7. Emma

Itook his hand.

I actually took this crazy guy's hand!

But that didn't mean I trusted him—I had seen him murder an innocent man in my bedroom, after all.

Or maybe not murdered if he was still alive.

I didn't know what to think.

If he could get me out of that police station without me catching a bullet, it had to be worth trying.

He led us down the hallway and I ducked my head as the officers fired their pistols at his ‘Shadow'.

We reached the door at the end and a buzzing red light blocked our exit.

Great. Now we were trapped like rats in a trap for the gunman to slay us.

I should have stayed in the interrogation room.

Then the stranger did an even weirder thing.

He talked to himself.

"Computer. Deactivate the backdoor. Yes, yes, I know I wouldn't be anywhere without you but I need you to quit wasting time and get on with it. Yes, I have her."

I stared at the stranger, my eyes bulging.

I pulled my hand away from his but he gripped me firmer.

The light on the lock blinked from red to green and he shoved the door open.

The cold air hit me full in the face.

It was refreshing, glorious—far better than the metallic tint of blood from inside the station.

The stranger ran to the nearest police cruiser.

"Do you know how to operate this transportation vehicle?"

"Uh, yeah. But we're not taking a police car, are we?"

"We are if you want to get out of here."

He released my hand and rounded the car to climb into the front passenger seat.

He didn't wait for me to follow him.

He took it as a given I would climb in the car with him.

But would I?

I glanced over my shoulder in the direction of the police station.

Where I thought I'd be safe.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

And if the cops couldn't protect me, who could?

Could this guy who'd put down his identical twin?

There were still so many questions buzzing through my mind, so many things I still didn't know the answer to.

But the guy sitting in the police cruiser knew them.

I needed a shove in the right direction to tell me what to do next.

It came in the form of something deep in my chest, something I had, until just a few days ago, been completely unaware of.

I'd been lying in bed, enjoying a nice lie-in on a Wednesday morning.

I'd worked till late the night before in the lab and my boss told me I could come into work later the following day.

There was little better than lying in bed knowing you should have been rushing to get to work but instead knew you could laze around for an extra hour.

I lay there and felt something blow against my face and the bare skin of my foot that protruded from the blanket.

The hairs stood up on my arms and legs and when I let out a breath, I felt the icy cold touch of frosty breath kiss me.

When I checked over my shoulder, scrubbing the window for a gap or condensation trickling down the glass…

I found nothing.

Well, that's not entirely true.

I felt like someone was staring at me.

But no one was there.

No one.

Even worse, I could have sworn there was more than one pair of eyes.

Or was it the same pair of eyes but looking at me from two different angles?

Curiouser and curiouser.

The moment passed and the eyes evaporated.

I never discovered what caused that sensation, or the icy chill that rode up my spine.

I never thought about that moment again.

Not until I saw Iav across the room at the club.

I felt that same shiver writhe up my spine, that sense that someone was looking at me.

In truth, I didn't need Olivia to tell me someone was staring at me.

I already knew someone was, and it was coming from that corner of the club, oddly at the same angle as the invisible eyes I felt that morning three days earlier in my bedroom.

I felt that same sensation later in the club.

While Iav got our drinks, I spotted someone turn away from the dance floor and approach the bar.

For a moment, I thought I recognized him, or at least knew him on some level, but I tore my eyes from him and focused on the man I had spontaneously fallen head over heels for.

Now I was at another crossroad.

Did I get in the police cruiser and let this adventure continue?

Or did I turn and run?

I let that strange throbbing in the center of my chest decide.

I ducked inside the cruiser.

Now I was an accessory to committing GTA by stealing a police officer's car from their own parking lot.

"Computer, go!" the stranger commanded.

When the car did nothing, he tried again.

"Computer, drive!" he said.

"Do you want me to drive?" I said.

The stranger's frown deepened.

"I think that's best. There appears to be an identification procedure I can't overcome."

He climbed out of the cruiser and I shimmied over into the driving seat.

I put the car into gear and applied the gas.

Now I wasn't only an accessory to GTA.

I was the chief component.

"Keep going down this road,"the stranger said.

Traffic was dead this time of night.

Nice to think the rest of the world was going about their business like a regular Saturday.

I wished I was among them.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on here?" I said.

"We're driving."

I gave him a flat look.

"I want to know everything that you and your twin have gotten me involved in."

"He's not my twin."

"Fine. So start with that. What's your real relationship and why are you trying to kill each other? And why am I caught between you?"

The stranger frowned.

"Maybe it's better if we begin with something simpler."

"Like what?"

He smiled and extended his hand to me.

"My name's Vai."

I didn't take his hand.

"And I'm Emma. Now can you tell me what's going on? The other guy's name is Iav. If he's not your twin, what is he? And how did he survive you shooting him in the chest?"

