Chapter Twenty One – U is for UFO

You've probably seen or heard this story before. Maybe it was in a movie you saw or a book you read. Maybe someone told you about it. It's that moment when someone is at the height of pleasure and they call out someone's name.

But it's not the name of the person that they're with.

Much to the dismay of that person, of course.

We all feel bad for that person because it's obvious that the lover in question has feelings for another. We sympathize with their plight and feel their heartbreak. We try to rationalize that maybe they were drunk or some other less than desirable excuse. Because, let's be honest here, there really is no excuse when something like that happens.

There aren't enough apologies to make up for the obvious betrayal.

I have had many names in my life but Mark was never one of them.

She's crying and begging me not to leave. But what choice do I have? I'm not an idiot – and to hell with "forever". She's a fucking whore and I'm NEVER coming back to this stupid town.

Paradise?

What a fucking joke that is!

I'm trying to start the Ducati but she's clinging to me as she sobs. I agree with her. Yes, it was a mistake. And yes, she didn't exactly scream his name but going from "MMMMMaaa" to a quick "John" isn't even good enough acting for a school play.

You know what bothers me the most about the whole thing. It's the fact that despite being angry and taking a shot to my pride, I'm not the one crying. Does that mean I'm not in love with her the way I thought I was? It's like everything that we had or that I thought we had is completely expendable. I know that I can leave her and never look back. And if she would let go of the damn bike I would do just that.

But she's blocking my way and pleading for forgiveness.

For a minute I think about leaving the bike and running away. I know she'll never catch me and I could be three towns over in a half hour if I set my mind to it. But I can't give up the Ducati. It belongs to Six and some deeply buried guilt is rising from my conscience.

I tell her I need some space that I'll be back later.

She makes me swear I'll be back for dinner.

I promise.

It's a lie but at this point I'll say anything to get away from her. She kisses my cheek, leaving teary residue on my skin. I turn away and rev the bike's engine. My next stop will be Sam's house. I'll wait for him to get back and then we'll figure out how to find Six, Bernie Kosar and my chest.

In the meantime, I ride through winding back roads. I pass farms and cornfields. I hear voices in my head mostly simple musings of laid back thoughts. It's peaceful. The fuel tank is getting low and I turn into the woods near where Henri and I lived.

I stash the bike near the waterfall, covering it well with branches and brush. In case I need some leverage to negotiate with Six. I place the keys in the hollowed out trunk of a nearby tree. As I do my hand brushes against a set of tennis balls.

The ones Henri used for telekinesis drills.

With my mind I remove them from the tree. Juggling them without using my hands and then return them to their hiding place. As I do a heaviness falls over me. The realization that I am alone is becoming more and more apparent. In truth, I only have Sam now.

I'm about two blocks from his house when I spot the truck is in the driveway. I can also hear his stepfather screaming at him and the loud sobbing of his mother. I hear contact, then a cry of pain from Sam.

I race to the house and without a second thought I force open the front door. The three of them are in the kitchen. Sam's mother is cowered in the corner with a bloody lip. Sam is curled up in a ball on the floor. Blood is smeared along its tiled surface.

"Who the hell are you?" the man bellows at me.

They are all looking my way.

My eyes catch Sam's. Well, only one of his. The other is swollen shut and his nose is bleeding and broken. He looks away.

Anger fuels my actions. I charge forward, "Who the hell are you?" I ask the tall man as I stand chest to chest with him.

"Mind your Goddam business." He pushes me. "Get the hell of out of my house."

I can't. Sam is my friend and I will NOT let this happen to him.

"NO." I stand my ground.

He swings at me and misses.

When I swing back, I don't miss.

He's on the floor out cold.

Sam's mother runs past Sam to her husband's side, crying. She screams something at me and then yells for Sam to call 911. He reaches in his pocket and removes his phone. The display is shattered but he tries to dial anyway.

I rip the phone from his hand and slam it to the ground.

"Come on, Sam." I start to walk away. Sam doesn't follow me, tears run down his cheeks as he watches his mother placing the call from her own phone.

I know he feels what I felt earlier today. When someone you care about loves someone else more than you. We'll have that talk later but now all I do is place an arm around his shoulders. He understands.

Kneeling beside his stepfather he reaches into the man's jean pocket and removes the keys. He kisses his mother's forehead tells her that he loves her and then walks out of the room.

I follow.

We're in the truck driving. Sam changes his shirt and uses the bloodied one to clean up his face. We have no plan right now and I don't think either of us are in the right frame of mind to formulate one.

"How's Sarah?" Sam eventually asks.

"We broke up," I tell him.

"Can't say I'm surprised," my passenger muses.

"Why is that?" I look at him.

He looks back at me and raises his eyebrows. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe the fact you and Jane practically had sex the other night."

