Gathering Water (22 page)

I snort. “ A lot more fun for you maybe.” I settle my back against the tree. “Every time they try to pull me into the fold, I’m worried one of those sheep girls is going to ambush me and force me into a dress so I can be Promised to the first guy willing to take me.”

“Well, it might improve your temper.”

I punch him in the arm.

Jace leans against the tree next to me. “There’s nothing wrong with being sociable Jax. It can’t be just us forever.”

“I’m happy with just us.”  I cross my arms over my chest. “Plus, it’s not about me being
sociable
. It’s about conforming and being some perfect little obedient robot. Oh, and Dane’s desire to marry me off. The only way I’ll ever be Promised is if they lobotomize me. I am not one of those girls.”

“Lobotomize?” Jace raises his eyebrows. “You’ve got to be reasonable here.  I’m sure one of the guys would be more than happy to take you on, bad attitude and all. I mean, look at me, I’m gorgeous and you’re my slightly less attractive twin.” He grins when I nudge him with my shoulder. “What about Flint? He’s nice enough.”

“Oh yes, I’m sure Dane would be willing to part with his precious son.” I roll my eyes. “Besides, it’s not going to happen.”

“It’s not up to him.” He won’t meet my eyes. “Flint is my friend and he makes his own choices. He likes you. He’d take good care of you. It wouldn’t be that awful right?”

It’s my turn to blush. “Whatever. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” Tomorrow. That’s when I’ll tell him about my plan. We can’t stay in Bridgelake much longer.

I close my eyes and let the sun warm my skin, enjoying the quiet companionship. Jace’s hand finds mine and I drift off to sleep.

CHAPTER TWO

The distant screech of a hawk and a tremble in the ground startle me awake. The sun is much lower in the sky and I must have slept for a few hours. I blink a few times to clear my eyes and stretch my arms over my head. Jace is still fast asleep beside me, softly snoring. I poke him with my finger, but he only hunches his shoulders and slumps further down. That boy can sleep through almost anything.

My mouth drops open and my breath catches in my throat when a silver ship comes into view over the crest of the trees. Obviously E’rikon, but what the hell are they doing way out here? For that matter, what are they doing outside of their city? I don’t know much about the aliens, but I do know they don’t belong out here. I scramble for my jeans and pull them on, slam my feet into my boots and run into the woods the ship has just passed over.

I’m running so fast I almost run right into the meadow where the ship has landed. I stumble over my feet stopping myself and shimmy up a tree. I should turn around, wake Jace and get out of there, but ever since the aliens showed up, I’ve always wanted to see one up close.

There’s a lot of rumors flying around about them, most probably untrue, but everyone agrees that they look remarkably like us and that, even though when they first showed up a few groups tried to engage them, they aren’t looking for a fight. They pretty much ignore us actually.Thank goodness, because although there don’t appear to be that many aliens, there aren’t many of us left either.

The war was bad enough,with fighting on every continent, but it was the biological weapons that did it. Each country had vaccines and cures for their own, but no one ever stopped to think about what would happen if the bugs mutated,  combined or whatever it was that happened to create something that killed over ninety percent of the world’s population.

It’s been thirty years since the Collapse and I’m almost glad that I’m too young to know what it was like before. Sounds to me like people were stupid and selfish. Not much different than now, but on a much larger scale.

Of course, now has it’s own dangers. Breeders, traveling bands of men who will pay a good price for a woman— or girl— of child bearing years. For some reason the plague was especially virulent in females and we’re a valuable commodity now, along with any children we’re able to bear. That’s the one good thing about Dane, he sends his soldiers out to keep them out of this area. Though, he’s got his own breeding program with his whole Promising thing, so I guess he’s just the lesser of two evils.

Hopefully, these particular aliens aren’t here to become a third evil.

My stomach churns as three male aliens exit the ship. They do look remarkably human-like in their proportions and their stature. All three are older, maybe around fifty if they were human, with various shades of wildly colored hair, at least by human standards. One has close cut silver hair with a slight gold tinge. And I’m not talking about a blond gone gray. His hair has the metallic shine of metal. The other two have slightly more normal looking hair, one with a bluish tint to his brown locks and the other with a more yellow hue.  If it wasn’t for the hair and the fact that I’d seen them disembark from an E’rikon ship, I could have easily mistaken them for human.

