Wrong Alien (TerraMates Book 6) (25 page)

"For leaving your window open?" a voice asked from
right outside said window. "That's not being an idiot, but it's not the
safest thing in the world."

Mia screamed as a head poked into her window, scrambling to
sit up and grope for the light on her nightstand. Once light flooded the room,
she could see the figure had fiery red hair.

"
You
," she gasped, pressing a hand over her
galloping heart. "What are you doing here? What is this?" He'd said
that he was friends with someone who worked at the office... Outrage was
quickly winning out against the fear, and Mia was on her feet in seconds.
"Are you
kidding
me? It wasn't bad enough that your shrink friend
had to mess with me there, but she sends you here to try and... what. Make me
think you're an alien here to abduct me?"

"Um. Part of that is true, but most of it isn't. If I could
just-"

"This is illegal!" Mia shouted. "You can't
just break into my home and do this."

"Technically I'm still outside, and I-"

"I'm calling the police."

"No!" he shouted back. "Please listen to me.
Please. I know what this looks like, and I know you didn't believe Madison when
she tried to tell you before, but you're in danger right now, and we need to
go. Please."

His voice was clearly pleading, and his eyes were large and
beseeching in the light. She was struck all over again by the strange gold
color and found herself staring for a bit before she shook herself and glared.
"Get out of here."

"Not without you, Amelia. Trust me, you don't want to
stay here. It's not safe."

"How do you know my name?" That was probably the
least important of the questions that wanted to spill out of her, but she was
seriously starting to worry that the world was imploding around her.

Was this what came from opening her mouth and talking about
her episodes? Her parents had always made it seem like it would be the end of
the world if someone found out, and this was definitely making a case for them
being right.

"I'll explain everything to you later. I
promise,
"
the man said. "But we have to move, and we have to move
now.
They're
coming.
"

Distress was clear in his tone, and Amelia narrowed her
eyes. "Who's coming?"

"The Shaddoc."

She supposed she'd expected not to feel anything when he
spoke that word, but her stomach churned with anxiety. She didn't even know
what that
meant,
and for some reason, it terrified her all the same.
"W-who are they?" Mia asked. "Do they want to hurt me?"

"Probably," he said. "I'm not sure. But this
is different from anything you've already experienced, and I need to keep you
safe.
Please
come with me."

His eyes were compelling and he stretched out a hand to her.
She could see that he was mostly in the tree that climbed the side of her
house, and she made a face at the thought of shimmying down it in just her
shorts and tank top in the middle of the night. And why was she considering
this anyway? This man was probably just some raving lunatic.

Only... only she couldn't look away from him and that hand,
and she found herself moving closer.

"I need... I need to take some things with me. Where
are we even going?"

He made an impatient noise. "We'll come back for your
stuff, I promise. They won't bother it. It's you they want."

"But
why
?" And furthermore, why was she
entertaining this? Her heart was still pounding, and she felt like she
needed
to run, even though she didn't understand why.

"Because of what you've seen. Or who you've seen. I
swear I'll explain. I have a safe place, and I really need you to come."

He sounded like he was going to cry or something, and Mia
let that make the decision for her, however stupid that was. She grabbed up her
cell phone from the nightstand at least, and then took his hand. He drew her
through the window and into his arms, and she was surprised at the strength she
could feel in him.

His body was warm against hers, and her cheeks flushed
darkly at the thought that she was being held by an attractive man while she
was barely wearing anything at all.

He didn't seem to be bothered by it, or even really like he
noticed it. His arm was wrapped around her waist, and his other hand fished
into his pocket. She couldn't see what he was looking at, but he said something
in a language she'd never heard before that sounded like a swear and then they
were moving.

And in this case, moving meant falling. He dropped out of
the tree with her in his arms, and she barely had time to scream before they
were landing.

Somehow unhurt.

"What was
that
?" she hissed at him, and he
shushed her and led her down through the neighbor's back yard to where a car
was parked. "You can't just..."

Mia spluttered. What was
with
this guy? He was
climbing and jumping out of trees, parking his car in other people's backyards.
Clearly whoever was after them was bad enough that he could break every rule of
basic societal decency.

They didn't speak again until they were in the car.

"You know," she said. "You look
familiar."

"We met at Madison's office earlier today," he
replied, looking at her like she might be a bit slow.

Mia rolled her eyes. "I
know
that. I mean...
from before. Have you ever been to Maryland?"

His gaze sharpened, and he looked away from the road as he
was pulling away from the neighbor's house to glance at her. "I grew up
there."

"So did I," Mia said.

"Do you... Did you know someone named Abon when you
lived there?" 

She frowned and thought back. She'd met a lot of people
because of her father's job, but such a name did stand out in her mind. It took
her a moment, but then she recalled the nice man who'd lived down the street
from her school and worked at the library. She'd often talked with him about
books that she'd read, and he always had a smile ready for her when she came
in.

"Yes," she murmured. "He worked at the
library and we used to talk when I was a kid." She snapped her fingers.
"That's how I know you. There was a little boy with bright red hair and
golden eyes who used to interrupt and ask for ice cream. That was you."

He grinned and nodded. "That was me. What a small
planet." His grin faded after a second, though. "It explains why
they're after you, though. You knew my uncle, and they want him very
badly."

"The Shaddoc?" Even saying the name made her
shudder.

He nodded. "Yes. My name is Asher, by the way. And my
uncle was Abon.
Is.
He is Abon. But I don't know where he is, and
neither do the Shaddoc, which is why they're after you. Why they take
you."

