CASSIE
I cried as I told my mom over the phone what had happened to Dad. When I told her that he’d become a Ragespawn, she didn’t believe me at first, but thankfully Sydney was there to help Mom grasp the truth. Dad was gone. Mom’s real husband was dead, and the one in his place was an alien. And her only daughter was on the run with one. Convincing her not to talk to the police or the agents took a little more effort but in the end, she agreed before I asked to speak to Sydney again.
“You and Jason are already all over the news—it’s breaking now,” Sydney said, her voice a mixture of fear and awe. “Your phony dad called a press conference and said you and Jason killed four people in a fit of drug-fueled rage.”
“That’s a lie.” I wanted to believe the truth would win out but people often believed whatever was on the news.
“There’s video of Jason shooting agent Rick Simon and his wife and of you shooting two agents.”
I gripped the phone in shock from hearing the agent who’d helped me was dead. I swallowed against my painfully dry throat. Rick Simon had been so kind to me. “Jason didn’t shoot Rick or his wife and I didn’t kill anyone either.”
“Well, then your dad-alien is a master at manipulating video because it looks like you’re both holding guns. What can I do to help?” I’d wished there was something she could do, but Jason and I were on our own.
“There’s nothing you can do but stay safe for me. Make Mom get out of town. Take your mom, too, and go someplace no one knows about. Leave me a note with where you’ll be in the time capsule jar we made as kids, and bury it again. Ditch your phones. He’ll track you with them. I’ll contact you through Dane as soon as it’s safe.” After I’d hung up, I’d wanted to call back and beg Mom to come and get me, but I couldn’t risk her life. I didn’t want to lose what I had left of my family.
Jason waited for me in a plain black Honda. He didn’t say anything after I got in until we were several miles down the road. “One of the radio stations said police are monitoring the airport and train stations. They’re setting up checkpoints at the interstate on ramps. We’ll take back roads.”
“Then what?”
“We’ll find a place to get some food and camp out while we decide what to do next.”
The businesses we passed with people going about their day made everything feel surreal. Then those businesses became fewer and fewer until all we passed was stretches of bare land with an occasional house breaking up the land.
I dug my nails into the sides of my arms. “My father is dead. We’re fugitives.” Even if the truth did set us free as people say, my life would never be the same. I burst into tears, great sobbing heaves that made it hard to breathe.
Jason turned the car down a long, winding dirt road with occasional ruts, then parked behind a dilapidated old barn. With loud calls, crows perched in a nearby tree flew away from us. Unbuckling his seat belt, then mine, Jason eased one arm behind me and tugged me toward him, pulling me into his hold. His fingertips caressed my face, wiping at my tears.
I cried until I was empty, then rested my head against his shoulder, exhausted from the mental and emotional strain. We stayed like that for a few minutes until I calmed down. I wanted nothing more than to curl up and go to sleep, hoping to wake up and discover this had all been another nightmare. But that would be wishing away the part that Jason played in my life and I didn’t—I wouldn’t, regret that. He wasn’t responsible for what had happened to my dad and he wasn’t responsible for alien-dad torturing me. He wasn’t responsible for any of this.
“We have to find my fake dad and expose what he’s done. Otherwise, we’ll never be free.”
“I know. That’s not going to be easy,” Jason murmured with his lips against my hair. “We need to lay low for a couple of days and let the agents think we made it out of town.”
Staying still had never been my strong suit. “No. We need to get you to the ship.”
He frowned at me like he couldn’t believe what I was suggesting. “I’m not leaving you with this mess.”
“If we can find the fake dad, we can end everything, and I won’t be in a mess,” I pointed out.
“After he’s done searching your usual hangouts, he’ll probably hole up at the agency.”
“Then tonight, we rest, and tomorrow, we hunt for him.”
Jason shifted back over to his side of the car. “I’ll hunt for him.”
I don’t think Jason grasped the concept of being in trouble together. Sitting on the sidelines waiting for him to save me wasn’t something I was willing to do. Besides, the Ragespawn had mimicked my father’s actions well enough to fool me and everyone else it came in contact with. But I knew my father’s habits. Based on that, I could guess better than Jason could what the creature would do, and where it would go.
“We’ll hunt together,” I said firmly. I probably sounded braver than I actually felt, but the creature had torn my life apart. He’d destroyed my reputation, and maybe even my future. It was time he was the one who was hunted.
JASON
After a store not far from us closed up for the night, I smashed a back window, then destroyed the alarm and security cameras before either had time to react. Cassie and I slipped in through the back door and loaded up on the things we needed.
When we returned, I parked the Honda inside the barn, and secured the doors.
“This is primitive, but it’ll work,” Cassie said as she hung a string of old cowbells she’d found in a corner across the doors. “If anyone comes in while we’re sleeping, we’ll hear them.”
