No Aliens Allowed

- Twenty-Four -

There was a crash from below, and the sound of a car alarm going off.

My hands were shaking.

I got up, just as the world spun away from me, causing me to trip over my own ankles. I fell, scraping my hands and knees on the roof.

There was wetness on my face and my hands, a mixture of tears and blood and sweat. I struggled to get up again, everything that Rosalie had said swimming inside my head.

Allen lied. He lied and killed millions of people.

Four...four million dead.

I was on my feet again, my toes numb with cold. I stumbled over to the edge of the room where Penn and Rosalie had fallen, peering over.

They'd landed on a car, which was blinking sporadically, crushed underneath the weight.

Rosalie was gone, but there were smears of blue all over the car, leading me to assume that was what alien blood looked like.

Then there was Penn.

Someone was screaming his name, screaming to call 911, to go down there and save him, please.

He lay on top of the car, bruised and bloody and broken. His eyes were closed and his chest moved so slightly that I wasn't sure whether he was alive or dead.

The same person screamed again.

My throat hurt.

I reeled back. Was I the one screaming? Was I the one calling for help? I didn't know. I was cold. I was in shock.

Allen was nowhere to be found.

I wished he had fallen off the roof instead of Penn.

"That fucking liar," I whispered shakily, hysteria creeping into my tone. I heard sirens coming closer and closer. I wanted to move, to go down to them, but I couldn't pick myself off the ground. I couldn't stop shaking or crying or gasping for air.

I could see the lights from the ambulances now, hear the urgent voices of workers. I could feel them looking at me, pointing.

I closed my eyes. I wasn't really cold anymore. I was sort of warm, I guess.

Maybe if I just went to sleep, the next time I opened my eyes this wouldn't of happened.

"Miss," a man said in my ear.

"She's fading," a woman reported, and I felt someone squeeze my wrist. "Pulse is slowing and temperature is dropping. I'm guessing shock-induced paralysis."

"Get her down, now," the first voice said. A third man answered and I felt myself being lifted off the ground.

I groaned with the sudden movement.

"You're going to be okay," the man carrying me said. "We're here to help."

He sounded like Allen, who I didn't want to deal with right now.

So I stopped fighting, and let sleep take over me.

****

I woke up in a hospital.

There was so much déjà vu. I was in the hospital because of Rosalie and Allen, just like last time.

God, he was trouble.

And a liar.

Preston, the same nurse from last time, bustled in.

"Jesus Christ, you need to stop coming here like this," he told me.