Page 5 of Loved By the Alien King
“Did you…bring that too?” I dry-heaved, my body on fire with the need to purge these hellish memories.
She swiftly looked away and sank back on her heels. “No,” she whispered.
I studied her then, like really studied her for the first time in over ten years. She looked the exact same except for the steady tears that fell from her wide, almost wild blue eyes. That was different, the look of them and the tears.
Faid don’t age, because why would they? They’re machines. Destructive, violent, evil machines, and this one wanted to talk to me about bird poop.
I had so many questions, so much hatred I wanted to shout at her, but my voice was drowning in too much sorrow to speak. So we stayed that way on the floor for quite some time, both of us crying, neither of us saying a word.
It was then that I heard the soft popping coming from the corner. Little blue bubbles rose up out of a computerized machine and instantly popped. That hadn’t been in my living room before, but I didn’t care enough about it to ask what it was doing here.
Finally, Rain broke the near silence again. “How’s Major?”
“Insane.” Even working out that single word between the knots constricting my throat was an effort.
Rain tipped her head back to look up through the hole in the ancient structure’s roof, and her tears fell harder. “Good. I mean, that’s normal for a cat, or so the internet says.”
And then it dawned on me that there was something else different about her.
“You don’t talk like a Faid anymore.”
She shook her head. “I fixed my processing speed so I could speak and blink faster. My creators could’ve done it so easily, but they were more concerned with other things.”
I pressed my cheek against the cold stone wall, never daring to keep my eyes off her. “Like turning you into cold-blooded killers.”
“It wasn’t my creators who did that. And it was just me who killed. Not any of the other Faid.”
“It’s so easy for you to lie right to my face, isn’t it?” I spat.
“I would never lie to you, Nera. Ever.” She gazed down at her lap, her never-ending tears still falling, as fake as the rest of her.
She didn’t have real human emotions, so why the hell was she crying? For my benefit? Or to make herself feel better?
“You believe what Space Fleet wants you to believe,” she was saying, “and it’s not your fault.”
“Yeah, I’m going to go now.” I couldn’t stay here and listen to this.
Maxx would be worried. He was probably waiting on the beach for me by now or had swum across the snake-infested water when he’d spied my boat at the bottom of the cliff.
I heaved an exhausted breath and used the crumbling stone wall for support, but my whole aching body refused to support my weight. My feet slid across the floor uselessly. Seeing Rain, all those memories, had done me in. So instead, I leaned my cheek against the wall again, soaking in its coolness while I gathered my strength.
“You can rest on the couch if you’d like.”
“Oh, can I, Rain? On my very own couch thatIpicked out?” I snapped, the very definition of bitter.
“Or just rest there,” she offered softly. “If… If you listen, I’ll talk. I can explain a few things to you if you’ll just listen.”
“You mean you’ll explain bird poop to me,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Well, yes.” She tipped her head to the side, not a single strand of her short blonde hair falling out of place. “As I said, there are no birds on this planet. That poop on your shoulder was a tracker.”
“A tracker.” I rolled my eyes to the heavens. “Sure.”
“Because the ones inside your ears aren’t working.”
“Aren’t working… What?”
“The static in your ears—”