While there are plenty of things I could have said in response, I chose to say nothing. I realized that maybe I'd over-reacted about the whole Sarah-Mark situation. How could I be so judgmental of her – when I'd been doing almost the same thing?

"You hungry?" I ask.

"Yeah," Sam nods.

I change lanes and make a U-turn.

"Good," I reply. "Because Sarah is cooking dinner for us."

"Are you serious?" he stares at me. "I thought you said you guys broke up."

"We did," I nod. "But – what's that thing girls always need after a break up…"

"Ice cream?"

"No, it's ummm…" I couldn't think of it.

"Uh, I have no idea what you're talking about."

I sigh and think for a minute before I remember.

"Closure," I tell Sam.

"So we're having a closure dinner with Sarah?"

"Yeah, and maybe a threesome for desert," I joke.

We both laugh.

Knowing that the police will be looking for Sam's truck we park it at the high school behind a slew of construction vehicles. The walk to the Hart residence from school is about a mile. Even though Sam doesn't say anything, I can tell his injuries are bothering him. I'm sure when we get to the house, Sarah will take care of him.

I ring the doorbell and wait.

Sarah opens the door and I catch my breath. She's dressed up – really dressed up. She's in a sparkly red dress with matching shoes and her hair is swept up on the top of her head. Little golden coils cascade down framing her face.

She looks beautiful.

"Whoa," Sam gasps. I agree silently.

"Sam!" Sarah wraps her arms around him. "Are you alright?" she almost touches his nose with her hand but then decides not to and leaves some air between them.

"I'll be okay," he blushes.

"You should have seen him kick that Mog's ass," I tell Sarah.

Sam looks at me gratefully as he lets Sarah fuss over him. I follow behind them, glancing into the kitchen. She's made a mountain of pasta and some kind of chicken. There's garlic bread and salad and when I peek under a covered plate – I see a big heart-shaped cookie with the word "Forever" written across the center in icing.

For a minute, I reconsider ending things so abruptly.

I catch up with Sarah and Sam. They're in the living room on the couch. In front of them is the coffee table where there are candles burning, two place settings and a photo album.

She leaves to get another place setting for Sam.

"I should probably go," Sam whispers. "Let you guys…"

"No," I shake my head. "There's enough food in there for the entire senior class."

"John," Sam protests.

"Look, stay for dinner," I told him. "Afterward, I'll take Sarah for a walk so we can talk. You can hang out here."

Sarah returned with another plate and some flatware. Sam and I sat across from each other, letting her serve us dinner. Everything was good.

Sam and I told Sarah about our wild 'cross country' adventure. I was a little embarrassed when Sam went on and on about the amount of porn I watched but then I relayed the story of Sam and the softball girl at the mall. Sarah laughed until she got hiccups.

We were having a great time until the topic of Six came up.

"So where is she?" Sarah asked. "Should I pack up some food for her and BK?"

Sam ever so briefly told Sarah that it wouldn't be necessary, that it would be awhile before we caught up to Six.

"I don't understand," Sarah's eyes narrowed as she looked at me. "She has BK and your chest but you have no idea where she is."

"Yeah," I muttered.

"Why would she take your stuff and disappear like that?"

"I have no idea."

"Did you guys have a fight or something?" Sarah looked at me.

Sam made a choking sound and shoved a piece of garlic bread into his mouth. I did the same.

"John, what happened between you and Six?"

"I think it's time for me to go…," Sam made a hasty exit.

I chewed as slowly as I could but inevitably it was time to have the conversation I'd been trying to avoid. But there was no use trying to lie about it now.

"Sarah," I sighed not knowing where to begin but took her hand because it seemed like the right thing to do. "I'm sorry…,"

"OH MY GOD!" Sarah ripped her hand from my grasp. "You had sex with her!"

"NO!"

"Oh my God! I am so stupid!"

"Sarah!"

"Here I am, believing your alien "we love forever" bullshit – when the whole time you were lying…"

"I wasn't LYING. I NEVER lied to you."

"Yeah sure," Sarah picked up the empty plates. They clinked together loudly. "How many other girls fell for that line?"

"It's not a line," I followed her into the kitchen. "Henri told me that we'd only ever love one person…."

"So you're blaming this on Henri? That's low, John."

"What the hell, Sarah! Will you let me finish?"

"Like it matters…"

"When he told me that I truly believed that person was you…"

"Obviously it's not."

"Sarah, I'm sorry."

"Its fine," she rinsed off the dishes and began stacking them in the dishwasher. She seemed oddly calm.

I stiffened at the word 'fine'. A vague memory of Six saying the same thing briefly played through my mind. I cleared the thought away.

"So," I shoved my hands in the pockets of my burnt jeans focusing on Sarah and the current situation. "What happens now?"