"Iav is… Now, how do I explain this? He's me but he's also not me. Does that make sense?"

I glanced at him and focused on the road ahead.

Maybe I could pull over at the next red light and get out, I thought.

"He's sort of my doppelganger," Vai went on. "He's me but he's not really me. And he wants to mate with you. And if he does… well, it won't end well for you."

"And why wouldn't it end well for me?" I said, recalling my earlier all-encompassing need to sleep with the guy.

"Because you don't really want to be with him," Vai said simply.

"For your information, I was more drawn to him than I have been to anyone else."

"That's because he spiked your drink."

I accidentally slammed my foot on the brakes, making us jolt forward violently in our seats.

"What?" I said, regaining control. "What do you mean he spiked my drink?"

"He put something in it to make you think you wanted to sleep with him."

"That's not how spiked drinks work."

"It depends on what they put in your drink."

"So what did he put in my drink?"

"An herb native to his homeworld."

Homeworld.

Did he mean home country?

Native land?

Homeworld made it sound like he wasn't from this planet…

I filed it away for later.

"Okay," I said. "Let's say I believe he spiked my drink…"

And it certainly explained a lot, now I came to think about it.

Each time I was suddenly turned on by Iav it'd been shortly after I drank something—something he had given me too, I might add.

"Why would he do that?" I said. "And why would he want to… mate with me?"

Vai looked over at me and his eyes drifted around my face.

Despite myself, I felt the blush rise to my cheeks.

Oh.

"Take the next left," Vai said.

I did as he asked and ducked my head when a caravan of police cars screamed down the road, heading back in the direction we'd just come from.

Reinforcements for the attack taking place at the precinct.

The situation I found myself in suddenly hit me full in the chest.

I'd witnessed a murder, then a dozen others as the man I thought was dead actually wasn't and tore into the local police force at the station.

Now I'd taken it into my head to trust a known murderer.

He'd convinced me to drive this cruiser to a place outside the city.

I sniffed, suddenly overcome by emotion, the shock and desperation of the evening hitting me full in the chest and all at once.

"You're going to kill me, aren't you?"

"Kill you? Where did you get that idea?"

"You came to my room and shot Iav. You would have killed me too if I didn't escape."

Vai reached out and placed a hand on the divider between us.

He wanted to touch me, I realized, but must have noticed my fragile emotional state.

I wiped my eyes on my sleeves without removing my hands from the steering wheel.

"I knew I wouldn't kill him," Vai said.

"I saw you put three bullets in him."

"They aren't bullets—"

"Three bolts of light then. Whatever they are, you put them in him."

"Yes, but they didn't kill him."

I cocked my head at him.

"They didn't? But I saw him fall off the bed. There was blood everywhere."

"Was there blood?" he said. "Think back carefully. Did you see any?"

I thought for a moment and blinked in surprise.

"But I thought… I swear there was blood! There was. I'm sure of it!"

Vai shook his head.

"Plasma cauterizes the wound before the blood can escape. I shot him but there wasn't any blood."

"Okay. So maybe I was wrong about the blood. But I'm still right about you shooting him!"

He nodded.

"Yes. But there's something about us I haven't told you yet and you're not going to understand everything unless I tell you."

He took a deep breath and turned to look at me.

"You see, neither of us is from here."

I snorted.

"I guessed that much, funnily enough."

"You did? It must have something to do with the bond."

"The bond?"

"It will be a new sensation, one that links you and him. I don't know. There haven't been any accounts of a M'rora mating with a human."

M'rora? Human? Homeworld?

I was getting a deep and sickening sensation in the pit of my stomach.

"When you say you're not from here, what did you mean?"

"Pull over," Vai said. "We're almost there."

I did.

My hands were shaking.

The keys rattled in the ignition.

Vai peered at me closely and came to a decision.

"All right," he said. "I'll tell you."

He took another deep breath.

"I'm from the planet M'yaw, home to the M'rora. We are a unique species in that when we're born, we're not born with a light and dark side. We, the M'rora, are born in the light and educated in all things good and just. The Aror'm are our dark counterparts. Identical to us in every way but with a dark and sinister twist. Most species have both contained within themselves, a light and a dark side, but for us, we are born separate. We in this universe, the Aror'm in the Shadow Realm, a universe that exists in parallel to ours."

I listened to every word he said and understood them individually but when put together, I couldn't make head nor tail of any of it.

"What are you saying?" I said. "That you're a… a…"

The word was right there on the tip of my tongue but I couldn't bring myself to say it.

"An alien?" I said finally.

"To you, yes, we are aliens. Just as you are an alien to me."

I just stared at him.

"You're insane. Is that what this whole thing's been about? Some kind of joke you're playing on me?"

