.”
“It won’t go missing. We’ll replace that shirt with an identical one that has my blood on it instead of yours.”
“They’ll eventually figure out it’s someone else’s blood. They might even trace it to you.”
“I know, but in the meantime, it’ll buy us some time.”
He thought for a second. “It’s too risky.”
“What other choice do you have?”
“I meant it’s risky for you.”
The concern in his eyes made me flush with warmth, but I gave myself a silent scolding not to read too much into it. “I can handle this,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure I could. I’d never deliberately thwarted one of my father’s cases before. “Doing this now could buy you and your family some time until we find your way home.” When he still hesitated, I said, “Even if they figure out the blood is mine, my dad would never hurt me or allow anyone else to hurt me.”
“You don’t know that. He’s obsessed with his work, with hunting aliens.”
“He would choose me over an investigation.” My father loved me even if he didn’t always show it.
That seemed to convince Jason. “What do you need to make this work?”
“We need a shirt exactly like the one you wore.”
“I have one.”
“Then after we get it, we have to get to the cliffs and back before my father takes the original shirt to the agency.”
“Let’s go now.” Jason took my hand, lacing his fingers through mine, then we power walked down the hallway, and slipped out an exit door.
“We better take my car. If he spots your truck—”
“His alien radar will sound the alarm.”
“Something like that.” I unlocked my car, and we got in.
“You might end up regretting this.”
I waved my hand as I pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road beside the school. “It’s okay. I’ve had a regret hangover before.”
“A what?”
“You know. It’s when you do something and wake up the next morning regretting having said or done whatever it was. You feel crappy the whole day every time you think about it.”
He regarded me with a puzzled look on his face. “You are a human who defies explanation, Cassie Grant.”
“Like in a weird I need therapy way?”
He laughed, and I did, too. After we went to Jason’s house to get another blue shirt, I kept to side streets as I navigated the car through town and out onto the open road toward Sparks Canyon State Park. The four-lane highway was divided in the middle with unbroken concrete barriers and massive rock formations on either side of us. Normally, I liked the drive, the wide-open expanse and the blue sky streaked with cotton candy clouds. All the space made me feel free, but not now.
Today, the walls were closing in. I was afraid of getting caught despite the brave face I’d put on for Jason earlier. I guess helping an alien was my way of attempting to find closure, to prove to myself that the one who’d hurt me wasn’t the norm just like not all humans were bad just because one was. I was helping Jason because he was right in his quest to leave. I liked him and I felt drawn to him. I would never tell him that because what if I did and he blew me off?
The twenty-minute drive to the park flew by, and when we reached the turnoff, I sped up the dirt road to the visitor’s parking area. Sandwiching the car between an oversized truck, and a minivan, I hoped that would keep it from being noticed if my dad passed by.
Glad there weren’t a lot of people milling about, Jason and I quickly ducked through the trees and took the hiking trail Mr. Perry had chosen that fateful day. Fifteen minutes later, we heard voices around the bend. Jason and I ducked out of sight and found a spot where we could keep an eye on the situation below.
“That’s him,” Jason said.
My father was a tall man with a head of graying hair and dark, miss-nothing eyes. He easily stood out in a crowd, because he had a way of drawing attention to himself, like he was the most important person in the vicinity.
Dad turned and the black lettered AEDD acronym for his department rippled on the back of his shirt as he moved. He motioned for one of his men. “Anything else besides the shirt?”
The man shook his head.
“All right then, everyone head out.” Dad’s voice sounded irritated. He started toward one of the SUVs, then stopped and turned his head toward our hiding spot. He lifted his chin and breathed in deeply.
Jason pushed my head down, and we lay still until Dad moved on.
When Jason and I were alone, I raised my head and spit a pine needle away from my mouth.
“There’s something wrong with your dad.”
“Yeah. He’s obsessed with aliens.”
“No.” He tapped the end of my nose. “It’s more than that.”
“You mean more than his howling at the moon weird?”
Jason lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “I have the feeling he knows more than he lets on. Like he’s playing us.”
That wouldn’t surprise me. My dad liked toying with the people he suspected. He gained some kind of weird thrill having the power over the life or death of others. I didn’t tell Jason that because I didn’t want to add to the pressure he faced. “Don’t worry about him. Let’s do this.” I helped him up and smiled at him, hoping my plan wasn’t the beginning of something that was going to get us both killed.
JASON
Bone-head. Stupid. Idiot. That’s what I thought about myself when Cassie smiled, because my stomach curled with the urge to touch her. It was becoming a daily, no, an hourly battle not to put my hands on her and have her touch me in return. I’d thought of her as the enemy. Now, I wondered how much was natural fear of humans and how much of it was prejudice I’d been taught.
She’d saved my life and now this beautiful human girl continued trying to protect me despite the risk to herself. Cassie knew what I was and had chosen to help me anyway. I should tell her the truth now about the future of her planet. She’d despise me, but that was the way it was supposed to be. I had no right wanting her.
Her stomach growled, and she put a hand over the front of her T-shirt with the words, “Save the Earth” printed across the front of it. The irony of those words didn’t escape me. She scrunched her nose up. “That’s attractive,” she said, poking fun at herself.
“I’ll get you something to eat after we’re done here.”
“Feed me, and I’m yours,” she said, playfully putting her hand over her heart and rolling her eyes.