Mia was starting to believe a bit more now. All of this
couldn't be some massive conspiracy made up to make her think she was crazy,
not if it was about people she hadn't seen since her childhood. "Is this
about politics?" she asked, looking up at him.

Asher's lips curled in a smile. "Something like that.
Though not politics like on Earth." He snorted. "Well. Maybe exactly
like politics like on Earth."

"As opposed to?"

"As opposed to on other planets. Like the one I was
born on."

And there they were. Back on this whole alien thing again.
"Why should I believe anything you say about this? You could just be some
attractive weirdo sent here to kidnap me or something. Or a crazy person."

Asher looked at her, eyes wide. "You think I'm
attractive?"

"Will you focus on the part that matters, please?"
Mia demanded, cheeks burning.

"Right. Okay. Just, hold on." He swerved, and the
car did a one eighty at speeds that made Mia want to lean out the window and
throw up. Instead of heading away from her house they were heading back towards
it, and she wondered if Asher was giving up the game and taking her home.

Of course, instead of that he was pulling up behind one of
the other houses and pointing at hers. "Look there."

She had to crane her neck to see out of the windshield at
that angle, but what she saw made her jaw drop open. Right above her house was
some kind of light. It was a pale, pale blue, eerie and unsettling. But the
worst part were creatures. There was no other word for them. They weren't
people.

Their skin was a sickly white color, made worse by the light
that they were traveling through. From this distance they didn't look like the
aliens she'd seen on TV. They were too bulky and too large for that, even
though she couldn't see all of their features from where she was sitting. And
somehow, they managed to fade right through her roof and into her house.

"How did they do that?" she asked, turning to look
at Asher.

"It's the light. It lets them pass through whatever it
shines on. It's old technology according to my Uncle, but they aren't as
advanced as we are."

Mia blinked, rubbing at her eyes as if she was hoping that
this would all be a dream. "Okay, so let's say I believe that you're an
alien. Why do you look normal while those things look like something out of a
low budget horror movie?"

Asher laughed. "I'm royalty," he said, as if that
explained everything. And maybe in his mind, it did, since he didn't seem to be
offering up any other explanation.

"Royalty."

"Yes."

"And so what, when you get a crown, you also get a set
of human looking features?"

He laughed again and shook his head. "No, no. It's to
do with bloodlines. The higher your class the more human you look. I don't know
why, really. I think maybe somewhere down the line there's human in our blood,
but that's how it is. Unless you're a member of the Shaddoc clan. They all look
like that."

Mia shuddered. "Poor them. So that's what they've been
doing? Beaming down into my apartment and taking me?"

"I think so, yes."

"How do they avoid being seen?"                        

"It's the light," Asher told her. "It's not
on a wavelength that humans can see. Well. Usually. Obviously, you can see it,
and that might have something to do with the fact that you've been taken by
them before. I don't know. My uncle could explain it."

"So we're going to see him, then?" Mia asked.
Maybe he could shed some light on this situation that didn't make her feel like
her head was going to explode.

"No," Asher replied, shaking his head.
"He's... I don't know where my uncle is right now. But neither do the
Shaddoc, and that's what matters."

He got them moving again, at a speed that was definitely
well over the speed limit, but Mia was pleased to be heading back away from her
house. Those things were in there, hunting for her, and it made her sick to
think that they'd been taking her for her whole life just about. Dropping into
her room and carrying her up into their ship or whatever. Probing her mind.

"So wait. Dr. Prince said that a lot of people from the
area I grew up in had been taken like I was. What's the deal with that?"

Asher glanced at her and then back to the road. "It's
my Uncle. They've been taking anyone who ever really spoke to him for any good
length of time and probing their memories. I can only guess they're looking for
hints. Clues as to where he may have gone and why."

"And why do they want him in the first place."

"Because he can bring our clan back. And they want all
of us dead."

Chapter 4: Novelty

There was a woman in his apartment.

With the exception of Madison, who Asher somehow
instinctively knew wasn't into men, there had never been a woman in his
apartment. Women were sort of a mystery to him, human ones especially.

He'd never dated or even really tried to get close to any
women, even though his Uncle had always said that it would be fine if he wanted
to make some connections here.

It wasn't that he was afraid to get close to someone and
then have to leave them, it was more that he had no idea how to get close to
someone.

And now there was a woman, a very, very pretty woman in his
apartment.

Which wasn't the point at all, because he was supposed to be
trying to keep her safe. But now she was asleep in his bed, and Asher was
leaning against the wall of his room, watching her sleep.

Part of him wanted to text Madison and ask if it was creepy
to watch a woman sleep, but it was very late, and Maddie didn't take kindly to
being woken up when she was sleeping.

He was willing to bet that Amelia didn't take kindly to it,
either.

She was different from any woman he could remember meeting
before, but similar at the same time.

She didn't remind him of his mother.

Her hair was dark and her eyes were green, and she wasn't
soft spoken or overly kind the way his mother had been. But Asher felt
comfortable with her in the same way he had in his mother's arms all those
years ago.

That was probably weird.

To avoid thinking weird thoughts (because he wasn't quite
ready to leave the room yet) he checked his tracker. The red lights the
symbolized the crafts of the Shaddoc had held steady for much longer than he'd
been expecting, but finally they had moved away.

Apparently they wanted Amelia badly, then.

Surely she couldn't be the only one who had been close to
his Uncle. Asher couldn't really remember. He remembered her now, of course.
The little girl who had come in with her hair all shiny and her school uniform
all pressed, to talk to his Uncle about books and her school work.

Abon had always looked forward to her visits, Asher
remembered. He called her 'the little miss' because he had been so proper and
well put together. For the most part Amelia had done the talking, but there had
to be something.