“Hey, I’m Cliff, what’s your name?” Cliff and the Rider both smiled at me, or well I guess they were sort of one in the same, but either way the thing was grinning at me.
“I’m P—Paige,” I stammered. And now I knew why my birth mother had used my real first name on my fake ID. With my nerves, I had started to say P.J., and Paige was an easy save after that.
“Well, Paige,” the thing said with a slight southern draw much like Laila’s. “What do you think of our little school? Prolly a ton different than what you’re used to, I bet.” An easy grin settled onto its face as he looked at me expectantly.
I swallowed at the huge lump that had taken up residence in my throat. First, I had to stop thinking of the Rider as an it. I had to think of Cliff as a normal, non-alien hosting, teenage boy. I tried to meet his eyes but cringed away at the duel imagery again. I was so screwed. “I . . . umm . . .” I stammered.
“Well, look at you, Cliff. You got Paige all flustered. She’s kind of shy, you know?” Laila interjected, obviously trying to save me from myself. If only she knew the real reason behind my nerves.
“No need to be shy around me,” Cliff responded directly to me. He then reached out and patted my bare arm with his hand, in what he had surely meant as a reassuring gesture. But let me assure you, there was nothing reassuring about it.
I stood abruptly, as if a current of electricity had been shot through my body, my chair toppling noisily to the floor. I’d been in close quarters with one of the Riders before, namely the Emo boy from hell when he had tried to kill me and then bludgeoned me with the back of his shot gun, but I’d never had skin to skin contact with one before. It was wrong, so very wrong. I began to shake as a vision threatened to force its way into me. What would happen if I passed out right here and now? Would any of the Riders be suspicious of me or would they merely think I was sick or something? Too late for the what if, I thought numbly as I crumpled to the floor.
I focused in on Cliff, who was standing in front of a bathroom mirror wearing nothing but a towel. His dark blonde hair appeared darker from his obviously recent shower, and moisture glistened on his well toned, and tanned body. If not for the duel imagery of the alien Rider inside of him, I might have taken the time to appreciate his vast hotness. As it was, I was fighting the urge to not dry heave at the wrongness of it all. I then noticed that Cliff was staring at himself with a slight grimace etched into his chiseled features. “What’s wrong with you?” he muttered to his own image. Although I was sure Cliff couldn’t see the Rider that was currently residing inside his body, the Rider frowned out from inside him, obviously not liking Cliff’s reaction to it. The Rider’s face then contorted into what could have passed for it being in pain. “Get out of my head,” Cliff grated between clenched teeth as he raised his hands to press against the side of his temples. “This isn’t who you are.” It was then I realized I was witnessing a battle of wills between Cliff and the Rider inside of him. Cliff began to shake, and a trickle of blood slowly slipped from one nostril and oozed down his face. “I said to get out,” he whispered, his voice affected by his effort. And then something wondrous happened. The Rider just kind of poured out of him, looking like not much more than smoke, and it reformed in the shape of the alien standing just behind Cliff. Unfortunately for Cliff, that was right about the time his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he collapsed to the ground with a loud thud. The Rider looked at him with rage and let out a silent scream before he just disappeared.
I gasped as I woke up in the confines of someone’s arms. Someone’s arms that weren’t Bryn or Khol’s. “Stop,” I croaked before my eyes even managed to flutter open. “Low blood sugar.”
“What?” Cliff’s slight southern drawl answered me in confusion.
My eyes popped open in alarm and I looked up into Cliff’s face, who still had a Rider staring back at me from inside of him. It was time for me to be confused myself. I saw the Rider leave his body. I saw it disappear. What did it mean that it was back? Why was I shown the vision if it didn’t mean anything? “I have low blood sugar. I’m fine. You can put me down,” I said managing to sound much more stable.
“You’re not fine. You passed out cold back there. I’m taking you to the nurse. She might need to call—”
“I said to put me down!” I demanded shrilly at the same time that I attempted to extradite myself from his arms. And for my effort I ended up back on the ground, on my ass. Lovely. My breath left me with a soft oof before I scrambled to my feet. I narrowed my eyes and glared at my would-be savior, and host to the Rider, Cliff, who was staring at me with surprise.
“How did you do that? You’re stronger than you look.”
Shit. Not good. “Adrenaline?” I said unsurely. “Yeah, adrenaline.” I repeated with more confidence. “I don’t like to be carried around like that, okay?” My mind skittered through the many times that both Bryn and Khol had both carried me in such a manner over the last year. A wave of homesickness washed over me as I longed for nothing more than to be back with them . . . where I belonged. And then a wave of nausea crashed over me and stole away any sentimental feelings I had been carrying as I proceeded to throw up right on Cliff’s shoes. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and met his blue eyes with horror. “I’m so sorry I—” I what? Apparently my morning sickness was back with a vengeance now that Khol wasn’t nearby to do his magic mojo to help me out. Any hope I had at blending in lay splattered all over Cliff’s ruined kicks. But surely my birth mother would have seen this and taken it into consideration. I mean . . . she’d been ready for everything else. Right?
“There you are.” A vaguely familiar female voice said with saccharine sweetness. Long feminine pale fingers, and yet strangely strong in their grip, wrapped around the bicep of my left arm and tugged me to a full upright position. I whirled my head around as fast as I could and met the dark eyes of probably the last person in the world I expected to see coming to my rescue . . . Nala. My lips opened and closed like a guppy . . . and a very surprised guppy at that. Nala and I had effectively been avoiding each other since . . . well, since we first met. She wanted Bryn, and Bryn was mine. At least he used to be. And wanting the same guy didn’t exactly produce warm and fuzzy friendship feelings between two people. What the hell?
“What are you doing here?” I said while trying to cover both my surprise and animosity toward her.
She gave me what best could be described as a patronizing older sister look. Loving, but with a touch of exasperation. “Your mom sent me over because she realized you forgot your medication. She was worried something like—well, exactly like—this would happen.”
I turned my head away from Cliff, who was now shaking his feet in attempt to dislodge my less than thoughtful gift from him. “Medication?” I mouthed.
Nala gave me a sharp look that was obviously telling me to go along with her story. Normally, just because of our mutual dislike for each other in our past, I wouldn’t have trusted her, but I had a sneaking suspicion because of her choice of words that my birth mother had been meddling from beyond the grave again. “Oh, right, I forgot.”
“What kind of medication?” Cliff asked with concern. “I mean—”