The Sky Has Fallen

| Chapter 06

I felt all the blood and color drain from my face. I was cold, shivering, leaning back against the window to keep steady. The way my uncle looked back into the kitchen, in our direction, chilled me to the bone. I felt like a kid who'd done a bad bad thing.

I mean, I had. Both of us. David and I broke into the fair. We were there when the ship's alarms went off and pieces of its exterior crashed to the ground. Right there with a Pylon girl, the same one hiding in David's backyard.

They were here to arrest us; I just knew it.

"My son and nephew?" My uncle leaned against the door, not inviting the two officers inside. "What do you need them for?"

"Well..." The officer with the tablet smiled. His blond hair was cut short, combed back. His partner, a woman just about his height, ran her hand through her ponytail before taking the tablet from him. She glanced at the screen, then looked around the house.

"Well, what?" My uncle looked at the two of them.

The first officer smiled and tried to look inside again. "I'm not sure if you've seen the news today, Mister—" He nodded politely. "Sorry, but are you Mr. Mendez?"

"Yeah." My uncle looked back towards the kitchen. He locked eyes with me. I could see his tongue pressed into his cheek as he searched the room, looking for his son. But David hadn't moved from the spot beside the refrigerator. He was as stiff as a board, terrified.

Clearing his throat, my uncle looked back at the two police officers. "Yes, I'm Hector Mendez. What do you need with my son and his cousin?"

The first officer smiled before looking back at his partner. She smiled, too.

"Well, Mr. Mendez, if you've seen the news, then you'd know about the damage done by the Pylon ship," she said. "All seems to be an accident, of course, but considering it was done near the fair, where citizens reside, we must follow up on any potential injury cases or," she shrugged, her smile widening, "illegal trespassing."

My uncle straightened. And I thought I shrunk an inch.

Oh, fucking shit man...

"And it seems the two wristband IDs we identified—" The first officer tapped the tablet his partner carried. "—are assigned and registered here, at this address. One belongs to David Mendez and the other to Gustavo Ramirez."

I watched as David squeezed his eyes shut. His legs bounced. On his right hand, his fingers tapped the wall, one at a time, as though he were counting seconds. If he was mentally planning an escape, I needed to be ready. If he ran, I'd run, too. It'd be just like when we were kids.

He did the crime, but I was always a casualty. Guilty by association.

"Are you implying that they were trespassing?" My uncle was irritated.

"Oh, no," the female officer said. "We're simply checking up on them. If they'd gotten too close during the accident, they could be injured."

I looked down at the bruises that had formed on my arms, the scabs on my palm from the shards having wedged themselves in my skin. Sapphire cream worked wonders, yes, but it wasn't a shot of the direct serum. If you looked at me close enough, you know I'd been through some shit.

Some very illegal shit.

I gulped.

My uncle shook his head and waved his hand. "Yeah, they were there yesterday," he said. "They'd tried to get into the fair, but right when their wristbands were scanned, the event shut down because of that poor woman." Clearing his throat, he changed his tone. "By the way, how is she? Is anyone allowed to know?"