She brushed off her sweater and face. “What was that?”
Aelyx pulled the key fob gadget from his back pocket, the same one he’d used to break into the boxing gym. Holding it above his head, he shouted, “Elire,” and two quick beeps pierced the air. Then, like something out of a science fiction flick, a sleek, silvery spacecraft morphed into view, suspended above them like a massive, solidified water droplet. “Cloaking device,” Aelyx explained. “Hides it from view.”
“Nice getaway car.” She grinned at him. “Let’s go for a ride!”
Aelyx shook his head, shouting Cara’s nickname again, and they watched the craft disappear. “My shuttle is like the credit card your father gave you last week. Only for life-threatening emergencies. Syrine and Eron have one, too. Just in case.”
“Seriously? You’re gonna show me that and not take me up for a spin?”
“Yes.” Chuckling, he wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “If you’d ever experienced a dozen lashes with the iphet, you’d understand.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Once again, she’d forgotten that L’eihrs didn’t hand out detention for breaking the rules. And since free speech as she knew it in America didn’t seem to exist on L’eihr, his leaders might’ve forbidden him from discussing weapons. L’eihrs didn’t screw around, and she didn’t want him whipped with that electric thing. “I didn’t think about that when I asked about your weapons.”
“Would you really like to know?” he asked hesitantly. “I’ll tell you if you promise to keep it off the blog.”
“You sure? I don’t want you to do anything you’ll regret.”
“I trust you.”
“Okay, then.”
He took a deep breath and began. “Our weapons were once like yours—crude projectiles designed to damage the body. But over thousands of years, the weapons evolved as we did. They were designed to be more efficient and humane, and eventually one was created that killed without harming the body or the environment around the body.”
“How?”
“We call it iphal, which means ‘end.’ It delivers a concentrated pulse of energy that disrupts the heart’s rhythm. The victim dies instantly, without pain and with no destruction to the tissue. There are iphals used for individuals—during an execution, for example. And there are larger ones used to neutralize a more comprehensive force, like an opposing battalion.”
“Whoa,” she heard herself whisper. “You can take out whole squadrons with a burst of energy?” She hadn’t expected anything that frightening. No wonder the L’eihrs kept it a secret.
Aelyx seemed to sense her panic. “L’eihrs don’t attack without provocation. We really aren’t an aggressive people.”
Sure, but humans would go ballistic if they learned L’eihrs could end their lives with a simple heart-zapper. She couldn’t tell anyone, not even Mom or Dad.
Suddenly her mind shifted gears and she remembered Aelyx’s mysterious late-night trips into the woods. Everything clicked. “This is where you’ve been going—to check on your getaway car!”
His brows lowered in confusion at the abrupt change in their conversation.
“The times you snuck out of the house,” she explained. “You’ve been coming here.”
“Oh.” Slowly, understanding dawned across his face, followed by something that looked a lot like guilt. He hesitated long enough to tell her a lie would follow. “Yes, I had to make sure the cloaking device hadn’t . . . uh . . . disengaged.”
“You weren’t coming here?”
At that, his chin lifted. “I just told you I was.” Then he turned and stalked back the way they’d come.
Cara knew a guy on the defensive when she saw one. Eric used to do the same thing—deflect and get angry with her when he’d done something wrong. So what had Aelyx done wrong? And more importantly, how would his people punish him if they found out?
Chapter Seventeen
Cara hugged herself and shivered against the cold. Pulling her fluffy bathrobe collar around her neck, she shuffled her bare feet along the rough ground of the forest, wincing when an acorn pricked her heel. She knew this place—the kidney-shaped boulder and the blackened tree, split in half by lightning. Aelyx’s meeting point. What on earth was she doing there? In her bathrobe?
A loud buzzing vibrated the air above, and she lifted her face to the treetops expecting to see a mutant-sized hornets’ nest. Instead, Aelyx’s chrome shuttle morphed into view, drifting slowly to the ground like a fallen leaf. She backed away, fearing the heat from its thrusters, but nothing touched her skin aside from a light breeze. The shuttle doors melted open, and Aelyx smiled from inside, strapped into the pilot’s seat.
“Come away with me.” He extended his hand like Peter Pan, ready to fly her to Neverland.
Forever? The word didn’t leave her lips, but somehow Aelyx heard. Still grinning, he nodded and motioned for her to come closer.
But what about Mom and Dad? Before Aelyx could reply, the crunch of footsteps sounded from behind, and she whirled around to find Eric and Tori regarding her. They were younger versions of themselves: Eric, the string-bean boy with bad skin and an easy smile, and Tori, the tiny seventh-grade firecracker wearing her goalie uniform, brushing her lips with the end of her long braid. They both had tears in their eyes.
“Are you really gonna leave us here to die?” Tori asked.
To die? Cara didn’t understand.
Someone grabbed her arm and she gasped, jerking awake.
“You okay?” Aelyx leaned over his desk, tilting his head in concern.
“Yeah.” She sat up and rubbed her eyes while darting a glance at her math teacher, who had his back to her. She’d never fallen asleep in class before, and she hoped he hadn’t noticed.
When the bell rang, Cara thought about the dream while following Officer Blake to her locker. It didn’t take a shrink to figure out the symbolism. If she were honest with herself—and she usually tried to be—she had to admit her feelings for Aelyx had moved beyond friendship. She didn’t want him to leave without her. The only part of the dream that didn’t make sense was Tori and Eric. Why would they care if she left? They had each other now, the backstabbing bastards.
“You look a little pale,” Blake said, studying Cara as she entered her combination. “Well, paler than usual, anyway.”
“I’m just tired. Couldn’t sleep last night.” When she turned to check the clock at the other end of the hall, she noticed Tori—the new and “improved” version—staring at her from the entrance to the girls’ bathroom.
Tori’s red-stained lips pressed into an unforgiving line, her once-laughing eyes narrowed into slits. If looks could kill, Cara would be sporting a toe tag right about now. Tori jerked a thumb toward the bathroom in a rude summons, but Cara shook her head. She had no desire to be alone with her former best friend.
All traces of Tori had vanished, both inside and out, and Cara wondered what she was capable of these days. Delivering a threat for her Patriot friends? Cara didn’t want to believe it, but then again, she’d never expected Tori to hook up with Eric, either. Cara’s golden-haired ex strolled to Tori’s side, taking her hand and towing her in the other direction. As she catwalked out of sight in her high-heeled boots, Tori glanced over her shoulder and burned one more death glare into Cara’s forehead.
Just like that, Cara forgot her locker combination. She was vaguely aware of Aelyx speaking, but couldn’t interpret his words over the throbbing pulse in her ears. What was Tori’s problem? It wasn’t enough that she’d destroyed their friendship—she had to declare some lame girlie-war, too?