CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Maven

One moment I'm lying in freezing mud, the next, I'm standing under a stream of hot water raining from the shower head above me. My body locks up for a couple of seconds in fear, going back to that moment when I came to—when I was trying to find the gun but couldn't.

When that man raised that gun and pointed it at Renn's chest, I knew I had failed. It makes me sick to my stomach. Every second mattered in that moment, and I panicked. I take a few deep breaths, inhaling the steam. It calms me enough to realize I'm safe now, but not enough to process it all yet.

Those sights and sounds will live with me forever. I stand under the water for a long while, numb to everything, and gradually wash the mud out of my hair, scrubbing my body, hoping it will erase the horrible events of the night, but it doesn't in the slightest.

When I emerge from the shower, my bag is already here. I don't remember how I ended up in the shower in the first place, let alone grabbing my bag. As I trace back my steps through the haze, I recall Renn turning the shower on. Standing in front of the mirror, I wipe away the steam sticking to the surface to study my face, grazing my fingers across my forehead where the cut was just moments before. Now, the skin is smooth and unharmed, like it never happened at all. That ointment—the same one he used for my knee on the retreat.

I look unscathed, but inside, my bones ache . . . my soul feels broken. My mind is clouded in a heavy fog as I stare at my reflection, trying to put the events together in my mind, piece by piece, but nothing makes sense, and the confusion grips me tightly. Tears well up in my eyes, but I hold them back. I won't cry—not yet anyway.

I move in slow motion, pulling a pair of leggings and a sweater out of my bag, and once I brush out my damp hair, I nervously reach for the door knob, not fully sure what will be waiting for me on the other side. My hands tremble slightly, but this is Renn, and I still trust him. I don't know if that makes me a fool, but it's him, and he's all I can count on at the moment. I can feel, deep within me, that the next moments are going to change everything we know forever.

Sometimes these life-altering moments come without warning, catching us off guard. Other times it's a reaction deep within, as if our very essence senses a shift in the air. I have now experienced both.

When I tiptoe into the kitchen, I find Renn sitting at the table, elbows resting on top—his hands shielding his face. Shy comes trotting over to me. She's filthy and damp, but seems to be okay. Renn is also still covered in mud, and there's a cakey texture on his skin. Then I notice all the blood. There's some on his hands, his face, and I smell the iron tinge of it in the air. For some reason I think back to that day when my mom bandaged his arm, when I touched his blood washing out the cloth. How strange to think that was only a few months ago. Now both of us have had each other's blood on our hands, but I never would have thought it would ever be for something as horrific as this. I spy the dark red stain on his shirt, but he doesn't seem to be in any pain. He must have healed the wound like the one on my head with the ointment, the moment of him rubbing it gently into my skin strangely comes back. There's a metal box sitting on the table in front of him with the lid open. As I inch closer, he doesn't pull his hands away from his face as I steal a glance at the objects inside, all of them foreign to me.

"Renn?" I say, my voice shaking.

He doesn't move, he's almost too still, as if he's a statue, the mud beginning to dry on his skin like clay. I must have been in the shower longer than I'd realized. Shy walks back over to the hearth and lies down in front of the crackling fire. I watch her and the flames for a moment until I can't take the silence anymore.

"Renn." I will myself to sound steady and say it a bit louder this time.

He looks up, locking his eyes on mine, and what I behold in those pools of green and gray is devastating. It makes my breath hitch.

"Are you okay?" he asks, scanning my face.

I'm not "okay" in the slightest, but I know what he means.

"I'm fine," I say as I take him in fully, his battered but strong body sitting before me.

His shirt is ripped along the collar, he has another small dark stain on his arm, and he has cuts along his cheekbone and eyebrow. He stands, taking a few steps toward me, but keeps his distance, like he can't get too close, and this sudden wall between us troubles me more than I expect.

"Are you okay?" I ask softly, and he nods. All I want him to do is hold me in his arms and tell me it was all a terrible misunderstanding, that it will all be alright, but I know from the look in his eyes that it's far from okay.

