Expiration Date (Books 1 and 2)

72 Aliens?

Iris~~

Once we climbed back up the ladder, I didn't wait for him to start walking. His words swarmed in my mind the entire walk back to the camp. Aliens. Aliens. Aliens. Why is it making sense?

I reach the RV, and to my relief, no one else is inside. I need to block everything out. I need to be alone. And I need to think.

Lila's room is secluded and compact consisting of the bunkbed, a desk pushed against the bed's end, and a closet. My eyes return to the desk, and a few seconds later, I'm moving back its chair and crawling underneath.

I'm suddenly eager to go to dinner tonight. To get out of here. Erik and I need to escape. My uncle must be unhinged.

Lila and Enzo

I blink. The words are scrawled in red ink and encased with a heart. All over the

underside of her desk are similar sentiments but with other names from the Order. I have to squint to see them because not much light floods in through her window, but the more I look, the clearer they become.

Lila and Colton

Lila and Seong-ho

Lila and Jonas

Most of the Order's names are here but Riley's and Sebastian's. Even Erik's is here. The top of my head presses against something soft rather than the hard wood that I was expecting. I reach up, and my hand runs against leather. I sink down farther to get a look at it. Above me is a journal strapped to the underside of her desk. Her diary? I pull it down into my hands. If I read it, that's an invasion of privacy, but I have to know if Thomas is the only one who thinks the Society are aliens.

I crack it open to the first page.

The Society are monsters. But I think they're beautiful monsters.

I flip through the pages, looking for anything that mentions aliens. This entire journal is about the Society. I stop on a passage in the middle.

How can they not be? Aliens that is. All it takes is to look at their love of the stars.

Below, Lila's drawn out the Society's insignia. The stars never seemed more apparent.

They came from the stars. Their love of them is ingrained into the Society.

It's not only in the insignia but in every window, every silvery decoration. Stars hang in their ceremony chamber. I danced through the stars.

But aliens?

What of the symbols on the door of Jonas's office? What of the titles each member of the Order goes by? All of them I've seen in English or from a different language, but some are not pronounced the same. Is it because they're from another language? Khaleedi, that's what Jonas and Colton call each other. Jonas brushed it off like the word wasn't particularly interesting, simply a way the Society can seem more pretentious.

What if it was from a language not of this Earth?

I have to get out of here. Thomas is getting to me. I will not believe the man I kissed is an alien.

I'll ask Erik tonight. I'll make him tell me who it is that sees Expiration Dates. He has to tell me. I'm in far too deep for him to not.

Tonight, Erik Blackwood is going to spill the Society's secrets.