Invaded (22 page)

“No.” Aisly blinked a few times and blotted her cheeks with a handkerchief. Maybe
it was Cara’s imagination, but Aisly’s irises seemed a darker shade of silver now.
“Simple allergies.” Aisly glanced at her brother. “You’ll soon forget.”

In other words, destroy this memory, too. Cara didn’t know for certain, but she doubted
the clones suffered from allergies, not after all those years of meticulous breeding.
So what drug
was inside that bottle?

Jaxen sighed again and motioned for Cara to stand. He seemed wearier of the mental
cleansing than Aisley was. Must be rough screwing with so many heads.

This was it—time to summon her focal image. While she crossed the room and stood before
Jaxen, Cara imagined herself in the gym at Midtown High, surrounded by red dodgeballs.
She fell so
deeply into her fantasy that she could smell the pungent reek of sweat and hear the
squeak of sneakers against the waxed wood floor. She scooped an imaginary ball into
her hands and repeatedly
bounced it, listening to the echo reverberate off the gym walls. When Jaxen took her
face between his palms and peered into her eyes, Cara pictured him standing defenseless
on the half-court line.
A wicked grin curved her mouth. She was going to nail him, right in the beanbags.

The pretend ball felt tight beneath her fingers, overinflated for maximum impact.
She drew back, tensed all the right muscles, then threw the ball with a mighty heave,
making sure to follow
through and hit her target. The ball flew from her grasp and connected with Jaxen’s
dangly bits with a satisfying
thwack
, and he doubled over before sinking to his knees.

Take that, you mind-warping asshole.

Cara had focused so intently on blocking her thoughts that she didn’t notice when
Jaxen pulled away. A loud throat-clearing snapped her to attention, and she found
herself staring at the
wall.

Uh-oh.

She’d missed his entire message. What had he tried pushing inside her head—to forget
the probe and Aisly’s eyedrops or to forget their entire encounter?

“I’m a little confused,” Cara said, rubbing her temples and glancing back and forth
between the siblings. “I came in here to ask you something, but now I can’t
remember what it was.”

Aisly smiled sweetly. “You must be tired from waking up so early to take your brother
to the spaceport.”

“Do you need me to escort you back to your room?” Jaxen asked.

“No, I’ll be fine.” Cara shook her head and laughed dryly. “Guess I need a nap. Sorry
to bother you.”

“Any time,” Jaxen told her.

She held up two fingers in a L’eihr good-bye and returned to her room, but not for
a nap. She spent the rest of the afternoon talking to Aelyx about what had happened
while intermittently
huffing his shirt. After what she’d endured, she needed the comfort.

That night as Cara and Elle lay beneath their covers, Cara whispered, “Hey, can I
ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Do L’eihrs get allergies?”

“Allergies?” Elle asked.

“Yeah, you know, reactions to pollen and mold. Itchy, watery eyes, cough, runny nose.
Things like that.”

“No,” Elle said, confirming Cara’s suspicions. “Anyone with a hypersensitive immune
system would have been barred from reproducing thousands of years ago.”

“You’re a medic,” Cara said. “What reason would someone have to use eyedrops?”

“They wouldn’t.” Elle sounded confused, which made two of them.

“That’s what I thought.”

The hiss of their door opening interrupted their conversation, and Cara pushed onto
her elbows, heart thumping as she scanned the darkness for the intruder.

Ah-woo
, came a low whine.

Cara pressed a relieved hand to her chest. It was only Vero. “Our keypad’s messed
up again,” she told Elle, then pointed a warning finger at Vero. “If you pee on my
pillow, I’ll choke you with your own tail.”

He crept to the foot of her cot, then extended one paw and lowered his head to the
floor.

“Ooh,” Elle whispered in awe from the top bunk. “He’s showing deference. This means
he sees you as his pack leader.”

Yeah, right. Or he was trying to trick her into leaving her pillow undefended.

“It might have something to do with Aelyx’s scent,” Elle said. “He followed Aelyx
everywhere—idolized him completely. As Aelyx’s mate, Vero would consider you
an alpha by association.”

It was an interesting theory. Cara patted her mattress. “Come on, boy. It’s okay.”

