Page 25 of Taken By the Alien Killer
“Sweetheart, a word?” Dad calls from his study.
“I can’t, Father—schedule,” I say, walking backward with a smile that’s mostly enamel.
Kaspian intercepts me outside the gallery, hands in pockets, eyes kind. “A stroll? Ten minutes. No entourage. We’ll insult the statuary.”
“Rain check,” I murmur, stepping aside. “The statues are sensitive.”
Sneed materializes near the stair like a regret. “My Lady, a few adjustments to your itinerary?—”
“No,” I tell him, and the word tastes like copper. “I don’t need guiding tonight.”
He blinks once, slowly, like I’ve introduced a grammatical error into the house. “As you wish.”
By dusk I’ve outmaneuvered everyone and landed in my room with the door locked and the lights low. My reflectionlooks like I owe it money. My palms are flat on the cool glass of the window, breath fogging the pane as the last bands of color drain out of Akura’s sky. Everything in me wants to climb out of my skin and go somewhere loud enough to drown. Somewhere I can talk without the walls adding footnotes.
The door clicks. CynJyn slides in sideways with a bottle the color of hazard signage. “Emergency,” she announces, kicking it closed. “You’re spiraling.”
“I am not spiraling,” I say, sitting on the edge of the bed like a dignitary at a crime scene.
“You’re spiraling elegantly,” she amends, crossing the room in three big strides and thrusting the bottle into my hand. “Drink. It tastes like a glow stick and a bad decision had a baby.”
I take a swig. It tastes worse. “This is a war crime.”
“You love war crimes,” she says, flopping onto the rug and patting the floor beside her. “Down here. We’re doing Balcony Therapy in T-minus sixty seconds.”
“I don’t need therapy,” I tell her, even as I slide down and let my back hit the side of the bed.
“You need air and zero witnesses,” she says, hauling me up by the wrist. “Balcony. Now.”
We crawl out the window and onto the stone ledge like teenagers in a ballad, the wind lifting my hair and carrying away the last of the day’s perfume. The gardens below are a smear of blue shadow and silver paths. The city beyond throws its quiet little lights against the dark. CynJyn sits cross-legged and pushes the bottle into my hand again.
“Talk,” she says. “If you don’t, I’ll freestyle a poem about your feelings and you know I will rhyme ‘duty’ with ‘booty.’”
I snort and then my throat closes. “I can’t get a full breath in this place.”
“Start there,” she says softly. “Use words. Cheaper than arson.”
“I asked him a question,” I blurt, the night catching and amplifying the confession. “In the gardens. I asked what I did. And he—” I press my fingers to my eyes until I see bright shapes. “He looked at me like I was gravity and a cliff, and then Kaspian came around the corner like the universe obeyed Sneed’s clock.”
“Okay,” she says, voice low. “But the question isn’t what he did. What do you feel?”
“I don’t want to.” The wind is cool and my skin is hot; the contrast makes me dizzy. “It’s messy.”
“Messy is real,” she counters. “Real or bust, Star. Go.”
“I…” The word claws out of me. “I want him. I want him in the stupid, impossible way where just being in the same room is a whole-body ache. I want him when he says nothing. I want him when he yells. I want him when he’s counting exits and pretending he doesn’t notice my mouth. I want to be the thing he stops holding his breath for.”
CynJyn nods, eyes bright and kind. “And?”
“And I’m supposed to marry a man who built a tiny ocean in his hand for a tree and I still wanted—” I break, ugly, a laugh that’s not a laugh. “I wanted Rayek to be the one who thought of it. That’s unfair. That’s cruel.”
“It’s human,” she says. “More drink.”
I take another swallow and cough. “We almost—” The word is a hot coal. “We almost kissed. We did, once. In the hall. Not kissed. Almost. And then he—he moved like I was a weapon aimed at him. Like touching me would get him court-martialed and set the house on fire.”
“Would it?” CynJyn asks, tilting her head.
“Yes,” I say, and the yes tastes like wanting anyway. “And he filed for reassignment.”
