Under Different Stars (5 page)

“It’s me,” I mumble, remembering being processed back into the system after another failed foster home. Quickly, I stuff that memory back down, looking out the window as snow-covered cornfields slide past.

“HO! Did you see that?” Jax bursts out, scrambling in his seat for the remote to turn the volume up on the television. “That was—”

“Kyon!” Trey finishes for him, sitting forward in his seat, riveted to the screen.

“WHAT?” Wayra calls from the front, the car swaying a little.

“It
is
that knob knocker, Kyon!” Jax swears under his breath, as the newsreel replays me approaching the bar in Lumin before I begin backing up and running. Then it shows Kyon leaping over the bar to follow me. The footage from the camera behind the bar must’ve been turned over to the police and news agencies. The image freezes on Kyon’s face as the anchorman implores his viewers to report any information to the FBI or the Chicago Police Department.

“That means Kyon got away, doesn’t it?” I ask Jax, not taking my eyes off of Kyon’s shadowy image.

Both Jax and Trey turn and stare at me. “What happened?” Trey demands, his ice lying forgotten on the seat next to him. “Did he try to hurt you?” He quickly scans me for anything out of the ordinary. His concern throws me for a second.

My eyebrows pull together. “No, he was super nice—we’re besties now. In fact, Forester and Lecto are my new BFFs, too,” I reply, watching Trey’s face turn from concern to a scowl.

“They’re no friends of yours. You’re Rafe and they’re—” Trey grinds his teeth, looking very muscley all of a sudden.

“Knob knockers?” I ask, trying to fill in the blank he left with what I had heard earlier.

“Alameeda,” Trey hisses. Turning to Jax, he says, “Please refrain from teaching Kricket things she shouldn’t be learning.”

Jax frowns. “She should know a knob knocker when she sees one—it’s a life skill.”

“What exactly is a knob knocker?” I ask Jax, seeing that it’s really irritating Trey. “Shouldn’t your translator tell me what it is?”

“Kyon is a knob knocker,” Jax replies, a grin of approval on his lips. “And I’ll upgrade you with slang later.”

“No you won’t,” Trey says abruptly. “Kricket doesn’t need to know that.”

I scowl at Trey before turning to Jax. “I see. So a
knob knocker
,” I emphasize the words to irritate Trey, “is a liar who accosts women for his own gain?” I ask. Jax’s grin grows broader as he nods his head.

“What did Kyon say to you? What did he want?” Trey grasps me by my upper arm so that I’ll look at him.

I clamp my lips and Trey’s frown deepens. “You refuse to answer me?” he asks, his voice quiet—deadly. Goose bumps rise on my arms. I know that I’ve just crossed some invisible line with him; I know it because I’ve crossed them many times in the past and usually end up paying heavily for it. Stiffening, I straighten in my seat, bracing myself for the consequences that’ll probably be very painful.

“How far are we?” Trey barks out the question as he drops his hands from me.

“Fifteen—twenty fleats maximum, sir,” Wayra answers in a clipped tone of a military soldier.

“Any sign that we could’ve been followed?” Trey shoots back.

“No sign, sir.”

“I could’ve taken care of Kyon here,” Trey murmurs to himself, his hands balling into fists.

“I take it you two aren’t friends,” I surmise. Trey’s unfocused pupils contract as I interrupt his thoughts. When his eyes meet mine, it’s clear by his intense expression that he’d been plotting something deadly.

Jax laughs mirthlessly, “That’s an understatement—”

“No one answers her questions,” Trey orders, his stare pinning me to my seat. “Our information is more valuable to her than hers is to us.”

“Ooooh, I guess I’m going to have to put on my anthropologist’s hat for this one then.”

Trey ignores me, sitting back in his seat and watching the news on the television as it replays my flight from Kyon. The newscaster breaks in, announcing that there is new information to this story. An interview featuring Enrique with a microphone shoved near his mouth begins rolling. He’s describing the scene at the diner last night.

“It’s Enrique!” Jax grins, causing my head to snap in his direction. “Wayra, that reminds me—you still owe me 12 fardrooms for Enrique. He led us right to her.”

“I didn’t say he wouldn’t. I just didn’t think it’d be so fast,” Wayra counters over his shoulder.

“That wasn’t quick. If one more male asked me to dance last night, someone was getting hurt,” Jax mumbles.

“You must’ve looked at them too long,” I state absently, hearing Jax’s comment.

Both his eyebrows rise. “What?” he asks.

“Usually, a man will only ask you to dance when you’ve made the appropriate amount of eye contact,” I answer. “If you make eye contact for three seconds or longer with a man, you’ve basically invited him over.”

