From a Distant Star (26 page)

But Scout’s outstretched arm stopped me. “What’s behind that wall?” he asked, pointing to the paneling.

“Nothing?” I said.

“No.” He strode across the room and pulled another light chain, making it easier to examine the empty bookcase. He sized it up from each side before grabbing one side and pulling it away from the wall. It swung forward like a door, and behind it was an actual door, solid metal from the looks of it. “Something is hiding back here.”

Scout turned the knob but it didn’t give, not even a fraction of an inch. He yanked on it, pulling back with all his weight, but nothing. Instead of getting impatient, like Lucas would have, Scout took a step back and ruminated on the situation, his fist to his chin. I recognized it as his thinking look. Finally, he ran his hand along the doorframe, looking for a way in, but it was solid metal, bolted to concrete.

“Did you see any keys upstairs?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “But Lacey had the key to get into the house. She left it on the kitchen table.”

Scout shook his head. “Lacey did not have this key. The opening is the wrong size.”

I remembered our getaway at Erickson Ryder. “Maybe I could shoot the lock mechanism to get it to open like I did before?”

He turned and gave me the kind of look you give little kids when they offer their allowance so the family can go to Disneyland. It was a sweet idea, but not practical. “Your gun did not open the door at Erickson Ryder,” he explained patiently. “The noise of the gun confused the girl and she opened the door with her buzzer.”

“I know,” I said. “But I didn’t aim well. It might have worked if I’d done it right.” What he’d said was true. Still, it always worked in movies and we didn’t have any other options.

“Shooting a gun in a small space might be dangerous,” he said, slowly. “But if you want to try it, we can do it.”

I nodded and held up a finger indicating he should wait, then bounded up the stairs to get the gun out of my backpack. When I came back down, he was right where I’d left him, standing directly in front of the door. When he saw me approach, he held his hand out. I gave him the gun, glad not to be the one doing the shooting.

“Put your fingers in your ears,” he said.

I did as instructed, and then took a few steps back, watching as he carefully turned the gun sideways before pulling the trigger. Even with my ears covered, the crack from the gunfire was deafening. The smell made me cough. I waved a hand in front of my mouth as Scout unsuccessfully tugged on the door again and again. Finally, I put my hand on his shoulder.

“Enough. It’s not going to open. I’m hungry. Let’s get something to eat and we can think about it and maybe come up with something else.”

I led the way upstairs, talking as we went. I tried to cheer him up, saying it was just as well. Once Christy came home, we’d find out more. “Why did you turn the gun sideways before you pulled the trigger?” I asked.

“Oh!” His face brightened. “I learned that from a movie. That is known as the kill shot.”

“I don’t think it’s any more accurate that way,” I said.

“I know, but it looks cooler.”

Scout was one stair below me and I stopped, forcing him to halt in his tracks. I gazed down at his earnest face and grinned. “Did you say it looks cooler?”

“Yes. Everyone thinks so.”

I reached down to muss his hair and he did nothing to stop me. “You have no idea how adorable you are right now. I wish I had my phone so I could record you saying that.” I brushed his hair back into place and continued up the stairs.

“I do not understand. What is adorable about me?”

“Everything,” I said without turning around.

In the kitchen I found a packaged pizza in the freezer and some bottles of soda in the fridge, and figured that would have to do for dinner. While I was rummaging around looking for a pizza cutter, Scout was double checking all the drawers for keys. He started in the kitchen and worked his way through all the other rooms. I could even hear him pulling things out of the bathroom drawers and cabinets, like a key would be hidden in Christy Carversen’s box of tampons. When he came back fifteen minutes later, his defeated look and empty hands told me he hadn’t had any luck. By this point, I’d already preheated the oven and popped the pizza onto the rack.

“If you want to be useful,” I said, “you could open up the blinds facing the back of the house. It’s really dark in here.”

A second later, he called out from the living room, “Emma, you are brilliant!”

“What? Did you find something?”

