Jessie told me that we were far enough away from everything and that we would be able to rest here, at least for a while. Nonetheless, we did not let our guard down and took shifts patrolling the area around the cabin. Luckily, there were hundreds of acres of remote wooded land around her uncle’s property that was still intact because of a paper company’s holdings and a National Forest just a few miles down the road. After a couple of days of quiet came and went, we began to relax a little bit.

One evening while David was on his shift, I went up behind Jessie and began to kiss her neck. With everything that had happened recently, we had very little time alone with each other. Jessie sighed, turned around and began to kiss me. Of all of the ways to show affection that were different from the Karkastian way, this was one of my favorites. I put my arms around her as our tongues began to intertwine. Slowly, I slid her clothes off of her and began to kiss her from her neck down to her breasts. She pulled me down on the bed on top of her and we began to make love. It was fast and furious and I had to close my eyes to keep it from being cut short. Jessie looked so gorgeous with her eyes rolled back in her head and her large breasts bouncing up and down. Karkastians didn’t have breasts, and I had never realized what I was missing out on when I was with females of my own kind. As I watched her writhing with pleasure, I thought of how gorgeous she was. I knew that I was falling deeper in love with her, a feeling that I wasn’t aware of until I met her.

After we finished making love, we sat together in bed talking and enjoying the sounds of the evening in the forest coming from the open window in our bedroom.

“Do you think there will ever be a time when we will not be on the run?” Jessie asked me.

“Of course, I do. I know it’s hard to believe because we’ve pretty much been on the run since we met, but I still believe we will find a place for us,” I answered.

“’Somewhere, a place for us,’” she began to sing. “That’s an old song that my mother taught me from a very old musical called, West Side Story. It’s about two lovers who are from two groups that are considered enemies of each other,” she said.

“Sounds like us. What is a musical?” I inquired.

“It’s like a show where there are actors and actresses, but it is set to music. I would love to be able to take you to one someday, but since musicals take place in cities on Earth, that’s not likely to happen,” she said, sadly.

“I love the song you were singing. Would you sing some more of it?” I asked.

“Of course,” she said, taking my hand. She sang the entire song and I felt even more in love with her, listening to the sound of her singing voice, which was one of the most beautiful things I had ever heard. As I listened to the words, I felt as if they were about us, though I knew that they had been written long ago about fictional characters.

We fell asleep in each other’s arms soon after she finished singing, not worrying about the police or any of the others who wanted to find us. The next morning, we had a serious discussion with David about our next move.

“We have remained here long enough. We will need to leave soon before they find us,” David stated.

“They have already searched the area and haven’t found us. I say we can remain here for as long as we can. It’s relatively safe and there is plenty of wild game in the forest to keep us fed,” Jessie argued.

“I disagree. It’s only a matter of time before they find us here. We’re like sitting ducks. I say we find a town, steal a space cruiser and leave Earth again. We could head back to Padure again. Oh, how I miss the vast forests of Padure. This place reminds me a lot of it, but it isn’t safe for the long term,” David argued.

“I have to agree with David,” I stated. Jessie gave me a disappointed glance when I said this.

“This is my home, and it’s hard for me to give up on the idea that I could one day live here again,” Jessie said.

“I understand. I had to give up my home and my people if you remember. David too has given up his home planet and now considers another one to be his home. This is the way of things, and the sooner you resign yourself to this, the better off you’ll be,” I said, softly, holding her hand. I could tell that she agreed with me, but it was difficult for her. I comforted her the best I could. Soon, we had to turn our attention to other matters. We agreed that we would leave fairly soon, but in the meantime, we needed to replenish our food supplies, which were dwindling.

Jessie and I went into the surrounding forest to hunt for game. She said there were plenty of wild animals around, including strange creatures that she called deer and bears. She told me that bears were very large, hairy creatures with sharp teeth and claws. This made me nervous and made me think of the Maramoks back home, which were similar in description to bears.

Suddenly we heard some movement in the forest. We began to move in the direction of the sound. Suddenly, a man came out of the woods with a laser gun pointed at us. He had an outfit on that was green so he could blend in with the surrounding forest. I assumed it was to provide him with camouflage for hunting purposes.

