Page 26 of Taken By the Alien Killer
Her brows launch toward her hairline. “He told you?”
“No. I read it in the way he didn’t look at me.” I wrap my arms around my knees. “Sneed looked at me like I was a liability and I wanted to break his perfect teeth.”
“Get in line,” she says mildly. “Okay. Dread about the marriage. Quantify it for me.”
“Imagine walking into a lovely room,” I say, words tumbling now that the dam’s cracked. “There’s music and the chairs are comfortable and everyone is nice and they all believe you belong there. Now imagine the door shuts behind you and the handle disappears.”
“That’s terrible,” she says.
“It’s accurate.” I stare down at the garden and try to count the lanterns. “I don’t hate Kaspian. It would be easier if I did. He’s decent in ways that matter. But every time he smiles at me, something in me goes rigid and it takes an hour to breathe again. I don’t want to be a treaty in a dress.”
“Then don’t,” she says in a voice that makes it sound like skipping rope.
“How?” The word shreds at the edges. “How do I not, when every hallway in this house is a funnel and every plan has my name stamped on it? How do I look at my mother and tell her I won’t be the hinge that keeps the door from swinging shut on Chamberland? How do I write to the west farms and say sorry, no tariffs, I followed my heart into poverty?”
“Or,” she says, and the grin she gives me is wicked enough to be a crime, “hear me out: we bounce.”
I laugh because laughter is a reflex and I am built of reflexes. “We what?”
“Bounce. Exit. Peel out. We say ‘no thanks’ to our regularly scheduled martyrdom and go. A night. Two. A week. Long enough to remember where your body ends and the crest begins.”
“Cyn,” I whisper, even as something bright and terrible starts to lift inside my ribs. “We can’t.”
“We always could,” she says, and she takes the bottle back and swigs like it’s a handshake. “We’re clever. I’m immoral. The gang is bored. Sneed is allergic to improvisation. The blind spot at Gate Seven cycles every thirty-two minutes. Your personal skimmer is prettier and faster than sin. You know a starbase off the beaten path that makes a mean breakfast and doesn’t ask questions.”
“I’m supposed to—” I start, and she cuts me a look that is a dare and a prayer.
“You’re supposed to do what you’re told,” she says, sing-song and poisonous. “But you also get to be a person. A person who wants something and goes toward it. We don’t have to carve it into the moon, babe. We can just… go breathe. You’ll come back if you want to. If you don’t, we’ll send a postcard that says, ‘We regret everything and we had a great time.’”
“I can’t ask you to?—”
“You’re not,” she says. “I’m volunteering to be your worst idea.” She leans in. “Say yes.”
“I can’t,” I say again, and it’s weaker. “Mother will?—”
“Be mad and then forgive you,” CynJyn says. “Your dad will pretend to be mad and then sneak you a sandwich. Sneed will write a sonnet about risk management and sleep with his slate like a teddy bear. Kaspian will survive. Rayek will—” She stops, and the air goes delicate. “He’ll do what he always does.”
“Which is?” I ask, because I’m a masochist.
“Stand,” she says. “And breathe like it hurts.”
We’re quiet for a minute. Wind combs the cypress, soft hushes stacked on each other. Somewhere below, a guard shifts his weight and pretends he doesn’t see us because he likes his job. The bottle sits between us like a little lighthouse for sinners.
“What if this is stupid?” I ask. “What if we bounce and it doesn’t fix anything? What if I still have to marry him and I just come back with more mud on my name and less breath in my lungs?”
“Then you did something that belonged to you,” she says. “Even if it fixes nothing, it’s yours. That matters.”
“I hate when you’re wise,” I tell her.
“I hate when you need me to be,” she says, tapping the bottle’s rim against my knee. “Well? Do I acquire overnight bags? Do I text the gang that the saints require mischief?”
I stare at the stars just waking up over Chamberland, pricks of cold light that don’t care about my surname. The thought lands fully, becomes a shape I can step into. My pulse steadies like a decision is an organ that needed blood.
“I’m scared,” I say.
“Good,” she says. “Means you’re not boring.”
“I’m serious.”