“Yes, I did. Come and see. You will not believe it.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

I joined him at the big window and let out a low whistle. Outside, there was a satellite dish mounted on a concrete patio slab, but it wasn’t like any satellite dish I’d ever seen. This one was enormous, at least twenty feet across. The space above it was open to the sky, but the yard was surrounded by a wooden fence too high for anyone to peek over. No one could see this thing except from inside the house. And from overhead too, of course. Maybe we’d found the right Christy Carversen after all.

“Whoa. That’s one big dish. I’d say she gets all the channels.”

Scout’s nose wrinkled in confusion. “I don’t think this is for the television, Emma,” he said. “I believe it sends out signals to space.”

I hugged Scout, who just stood there, calm as can be. “This is good news, Scout! This proves we’re in the right place. All we have to do is wait for Christy Carversen to help us send a message and you can go home.”
And I can get Lucas back,
I thought. “Pretty soon this will all be over and both of you will be where you belong.”

He frowned. “But what if she will not help us?”

“She has to!” I bounced around, doing my happy dance. “She
will
. How can she not? Look at this face!” I patted his cheek. “How could she resist?” Besides, she was on the outs with Erickson Ryder
and so were we. What was the saying? The enemy of my enemy is my friend?

Scout cleared his throat. “But if she does not help us, can I stay?”

“Stay?” My happy bubble burst as I realized what he was asking. “Stay inside Lucas, you mean?”

He nodded. “If we can get safely back to the Walker house, could you be happy with me? If I was here forever? I would need your help to get through school and to know what the Walker parents expect from me.”

“Oh, Scout . . .” I said. “It’s not going to come to that. We’ll get you back to your home planet, and if that doesn’t work, we can always find another body for you to go into. Someone who is dying, who wouldn’t have used it anyway.” Said like that, it sounded really creepy. It was a solution, not a very good one, but at least it was something.

“I don’t want to go into someone else,” he said sadly. “It would not be the same.”

“I know, but you can’t stay inside Lucas. I need him back.”

“So are you saying you don’t care about me? Me, Scout, not Lucas. Because I can feel that you do.” He tapped his chest with the flat of his hand. “I told you the truth that I was inside Lucas, but if I didn’t, you would never have known. You would have thought I was Lucas and you would have loved me then.”

“But I knew something was different. You weren’t like Lucas. I saw the change. I knew. I could tell.”

“You would have gotten used to me,” he said. “And I would have learned more of how to be Lucas and would have been better at it. After some time it would have been the same to you.”

“Oh, Scout,” I said. “It never would have been the same. I do love you, but just as a friend. My heart belongs to Lucas.”

“You could
learn
to love me.” Scout put his hands gently on my shoulders and leaned in so close our noses touched. He whispered,
“I know everything about you. If you would think carefully about the times you had with Lucas, I would know the memories too.”

I took a step back, shaking him off. “No. It wouldn’t be the same. Yes, I care about you, Scout, but you could be in his body for a hundred years and I’d never feel the same way about you as I do about Lucas.” I blurted out the words, but when I saw his hurt expression, I almost wished I could take it back. What made it worse was that the pain I saw was Scout’s, but it was written on Lucas’s face. It was true that the line between the two of them was beginning to blur for me, but I couldn’t deny that Lucas was my true love, my one and only. And I knew that Scout understood that, deep down. I gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. “I don’t know why we’re even talking about this. You’re going to go home soon and it’s all going to work out fine. Imagine how excited Regina is going to be when she finds out you’re still alive.”

“Yes,” he said with no emotion in his voice. “Regina will be surprised.”

In the kitchen, the timer on the stove dinged.

“Come on,” I said, pulling on his arm. “Let’s eat the pizza. You’ll feel better once you have something in your stomach.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

My biggest concern that night—besides getting shot by Erickson Ryder or caught by federal agents—was worrying about my mom back home. She wasn’t the kind of parent who invented things to stress about, but even the most laid-back mother couldn’t ignore her teenage daughter not calling or coming home by nightfall. I could only think she was imagining the worst. And I had no way to tell her otherwise. There wasn’t a landline in Christy Carversen’s place, which was a good thing because I knew I’d be tempted to call her, which might lead the agents straight to us.