Trey and Jax both stare at me like I’ve unlocked a mystery. “But, then again,” I continue, eyeing them both, “I bet they’d ask you to dance even if you only look at them for a couple of seconds.”

“Why?” Jax asks in confusion.

“Err...you’re all uber-man types,” I falter. I’m not going to tell them that they’re eye candy.

A composite sketch of Jax flashes up on the screen with the name “Trey” written beneath it. Jax’s mouth drops because it looks almost exactly like him. “He only saw me for something like five or six seconds,” Jax says.

“And yet he managed to capture your smoldering eyes,” I reply grimly, trying to quell the tears forming in my eyes for what Enrique is doing to help me.

“You told Enrique about us?” Jax asks, and I shut up again, refusing to answer his question. Seeing the fear in my eyes, Jax says, “We’re not going to hurt him. We were just following him to find you. I promise, he can’t come where we’re going.”

“He’ll know that we have you now. He’ll follow us,” Trey says with satisfaction, looking at the television.

“Enrique?” I ask.

“No, the knob knocker,” Jax says absently. “Do we wait for him?”

“No, we finish our mission,” Trey says with a hint of reluctance in his tone. “If he manages to catch up though, then it’s really not our fault that we had to take him out, is it?” Trey smiles at Jax.

“No, we’d just be protecting our prisoner,” Jax grins back.

“We’re here,” Wayra announces, slowing the car in an empty parking lot in what looks like the middle of absolutely nowhere.

CHAPTER 5

THE POOL

Trey’s eyes lock with mine. There is anticipation in them and…happiness. I glance at the window, seeing that we’ve pulled up to some kind of defunct tourist attraction—a “mystery spot,” as the falling down billboard indicates. It’s also closed for the season.

Parking the car, Wayra unlocks the doors. Trey and Jax exit the limo, along with Wayra. I can hear them pulling things out of the trunk. Not moving from my seat, I wait, figuring that they want me to get out because they left all the doors open.

The smell of gasoline assails me as I watch Wayra through the window take a gas can and spill the liquid over the front seat.

“Kricket,” Trey says in a gentle voice, bending and peering at me from outside the car. “We’re going to burn the car. You might want to get out before we do that.”

Fear and confusion prey on me. I drop my chin, shaking my head.

“You want to stay in the car?” he asks, frowning.

I shake my head no again, looking at him.

“Listen, Kricket…I just want to take you home and finish my mission. If you comply with me, I promise that I won’t hurt you,” Trey says truthfully, extending his hand to me.

“Do I have a choice?” I ask, looking at his hand warily.

“No,” he replies. I deliberate for a few moments, but he’s right. There’s really no choice. The gasoline is making it almost impossible to breathe. Reluctantly, I ignore his hand and slide to the opposite side, getting out of the car and walking toward where Jax is standing by the hood.

Stuffing my hands under my armpits and feeling the frigid wind on my exposed arms, I hunch my shoulders against the cold. Trey carries a black duffle bag with him to my side. Standing close to me, his body heat radiates out, making me inch closer to him. He’s really tall; my head only reaches to his shoulder. He didn’t bring his coat with him. His dark gray, woolen dress pants and tailored, white button-down shirt would make him look corporate if the thick, black tattoos on the left side of his neck didn’t make him look like some kind of ancient gladiator.

“Why are we here?” I ask Trey, while Wayra lights a match, tossing it into the cab of the car. Flames burst to life as Trey grips my upper arm, ushering me up a wooden plank walkway, leading to another wooden causeway.

“Was that a question?” he asks, raising his brow. “That’s funny because I thought we agreed that neither of us were answering questions.” I grit my teeth while Trey pulls me along next to him through the deepening snowdrifts.

Approaching a gated wooden fence, secured by a padlock, Wayra jogs ahead. Pulling wire cutters from his duffel bag, Wayra easily removes the lock, pushing open the gate leading to a limestone cave. The sign outside the cave says that while surveying this spot years ago, workmen discovered that their equipment could not be leveled as the plum-bob needle seemed to always skew to the right. It was theorized that gravity does not affect this particular spot in the same way that it does elsewhere.

Fear threads through me. Until now, I’d been hoping that this was going to somehow turn out to be a horrendous reality show prank, but now, I’m beginning to fear that this is far from staged. Pausing for a moment, Trey, Jax and Wayra each don a headlamp before Trey grasps my arm again, leading me inside the cave.

