Page 9 of Loved By the Alien King
Nera
Thetrackers…Mikewastracking me? With bird poop?
“Explain,” I demanded of Rain, whirling to face her again.
She turned and strode back to the couch to pace in front of it, which was something I always used to do. Tension lined her tear-streaked face as she fidgeted her hands together in jerky movements, such a natural show of stress that even I was fooled.
Rain had changed in the last ten years. She was more…human, which was something I wasn’t sure how to wrap my brain around because shewasn’thuman. At all.
“After…what happened,” she began, “but before you left, Mike inserted trackers into your ears while you slept. When Admiral Lenguin sent you here to Klio-3, I scrambled the trackers’ signals so Mike couldn’t find you.”
Wow, there was a lot to unpack in that statement, but I thought I’d start with the obvious. “Which means you were tracking me too.”
Rain stopped her pacing and looked at me, the constant tears, the obvious heartbreak on her features having zero effect on my malevolent soul.
“I always know where you are, Nera,” she said softly.
“How very creepy of you.”
“You always told me that if I have to, I could chase you around the universe to give you reminders. For example, it’s been 1,368 days since you last called your parents, so you might carve out some time—”
“Oh my god, stop. Just stop,” I snapped. “And get your damn static out of my head!”
As if a switch had been hit, the static immediately went silent. Sounds roared—the rustle of jungle leaves outside, the lapping ocean waves, my boots grinding the dust of centuries’ old stone beneath my heels.
I could hear again, only I wasn’t so sure I wanted to right now.
Rain sagged where she stood. “Without my interference, they’ll find you.”
Her voice sounded the same and yet different. Older, even though Faid don’t age. Wearier, even though Faid don’t tire. Still kind, even though she was a cold-blooded killer.
“Skip to why Mike is tracking me. To get his ship and his crew back?”
“No,” she said simply. “Because he knew you would become a problem.”
“Pretty sure he knew I was a problem from day one when I called him out in front of the entire military cafeteria for taking the last piece of chocolate cake when I clearly had my eye on it.”
“He knew you would become a problem when you found out the truth,” she clarified.
“Fine, Rain,” I said with a heavy sigh. “I’ll dance in a circular conversation with you. Find out what truth?”
She bowed her head over her lap. “Find out the truth about me and…what happened.”
Acid scorched over my tongue, burning my nose, eyes, and mind with pure bitterness. “Why can’t you just say it, Rain? Just admit that you murdered my…” It took several hard swallows for me to choke out, “My Lucy.”
A long silence followed while her name rang in the air between us. An echo of the past that cleaved me apart over and over again.
Finally, Rain looked up again, her pitiful tears never wavering. “That day when I began scaling the mountain—”
“I don’t want to hear about it,” I said, turning away.
“But you just said you wanted me to admit to it. I’m trying. That day… It ruined me,” she said softly.
“Yeah. Well,” I rasped out and then gestured to myself since clearly I was ruined too.
“If you don’t want to talk about it, but at the same time you do…” Question marks filled her voice as she peered at me through her long, wet lashes. “I can show you proof about Mike and the trackers.”
Her right eye twitched, same as it always did when she wanted to show me something on her holographic computer. The viewscreen and keyboard popped out of her eye, held in place with little orange holographic cubes that stemmed into her artificial retina.