Clearing my throat against the mental image of Cassie being mine, I said, “We need to rub the shirt against the same rock to tear it exactly as the other one is torn.”
“Right, then my blood needs to go on the shirt in the same spots.”
I walked to the spot where Micah had gone over, then turned back to Cassie. “I can’t. I thought I could but it’s too dangerous for you. We both know what your father is capable of and I’d rather face him than have the agency question you.”
Her expression softened. “Like I said. He won’t hurt me. But he’ll kill you and your family if we don’t do this.”
Her willingness to help added to my guilt, but I couldn’t let my family die even though technically they’d been lying to me for my whole life and weren’t really my family. “Okay.” I stripped off the shirt I had on, hiding my own reaction to hers as her gaze skimmed by chest and her eyes widened in appreciation. “I know. Wow, right?”
She made a face. “You have to be the most arrogant alien on the planet.”
“Yep.” I tugged the blue shirt on. “Be right back.” I jumped off the side of the cliff and landed easily on the ledge where I’d held Micah. I made sure I tore the shirt exactly as the first one, then used my power to propel to the top where Cassie waited.
“Now we have to put my blood on it.” She looked around for a rock.
I stopped her. “You can’t cut yourself using anything you pick up from the ground or you might get an infection.” Putting my index finger on the inside of her arm, I drew it downward toward her wrist, using my power to slice into the skin. Her flesh separated easily under my touch and blood ran from the wound. Cassie winced, then swallowed when she looked at her arm.
“I can’t stand the sight of blood.”
I steadied her when she swayed. “Almost done.” I dipped the torn spots on the shirt to her blood. Once I was through, I used my power to heat the blood spots to dry them and make them look old. Tossing the shirt over my shoulder, I lifted Cassie’s arm, and pressed my fingers against the injured area. My power flowed across the wound, pulling it into my body. I sucked in a breath at the burning sensation on my skin.
Her gaze flew to mine. “Why do you help people if it hurts you?”
“I can’t watch suffering knowing I have the ability to change the outcome.”
Her lips parted. “Jason…that’s—”
“We need to go.” I knew I was speaking abruptly but I needed to get away from her. It was hard to keep a wall between the two of us when she was nothing like I expected.
As we trudged back to the car, she said, “My father sees aliens as monsters and I’ve always thought so, too, yet, you’re more heroic than a lot of humans are. You’re kind of hard to figure out.”
I stared into her eyes. “Then I guess we’re even because I can’t figure you out, either.” Why was this human girl different from all the others?
“What’s to figure out?” She smiled. “I’m just me. Nothing special.”
I doubted that. “Listen, if things go wrong, and you get caught or whatever, call me.”
“You’ll what? Come running and zap my dad with your powers? Don’t worry about it. I can handle him.”
The truth was I did worry what would happen to her. More than I should. The thought shook me. What was wrong with me? The harder I tried to keep emotionally distant from this girl, the more something pulled me in. I was out of my element. Unsure of myself. Dizzy and weak with need.
After a moment of walking in silence, she asked, “So what’s it like being an alien?”
I thought for a second. I wasn’t sure how to describe what it was like to be me. The good—that there wasn’t a whole lot I feared and the bad—that I couldn’t be myself, so I settled on sayin, “It’s like being human except with powers.” I smirked when she rolled her eyes.
“Then you experience the same emotions we do?”
“Yes, though the degree to which we feel it is different; we feel sadness, hope, love. All of it.”
“Do you date?”
I gave her a look, and she blushed. “I’ve never heard any…you know…rumors that you were dating anyone. But you’ve probably had a lot of casual things from what I’ve heard.”
“Casual things?”
“Slept with dozens of girls.”
“I’ve made out with lots of girls, but I haven’t hooked up with anyone.”
“Why not?”
“I haven’t wanted to have sex with anyone outside my species.” Until Cassie.
She was silent for a second, then said with a devilish grin, “That leaves you Evonie or Eli?”
I laughed. “Good one, but no and no.” I stopped beside her car. “Why all the questions?” I snapped my fingers. “Never mind. I know the reason. You like me.”
“Of course I do. I’m so in love with you I’m losing sleep,” she said sarcastically and unlocked the car. “Get in before we miss our chance to get that shirt.”
I couldn’t stop sneaking glances at her profile as she drove. She confused the hell out of me, and girls never confused me. None of them tempted me. None of them except Cassie. I was having trouble with the idea of leaving her behind to die along with everyone else.
“You’re making me self conscious. Will you stop staring at me?”
“You’re beautiful,” I blurted out, not meaning to say those words.
Her mouth opened in surprise and she snapped it shut. Squeezing the steering wheel until her knuckles whitened, she said, “No one’s ever called me that.”
The air grew thick with potential mistakes I could make.
To lighten the mood, I said, “It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me I’m gorgeous in return. I see it in your eyes every time you look at me.”
“Of course. It’s a wonder I don’t have to carry around a bib.”
I laughed, and for the rest of the trip back to the school, we talked about things that were in a safe zone. Favorite bands, movies, and school stuff. Back in the parking lot, she stopped near my truck and I got out, but before she drove off, I said, “I meant what I said. If things go wrong, call me.”
“What could possibly go wrong?” she asked.
Those were such famous last words.