I rationalized that this was the tradeoff: in exchange for a few frantic days, all of us—Eric, his parents, my mom, and me—would get Lucas back. I hated to put them all through grief, but there wasn’t any other way around it. In the meantime, at least Scout and I were safe enough for now. The only loose end I could think of was Lacey, the ditsy cat sitter. Hopefully, she was already camping with her friends.

Both Scout and I were exhausted, so after we cleaned up our plates and fed the cat, I suggested getting some sleep. “I know it’s early, but we’re both tired,” I said, like I was speaking to a child. Scout nodded wearily, then followed me into Christy’s bedroom.

“This side of the bed is mine, okay? There’s plenty of room for you on your side,” I said, positioning the pillows. Maybe tomorrow
I’d see if Christy Carversen had any clothes that would fit me while I washed my own, but for tonight, I was sleeping in what I had on.

I left the light on in the hallway and left the door open a crack. We hadn’t seen much of Boo the cat since we arrived, but I wasn’t going to worry about her. Cats pretty much took care of themselves.

I thought Scout understood what it meant to stay on his own side, but as I was drifting off to sleep, I felt him nestle up to my backside, spooning against me. “Don’t get any ideas,” I grumbled. I was so tired, it took everything I had to get the words out.

He didn’t answer, but now his arm was looped over me, pulling me into a warm hug. “Emma?” he whispered.

“Uh-huh?”

“What if Christy Carversen won’t help us?” he said. Here we went again.

“Then I will
make
her help us,” I said. “I’ve got a gun, remember?” I opened one eye halfway and could see the dark outline of the gun on the nightstand table. I yawned. “Now stop worrying and go to sleep.”

There was a long pause and then he said, “Emma?”

“What?”

“I don’t think Regina wants me back.”

The worry in his voice pulled me out of my drowsiness. “Why would you say that?”

“On my planet, we do not choose our match. It is chosen for us.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s just . . .” His voice faltered. “Regina hates me.”

I sat up. “She hates you?” I couldn’t believe my ears. He was the sweetest soul ever. Hating Scout would be like hating Dory from
Finding Nemo
. “She said that?”

“No, but I can tell what she feels about me and it’s not the same as what you feel for Lucas.”

“Well, everyone’s different,” I said, “but if she doesn’t love you, then she doesn’t deserve you.” I turned around to face him. “And
who knows, maybe her feelings will change in time and she’ll grow to love you.”

“Regina likes doing things the right way and I did not follow orders. I left my ship.” The anguish in his voice pierced through the darkness.

I reached out and stroked his head. “The orders were stupid. If you’d listened to them, you’d be dead like the others. Instead, you thought for yourself and were the only one who survived. That has to count for something.”

“Maybe.”

“Now go to sleep.” I settled back down, my head on the pillow.

“Okay.” He exhaled heavily. “But can I ask you just one more thing?”

A person would have to be pretty mean not to listen to just one more thing. “Sure, go ahead.”

“Why do you say you are less than three?”

“What?”

“Why do you say you are less than three?” he repeated.

“I’ve never said that, Scout.”

“Yes, you did.” His tone was adamant. “In your emails to Lucas, you would put less than three next to your name.”

“You read my emails?” I asked, irritated. Even given the circumstances, it seemed a violation of privacy.

“Yes, and they did not make sense. Why would you tell Lucas about the things you did together? If he was there, he would already know these things, wouldn’t he?” His voice was tentative.

I sighed. “Yes, he already knew about most of it, but that wasn’t the point. I wrote those emails so there would be a record for all time. So that our children and all the future generations to come would know about our love and what things were like for us when we were young.” Tears filled my eyes. “Just forget about it. It was stupid.”

“Why was it stupid?”

“Because there aren’t going to be any future generations.” I spoke quickly, wanting to get this over with. “The cancer treatment made Lucas sterile. He can’t have children.” I hoped this would end the conversation. “Good-night, Scout.”

There was a long silence and then, as if he just couldn’t help himself, Scout floated another question. “But why would you say you were less than three? It does not make sense. Your age is seventeen, and it is not the number of your house, or your phone number. I have been thinking very hard about it and I do not understand what it means.”