It was one damn sophisticated joke if it was.

But reality shows had a lot of money they could blow on things like this.

Maybe that was all it was.

Just a big elaborate prank.

I wished it was.

I wished it wasn't real.

"Maybe I should show you," Vai said. "Actions speak much louder than words."

He grasped a handful of his cheek and yanked at it.

The skin stretched and for a moment I thought he was going to tear his whole face off.

"Sick!" I screamed, covering my face with my hands and peering at him through my fingers.

"No, really, I can show you," Vai said, still working at his skin. "Just give me a second…"

This was insane.

This was beyond insane.

I felt sick just watching him.

And the tearing sound…

Oh God. I'm going to be sick.

I couldn't take it anymore.

"I… I… have to go," I said, dry retching. "I can't stay here."

"No, wait."

I pulled on the door lever and fell out.

I got to my feet and slipped.

I didn't stop and just kept running.

The offside passenger door opened and Vai called after me.

"Emma!" he yelled. "Wait!"

There would be no waiting.

I couldn't stand idly by while he tore his face off.

If he was willing to do that to himself, what would he do to me?

Murder me while my back was turned?

He was stark raving mad.

He couldn't be an alien.

I needed to hole up somewhere.

If I could get free of this crazy guy and his buddy, I could start again somewhere else.

I could live a normal life.

I could return after the police caught them and sent them to jail for a decade or two.

I came to a broad open patch of brownland.

Aged and archaic machines lay stooped in rusted poses and grass and other wildlife had long since begun to reclaim what rightfully belonged to it.

A dilapidated building with a large hole in its roof yawned at me with three doors hanging open on rusty hinges.

A fox blinked in the moonlight at me, turned, and ran.

"Emma," Vai said, catching up to me. "Wait. I'm sorry if I scared you—"

I spun on him.

"You didn't scare me," I snapped. "You terrified me! You tell me you're an alien and you expect me to shrug my shoulders and carry on like everything is normal? It's not. It's really not. I don't know what I've stumbled into. I don't know why you and your ‘Shadow' chose me but I'm not interested in your twisted games. I just want to go home and live my life."

"I understand this isn't easy to grasp but if you let me show you what I am, what I really look like, it'll make things easier."

He reached up and began tugging at his skin again.

"Don't," I said, stomach lurching and threatening to spill itself onto the dirt. "You're going to make me sick."

"It'll just take a minute. It's tricky to remove… The disguise is a little tight…"

Riiiiip!

Someone might have torn a sheet of paper, not just once but twice, and then three times, four…

And then so many times I lost track.

Vai let out a deep breath and I dreaded to turn back and look at what he'd done to himself.

I backed away, my eyes clenched shut.

"Keep away from me! Keep away you freak!"

"Emma. Open your eyes."

"Not on your life! Just let me go home!"

"Emma," Vai said, and he placed his hands on my shoulders. "There's no going home for you. Not until we shake my Shadow."

There was a change in his voice.

It was deeper, stronger, a faint echo like multiple men speaking at the same time, unable to keep their voices in unison.

It was enough to arouse my morbid curiosity.

I opened my eyes.

And immediately wished I hadn't.

There are milestones in every person's development.

From the day we learned to converse with our parents, to learning the meaning of those hieroglyphic-like shapes we call letters and discovering the great wealth of information and knowledge at our fingertips now that we can read.

The discovery of the opposite sex and the interest and the irritation they could provide in equal measure.

The love for a newborn child clutched tightly in a parent's arms…

And the discovery of alien species beyond this little blue marble of ours.

Vai had green skin.

It was firm and muscular, not dissimilar to a champion bodybuilder, but he carried it with a great deal more ease.

He was tall and had sprouted an extra foot in height.

Atop his head, a striking pair of twisted horns.

His eyes were the same golden glow of a cat, and his smile curled upward at the corner of his mouth and produced a dimple in his chin.

He was beautiful, majestic.

And a total fucking freak.

"Vai?" I said.

"I told you you needed to see the real me."

"Then everything you told me was true?"

"Every word."

I was more afraid now than I had been the entire night.

If it was all true and he hadn't lost his mind…

I shook my head, refusing to accept my new reality.

"I can't do this… I have a life… I can't…"

My head struck something hard.

I rubbed at the lump forming beneath my fingertips and turned around to find…

Nothing at all.

"Computer, deactivate cloak," Vai said.

The air shimmered, waving like someone had thrown a pebble into a lake, morphing and twisting in on themselves, inverting to reveal a spaceship.

"She's going to be our ride for the next few hours," Vai said, placing a hand on the ship's hull. "What do you think?"

That was it.

I'd reached my limit of incredulity.

My eyes rolled in my head and I passed out.