She snorted. “Emotions are for animals.”
“I am not an animal!”
“I’m sure pigs tell themselves the same thing.”
Nick put a hand on my shoulder, which was good, because I was about to drive off the road.
“Vera, tell me how you’re acting any better?” Nick asked.
I…wasn’t too happy with that reply—hardly an exoneration of humanity—but at least it shut Vera up for a second. She sank back in her seat, arms folded under her chest, and I turned around in mine. She was quiet a moment before asking, “What is it about this species that you find so redeemable?”
As I seethed, Nick took my hand. “They aren’t in need of redeeming. At least not by us. What I appreciate about humanity, what I think about humanity… I think they’re what We were, before We became what We are.”
Vera snorted. “They wish.”
“They don’t,” I said.
“So you speak for all humanity?”
“On this, I’m pretty sure most.”
“Fine,” Vera said smoothly. “Since you’re here, and you represent the average human—”
“I didn’t say that.”
Vera sighed. “What I mean to say,” she said, “is that you don’t seem particularly intelligent.”
I was sixth in my class, but I felt sure that wouldn’t impress her. “I’m not the smartest person in the world, no.”
“So, tell me about yourself.”
“Vera, what is the point of this?” Nick asked.
“I want to get to know more about you,” she said, ignoring Nick. “You're a VIP, you know. Nick’s human.”
I didn’t glance at Nick, because I didn’t want to give Vera any hint of…well, anything. “I’m someone who thinks there’s gold elsewhere. Why don’t you go there?”
She leaned over the long front seat, looking first at Nick and then at me. The skin of her porcelain face was tight, her features hard. “We don’t have anywhere else to go,” she said, “or didn't 'Nick' tell you that?”
She glared at our hands, clasped in my lap, before sinking into the back of the cab.
“Milo, don't listen to—”
“It's true. There are other places in this corner of the galaxy to get gold. A little bit here. A little bit there. But none with so much as your Earth—and we’re not there now. We’re here. If we give Earth a pass, we fragment,” she said. “And despite what your suicidal lover boy here thinks, that’s a bad outcome. One that leads to our complete extinction.”
I gaped at Nick. “Is that true?”
“Of course not,” he said. “Although I will admit that it all depends on how you do the math.”
“No it doesn't,” Vera said. “It depends on whether you're sane or whether you're doing Nick's magic math, where numbers are hearts and outcomes sail away on wings of turtledoves.”
I blinked at Nick. Was that true? He was putting human survival before his own? My survival before his?
“Don't let it go to your head,” Vera said, seeming to read my mind. “It's not about you. I'd guess lover boy here likes and values your primitive way of life. He thinks it's worth preserving. And he’s tired of living a lonely, cold existence,” she said spitefully.
The road smeared as Nick dropped my hand. I couldn’t breathe, my chest felt so sore. Tears snaked down my cheeks as I imagined my Nick—my sweet Nick—so desperate.
“So it's us or you?” I turned wide eyes on him, finding his face tense and unhappy. “I don't get it! Why can't you take our gold with us still here?”
“Two reasons,” Vera said. “First, as a matter of policy, we sterilize every planet we exploit to avoid contamination.”
My ears buzzed at the images her words conjured. “How?”
“That’s not important—” Nick began, but Vera said, “We vaporize everything.”
Bile burned the back of my throat, but Vera went on, her voice laced with heavy sarcasm. “Even if we didn’t, most of your planet’s gold is located near its core, which means when we extract it, there will be lots of earthquakes, volcanoes, and other events that tend to kill more advanced life. Of course, you’ll be dead anyway. And when you think about the alternative, it’s actually quite humane.”
“Damn it Vera!” Nick snapped.
She snatched him by the throat, one slender, alien-strong hand around his neck, and I screamed, “Stop it! What are you doing!”
I slammed on the breaks, which did nothing to dislodge Vera’ grip. She searched his pockets as he tried to wrestle free from her. “Vera—” he gasped.
