Chapter Eight
The floor seemed to drop from under Roar’s feet. Roar gave Charlie a long, hard stare. What had he overlooked? From day one, he had dismissed his guardian as a socially awkward genius. No one worth keeping track of, let alone wasting thoughts on. Charlie had played his role and convinced Roar and Petrus so well, they’d let their guard down. And now, Leda was in trouble.
He released a long, slow breath as he looked at Leda. She was scared, but he couldn’t see any blood or wounds. Fear he could deal with after he figured a way out of this mess. Preferably one where no one got hurt. Had he been watching and waiting for Roar to leave Leda’s place, then abducted her? White-hot fury prickled his skin at the thought of Charlie hiding somewhere outside of Leda’s house, watching him touch her, kiss her…
Roar faced his government-assigned guardian, trying to appear calm, even as a fresh surge of anger curled down his spine and settled in his gut. “Okay. Just let Leda go and we can talk.”
Charlie shook his head. “I think I’ll keep her right where she is.” He jammed the gun into her temple, making Leda squirm and whimper under his hand, tight over her mouth. “Insurance, just in case you get any ideas.”
Deliberately avoiding Leda’s panicked gaze, Roar shrugged and said, “Insurance against what?”
“Let’s cut the crap, all right? If you do as I ask, I’ll let Leda walk away with no memory of this little ordeal. Well, walk might be a bit of a stretch,” Charlie said, the words mocking.
“You’re an ass,” Roar snarled.
“Maybe. I’m also the one with a loaded gun pointed at your girlfriend’s brain.”
Roar wanted to punch a fist-sized hole right through Charlie’s smug face. Though he figured he had a good chance of getting Leda away from Charlie safely, he wasn’t about to take the risk where Leda was concerned. He didn’t yet know who Charlie was. Or what. “Tell me what you want.”
Charlie strung the moment out, making Roar squirm. Finally, he said, “It’s simple. Call your friends over. Say whatever you need to say to get them to cooperate.”
“What do you want with us?”
Charlie’s lips curled. “Please. Four aliens with interstellar technology came here in an escape pod? You guys have a ship somewhere, and the people I work with want it. While we’re at it, we might as well take the rest.”
Worry lodged in Roar’s chest. “The rest?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, kid. We want it all—all the information you four have. I bet your ship has data banks holding more than your brains, but if a bunch of brains is all we get, no worries.” Charlie’s smile churned an uneasy broth in Roar’s gut. “It’s not impossible to read what’s inside your minds. It just takes what I like to call ‘creative encouragement.’”
Roar shuddered at the underlying threat.
“So,” Charlie pressed, “do we have a deal? Leda’s life for the four of you?”
No contest.
He wasn’t sure exactly what Charlie knew for certain, so he might have the element of surprise on his side. If not, he could still dodge a bullet from a human-made gun.
“Okay,” Roar agreed.
“Good. Now get your friends here.”
Keeping his voice calm was impossible. “I’m going to reach into my pocket and pull out my phone.”
Charlie pressed the muzzle harder to Leda’s head. “Slowly. No tricks or the girl gets her brains spread across the room.”
Nodding, Roar fixed his eyes on Leda’s, hoping she understood the message he was trying to convey. Stay still. Don’t try anything. He slipped his right hand into his pocket and felt the unfamiliar rectangle of his Earth cell phone.
Deciding who to call was an easy choice. He dialed Petrus, knowing his friend would have no option but to show up. Keeping Charlie calm with a loaded weapon in his hand was Roar’s number one priority, and if he called Oline or Stein, they’d just piss him off, which, in turn, would only anger Charlie and further endanger Leda.
The ringing stopped, replaced by breathing, and Roar knew Petrus was listening. “Petrus, this is important. You need to come home. Now. And bring the others. All of them.” Breathing came down the line, then Roar’s phone beeped with a message that read: Okay.
The call ended. “They’ll be here soon.”
Charlie glanced down at Leda, the tip of his nose brushing the top of her head. “Good.”
Giving Charlie his attention, and stalling for time, Roar said, “I’m curious.”
Charlie lifted a brow, thick and brown, now wholly visible without the glasses. “About?”
