The waiting totally blows.
“You’re begging to get jumped, aren’t you?” she says as I get closer.
At first I’m confused, but then I realize she’s nodding at my chest, where my name is embroidered in gold over the heart on my Paradise High varsity letter jacket.
“What, this?” I ask, flexing a little and puffing out my chest. “I’m just repping our school. Trying to bring a little bit of Paradise to hell. That way we all feel like we’re at home.”
She rolls her eyes.
“You’re provoking them.”
“They’re the least of my problems these days.”
“Whatever,” she says. “Your truck still smells like orange soda.”
Once we’re in my truck, Sarah leans her head against the passenger window and exhales a long breath, as if she’s been holding it in all day. She looks tired. Beautiful but tired.
“I got a new name in bio today,” she says, her eyes closed.
“Oh yeah?”
“‘Sarah Bleeding Heart.’ I was trying to explain that John wasn’t a terrorist who was going to try to blow up the White House. Like, literally, someone said that they heard he was going to blow up the White House.”
“Now who’s the one asking for it?”
She opens her eyes just enough to glare at me.
“I feel like all I do now is defend him, but everyone else refuses to listen. And every time I try to say something about how they don’t know the whole story, I lose a friend. Did you know that Emily thinks he kidnapped Sam? And I can’t even tell her that it’s not true. All I can say is that John wouldn’t do that, and then she looks at me like I’m part of some big plot to destroy America or something. Or worse, some lovesick loser who’s in denial.”
“Well, you’ve still got me,” I say reassuringly. “And I try to defend John whenever I can. Though I don’t think I’ve been very good at it. All the guys on the team think he was able to kick our asses after the hayride because he was trained as a special agent from Russia or something.”
“Thanks, Mark,” Sarah says. “I know I can count on you. It’s just . . .”
She opens her eyes and looks out the window as we speed past a few empty fields, never finishing her sentence.
“Just what?” I ask, even though I know what’s coming. I can feel the blood in my veins start to pump a little faster.
“Nothing.”
“What, Sarah?” I ask.
“I just wish John was here.” She gives me a sad smile. “To defend himself.”
Of course, what she really means is that she wishes John was here because she misses him. That it’s killing her not to know where he is or what he’s doing. For a moment, I feel like my old self again as my hands tighten around the steering wheel. I want to find John Smith and punch him square in the jaw, then keep hitting him until my knuckles bleed. I want to go straight into a rant about how if he really loved her, he wouldn’t have left her here to get picked on and laughed at. He would have manned up. Even if he did leave to find other aliens like him to save our planet. If I were in his shoes, I’d have figured out a way to keep Sarah and the world safe. And happy.
I can’t believe these are the types of conversations I have with myself on a daily basis now.
Being super pissed at John just makes me sound like the Mark that Sarah broke up with. So instead of talking shit about him, I swallow my anger and change the subject.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about what’s happened lately. How the FBI and stuff have been handling it. My dad says that it’s kind of weird how they’re keeping the local law enforcement in the dark. I mean, he’s the sheriff and they aren’t telling him anything about what’s going on.”
“Yeah, but isn’t that so they can keep a lid on the investigation?” Sarah asks. “That’s the FBI’s job, right?”
“My dad doesn’t think so. He should at least be kept in the loop, even if he can’t tell the rest of his officers about what’s happening. Plus, I know they found some bodies at the school and there was a lot of damage, but John got moved straight to the FBI’s most-wanted list. That seems a little extreme, right? Especially considering there’s no actual evidence that John was the one behind all this.”
“So, what? Do you think this is some kind of government conspiracy?” She sits up straighter in the passenger seat, leaning towards me.
“I just think maybe they know more about what’s going on with John’s people than they let on. I’m guessing some of the people in black suits are smart enough to realize that it wasn’t just some angry teenager who dug gigantic claw marks in the football field.”
“Jesus, Mark, you’re starting to sound like Sam,” she says. Then she shrugs a little. “But I guess he was right about some of that stuff we all thought was crazy. That would make sense. I mean, if stuff like this is happening across the country, someone is keeping track of it all, right? The FBI swooped in here really fast. Maybe they’re working with John’s . . . species?”
I can’t believe Sarah has fallen for someone who could be classified as another species.
“Or else they’re working with the monsters with all the glowing swords,” I say. “Which would mean we’ve just allowed the opposing team to set up shop in town.”
Sarah lets her head fall against the window again.
“Where are you, John?” she whispers, her breath fogging up the glass in front of her. “Where are you?”
We’re quiet for the rest of the drive home.
All I can think of is the promise I made to John when everything was going down at the school—that I would keep Sarah safe. Of course I’ll do that. I’d be doing it even if he hadn’t asked me to. But it makes my insides twist up to know that he’s the one she’s thinking of while I’m the one who’s actually looking out for her.
CHAPTER THREE
AFTER I DROP SARAH OFF AT HER HOUSE, I switch into detective mode.
It’s only been a little while since the whole “aliens are real and attacking your school” thing, but since then I’ve been trying to get as much information about what’s going on as possible. I’d like to say that it’s so that if Earth has to fight, I can take on the bad guys, but I think it’s mostly just because I need something to do. And because I like to be a person in the know. Preferably the one calling the shots. Maybe that’s what made me such a good quarterback. It’s surprisingly tough to go from being the guy who knows everything that’s going on in school to some dumb jock who didn’t even realize there was a war going on around him.
I can fix that. I just have to gather info.
Plus, it gives me something to talk to Sarah about other than whether or not I think John—and the others, but mostly just John—is okay or not. Even if it does make me sound a little like nutso Sam.
I take the long way home and drive past the high school. Not that I can get anywhere close to it—the authorities have the whole area around it pretty locked down. It isn’t the police who are running the show now. If so, I could probably camp out on the school lawn if I wanted to since my dad is the sheriff. No, there are people much higher up running the investigation. The FBI, and I’m guessing some other three-letter government groups that we civilians aren’t even supposed to know about. There are a lot of people in black suits walking around Paradise these days, which I guess makes sense since this is some grade-A Area 51 shit. Once I’d tried to sneak over to the school through the woods that border it, but they’ve got all the surrounding areas lit up with giant floodlights at night. I couldn’t get within a few yards of the edge of the trees or else someone might have seen me.