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Feeling not at all like myself, I lifted my hand to touch his face, my heart slamming hard into my chest, not out of fear but something much closer to adrenaline. I skimmed my fingers along his sharp jaw line, barely able to believe what I was doing. I felt 82

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the rough beginnings of a beard and the smoothness of that warm perfect skin on his cheek. And he let me, without protest, just watching me with those big silver and brown eyes, making no move to stop me or try to touch me further.

My finger reached the corner of his mouth and I stopped, fascinated by that feature as I had been from the beginning. It looked...tempting. Like that new car in the driveway, it looks exciting but you really want to know what it can do, what it would feel like to...

His mouth moved under my fingertip. "Zara." I looked up at his eyes. The silver had almost disappeared from them, leaving them nearly human dark. Only then did I become aware of my surroundings again. His hand still remained around my wrist in a deceptively relaxed grip, but his breath raced in and out, almost as fast as mine, and my mouth hovered inches from his.

Whoa. I backed away immediately and he let my arm pull free from his hand without a word.

"Uh, we should get going, shouldn't we?" I busied myself in settling behind the wheel again and buckling my seat belt, so I wouldn't have to look at him. Embarrassed heat throbbed in my face. I couldn't believe what I'd almost...

"Zara," he said again, his voice still not quite back to normal. But I couldn't look at him. Jeez, Zara, the guy, an alien, says a couple nice words to you and tells you he thinks you're not crazy and you're ready to...I wouldn't let myself finish that thought. Finally, I managed to squeeze a glance at him from the corner of my eye. "We should keep moving," I said in a strained voice. He seemed about to say something. But then he looked away, out the side window. "If you are not too tired," was all he said, but I knew he was thinking a whole lot more.

"I won't sleep again tonight." And that was true. I hardly ever got back to sleep after one of my nightmares, but I had a feeling that more than bad dreams would be keeping me awake, and running, tonight.

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Chapter 8

The next afternoon, snow started to fall as we crossed the border into Wisconsin, adding another two inches to the four already on the ground. In Texas, we'd had seventy-degree days for weeks now.

"Has anyone mentioned that for people who shiver in less than eighty degrees, a hideout in northern Wisconsin might be considered slightly masochistic?" I asked.

"It's a good place for that reason. No one would think to look here."

"Yeah, unless they were thinking to look where you would think absolutely no one would think to look," I pointed out. He gave me a look I couldn't quite identify.

"Never mind," I muttered.

We drove on in silence, as we'd spent much of the last hours on the road. Not because there wasn't anything to say, but too much to be avoided, I guess.

"You know, I think I figured it out," I said, finally. He looked at me, an eyebrow raised.

"Why I'm just a kid in that dream." He nodded expectantly.

"One of my first memories, maybe even my first memory," I shrugged, "is of my dad at this UFO conference. He was a big scifi buff. He and my mom actually met at one of those things." I rolled my eyes. Caelan didn't seem to get the significance of it and I wasn't going to try to explain the unique mating rituals involved for those who spoke Klingon for fun. "Anyway, my first memory is of all these people dressed up in these horrible costumes, most of them aliens before we knew what they...you looked like. Little and gray or big and slimy. I must have gotten separated from my 84

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parents. I remember being terrified. I screamed and one of the big aliens saw me and came over, and right when I thought he was going to eat me or shoot me or something, he pulled his own head off. That alien was my dad. They were just people in costumes, but it took years for my parents to convince me that there were no aliens on Earth." My mouth pulled into a tight smile. "How much things have changed."

"How old were you when this happened?"

"I don't know." I thought about it. "Five, maybe six." He was quiet for a moment. "Most humans remember far before that, even as early as age two."

"How do you know that?"

He looked over at me. "We have learned a great deal about memory, how it can be stored or altered, in search of answers for ourselves."

"Okay, so what? I don't remember anything before then, no big deal." But I was uncomfortable, like he was digging at a sore spot, or pressing into my still achy ribs. "You act like there's some big mystery or revelation around it. I was just too young to remember or maybe it was too boring. I don't know."

"I have sensed humans dreaming before. We can detect that just as we do thoughts. It is an intensely suggestible state of mind. A song or noise or smell can send the dream in a new direction without the will of the dreamer."

"Okay and?"

"Your dream, as you call it, is not like this. Your state is not suggestible at all. In fact, when your mind is seized by this dream you are caught in almost rigid control, you cannot change anything in your dream. It is more similar to memory recall than a dream." He gave me a significant look.

"You're saying this actually happened to me? Being trapped in a box by a female Observer and nearly suffocating to death." I stared at him in disbelief.

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"Yes."

"No way." I shook my head.

"You keep living that moment again and again in your mind. It is quite common among your kind, but it is referred to as–"

"Post traumatic stress," I interrupted. "Yeah, I know they tested me for that."

"And?" he asked.

I clenched my teeth in irritation. "I wasn't ever around any freaking Observers when I was that little. You guys didn't even get here until a couple years ago, when I was twenty-four, not five."

"Perhaps," was all he said.

A chill scurried down my arms from the back of my neck, raising goosebumps all the way. I risked looking away from the road for a second. "You know something, don't you? Something that makes you think your...theory is possible."

"I don't have any proof that would satisfy your doubts," he said.

"I don't care, tell me anyway."

"I would rather show you and let you draw your own conclusions," he said.

"You mean whatever proof you have is wherever we're going?" The idea excited me and twisted my stomach with fear.

"It is. I will share with you all I know, as I have promised," he said. Then he pointed out the window suddenly. "Turn here."

"Where?" I didn't even see a break in the trees where he indicated.