"I don't know," Sarah shut the dishwasher and drummed her fingers on top of the counter.

"I don't know either."

We stood there silently for a few minutes.

"Is this it?" she finally asked. "Is this the last time I'll ever see you?"

I nodded.

She crossed her arms and her brow wrinkled. "I'm very mad at you right now."

"I know."

"But," she stepped forward bringing her body within inches of mine. "If this is my last chance to have alien sex…."

Her mouth met mine and I pulled her against me. I didn't necessarily want to have sex with her that last time but there was something about that red dress that reminded me of Six. It was a horribly wrong thing to do and if Lorien has a hell I am sure that I will end up there someday because the entire time I was with Sarah, I imagined she was Six.

Even afterward, when she lay curled in my arms I knew that I didn't love her at all the way I thought I had. But at the same time, I didn't regret anything that we'd done. It was almost as though I had to be with the wrong person to know who the right person was.

The sounds of the night called to me. The sweet nocturnal lullabies played in my head. I had no idea what I was hearing but it was contagious. I crept out of bed and leaned my elbows on the windowsill. The voices of night were better than the daytime voices. They were dark but melodious, like a symphony of stars.

I can't tell you how long I stood there listening. But I can tell you about the chill that went down my spine when everything went silent.

It was as though something killed the power. I waited a minute thinking it may come back. But somehow I know it wouldn't. Just like I knew there was something very, very wrong.

I looked at Sarah's sleeping figure. I didn't wake her up instead I dressed and went outside, looking for Sam. It's only in hindsight that I wish I hadn't broken his phone – or maybe that I thought far enough ahead to lend him mine – oh wait - I broke mine too.

I decided on taking a quick lap around the block to make sure things were okay before heading back to the truck. I was at the end of the block when I saw a cherry red Ducati leaning against a fence. Its headlight was broken and when I got closer I noticed both tires were flat and the seat was ripped open.

But it was unmistakably, Six's bike.

I froze in place and looked around.

From the shadows at least twenty Mogs approached, surrounding me in a circle.

Oh Fuck…

I reached for my amulet but my neck was bare. It got it the way so I'd taken it off when I was having sex…

"Hello there," the Mog's voice drifted through the stillness.

Without warning, my Lumen went off shooting bright bolts of energy into a few unlucky Mogs. They retaliated firing their own weapons back against me. Instinctively the Lumen became a force field, surrounding me completely in a blue dome.

I had no idea I could do that.

I also had no idea how long I could hold it.

A Mog stepped forward toward me. He was almost human-looking. He was dressed similar to the rest of the army but there were markings on his skin. He appeared to be someone of importance, someone in charge.

Even though my force field separated us and I noticed that he took great care not to stand too close.

I watched as he pulled back his trench coat revealing a few engraved medals. The design was of no significance to me but I tried to remember what they looked like anyway – just in case it was something meaningful.

He looked at me, waiting for a reaction but I displayed none. Then he moved the material a little further. There was my charm, hanging on his belt.

A sick feeling rose from my stomach. He'd been inside Sarah's house. In her bedroom…. I should have never left her…

"Where is she?" he pointed to the battered Ducati.

I didn't answer. Even if I knew where Six was I would never tell.

"Where is SHE?" he asked again this time firing into the force field. I felt the impact and realized I was weakening but I refused to give up.

He shouted in their alien language and the Mogs put down their weapons. In the distance was yet another Mog, this one taller and meaner looking than the rest. He was carrying something.

It was Sarah Hart.

The circle of Mogs opened enough to let him in. He dropped Sarah to the ground and she attempted to cover her nudity with the strip of bed sheet that had fallen with her.

The Mog growled deeply and I could clearly see his nostrils flare as he sniffed Sarah's body. She slapped at him and he laughed gripping her wrist. Cries of pain escaped her lips and I heard myself calling out her name.

Then he handed her over to one of the other Mogs as he approached me.

With a sick smile on his face he asked again, "Where is she?"

"I don't know."

He barked over his shoulder to his soldiers. I watched in horror as they held Sarah down. One of them pressed a knife against her leg, slicing through her skin. She screamed briefly, until the knife was pressed against her throat. Then she began to whimper.

"LET HER GO!" I screamed fueling the force field a little more. I was able to expand it, and then move with it. But the Mogs reacted quickly, pulling Sarah out of my reach and cutting her again.

I watched as they fileted open her skin, interrogating her, while firing weapons at me. I started to let down the force field so I could help Sarah. I couldn't stand watching her suffer because of me. But the moment the shield waivered, a laser blast went through grazing my side. I collapsed and so did the force field.

A half dozen Mogs swarmed me, pinning me down while three others pressed these pins into me. It was like being tasered. I could hear Sarah crying, begging them to stop.

They didn't.