We were on the side of the road now, and having no idea what else to do, I reached back and slapped Vera’s face as hard as I could.
Or I tried to. The hand that was exploring Nick’s pockets appeared in a flash to catch mine in a crushing grip. I let out a yelp, and that seemed to do it for Nick. He bashed his head into Vera’s, and she fell back with a cry.
She was clutching her nose, but she was clutching something else, too. The whistle! I searched my pockets frantically and pulled all the way off the road when I came up empty.
“She has the whistle!” I screeched.
“Oh please,” Vera rolled her eyes. “The only thing I can do with it now is send the boys back home.”
She held the whistle to her mouth as my heart pounded.
“Girl talk,” she said.
I gaped at her, then glanced at Nick.
“Vera, what are you—”
“I said girl talk.” She pinched him somewhere between his shoulder and his neck, and Nick went rigid. Like a mannequin.
“What did you—”
“He’s fine. Gah. If you haven’t noticed by now, I don’t want to hurt him.”
“Then put him back to normal.”
She wagged her finger. “Not until we have our conversation. Now look.” She held up the whistle and got my full attention. “I’m willing to blow this whistle for no other reason than to avoid the headache The Rest will bring. Also, I value Nick’s life. Make no mistake, if they show up, he’d dead.”
“Then blow it.”
“Not so fast. If I blow the whistle, I guarantee I’ll give your planet a fair shake. For twenty-four hours. I’ll even help get these government people off your back.”
I felt a “but” coming. “What’s the catch?”
“The catch,” Vera said, seeming to enjoy the phrase, “is that after twenty-four hours, Nick leaves with me. No if ands or buts. And he agrees with me. No dissenting.” Vera smiled. “Do you trust your charm and charisma, Milo Mitchell? Can you make me love you, too?”
Vera was obviously not human, because she didn’t seem to mind waiting the several minutes it took me to compose myself. Eventually, in my most even voice, I said, “It’s not my choice. I can’t decide for Nick.”
“But you can,” she smiled. “Nick knows this is the best deal either of you are going to get. He’d tell you to take it if he could.”
I shook my head. “But what if you decide to vaporize the planet?”
“Let me repeat: This the best shot you have. I promise to keep my end of the deal.”
“So I'm gambling with the life of everyone alive here that if you end your SOS or whatever it is and give earth a shot, you'll decide not to vaporize us all, even though you vehemently wanted to just minutes ago. That's crazy.”
“Not if you trust Nick. He thinks my mind is already changing. What do you think?”
I looked at Nick. He had seemed confident; but maybe that was all for my benefit.
“Let me make it easier for you.” Vera pointed to the sky. “In six hours, they’ll be here. Nick and I will be ‘beamed’ up. If he survives in this worthless body of his, he’ll be quarantined immediately, and the only opinion that matters will be mine.”
“He didn’t tell me that.”
“What would be the point, Milo? You think he enjoys your little tears?”
“I want to tell him 'bye',” I whispered. “Either way.”
r /> She shrugged. “Either way.”
I nodded. “Okay then.”
She pinched Nick again, then leaned back into her seat and blew the whistle. It was amazing how ordinary it sounded: exactly the same as when my gym coach blew hers.
“They're not coming now?” I asked.
“They're not.”
Nick sat up, glaring at Vera. “You don’t get to just decide how things go.”
“Milo and I decided how things go,” Vera said. “Two against one. It’s democratic.”
“I wasn’t given a voice!” Nick snapped. “You literally took it from me.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, suddenly worried that I had done something wrong.
“Don’t be,” Nick said evenly. “Twenty-four hours is more than enough time.”
Half a mile later, I was still wondering, when we rounded a corner and I saw a 'Welcome to Sheridan, Wyoming' sign. And then the police cars, lining each side of the interstate.
“OH MY GOD.”
Traffic was backed up at least a mile, but I could see the lights: hundreds of red, blue, white lights, flashing at the end of the line. What had to be every state trooper in Wyoming, and I knew what they were doing. Looking for kidnapped me.