“Freeze! Hold it right there!” he said. He was tall with dark hair and dark eyes.

“Please don’t shoot, we are just hunting,” Jessie pleaded.

“Hunting with a Karkastian? You are two of the fugitives they’ve been talking about on the news, aren’t you?” he said. “There’s no use lying about it because there aren’t any other Karkastians besides you, are there?” he said.

“Look, sir, we just want to live in peace and find some food. We don’t mean anyone or anything any harm,” I stated.

“None of that means anything to me. I just want the reward that they are offering. If I bring you in, I will receive fifty million dollars. That’s enough money for a country boy to live quite comfortably,” he answered.

When it became obvious that this human had no intention of letting us go, I used my telekinetic powers to take his gun from him.

“What the...?” He said as his gun slipped out of his hands and into my own. Jessie and I both pointed the guns at him and he began to take off running through the woods.

“Come on, after him! We can’t let him get away!” I shouted. We took off after him through the woods, not knowing exactly what direction that we were heading in. Finally, we saw a small cabin beside a stream in a tiny clearing just up ahead. The man ran inside the cabin and seconds later, he began to fire a laser gun at us through an open window. We took cover behind some trees and returned fire. This continued for some time without either of us being able to shoot the other.

“We have to kill him, unfortunately, or he will tell someone we’re out here, for sure!” I said as I continued to fire my gun at the man. The cabin was beginning to catch fire from all of the laser fire. As soon as I made this statement, we heard a cry come from some distance away, in the direction of Jessie’s uncle’s cabin.

“It’s David! It sounds like he’s in some trouble. We have to go and help him,” Jessie urged.

“What about him?” I asked, referring to the man in the cabin.

“We will have to let him go for now. We can’t just leave David to fend for himself,” she answered. Reluctantly, I agreed and we left the area and began to make our way back towards the cabin as quickly as we could. We heard another cry of distress a few seconds later.

As soon as we reached the clearing that the cabin was located in, we saw what was happening. David was up in a tree and a very large black bear was walking around the base of the tree looking up at him. It let out a loud growl when it saw us.

“Eh, you know that bears can climb trees, don’t you?” Jessie said to David.

“I know that, but I didn’t know what else to do. I sure can’t outrun a bear and my laser gun is inside the cabin. I couldn’t get past the bear to get to it,” he answered in a shaky voice.

I took aim at the bear and took a shot. It moved out of the way at the last minute and began to run into the forest. Jessie and I chased it, but it escaped into the trees. David climbed down and ran into the cabin. We couldn’t help but laugh at him when he emerged from the cabin holding the laser gun in front of him with his knees trembling.

“Don’t laugh at me. You’d be scared too if that huge bear had you cornered,” he said, with his face red with embarrassment.

“Sorry, David. Seriously, we are going to have to get out of here very soon. We encountered a hunter in the forest about two miles east of here. He has a cabin about another two miles from where we saw him. He recognized us from the news and tried to capture us, but Yahn took his laser gun from him. We tried our best to take care of the situation, but we heard you cry out and had to leave him. I have no doubt that he is probably heading to town to tell the authorities. We need to form a plan of action and then get out of here as quickly as we can,” Jessie stated.

“See? I told you this place wasn’t as safe as you thought. We need to head to town in the opposite direction from where you went hunting and get a space cruiser and leave this planet!” David said.

“We need to replenish ourselves with some food first. We didn’t manage to shoot anything before the hunter saw us,” I said in frustration.

“Well, I caught a couple of rabbits in some snares that I set outside of camp. That’s the good news. Let’s have a proper meal and then we can discuss our plan of action. After that, we need to head out of here as soon as we can. If I had my way, I would say that we should leave right now,” David emphasized.

“We can travel much faster once we have more energy,” Jessie argued, and I agreed. I agreed to watch the perimeter of the clearing while Jessie and David prepared the rabbits for our meal. The smell of the cooking meat was making my mouth water. My body was aching for a proper meal. Oh, how I longed for a batch of kerfol, the plant that I used to love so much on my home planet. I would have to settle for human food though.

“It’s ready,” Jessie said as she stuck her head out of the open window. I went inside and we ate until our stomachs were quite full.