Their clothes, form fitting pants and some kind of fancy, high collared jacket covered in gold markings, are a boring gray. Knee high boots in the same shade cover their feet and they all wear a silver cuff on their right wrists. A uniform of some sort?

I’m about to fade into the trees and head back, my curiosity sated, when a fourth alien leaps down from the ship. He’s young, maybe close to my age, with angular lines making up his clean shaven face. He’s wearing darker clothing than the others and his jacket is plain. The pressed charcoal fabric hugs his frame, broad in the shoulders and tapering at the waist. He stands straight with his shoulders back, as if at attention, and scans the forest around him. The only thing even slightly mussed about him is his hair. It stands up in short curled tufts scattered over his head and framing his face, the shine of gold standing out among the bright green tips. He is beautiful.

The tallest alien, the one with the gold and silver hair, pushes the green-haired youth forward. I can’t make out their words, but the steady set of green hair’s shoulders isn’t enough to hide his shaking hands. His steps are steady and the other three follow behind him almost as if they’re stalking prey. The boy stops and the tall one pushes him again, but this time he doesn’t move forward. Instead he turns and faces the group behind him.

They appear to be arguing, one of them gesturing toward the ship and then throwing his hands up in the air. I lean out over the branch, hoping to hear their conversation and the branch I’m sitting on cracks. I scramble back toward the trunk and push my face into the rough bark, closing my eyes. They didn’t hear. They didn’t hear. I crack my eyes open and the three aliens have stilled and are looking into the woods— in my direction.

I gulp down the acid in my throat. The only weapon I have is a small knife in my boot. I could throw it, but that would only take out one… maybe. As far as I know, they aren’t very susceptible to human weapons. Any information I have at all is, at best, third or fourth hand, and that’s all from observation, not interaction. But they’ve never attacked us, never really had anything to do with us. These aliens aren’t a threat to me, right? I should climb down, calmly approach them and let them know I’m not a threat either. But something keeps me in that tree, gripping the trunk with white knuckles.

A whistle comes from the woods to the right of me and the sound of someone crashing through the underbrush reaches my ears. I see a form approaching the meadow. It’s Jace. I open my mouth to call out to him, to warn him but he looks directly at me and shakes his head, putting one finger over his mouth. He knows I’m there and he’s trying to draw their attention. Of the two of us, Jace is the more diplomatic one and in a normal interaction he could probably talk his way out of almost anything. But something about these three… I don’t know.

Wait a second. Three? Where did the green-haired alien boy go? My eyes dart around the clearing, but he’s nowhere. Maybe he ran off while the others were distracted.

The aliens move closer to the edge of the meadow where Jace is about to appear. They are silent, the one gesturing before stopping the others with a raised hand when they move forward.   As if they’re waiting in ambush. Why would they be doing that?

Jace does an exaggerated trip into the meadow, catching himself and then straightening to greet the aliens. “Hello,” he says.

The alien that stopped the others from moving into the woods steps forward. “Hello human,” he says. “What are you doing in these woods?”

“Hunting,” says Jace, holding up a  rabbit. “Gotta eat something.”

The alien looks at the rabbit with distaste, much the same look he gives my brother. “Are there any other humans in the area?”

“No,” says Jace. He’s too busy making eye contact with the speaking alien to notice the glance that passes between the other two.

“Wonderful,” says the alien. He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Raising a hand, he motion the others closer. They fan out on either side of the third, forming a semi-circle with Jace in the center.

Jace narrows his eyes. “What’s going on here
alien
?”

The alien says nothing, but the smile drops from his face as Jace takes a step backward. “Stay.”

“I’m not a dog,” says Jace.

The alien ignores his comment. “Do you have any weapons?”