“Why you waited so long. You could have done this on the way to Vardø.” Roar glanced at the gun.
“It wouldn’t have worked.”
“Why not?”
“First of all, we wanted to see if you had anything worth making the effort for. And you did well, trying to give us the kind of information you thought we couldn’t understand, but you made one vital error there—you didn’t consider that you’re not the only aliens to come to Earth. We’ve got connections with a number of different races here. They either work for us or against us. There’s no in-between. But we’ve been warned off your kind.”
Warned off Aurelites? By who? Sørby had mentioned other aliens, but not their races. Were there more Woede on Earth? Were the humans working with them?
Charlie’s grip tightened on Leda’s mouth, and she cried out under his palm. “And I needed leverage. I watched you. Saw how you reacted to Leda, and I knew you’d do whatever I asked if she was in danger. Kind of pathetic how you’re acting about this girl, though, since you barely know her.”
Fresh anger surged in Roar’s gut, and flames licked up at his heart. “We don’t want any humans hurt on our account.”
“Isn’t that sweet?” Charlie’s hate-filled glare moved down to Leda. “Or is there something you’re not telling me?”
“No, there’s nothing.” Roar edged a little closer while Charlie’s attention was on Leda. If this went downhill, he needed to be sure she wouldn’t get hurt. The closer he was to Charlie, the better the chances of that not happening. “We told the government everything.”
“Your planet exploded? Yeah, like we believed you guys. Do you know the kind of force necessary for something like that to occur?”
“Yeah, I do, and any idiot can search for videos on the internet that show it happening, during the death of a star. Is it that difficult to believe an advanced race could develop weapons strong enough to destroy an entire planet?”
“Don’t be smart with me, you little shit.” Charlie ground the muzzle of his gun into Leda’s temple and Roar’s stomach lurched. “Just get your friends here.”
“They’ll be here soon.” Roar flicked his gaze to Leda, telling her with his eyes to hold on for just a little longer.
After a tense couple of minutes where Roar struggled not to flash across the room and jam his fist into Charlie’s face every time he pressed his gun into Leda’s temple, the front door clicked open, and the sound of voices drifted up from the hall. The others would be up here soon, and Charlie would let Leda go back home. She could forget this happened. Just a few more seconds and she’d be out of danger.
All bets were off when it came to Charlie, though. Roar flexed his hands at his sides, his shoulders tensed in anticipation. Heavy thuds sounded on the stairs. Stein and his “ass kicking” boots. Backup had arrived. The steps came closer and he let out a breath, knowing the worst was over—
Leda twisted out from under Charlie’s arm and used her crutches to pivot out of his reach. Roar stood frozen as she lurched toward him. Her lips moved but he heard nothing when he saw Charlie raise the gun and take aim.
No!
Roar pushed Leda away. She stopped her fall with her crutches and turned her back to Roar. Charlie fired. The sound exploded in the room and in Roar’s mind as he waited for the pain.
Leda fell against Roar, momentary surprise flashing in her eyes, her lips parted. That’s when Roar knew he hadn’t been hit—but Leda had. Some emotion he couldn’t quite place banded tight around his chest.
Slamming footsteps echoed in his head but Roar focused on Leda. He moved faster than the speed of light and carried her to his bed where he laid her down gently. Behind him, Charlie was caught in the much slower loop of regular time. Roar wanted to check Leda’s wounds, but first, he had to deal with his guardian.
Racing to where Charlie stood, almost frozen in the mist of Roar’s swift movements, Roar yanked the gun from Charlie’s grip, turned the gun on his guardian, and emptied the mag between Charlie’s eyes in rapid succession.
Oline scrambled through the doorway, her boots clacking on the floor. “What the hell?”
“And I thought my guy would be the one to go psycho on us,” Stein said with a snicker.
Roar ignored them and rushed back to Leda’s side. He knew Leda been shot in the front somewhere—she’d spun around and was facing Charlie when he pulled the trigger. She needed a doctor. The closest hospital on the mainland, over an hour’s drive from Vardøya, would take him less than five seconds to get to on foot.
The flowers on her blouse were stained with blood.
Shit!
