CHAPTER 77

 

TARA

 

“Tara!” Amy squeaks, her voice high and unnatural as she weakly holds a broom handle like a saber.  I’d be concerned why she answers the door at three o-clock-ish in the morning with a broom handle, but I’ve lived in this apartment complex for two years, I know whenever you answer the door at this hour it isn’t good.  “What… is… going… on?”  Her eyes are darting from one alien to the other.

I hold up my hands.  “I know this looks scary.”

Her gaze locks on me, and her eyes are wild, and bloodshot, and I feel really bad that it’s so early in the morning but very few people are up and around yet so if we get a move on it, this is technically a perfect time for this to happen.  “Tara! I thought you were dead!  Everyone thinks you’re dead!  Where have you been?  Why did you just…”

I know my sister well enough to know that the way she’s scrutinizing me means she’s looking for evidence that I was either dragged off to an illegal sex ring in a place that has to use the special letters with the accent marks in order to spell it, or kept in an unplugged, hole-drilled freezer by a sadistic pervert.  Because she knows I’d never have left on my own.  Not for any reason.  But I don’t look like I just crawled out of someone’s basement well.  I look well fed (on bugs), well groomed (she’ll never guess I get my hair brushed by the seven foot tall alien behind me), and probably scared, and hopeful, and determined.

“I was taken.”  Liam Neeson’s voiceover starts in my head, and I shake myself to clear it.  “But I’m fine now, and I’m here for Meg and Mona.  And you, if you want to come with us.”

The broom clatters to the floor.  “You’re… you’re—did you go to the cops?  Who were you taken by?  Are they still after you?  Where are you taking Mona and Meg?  Do you think that’s safe?”  Her eyes stab behind me, just in case I wasn’t aware there are two hulking aliens standing at my back.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, and to be honest, I’m afraid you’ll think I’m crazy and you’ll try to stop me from taking Meg and Mona.  But I’m not crazy.  I promise, we’ll be safe, but we have to hurry. Let us in.”

“Hurry?”  She darts a look up behind me, and I know from the heat at my back that Brax doesn’t approve of the way Amy’s just latched onto my shirt.

Dimly, I register that Grake’s hand lands on my arm.

Brax’s tail swipes it off.

Annnnd my sister’s eyes follow that, her face going slack in horror as she stares at Brax’s incredibly, unnaturally ‘realistic’ tail.

She’s so stunned that we’re able to gently shoulder past her.

Door shut, standing just feet away from my goal, I’m almost vibrating.  But I’ve got to try to calm her down.  As I try to quickly think of the best way to do this, Grake rips his gaze away from my sister to give me a meaningful look.  “Remember when I told you there was nothing I wanted of yours in repayment, and you told me that in that case, you’d owe me a big favor?”

He slides a pointed glance at Amy once more, then fixes his pleading gaze on me.

A big favor.  I did tell him that—we did have a little conversation after I found out he paid to gift me the ability to understand and speak alien language.  Thanks to him, I was able to tell people I needed my kids.  But… “Are you asking for my sister?”

“Say what now?” Amy’s voice is pitched too high.

Grake smiles appreciatively.  “I would like to redeem that very big favor right now.  If you please.”

“When you cash in, you cash in,” I mutter, and Amy looks like she thinks we’re about to bind her and offer her up as a human sacrifice in a temple that uses those special accent letters to spell it too.  “Relax,” I say to her.  “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.  I really don’t know how much time we have here, so I’m going to ask you something crazy, and it’s your call if you choose to do it.”  I move in to hug her.  Even though she is clearly confused, bewildered, and scared, she still hugs me back.  “I’m taking the girls.  What you are looking at is exactly what it looks like, though I can see you’re struggling to believe this.”

“Believe it,” Grake says.  “Please.”

I continue over him.  “Anyway, you’re welcome to join us.”

“You just disappeared, and now you show up and… you’re taking the girls and leaving like, just like that—where?  And where did you go?  WHAT is going on?”

I can’t tell if shock is making it hard for her to keep up or… that’s probably exactly what’s causing her to repeat herself.  I try to reassure her in a way that will reach her.  “I love you.  I’ll miss you.  But besides you, now that I’ve got Megan and Simone back… there’s nothing here on Earth for me anymore.”

“On Earth?” she enunciates, bringing her fingers and thumbs together like she’s trying to grasp what I’m saying—and wants me to hear what I’m saying too.