It didn’t take a long time for us to notice the black SUVs sprinkled among the cop cruisers.
Nick and Vera were having a heated conversation, but I was a prisoner of my racing thoughts, playing out scenarios in which I made a U-turn and we outran the police—or, worse, we didn't.
This many cops meant the line moved fast—faster than I would have liked. We inched forward, never actually stopping, as some cars were waved through and others waved onto the snowy shoulder—the drivers and passengers roughly pulled from their cars and searched.
“What do we do?” I cried.
Nick leaned on the dash, staring ahead. “They have technology I've never seen,” he said, sounding almost breathless.
“Whoop whoop,” Vera muttered, but Nick's eyebrows shot up. “They're using some kind of molecular detection device I haven’t—”
“Seen before,” Vera finished for him, unimpressed. “I assume you mean method, which I suppose is somewhat—”
“WHAT DO I DO?!” I grabbed Nick's arm, and his eyes blinked wide with surprise before he grabbed my hand. “Do what you're doing, Milo.”
“But how are we—”
Nick turned to Vera. “Could you get us moving,” he snapped, clearly frustrated.
She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. “If you're being generous with the term 'molecular detection',” she told Nick. She turned to me. “Generous or not, this is a point for your team, Milo,” she said, making a check-mark in the air. Her face was stuck in its typical disdainful expression, so I couldn't tell if she was serious or sarcastic.
“I'll create disturbances elsewhere to throw them off,” Nick told Vera. “You get us moving.”
We were maybe a dozen cars behind the barricade, and I watched a dark figure walk down the road, toward us, holding out a long, black wand.
“Um, Nick...”
“Get us moving,” he ordered Vera.
She tilted her head. “Or what, lover boy?”
“You don't want to try me right now.”
“I might.” She smiled, but she had already started her strange magic; I could see the shadow-bubble forming around our car, breaking us off into what Nick had called another universe—but the phenomenon didn't captivate me.
Nick did. I didn’t know how we were going to rescue mom, or clear my name, but I was sure we would. Just as I was sure that, when we did, he would leave.
He returned my stare for a moment before squeezing my shoulder. “Press the pedal, Milo.”
With one last look at Vera, he sank into his seat, tipping his head back against the head rest. He shut his eyes, and I felt so sickly nervous over whatever he was about to do that I couldn't get my feet to move.
Eyes still shut, Nick closed his hand around mine. “We’re about to get through this. You believe me, right?”
I nodded, then, realizing he couldn’t see me, said, “Yes.”
“Good. Now press the pedal.”
Vera made a gagging sound, ruining the moment, and with one last look at Nick, I gently pressed the pedal.
Nick's body slumped, his hand, in mine, curled, and his brows notched as slowly—oh so very slowly and smoothly—the truck and its bubble started drifting up, toward the vast, pale sky.
I pressed the pedal harder and we lifted off, defying gravity. With my foot holding steady on the gas, I peeked out my window, stunned to find we were already fifty feet above the mess, and everyone on ground was frozen. I counted hundreds of uniformed officers of various kinds, and interwoven everywhere were men and women in black. They were frozen in groups, with big German Shepherds, baring frozen black batons; my heart leapt as I saw several frozen behind bushes or on little cliffs above the road. I’d seen enough movies to know those were snipers.
We floated higher, faster, gliding forward on an extraterrestrial cloud, and I noticed the southern end of the road block. Spikes jutted from the asphalt, just a few feet in front of a silver family van.
Beyond that, three more SUVs, and more spikes. Lots more spikes. And in the sky, some ways in front of us, a military-style helicopter, its massive blades sprawled out around it.