Without a doubt, I know this has something to do with the mysterious past he's kept secret all these years from everyone in Solitude Ridge. I know a side of Renn that no one else does, yet I still don't know that one thing—the one thing that has such a strong hold on him. The thing that makes him different from anyone I've ever met. I feel the tears forming again.

"I'm so sorry, Maven." He looks down for a moment. "I am so so sorry." His voice is barely above a whisper, and I see the tears he's holding back.

"You saved my life, Renn," I say, looking out the window toward the forest. Even though I can't see it through the darkness, the fear freezes my limbs for a second or two.

He saved me, and there was a moment when I wasn't sure if either one of us would be walking away. I watched him kill someone, but no matter what happened, I hold on to the fact that I'm alive and it's because of him. I almost say, "You"ve actually saved my life in more ways than one."

Flashes of what happened enter my mind. I see Renn, bloody and beaten . . . that man who came to kill him and almost did. The images send a chill throughout my body, but I have to believe there's a reasonable explanation or I might go mad. Maybe I already am.

"So, you knew that man," I say, not a question, and Renn nods in response.

"Renn, what's happening? I don't . . . understand what this all means." I can see the emotion thrumming through him as his throat bobs.

"You won't believe me." His voice is calm.

I wait for him to go on, but when he doesn't, I say, "Well, based on the current situation, I think you have to tell me what the hell is happening anyway."

He stands there a few more beats, looking over my face again. I don't like the way he's looking at me, his eyes full of remorse. "I didn't say I wouldn't tell you, I just didn't think I'd ever have to, because you'll think I'm insane once I do."

I gulp, not sure if it's from fear or nerves. Probably both.

"You don't know that." My voice is practically a whisper. He cocks his head to the side, but instead of a smile spreading across his face like it usually does—like so many times before—it remains unmoved.

"I do, Maven. Because if I were you, and someone told me what I'm about to tell you, I'd run as far away from them as I possibly could." A shiver runs down my spine, and it's not the good kind. I just shake my head at him, not knowing what to say. "I will tell you everything, and you can ask me whatever you want once I'm through. I'll tell you the whole truth, I promise. But before I do, there's something important you need to know first."

He gestures for me to take a seat at the table. I do, and he sits across from me like he thinks we need a barrier between us for the words he's about to speak next. He takes a deep breath, and his eyes darken like he's about to confess his greatest sin. It's agonizing watching all of this play out on his face. He takes another deep breath and holds my gaze.

"The first thing you need to know . . . is that I'm not from this world." He speaks slowly, emphasizing each word.

I inhale sharply. "What do you mean?"

He pinches the bridge of his nose like it's actually paining him to speak, the frustration spreading on his face, not at me, but at himself.

"I mean I wasn't born on this planet, Maven. My home world is a place very much like this one, except that it's more than five billion miles away."

My only thought for a moment or two is that I misheard him. I'm not sure if I should run, scream, or laugh. I'm dreaming, I must be, and for a moment, I pray that I am, that this whole night was just a horrible nightmare. But maybe . . . Could it be true? Renn had shown up in Solitude Ridge one day with no explanation or past. He is always lying low, sharing just enough so people won't ask questions, while at the same time becoming a beloved member of the town. He's always seemed different, but I could never explain why . . . and now, the man who came for us tonight, that man who Renn had killed. He was speaking to him in a language I had never heard before, and they knew each other.

No, this isn't true. I'm still in shock from the attack. My mind is trying to tell me that this is crazy, that Renn is crazy, but my heart tells me something else. I have a million more thoughts and questions running wild in my head.

For a moment, I feel dizzy, so I close my eyes to focus. The disarray of memories of everything he's ever told me, everything that caused me to suspect that he was different. But through it all, I still trust him. This story that Renn is about to unfold for me, I need to know. I need to make sure I hear and understand every word. So I compose myself the best I can, even though my heartbeat is thumping loud in my ears as I speak.

"Who are you, and where did you come from?"

He looks at me with complete absolution in his eyes, leaning forward a bit as he says in a cool, smooth voice, "My name is Aldrenn Anton. I was captain of the starship, Seraphim, and I'm from a planet called Earth."