Forbidden Law (An Alien Love #1)

Chapter Eleven

I saw some familiar lights pull up to the building through the big front windows. Skyler? My heart performed a little dance, fluttering hopefully. She knew exactly when I needed her.

I started to the door, my feet carrying me of their own accord, but was stopped by a rough hand on my back. I turned to see Liam there, smirking at me. At a closer examination, his face was disproportionate; his eyes were too far apart while his mouth sat in a narrow white line. His expression, hidden by the facade of bravo, was actually that of restlessness. He understood that I was 'other', if not consciously, then instinctively.

"Where do you think you're going? Now you have to say you're a pussy." I heard the door open behind me and knew Skyler was there, watching. Suddenly, my anger flared, startling. Stacy was standing next to Liam, smiling and watching in admiring fascination. Suddenly, after throwing a reproachful glare at Liam, she leaned forward and landed a kiss on my lips. So caught off guard, I did not push away for what seemed like a long time.

It was nothing like Skyler's: repulsive in the waves of desperation and longing that rolled off her skin, her lips hard and tasting of mundane simplicity. No wonder humans layered themselves in perfumes and face paint. My stomach tightened in the only reaction it could, odious and angry. I resisted the urge to throw her off of me, lest I injure her.

I heard Skyler's sharp intake of breath and whirled around to face her. She looked...hurt? Betrayed? They blurred into one horrible expression that imprinted a deep lash of regret in my chest. No, this was not right. I felt my head shaking, my palms coming up. My mind was in shreds, tearing itself to bits in a fit of confusion...and settled on rage. It roared in my ears, pulsed in my veins. The stupid humans, making everything so difficult. I could not help their reactions to my alienness, and it frustrated me by the fact it was always negative. I was tired of it. I was First General, not some sniveling post pubescent human boy to toy with or tame.

Stacy was still by my side, smiling, not having perceived my drastic shift of state. I roughly shook her off, not caring that she stumbled a few feet back with a stunned gasp.

Liam stepped forward with clenched fists. "Hey man, you don't do that to my girl." But I could see the jealousy and apprehension. He, unlike his oblivious girlfriend, understood my face but could not help reacting to her move on me. Disinterested in their human affairs, I turned back to Skyler, my Skyler. The only human who had been treating me like a normal...person. She was about to turn to leave...

Liam had put a heavy hand on my shoulder without my noticing, trying to hold me in place. I grabbed it, squeezing in the unbreakable grasp I knew I possessed. Adrenaline, or sheer will, was pumping in my blood, filling me with energy and extra strength that wrapped itself around my muscles like a shield. I heard popping and Liam's yelps, but was too detached to pay attention to anything other than this feeling.

Suddenly, I knew what was happening and froze. The world stilled, the pit of my stomach dropping like a rock. No! It could not be happening right now. No, no, no...

But my body was taking over already in the utmost shut down. This could not happen here, with so many people and cameras. So many catastrophes could occur in such a place with such humans. But my body...it began to burn. The match had lit, now it was ready to burn up. I was losing control. Fast.

Liam cried out, trying to get his hand back. I let go, pointing at him instead. He flew back, hitting the wall behind him with such force that a long crack ran down into the checkered tile floor. Falling down face first, I heard him groan. Some people were starting to scream, standing and running. No! It could not happen this way. My Morphing...

I turned back to Skyler, barely able to control myself. I blinked through my rapidly blurring vision. She was frozen with eyes wide and a hand up to her mouth. I ran with the inhuman speed she had warned me not to use, quicker than sound, and was by her side in milliseconds. This speed was different, stronger, pumping up as my blood boiled under my skin. I kicked her legs out from under her and caught her upper half before she made contact with the hard floor. The air rushed from her lungs in a whoosh. I carried her, running at top speeds, out and into the night, unable to direct where we were going now. The only coherent thought was just to get away.

Skyler's POV

My heart was lodged in my throat. My eyes were burning and I blinked. Why...why was he here...with these girls? Why did she kiss him? Did they somehow know each other?

Jace was standing near the front of the diner with a look of consternation locked on his face. A light haired boy and girl were not far behind him, and I could see the rest of the female group at the table they'd come from. The girl had kissed him... An unnecessary jealousy rose in my throat and I tried to squash it away. Jace wasn't mine. All we had done was kiss. But I couldn't help the hurt from invading my thoughts like poison.

I heard their conversation over the sound of pounding blood throbbing loudly in my ears. I turned to flee, my hands shaking, but the sudden sound of a crack filled the room and I turned.

The boy in the leather jacket flew back from where Jace was standing, hitting the wall on the opposite side of the room with lightning force. I gasped as the ridiculous urge to comfort or calm Jace warred with horror. The boy twitched his arm, and I could see that his hand looked broken.

All at once, the four cameras along the ceiling shattered into shimmering showers of glass and plastic. People everywhere were yelling and running in the flurry of sudden chaos. But Jace didn't seem to notice as he turned to me with a blank glaze in his eyes. I took a step back, gasping again at the glowing green light emanating from his irises. It fell in a pale aura around me, like a beacon or spotlight from a lighthouse.

And then I was suddenly in his arms, energy pulsating from his taut arms and chest in zapping currents. I attempted to catch my breath as it was knocked out of me by the abrupt speeds he carried me.

We left the mayhem behind us in a matter of a second, plunging through freezing night air that whipped my hair about. Silence pressed down on us quickly, sending my brain grabbing for answers. I assumed that meant we were going faster than sound or already out of the city area. Dallas was a big, sprawling city...what did that mean? At this point, hysterical laughter bubbled and caught in my throat. Fright and horror had my hands clinging to his shoulders in what would normally be a tearing grip that left my knuckles and fingertips white. The idea of trying to stop him, his blank and mechanical eyes, was a terrifying one. With the strength and speed he was exhibiting, that would be like stopping a high speed dart train. This was not Jace, not the one I'd come to know. He was something truly unknowable and alarming.

I knew I was scared, frightened. But an unusual calm started to bleed throughout my mind, then body; a string of coherent questions ran a script in my head, bringing reason and possibilities to light. I was not scared of him, but of what was happening, where we were going and why. The empty look that was in his eyes should not be there. I stared at the radiance illuminating the space three feet around us with detached fascination. Not for the first time, I felt like I had been thrown into a movie.

But right then, we stopped, interrupting the very brief inspection I had over him. Sound came crashing back to reality. An owl hooted while rustling branches from the surrounding trees trickled through the windy breeze sweeping around us. I was unexpectedly dropped from Jace's arms, my momentum buckling my knees under my weight. Moist dirt coated my shins and hands as cold began to quickly creep into my poorly covered extremities. Something sharp jabbed into one of my knees and I rolled over.

I saw that I had landed at the base of a tree, surrounded by dead leaves and shriveled dry grass. Wind blew my hair in every direction. My eyes slowly adjusted to the utter darkness of the night, save for a handful of stars that reflected off the surface of a pond that lay about ten feet away.

We were in the middle of a clearing. Tall trees surrounded a patch of cleared earth, circling the little body of water perfectly. I made out Jace's pale form kneeling in front of it, his shoulders heaving with ragged breaths. My worry spiked a notch. What was wrong with him? In that moment, I truly didn't know what to do. I was out of my depth.