A snippet of conversation flashed in Cara’s mind: I’m here to make sure you don’t let that carajo sweet-talk you into getting back together. Tori had mentioned that right after the breakup. People always said there was a thin line between love and hate. Had Tori’s and Eric’s anger been attraction in disguise? Was all that talk about Jared simply a diversion? And if that was the case, had Eric ever loved her at all?
With the passing of each silent second, Cara’s confident mask evaporated, leaving behind tiny beads of sweat along her upper lip.
“How long?” Cara’s voice trembled, and she swallowed hard. “Even before the breakup?”
“No!” Eric held both palms forward. “She started coming to the meetings. We talked a lot, mostly about you, and it sorta . . .”
“Just happened,” Tori finished, staring at the floor.
“Unh-uh.” Cara shook her head, trying to clear it like an Etch a Sketch. “A zit just happens. My best friend going after my ex doesn’t just happen.”
“Why do you care?” Eric pointed over her shoulder to Aelyx. “You moved on first!”
“No, I didn’t. But that’s got nothing to do with it.”
The boy she’d once loved was gone, and she’d accepted it. But even if she didn’t want Eric back, he’d hurt her. He was the enemy, and the Universal Girl Code stipulated friends should band together in hating the bastard till death.
“This explains your little transformation.” Cara swept her hand, indicating Tori’s haircut and makeup, including Gritty in Pink. How many times had Tori kissed Eric with that stolen gloss on her lips? “And how you got over Jared so fast. Who are you?”
“This,” Tori said, tugging at her clothes, “had nothing to do with E.”
“Oh, gag! You’re calling him E now?”
“Maybe I just wanted someone to look at me the way Aelyx looks at you!”
“Right. Or maybe you—” A glint of gold on Tori’s low-cut blouse caught her eye, stopping Cara mid-rant. Angel wings. A slow fever scorched her face, her pulse thumping so hard she felt it in her earlobes.
All of HALO’s members—which now included Tori—would shun her. So, not only had Tori betrayed their trust, she was about to completely shut her out.
Love, laughter, six years of friendship. It was all over. Something sick and terrible swelled inside Cara’s chest, threatening to burst her apart. Tears prickled behind her eyes, and she knew she couldn’t hold it together much longer.
“Come on.” Tori’s own eyes welled with tears. “Don’t look at me like that. If you just quit the program, we can find a way to—”
“To what? Pick up where we left off?” No way in hell. Clearing the thickness in her throat, Cara scraped together just enough anger to strike back at them. “I hope he gives you whatever disease he picked up from the Ho Depot.”
The knife between her shoulder blades made it hard to turn around, but she did. And with her head held high, she strolled down the hall and out the front door as if her heart hadn’t just been pulverized, pureed, dumped onto the ground, and trampled by pigs. By the time she reached the parking lot, she was completely blinded by welling tears.
“Cah-ra!” Aelyx called out from behind, but she didn’t stop.
He caught her arm and gently turned her to face him. “I’m sorry. I knew this would happen.”
“What? You knew about Eric and Tori?” Was she the last to find out? Could this get any more embarrassing?
“Wait. They’re a couple?” He shook his blurry brown head. “I expected she’d end your friendship, but I never thought she’d partner with Eric.”
“I know, right?”
“Probably united by their hatred of me. I’m so sorry.”
“I just want to go home.”
He nodded and led her to the wooded path.
Aelyx rested his forehead against the wall he shared with Cara’s bedroom and cringed at her muffled sobs. During their walk home, he’d almost had her smiling again until they’d stepped through the back doorway and Eileen had said, “What’s wrong, Pepper? You look like you lost your best friend.” Cara had grieved without interruption ever since. Each sniffle and hitched breath stung his own lungs as if her pain were his own, but as much as he wanted to console her, he didn’t know how.
Frustration tightened his hands into fists. He was a L’eihr—cloned from the archives at the height of his species’ perfection. Surely he could think of a way to make Cara feel better.
Before he had a chance to brainstorm, his com-sphere called to him, emitting the low frequency only he could hear. He rushed to his dresser drawer, retrieved the device, and whispered his new passkey, “Elire.”
Syrine and Eron appeared before him, the former sitting with her legs tucked beneath her on a braided rug and the latter crouched inside a porcelain bathtub, as usual.
“My sh’alear is working!” Syrine said, laughing and extending her first two fingers in greeting. “Is yours?”
Aelyx nodded. After several trips into the forest to water and fertilize his seedling, he’d finally noticed the adjacent field of soybean crops beginning to wilt in response to the changes his native plant had enacted in the soil. When the familiar sensation of guilt overcame him, he consoled himself with the knowledge that the changes were only temporary. The crops would resume their regular activity after he uprooted the sh’alear and departed Earth. But it wouldn’t take long for humans to notice the anomalies and link them to the presence of each L’eihr exchange student, exactly as they’d intended.
“This year’s grapes should produce quite the unusual vintage,” Syrine gloated, looking happier than she had since leaving home.
Eron’s miniature forehead wrinkled. “What if we made a mistake?”
Aelyx felt his brows rise while Syrine recoiled as if she’d smelled something foul.
“Mistake?” she screeched. “Do you know what I discovered my human doing last night? Hiding a video camera in my bedroom! Fortunately, my electron-tracker alerted me before I’d removed any clothing. Or worse—contacted either of you.”
“Thank the gods,” Aelyx whispered. The lanky Frenchman truly did need a kick to the reproductive organs. Brandi Greene had continued pestering Aelyx with longing glances and secret smiles, but at least she didn’t invade his bedroom. Yet. “What changed your mind, Eron?”
“My family.” He caught himself and corrected, “My host family, I mean. They’ve made me one of their own. Especially the little one—Ming.”
“The one who wants to play alien invaders every day?” Aelyx asked.
A brilliant smile curved Eron’s mouth, so wide that it crinkled the skin around his eyes. “Families are only allowed one child here, but Ming was adopted after his parents died. He never thought he’d have a brother, but now he says he has one.” Eron shook his head as if in awe. “He calls me his brother.”
Aelyx didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t stop remembering how Cara had squared her shoulders and bravely confronted her peers earlier that day. She’d sacrificed every one of her relationships for him, and much like Eron’s host family, the Sweeneys had embraced Aelyx as their own. But that didn’t change the fact that the Sweeneys were the minority among humans.
“We can’t let our emotional attachments get in the way of what’s best for L’eihr,” he told his friend. “Analyze your water samples. Look at what humans have done to their own planet. Now imagine what an entire colony of them would do to ours.”
“I agree,” Syrine announced without a shadow of doubt in her voice. “Eron, you know I’ve always admired your empathy.” When he nodded in response, she softened her tone in comfort. “We’re not like the Elders. Our emotions are volatile, but never forget what humans are capable of. Even if one shows potential, never forget the species as a whole is inferior. Watch and see how they react to the sh’alear. They’re already starting to notice—I’ve been searching their online discussions. Some of them believe the crops are wilting near us because we’ve angered their God. Humans have waged wars over less than this.”