Wayra jogs ahead of us, deeper into the winding, dark tunnel. When we finally catch up to him around several twists and turns, he’s securing climbing ropes over a sheer drop. He flashes his light over at the wall, saying, “Alameeda. They came through this way. The wackers didn’t even have the decency to use decomposing lines.” Pulling the Alameeda lines out of the wall, Trey lets them fall over the edge. I wait to hear them hit the ground, but I never hear a sound. Paling, I look at the inky darkness where the world seems to just fall away.

I begin to back up, putting my hand against the wall. Looking over my shoulder, I can’t see anything behind me. It’s completely dark. I won’t get very far without a flashlight or a headlamp. Turning back to them, I’m nearly blinded by their lights as they all focus on me. Putting up my arm to shield my eyes from the light, Trey says, “Kricket, come here.”

“I’m not going down there,” I reply quickly, taking another step back from them.

“Yes, you are. Come here now,” Trey orders sternly.

“I want to go home!” I demand, hearing my voice echo off the wall and feeling like I’m going to burst into tears, which is something I never do. I rarely allow anyone to see me cry, especially strangers.

“This is the way home,” Trey replies.

“NO! I want to go to MY home—Chicago,” I retort, taking another step back and feeling cold, rough stone against my fingertips.

“You cannot thrive under the wrong stars, Kricket,” Trey says in a calm, soothing voice. “The stars here are in opposition to you…can’t you feel it? You are foreign to them. You have no ancestry here—no lineage. Let us take you home.”

“Where I can ‘pay for my crimes?’” I ask with a scowl. “No thanks!” I turn and run blindly for a few steps before the light behind me tells me I’m caught. Trey picks me up, swinging me over his shoulder again. Carrying me over to the edge, he says, “We’re going down there, Kricket. I can tranquilize you and take you or you can come willingly, the choice is yours, but you will go.” He drops me from his shoulder and stands me in front of him, angling his light up so it isn’t shining in my eyes. “Which will it be?” he asks in a soft, deadly tone.

Knowing that if I’m tranquilized, there will be absolutely no chance of escape, I look at the ground, saying, “That’s not really a choice because the result is nearly the same,” I argue. Seeing Trey reach for his pocket, I straighten. “Okay, I’ll go!”

Wayra steps nearer to me and begins strapping me in a rock climber’s harness, securing a line to it. I’m sure he notices that my entire body is shaking, but I’m hoping he’s attributing it to the cold and not the fact that I’m completely terrified. “Have you rappelled before?” Wayra asks, his violet eyes looking concerned.

“Yeah…at the Y a couple of times,” I say, thinking of the comfortable, fake rock wall in the comfortable, urban environment.

“The Y?” His brow arches in question.

“Never mind,” I growl, shaking my head. “I just hold this line loosely, letting it slip through and the tension gathers here, right?”

Wayra gives me a crooked smile, saying, “That’s all there is to it. That…and stepping off the edge.”

“Is that all?” I ask.

Trey nods. “Jax will go first. Then you and I will follow. Wayra, you cover our eight,” Trey orders, stepping into his harness.

“You mean our six?” I ask, giving him a funny look.

“What?” Trey asks, not looking at me.

“Wouldn’t it be our six? If Wayra is covering our back…our rear, then it’s our six,” I say, seeing him grin. I blink, completely distracted by the way his eyes tilt up appealingly when he smiles.

“On a human clock, it would be six. On an Etharian timetable, it’s eight,” he answers, and my mind whirls with the implications of what he just said.

“Thirty-two? Are there thirty-two hours in a day there?” I ask, “Or, do you just have cycles of sixteen? Is it even hours? When you say eight, what do you mean?”

“Those sound like more questions,” Trey murmurs, looking at me smugly. “Did you misplace your anthropologist’s hat?”

Narrowing my eyes at him, he just grins wider. Jax cuts in then, saying, “See ya at the bottom. Baw-da-baw,” before he steps off the edge of the precipice.

“Can I at least ask what ‘Baw-da-baw’ means?” I ask Wayra, seeing him grinning, too.

“It’s military…Cavars say it before going into battle—it’s a war cry,” Wayra answers. I nod to him, feeling my knees go weak as Wayra guides me to the edge of the crag.

Placing my heels over the edge, my stomach twists as my hands tighten on the line strapped to my harness. Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath and say, “Well then…Baw-da-baw…”

Several moments pass before Trey clears his throat. I open my eyes again. “You can go now, Kricket,” Trey says, looking like he’s trying really hard not to smile.

“I know,” I shoot back. “I’m going.”

“Do you need me to hold you?” Trey asks with a smirk. Seeing that he’s making fun of me, my spine straightens.