Wait. What the…?
Her blood was…not red, but silver. He swallowed his shock as Leda’s blood turned to sparkly ash before his eyes. It can’t be. He blinked and looked again. Silver blood, just like his. She wasn’t human.
Oline’s spicy perfume filled Roar’s nostrils. “Oh my God. She’s one of us.”
“Um, not to rush you or anything,” Stein said, “but she’s kind of bleeding, like, a lot.”
Roar’s heart tumbled into his stomach. Leda needed help, but he wasn’t about to turn one of his own kind over to the local doctors, or risk the Norwegian government thinking they had lied and had snuck a fifth of their kind into the country without authorization.
Then he remembered the day he’d met Arne. Leda’s grandmother had seen his Dravu and hadn’t been surprised by the markings. Maybe she knew about Leda, and that was the best place to go now. “I’m taking Leda back to her place.”
Oline nodded, her expression somehow collected. “Go. We’ll take care of—of clean-up here.”
Roar didn’t think twice. He gathered Leda’s lifeless body in his arms and hurtled down the stairs, through the door, and straight to Leda’s house. He burst through the Sørensen’s front door and into the kitchen, where Leda’s uncle stood rummaging in the fridge.
When Arne straightened, Roar saw the older man’s Dravu curling around his body, a highway of jade green with black birds darting around thick, regal vines. There were only a few people left on Aurelis with Dravu like Arne’s, and they were the Elders. Those markings had died out long ago, except for the ones who had been sent to Earth.
Arne wasn’t human.
Leda wasn’t human.
They were like him—Aurelites.
Arne dropped the carton he was holding. Milk puddled on the floor around his bare feet. He opened his mouth but shut it again when he saw Leda. Obviously he and Roar needed to talk, but not now.
In a gust of wind and blur of pale skin and red hair, Arne rushed to the table and cleared it in one sweep. “What did you do?”
“She got shot,” Roar said, his voice cracking.
Arne snatched Leda from his arms and laid her on the table and ripped her blouse open up to the bottom of her bra. Buttons flew and fell with clinks onto the floor. He didn’t look at Roar when he spoke. “By who?”
“My guardian. I didn’t know that Leda was—”
“Neither did she.” Arne called his mother and tore open drawers and cupboards, grabbing things at random, or so it seemed, though it looked like he knew what he was doing.
Arne carried his finds to the table in a tea towel. A scalpel, an unopened pack with a needle and thread, and sterile gauze, among a host of other items. “Fill the kettle to the top and boil it,” he barked at Roar.
A shiver slid up Roar’s spine as he did. He figured Arne was going to remove the bullet right here in the kitchen, and the water was to sterilize, so Roar searched the cupboards for a bowl. He found a large stainless steel one and washed it, then filled the bowl with the steaming water and brought it to Arne.
Fru Sørensen ran into the kitchen, her face pale, her jaw taut, wisps of white hair dancing behind after her. “How did I let this happen?” she muttered as she sliced the tattered remains of Leda’s shirt in two and separated the pieces from her abdomen. Silver blood had soaked into the bottom of her bra and glittered in the light. Roar looked away from Leda’s chest, knowing she’d thump him for staring.
“There’s no sense in worrying about that now,” said Arne. “We’re both at fault, as are her parents.” Arne raised his head, his beard scruffy, eyes wild. “Roar, I need a favor.”
Roar straightened, his muscles tense and ready. “Anything.”
“Run over to this address.” He jotted down the street name and house number and gave it to Roar. “It’s the only green house on the street. Wake the woman up and bring her here, fast. If she argues, tell her I need her, and she’ll comply.”
“What’s the woman’s name?”
“Rika Oortman.”
Roar nodded, taking one last look at Leda’s motionless body strewn out on the table, then he ran to the green house. He knocked but no one answered. Roar tested the front door—it was unlocked. With a deep breath, he stepped inside and began searching for Rika.
There were no personal touches in the seaside bungalow. No pictures hung on the walls or lined the mantle. Stacks of books, journals, and file folders scattered over every surface were the only signs of life in the house. Roar didn’t even see a used mug in the sink.