Jace turns his head, looking at the other two aliens and takes another step backwards. “Yeah,” he says. “I’ve got this!” Jace swings the rabbit forward by its ears, sending it straight into the alien’s face and takes off into the woods before the other two have time to grab him. I let out the breath I didn’t even know I had been holding. Jace knows these woods almost better than I do. The aliens don’t stand a chance catching him.

After a moment of hesitation, the three aliens take off into the woods— a lot quicker than I expected them to. Jace led them off so I could get away, so why am I still sitting here staring into the clearing? I shake my head and climb out of the tree. My knees bend at the impact of jumping the last few feet and, when I straighten up again, the younger alien is standing in front of me. Why did he sneak off and why isn’t he with his buddies?

This close I can see his eyes more clearly. Black pupils ringed with a sliver of gold and blending into an emerald green on the outer edges, much like his hair. I’ve never seen anything like it. Now those eyes I could never mistake for human.

It takes a moment before I realize I’m gaping at him and move to back away. My foot hits a rock and I stumble, barely catching myself before I fall. I wince, but he hasn’t made a move to pursue me so I dash farther into the woods. In only three steps, I crash against a hard chest and bounce backward, this time landing on my butt on a cushion of pine needles.

Looking up, I’m face to face with the alien.
Damn. He moves fast.
I don’t have time to think anything else before he springs forward and grabs my wrist, pulling me to my feet. He takes a step away once I am standing and glares at me.

“Where are you going?” he asks.

I say the first thing that comes to my mind. “Away from you.” He almost laughs. I don’t know why he would find that so funny. It’s the truth. I narrow my eyes and return his glare, putting my hands on my hips. “What do you think you’re doing in my meadow?”

“Your meadow?” He raises an eyebrow.

“Yes. Now take your friends and leave.” The less he says, the more my hands sweat. I hope he can’t tell how nervous I actually am.

This time he chuckles. He mutters the word ‘friends’ under his breath and shakes his head to himself. “They are no friends of mine, little girl.”

Any fear I felt is replaced by a fast striking anger. “I’m not a little girl.” I move to turn around and walk away, but he grabs my arm again and I freeze in place. His fingers dig into my bicep and ice cold fear seems to spring from his grip, slowly working its way through my body. I have to remember to breathe. In. Out. In. Out.

The blood leaves my face and my head spins. My eyes involuntarily widen and as I work on controlling my breath and swallowing the lump climbing up my throat. The alien cocks his head to the side with a curious look on his face. Then his eyes widen and in another second, I hear it too. There’s someone coming this way, a group of someones by the sound of it. The alien puts one finger to his lips, moves his hand to my shoulder and shoves me down to the ground.

We have just enough time to slide down behind a bush when the three older aliens crash through the brush only feet from our location. The last one is dragging a struggling Jace by one arm, the other arm hanging limp at his side. Jace stumbles into a tree with his shoulder and cries out in pain. I try to catch his eye to let him know I’m there, but he just trips along behind the alien, not even pausing to look around.

When they reach the clearing, the lead alien shoves him from behind and Jace falls to his knees. “Now let’s try this again human,” he says, walking around my brother until he’s leering down at him. “Do you think you can cooperate this time?”

“I don’t have much of a choice now do I?”

The alien backhands Jace across the side of his face. “I don’t tolerate disrespect from vermin.”

Jace’s head rocks to the side and it’s as if someone has taken all the air from my lungs. I inch toward the clearing.

The alien tilts his head and narrows his eyes down at Jace. “What…?”

Jace doesn’t get up, but the alien pulls him to his feet by his shirt and tosses him to the other two aliens. “It seems we may have already found what we are looking for. Take him.”

“No!” I can’t stop it. The shout comes echoing out of my mouth and into the clearing. The aliens tense, instantly on alert.

Jace looks almost directly at me. “Jax run!”

I scramble backwards on my hands then spring to my feet and take off into the woods with tears running down my face. I don’t hear the aliens pursuing me, not that I would. After my experience with the younger alien, I know that if they want to catch me they will. I keep running anyway. The world slows down around me and my feet drag. My brain barely registers the surge of—something— behind me before I’m knocked forward into the dirt and blackness overtakes my vision.

Expected Release Date: March 2014

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