"Right here," he said again with a quick look back at me that made me wonder if he was going to grab the wheel. I slowed down and turned to the right, approaching the tree line cautiously, our headlights bouncing as we bumped up and down over the uneven ground. When we were a few feet from the start of the forest, only then could I see a clearing just wide enough for one car to pass through. Calling it a road would have 86

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been much too generous–branches scraped and squealed against both sides of the car.

"So, uh, do these friends of yours know we're coming?"

"No," he said.

"Are they going to be mad?"

"Possibly."

"Great. Could you please give me a little more information on what to expect?" I demanded.

He remained silent for a moment, then said, "When I wanted to find you, Asha, our leader, the strongest of us, warned me that if I left I was not to return."

"Why?"

"She and the others did not believe in the prophecy. They did not believe that a human could lead them to victory against Nevan," he said.

Couldn't say I disagreed with them. "Where did you hear about this prophecy anyway?" I asked.

"I awoke with it."

I took my eyes from the road to stare at him for a second, my heart sinking. "You made it up?"

"No." He shook his head immediately. "It was with me when I awoke, images of you and the final confrontation with Nevan." He turned to look at me, intensity glowing in his eyes. "I have known you always, even when I knew of nothing else." I would have liked to have doubted him further, but that would leave coincidence playing much too large of a role in my being here with him. "So where did it come from then?" I asked. He lifted a shoulder. "I don't know."

"None of the others had the same images in their heads," I guessed. "So they didn't believe."

He shook his head.

"But you left anyway," I prompted.

"I couldn't keep myself from it."

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I shifted my attention back to our so-called road. "So if they're mad, what do we do?"

"Try to stay out of the way."

"That's very reassuring," I muttered. "Why–"

"Because we need their help against Nevan," he answered my question before I could finish.

After that I decided to keep quiet. No sense in learning too much about impending doom. A few long minutes later, he pointed at something in the distance reflecting my headlights. As we got closer, I realized it was a metal gate, one of those low-tothe ground kind, like they have in parks. Or cemeteries. That was a cheerful thought.

I started to slow down.

"No," he said. "Keep going."

"We're going to ram the gate. I don't think–"

"Just keep going. I will say when to stop," he said. But the anxiety in his voice kept him from sounding too much like a dictator.

I didn't like it, but I kept going, not sure what he had in mind. Seconds before our bumper would have hit the gate, I slammed on the brakes. At the same time, he said, "Stop." I struggled to control the fishtail effect, but eventually, the car stopped, probably a hairsbreadth from the gate. I pulled out my inhaler from my pocket, watching Caelan out of the corner of my eye. When he'd finally said stop, he'd slumped back in his seat, looking for all the world like something hadn't happened as it should have, like we'd failed a test of some kind.

"What's wrong?" I asked, once the Albuterol had worked its magic on my tightening lungs.

He continued staring out the window at the gate until I caught motion out of the corner of my eye. I looked away from Caelan to the gate until I saw the metal arms slowly folding back against themselves. "Nice," I muttered. "You can do that?" 88

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"It is one of my lesser gifts. Others are far stronger at it," he said. "You may keep going now." He gestured ahead. I pulled forward. We were on some kind of vague road now. The snow had drifted off to one side enough for me to be able to see gravel in some places. But other than that there were no signs of life, human or Observer up here. No tire tracks besides our own.

"What exactly are we looking for?"

"There." He pointed to something in the distance. If I squinted, I could see a more solid shape through the trees. I honestly hadn't been sure what to expect of their hideout, a cave, a spaceship, a little shack hidden in the woods. But as we pulled into an area cleared of trees, I can say I hadn't expected this: A sprawling, two-story hunting lodge, complete with a parking lot big enough for ten cars. The bottom half of the building was stone and the upper half was weathered wooden paneling, stained brownish red. A sign hung over the front door, like one of those English pub signs, but the wording had faded so that I couldn't read it.

I pulled into what I hoped might be a parking spot. "Expect company up here much?"

Caelan, already climbing out of the car, did not answer. I sucked a quick breath from my inhaler, then threw open the door and hurried to catch up with him. But the closer I got to the building, the more dread settled in my stomach. The windows were all shut and closed tight, the snow all around the building undisturbed. If someone was in there, they hadn't come out in awhile.

"Caelan, are you sure..." I started to ask, but then I stopped to watch him.

He held his hand in front of the solid wooden door, just above the handle. Then I heard the sound of locks snapping back, deadbolts pulling free from the door. Was somebody really in there?

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As soon as the door was unlocked, Caelan yanked it open and hurried inside. I followed him cautiously.

My eyes needed a little time to adjust to the sudden dimness after the brightness of the snow outside, but once they did, I knew almost instantly that I'd been right. No one was home here, and judging by the dust on the check-in counter to my left, no one had been for some time. Caelan must have unlocked the door himself from the outside, just like he'd opened the gate. Moving objects by thought was another power they were rumored to have, but not one I'd seen personally until now. Unless that was how Nevan had slammed me into the wall. Huh. I was learning scary new things all the time now.

My train of thought was interrupted by Caelan stalking past where I stood, clearly searching for someone or something. I started forward tentatively. Straight ahead of me were stairs leading up, to guest rooms most likely, to my right, a room with overstuffed couches and a huge fireplace. To the left of the stairs, past the check-in counter, a narrow hallway, down which Caelan had disappeared.

I followed him down the hallway, which eventually widened out into a large, long room. Down the center of it, a huge wooden trestle table with benches, and at the opposite end of the room, toward my left, a kitchen.

I didn't see him in the dining area, unless he was hiding under the table, so I headed into the kitchen.

Caelan stood in the center of the room, staring down at something resting on the big butcher's block island in front of him. I hurried forward. "Are you all right?" When he didn't answer, my eyes dropped to the surface of the butcher's block to see what he was staring at. No note, no threatening weapon, or anything like that. Just a simple spoon, centered on the island. A silver spoon.