He turned down the long hallway, checking doors. A bathroom, an office, a spare room with nothing inside it. The last door he opened was a furnished bedroom. He heard a sliding sound and barely had a chance to duck before a blade whooshed by his head, embedding in the wall behind him.
A woman stood next to the bed. In her right hand she held a hunting knife, aimed at Roar. Even in the dark, Roar could see her expression was mutinous. This must be Rika.
“Who are you?” Rika asked in Norwegian.
Slow and deliberate, Roar showed her his empty palms. “I’m a friend of Arne Sørensen’s. He needs you.”
Something flashed in her eyes and she lowered the knife. “Then there’s an emergency?”
Roar swallowed past the ball of ice lodged in his throat. “Yeah.”
“Sorry about that.” She spared a brief glance at the knife in the wall, then Rika scrambled to the closet and shoved a thick sweater over her T-shirt. “Let’s go.”
Roar tossed the slight woman over one shoulder and ran her back to Arne’s house before she had a chance to argue. When he set her feet on the hardwood floors, Rika’s jaw hung slack and her hair stood on end. As she took in the scene, Leda on the table, Arne pressing down on her stomach, understanding melted the surprise on Rika’s face. She didn’t say anything about how quickly Roar had gotten here, or the markings on Arne’s bare chest. Didn’t ask what kind of twilight zone she’d been carried into. She just rolled up her sleeves and went to the sink.
Rika cleared her throat, and Roar heard a tremor. “What are we dealing with?”
“Gunshot wound to the abdomen,” Fru Sørensen said. “Looks close-range.”
“Exit wound?”
“None I can see.”
Roar stood dumbly by the wall, watching as Arne and Rika turned Leda onto one side and checked her back. Time stalled when he saw the indentation on Leda’s spine above her jeans, and a long, brownish scar running up her back. Her crutches. When she woke up, she would need them. They were back at his house. With Charlie’s body.
“I need more lights,” Rika said. Arne raced away, pages fixed to the fridge with magnets fluttered in his wake, and he returned a second later with a couple floor lamps missing their shades. “Perfect,” Rika said when they were plugged in and switched on. “You,” she said to Roar, “give me your belt.”
Confused, but prepared to do whatever they asked of him, Roar unhooked his belt and pulled it through the loops. Rika handed the belt to Arne, who cut a five-inch-long piece away. Arne placed the piece between Leda’s teeth and held it there. Roar understood then. They didn’t have medication that would knock Leda out and if she woke up, she might shatter her teeth, clenching them in pain. In the compound, the humans tried to put each of the four under a general anesthetic for some tests, but the drugs metabolized in their systems and wore off too quickly.
“I have thoriene,” Roar offered.
Leda’s grandmother narrowed her eyes. “You do? Where?”
“At my place.”
“Go get it,” she demanded.
Roar ran back home and gathered every syringe containing the drug he could find. Charlie’s body was gone, so were the casings. Just a puddle of blood mixed with ash remained. The next time he came home, it’d be cleaned up. All traces of what had happened would have vanished. He wasn’t sorry about Charlie, but the weight of Leda’s injuries weighed heavy on him, his muscles tense from the strain.
Back at Leda’s house, Roar set his stash on a chair next to Rika and stepped away again.
When she looked at him this time, Fru Sørensen’s anger had evaporated. “Thank you.”
He didn’t get a chance to reply. Rika and Fru Sørensen discussed dosage as Arne secured Leda’s arms and legs using rope. With nothing to do, Roar stared at Leda. He felt useless. This is all my fault.
“Roar,” Fru Sørensen said, “roll up your sleeve, please. I need to take some blood, for Leda. Just in case.”
He did as she asked, thinking the slight pinch of the needle on the inside of his elbow didn’t come close to the pain he deserved.
The surgery commenced in a blur, strange words he didn’t recognize dancing between the Sørensens and Rika. Roar kept vigil by Leda’s head. He ran a thumb over the goose egg on her brow, along the side of her nose, and cupped her cheek. A faint buzzing sensation rippled against his palm, but he didn’t dwell on it. He didn’t have the heart to analyze it, not when he didn’t know if he’d ever see Leda smile again.