I admired her courage through all of this even as I fought back against the guilt seeping through me. I should tell her the truth about everything. About me being the cause of the earthquakes, about my mother being the one to attack her. She deserved to know. Cassie smiled over her shoulder at me, and looking at her stole my breath. I didn’t want her to hate me. At least not tonight. I would tell her tomorrow.
She rifled through one of the bags and pulled out the cans of pasta we’d selected. She tossed me one, then opened a box of plastic spoons. I sat on an old car seat dumped in a corner, and patted the space beside me. Puff of dust released in the air and she coughed.
“You do know how to show a girl a good time.” She bumped my arm as she sat.
“I try.” I grinned at her, and except for the sound of the cicadas outside, we ate in silence for a few minutes until she abruptly said, “There’s only one sleeping bag.”
“Yeah. For you. What did you think? I meant for both of us to use it?”
Her cheeks flushed and she ducked her head. “No.”
I started to make a joke when I sensed a movement outside. “Shh,” I whispered. Setting aside the can of pasta, I knelt at the wall closest to where I’d heard the movement and put my hand on the dirt floor. The vibrations were too heavy to be a small animal. Whatever was out there was either a large animal or a human.
Cassie joined me at the wall and peered through a decayed knothole in the wood. She tapped my arm lightly and her eyes were wide. “Agents,” she mouthed.
I motioned to the car and she ran to get into the driver’s side. I grabbed the bag of supplies and the sleeping bag, then tossed them in the backseat. “Drive to the main road. I’ll meet you there.”
“If they’re human, you can’t kill them, Jason. They don’t know the truth about the Ragespawn.”
“I won’t kill them unless I have to.” When she winced, I added, “It’s us or them and I’m not letting anyone hurt you.” I closed the door as quietly as I could. As she drove through the barn doors, I used my power to blast through the wall. I counted at least four agents. Two of them aimed their weapons and screamed at me to get on the ground. I held my arms out and let my power hit the guns, melting them into scraps of worthless metal. The agents dropped them and backed off yelling a warning to the other agents. One was a middle-aged man, the other a young woman who froze in fear when her gaze met mine.
“I don’t want to kill you,” I said. “I’m not guilty of what I’ve been accused of and neither is Cassie. Sam Grant is a Ragespawn. You must have noticed he’s been acting differently.”
The woman looked uncertain.
“I didn’t shoot Rick Simon. He was bitten by the Ragespawn, and so was his wife. The autopsies will prove that,” I said.
“Sam Grant arranged to have the bodies transferred to the agency and the initial report says they were shot at point blank range,” she argued.
Behind her, the middle-aged agent eased a gun from his boot. I fired a shot of power at him, hitting him in the knee. He yelped, and fell backward screaming and holding his leg.
“If you’re innocent, surrender, and I’ll see to it that justice is—”
I interrupted her. “Turn myself in to the Ragespawn running your agency? No, thanks.” Aiming past them, I used my power to set the field on fire, and making a rotation motion with my hands, I created a funnel that raced the fire toward us.
As the agents scrambled out of the way, one of them pulled out his cell phone. As he started dialing, I destroyed it to buy Cassie and me some time before reinforcements arrived. He threw the burning device onto the ground and held his hands up in surrender. I backed up slowly, then leaving the agents behind, ran toward the road where Cassie waited. As I passed by the agents’ vehicles, I blew apart their tires.
“I was worried when I saw the smoke,” Cassie said. “Are you okay?”
“I’m good. Drive.” I twisted around in the seat to look through the rear windshield. Having someone we could turn to for help would’ve made the situation a lot easier. But Cassie and I were on our own. Exhaling, I leaned my head back against the seat. It was my fault she was in this mess. I should have stayed out of her life.
Cassie reached across the seat and twined her fingers with mine. “You sent me away just now. You saved my life again.”
I turned my head toward her.
“I can never fix your life after this, Cassie. You’ll be a fugitive until the Earth ends.” I swallowed, realizing how much I didn’t want that for her, how much I didn’t want to go our separate ways.
“Until the Earth ends?” Her voice rose as her brows raised. “You’re speaking figuratively, right?”
I didn’t want to give her the burden of the truth. My plan was to do something to change the destruction that was coming. I shrugged. “Yeah.”
She glanced at me with a soft smile. “Day to day, remember? You don’t know what the future holds.” She yawned, and then said, “I’m so tired.”
I leaned over and massaged the back of her neck, reading the weariness in her body. “Pull over and I’ll drive for a while.”