After a while, Vero found the courage to climb into bed with her, scooting nearer
by slow inches. Just when Cara started to think it
was
a trick, he curled up against Aelyx’s
T-shirt and rested his head on the mattress, purring sadly.

“You poor thing,” Cara whispered. Slowly, so as not to startle him, she lowered her
head to the pillow. A few minutes later when Vero’s breathing began to slow, Cara
extended
one finger and petted his arm. His shorn fur was baby-soft, his delicate skin warmer
than she’d anticipated. He surprised her by curling his little digits around her finger
and tucking her
knuckles beneath his chin.

Aww
. Vero was a cuddler.

Even though he smelled kind of like wet dog, she enjoyed the contact, so she scooted
close enough to feel his warm breath against her cheek. They snuggled that way for
the rest of the night,
united by their love for a boy in another galaxy.

C
ara awoke the next morning to a dead bird in her bed and a pair of not-yet-dead snakes
in her boots. Luckily, her screams of terror brought Vero
back to her room to finish his breakfast. Within minutes, the reptiles lay on the
floor, relieved of their heads.

Not the best way to start the day. Especially for the snakes.

For reptiles, they were actually pretty—with shimmery hides and dozens of delicate
antennae extending along the length of their spines. The bird was lovely, too, featherless
with
opalescent cream-colored skin that caught the faint glow from the window. Still, Cara
preferred not to wake alongside Vero’s prey, no matter how sparkly.

Elle giggled from the top bunk. “He must really like you.”

“Earth pets do the same thing,” Cara said, backing away from the carnage. She made
a mental note to have the groundskeeper dispose of the bodies. “My friend Tori used
to feed a
feral cat that lived in the woods by her house. It left dead lizards and mice at her
front door for the next five years.” She squatted down to Vero’s height and ordered,
“No more
presents, okay?”

The way he puffed his chest and jabbered with pride promised that birds and snakes
were just the beginning of Cara’s bounty. She sighed and grabbed a clean uniform.
At least he’d
stopped peeing on her pillow.

“I’m going to practice the spinners before breakfast,” Cara said. But when she tried
pulling up her pants, they slouched and nearly fell from her hips. “Aw, man. I need
another uniform.”

This was the third time she’d had to exchange her clothes for a smaller size. Not
that she was complaining. As much as Cara despised L’eihr food, she had to admit their
perfectly
balanced diet, combined with Satan’s rigorous strength training, had made her stronger
and leaner than she’d ever achieved running track at Midtown High. She only hoped
Aelyx
wouldn’t miss the junk in her trunk. She was a lot less bootylicious these days.

“So much for the spinners.” There wasn’t time to hit the supply station on the fourth
floor, change, practice, shower, and make it back before breakfast. “Guess
I’ll meet you at the nursery.”

“I can’t.” Elle hopped down and scanned her wrist, preemptively turning off the room
alarm. “My medic adviser wants me in the advanced anatomy class. To get out of it,
I’ll need a better excuse than being your constant alibi.”

“Oh.” Cara had never realized how much she’d held her roommate back. “Don’t worry
about it. I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?” Elle asked. “Because I can arrange to have you sit in with me.”

On advanced anatomy? Cara would rather learn something useful among the kindergartners
than zone out during an upper-level course. “Thanks, but I’ll stick with the kids.
It’s
not like I need someone to corroborate my every move.”

“You’re probably right. Aelyx tends to overreact when it comes to you.” Elle ran a
comb through her ponytail while gazing into empty air. “I can’t blame him,
though. I would have done anything for Eron.”

Cara held her breath for fear of saying the wrong thing, but then she decided to stop
behaving like a coward and start acting like a friend. “I’m sorry. You must miss him.”

Elle didn’t answer at first. But soon she gave an absent nod. “I do. I’m beginning
to worry I’ll never stop.”

“That’s normal.” Cara shrugged into a clean tunic and rolled her pants at the waist.
“The pain will fade with time, but you’ll always remember him.” Poor
Elle. Like the other clones, she’d spent the first sixteen years of her life under
the influence of hormone regulators, so she didn’t have much experience with love
or heartbreak. To
her, this must feel like the end of the world. “It’ll get better,” Cara assured her.
“And one day, you’ll feel ready to try again.”

“That’s hard to imagine.”