I take a deep breath, and go for it.  “Amy, I was abducted by aliens.”

Dammit, that sounds just as insane as I was afraid it would.

Amy thinks so too.  Her eyes fill with tears and she bites her lips and I can tell she’s scared of me right now.  But then she looks between the guys and she starts to look overwhelmed too.  Like her brain is attempting to use fact (i.e., Aliens do not exist) to fight the visuals her eyes are reporting (i.e., That’s a damn big pair of not-aliens standing in the kitchen, huh).

I remember feeling overwhelmed like that.  Boy, do I.

“Do you need anything else?” Brax asks, his tail twitching in agitation as he holds two long claws out to spread the window blinds.  The beat up, half-broken window blinds.  Goodness’ sakes, this place is a dump.

I turn to her one last time.  “I saw the car on the way in.”

Woodenly, she replies, “It stopped running last week.  They’re going to tow it unless I can come up with the cash to get it fixed.  Mechanic said new engine block.”

We both wince.

“Yeah, well, I don’t know if you noticed, but even a new engine block can’t help you get around if you don’t have any tires.”

“Fuck.  Me,” she breathes, her head falling back on her shoulders.  “Those little assholes.  I saw them hanging around the car yesterday, and I just knew…”

I bring my hands together in a soft, single-clap.  “Okay then.  You need time to process, and I don’t have time to let you do that.  So this is going to sound nuts but I’m taking my girls, I’m leaving Earth, and if you want an opportunity to start your life over: no creepy landlord, no crappy boss, no hearing the cops bust up the weekly domestic disturbance through paper thin walls?  Come with us.”

She just widens her eyes at me.

I wave to Grake.  “This guy wants to take you.  He’s nice, I promise.  But you don’t have to go with him.  You can come along for just the kids and me, whatever you want.  I know this sounds crazy—”

She tilts her head, eyes going even wider.  “It sounds like a cult.”

To my shock, I laugh.  “It’s not.  I swear, it’s not.”

Her eyes dart from Grake to Brax then back to me, and to be fair, this does sound… pretty darn crazy.

Someone, probably drunk, starts banging on the window, laughing hysterically.

“Meet Nick,” she says tiredly.  “He’s our new neighbor, and he doesn’t know what ‘Not interested, go away’ really means.”

Brax doesn’t know that the twisty stick is supposed to open and close window blinds.  Even if he did know this, this one’s been broken since we moved in.

Instead, he grasps the top track, rips it down, and lets out a growl that shakes the window pane.  Backlit by the soft glow of the kitchen stove light, he must look just as scary as he actually is.

New neighbor Nick lets out a squeal somewhere between a Javelina pig and a vampire bat and lands on his ass.  This makes Amy smile for the first time since we got here, and the look she turns on Brax is appraising.

“That was so satisfying.  Thanks.”

Brax tilts his horns in acknowledgment.  Then his eyes catch on something behind us, and his ears go from being pinned back in irritation, to swiveled out and perked up.

I turn to see two little bodies peeking around the corner.  A little taller, features a little more refined, everything about them grown, from their size to the way their faces show even more awareness and comprehension.

Meg comes to me first, one sock on, one sock gone, her sleep shirt falling off her shoulder, and when she hesitantly asks, “Momma?” I don’t mean to start bawling.  But that’s exactly what I do at the sound of her little voice.  As she lets me reach for her, I see she still recognizes me.  I’ve missed so much, and my heart is breaking over lost moments, lost time.

But me crying like this isn’t conducive to a stress free, organized reunion and pick-up.  Me crying like this is, understandably, scaring the girls, which upsets me, which agitates Brax, which concerns Grake, who is massively crushing on my oblivious sister.

For now, I ignore everyone behind me though.

I’m on my knees, trying to coax Simone, my shy baby, to come out, when Meg points and says, “Eww, a roach, kill it!”

Not missing a beat, Brax takes it out by spitting a fireball.  *Pthhew.*  WHOOOSH.

Amy screams and now I think she’s starting to believe me.

Unexpectedly, Simone is fascinated enough by the fire breather behind me that she makes her way to me.  She lets me hug her, and I think she knows it's me, but it’s like she’s timid with me.

I suddenly have an even greater appreciation for the military men and women who deploy and come home to this bittersweet sort of reunion, where their babies don’t know them by the time they get back.

I turn her loose when she wants to go, but she shocks us all by walking right up to Brax and shyly saying, “Hi.”