I fought through the pain, wondering why they weren't just killing me. Perhaps this was revenge for the Mogs that Six and I had taken out at the concert. Or maybe they were sick bastards who enjoyed torturing their victims.

The Mog was looming over Sarah asking her about Six.

"Sarah, don't say anything…," I warned her.

"I can't watch you die, John."

"Sarah DON'T!"

Despite my protests, Sarah, through her sobs, relayed all the information Sam and I had given her that night. About where we'd been, my chest, Bernie Kosar and everything she knew about Six. Most importantly, she gave them our real numbers.

When she was done, the Mogs let her go. She ran to me, hugging me, telling me she loved me but I couldn't even look at her. I thought I felt betrayed when she called out Mark's name but that was nothing compared to this. I'm sure she thought she was helping me but she'd unintentionally betrayed my entire race. And worse, she put Sam in danger as well.

"Enough," the Mog commanded grabbing Sarah by the arm and lifting her off the ground. He threw her at least ten feet where she landed in a heap in the middle of the street. Then she scrambled to her feet and ran away as fast as she could without ever looking back.

Another command was given and the Mogs injected me with something. It didn't hurt but whatever it was made my arm go numb. The numbness traveled down to my hand. I knew my Lumen was deactivated. I tried my telekinesis but it waivered. Time seemed to be running out for me when I wasn't even able to move a rock.

The Mogs closed in and I waited for them to strike. In the distant sky, my planet was there – at least what was left of it. And if I died tonight - this was the closest I would ever get to seeing my home again.

THAT wasn't going to happen.

Tonight was not my night to die.

In a kamikaze move that would have made Henri doubt my sanity – I concentrated my remaining strength to move the air so forcefully that all the Mogs were knocked to the ground. Then forced myself to my feet and started running as fast as I could. I had to find Sam and we had to get the hell out of here.

I got to the school but at a much slower pace than I was used to. Whatever they had done to me was affecting my motor skills as well as my Legacies. I climbed over the safety fencing surrounding the construction area, getting a nice gash in my knee that bled through my jeans.

As I rounded the gymnasium looking for the truck, I nearly ran over the entire Paradise High School Senior class tailgating in what used to be the back parking lot.

Front and center was none other than everyone's favorite quarterback, Mark James.

He saw me with my ripped shirt and bloodied jeans and growled, "Oh hell no. Not again!" Then he reached by his side and removed a gun. "You stay the hell away from us."

It took a moment for the students to realize that Mark was pointing a gun at me. It took another moment for the Mogs to enter the scene. And when that happened, at least a dozen other classmates pulled out their own weapons.

"Mark, get down." I tackled him to the ground beneath me. He dropped his gun but at least he wasn't hit by a laser beam as the Mogs opened fire.

I watched as the red streaks rained through the air. Watched classmates fall to the ground. The attack was much worse the second time around. I felt sick again, knowing that I had led the Mogs here – not that I could have known about the gathering tonight – but it didn't matter to the kids who were wounded and bleeding and crying out for help.

Some of them weren't moving at all.

I feared the worst.

I ran with Mark and a few other jocks to safety behind a dump truck. Its steel body was able to withstand the attack and we were safe for the moment.

Mark sent a frantic text to his father.

Seconds later we heard sirens blare in the distance.

The Mogs were approaching and there wasn't enough ammunition to keep them away. There was widespread panic as kids got back into their cars – driving wildly to escape.

There were a few of us left but it wasn't enough to fight an alien army.

We moved from the safety of the dump truck to behind cement barriers stacked up against the building. Once we were there we realized we'd trapped ourselves. There was no way out except the way we came and that was where the Mogs were heading.

The sky darkened overhead. Black clouds swirled above us.

"Maybe they'll all get struck by lightning," one of the guys muttered trying to ease the tension. As soon as he said it, yellow bolts pulsed from one of the clouds as though it was alive.

Winds ripped through the night and cold raindrops started to fall.

The Mogs stopped and watched the sky too. Something unnatural was happening.

Then I heard a voice in my head. A single voice.

Friend

"Bernie Kosar?" I looked up into the sky as the clouds were starting to part. There was something hovering above us.

"Is that a fucking UFO?" someone screamed over the storm.

"They're gonna probe us!"

"You mean ANAL probes!"

"No probe is going up my ass! No fucking way!"

The flying object began to descend and its shape became clearer.

"Hold on…Is that…?"

"It can't be."

"I think it is, man."

"Holy Shit! It's a fucking dragon!"

Mark turned to me. "Are dragons from your planet or theirs?"

"Actually," I looked back at Mark. "I think that's my dog."

"Oh yeah," he pointed upward to a figure riding on the back of the dragon in between its beating wings. "So that must be your friend Jane."

I couldn't help smiling.

Six certainly knew how to make an entrance.