I glanced at Nick, afraid of the helicopter—when we un-froze things, the chopper would still be patrolling the road in front of us—but when I saw him, I felt even more afraid. He was shaking, his skin bleach white except his lips, which looked faintly blueish purple. His hand, which had at some point dropped mine, curled around the armrest, and as I watched, a brilliant red line trailed from his lip down his chin. His jaw was locked, and he was tugging air in through his nose. His eyes squeezed shut and he grunted. I reached out for him on instinct, but when my fingers connected with his wrist, his skin burned.
“No,” he gritted, but it came out half groan.
I glanced at Vera. “Can't you help him?”
“Not if you don't press the pedal, idiot.”
I looked down, horrified to find my foot had forgotten to do its job—and we were starting to fall.
I pushed it to the floor, hoping to make our cloud-bubble move faster, get farther ahead of the traffic stop. We were passing the helicopter when Nick's eyes peeked open, and I saw his gaze shoot to it. I looked, too. I could see the pilot, hands frozen around the stick. Nick made the grunt-groan sound again, and Vera said, “Geez, you're weak.” She sighed, and a second later we jumped forward—half a mile at least. After the next half second we were on the road, the bubble disappearing as the cars around us snapped back into motion.
Nick slumped forward; the seatbelt caught him, but his head rolled to one side, his coppery waves blowing in the air from the vents.
“OH MY GOD!”
I lunged for Nick, and Vera snatched my arm. “Drive.”
“Is he dead?”
“Am I wrong about the function of human eyes?”
I looked him over and immediately noticed his trembling hands, grasping onto his khakis.
“Oh my God, are you okay?”
His eyes opened slowly, and when I saw how exhausted he looked, I almost hugged him, but I got a glimpse at Vera's face, watching me intently, and for some reason I decided to take his hand instead. I brought the fingertips to my lips and kissed them.
“Thanks for getting us through that.”
“He wouldn't have made it without me,” Vera grumbled. “I’m still helping, in fact, and I’m growing tired. Could you please just drive? So melodramatic.”
Nick's eyes opened again, so weakly they actually rolled back into his head as he whispered, “I'm fine.”
I felt sick. The bleeding from his mouth, it reminded me of...
No. Not going there.
“Just keep driving?” My voice trembled as I glanced at Vera in the rear-view, immediately wondering why I'd asked Vera for instruct
ions.
To my surprise, she muttered, “Yes, Einstein.”
I bit my own lip until I tasted blood, and sped toward Denver.
Nick slept for almost three hours, and the entire time, I worried myself sick. His pale skin, the blood that stained the fine lines of his lips, the web of damaged blood vessels I knew lay behind his eyelids... These were things that would always mess me up, because they reminded me of Dad.
For the first time in months, I let whys gnaw at me, and as I drove, I remembered something Bree's mom had told me, in a corner between two giant tables of flowers at my dad's visitation.
“Milo, it’s okay to be mad at God.”
So since then, a few times, when I'd really needed a release I couldn't get another way, I'd taken the Volvo out around our land and screamed my anger out.
I did it again now, inside my head, demanding to know why Nick was an alien and I was human, why my life had turned out so shit-tacular so far, why things were so crazy and so HARD, and why it had to hurt so much. I wanted to scream the way I did when I was alone in my car, and since I couldn't, something unexpected happened: Tears started streaming down my face.
I turned the music up—the truck had satellite radio, so I found a station that played music from the ’00s—and I pushed the truck as fast as I could get it to go, glancing at Nick, loving him, hating the sight of his body slouched and still, wondering if it would look like that when—if!—when he left.
He would leave! I knew he would. But still, I tortured myself with hope that he might stay.
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
I had read that line the day he found me. And now the words stirred in me a bitter war between refusal and surrender.
Right at that moment, when my heart felt like it might crack open, Vera leaned up, handing me a tissue. I was so shocked, I nearly drove off the road. But then she shook Nick's shoulder, and his eyes opened, and that was all I cared about.
Still leaning between our two seats, Vera watched him hawkishly, and when his eyes found mine and his hand folded over mine, her brows narrowed and she sat back, looking stricken in a way I didn't understand.