We switched places, and I’d driven less than a mile before Cassie was asleep with her head resting on my shoulders. Waves of protectiveness crashed over me. I would do anything to keep her safe. I drove for almost a hundred miles before I found a wooded area that could camouflage the car. Carefully navigating between the trees, I drove through the thick underbrush. The jolting of the car woke Cassie and she sat up. Rubbing her eyes, she looked around. “Where are we?”
“About an hour and a half outside of Wayside. We can camp here for tonight.” I started unloading what we needed to set up for the night when a bloodcurdling scream rent the air. Cassie jumped in front of me, her hands out as if she could ward it off. When I started laughing, she whirled around.
“What’s so funny?”
“That’s a barn owl. They can sound like a woman screaming.”
She shivered and pressed a hand to her chest. “My heart is pounding.”
I closed the gap between us and put my hand over hers. “Want me to shoo it away?”
Her face flushing, she shook her head.
“You don’t have to be embarrassed. It’s a natural reaction.” I tapped the end of her nose. “But you look cute when you get flustered.”
Rolling her eyes, she pushed my hand away. “We should have picked up a tent while we were getting stuff.”
“I didn’t have enough cash.” After we’d broken into the store, I’d left the money I’d had on the counter. It was probably stupid of me, but I wasn’t a thief.
She knelt to move rocks and twigs to create a flat space for the sleeping bag. “No one would have known.”
“I couldn’t steal the stuff.”
Cassie smoothed out the sleeping bag and unzipped it. “You’re such an honest alien.” Brushing off her hands, she stood and looked around. “Do you think there are people-eating wild animals in these woods?”
“Probably.”
She chewed her lower lip. “Maybe I should sleep in the car, and you take the sleeping bag.”
“Whatever you want to do.”
She looked unsure, but said, “Yeah, that’s what I want.” When the leaves shook as the owl changed its position, Cassie jumped.
“I’m not usually so on edge.” She combed her fingers through her hair. “You must think I’m such a baby.”
“I think you’re the bravest human I’ve ever known.”
“I wasn’t brave when the Ragespawn had me. I was terrified I was going to die,” she whispered.
I wrapped my arms around her waist, wishing I had the ability to know the right words, wishing I had the power to erase the nightmare she’d experienced. As I held her, her shaking subsided.
“Jason…” She leaned up and pressed her lips to mine.
We were both stressed, our emotions and adrenaline running wild. I shouldn’t give in. But she tasted so sweet and I was lost the second her lips touched mine. I lowered my defenses and poured myself into the kiss, telling her without words what she meant to me. My breath hitched when she slid her hands beneath my shirt and pressed them against my back. One second we were locked in an embrace and the next, we were lying together on the sleeping bag.
The analytical part of my brain screamed at me to be cautious, to stop this before it was too late, and I tried. I was strong enough to say no to myself, to deny the union, but I wasn’t strong enough to say no to Cassie, not when she framed my face with her hands, holding on as if she couldn’t bear to let go.
We stared at each other and I couldn’t look away. My heart didn’t have any room left in it. She’d taken up every inch of space. A human girl had put her own life on the line for mine time and again. I looked deep into her eyes. “You’ve kept my secret since learning what I am and now you were nearly killed protecting me at the destruction chamber.” I swallowed hard.
“But you were nearly killed protecting me,” she said.
“Because we’re friends,” I said, tracing a circle across the flatness of her stomach. I said the words to feel out where her heart was. I wanted to know if it was on the same page as mine.
“More than friends,” she said in a voice full of hope.
“Yes.” I stilled my fingers. “So much more.” I touched her face, letting my fingers graze the scar she had there. “Your face is all I see when I close my eyes at night. It’s the only one I want to see when I open them.” She touched my lips and her fingers shook. “Jason,” she said as if I was a wonder she’d found. “Yi lilayo uquo,” she whispered.
Knowing that she’d studied my language to be able to say what she was feeling sent a wave of emotion coursing through me. What I’d tried to keep from happening wouldn’t stay silent within me any more. This human girl had become my world. I cupped her cheek. “I love you, too.”
“Did I get the pronunciation right?”
“Not even close.” My smile faded when she kissed the skin above the collar of my shirt. “Cassie, there’s a lot going on and I don’t want to take advantage of you when you’re feeling scared and…”
“I’m not scared when I’m with you and I’m sure. This is what I want.” She created tiny fissures of fire along my skin everywhere her fingers landed. The connection with her, the love shining from her eyes, made me feel as if my heart would explode and create new stars across both of our galaxies. I’d never been with a girl and nothing had prepared me for the rush, for the intensity. I loved her long, deep into the night until we were both exhausted and she fell asleep with her body curled around mine.
Sleep evaded me. I’d fallen in love with a human that I couldn’t live without. If I failed to save her world, I wasn’t leaving it. I would stay with her until the end because I didn’t want to give up a single second of being with her.