“Baw-da-baw,” I bite out, stepping off the edge. I immediately begin to rocket towards the bottom of the abyss, because the ratchet on my harness is failing to tension the rope; it’s sliding through too quickly.

Sliding past Jax on his rope, I try desperately to hold onto my line as it pulls through my fingers, burning them through my gloves. Looking up, light blinds me again as Trey reaches out, clasping me to his huge body and squeezing out what little air is left in my lungs.

Wrapping my arms around his chest, I almost lose my grasp on him when the tension in his line catches, slowing us down. “Don’t let me go!” I try to scream, but it comes out as a raspy whisper.

“I won’t,” Trey promises in a low tone by my ear, squeezing me tighter. “Hold tight. We’re almost to the bottom.”

Hitting the ground softly at the bottom, Trey doesn’t let me go right away, but continues to hug me to him as I shake in his arms. “Are you hurt?” he asks as my cheek rests against his neck.

“That wasn’t supposed to happen, right?” I ask, hearing the quiver in my own voice.

“No,” he admits grimly, setting me on my feet and checking my harness. “You’re too light. This harness is designed for someone with more weight than you. I should’ve checked this myself. You need a smaller ratchet…how many turks do you weigh?” he asks me seriously.

“What’s a turk?” I ask, hearing Jax touch down behind us.

“You trying to stop her heart, sir?” Jax asks in a concerned tone, coming to me and checking me for injuries.

“No, she’s stopping mine,” Trey replies softly, watching Jax examine me.

Swatting Jax’s hands away, I say, “I’m fine. Just my hands hurt.”

Trey reaches out, taking my hands in his. He pulls off my gloves gingerly and turns my hands over. His face darkens at the bloody marks left on my palms from trying to hold the rope.

Wayra hits the ground hard behind us, releasing his clamps and running to me. He stops when he sees my hands. His mouth goes slack jaw for a moment and I try to pull my hands back from Trey to hide them. “I’m fine,” I murmur quickly, seeing the fierce look that Trey is giving Wayra.

“She probably weighs less than a hundred turks,” Trey says in a low voice, piercing Wayra with a scowl.

“I should’ve used a smaller ratchet. I’m sorry, Kricket,” Wayra says before grasping the back of his neck with his hand as he frowns grimly.

“Uhh...okay,” I say softly, not sure how to handle an apology from one of my kidnappers who almost accidently killed me, but is still going to hold me against my will. “Next time, we’ll make sure I weigh more turks,” I stutter, nodding my head like I’m not still freaking out inside over what just happened.

Jax begins to laugh beside me, while pulling a pouch out of his duffle bag. “We’ll make sure Wayra takes you to Sequelle’s with him. That ought to put some turks on you.” Opening the pouch, he extracts a spiky plant limb that looks like aloe. “Hold out your hands for me palms up,” he orders.

Doing as I’m told, I flinch when Jax squeezes the plant leaf over my palms, extracting its salve and rubbing it onto my cuts. “Ahh, that burns!” I hiss, pulling my hands back from him.

“Does it burn more or less than pepper spray?” he asks with an ironic twist of his lips.

“You
so
deserved that pepper spray, and if I had anymore of it, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now, Jax,” I reply, entirely unrepentant.

“You have the confidence of someone who is at least a couple of crikes old,” he says, pulling my hands back to him and beginning to wrap them in soft bandages.

“How much is a crike?” I ask, watching him.

Squinting his eyes, he says, “Hmmm, about fifty years or so.”

“How old are you?” I ask suspiciously, gauging him at around 23 or 24, like Trey and Wayra.

“Two crikes and a floan,” he replies casually. Hearing me choke, he looks up in question, “What?” he asks, not understanding why my eyes are so wide. If a crike is fifty years then he’s over a hundred years old. “Oh, you think I’m too young to have been given a mission like this one. Well, you wouldn’t be the first to say that,” he grins.

My eyes widen further. “How old are they?” I ask, nodding toward Trey and Wayra who are packing the harnesses back in their bags and winding up the lines.

Jax shrugs, “About the same as me…give or take a speck.”

“How long do you, I mean, do we live? On average?” I ask, feeling completely weirded out.

“A few jamarch
,
and before you ask, a jamarch is about a thousand years, give or take.”

“So, like three thousand years?” I ask, my mouth feeling really dry.

“More like four and sometimes, if you’re really lucky, five.”

“Five…thousand,” I breathe, having a “holy crap” moment. Jax nods, unwrapping the bandages he had just wrapped around my hands. Pulling them off, I have another freak out moment, seeing that my palms are almost completely healed.