“You’ll see.” Cara wished she could give Elle a hug, but casual touches made the clones
uneasy. Instead, she offered a warm smile. “But there’s no
rush—don’t put so much pressure on yourself. Grieve as long as you need to.” Cara
moved close enough to deliver a gentle nudge to her roommate’s shoulder.
“You’re allowed to be human, you know.”

Elle returned the smile. “I’m glad you’re here.”

During rare times like these, Cara agreed.

By midafternoon, she didn’t feel quite so optimistic.

“What’s wrong with your hair?” asked the little boy tugging Cara’s braid. “I’ve never
seen that kind before. It’s ugly, like fire.”

Cara reclaimed her braid and answered in L’eihr. “There’s nothing wrong with having
red hair. I think it’s nice.”

“Why does your skin look so pale?” he asked. “Are you sick? Did you lose all your
blood?”

“No.” Cara placed her wrist within his coppery hand to show him the pulse in her veins.
“On my planet, people have lots of different skin colors. Some humans are darker than
you, and some are even lighter than me.”

“But you’ve got spots,” the boy’s friend objected, pointing to the freckles splattered
across Cara’s nose and cheeks. “You must be sick.”

“Why do we have to talk out loud to you?” the first boy asked.

She took a deep breath and counted to five, peering around the classroom for the instructor,
who’d left Cara in charge during her bathroom break. “Because I can’t use Silent
Speech.”

“I knew that,” a girl bragged from her seat on the floor. “My friend Alun told me
that human brains are slow. He said they go backward.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that we’re slow…”

“He said humans are savage,” the girl added, eyeing Cara skeptically. “Do you really
eat your young?”

Cara was tempted to say yes, that each freckle on her nose represented an obnoxious
kid she’d devoured, but she took the high road. “No, your friend made that up.”

“Are you going to live here forever?” the girl asked.

Before thinking, Cara spat, “No,” then quickly checked herself. “I mean, yes. On the
colony.”

But the Freudian slip betrayed her doubts. In truth, she wasn’t sure she could settle
there. Not trapped on an island, devoid of any means of escape. Not with mindbenders
like Jaxen and
Aisly in power. Not with the clones spreading rumors that she ate babies and sported
a backward brain. Why wouldn’t Aelyx at least consider defecting to Earth? Why did
she have to make the
sacrifice?

Maybe she shouldn’t think about that right now.

The young girl brought Cara back to reality with a request. “Tell us a story.”

“Please,” the others begged. “A human story!”

“Okay.” Encouraged by the children’s enthusiasm, Cara sat cross-legged and motioned
for the others to form a semicircle around her. While they settled in, she decided
on a
simple fable that she could shorten to accommodate her limited L’eihr vocabulary:
“Hansel and Gretel.”

“Once upon a time,” she began, “there were two children who lived with their father
in the forest.”

Drawing on her best theatrical skills, she spun a tale that had the children transfixed,
pausing only to explain unfamiliar terms like
gingerbread
and
wicked witch
. By the time
she reached the scene where the witch had captured Hansel and fattened him up for
cooking, the clones’ eyes were wide in rapt attention, their little bodies leaning
forward to hang on
Cara’s every word.

Cara led them through the story’s climax, ending with Gretel freeing her brother from
his cage and pushing the witch to a fiery death. “And then,” she concluded, “they
found their father and lived happily ever after.”

But instead of applauding as she’d expected, the children gasped in horror. Then the
questions came flying from all directions.

“Do all human fathers abandon their children?”

“Why did they destroy that woman’s home?”

“Did they really burn her up? How barbaric!”

“See, I told you! Humans
do
eat their young!”

Cara tried corralling their imaginations, but the damage was done. The children backed
away shrieking, as if she might spring on them and begin nibbling their eight tiny
toes, Vienna
sausage–style.

“Miss Sweeney…” The instructor stood in the doorway, scanning the chaos. “Why don’t
you offer your assistance in the seclusion room?”

Cara’s heart sank. The seclusion room—a padded enclosure where the Terrible Twos went
to scream it out. The nursery workers dodged that assignment like a jury summons.
L’eihr
eardrums were more sensitive to the assault of temper tantrums, likely because the
spoken word was used so infrequently.